Wednesday, June 30, 2004
The Perfectibility of Man
Opinion © 2004, by Guy L. Evans
In continuing to study the left and their weird ideas, I did some homework on the doctrine of the perfectibility of man. This idea is at the center of all leftist ideology. Here’s what I found.
There are contrary definitions of the perfectibility of man. The conservative idea is that each person is responsible for his own improvement, and in some circles people believe that perpetual improvement is possible. The idea of perpetual improvement runs smack into Aristotle’s infinite regression. An infinite regression is absurd. So is an infinite progression (absurd meaning illogical and incomprehensible).
The leftist doctrine of the perfectibility of man goes like this:
The goal of perfectibility is to obtain the knowledge of the oneness and unity of all living things. According to the left, the unenlightened people are at war with each other, and at war with nature. The knowledge of oneness will make all people homogeneous (meaning uniform, harmonized, standardized), and at peace with the rest of nature. The result of the knowledge of the oneness of all being and the resulting homogeneity of all people will be wisdom, purity, and selflessness.
In other words, the doctrine of the perfectibility of man is nothing more than an international nature cult, a mere superstition. It is impossible to reason with adherents of leftist superstition. They dismiss facts as deception, truth as lies, and reason as cleverness. They habitually and reflexively lie. They will do whatever they deem necessary--commit any crime, tell any lie, violate any tradition, betray any trust--to maintain their ideological purity.
What stands out to me is the idea of selflessness. The aim of the perfectibility of man is to abolish selfishness. Why is selfishness a vice to these people?
I challenge any adherent of any strand of leftist ideology to define “selfishness”. (As a matter of fact, I challenge everyone to define “selfishness”. It will be a good exercise.) Which actual behaviors must be prohibited because they are “selfish”? Define them. List them. Defend your position.
Even leftist ideologues put locks on their doors. They want to defend themselves from unwanted intrusion. Is this selfishness under the doctrine of the perfectibility of man? After all, people who put locks on their doors are trying to defend their private property from theft. But, no one would want to steal the private property of an ideologically pure leftist unless they absolutely needed it, would they?
Is stealing an act of selfishness? Or is protecting your private property from theft an act of selfishness? Who is right, the thief or the property owner?
The ideal of selflessness is nothing more than superstition. The proponents of the perfectibility of man can’t define selfishness or selflessness any more than most people can define pornography. They will tell you that they don’t need to define it; they know it when they see it.
And, that’s the point. The abolition of selfishness in the doctrine of the perfectibility of man is nothing more than an excuse to confiscate property from people who earned it honestly and give it to people who didn’t earn it honestly, in other words, to commit fraud. The rhetoric goes that people who have more than they need are selfish (don't you just hate people who have more than they need?), and that society is justified in confiscating their excess wealth. However, under no circumstances will the advocates of this position define “need” and “excess wealth”. Without concrete, unmovable definitions for these terms, all you really have is dictatorship of the majority.
It seems to me that the doctrine of the perfectibility of man as implemented by the left is an attempt to cope with loss of trust and the resulting fear, anxiety, paranoia, and grandiosity. People who have learned to distrust everyone else are drawn to the doctrine of the perfectibility of man because it holds out the false hope that all people can be rendered ultimately passive and harmless, that they can be controlled. If people are passive and harmless, they can’t harm me. Such people cannot trust anyone they cannot immediately control. The idea of controlling every person on Earth is ultimately appealing to them.
Leftists seem to be people who cannot comprehend how to get along with other people, so rather than learn how to avoid getting their butts repeatedly kicked, how to avoid provoking violent hostility from strangers, they dream of changing the entire human race to be non-threatening. (This touches on the idea of the left that everyone who attacks you was somehow provoked by your actions. It makes sense to them because they work so hard to provoke other people to violent retaliation.) In fact, this idea is the ultimate manifestation of absolute selfishness: All other people must become selfless (as the term is used by the left, passive, harmless, and predictable) so that they won’t hurt ME!
But, the idea of perfectibility is absurd. The idea of the perfectibility of man can be compared to the idea of the perfectibility of the automobile. What, pray thee tell, would the perfect automobile look like? How would you know it if you saw it? Should all the imperfect automobiles be destroyed? Is it possible for every person on Earth to agree on what constitutes the perfect automobile, or will their definitions change depending on their individual needs at different times?
The idea of improvement is sound because improvement can be defined. The idea of perfectibility is absurd, because the perfect state cannot be defined because it denies the reality of personal self-interest. The left wants all people to relinquish their self-interest by relinquishing their fundamental sense of self. In other words, they want you to stop being a person and just be a happy automaton. To them, happy people are perfect, unhappy people are defective and should be destroyed. Of course, it’s okay for them to be unhappy with you, but if you’re unhappy with them, you’re evil.
It is impossible to define the perfect automobile. Likewise, it is impossible to define the perfect state of man. Therefore, the doctrine of the perfectibility of man, of making all people selfless instead of selfish, is pure superstition, or worse, a horrific assault on humanity. The perfectibility of man means intolerance for those who do not abide by the established doctrine. It means conformity. To the left (e.g., Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc.), people who behave exactly as people can reasonably be expected to behave are enemies of humanity and must be slaughtered. An analogy would be killing dogs for licking themselves.
The hypocrisy of the ideal of selflessness is illustrated by the example of a man I know who supports himself with the money that he inherited from his parents. The little work he does from time to time doesn’t earn him enough to support himself. He has more money than he can reasonably spend in his lifetime. This same man condemns people who actually produce valuable goods and services as selfish because they have more money than other people do, and because they want to lower tax rates. Never mind that they EARNED their money, and never mind that he has more money than most people ever dream of, those greedy people who work for a living and want to keep more of the money they earn are selfish. You aren’t selfish if someone gives you a truckload of money, only if you earn a truckload of money. Go figure.
I agree with the idea that each of us has an obligation to ourselves, our families, our communities, and to history to cultivate ourselves and to work to become a better person. I disagree with the idea that I, you, or anyone else is perfectible.
The doctrine of the perfectibility of man is the superstition of spineless wimps who don’t have the simple courage to stand up for themselves. They need to hide behind government so they can commit crimes against their neighbors, crimes they don’t have the courage to commit face to face. Such people need therapy, not votes, and certainly not control of the armed forces.
I would like to replace the doctrine of perfectibility with the doctrine of cultivation. You can’t grow a cornstalk that reaches the stars. Neither can you change human nature into pure Godhood. (If you change human nature sufficiently, eventually you end up with something that isn’t human. The proponents of the perfectibility of man say that such a creature would be better than humans are today, but they have yet to produce an example of one.) However, you can cultivate human nature to domesticate wild people, and to turn our natural impulses and energies toward constructive--or at least non-destructive--action. For example, there are more people today engaged in organized sports than there are in organized war. Not exactly constructive, but not destructive, either. It’s a start.
The Democratic Party’s left wing--John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Howard Dean, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Michael Moore to name a few--are nothing more than spineless wimps, followers of the traditional Rousseau Cult of Nature, adherents to an anti-Christian, anti-Western superstition that supposes that they are superior to other people, yet provides no evidence to support the supposition. Their superstition informs them that they are better--much, much better--morally than average people, and that they are entitled to rule the rest of us.
It is their destiny, they think, to lead us to a better world. Yet, we don’t follow. How can we? The superstition of cowards can’t produce leaders.
They have no place in American politics because they despise America, and they despise your freedom to disagree with them. How dare you disagree with them? Can’t you see how superior they are? Oh, of course not. They’re enlightened; you’re still a slug.
We need people in high office who are practical, moral, reasonable, courageous, and humble, in other words, reasonably selfless, not fanatically so. Eisenhower is my best example. He didn’t lead the Allied forces in Europe because it paid well. Neither did he sacrifice everything he owned to defeat the Axis. He knew the limits of service, and he knew the limits of self-interest. Unlike his Soviet and Nazi counterparts, Eisenhower did not send his soldiers out to plunder conquered lands. All in all, Eisenhower was a fine example of reasonable selflessness.
As for being at war with nature, leftist morons need to get a clue; nature is at war with us! Floods, hurricanes, plagues, diseases, volcanoes, the list is endless. We are tiny, hapless creatures before the infinite power of nature. That’s why early communities formed farms and villages. We aren’t trying to subdue nature, just draw a truce. Nature can have everything else, we just want a piece of land to settle down on and raise our families. And nature still has most of the planet. Populated areas of the landmasses are tiny compared to the total wilderness areas. At war with nature? Hell! We’re just fighting for survival.
Certainly, we must learn to respect and understand nature, including human nature. It is from the understanding of human nature that we conclude that every person is endowed with certain unalienable rights, among them the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We should work to understand nature, not to abandon our personal self-interest and human nature to become selfless spirits of the wood, noble savages, and perfected men of the primordial utopia. It never happened, and it never can happen.
Defend your self-interest. Vote Republican in 2004.
Guy L. Evans
Aurora, Colorado
Opinion © 2004, by Guy L. Evans
In continuing to study the left and their weird ideas, I did some homework on the doctrine of the perfectibility of man. This idea is at the center of all leftist ideology. Here’s what I found.
There are contrary definitions of the perfectibility of man. The conservative idea is that each person is responsible for his own improvement, and in some circles people believe that perpetual improvement is possible. The idea of perpetual improvement runs smack into Aristotle’s infinite regression. An infinite regression is absurd. So is an infinite progression (absurd meaning illogical and incomprehensible).
The leftist doctrine of the perfectibility of man goes like this:
The goal of perfectibility is to obtain the knowledge of the oneness and unity of all living things. According to the left, the unenlightened people are at war with each other, and at war with nature. The knowledge of oneness will make all people homogeneous (meaning uniform, harmonized, standardized), and at peace with the rest of nature. The result of the knowledge of the oneness of all being and the resulting homogeneity of all people will be wisdom, purity, and selflessness.
In other words, the doctrine of the perfectibility of man is nothing more than an international nature cult, a mere superstition. It is impossible to reason with adherents of leftist superstition. They dismiss facts as deception, truth as lies, and reason as cleverness. They habitually and reflexively lie. They will do whatever they deem necessary--commit any crime, tell any lie, violate any tradition, betray any trust--to maintain their ideological purity.
What stands out to me is the idea of selflessness. The aim of the perfectibility of man is to abolish selfishness. Why is selfishness a vice to these people?
I challenge any adherent of any strand of leftist ideology to define “selfishness”. (As a matter of fact, I challenge everyone to define “selfishness”. It will be a good exercise.) Which actual behaviors must be prohibited because they are “selfish”? Define them. List them. Defend your position.
Even leftist ideologues put locks on their doors. They want to defend themselves from unwanted intrusion. Is this selfishness under the doctrine of the perfectibility of man? After all, people who put locks on their doors are trying to defend their private property from theft. But, no one would want to steal the private property of an ideologically pure leftist unless they absolutely needed it, would they?
Is stealing an act of selfishness? Or is protecting your private property from theft an act of selfishness? Who is right, the thief or the property owner?
The ideal of selflessness is nothing more than superstition. The proponents of the perfectibility of man can’t define selfishness or selflessness any more than most people can define pornography. They will tell you that they don’t need to define it; they know it when they see it.
And, that’s the point. The abolition of selfishness in the doctrine of the perfectibility of man is nothing more than an excuse to confiscate property from people who earned it honestly and give it to people who didn’t earn it honestly, in other words, to commit fraud. The rhetoric goes that people who have more than they need are selfish (don't you just hate people who have more than they need?), and that society is justified in confiscating their excess wealth. However, under no circumstances will the advocates of this position define “need” and “excess wealth”. Without concrete, unmovable definitions for these terms, all you really have is dictatorship of the majority.
It seems to me that the doctrine of the perfectibility of man as implemented by the left is an attempt to cope with loss of trust and the resulting fear, anxiety, paranoia, and grandiosity. People who have learned to distrust everyone else are drawn to the doctrine of the perfectibility of man because it holds out the false hope that all people can be rendered ultimately passive and harmless, that they can be controlled. If people are passive and harmless, they can’t harm me. Such people cannot trust anyone they cannot immediately control. The idea of controlling every person on Earth is ultimately appealing to them.
Leftists seem to be people who cannot comprehend how to get along with other people, so rather than learn how to avoid getting their butts repeatedly kicked, how to avoid provoking violent hostility from strangers, they dream of changing the entire human race to be non-threatening. (This touches on the idea of the left that everyone who attacks you was somehow provoked by your actions. It makes sense to them because they work so hard to provoke other people to violent retaliation.) In fact, this idea is the ultimate manifestation of absolute selfishness: All other people must become selfless (as the term is used by the left, passive, harmless, and predictable) so that they won’t hurt ME!
But, the idea of perfectibility is absurd. The idea of the perfectibility of man can be compared to the idea of the perfectibility of the automobile. What, pray thee tell, would the perfect automobile look like? How would you know it if you saw it? Should all the imperfect automobiles be destroyed? Is it possible for every person on Earth to agree on what constitutes the perfect automobile, or will their definitions change depending on their individual needs at different times?
The idea of improvement is sound because improvement can be defined. The idea of perfectibility is absurd, because the perfect state cannot be defined because it denies the reality of personal self-interest. The left wants all people to relinquish their self-interest by relinquishing their fundamental sense of self. In other words, they want you to stop being a person and just be a happy automaton. To them, happy people are perfect, unhappy people are defective and should be destroyed. Of course, it’s okay for them to be unhappy with you, but if you’re unhappy with them, you’re evil.
It is impossible to define the perfect automobile. Likewise, it is impossible to define the perfect state of man. Therefore, the doctrine of the perfectibility of man, of making all people selfless instead of selfish, is pure superstition, or worse, a horrific assault on humanity. The perfectibility of man means intolerance for those who do not abide by the established doctrine. It means conformity. To the left (e.g., Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc.), people who behave exactly as people can reasonably be expected to behave are enemies of humanity and must be slaughtered. An analogy would be killing dogs for licking themselves.
The hypocrisy of the ideal of selflessness is illustrated by the example of a man I know who supports himself with the money that he inherited from his parents. The little work he does from time to time doesn’t earn him enough to support himself. He has more money than he can reasonably spend in his lifetime. This same man condemns people who actually produce valuable goods and services as selfish because they have more money than other people do, and because they want to lower tax rates. Never mind that they EARNED their money, and never mind that he has more money than most people ever dream of, those greedy people who work for a living and want to keep more of the money they earn are selfish. You aren’t selfish if someone gives you a truckload of money, only if you earn a truckload of money. Go figure.
