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#MAGA

Principles

January 29, 2017 by Pen Leave a Comment

“Take a good hard look at people’s ruling principle, especially at the wise, what they run away from and what they seek out.”
—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

I believe that the human species is small and unimportant on a universal scale, but that doesn’t keep me from being endlessly fascinated by the activity on this little planet. I recently finished a really great book, Sapiens, by Yuval Noah Harari. In it, he says, “Culture tends to argue that it forbids only that which is unnatural. Whatever is possible is by definition also natural. A truly unnatural behavior, one that goes against the laws of nature, simply cannot exist, so it would need no prohibition.” We make up so many of our rules based solely on what we imagine the world to be like rather than on what the world truly is. In this age of nearly instantaneous transmission of information, many of us imagine the world is more violent than it has even been in our past. And this would be totally wrong.

That is not to discount violence, but only to put it through the filter of history, which gives everything more context. We are not living in the most violent time, rather we are living in relative peace. The only reason you don’t believe that is because we are also living in an age when many of us have near global sight. We are overexposed to the violence that exists in the now, and this leaves us with the false idea that we are living in the most violent era in history, a completely false reality.

In looking at the data, we can say that several things are true:

  1. The rate of violence declines as the rate of literacy increases. Access to knowledge, therefore, make people less violent.
  2. Democratically elected governments are less likely to start wars. There are more and more democracies with each passing decade.
  3. We spend more energy worrying about certain topics than we should. If you live in the United States, your lifetime risk of being killed in a car accident should worry you much more than the odds that you will become the victim of a terrorist attack.

Which brings us back around to ruling principles and wisdom. Are Trump and Pence operating under wise principles? I don’t think that either man is actually the one in charge of policy for the new and improved #MAGAUSA. The person actually pulling the strings is a man named Steve Bannon.

Bannon has unprecedented influence over the new ruling principles of the National Security Council, and that should probably worry you.

Here are a few Bannon quotes:

I’m a Leninist … Lenin wanted to destroy the state, and that’s my goal too. I want to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today’s establishment.

The solution to online ‘harassment’ is simple: women should log off.

Would you rather your child had feminism or cancer?

Are there racist people involved in the alt-right? Absolutely.

The progressive narrative and that is all about victimhood. They’re either a victim of race. They’re victim of their sexual preference. They’re a victim of gender. All about victimhood and the United States is the great oppressor, not the great liberator.

What if the people getting shot by the cops did things to deserve it? There are, after all, in this world, some people who are naturally aggressive and violent.

This country is in a crisis. And if you’re fighting to save this country, if you’re fighting to take this country back, it’s not going to be sunshine and patriots. It’s going to be people who want to fight.

I’m ready to fight Steve. Just not for the values and principles you espouse. You’re worried about all the wrong things, and your worldview is abhorrent. I want to fight for a world where everyone gets a place at the table, and that’s not what you believe in as far as I can tell. I want the levels of violence to keep going down, and that’s not going to happen with you pulling the strings.

Filed Under: Essays, Stoicism Tagged With: #MAGA, leadership, new world order, Pence, politics, principles, Steve Bannon, stoicism, trump

Make America great again

November 9, 2016 by Pen Leave a Comment

The world isn’t ending no matter how you voted. Trump is going to be the next President. Barring acts of god or other forces beyond our collective control.

#MAGA

By the way, America was never great.

It has had moments of self-awareness, and little flashes of excellence, but America can’t be made great again, because it never has been great.

Pick any moment in the history of this country, from the start up until the present, and you will find stains on the pages.

Think we were great because of the founders? Half of them were slave owners. Black people were worth 3/5ths of a white person during that time and they could be bought and sold. Not great. The founders took the land they built this country on from people who already lived on it. We call them native Americans today, and early Americans abuse the ancestors of today’s native Americans horribly.

Maybe you think we were great when we saved Europe from Hitler during World War II. You’d be wrong, because while we were busy doing that admittedly righteous thing, we were still segregated at home. We built concentration camps for Japanese-Americans because of paranoia. Not so great.

But America defeated communism you say? That’s what makes us great! Not so much. One could argue that communism isn’t such a bad concept, but I won’t go there. I’ll just remind you that   we fought a lot of dirty wars to do what we did to bring down the Berlin wall in the late 80’s. Take a moment to research how many dirty wars the CIA has funded only to cast aside the fighters it recruited for political convenience. Google the Hmong, or Iran Contra, or just “the worst things the CIA has done.” American government has a long history of installing and funding atrocious, despotic governments and making friends with bad people. Remember Saddam Hussein? He was once a great friend to America. Before he became a great enemy to our great country that has never really been great for any sustained period of time.

Maybe you think America was great more recently. Let’s say you think it was great after slavery and segregation and all the secretly funded dirty wars. We finally made some progress on human rights and immediately started massive spying programs that break our laws. The NSA collects data on all Americans and possibly all the world for all I know. I know for certain that our so-called great nation is spying on world leaders and governments while keeping many secrets of its own from us. That doesn’t seem so great to me.

America was never great. It only has the potential to be great in the future. That’s the real challenge of a Trump presidency. Admitting that the starting point of his entire campaign is a lie. I don’t think he’s up to the challenge. I’ll be watching and commenting the whole way, as he attempts to make America something is has never been. Again.

Next time someone tells you we’re going to make America great again, I hope you’ll call them on it. We can make America great for the first time, but we need to start from an honest place to do so.

Filed Under: Essays, Freewrite Tagged With: #MAGA, 2016 election, America, america never great, cold truth, essay, honesty, slavery, trump, we are watching

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