Tagged: relationships

In Idea Form, Even As an Ideal, Communism is Not Good

This post is in response to “reality.” The sober reality being communism and Islam just won’t go away. On some level, by my thinking, either (a) people do not want them to go away or (b) people’s actions and efforts aren’t aligned with their desires. Put another way (b) could be stated as people who desire communism and Islam to go away aren’t actually fighting communism and Islam. It’s like there is some kind of terrific straw man that is terribly bruised, bloodied and down for the count after all the attacks, but, whatever is lying there lifeless, it ain’t communism and it ain’t Islam.

With Islam, the faithful reader knows my idea. To recap, Christian apologetics or Christians who desire to prove “there is a god” are, in fact, feeding Islam—because this “god exists” is Mooohamed’s coranic argument. In their well-intentioned act, they are not helping spread Christianity. So I say, “Good Christian Men, Stop! Stop defending ‘god’ and instead stick to the Gospel. Hone your speaking skills to mirror the NT writers as much as possible. Or be quiet. But either way, stop arguing for Mooohamed!”

My new realization or tactic regarding communism, the fatal flaw I see that leads to (b) above, is when we say, “Sure, it’s good in idea-” Stop! Stop right there! The mistake has appeared. It is early. No need to continue to “but it doesn’t work in practice.”

By giving the “idea” of communism the appellation “good”, all things considered, I think we are actually and unwittingly feeding the beast, as it were. If communism (or any idea) is really a good idea, then, by all means, let’s make it a reality, right? But communism is not a good idea. I mean this as literally as it can be meant. Communism is not a good idea.

Practice saying it with me.

“Communism is not a good idea.”

Good.

Now spend a moment to develop whatever you’re comfortable with using to defend our declaration, which need be our response to the subsequent, “You don’t think feeding the hungry and clothing the naked is a good idea?”

My own response will be, “Now we’re talking! See, I always imagined communists like yourself couldn’t make their ideas concrete. Like, I thought you guys were robots with great deficiencies, including the inability to get specific. As odd as it sounds, you just made my day. I am very happy to learn I was wrong. So communists are interested in feeding the hungry and clothing the naked? I don’t see why we can’t do it together right now. Let’s go! How much food, clothes, and money do we have between us?”

This illustrates the communist lacks integrity (is not good), because they don’t want to actually feed and clothe. (And if, on some off chance they are willing to pound the pavement, there literally are no negatives apart from daily risks which accompany life on earth.)

I concede that it is entirely possible that you or I will run into a more academically-minded communist. Upon hearing us declare or correct, “Communism is not a good idea,” they might not go concrete and instead they might stay idealogical and say, “You think planning is wrong?”

To them my response is, “By no means, sir! And what’s more, I am very glad to learn you and I agree that planning is a core, if not the core, tenant of communism. What a day this has turned out to be. There is no time to waste. Let’s get down to business. I say first up is, it should be small and reasonable, where to go for lunch. Oh, I should have asked, have you eaten? I am starving. What’ll it be. My favorite is Little Caesar’s. Of course they don’t have seating, but we can find some other place to sit.”

This illustrates the communist is selfish (is not good), because they will not agree to Little Caesar’s. (And if, on the off chance, they do agree to go, you just keep planning everything. How to get there. Who drives. Which side of the street to walk on. Who goes in first. Who orders. Who pays. How to split the bill. And on and on and on. The key is reading the room. You’re not trying to be an arse-hole. You’re trying to reveal that you and him/her are not the same person.)

Have fun with it, and feel free to comment below with your own post-“Communism is not a good idea”-declaration scenarios.

In any case, seriously, in the old sense, I beseech you, please stop saying “Communism is a good idea”. It isn’t.

On Our National Foundation

It’s not quite the season for weather-induced late starts or snow-days, but it’s close. This morning I received the text alert that a power outage in the neighborhood resulted in the kids’ school deciding to run their delayed start schedule on the hope that power will be restored by then. Immediately my mind went to, “How do other parents deal with this?”

My life is such that either mom or dad is 100% available, entirely stay-at-home every single day of the kids’ lives. But from what I understand, this home scenario is more and more rare, if not the literal exception that proves the rule. So what are the other moms and dads doing when their entire day gets disrupted by a random power-outage? Are they taking PTO for a couple hours? Are they bringing their kids to work and then taking an early lunch to take them to school? Do families have plans with other families for these days, ie, drop the kids at some stay-at-homer’s house and this stay-at-home friend loads all the kids up at the appropriate time?

I have no idea.

But I do know that this is probably the strongest example of why being a stay-at-home mom (extreme cases it can be the dad) matters. The kids, the future-citizens of America, need to understand the concept of stability.

Civilizational stability, national stability, community stability is not intuitive like “water is wet” is intuitive. We humans need to witness the example of stability. It is entirely possible, see all the places of the planet that you couldn’t be paid to visit, for humans to never understand that there is a better way to live, that there is a stable way to live. Of course it involves rule of law, literacy, guns, and effort etc. But at its foundation, it involves stability. The stay-at-home mom provides this. And the exemplar experience is the completely thought-free way in which a late start or cancelled school day is handled.

It’s Not “Happy Veterans Day” Anymore

I say this because of two reasons. First, I saw a headline about a British, 100 yr old Vet who said plainly that his brother’s-in-arms sacrifices (WWII) were not worth it, looking back. I’m only 44 and I agree.