I agree with the idea that each of us has an obligation to ourselves, our families, our communities, and to history to cultivate ourselves and to work to become a better person. I disagree with the idea that I, you, or anyone else is perfectible.
The doctrine of the perfectibility of man is the superstition of spineless wimps who don’t have the simple courage to stand up for themselves. They need to hide behind government so they can commit crimes against their neighbors, crimes they don’t have the courage to commit face to face. Such people need therapy, not votes, and certainly not control of the armed forces.
I would like to replace the doctrine of perfectibility with the doctrine of cultivation. You can’t grow a cornstalk that reaches the stars. Neither can you change human nature into pure Godhood. (If you change human nature sufficiently, eventually you end up with something that isn’t human. The proponents of the perfectibility of man say that such a creature would be better than humans are today, but they have yet to produce an example of one.) However, you can cultivate human nature to domesticate wild people, and to turn our natural impulses and energies toward constructive--or at least non-destructive--action. For example, there are more people today engaged in organized sports than there are in organized war. Not exactly constructive, but not destructive, either. It’s a start.
The Democratic Party’s left wing--John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Howard Dean, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Michael Moore to name a few--are nothing more than spineless wimps, followers of the traditional Rousseau Cult of Nature, adherents to an anti-Christian, anti-Western superstition that supposes that they are superior to other people, yet provides no evidence to support the supposition. Their superstition informs them that they are better--much, much better--morally than average people, and that they are entitled to rule the rest of us.
It is their destiny, they think, to lead us to a better world. Yet, we don’t follow. How can we? The superstition of cowards can’t produce leaders.
They have no place in American politics because they despise America, and they despise your freedom to disagree with them. How dare you disagree with them? Can’t you see how superior they are? Oh, of course not. They’re enlightened; you’re still a slug.
We need people in high office who are practical, moral, reasonable, courageous, and humble, in other words, reasonably selfless, not fanatically so. Eisenhower is my best example. He didn’t lead the Allied forces in Europe because it paid well. Neither did he sacrifice everything he owned to defeat the Axis. He knew the limits of service, and he knew the limits of self-interest. Unlike his Soviet and Nazi counterparts, Eisenhower did not send his soldiers out to plunder conquered lands. All in all, Eisenhower was a fine example of reasonable selflessness.
As for being at war with nature, leftist morons need to get a clue; nature is at war with us! Floods, hurricanes, plagues, diseases, volcanoes, the list is endless. We are tiny, hapless creatures before the infinite power of nature. That’s why early communities formed farms and villages. We aren’t trying to subdue nature, just draw a truce. Nature can have everything else, we just want a piece of land to settle down on and raise our families. And nature still has most of the planet. Populated areas of the landmasses are tiny compared to the total wilderness areas. At war with nature? Hell! We’re just fighting for survival.
Certainly, we must learn to respect and understand nature, including human nature. It is from the understanding of human nature that we conclude that every person is endowed with certain unalienable rights, among them the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We should work to understand nature, not to abandon our personal self-interest and human nature to become selfless spirits of the wood, noble savages, and perfected men of the primordial utopia. It never happened, and it never can happen.
Defend your self-interest. Vote Republican in 2004.
Guy L. Evans
Aurora, Colorado
Tuesday, June 29, 2004
Enblightenment
Opinion © 2004, by Guy L. Evans
Yes, you read it right the first time.
“En-BLIGHT-en-ment”
I was taking notes on:
How to Beat the Democrats
Copyright © 2002 by David Horowitz
Spence Publishing Company
http://www.spencepublishing.com/books/index.cfm?action=Product&ProductID=57
when I accidentally typed “enblightenment”. It made sense to me. So, consider this an addition to the English language.
Enblightenment: n The unavoidable destruction that results from imposing the Utopian vision of the perfectibility of man. The necessary destruction that results from the self-contradictory propositions that constitute ideologies whose aim is to abolish fundamentally conflicting desires in the social and political order. Synonyms: SOVIET UNION, NAZI GERMANY, ISLAMIC TOTALITARIANISM.
David Horowitz gives tremendous insight into the mentality of leftists. He calls them “believers”, and calls their mission a “crusade”. But, crusading for what?
Horowitz calls it “the (small c) communist Idea”. According the Horowitz, the communist Idea is that:
1. It is possible and necessary to abolish fundamentally conflicting desires among all people.
2. Fundamentally conflicting desires are institutionalized into the social order by politics, religion, and tradition.
3. Fundamentally conflicting desires can be permanently abolished by completely transforming human nature and thereby transforming the social order.
4. The current social, political, religious, and traditional order must be destroyed before the new Utopian order can be brought about.
5. The first task of the left is to destroy the current order. That includes religion, art, literature, music, tradition, morals, ethics, and even our innate individual ideas of good and evil.
6. Ordinary, unenlightened people don’t know about this, and can’t be told. That would ruin everything. They can’t be given the opportunity or ability to disagree. They must be saved no matter how much they object.
The means by which this will be done is to eradicate certain bad desires that conflict with certain good desires. For example, the desire for self-enrichment is bad while the desire for equalization of property among all members of the community is good. Equalization is a greater good than enrichment; therefore, if all people are equally poor, then they are equal, and that is good.
According to the left, and evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, when all people are equal, there are no conflicts. In the minds of the left, equalization or equality will necessarily result in abolishing conflict. However, their idea of equality is simple-minded, and their formula of imposing equality in order to eradicate conflict is self-contradictory and self-destructive.
Equalization of property can only be achieved by force. Force is necessary because the value of property is always unequal in the minds of individual people. For example, the cost of a glass of water can be fixed, but the value cannot. The value of a glass of water varies for each individual person depending on individual circumstances. It is impossible under any social or political order to make all people equally thirsty. Some people require more water than others. Therefore, demand for water will be unequal, and therefore, conflict will arise over demand for water. It will be the same for all commodities and services. Social and political orders can gain sufficient power to dictate prices, however, no social and political order can dictate value. Desires will always conflict because desires are always unequal.
Desires for the same goods and services will vary greatly with each person during the course of a single day. For example, the value of a glass of water to any single person will vary from hour to hour. No social or political order can compel a person to be equally thirsty at every minute of the day. You are either thirsty or you aren’t. According the historic evidence, if you are thirsty when the Utopian order thinks you shouldn’t be thirsty, you are evil.
In order to apply force, the persons applying the force must be unequal to those subjected to force. In this fashion, the Utopians sabotage the very Utopia they so righteously accuse others of trying to prevent. The greatest enemies of Utopia are the Utopians themselves.
That they are thoroughly unaffected by this realization is explained by Horowitz. He says that it is not the outcome, the actual achievement, of the Utopian order that matters (after all, the rise and fall of the Soviet Union hasn’t fazed the Utopians one bit); it is active participation in the movement, holding the enlightened vision of a just and harmonious world to come, that matters. Their love of being a member of the progressive movement is sufficient incentive for leftists to keep them marching forward.
Horowitz describes it as a religious experience, and in a way, I agree with him. Progressives want to be IN, they want to be part of the enlightened saints who are imbued with a higher moral calling: the very salvation of man on Earth.
Horowitz also notes that the left thinks that if God can make a Heaven in Heaven, then there is no reason why men can’t make a Heaven on Earth. In other words, the left wishes to usurp the position of God. What fools they are.
To paraphrase Horowitz, the intoxicating vision of social redemption that the communist Idea will ultimately achieve creates the left and makes them righteous in their beliefs. In their own minds, they are redeemers of mankind, saints, an enlightened vanguard who are responsible for saving humanity from injustice. They seek to rectify injustices that are congenital to our current social and political order. In order to do this, they must change the current social and political order; they must destroy it.
The ultimate outcome--and Horowitz asserts (and I believe), the unspeakable desire--of the left is the conquest and totalitarian subjugation of all people. It makes sense. In order to abolish fundamentally conflicting desires among all people, certain desires will have to be abolished. Since every person is born with fundamentally conflicting desires and self-contradictions, the only way to change this is to abolish necessary elements of human nature. In other words, the left wishes most deeply and desperately to dehumanize humanity. Is this the future we want for our children?
The way to attack and defeat the left is to attack and defeat their individual faith in the communist Idea, to expose their belief in their vision as narcissism, selfishness, and foolishness. It will be utterly counter-productive to attack the communist Idea itself. They will dismiss these attacks as demonstrations of the unrepentant evil of non-believers. In other words, facts and reason will not affect them, however, exposing the weakness of their belief in their own wisdom may do the trick.
Attack their faith, not their facts. Demonstrate to them that we know their little secret, and that they aren’t as special and enlightened as they would like to believe. Don’t try to pull them back to reason and civility. Drive them farther to the left. Challenge them to act on their faith. Challenge them to stand up for what they believe. Challenge them to realize their ideas. Ask them what they really want. Get them to talk about their vision. Get them to come out into the open. Challenge them to stop denying their beliefs. (This will be the ultimate challenge to talk show hosts because leftists never answer a question. They duck, they dodge, they evade. They do all this because they don’t want to let us in on their little secret. You see, if we ordinary people understand the secret, then it isn’t a secret anymore, and their most cherished image of themselves as an enlightened vanguard to save humanity is shattered. They just look like geeks.)
Try asking them, “Do you want justice?” and “What does justice actually look like?”
The realization of ideas is the key to recovery. Once the communist Idea is realized, the fantasy of the inevitable Utopia evaporates. At that point, the illusion is broken, the spell is lifted, the foolishness of the believer becomes obvious even to the believer himself.
Let them know that you understand their little secret: Justice is impossible until all people are subjugated to the will of the left. (If this sounds familiar, it should. Substitute the term “the left” with any other, e.g., Fascist Islam, Nazism, Communism, etc., and you have the foundation of every totalitarian movement in history.) Let them know that you’re “in on it”. The dirty little secret that the left cannot talk about in public is their desire to subjugate the human race. They want justice, but only if it means that they are in total control. (This is the narcissist’s view of the world: Justice is possible only when I am in total control.)
A note to reasonable people: The absurdity of the communist Idea is obvious. Believers in the communist Idea assert that their position is superior to all other ideas. The assertion of superiority by itself generates fundamentally conflicting desires between the left and the non-left. The left generates the very conflicts they claim they want to abolish. Their very existence makes their ultimate goal impossible. If the left wishes to achieve the communist Idea, they must first abolish themselves. It’s absurd.
However, once again, as Horowitz points out, the attempt at the impossible goals of the communist Idea is less important to the left than the unwavering belief in the idea itself. Participation in the movement is sufficient justification for participating in the movement. Simply by participating, one is justified in participating.
What appears to non-leftists to be the apparent insanity of holding the ideal of justice with no coherent definition of justice to support the ideal is to the left ideological purity and proof of personal and ideological supremacy. The left holds a vision (meaning an idea without coherent definition) that ordinary people cannot understand. To the left, this is evidence of their enlightenment. To normal people, it is evidence of their fanaticism. It is not, however, insanity.
To critics of the left, saying that they are wrong only serves to strengthen the left’s assumption of their own enlightenment. Right-wing, racist, homophobic, greedy conservatives don’t get it. We can’t understand the beautiful world of justice and harmony the left envisions for all mankind. We don’t see the vision. We are not enlightened.
It’s true. Right-wing, racist, homophobic, greedy conservatives (you can’t see me, but I’m holding my hand up) don’t see the vision. We see the evidence. We see the enblightenment that the left leaves in their wake. We understand the vision; we don’t share it. It is impossible, fantastic, nothing more than a figment. It is not something that serious people wish for.
I think that this really is the key to defeating the left. They think that they alone understand the vision of the new world to come. It is their unique understanding that places them at the vanguard. But, we understand it, too. It’s no secret. It’s foolish. It’s silly and childish. These people are not enlightened, they are immature. I don’t know what they might think once they understand that we know how immature and silly they really are. With any luck, they’ll be embarrassed and stop acting so stupid.
The left shares one founding premise with Communism, Nazism, and Islamic fascism: Injustice and conflict can be abolished when the Utopian Order is finally implemented, and the Utopian Order can only be implemented by destroying everything else. John Kerry and Osama bin Laden agree on this premise. They agree that the United States (the Constitutional Republic as we know it) must be destroyed; they just disagree about which Utopian Order will take its place.
The cost of enblightenment is unimaginable human misery and holocaust. Its self-contradictory propositions (abolishing conflict by creating conflict) guarantee its failure. It doesn’t have to happen again. We can stop it. Vote Republican in 2004.
Guy L. Evans
Aurora, Colorado
Opinion © 2004, by Guy L. Evans
Yes, you read it right the first time.
“En-BLIGHT-en-ment”
I was taking notes on:
How to Beat the Democrats
Copyright © 2002 by David Horowitz
Spence Publishing Company
http://www.spencepublishing.com/books/index.cfm?action=Product&ProductID=57
when I accidentally typed “enblightenment”. It made sense to me. So, consider this an addition to the English language.
Enblightenment: n The unavoidable destruction that results from imposing the Utopian vision of the perfectibility of man. The necessary destruction that results from the self-contradictory propositions that constitute ideologies whose aim is to abolish fundamentally conflicting desires in the social and political order. Synonyms: SOVIET UNION, NAZI GERMANY, ISLAMIC TOTALITARIANISM.
David Horowitz gives tremendous insight into the mentality of leftists. He calls them “believers”, and calls their mission a “crusade”. But, crusading for what?
Horowitz calls it “the (small c) communist Idea”. According the Horowitz, the communist Idea is that:
1. It is possible and necessary to abolish fundamentally conflicting desires among all people.
2. Fundamentally conflicting desires are institutionalized into the social order by politics, religion, and tradition.
3. Fundamentally conflicting desires can be permanently abolished by completely transforming human nature and thereby transforming the social order.
4. The current social, political, religious, and traditional order must be destroyed before the new Utopian order can be brought about.
5. The first task of the left is to destroy the current order. That includes religion, art, literature, music, tradition, morals, ethics, and even our innate individual ideas of good and evil.
6. Ordinary, unenlightened people don’t know about this, and can’t be told. That would ruin everything. They can’t be given the opportunity or ability to disagree. They must be saved no matter how much they object.
