Independence Day

Independence Day

We hold these truths to be self-evident,

that all men are created equal,

that they are endowed by their Creator 

with certain unalienable Rights,

that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

That, to secure these rights,

Governments are instituted among Men,

deriving their just Powers

from the consent of the governed.

That, whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such Principles and organizing its Powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Declaration of Independence 

quote to ponder...

empire of lies...

it is truly amazing that we have gotten to this place....

truth, honor, integrity, accountability, responsibility - have all but disappeared in our modern, 'advanced' society..

the veil that separated darkness from the light has been torn asunder as evil has become good and good become evil...

truth is not even relative anymore....for "what is truth" as Pilate questioned....

too many people don't even want to hear the truth - they would rather live unchallenged and comfortable in the lies of the world...

and we have become the empire of lies....and for this we will ultimately pay a steep and painful price. 

the American dream is not.....

the decay of our language...

oh that we would long for and seek to develop and employ a rich and vivid vocabulary in our daily endeavors....

yet, we complacently settle for the common, limited and over-used generic vernacular of our day...

The Decay of our Language is Happening

Something is clearly rotten in the state of language.

Joseph Pearce | May 20, 2016

"Political chaos is connected with the decay of language."  

-George Orwell

In an article entitled “Valuing Vocabulary,” published Friday (May 20), Cherie Harder, President of the Trinity Forum, connects the state of modern politics, especially the current presidential election campaign, with lessons to be learned from George Orwell’s novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four. 

In Orwell’s ominously prophetic novel, the all-powerful government limits the ability of the people to think for themselves through the debasing and dumbing-down of the language. The institution by Big Brother of a politically “correct” vocabulary, known as Newspeak, flattens and constricts the language so that words which express moral, aesthetic or analytical distinctions are removed from the lexicon, rendering precise or nuanced discussion of moral or ethical issues effectively impossible.

“Newspeak,” writes Harder, “was a means of not only controlling the public conversation, but also private thought.” 

Orwell is right and Harder is to be praised for reminding us of the fact. The effective prohibition on certain politically “incorrect” words, causing them to fall out of usage so that new generations will have no knowledge of them, will ultimately render any dissident thought unthinkable (quite literally).

We think with words and therefore the removal of words removes our ability to think about the things that they signify. The less that we are masters of a rich and vivid vocabulary the easier will we be mastered by the thought police of political correctness. Take, for example, the effective removal of words such as “sin” or “virtue” from political debate or polite conversation. Without such words it becomes increasingly difficult to discuss issues of morality in any objective sense. If the thought police are successful, future generations will not even know these words and will, therefore, not even be able to think about issues of morality in any objective sense. Such a scenario, should it come to pass, would be the triumph of today’s Big Brother: relativism.   

Harder laments that “our public vocabulary is changing—not only dwindling, but also shifting in focus and content.” She points to several studies which show how the spoken vocabulary levels of presidential candidates in the current election campaign was “hovering around a middle school level for most candidates … with a leading presidential candidate consistently speaking at a third- or fourth-grade level.”

More striking than the shrinkage of vocabulary is the change in word use itself. Whereas terms of abuse against one’s opponents had increased markedly, along with the use of the personal pronoun, the focus on real issues has been lost. In the current campaign, as distinct from previous campaigns, there was a conspicuous absence of speeches focusing on compassion, children, education, hope, growth, tax reform and budget-balancing. Harder suggests, quite correctly, that “the silence on these subjects is telling.” Needless to say, the political rhetoric of the campaign has also been devoid of any discussion of the necessity of virtue and, of course, any suggestion that sin might be an issue is strictly taboo.

Referring to David Brooks’ book, The Road to Character, Harder quotes Brooks’ research into the way “public language has become demoralized.” ​Over the past few decades there has been a sharp rise in the usage of individualist words like “self” and “personalized” and a sharp decline in words like “community,” “share,” “united,” and “common good.” The language of morality and character building is also in decline, with the usage of words like “character,” “conscience” and “virtue” all declining over the course of the twentieth century. Usage of the word “bravery” has declined by 66 percent over the course of the past century. “Humbleness” is down 52 percent and “kindness” is down 56 percent. 

Something is clearly rotten in the state of language. 

One completely practical way that we can stop the rot and fight back against the thought police of narcissism is to encourage the reading of great works of literature. In these treasure troves we not only rediscover the virtue that our self-deifying culture has lost but also the freedom of a rich vocabulary with which to liberate ourselves from the slave language of Newspeak.     

Truth.....

this quotation (expletive removed) was used in the movie 'The Big Short' and I think it truly sums up where we stand as a country/society....

we don't even know what truth is anymore - and we don't seem to care...

19 Signs....

somber stuff to ponder....

I am not sure that we will be able to work our way out of the enormous hole that has been dug...

