After a long self-imposed hiatus I decided it best to come back to public notice bringing forth the great wealth of knowledge & wisdom I possess to the masses. Thus, please find my first missive. CP
"Ten Conservative Principles". It is as good a summary of the conservative mind as can be found anywhere in so short a compass:
"First, the conservative believes that there exists an enduring moral order. That order is made for man, and man is made for it; human nature is a constant, and moral truths are permanent."
"Second, the conservative adheres to custom, convention, and continuity", not slavishly, for he recognizes room for improvement in all things human, but humbly, for he recognizes also that wisdom grows slowly through ages, and because he prefers the devil he knows to the devil he doesn't know.
"Third, conservatives believe in what may be called the principle of prescription ["that is, of things established by immemorial usage, so that the mind of man runneth not to the contrary"]. Conservatives sense that modern people are dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, able to see farther than their ancestors only because of the great stature of those who have preceded us in time."
"Fourth, conservatives are guided by their principle of prudence. Burke agrees with Plato that in the statesman, prudence is chief among virtues. Any public measure ought to be judged by its probable long-run consequences, not merely by temporary advantage or popularity" -- or kind intentions.
"Fifth, conservatives pay attention to the principle of variety. They feel affection for the proliferating intricacy of long-established social institutions and modes of life, as distinguished from the narrowing uniformity and deadening egalitarianism of radical systems.... The only true forms of equality are equality at the Last Judgment and equality before a just court of law; all other attempts at leveling must lead, at best, to social stagnation."
"Sixth, conservatives are chastened by their principle of imperfectibility.... To seek for utopia is to end in disaster.... All that we reasonably can expect is a tolerably ordered, just, and free society, in which some evils, maladjustments, and suffering will continue to lurk. By proper attention and prudent reform, we may preserve and improve this tolerable order.... The ideologues who promise the perfection of man and society have converted a great part of the twentieth-century world into a terrestrial hell."
"Seventh, conservatives are persuaded that freedom and property are closely linked. Separate property from private possession, and Leviathan becomes master of all."
"Eighth, conservatives uphold voluntary community, quite as they oppose involuntary collectivism.... In a genuine community, the decisions most directly affecting the lives of citizens are made locally and voluntarily. Some...are carried out by local political bodies, others by private associations: so long as they are kept local, and are marked by the general agreement of those affected, they constitute healthy community. But when these functions pass by default or usurpation to centralized authority, then community is in serious danger."
"Ninth, the conservative perceives the need for prudent restraints upon power and upon human passions.... A state in which an individual or a small group are able to dominate the wills of their fellows without check is a despotism, whether it is called monarchical or aristocratic or democratic."
"Tenth, the thinking conservative understands that permanence and change must be recognized and reconciled in a vigorous society.... The conservative knows that any healthy society is influenced by two forces, which Samuel Taylor Coleridge called its Permanence and its Progression.... He thinks that the liberal and the radical, blind to the just claims of Permanence, would endanger the heritage bequeathed to us, in an endeavor to hurry us into some dubious Terrestrial Paradise. The conservative, in short, favors reasoned and temperate progress; he is opposed to the cult of Progress, whose votaries believe that everything new necessarily is superior to everything old."
The Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal
]]>Never the Right Time
Dear Will…
How are you? How is your wife? How are your children? I can’t believe that we haven’t spoken in so long. I remember a time when I couldn’t bear to go an hour without hearing your voice. The lack of your touch would send me into an emotional spiral of despair. There was a time when I couldn’t exist without you.
We were young then, very young. We planned our futures together. There was to have been a beautiful wedding where you would wear a kilt and I would wear an immaculate white dress – a princess dress for your princess. We were so naïve then because you weren’t a man yet and I wasn’t a woman. Neither of us ready for the commitments were had promised, so we parted ways.
Later, I watched you struggle through relationships that you didn’t seem to want and I acted out my youthful indiscretions in the most harmful ways possible. You finally got away from HER but I was with HIM. The wrong time once again for two people that still cared. There was nothing more than a stolen night or two of intimacy to give solace to one another, nothing more.
My child came first and I left the man that was destroying my soul piece by piece. I had to protect my child and he gave me the courage to leave. That time we thought we had a shot but my battered psyche couldn’t handle a public relationship, so we met in silence. We met cloaked with deception. When your father died, it was the deception that destroyed us. We split because you hurt me and you hurt me so that I could leave you without you destroying me. I think you knew how damaged I was at the time. It was a good thing in retrospect.
Next came your surprise child and a wife. You wanted me at the wedding but I couldn’t go. I just couldn’t bring myself to look at you marrying another woman in a ceremony that was supposed to be ours. It was just too hard for me to handle. I think it hurt you that I wasn’t there but I hope you understood my reasons.