The means by which this will be done is to eradicate certain bad desires that conflict with certain good desires. For example, the desire for self-enrichment is bad while the desire for equalization of property among all members of the community is good. Equalization is a greater good than enrichment; therefore, if all people are equally poor, then they are equal, and that is good.
According to the left, and evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, when all people are equal, there are no conflicts. In the minds of the left, equalization or equality will necessarily result in abolishing conflict. However, their idea of equality is simple-minded, and their formula of imposing equality in order to eradicate conflict is self-contradictory and self-destructive.
Equalization of property can only be achieved by force. Force is necessary because the value of property is always unequal in the minds of individual people. For example, the cost of a glass of water can be fixed, but the value cannot. The value of a glass of water varies for each individual person depending on individual circumstances. It is impossible under any social or political order to make all people equally thirsty. Some people require more water than others. Therefore, demand for water will be unequal, and therefore, conflict will arise over demand for water. It will be the same for all commodities and services. Social and political orders can gain sufficient power to dictate prices, however, no social and political order can dictate value. Desires will always conflict because desires are always unequal.
Desires for the same goods and services will vary greatly with each person during the course of a single day. For example, the value of a glass of water to any single person will vary from hour to hour. No social or political order can compel a person to be equally thirsty at every minute of the day. You are either thirsty or you aren’t. According the historic evidence, if you are thirsty when the Utopian order thinks you shouldn’t be thirsty, you are evil.
In order to apply force, the persons applying the force must be unequal to those subjected to force. In this fashion, the Utopians sabotage the very Utopia they so righteously accuse others of trying to prevent. The greatest enemies of Utopia are the Utopians themselves.
That they are thoroughly unaffected by this realization is explained by Horowitz. He says that it is not the outcome, the actual achievement, of the Utopian order that matters (after all, the rise and fall of the Soviet Union hasn’t fazed the Utopians one bit); it is active participation in the movement, holding the enlightened vision of a just and harmonious world to come, that matters. Their love of being a member of the progressive movement is sufficient incentive for leftists to keep them marching forward.
Horowitz describes it as a religious experience, and in a way, I agree with him. Progressives want to be IN, they want to be part of the enlightened saints who are imbued with a higher moral calling: the very salvation of man on Earth.
Horowitz also notes that the left thinks that if God can make a Heaven in Heaven, then there is no reason why men can’t make a Heaven on Earth. In other words, the left wishes to usurp the position of God. What fools they are.
To paraphrase Horowitz, the intoxicating vision of social redemption that the communist Idea will ultimately achieve creates the left and makes them righteous in their beliefs. In their own minds, they are redeemers of mankind, saints, an enlightened vanguard who are responsible for saving humanity from injustice. They seek to rectify injustices that are congenital to our current social and political order. In order to do this, they must change the current social and political order; they must destroy it.
The ultimate outcome--and Horowitz asserts (and I believe), the unspeakable desire--of the left is the conquest and totalitarian subjugation of all people. It makes sense. In order to abolish fundamentally conflicting desires among all people, certain desires will have to be abolished. Since every person is born with fundamentally conflicting desires and self-contradictions, the only way to change this is to abolish necessary elements of human nature. In other words, the left wishes most deeply and desperately to dehumanize humanity. Is this the future we want for our children?
The way to attack and defeat the left is to attack and defeat their individual faith in the communist Idea, to expose their belief in their vision as narcissism, selfishness, and foolishness. It will be utterly counter-productive to attack the communist Idea itself. They will dismiss these attacks as demonstrations of the unrepentant evil of non-believers. In other words, facts and reason will not affect them, however, exposing the weakness of their belief in their own wisdom may do the trick.
Attack their faith, not their facts. Demonstrate to them that we know their little secret, and that they aren’t as special and enlightened as they would like to believe. Don’t try to pull them back to reason and civility. Drive them farther to the left. Challenge them to act on their faith. Challenge them to stand up for what they believe. Challenge them to realize their ideas. Ask them what they really want. Get them to talk about their vision. Get them to come out into the open. Challenge them to stop denying their beliefs. (This will be the ultimate challenge to talk show hosts because leftists never answer a question. They duck, they dodge, they evade. They do all this because they don’t want to let us in on their little secret. You see, if we ordinary people understand the secret, then it isn’t a secret anymore, and their most cherished image of themselves as an enlightened vanguard to save humanity is shattered. They just look like geeks.)
Try asking them, “Do you want justice?” and “What does justice actually look like?”
The realization of ideas is the key to recovery. Once the communist Idea is realized, the fantasy of the inevitable Utopia evaporates. At that point, the illusion is broken, the spell is lifted, the foolishness of the believer becomes obvious even to the believer himself.
Let them know that you understand their little secret: Justice is impossible until all people are subjugated to the will of the left. (If this sounds familiar, it should. Substitute the term “the left” with any other, e.g., Fascist Islam, Nazism, Communism, etc., and you have the foundation of every totalitarian movement in history.) Let them know that you’re “in on it”. The dirty little secret that the left cannot talk about in public is their desire to subjugate the human race. They want justice, but only if it means that they are in total control. (This is the narcissist’s view of the world: Justice is possible only when I am in total control.)
A note to reasonable people: The absurdity of the communist Idea is obvious. Believers in the communist Idea assert that their position is superior to all other ideas. The assertion of superiority by itself generates fundamentally conflicting desires between the left and the non-left. The left generates the very conflicts they claim they want to abolish. Their very existence makes their ultimate goal impossible. If the left wishes to achieve the communist Idea, they must first abolish themselves. It’s absurd.
However, once again, as Horowitz points out, the attempt at the impossible goals of the communist Idea is less important to the left than the unwavering belief in the idea itself. Participation in the movement is sufficient justification for participating in the movement. Simply by participating, one is justified in participating.
What appears to non-leftists to be the apparent insanity of holding the ideal of justice with no coherent definition of justice to support the ideal is to the left ideological purity and proof of personal and ideological supremacy. The left holds a vision (meaning an idea without coherent definition) that ordinary people cannot understand. To the left, this is evidence of their enlightenment. To normal people, it is evidence of their fanaticism. It is not, however, insanity.
To critics of the left, saying that they are wrong only serves to strengthen the left’s assumption of their own enlightenment. Right-wing, racist, homophobic, greedy conservatives don’t get it. We can’t understand the beautiful world of justice and harmony the left envisions for all mankind. We don’t see the vision. We are not enlightened.
It’s true. Right-wing, racist, homophobic, greedy conservatives (you can’t see me, but I’m holding my hand up) don’t see the vision. We see the evidence. We see the enblightenment that the left leaves in their wake. We understand the vision; we don’t share it. It is impossible, fantastic, nothing more than a figment. It is not something that serious people wish for.
I think that this really is the key to defeating the left. They think that they alone understand the vision of the new world to come. It is their unique understanding that places them at the vanguard. But, we understand it, too. It’s no secret. It’s foolish. It’s silly and childish. These people are not enlightened, they are immature. I don’t know what they might think once they understand that we know how immature and silly they really are. With any luck, they’ll be embarrassed and stop acting so stupid.
The left shares one founding premise with Communism, Nazism, and Islamic fascism: Injustice and conflict can be abolished when the Utopian Order is finally implemented, and the Utopian Order can only be implemented by destroying everything else. John Kerry and Osama bin Laden agree on this premise. They agree that the United States (the Constitutional Republic as we know it) must be destroyed; they just disagree about which Utopian Order will take its place.
The cost of enblightenment is unimaginable human misery and holocaust. Its self-contradictory propositions (abolishing conflict by creating conflict) guarantee its failure. It doesn’t have to happen again. We can stop it. Vote Republican in 2004.
Guy L. Evans
Aurora, Colorado
Monday, June 28, 2004
Five Stages of Recovery for Democrats
Opinion © 2004, by Guy L. Evans
I have finished reading and analyzing:
Within this excellent work are the keys to recovery. The authors describe them in five stages, which I have adapted for the unhinged, wild-eyed, Bush-hating, frothing-at-the-mouth types who think Al Gore was cheated. Here they are:
Acceptance is the key to recovery.
We are molded by our experiences, but we do not need to be defined by them. Regardless of what happened, we are responsible for our own recovery. Until we accept the reality of the 2000 election, it will be impossible to begin recovery.
Stage One -- Revisiting
The first stage of acceptance is shedding denial and accepting reality without guilt or blame. Think about the event realistically, the way it actually happened. Think about how you felt about it. Focus on the reality of the past as it affected you. How do you feel about what happened? How did you feel about it at the time? Blame is a sticking point. There is no blame; there is responsibility. Take responsibility for things you CAN control, and release responsibility for things you CANNOT control.
Stage Two -- Mourning the loss of the fantasy
You can’t win the last election. It’s over. This is a sorrowful fact. You cannot spend more time trying to win the election of 2000. Letting go of the fantasy allows the possibility of realistic understanding of your current situation.
Stage Three -- Recognition
This means recognizing the effects of losing the 2000 election--the anger, frustration, depression, etc. Slander, hatred, and comparing Bush to Hitler are dysfunctional behaviors. The rage that the Democrats have turned against Bush is dysfunctional, unrealistic, and cannot produce healthy relationships. You would never treat your children that way, so why do think it will work with the Republicans and the American people? The slander and abuse that Democrats think they are justified in turning against the Republicans cannot produce meaningful change, and will only engender deep, lasting hostility between the Democrats and Republicans. America cannot tolerate this.
Stage Four -- Evaluation
Assess your current situation. Stop obsessing about how things would have been if Al Gore had won the 2000 election. Take a realistic appraisal of your current skills, decide which ones you will use, which ones you will put away, and what new skills you would like to develop.
Stage Five -- Responsibility for change
You are responsible for your own recovery. The Democratic Party is responsible for their own success or failure. Blame and confrontation are not helpful because they will not change the way the Republicans behave, nor will they change the opinion of the American people toward either the Democrats or the Republicans. Take responsibility for things you CAN control, and release responsibility for things you CANNOT control. Democrats CANNOT control the behavior of Republicans by blaming and vilifying them. Democrats CAN control their own behavior, and thereby can control whether they win elections or not.
Conclusion
Accepting the realities of the 2000 election--the fact that Bush won the vote in Florida, that he is President, and that Al Gore is not--will allow the Democrats to make a realistic assessment of their assets going into the 2004 election. Accepting the realities of the past will allow Democrats to decide what they will use and what they will put away. Democrats are entirely responsible for their own recovery.
Judgment, blame, and confrontation will not help recovery, and will certainly hinder it. Blame and confrontation will evoke new hostility and cause more problems.
The most important goal of recovery for Democrats is learning or re-learning trust--trust in the U. S. Constitution, trust in the judgment of the American voters, trust in the Republicans, trust in America, and trust in themselves. Until Democrats learn to trust themselves, they cannot be trusted by the American people.
Hope this helped.
Oh, by the way, the realistic assessment for the Democrats for the 2004 Presidential election is that their leader is a spineless, treacherous, self-promoting, pompous narcissist who apparently slathered on an extra helping of ugly and wishes he was Jack Kennedy. Face it; he’s no Al Gore. This could make recovery for Democrats a whole lot harder. Sorry.
Guy L. Evans
Aurora, Colorado
Opinion © 2004, by Guy L. Evans
I have finished reading and analyzing:
The Narcissistic Family: Diagnosis and TreatmentBUY THIS BOOK AND READ IT AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.
Dr. Stephanie Donaldson-Pressman
Dr. Robert M. Pressman
© 1994 and 1997, by Jossey-Bass Inc., Publishers
http://www.josseybass.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0787908703.html
Within this excellent work are the keys to recovery. The authors describe them in five stages, which I have adapted for the unhinged, wild-eyed, Bush-hating, frothing-at-the-mouth types who think Al Gore was cheated. Here they are:
Acceptance is the key to recovery.
We are molded by our experiences, but we do not need to be defined by them. Regardless of what happened, we are responsible for our own recovery. Until we accept the reality of the 2000 election, it will be impossible to begin recovery.
Stage One -- Revisiting
The first stage of acceptance is shedding denial and accepting reality without guilt or blame. Think about the event realistically, the way it actually happened. Think about how you felt about it. Focus on the reality of the past as it affected you. How do you feel about what happened? How did you feel about it at the time? Blame is a sticking point. There is no blame; there is responsibility. Take responsibility for things you CAN control, and release responsibility for things you CANNOT control.
Stage Two -- Mourning the loss of the fantasy
You can’t win the last election. It’s over. This is a sorrowful fact. You cannot spend more time trying to win the election of 2000. Letting go of the fantasy allows the possibility of realistic understanding of your current situation.
Stage Three -- Recognition
This means recognizing the effects of losing the 2000 election--the anger, frustration, depression, etc. Slander, hatred, and comparing Bush to Hitler are dysfunctional behaviors. The rage that the Democrats have turned against Bush is dysfunctional, unrealistic, and cannot produce healthy relationships. You would never treat your children that way, so why do think it will work with the Republicans and the American people? The slander and abuse that Democrats think they are justified in turning against the Republicans cannot produce meaningful change, and will only engender deep, lasting hostility between the Democrats and Republicans. America cannot tolerate this.
Stage Four -- Evaluation
Assess your current situation. Stop obsessing about how things would have been if Al Gore had won the 2000 election. Take a realistic appraisal of your current skills, decide which ones you will use, which ones you will put away, and what new skills you would like to develop.
Stage Five -- Responsibility for change
You are responsible for your own recovery. The Democratic Party is responsible for their own success or failure. Blame and confrontation are not helpful because they will not change the way the Republicans behave, nor will they change the opinion of the American people toward either the Democrats or the Republicans. Take responsibility for things you CAN control, and release responsibility for things you CANNOT control. Democrats CANNOT control the behavior of Republicans by blaming and vilifying them. Democrats CAN control their own behavior, and thereby can control whether they win elections or not.
Conclusion
Accepting the realities of the 2000 election--the fact that Bush won the vote in Florida, that he is President, and that Al Gore is not--will allow the Democrats to make a realistic assessment of their assets going into the 2004 election. Accepting the realities of the past will allow Democrats to decide what they will use and what they will put away. Democrats are entirely responsible for their own recovery.
Judgment, blame, and confrontation will not help recovery, and will certainly hinder it. Blame and confrontation will evoke new hostility and cause more problems.
The most important goal of recovery for Democrats is learning or re-learning trust--trust in the U. S. Constitution, trust in the judgment of the American voters, trust in the Republicans, trust in America, and trust in themselves. Until Democrats learn to trust themselves, they cannot be trusted by the American people.