And our 'leaders' show NO signs of even attempting to stop the digging.....they seem to be looking for even BIGGER shovels.....

19 Signs That American Families Are Being Economically Destroyed

Via Michael Snyder's Economic Collapse blog,

The systematic destruction of the American way of life is happening all around us, and yet most people have no idea what is happening. 

Once upon a time in America, if you were responsible and hard working you could get a good paying job that could support a middle class lifestyle for an entire family even if you only had a high school education.  Things weren’t perfect, but generally almost everyone in the entire country was able to take care of themselves without government assistance. 

We worked hard, we played hard, and our seemingly boundless prosperity was the envy of the entire planet.  But over the past several decades things have completely changed.

We consumed far more wealth than we produced, we shipped millions of good paying jobs overseas, we piled up the biggest mountain of debt in the history of the world, and we kept electing politicians that had absolutely no concern for the long-term future of this nation whatsoever.  So now good jobs are in very short supply, we are drowning in an ocean of red ink, the middle class is rapidly shrinking and dependence on the government is at an all-time high. 

Even as we stand at the precipice of the next great economic crisis, we continue to make the same mistakes.  In the end, all of us are going to pay a very great price for decades of incredibly foolish decisions.  Of course a tremendous amount of damage has already been done.  The numbers that I am about to share with you are staggering.  The following are 19 signs that American families are being economically destroyed…

#1 The poorest 40 percent of all Americans now spend more than 50 percent of their incomes just on food and housing.

#2 For those Americans that don’t own a home, 50 percent of them spend more than a third of their incomes just on rent.

#3 The price of school lunches has risen to the 3 dollar mark at many public schools across the nation.

#4 McDonald’s “Dollar Menu & More” now includes items that cost as much as 5 dollars.

#5 The price of ground beef has doubled since 2009.

#6 In 1986, child care expenses for families with employed mothers used up 6.3 percent of all income.  Today, that figure is up to 7.2 percent.

#7 Incomes fell for the bottom 80 percent of all income earners in the United States during the 12 months leading up to June 2014.

#8 At this point, more than 50 percent of all American workers bring home less than $30,000 a year in wages.

#9 After adjusting for inflation, median household income has fallen by nearly $5,000 since 2007.

#10 According to the New York Times, the “typical American household” is now worth 36 percent less than it was worth a decade ago.

#11 47 percent of all Americans do not put a single penny out of their paychecks into savings.

#12 One survey found that 62 percent of all Americans are currently living paycheck to paycheck.

#13 According to the U.S. Department of Education, 33 percent of all Americans with student loans are currently behind on their student loan debt repayments.

#14 According to one recent report, 43 million Americans currently have unpaid medical debt on their credit reports.

#15 The rate of homeownership in the U.S. has been declining for seven years in a row, and it is now the lowest that it has been in 20 years.

#16 For each of the past six years, more businesses have closed in the United States than have opened.  Prior to 2008, this had never happened before in all of U.S. history.

#17 According to the Census Bureau, 65 percent of all children in the United States are living in a home that receives some form of aid from the federal government.

#18 If you have no debt at all, and you also have 10 dollars in your wallet, that you are wealthier than 25 percent of all Americans.

#19 On top of everything else, the average American must work from January 1st to April 24th just to pay all federal, state and local taxes.

All of us know people that once were doing quite well but that are now just struggling to get by from month to month.

Perhaps this has happened to you.

If you have ever been in that position, you probably remember what it feels like to have people look down on you.  Unfortunately, in our society the value that we place on individuals has a tremendous amount to do with how much money they have.

So if you don’t have much money, there are a lot of people out there that will treat you like dirt.  The following excerpt comes from a Washington Post article entitled “The poor are treated like criminals everywhere, even at the grocery store“…

Want to see a look of pure hatred? Pull out an EBT card at the grocery store.

Now that my kids are grown and gone, my Social Security check is enough to keep me from qualifying for government food benefits. But I remember well when we did qualify for a monthly EBT deposit, a whopping $22 — and that was before Congress cut SNAP benefits in November 2013. Like 70 percent of people receiving SNAP benefits, I couldn’t feed my family on that amount. But I remember the comments from middle-class people, the assumptions about me and my disability and what the poor should and shouldn’t be spending money on.

Have you ever seen this?

Have you ever experienced this yourself?

These days, most people on food stamps are not in that situation because they want to be.  Rather, they are victims of our long-term economic collapse.

And this is just the beginning.  When the next major economic crisis strikes, the suffering in this country is going to go to unprecedented levels.

As we enter that time, we are going to need a whole lot more love and compassion than we are exhibiting right now.

As a nation, we have made decades of incredibly bad decisions.  As a result, we are experiencing bad consequences which are going to become increasingly more severe.

The numbers that I just shared with you are not good.  But over the next several years they are going to get a whole lot worse.

Everything that can be shaken will be shaken, and life in America is about to change in a major way.