Now I protect my heart. I don’t give it away anymore because there isn’t much left of me to give. I have to keep it safe because it has been broken time and time again. Maybe one day, there will a chance for us, but I won’t wish for it. A chance for us means your family would have to be destroyed and they don’t deserve that. However, if there is a chance, I would gladly take it. I gave my heart to you long ago so that means that if you wanted to try, I wouldn’t have to break down any of the protective barriers I built up around me.
I am not trying for love anymore. I am simply working to be happy. Nothing more, nothing less.
Kate
]]>Dear sirs and madams:
I hope this letter finds you safe, fat and lazy after your weekend of work. What the hell are you people thinking??? You gave random tax hikes without balancing the damned budget? WTF??? Dems and Republicans voted for this stupid little stop gap extension,. I would have almost preferred the shutdown las a couple of days and you DID YOUR JOBS and produced a budget!!!!
Certainly, a new tax was in order. The small business tax was eliminated a year ago and you never produced a fair business tax to replace it. I understand tha the tax method of the SBT was unfair - but you were supposed to FIX IT not just eliminate it. You eliminated 20-30% of the operating budget when you did that!
Well I hope you sleep well today. Your asses had better be back to work soon and we had better see a BUDGET very soon.
Kate.
]]>The human race continues to frantically charge towards unprecedented stupidity as evidenced by the AP news story below. You know something? With some of the totally stupid crap we're doing in this world maybe "Matthew" should be awarded "person status"
God knows he can't be any more ignorant than the imbeciles trying to pull off this little ploy....
Court won't declare chimp a person
By WILLIAM J. KOLE, Associated Press WriterThu Sep 27, 4:12 PM ET
He's now got a human name — Matthew Hiasl Pan — but he's having trouble getting his day in court. Animal rights activists campaigning to get Pan, a 26-year-old chimpanzee, legally declared a person vowed Thursday to take their challenge to Austria's Supreme Court after a lower court threw out their latest appeal.
A provincial judge in the city of Wiener Neustadt dismissed the case earlier this week, ruling that the Vienna-based Association Against Animal Factories had no legal standing to argue on the chimp's behalf.
The association, which worries the shelter caring for the chimp might close, has been pressing to get Pan declared a "person" so a guardian can be appointed to look out for his interests and provide him with a home.
Group president Martin Balluch insists that Pan is "a being with interests" and accuses the Austrian judicial system of monkeying around.
"It is astounding how all the courts try to evade the question of personhood of a chimp as much as they can," Balluch said.
A hearing date for the Supreme Court appeal was not immediately set.
The legal tussle began in February, when the animal shelter where Pan and another chimp, Rosi, have lived for 25 years filed for bankruptcy protection.
Activists want to ensure the apes don't wind up homeless if the shelter closes. Both were captured as babies in Sierra Leone in 1982 and smuggled in a crate to Austria for use in pharmaceutical experiments. Customs officers intercepted the shipment and turned the chimps over to the shelter.
Their upkeep costs about euro4,800 (US$6,800) a month. Donors have offered to help, but there's a catch: Under Austrian law, only a person can receive personal gifts.
Organizers could set up a foundation to collect cash for Pan, whose life expectancy in captivity is about 60 years. But they contend that only personhood will give him the basic rights he needs to ensure he isn't sold to someone outside Austria, where he's now protected by strict animal cruelty laws.
In April, a district court judge rejected a British woman's petition to be declared Pan's legal guardian. That court ruled that the chimp was neither mentally impaired nor in danger, the grounds required for an individual to be appointed a guardian.
In dismissing the Association Against Animal Factories' appeal this week, the provincial court said only a guardian could appeal. That doesn't apply in this case, the group contends, since Pan hasn't gained a guardian.
There is legal precedence in Austria for close friends to represent people who have no immediate family, "so he should be represented by his closest friends, as is the case," said Eberhart Theuer, the group's legal adviser.
"On these grounds we have appealed this decision to the Supreme Court in Vienna," he said.
Until this summer, the chimp was known simply as Hiasl. However, in the latest court documents, he was identified with a little more dignity — if not humanity — as Matthew Hiasl Pan, with the last name derived from "chimpanzee."
The Association Against Animal Factories points out that it's not trying to get Pan declared a human, but rather a person, which would give him some kind of legal status.
Otherwise, he is legally a thing. And with the genetic makeup of chimpanzees and humans so strikingly similar, it contends, that just can't be.
"The question is: Are chimps things without interests, or persons with interests?" Balluch said.
"A large section of the public does see chimps as beings with interests," he said. "We are looking forward to hear what the high court has to say on this fundamental question."
I don't know where all of you are on the political spectrum. I tend to be a member of the Christian Right in politics. And get this my slanted left yet respectful KatieKat invited me. So here I am even I am not really a public cathartic kind of guy.
UPDATE: Evidently when you join a group the group posting goes to your blog. Thanks KatieKat!
:-0
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