Hope this helped.
Oh, by the way, the realistic assessment for the Democrats for the 2004 Presidential election is that their leader is a spineless, treacherous, self-promoting, pompous narcissist who apparently slathered on an extra helping of ugly and wishes he was Jack Kennedy. Face it; he’s no Al Gore. This could make recovery for Democrats a whole lot harder. Sorry.
Guy L. Evans
Aurora, Colorado
Friday, June 25, 2004
Democrat Lies
Opinion © 2004, by Guy L. Evans
The Democratic Party has taken to the campaign trail this year with a diarrhea of lies. But, not just any lies, mind you. For instance, they don’t claim, as Stalin did, that 2 + 2 = 5. No, the lies that the Democrats are telling have a specific aim.
The Democrats aim to “get even” with George W. Bush. For the Democrats, this time, it’s personal. They want to punish Bush in the worst way.
Think of how teenagers use name-calling and personal attacks to wound each other’s egos. This is what Al Gore, Michael Moore, Howard Dean, John Kerry, and the rest are up to. They believe that calling Bush “Hitler”, and saying, “he betrayed our country”, and claiming that he is protecting Osama bin Laden will actually hurt Bush. They think that if they make it clear that they hate (HATE) George W. Bush, he will hang his head, go home to his room, and sulk. (Just between you, me, and the fencepost, I think Bush really doesn’t give a rusty hoot if Al Gore hates him.)
To the Democrats and their fellow travelers, the accusation alone (as long is it is leveled by the “right” people) is proof of guilt. They believe that if they vilify Bush, then people will understand what a villain Bush really is. According to the Democrats, we should disregard the facts and rely solely on their view of things for our guidance. The Democrats, it seems, have highly accurate Nazi detectors, and they also seem to possess the ability to see into the future.
The problem for teenagers and Democrats is that name-calling, dogma, innuendo, and propaganda do not constitute information. For example, calling Bush a liar doesn’t inform me about any lies he actually told. Claiming that Dick Cheney is personally profiting from oil revenues in Afghanistan doesn’t provide me with any cancelled checks. Calling Republicans racists doesn’t provide examples of racist conduct.
So, a word of advice to the Democrats: Attacking Bush may give you a thrill personally, it may boost contributions to the Party, and it may bring new recruits to the Party, however, it doesn’t provide a solid foundation on which to build the Democratic Party. Claims that Bush is a greedy Nazi cowboy bastard don’t say anything positive about the Democratic Party. Also, constant name-calling and innuendo only make Democrats look petty and bitter. It makes them look weak.
Worst of all, the current Democratic smear campaign paints them into a corner. Once the Democratic Party adopts the position that Bush lied to get America into the war in Iraq, then they are obliged to act on that assertion by beginning an impeachment process. If the Democrats don’t try to impeach Bush, then they demonstrate that they didn’t mean what they said in the first place. If the Democrats don’t mean what they say, then they can’t be trusted.
As for me, I’m not crazy about the Republicans. But I know for a fact that I can’t trust the Democrats to defend the United States from attacks by our enemies. I know for a fact that the Democrats are more interested in winning the approval and admiration of Communist dictators like Fidel Castro and Kim Jung Il than in winning the approval of the American people. I absolutely disagree with two of the Democrat’s fundamental assertions: 1) Raising my taxes will boost the economy, and 2) The United States of America is an evil country.
There is only one reason to resort to the kind of campaign of lies and propaganda the Democrats are now using and that is that the facts don’t support your position. But, that’s the whole point, isn’t it?
Vote Republican in 2004.
Guy L. Evans
Aurora, Colorado
Opinion © 2004, by Guy L. Evans
The Democratic Party has taken to the campaign trail this year with a diarrhea of lies. But, not just any lies, mind you. For instance, they don’t claim, as Stalin did, that 2 + 2 = 5. No, the lies that the Democrats are telling have a specific aim.
The Democrats aim to “get even” with George W. Bush. For the Democrats, this time, it’s personal. They want to punish Bush in the worst way.
Think of how teenagers use name-calling and personal attacks to wound each other’s egos. This is what Al Gore, Michael Moore, Howard Dean, John Kerry, and the rest are up to. They believe that calling Bush “Hitler”, and saying, “he betrayed our country”, and claiming that he is protecting Osama bin Laden will actually hurt Bush. They think that if they make it clear that they hate (HATE) George W. Bush, he will hang his head, go home to his room, and sulk. (Just between you, me, and the fencepost, I think Bush really doesn’t give a rusty hoot if Al Gore hates him.)
To the Democrats and their fellow travelers, the accusation alone (as long is it is leveled by the “right” people) is proof of guilt. They believe that if they vilify Bush, then people will understand what a villain Bush really is. According to the Democrats, we should disregard the facts and rely solely on their view of things for our guidance. The Democrats, it seems, have highly accurate Nazi detectors, and they also seem to possess the ability to see into the future.
The problem for teenagers and Democrats is that name-calling, dogma, innuendo, and propaganda do not constitute information. For example, calling Bush a liar doesn’t inform me about any lies he actually told. Claiming that Dick Cheney is personally profiting from oil revenues in Afghanistan doesn’t provide me with any cancelled checks. Calling Republicans racists doesn’t provide examples of racist conduct.
So, a word of advice to the Democrats: Attacking Bush may give you a thrill personally, it may boost contributions to the Party, and it may bring new recruits to the Party, however, it doesn’t provide a solid foundation on which to build the Democratic Party. Claims that Bush is a greedy Nazi cowboy bastard don’t say anything positive about the Democratic Party. Also, constant name-calling and innuendo only make Democrats look petty and bitter. It makes them look weak.
Worst of all, the current Democratic smear campaign paints them into a corner. Once the Democratic Party adopts the position that Bush lied to get America into the war in Iraq, then they are obliged to act on that assertion by beginning an impeachment process. If the Democrats don’t try to impeach Bush, then they demonstrate that they didn’t mean what they said in the first place. If the Democrats don’t mean what they say, then they can’t be trusted.
As for me, I’m not crazy about the Republicans. But I know for a fact that I can’t trust the Democrats to defend the United States from attacks by our enemies. I know for a fact that the Democrats are more interested in winning the approval and admiration of Communist dictators like Fidel Castro and Kim Jung Il than in winning the approval of the American people. I absolutely disagree with two of the Democrat’s fundamental assertions: 1) Raising my taxes will boost the economy, and 2) The United States of America is an evil country.
There is only one reason to resort to the kind of campaign of lies and propaganda the Democrats are now using and that is that the facts don’t support your position. But, that’s the whole point, isn’t it?
Vote Republican in 2004.
Guy L. Evans
Aurora, Colorado
Thursday, June 24, 2004
The Left is not Insane
Opinion © 2004, by Guy L. Evans
In his outstanding article, “Just Like Stalingrad”, Bret Stephens states the following:
This is the conclusion that many conservatives are drawing. They are wrong, and their error will have disastrous consequences for America.
The Left is not insane. Gore and his fellow travelers are not the least bit crazy. They know that what they are saying is factually incorrect, but, the facts aren’t dramatic enough. The facts don’t support their outrage. They are expressing their rage, and facts that don’t support that rage are inconvenient. Theirs is a higher calling than mere truthfulness. They must save America!
The Left is outraged over losing. They are outraged over being humiliated. They are outraged over losing important political battles. They are outraged that the American people no longer blindly trust them. They are outraged because America is going in a direction the Left considers disastrous. They are outraged because their hated rivals, the Republicans (read: right-wing Nazi fanatics), are gaining ground.
The Left is not insane; they are profoundly immature. They think that they and they alone are charged with the duty to save America from horrible villains. At the top of the list of villains is the Republican Party.
The grandiosity and the paranoia of Al Gore and company are typical of emotionally immature people. Have you ever watched children at play? In their pretend world, they are the most important people who have ever lived. In their world, they invented history, and their lives define history. Like the Incredible Hulk, their anger shatters the landscape. Their fury is unmatched. They can overcome any opponent if they get mad enough. This is the leadership of the modern Democratic Party. They are children.
The kind of language they use is the language of children. It is the language of pouting over hurt feelings. It is the language of temper tantrums throughout time. “You’re to blame! It’s all your fault! I didn’t do it! You’re a bad person!”
The error conservatives make is dismissing the Left as insane. In doing so, conservatives effectively excuse the Left instead of holding them accountable. There is a proper way to raise children: hold them accountable for their behavior until they learn to hold themselves accountable for their own behavior.
The Left does not understand the extent and the limits of their own power. They abuse their power either by grandiose but ineffectual displays, or by succumbing to paranoia and failing to exercise real power when it is appropriate and necessary to do so. They imagine the world to be a certain way, and when reality confounds their fantasies, they retreat into further fantasy. Fantasizing is not insanity; it is immaturity.
Conservatives make a mistake in lecturing the Left on the facts. To the Left, to Al Gore and John Kerry, the facts don’t matter. I like to hear the facts; but, facts are useful to me. Facts mean nothing to the Left. What matters to them is the shared sense of being under siege. Throwing facts at them only re-enforces that sense.
Conservatives might consider making the point that conservatives are not out to destroy the Left, that conservatives are opponents, not enemies, and that it’s simply immature to throw a tantrum every time you don’t get what you want. It might make more sense to assure the Left it’s time to settle down, engage in civil discourse and get on with the business of deciding how we shall conduct our lives.
The point that conservatives need to make about the Left is that they (Al Gore, John Kerry, Howard Dean, Ralph Nader, etc.) are so heavily invested in their fantasies--their positions, postures, dogma, and propaganda--that they cannot retreat even in the face of overwhelming facts. The Left cannot be trusted to make effective decisions and to take effective action to correct problems. They are simply not prepared to do so. They may be likeable, enjoyable, charming, entertaining, or attractive in many other ways. But, they just can’t be trusted to take care of serious business.
Vote Republican in 2004.
Guy L. Evans
Aurora, Colorado
Opinion © 2004, by Guy L. Evans
In his outstanding article, “Just Like Stalingrad”, Bret Stephens states the following:
[Sydney] Blumenthal compares the April death toll for American soldiers in Iraq to the Eastern Front in the Second World War. Mr. Bush’s “splendid little war,” he writes, “has entered a Stalingrad-like phase of urban siege and house-to-house combat.”In other words, either Blumenthal, Gore, Krugman, et. al., are correct, or they are insane. Since they clearly aren’t correct, they must be insane.
...Al Gore last month accused Mr. Bush of creating “more anger and righteous indignation against us as Americans than any leader of our country in the 228 years of our existence as a nation.” Every single column written by the New York Times' Paul Krugman is an anti-Bush screed; apparently, there isn't anything else worth writing about. A bumper sticker I saw the other day in Manhattan reads: “If you aren't outraged, you're not paying attention.”
There are two explanations for all this. One is that Mr. Bush really is as bad as Sid, Al and Paul say: the dumbest, most feckless, most fanatical, most incompetent and most calamitous president the nation has ever known. A second is that Sid, Al and Paul are insane.
This is the conclusion that many conservatives are drawing. They are wrong, and their error will have disastrous consequences for America.
The Left is not insane. Gore and his fellow travelers are not the least bit crazy. They know that what they are saying is factually incorrect, but, the facts aren’t dramatic enough. The facts don’t support their outrage. They are expressing their rage, and facts that don’t support that rage are inconvenient. Theirs is a higher calling than mere truthfulness. They must save America!
The Left is outraged over losing. They are outraged over being humiliated. They are outraged over losing important political battles. They are outraged that the American people no longer blindly trust them. They are outraged because America is going in a direction the Left considers disastrous. They are outraged because their hated rivals, the Republicans (read: right-wing Nazi fanatics), are gaining ground.
The Left is not insane; they are profoundly immature. They think that they and they alone are charged with the duty to save America from horrible villains. At the top of the list of villains is the Republican Party.
The grandiosity and the paranoia of Al Gore and company are typical of emotionally immature people. Have you ever watched children at play? In their pretend world, they are the most important people who have ever lived. In their world, they invented history, and their lives define history. Like the Incredible Hulk, their anger shatters the landscape. Their fury is unmatched. They can overcome any opponent if they get mad enough. This is the leadership of the modern Democratic Party. They are children.
The kind of language they use is the language of children. It is the language of pouting over hurt feelings. It is the language of temper tantrums throughout time. “You’re to blame! It’s all your fault! I didn’t do it! You’re a bad person!”
The error conservatives make is dismissing the Left as insane. In doing so, conservatives effectively excuse the Left instead of holding them accountable. There is a proper way to raise children: hold them accountable for their behavior until they learn to hold themselves accountable for their own behavior.
The Left does not understand the extent and the limits of their own power. They abuse their power either by grandiose but ineffectual displays, or by succumbing to paranoia and failing to exercise real power when it is appropriate and necessary to do so. They imagine the world to be a certain way, and when reality confounds their fantasies, they retreat into further fantasy. Fantasizing is not insanity; it is immaturity.
Conservatives make a mistake in lecturing the Left on the facts. To the Left, to Al Gore and John Kerry, the facts don’t matter. I like to hear the facts; but, facts are useful to me. Facts mean nothing to the Left. What matters to them is the shared sense of being under siege. Throwing facts at them only re-enforces that sense.
Conservatives might consider making the point that conservatives are not out to destroy the Left, that conservatives are opponents, not enemies, and that it’s simply immature to throw a tantrum every time you don’t get what you want. It might make more sense to assure the Left it’s time to settle down, engage in civil discourse and get on with the business of deciding how we shall conduct our lives.
The point that conservatives need to make about the Left is that they (Al Gore, John Kerry, Howard Dean, Ralph Nader, etc.) are so heavily invested in their fantasies--their positions, postures, dogma, and propaganda--that they cannot retreat even in the face of overwhelming facts. The Left cannot be trusted to make effective decisions and to take effective action to correct problems. They are simply not prepared to do so. They may be likeable, enjoyable, charming, entertaining, or attractive in many other ways. But, they just can’t be trusted to take care of serious business.
Vote Republican in 2004.
Guy L. Evans
Aurora, Colorado
Wednesday, June 23, 2004
Misunderstanding Clinton
Opinion © 2004, by Guy L. Evans
This is an e-mail that I sent to Hugh Hewitt regarding Clinton’s “I was all alone” comments on Oprah.
+++++++++++++++++++++
June 23, 2004
Hugh,
I disagree that Clinton’s comments (“I was all alone”, etc.) are an expression of self-pity. From your perspective, I can understand why you would think they are pitiful. However, I’m not sure you fully understand what is happening. Perhaps for the first time in his life, Bill Clinton is actually telling the truth. His “I was all alone” comments were not disgusting; they were instructive.
Bill Clinton is an adult child of an alcoholic family. He displays many of the standard characteristics, specifically the emotional bunkering he described (walling off, not revealing himself, not getting close, not allowing others to get close to him, etc.). It is a survival mechanism that children of abusive families develop to protect themselves from continued emotional injury. When Clinton says he was all alone, he wasn’t kidding. While it is a valuable coping skill in childhood, it is catastrophic in adulthood. The entire matter is discussed at length in:
Hugh, I am concerned that you are miscalculating Clinton and many others like him--Al Gore, Howard Dean, John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, and others. I think it is not in your best interest to categorize these people as loopy or over the edge. (Sorry, Hugh, I can’t think of the exact words you use. I hope this approximates your position. Correct me if I’m wrong.) In doing so, you unintentionally excuse their behavior. Don’t do that. No matter how they got the way they are, we have to cope with them.
Drawing incorrect or incomplete conclusions about Clinton (or anyone else, for that matter) has the same effect as drawing incorrect or incomplete conclusions about the law. Decisions made as a result will be ineffective at best, destructive at worst. Actions taken on the basis of those decisions will also be ineffective or destructive. Incorrect or incomplete conclusions about Clinton and his cronies will lead to ineffective or destructive action. In other words, Hugh, they could win.
One idea that I think you should investigate is that Clinton, Gore, Kerry, etc., stopped growing emotionally in childhood. They have the emotional maturity of children or young adolescents. Their political decisions are influenced by their childhood views of the world. Question: What would a collection of teenagers do if they started a political party? Answer: They would form the Democratic Party.
I agree that they cannot be trusted to steward the country. But, simply being disgusted with them isn’t helpful. They are here. They have influence and following. We have to cope with them. Like an obdurate teenager, we have to talk to them; we have to try to reach them. A house divided cannot long stand. As a people, we are splitting apart. You see the results.
Hugh, you can’t win at chess by misunderstanding your opponent’s moves. You have to understand the rules, take stock of your resources, make sure of what you are willing to risk, and calculate the most effective move possible under the circumstances. Sometimes the most effective move is to defend your position, other times it is to attack. But, dismissing your opponent’s move as simply wacky doesn’t excuse you from having to cope with it.
Bill Clinton said he was “all alone”. He was not implying that he should be pitied. He is giving valuable insight into the way he copes with stress, and by inference, how other people like him, including John Kerry, cope with stress. Take that information and run with it.
Do we really want someone as President of the United States who retreats into a psychological bunker every time he comes under extreme stress?
You keep talking; I’ll keep listening.
Guy L. Evans
Aurora, Colorado
Opinion © 2004, by Guy L. Evans
This is an e-mail that I sent to Hugh Hewitt regarding Clinton’s “I was all alone” comments on Oprah.
+++++++++++++++++++++
June 23, 2004
Hugh,
I disagree that Clinton’s comments (“I was all alone”, etc.) are an expression of self-pity. From your perspective, I can understand why you would think they are pitiful. However, I’m not sure you fully understand what is happening. Perhaps for the first time in his life, Bill Clinton is actually telling the truth. His “I was all alone” comments were not disgusting; they were instructive.
Bill Clinton is an adult child of an alcoholic family. He displays many of the standard characteristics, specifically the emotional bunkering he described (walling off, not revealing himself, not getting close, not allowing others to get close to him, etc.). It is a survival mechanism that children of abusive families develop to protect themselves from continued emotional injury. When Clinton says he was all alone, he wasn’t kidding. While it is a valuable coping skill in childhood, it is catastrophic in adulthood. The entire matter is discussed at length in:
The Narcissistic Family: Diagnosis and TreatmentBuy this book and read it as soon as possible.
Dr. Stephanie Donaldson-Pressman
Dr. Robert M. Pressman
© 1994 and 1997, by Jossey-Bass Inc., Publishers
http://www.josseybass.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0787908703.html
Hugh, I am concerned that you are miscalculating Clinton and many others like him--Al Gore, Howard Dean, John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, and others. I think it is not in your best interest to categorize these people as loopy or over the edge. (Sorry, Hugh, I can’t think of the exact words you use. I hope this approximates your position. Correct me if I’m wrong.) In doing so, you unintentionally excuse their behavior. Don’t do that. No matter how they got the way they are, we have to cope with them.
Drawing incorrect or incomplete conclusions about Clinton (or anyone else, for that matter) has the same effect as drawing incorrect or incomplete conclusions about the law. Decisions made as a result will be ineffective at best, destructive at worst. Actions taken on the basis of those decisions will also be ineffective or destructive. Incorrect or incomplete conclusions about Clinton and his cronies will lead to ineffective or destructive action. In other words, Hugh, they could win.
One idea that I think you should investigate is that Clinton, Gore, Kerry, etc., stopped growing emotionally in childhood. They have the emotional maturity of children or young adolescents. Their political decisions are influenced by their childhood views of the world. Question: What would a collection of teenagers do if they started a political party? Answer: They would form the Democratic Party.
I agree that they cannot be trusted to steward the country. But, simply being disgusted with them isn’t helpful. They are here. They have influence and following. We have to cope with them. Like an obdurate teenager, we have to talk to them; we have to try to reach them. A house divided cannot long stand. As a people, we are splitting apart. You see the results.
Hugh, you can’t win at chess by misunderstanding your opponent’s moves. You have to understand the rules, take stock of your resources, make sure of what you are willing to risk, and calculate the most effective move possible under the circumstances. Sometimes the most effective move is to defend your position, other times it is to attack. But, dismissing your opponent’s move as simply wacky doesn’t excuse you from having to cope with it.
Bill Clinton said he was “all alone”. He was not implying that he should be pitied. He is giving valuable insight into the way he copes with stress, and by inference, how other people like him, including John Kerry, cope with stress. Take that information and run with it.
Do we really want someone as President of the United States who retreats into a psychological bunker every time he comes under extreme stress?
You keep talking; I’ll keep listening.
Guy L. Evans
Aurora, Colorado
Tuesday, June 22, 2004
His Life
Opinion © 2004, by Guy L. Evans
With the release of his book, My Life, former President Bill Clinton cements his place in history as the most pathologically narcissistic person to ever hold the office of President of the United States. The title of his book is evidence of Clinton’s preoccupation with himself. He could have thought of some event that best exemplified his political and personal triumphs. But, Clinton doesn’t see any events as being important unless he is at the center of them.
Bill Clinton fits the description of an adult child of a narcissistic family. If you want to understand Clinton, and all the other self-absorbed egomaniacs in your life, then buy and read:
Another example is that Bill Clinton is a people pleaser. He tries to head off criticism by advocating all sides of all issues to all people. It is impossible for Clinton to make a firm decision that he knows will make people mad at him. It is more important to him to ensure that people aren’t angry with him than it is to actually achieve solid, lasting results. He never achieved anything important in his Presidency because doing so would have made people mad at him. His dream of building a legacy was sabotaged by Bill Clinton himself.
Clinton’s compulsive evasion of responsibility for his own actions originates from his compulsive evasion of potential emotional injury. When he is criticized for something he actually did, he assures himself that what he did wrong does not warrant attention, and that his critics have a hidden, diabolical scheme to get rid of him. When people eventually do get mad at him, then it’s all their fault. After all, he did everything humanly possible to please everyone; therefore, people who are unhappy with him are demented and evil.
He is compelled to avoid admitting failure for anything because doing so would confirm that his life--in his mind, his entire existence--was a failure and a complete waste of time. The idea of learning from his mistakes is utterly alien to him. In his own mind, he never makes mistakes. Things that go wrong are always other people’s fault.
If you want more insight into the personality of Bill Clinton, why he sabotaged his own Presidency, and why he keeps so many parts of his real self hidden from so many people, buy and read:
Guy L. Evans
Aurora, Colorado
Opinion © 2004, by Guy L. Evans
With the release of his book, My Life, former President Bill Clinton cements his place in history as the most pathologically narcissistic person to ever hold the office of President of the United States. The title of his book is evidence of Clinton’s preoccupation with himself. He could have thought of some event that best exemplified his political and personal triumphs. But, Clinton doesn’t see any events as being important unless he is at the center of them.
Bill Clinton fits the description of an adult child of a narcissistic family. If you want to understand Clinton, and all the other self-absorbed egomaniacs in your life, then buy and read:
The Narcissistic Family: Diagnosis and TreatmentIn it, you will find Bill Clinton’s personality traits, and the reason he got that way. For example, Bill Clinton is obsessed with his image and the effect he has on other people. He has spent his life carefully crafting a synthetic public personality for himself, a personality that he is convinced will overcome other people’s uncertainty, and one that he is convinced will protect him from emotional injury. When his critics attack him, it is the synthetic Bill Clinton they attack, not the real Bill Clinton. If they don’t know the real Bill Clinton, then they can’t hurt the real Bill Clinton. No one ever gets to know the real Bill Clinton. The real Bill Clinton is hiding.
Dr. Stephanie Donaldson-Pressman
Dr. Robert M. Pressman
© 1994 and 1997, by Jossey-Bass Inc., Publishers
http://www.josseybass.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0787908703.html
Another example is that Bill Clinton is a people pleaser. He tries to head off criticism by advocating all sides of all issues to all people. It is impossible for Clinton to make a firm decision that he knows will make people mad at him. It is more important to him to ensure that people aren’t angry with him than it is to actually achieve solid, lasting results. He never achieved anything important in his Presidency because doing so would have made people mad at him. His dream of building a legacy was sabotaged by Bill Clinton himself.
Clinton’s compulsive evasion of responsibility for his own actions originates from his compulsive evasion of potential emotional injury. When he is criticized for something he actually did, he assures himself that what he did wrong does not warrant attention, and that his critics have a hidden, diabolical scheme to get rid of him. When people eventually do get mad at him, then it’s all their fault. After all, he did everything humanly possible to please everyone; therefore, people who are unhappy with him are demented and evil.
He is compelled to avoid admitting failure for anything because doing so would confirm that his life--in his mind, his entire existence--was a failure and a complete waste of time. The idea of learning from his mistakes is utterly alien to him. In his own mind, he never makes mistakes. Things that go wrong are always other people’s fault.
If you want more insight into the personality of Bill Clinton, why he sabotaged his own Presidency, and why he keeps so many parts of his real self hidden from so many people, buy and read:
The Narcissistic Family: Diagnosis and TreatmentIt will be the best money you have spent in years.
Dr. Stephanie Donaldson-Pressman
Dr. Robert M. Pressman
© 1994 and 1997, by Jossey-Bass Inc., Publishers
http://www.josseybass.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0787908703.html
Guy L. Evans
Aurora, Colorado
Monday, June 21, 2004
Jihad Watch
Opinion © 2004, by Guy L. Evans
I have added a link to Jihad Watch, Robert Spencer's excellent web site. Please visit there for news and other resources on Islamic terrorism.
We are in a war for our survival as a people, as a nation, and as individuals. Moslem terrorists use the Koran as their motivation and justification for committing murder. You and I are targets for one reason: we are not Moslems.
Moslem terrorists have set as their goal cleansing the world of all non-Moslems. They think that God told them it is their duty. They will not stop killing until they are killed. There is no compromise. There is no third way. These are the conditions they have defined for the war: Either they kill all of us, or we kill all of them.
If you don’t believe it, you can try to re-create Daniel Pearl’s experiment. Find the terrorists, and ask them what they really want. They killed him. Any questions?
Guy L. Evans
Aurora, Colorado
Opinion © 2004, by Guy L. Evans
I have added a link to Jihad Watch, Robert Spencer's excellent web site. Please visit there for news and other resources on Islamic terrorism.
We are in a war for our survival as a people, as a nation, and as individuals. Moslem terrorists use the Koran as their motivation and justification for committing murder. You and I are targets for one reason: we are not Moslems.
Moslem terrorists have set as their goal cleansing the world of all non-Moslems. They think that God told them it is their duty. They will not stop killing until they are killed. There is no compromise. There is no third way. These are the conditions they have defined for the war: Either they kill all of us, or we kill all of them.
If you don’t believe it, you can try to re-create Daniel Pearl’s experiment. Find the terrorists, and ask them what they really want. They killed him. Any questions?
Guy L. Evans
Aurora, Colorado
Friday, June 18, 2004
RETURN SADDAM HUSSEIN TO POWER NOW!
Opinion © 2004, by Guy L. Evans
Return Saddam Hussein to power now!
The war in Iraq was a mistake. It was illegal. It was an immoral exercise in military strutting by the great American bully. Saddam Hussein posed no threat to the United States. He had no connection to al Qaeda. He had not WMD. The war has cost too many lives, too much money, and has alienated the United States from the rest of the civilized world. The U. S. acted unilaterally against the wishes of the rest of the world. It was just about getting Iraq’s oil so that Bush, Cheney, and their cronies could make money.
These are the arguments put forward by the Democratic Party and their most visible spokesmen. The unavoidable consequence of their arguments is that Saddam Hussein was removed from power improperly, and perhaps illegally. Therefore, we have no choice but to return him to power, pay him gigantic reparations, offer our most heartfelt apologies to him and to the rest of the world, and promise that we will never, ever use our military to depose any other dictators for the rest of eternity.
Why is the position unavoidable? Why is it necessary?
Any person who agrees that justice was done to anyone--the U. S., the Iraqi people, Iraq’s neighbors including Kuwait and Iran--because Saddam Hussein was driven from power by U. S. military force must also agree that the war was justified. The proposition that the war to depose Saddam Hussein is unjustified is contrary to the proposition that the same war brought any measure of justice. However, deposing Saddam Hussein has resulted in greater justice--liberating 25 million Iraqis, removing the threat of Saddam’s armies, removing financing for terrorists, intimidating other Arab dictators--than the alleged injustice of using military force to remove him, and all the other injustices alleged by the Democratic Party.
If the Democratic Party wishes to argue that liberating 25 million Iraqis, removing the threat of Saddam’s armies, removing financing for terrorists, intimidating other Arab dictators, and having free access to search for WMD does not constitute justice, then let them say so. I haven’t heard a peep out of them about these subjects. They choose to ignore these matters. Their silence is deafening.
If the war is unjustified, then we must surrender all of those benefits, including the ability to monitor accurately Saddam Hussein’s WMD programs and his links to terrorists. Remember that we did not have the ability to accurately monitor his WMD programs before the war; that’s one of the reasons we went to war.
The Democrats can’t have it both ways. Either removing Saddam Hussein from power (for any reason you like) is good or it is bad. I say it’s good, and I say that George W. Bush deserves to be re-elected for this if for no other reason.
So, how about it, Democrats? Why don’t you put your money where your mouth is? Stand up for your beliefs (for once). Demand that Saddam Hussein be returned to power, that we apologize, and that we pay him billions of dollars in reparations, including restoring his armed forces to pre-war conditions.
But, you can’t, can you? Because demanding that Saddam Hussein be returned to power would demonstrate the Democratic Party’s true ambitions: The surrender of the United States.
No matter how much it may hurt you to do so, vote Republican in 2004 because voting Democrat is going to hurt you a hell of a lot more.
Guy L. Evans
Aurora, Colorado
Opinion © 2004, by Guy L. Evans
Return Saddam Hussein to power now!
The war in Iraq was a mistake. It was illegal. It was an immoral exercise in military strutting by the great American bully. Saddam Hussein posed no threat to the United States. He had no connection to al Qaeda. He had not WMD. The war has cost too many lives, too much money, and has alienated the United States from the rest of the civilized world. The U. S. acted unilaterally against the wishes of the rest of the world. It was just about getting Iraq’s oil so that Bush, Cheney, and their cronies could make money.
These are the arguments put forward by the Democratic Party and their most visible spokesmen. The unavoidable consequence of their arguments is that Saddam Hussein was removed from power improperly, and perhaps illegally. Therefore, we have no choice but to return him to power, pay him gigantic reparations, offer our most heartfelt apologies to him and to the rest of the world, and promise that we will never, ever use our military to depose any other dictators for the rest of eternity.
Why is the position unavoidable? Why is it necessary?
Any person who agrees that justice was done to anyone--the U. S., the Iraqi people, Iraq’s neighbors including Kuwait and Iran--because Saddam Hussein was driven from power by U. S. military force must also agree that the war was justified. The proposition that the war to depose Saddam Hussein is unjustified is contrary to the proposition that the same war brought any measure of justice. However, deposing Saddam Hussein has resulted in greater justice--liberating 25 million Iraqis, removing the threat of Saddam’s armies, removing financing for terrorists, intimidating other Arab dictators--than the alleged injustice of using military force to remove him, and all the other injustices alleged by the Democratic Party.
If the Democratic Party wishes to argue that liberating 25 million Iraqis, removing the threat of Saddam’s armies, removing financing for terrorists, intimidating other Arab dictators, and having free access to search for WMD does not constitute justice, then let them say so. I haven’t heard a peep out of them about these subjects. They choose to ignore these matters. Their silence is deafening.
If the war is unjustified, then we must surrender all of those benefits, including the ability to monitor accurately Saddam Hussein’s WMD programs and his links to terrorists. Remember that we did not have the ability to accurately monitor his WMD programs before the war; that’s one of the reasons we went to war.
The Democrats can’t have it both ways. Either removing Saddam Hussein from power (for any reason you like) is good or it is bad. I say it’s good, and I say that George W. Bush deserves to be re-elected for this if for no other reason.
So, how about it, Democrats? Why don’t you put your money where your mouth is? Stand up for your beliefs (for once). Demand that Saddam Hussein be returned to power, that we apologize, and that we pay him billions of dollars in reparations, including restoring his armed forces to pre-war conditions.
But, you can’t, can you? Because demanding that Saddam Hussein be returned to power would demonstrate the Democratic Party’s true ambitions: The surrender of the United States.
No matter how much it may hurt you to do so, vote Republican in 2004 because voting Democrat is going to hurt you a hell of a lot more.
Guy L. Evans
Aurora, Colorado
Wednesday, June 16, 2004
These People Really Worry Me
Opinion © 2004, by Guy L. Evans
Continuing the line of thought in Mark Steyn’s, “The lunatic mainstream had better start worrying fast”, it seems that candidates like Pete Coors, John Kerry, and George W. Bush are evidence that American politics is increasingly becoming the realm of family dynasties. Throw in wealthy weirdoes like Ted Kennedy and Al Gore, and you should get the picture. These families seem to consider high political office their entitlement.
The problem for us regular people is that the dynasties have little interest in the common problems of common people. As Steyn noted, “The political class [in Europe] has refined Voltaire: I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death my right not to have to listen to you say it. Are you still here?” This sentiment now seems to be a permanent feature in both the Republican and Democratic Parties’ platforms.
Hugh Hewitt has been engaged in a running verbal gun battle with Colorado Republicans who don’t care for Pete Coors (Coors Beer, straight out of the mountain goat and into your face. Taste the Rockies!). Hugh’s position is that an impure, spoiled, untested, son of wealthy a Republican family is better than any Democrat. He may well be right, however, the impure, spoiled, untested part still bothers me. Pete Coors, like Hillary Clinton, has never won an election, but now he thinks he should be Colorado’s next Republican Senator. I have a bad feeling about this. In my experience, the children of inherited wealth aren’t worth yesterday’s dog crap.
I have deep suspicions about the heirs to family fortunes seeking high office. The reason the Founders outlawed royalty was that political office is a privilege, not an entitlement. The ascendancy of political dynasties like the Bush and the Kennedy families seriously undermines the Founders’ reasonable prohibitions against entitlement to high office. Ted Kennedy will only leave the Senate in a hearse, and George W. Bush could probably retain the Presidency for life if not for Constitutional term limits.
America is beginning to bear an uncomfortable resemblance to Mexico: Family dynasties turning loose an unending cadre of out-of-touch, loony politicians immune to the laws of the State, the Church, and economics, who only talk to each other, who dismiss the concerns of common people as not worthy of their attention, and whose family loyalties trump all others. Wealthy, insulated political classes don’t have a serious clue, nor do they want one. They want the benefits that come with high office, but not the responsibilities. They just can’t be bothered.
It seems that the entitled classes are trying to institutionalize the gap between themselves and the commoners (re: so called campaign finance reform--an open assault on our First Amendment right to free speech and designed to protect incumbents from grass-roots challengers--passed by Democrats and Republicans, signed into law by President George W. Bush, and upheld by the Supreme Court). They can’t keep legitimate challengers from the lower classes out of their exclusive realm, so they’re going to cheat.
The Congress and the White House are places for serious business, not for puffed up egos and wealthy, self-important, incompetent, goofy know-it-alls. The ongoing soap opera of the upper crust, ultra wealthy political classes and their ultra wealthy pals in the chattering classes worries me. This may not be fair to say, but terrorism didn’t seem to be worth their attention until it put a serious dent in their portfolios.
Guy L. Evans
Aurora, Colorado
Opinion © 2004, by Guy L. Evans
Continuing the line of thought in Mark Steyn’s, “The lunatic mainstream had better start worrying fast”, it seems that candidates like Pete Coors, John Kerry, and George W. Bush are evidence that American politics is increasingly becoming the realm of family dynasties. Throw in wealthy weirdoes like Ted Kennedy and Al Gore, and you should get the picture. These families seem to consider high political office their entitlement.
The problem for us regular people is that the dynasties have little interest in the common problems of common people. As Steyn noted, “The political class [in Europe] has refined Voltaire: I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death my right not to have to listen to you say it. Are you still here?” This sentiment now seems to be a permanent feature in both the Republican and Democratic Parties’ platforms.
Hugh Hewitt has been engaged in a running verbal gun battle with Colorado Republicans who don’t care for Pete Coors (Coors Beer, straight out of the mountain goat and into your face. Taste the Rockies!). Hugh’s position is that an impure, spoiled, untested, son of wealthy a Republican family is better than any Democrat. He may well be right, however, the impure, spoiled, untested part still bothers me. Pete Coors, like Hillary Clinton, has never won an election, but now he thinks he should be Colorado’s next Republican Senator. I have a bad feeling about this. In my experience, the children of inherited wealth aren’t worth yesterday’s dog crap.
I have deep suspicions about the heirs to family fortunes seeking high office. The reason the Founders outlawed royalty was that political office is a privilege, not an entitlement. The ascendancy of political dynasties like the Bush and the Kennedy families seriously undermines the Founders’ reasonable prohibitions against entitlement to high office. Ted Kennedy will only leave the Senate in a hearse, and George W. Bush could probably retain the Presidency for life if not for Constitutional term limits.
America is beginning to bear an uncomfortable resemblance to Mexico: Family dynasties turning loose an unending cadre of out-of-touch, loony politicians immune to the laws of the State, the Church, and economics, who only talk to each other, who dismiss the concerns of common people as not worthy of their attention, and whose family loyalties trump all others. Wealthy, insulated political classes don’t have a serious clue, nor do they want one. They want the benefits that come with high office, but not the responsibilities. They just can’t be bothered.
It seems that the entitled classes are trying to institutionalize the gap between themselves and the commoners (re: so called campaign finance reform--an open assault on our First Amendment right to free speech and designed to protect incumbents from grass-roots challengers--passed by Democrats and Republicans, signed into law by President George W. Bush, and upheld by the Supreme Court). They can’t keep legitimate challengers from the lower classes out of their exclusive realm, so they’re going to cheat.
The Congress and the White House are places for serious business, not for puffed up egos and wealthy, self-important, incompetent, goofy know-it-alls. The ongoing soap opera of the upper crust, ultra wealthy political classes and their ultra wealthy pals in the chattering classes worries me. This may not be fair to say, but terrorism didn’t seem to be worth their attention until it put a serious dent in their portfolios.
Guy L. Evans
Aurora, Colorado
Tuesday, June 15, 2004
Colorado’s Lunatic Mainstream
Opinion © 2004, by Guy L. Evans
In his fine article on June 5, 2004, “The lunatic mainstream had better start worrying fast”, Mark Steyn says:
Well. “[T]he entire political class took it for granted no right-thinking person could possibly disagree with them, so they never felt they had to bother arguing the case and, now they have to, they can't remember what the arguments were.”
This sounds like Mark Steyn is talking about the State government of Colorado. Here, the Governor, the Department of Regulatory Agencies, and the Public Utilities Commission have excused themselves from reality, stating in effect that all laws and regulations governing the operations of taxis are perfect, and that the reason that elderly, indigent customers receive poor service or no service at all is because the taxi drivers are greedy. This is arrogant and ludicrous considering that the State of Colorado dictates what rates the drivers are allowed to charge. For example, the minimum charge in the Denver area is $1.60 (as of Fall of 2003). Including his income, the price of gas, his insurance, and the direct costs of providing taxi service, the actual cost to the driver to show up at your door is closer to $6.00. That means that the driver is guaranteed to lose on every trip under five miles, and therefore must be very choosy about which trips he takes and which he ignores. If he is unfortunate enough to get stuck with a short trip, he risks going bankrupt.
The State of Colorado labels attempts by the drivers avoid losing money on trips as “greed”. The insanity of this position is obvious to everyone but the people in government. They also consider any discussion of the matter unworthy of their time because, as everyone knows, they are the experts on what is best for the public.
The rates that the State of Colorado permits drivers to charge are arbitrary and in direct violation of existing statute. Think anyone in the Colorado State government cares? Why, hell no.
I am currently searching for a potent and committed law firm to handle this case. If you know of anyone who might be interested...
Well, I’m not in a position to hand out my e-mail address, but you can do an internet search to find my phone number. Sorry for the trouble, but I don’t need to invite cranks. Please leave a message. The answering machine is on all day. Thanks.
Guy L. Evans
Aurora, Colorado
Opinion © 2004, by Guy L. Evans
In his fine article on June 5, 2004, “The lunatic mainstream had better start worrying fast”, Mark Steyn says:
Britain's lunatic mainstream is lapsing back into its customary condescension on this issue [the European Union]...The political class has refined Voltaire: I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death my right not to have to listen to you say it. Are you still here?
This is unworthy of a democracy, and more to the point deeply unhealthy. One reason why the Eutopian dream has fizzled across the Continent is because the entire political class took it for granted no right-thinking person could possibly disagree with them, so they never felt they had to bother arguing the case and, now they have to, they can't remember what the arguments were. Those who subscribe to inevitablist theories of historical progress often make that mistake: the lazy Aussie republicans did in 1999, for example.
Well. “[T]he entire political class took it for granted no right-thinking person could possibly disagree with them, so they never felt they had to bother arguing the case and, now they have to, they can't remember what the arguments were.”
This sounds like Mark Steyn is talking about the State government of Colorado. Here, the Governor, the Department of Regulatory Agencies, and the Public Utilities Commission have excused themselves from reality, stating in effect that all laws and regulations governing the operations of taxis are perfect, and that the reason that elderly, indigent customers receive poor service or no service at all is because the taxi drivers are greedy. This is arrogant and ludicrous considering that the State of Colorado dictates what rates the drivers are allowed to charge. For example, the minimum charge in the Denver area is $1.60 (as of Fall of 2003). Including his income, the price of gas, his insurance, and the direct costs of providing taxi service, the actual cost to the driver to show up at your door is closer to $6.00. That means that the driver is guaranteed to lose on every trip under five miles, and therefore must be very choosy about which trips he takes and which he ignores. If he is unfortunate enough to get stuck with a short trip, he risks going bankrupt.
The State of Colorado labels attempts by the drivers avoid losing money on trips as “greed”. The insanity of this position is obvious to everyone but the people in government. They also consider any discussion of the matter unworthy of their time because, as everyone knows, they are the experts on what is best for the public.
The rates that the State of Colorado permits drivers to charge are arbitrary and in direct violation of existing statute. Think anyone in the Colorado State government cares? Why, hell no.
I am currently searching for a potent and committed law firm to handle this case. If you know of anyone who might be interested...
Well, I’m not in a position to hand out my e-mail address, but you can do an internet search to find my phone number. Sorry for the trouble, but I don’t need to invite cranks. Please leave a message. The answering machine is on all day. Thanks.
Guy L. Evans
Aurora, Colorado
Friday, June 11, 2004
The Glorious Caliphate
Opinion © 2004, by Guy L. Evans
The following is an excerpt from a talk given by Goh Chok Tong, prime minister of Republic of Singapore to the Council on Foreign Relations:
“...recreate the Islam of seventh century Arabia, which they regard as the golden age. Their ultimate goal is to bring about a caliphate linking all Muslim communities.” Does this sound familiar? Looking to the glorious past for salvation instead of thinking of the future? Turning the clock back to a “golden age”?
What Prime Minister Goh describes in his speech is the intent of the radical Moslems to separate all Moslems from all non-Moslems, and to turn all Moslems against all non-Moslems in a war of total genocide against all non-Moslems. The intent of the horrific attacks against Western targets is to foment suspicion and hatred by non-Moslems against Moslems. This will help Moslems feel appropriately aggrieved so that they will gladly join the radical cause.
To some degree, it is working. I hear a lot of whining, crying, complaining, and childish whimpering from Moslems about how picked on they are by all those bad Western infidels. Boo hoo. It’s so sad. Those Western Zionist infidels are so mean. Moslems, according to Moslems, are a privileged class. They deserve respect, admiration, and even submission from non-Moslems even though they have never earned it. We infidel jackal vipers are supposed to simply give up without a fight, surrender to the obvious superiority and moral supremacy of Islam, and stop our pointless sniveling. Why, hell! We ought to be blowing up our own buildings with ourselves inside!
The fact is--to the dismay of the Moslem cry-babies--that Moslems kill, torture, subjugate, murder, rape, invade, swindle, abuse, and humiliate more Moslems than all the infidels combined. Moslems don’t need Western infidels to humiliate and slaughter them; they have plenty of their own who do a superb job of it. The greatest problems Moslems face worldwide are other Moslems.
The radical Moslems are crazy. They can’t understand the simple concept of responsibility. But, how can they? To them, all things happen “God willing”. God is responsible for everything. That means that ordinary people can’t be responsible for their own behavior. Therefore, radical Moslems who have started a suicidal war against all non-Moslems--a war in which they are technologically, economically, numerically, and morally out-classed--cannot be responsible for the incredible suffering and death that must necessarily befall other Moslems as a result.
The radical Moslems are attempting to Nazify the Moslem world the same way Hitler Nazified Germany. The radical Moslems have substituted religion for race, but the argument is the same: The Moslems (German people) are under attack by infidels (racially impure people). Join the radical Moslems (Nazi Party) because we are your only hope against your enemies. And, above all, never mind the facts! The accusation alone is sufficient evidence to warrant conviction. If we say the infidels (Jews, Gypsies, and Slavs) are you enemies, then they are your enemies.
Using the Nazi strategies of excusing Moslems for their own failings by vilifying their enemies, the radical Moslems will gain adherents faster than the civilized world can arrest or kill them. They will cause unnecessary death and havoc. They will lose.
Al Qaeda is the most notorious of the groups. There are others. Their utterly and obviously insane goals (Moslems themselves will never support a worldwide caliphate to rule them) confound reason. But, that’s the point. These clowns are suicidal, homicidal, and completely out of touch with reality. They won’t listen to anyone, not even other Moslems. They cannot be managed, and they cannot be contained.
They have created in their own minds an irrefutable suspicion of non-Moslems. They do not trust the facts. They do not trust their own observations. They trust only their radical dogma. It puts them into a state of grace. They can accuse their enemies of all manner of atrocities, and when they themselves commit the same atrocities and worse, they are automatically excused by virtue of their dogma.
They cannot live in the real world any longer. They have burned all their bridges. Like Hitler, there is only one path left for them: Victory or death. Either we will defeat them, or they will slaughter us by the millions. There is no third way. They will make the Holocaust look like a Sunday picnic.
Stay strong, America. This is going to be a long, bloody, horrible war. Take it from me; when it comes time to kill your enemies, ‘tis far better to give than to receive. Vote Republican in 2004.
Guy L. Evans
Aurora, Colorado
Opinion © 2004, by Guy L. Evans
The following is an excerpt from a talk given by Goh Chok Tong, prime minister of Republic of Singapore to the Council on Foreign Relations:
But the threat remains. It stems from a religious ideology that is infused with an implacable hostility to all secular governments, especially the West, and in particular the U.S. Their followers want to recreate the Islam of seventh century Arabia, which they regard as the golden age. Their ultimate goal is to bring about a caliphate linking all Muslim communities. Their means is jihad, which they narrowly define as a holy war against all non Muslims, whom they call "infidels."
The Arabs call this religious ideology salafi. Our experience in Southeast Asia is not without wider relevance because of what the salafis themselves believe. This is what one of them, an Algerian named Abu Ibrahim Mustafa, has said:
"The war in Palestine, in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Algeria, in Chechnya, and in the Philippines is one war. This is a war between the camp of Islam and the camp of the Cross, to which the Americans, the Zionists, Jews, their apostate allies, and others belong. The goal of this war, which they falsely called a war on terror, is to prevent the Muslims from establishing an Islamic state..."
Likewise, JI's ultimate goal is a caliphate, by definition not confined to Southeast Asia. The dream of a caliphate may seem absurd to the secular mind. But it will be a serious mistake to dismiss its appeal to many in the Islamic world, though the majority do not believe in killing and dying for it.
“...recreate the Islam of seventh century Arabia, which they regard as the golden age. Their ultimate goal is to bring about a caliphate linking all Muslim communities.” Does this sound familiar? Looking to the glorious past for salvation instead of thinking of the future? Turning the clock back to a “golden age”?
What Prime Minister Goh describes in his speech is the intent of the radical Moslems to separate all Moslems from all non-Moslems, and to turn all Moslems against all non-Moslems in a war of total genocide against all non-Moslems. The intent of the horrific attacks against Western targets is to foment suspicion and hatred by non-Moslems against Moslems. This will help Moslems feel appropriately aggrieved so that they will gladly join the radical cause.
To some degree, it is working. I hear a lot of whining, crying, complaining, and childish whimpering from Moslems about how picked on they are by all those bad Western infidels. Boo hoo. It’s so sad. Those Western Zionist infidels are so mean. Moslems, according to Moslems, are a privileged class. They deserve respect, admiration, and even submission from non-Moslems even though they have never earned it. We infidel jackal vipers are supposed to simply give up without a fight, surrender to the obvious superiority and moral supremacy of Islam, and stop our pointless sniveling. Why, hell! We ought to be blowing up our own buildings with ourselves inside!
The fact is--to the dismay of the Moslem cry-babies--that Moslems kill, torture, subjugate, murder, rape, invade, swindle, abuse, and humiliate more Moslems than all the infidels combined. Moslems don’t need Western infidels to humiliate and slaughter them; they have plenty of their own who do a superb job of it. The greatest problems Moslems face worldwide are other Moslems.
The radical Moslems are crazy. They can’t understand the simple concept of responsibility. But, how can they? To them, all things happen “God willing”. God is responsible for everything. That means that ordinary people can’t be responsible for their own behavior. Therefore, radical Moslems who have started a suicidal war against all non-Moslems--a war in which they are technologically, economically, numerically, and morally out-classed--cannot be responsible for the incredible suffering and death that must necessarily befall other Moslems as a result.
The radical Moslems are attempting to Nazify the Moslem world the same way Hitler Nazified Germany. The radical Moslems have substituted religion for race, but the argument is the same: The Moslems (German people) are under attack by infidels (racially impure people). Join the radical Moslems (Nazi Party) because we are your only hope against your enemies. And, above all, never mind the facts! The accusation alone is sufficient evidence to warrant conviction. If we say the infidels (Jews, Gypsies, and Slavs) are you enemies, then they are your enemies.
Using the Nazi strategies of excusing Moslems for their own failings by vilifying their enemies, the radical Moslems will gain adherents faster than the civilized world can arrest or kill them. They will cause unnecessary death and havoc. They will lose.
Al Qaeda is the most notorious of the groups. There are others. Their utterly and obviously insane goals (Moslems themselves will never support a worldwide caliphate to rule them) confound reason. But, that’s the point. These clowns are suicidal, homicidal, and completely out of touch with reality. They won’t listen to anyone, not even other Moslems. They cannot be managed, and they cannot be contained.
They have created in their own minds an irrefutable suspicion of non-Moslems. They do not trust the facts. They do not trust their own observations. They trust only their radical dogma. It puts them into a state of grace. They can accuse their enemies of all manner of atrocities, and when they themselves commit the same atrocities and worse, they are automatically excused by virtue of their dogma.
They cannot live in the real world any longer. They have burned all their bridges. Like Hitler, there is only one path left for them: Victory or death. Either we will defeat them, or they will slaughter us by the millions. There is no third way. They will make the Holocaust look like a Sunday picnic.
Stay strong, America. This is going to be a long, bloody, horrible war. Take it from me; when it comes time to kill your enemies, ‘tis far better to give than to receive. Vote Republican in 2004.
Guy L. Evans
Aurora, Colorado
Tuesday, June 08, 2004
The Narcissistic Family: The Answers You’ve Been Waiting For
Book review © 2004, by Guy L. Evans
BUY THIS BOOK AND READ IT AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.
The Narcissistic Family: Diagnosis and Treatment
Dr. Stephanie Donaldson-Pressman
Dr. Robert M. Pressman
© 1994 and 1997, by Jossey-Bass Inc., Publishers
http://www.josseybass.com
Do you or anyone you know display many of these traits?
Excessively sensitive to negative feed back.
Controlling, feels a need to control, and distrusts people he cannot control.
Fear of not being liked or fear of disapproval.
Impulsive and self-indulgent.
Difficulty communicating his feelings or inability to communicate his feelings.
Has difficulty saying “no” or is unable to say “no”.
Constantly trying to anticipate other people’s needs and wants.
Is convinced that no one understands him.
Is often either submissive or stubborn.
A sense of gloom, pervasive unhappiness, and a sense that failure is inevitable.
Easily intimidated, obsesses over incidents that pose a minor threat.
Obsesses over doing the right thing.
Often obsesses about “getting even”.
Is given to rebellious behavior.
Is quick to anger, and occasional outbursts of uncontrollable rage.
Thinks his feelings don’t matter, are not important, or will only make things worse.
All of these thoughts and behaviors are discussed in:
The Narcissistic Family: Diagnosis and Treatment
Dr. Stephanie Donaldson-Pressman
Dr. Robert M. Pressman
© 1994 and 1997, by Jossey-Bass Inc., Publishers
http://www.josseybass.com
BUY THIS BOOK AND READ IT AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.
You cannot afford to put this off.
Also, buy a notebook and a pen. You will want to take notes.
A few words about the book:
As a writer, I think that it is poorly written. There are sections you will have to read more than once to understand what the authors are talking about. However, you may find the easygoing style enjoyable.
It is written for professional therapists. The good news is that people who are not therapists can easily understand the ideas in this book. The language is common English, not psychobabble or professional jargon. It is very readable.
You won’t be able to read this book like a novel. I had to stop often to think about what the authors were saying, and to consider how this resembled my life and the lives of many people I know.
It’s a tad expensive compared to other books. I wish the price were lower. However, think of it as money well spent. If price is a problem, consider that the price of food is also a problem, but you’re not going to starve because the price of food is too high. Take a deep breath; spend the money. You’ll be delighted you did.
In spite of a few problems, the information and ideas the authors talk about are profound, enlightening, and liberating. They will help you understand yourself and the troublesome people in your life.
I discovered this book after researching the subject of narcissism, what it is and what to do about it. I am certain that most people are not evil, crazy, or dishonest, and that dismissing people this way is wrong. I can believe that they are trying to protect themselves the only way they know how. Some people have good coping skills, and some people do not.
In order to understand why some people are angry, bitter, gloomy, selfish, and paranoid, I had to understand myself, first (to some degree, being all of these). The Narcissistic Family: Diagnosis and Treatment describes me perfectly. I have 28 pages of typed notes on this book, and a similar number of pages of analysis of important points. Within the notes, I have about two dozen notes that say, “Me”, or “the story of my life”. The authors clearly understand people like me, and they clearly understand people who give you trouble.
Caution and disclaimer: The Narcissistic Family: Diagnosis and Treatment is not a substitute for professional counseling. If you feel that you need help, seek professional treatment.
BUY THIS BOOK AND READ IT AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.
The definition of a narcissistic family is: A family in which the children are recruited to fulfill the needs of the parents. The responsibility for needs fulfillment shifts from the parents to the children.
The development of the child of a narcissistic family is based on not having any one to turn to for understanding and comfort. Whereas the family is supposed to be the foundation of trust, love, understanding, and safety, the narcissistic family becomes a place of hurt feelings, betrayal, rejection, unreasonable or impossible demands, and unlearned trust. To survive in this environment, the child of the narcissistic family develops specific skills to protect himself from further injury, and to control the situation. He learns survival skills that protect him in childhood, but make his life miserable in adulthood.
I hope this brief explanation gives you a feeling for the depth of understanding the authors possess on this subject. Believe me, they understand.
Do not put this off another day. Buy The Narcissistic Family: Diagnosis and Treatment today and start reading it right away.
Guy L. Evans
Aurora, Colorado
Note to friends and family,
If you cannot afford this book, contact me and I will see what I can do to assist you. I mean it. This book is too important to pass up.
Book review © 2004, by Guy L. Evans
BUY THIS BOOK AND READ IT AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.
The Narcissistic Family: Diagnosis and Treatment
Dr. Stephanie Donaldson-Pressman
Dr. Robert M. Pressman
© 1994 and 1997, by Jossey-Bass Inc., Publishers
http://www.josseybass.com
Do you or anyone you know display many of these traits?
Excessively sensitive to negative feed back.
Controlling, feels a need to control, and distrusts people he cannot control.
Fear of not being liked or fear of disapproval.
Impulsive and self-indulgent.
Difficulty communicating his feelings or inability to communicate his feelings.
Has difficulty saying “no” or is unable to say “no”.
Constantly trying to anticipate other people’s needs and wants.
Is convinced that no one understands him.
Is often either submissive or stubborn.
A sense of gloom, pervasive unhappiness, and a sense that failure is inevitable.
Easily intimidated, obsesses over incidents that pose a minor threat.
Obsesses over doing the right thing.
Often obsesses about “getting even”.
Is given to rebellious behavior.
Is quick to anger, and occasional outbursts of uncontrollable rage.
Thinks his feelings don’t matter, are not important, or will only make things worse.
All of these thoughts and behaviors are discussed in:
The Narcissistic Family: Diagnosis and Treatment
Dr. Stephanie Donaldson-Pressman
Dr. Robert M. Pressman
© 1994 and 1997, by Jossey-Bass Inc., Publishers
http://www.josseybass.com
BUY THIS BOOK AND READ IT AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.
You cannot afford to put this off.
Also, buy a notebook and a pen. You will want to take notes.
A few words about the book:
As a writer, I think that it is poorly written. There are sections you will have to read more than once to understand what the authors are talking about. However, you may find the easygoing style enjoyable.
It is written for professional therapists. The good news is that people who are not therapists can easily understand the ideas in this book. The language is common English, not psychobabble or professional jargon. It is very readable.
You won’t be able to read this book like a novel. I had to stop often to think about what the authors were saying, and to consider how this resembled my life and the lives of many people I know.
It’s a tad expensive compared to other books. I wish the price were lower. However, think of it as money well spent. If price is a problem, consider that the price of food is also a problem, but you’re not going to starve because the price of food is too high. Take a deep breath; spend the money. You’ll be delighted you did.
In spite of a few problems, the information and ideas the authors talk about are profound, enlightening, and liberating. They will help you understand yourself and the troublesome people in your life.
I discovered this book after researching the subject of narcissism, what it is and what to do about it. I am certain that most people are not evil, crazy, or dishonest, and that dismissing people this way is wrong. I can believe that they are trying to protect themselves the only way they know how. Some people have good coping skills, and some people do not.
In order to understand why some people are angry, bitter, gloomy, selfish, and paranoid, I had to understand myself, first (to some degree, being all of these). The Narcissistic Family: Diagnosis and Treatment describes me perfectly. I have 28 pages of typed notes on this book, and a similar number of pages of analysis of important points. Within the notes, I have about two dozen notes that say, “Me”, or “the story of my life”. The authors clearly understand people like me, and they clearly understand people who give you trouble.
Caution and disclaimer: The Narcissistic Family: Diagnosis and Treatment is not a substitute for professional counseling. If you feel that you need help, seek professional treatment.
BUY THIS BOOK AND READ IT AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.
The definition of a narcissistic family is: A family in which the children are recruited to fulfill the needs of the parents. The responsibility for needs fulfillment shifts from the parents to the children.
The development of the child of a narcissistic family is based on not having any one to turn to for understanding and comfort. Whereas the family is supposed to be the foundation of trust, love, understanding, and safety, the narcissistic family becomes a place of hurt feelings, betrayal, rejection, unreasonable or impossible demands, and unlearned trust. To survive in this environment, the child of the narcissistic family develops specific skills to protect himself from further injury, and to control the situation. He learns survival skills that protect him in childhood, but make his life miserable in adulthood.
I hope this brief explanation gives you a feeling for the depth of understanding the authors possess on this subject. Believe me, they understand.
Do not put this off another day. Buy The Narcissistic Family: Diagnosis and Treatment today and start reading it right away.
Guy L. Evans
Aurora, Colorado
Note to friends and family,
If you cannot afford this book, contact me and I will see what I can do to assist you. I mean it. This book is too important to pass up.
Monday, June 07, 2004
Ronald Reagan
Opinion © 2004, by Guy L. Evans
In 1980, on the campaign trail, Ronald Reagan told this joke:
How do you tell a Polack at a cockfight?
He’s the one with the duck.
How do you tell an Italian at a cockfight?
He bets on the duck.
How do know if the Mafia is there?
The duck wins.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dear President Reagan,
Thank you for defeating the Soviet Union.
Thank you for stopping runaway inflation.
Thank you for supply side economics.
Thank you for impeding the welfare State.
Thank you for loving America.
Thank you for being there when we needed you most.
Thank you for being right.
Thank you for changing the world for all time.
And most of all, thank you for teaching me.
Sincerely,
Guy L. Evans
Aurora, Colorado
Opinion © 2004, by Guy L. Evans
In 1980, on the campaign trail, Ronald Reagan told this joke:
How do you tell a Polack at a cockfight?
He’s the one with the duck.
How do you tell an Italian at a cockfight?
He bets on the duck.
How do know if the Mafia is there?
The duck wins.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dear President Reagan,
Thank you for defeating the Soviet Union.
Thank you for stopping runaway inflation.
Thank you for supply side economics.
Thank you for impeding the welfare State.
Thank you for loving America.
Thank you for being there when we needed you most.
Thank you for being right.
Thank you for changing the world for all time.
And most of all, thank you for teaching me.
Sincerely,
Guy L. Evans
Aurora, Colorado
Friday, June 04, 2004
Historicism
Opinion © 2004, by Guy L. Evans
Historicism means that each epoch can only be understood by the people who lived in that epoch, that literature, philosophy, religion, and science do not contain timeless arguments, that past generations have nothing to say to future generations, and that all ideas having reached a certain longevity have no validity.
Historicism must necessarily presuppose that historicism and all the ideas that emanate from it will become invalid after a certain number of years. The obvious question arises that if, for example, the idea of individual liberty was valid in one epoch, why is it not valid in another? Also, on what basis is any idea determined to be valid in any epoch? On what basis is historicism determined to be valid in this epoch or in any other?
Historicism defeats itself by its very definition. Historicism cannot verify its own validity in this or any other epoch. Historicism poses a serious threat to us today because it dismisses the idea of individual liberty on which our nation is founded as being quaint but incomprehensible, seeking to substitute the notion of rights (actually, privileges) dispensed by government.
The importance of this information is that many modern teachers, journalists, and politicians are firmly in the historicist camp. They dismiss Aristotle, Jefferson, and Lincoln because they lived in different epochs from our own. They believe that history is of no value to us, and that we must continually invent new ideas to suit our own times.
The idea that history is of no value to us and that ideas expressed by people long dead are incomprehensible defies both common sense and scientific analysis. Historicism is itself an attempt to analyze and explain human behavior. It is the continuation of the ancient Greek idea of philosophy; the search for what is true. Historicism is an assertion that something is true, that ideas that are true can be discovered, and that not all ideas are delivered to mortal man by immortal deities.
Contained within this assertion is the idea of human free will. The understanding that any person can discover, or fail to discover, an idea based on both his capacity and motivation is contrary to the idea of determinism, which asserts that all things are the doing of immortal deities and that no person makes any decisions for himself. The idea of free will is ageless and has been debated in every epoch and by every culture where such debate was not prohibited.
Aristotle was right.* Jefferson was right. Lincoln was right. Historicists who dismiss the philosophers of past epochs are wrong. They deprive themselves and their students of the wealth of ideas upon which our civilization, science, technology, medicine, and even education are built.
What motivates such people? I have no idea. My advice to you is to study history, and study science and philosophy. Be on the lookout for historicists. And above all, try not to fall into their trap. Facts do not cease to be facts simply because they are old.
Guy L. Evans
Aurora, Colorado
* A fine example of this is that Aristotle determined that the Earth was a globe by observing the shadow that the Earth cast on the Moon during a lunar eclipse. You can do the same thing today. Every person in every epoch can make the same observation as long as there is an Earth, a Moon, a Sun, and at least one person alive to observe a lunar eclipse.
Opinion © 2004, by Guy L. Evans
Historicism means that each epoch can only be understood by the people who lived in that epoch, that literature, philosophy, religion, and science do not contain timeless arguments, that past generations have nothing to say to future generations, and that all ideas having reached a certain longevity have no validity.
Historicism must necessarily presuppose that historicism and all the ideas that emanate from it will become invalid after a certain number of years. The obvious question arises that if, for example, the idea of individual liberty was valid in one epoch, why is it not valid in another? Also, on what basis is any idea determined to be valid in any epoch? On what basis is historicism determined to be valid in this epoch or in any other?
Historicism defeats itself by its very definition. Historicism cannot verify its own validity in this or any other epoch. Historicism poses a serious threat to us today because it dismisses the idea of individual liberty on which our nation is founded as being quaint but incomprehensible, seeking to substitute the notion of rights (actually, privileges) dispensed by government.
The importance of this information is that many modern teachers, journalists, and politicians are firmly in the historicist camp. They dismiss Aristotle, Jefferson, and Lincoln because they lived in different epochs from our own. They believe that history is of no value to us, and that we must continually invent new ideas to suit our own times.
The idea that history is of no value to us and that ideas expressed by people long dead are incomprehensible defies both common sense and scientific analysis. Historicism is itself an attempt to analyze and explain human behavior. It is the continuation of the ancient Greek idea of philosophy; the search for what is true. Historicism is an assertion that something is true, that ideas that are true can be discovered, and that not all ideas are delivered to mortal man by immortal deities.
Contained within this assertion is the idea of human free will. The understanding that any person can discover, or fail to discover, an idea based on both his capacity and motivation is contrary to the idea of determinism, which asserts that all things are the doing of immortal deities and that no person makes any decisions for himself. The idea of free will is ageless and has been debated in every epoch and by every culture where such debate was not prohibited.
Aristotle was right.* Jefferson was right. Lincoln was right. Historicists who dismiss the philosophers of past epochs are wrong. They deprive themselves and their students of the wealth of ideas upon which our civilization, science, technology, medicine, and even education are built.
What motivates such people? I have no idea. My advice to you is to study history, and study science and philosophy. Be on the lookout for historicists. And above all, try not to fall into their trap. Facts do not cease to be facts simply because they are old.
Guy L. Evans
Aurora, Colorado
* A fine example of this is that Aristotle determined that the Earth was a globe by observing the shadow that the Earth cast on the Moon during a lunar eclipse. You can do the same thing today. Every person in every epoch can make the same observation as long as there is an Earth, a Moon, a Sun, and at least one person alive to observe a lunar eclipse.
Thursday, June 03, 2004
How to Tie a Windsor Knot
Instruction on good grooming © 2004, by Guy L. Evans
The proper method for tying a Windsor knot is:
Start with the narrow end on your right. Hold the wide end of the tie across the narrow end so that the wide end is now on your right. The wide end should be about one (1) foot longer than the narrow end. The wide end should cross the narrow end three (3) inches from the bottom of the narrow end. (At this point, you may discover that your tie is too short. This knot will not work with a tie that is too short.) Holding the wide end of the tie, follow these movements:
Left toward you to the center
Up through the center away from you
Right toward you
Cross under left then away from you
From in front of the knot, down through the center toward you
Right away from you
Cross over left toward you
From behind the knot, up through the center then away from you
Insert the wide end through the opening to finish tying the knot
Adjust the tie for comfort and appearance
You’re done and looking good!
These instructions are based on the wonderful information provided by Thomas Fink and Yong Mao of Cambridge University.
I have been told that if you practice this one hundred times, you’ll never forget it. Having practiced it more than one hundred times, and having repeatedly forgotten it, I now have these instructions stashed away in several places.
I feel uncomfortable when I see people on television who have sloppy, wimpy, crooked knots. I want to call them up and tell them to hire someone who can tie a proper tie.
The Windsor knot is slightly larger and thicker than more common knots. It works best with silk ties or ties made of light fabric. I prefer it because the knot has an even symmetry and a smooth appearance. Also, it doesn’t shift during the day, so you spend fewer valuable hours touching it. Properly tied, you won’t have to think about the Windsor knot for the rest of the day.
I like to think that this all goes to prove that the English are good for something. Happy grooming.
Guy L. Evans
Aurora, Colorado
Instruction on good grooming © 2004, by Guy L. Evans
The proper method for tying a Windsor knot is:
Start with the narrow end on your right. Hold the wide end of the tie across the narrow end so that the wide end is now on your right. The wide end should be about one (1) foot longer than the narrow end. The wide end should cross the narrow end three (3) inches from the bottom of the narrow end. (At this point, you may discover that your tie is too short. This knot will not work with a tie that is too short.) Holding the wide end of the tie, follow these movements:
Left toward you to the center
Up through the center away from you
Right toward you
Cross under left then away from you
From in front of the knot, down through the center toward you
Right away from you
Cross over left toward you
From behind the knot, up through the center then away from you
Insert the wide end through the opening to finish tying the knot
Adjust the tie for comfort and appearance
You’re done and looking good!
These instructions are based on the wonderful information provided by Thomas Fink and Yong Mao of Cambridge University.
I have been told that if you practice this one hundred times, you’ll never forget it. Having practiced it more than one hundred times, and having repeatedly forgotten it, I now have these instructions stashed away in several places.
I feel uncomfortable when I see people on television who have sloppy, wimpy, crooked knots. I want to call them up and tell them to hire someone who can tie a proper tie.
The Windsor knot is slightly larger and thicker than more common knots. It works best with silk ties or ties made of light fabric. I prefer it because the knot has an even symmetry and a smooth appearance. Also, it doesn’t shift during the day, so you spend fewer valuable hours touching it. Properly tied, you won’t have to think about the Windsor knot for the rest of the day.
I like to think that this all goes to prove that the English are good for something. Happy grooming.
Guy L. Evans
Aurora, Colorado
Wednesday, June 02, 2004
ACLU Suing Mathematics
Humor © 2004, by Guy L. Evans
The ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) is suing to have the plus sign (“+”) removed from all public school textbooks because they say that it resembles the Christian cross and is in violation of the separation of Church and State. The plus sign will be replaced with two dashes (“--”) because a negative of a negative is a positive.
The ACLU is also considering removing the asterisk (“*”) from all public school textbooks and replacing it with a crescent moon. However, they are holding off for now because they are afraid of what their mothers would say.
The letter “T” is under close scrutiny as well, especially the lower case “t”. An unnamed spokesman for the ACLU said that Christians were making too many people feel uncomfortable. “Fer Christ’s sake! How much of this Christianity stuff do we have to put up with?” A trap door immediately opened beneath him, and he has not been heard from since.
Guy L. Evans
Aurora, Colorado
Humor © 2004, by Guy L. Evans
The ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) is suing to have the plus sign (“+”) removed from all public school textbooks because they say that it resembles the Christian cross and is in violation of the separation of Church and State. The plus sign will be replaced with two dashes (“--”) because a negative of a negative is a positive.
The ACLU is also considering removing the asterisk (“*”) from all public school textbooks and replacing it with a crescent moon. However, they are holding off for now because they are afraid of what their mothers would say.
The letter “T” is under close scrutiny as well, especially the lower case “t”. An unnamed spokesman for the ACLU said that Christians were making too many people feel uncomfortable. “Fer Christ’s sake! How much of this Christianity stuff do we have to put up with?” A trap door immediately opened beneath him, and he has not been heard from since.
Guy L. Evans
Aurora, Colorado