I didn’t see anything I would classify as true combat. I only knew about a few AF pilots and crew from my squadron that lost their lives or were injured while in OIF/OEF. But, if they ever were sound in theory, the whole “fight them now rather than later” or “fight them over there rather than back at home” concepts have been blown to shit now. I see now that the only defensible reason to fight and sacrifice has to be in the framework and timeline of “now”. “These people must be killed now.” “These buildings and capabilities must be destroyed now.” Put another way, the main feeling I had when I got back from Iraq remains: While I was over there trying to stop them, y’all let them in the back door here? WTF, Over?

Secondly, over the past couple of years, as covid restrictions and pandemic mentality lifted, my Ethiopian wife has seen more instances than she ever did between 2011 and now (met me in 2018) of me standing and receiving applause (and me applauding) upon being asked to stand at certain events which take a moment to honor Veterans or First Responders. As I learn more about my wife, which includes learning more and more about how little she knows or understands about America*, I can’t help but wonder (I will laugh in your face if you think there is value in me asking her directly) what goes on in her mind when she sees this exercise of up-and-down, wack-a-mole. If I was to give it my best shot, I’ll be damned if her thoughts go beyond, “Oh look! People are happy and clapping!” while her face uncontrollably forms a smile to match the group’s mood. I ask you to likewise look around America at the first-generation immigrants’ faces during these moments and see if they have a clue.

What to do? Who knows.

——

*Keep in mind, this is despite being married to yours truly. It is a significant feature of the uneducated to hold strongly to their uninformed beliefs through the barrage of all contrary experience.

On Being a “One Mistake” Man

It just occurred to me that I am a “one mistake” man. The way this came to mind just now was while driving. Picture me in the classic post-stoplight intersection need to merge right (to get to Freddy’s) and there are cars zipping into the new right lane with whom I need to merge. Rather, we all need to zipper merge.

If you drive a good car and can’t merge, I respect you—you’re probably just decompressing from a hard days work. If you drive a disproportionately small car for an adult man who can grow a decent beard and can’t merge, then that’s one mistake too many. And I do not respect you anymore.

One mistake at a time please.

Quick, But Essential, Note On Stopping Islam

Firstly, the best perspective to take on contemporary life is that Islam and the CooRahn need to be relegated to the “myth” section of bookstores and libraries—no different than Greek Mythology. This perspective stands in opposition to any others who would aim for something more, like “I will erase your name from history!! Muhahaha!!”

Secondly, as faithful readers know, my initial realization that something was grossly wrong with the world occurred while at an Evangelical Christian Seminary after I thought I saw something odd and subsequently discovered that the sentence, “We (Christians) need to stop doing (one nuanced type of apologetic), while simultaneously start doing everything we can think of to relegate Islam to the the myth section of bookstores and libraries,” and then observed that it DID NOT RECEIVE IMMEDIATE AND TOTAL AGREEMENT from other students and professors.

This leads to the point of this post.

Thirdly, mark today as the day that you will work with me to stop Islam by implementing the following rule: Accept any and all ideas put forward by those who likewise wish to relegate Islam and the CooRahn to the myth section of bookstores and libraries.

In other words, I do not believe this effort can succeed, this effect can occur if the typical hypercritical (and usually useful) methods of group dynamics are applied.

Here are some test questions to ask yourself which will demonstrate whether you understand this post and my “ask”.

  1. Should there be any limit to membership into the group who wants to relegate Islam and the CooRahn to the myth section of bookstores and libraries?
  2. Is it possible for someone to come up with a bad idea in the effort to relegate Islam and the CooRahn to the myth section of bookstores and libraries?
  3. Is it possible for someone to have a better idea than others in the effort to relegate Islam and the CooRahn to the myth section of bookstores and libraries?
  4. Should I be dismayed if I am the only one who sees my idea regarding how best to relegate Islam and the CooRahn to the myth section of bookstores and libraries?
  5. Should I be jealous that everyone is using someone else’s idea, which I cannot imagine working, to relegate Islam and the CooRahn to the myth section of bookstores and libraries?
  6. In the situation described by point 5, should I stop trying my idea about how to relegate Islam and the CooRahn to the myth section of bookstores and libraries?
  7. In the situation described by point 5, should I try to stop or work against those who are applying someone else’s idea regarding how to relegate Islam and the CooRahn to the myth section of bookstores and libraries?

(The answer to all of these is resoundingly “NO!”)

The Final Paragraph of 11th Edition Encyclopedia Britannica’s Entry “Gunpowder Plot”

(For purists, this is also the infamous 10th Edition’s entry; the 11th is the 10th with three extra volumes.)

Just now I was catching up on my CBS Psalms study from last week, where I date the Psalms as I read them—a new habit to illustrate to myself and others how much of the Bible is actually ever read—when I saw the date and mechanically uttered V for Vendetta’s, “Remember, remember the fifth of November.”

I then moved to teach my 3 yr old, J-, the poem. During this, my conscience showed its face and I thought, “What even was the big deal? And was it successful or not? And did V really like the plot?” Etc.

Here’s the aforementioned conclusion (keep in mind the “Brit” of “Britannica” were the victims of the plot).

So ended the strange and famous capital Gunpowder Plot. However, atrocious its conception and its aims, it is impossible not to feel, together with horror for the deed, some pity and admiration for the guilty persons who took part in it. “Theirs was a crime which it would never have entered into the heart of any man to commit who was not raised above the lowness of the ordinary criminal.” They sinned not against the light but in the dark. They erred from ignorance, from a perverted moral sense rather than from any mean or selfish motive, and exhibited extraordinary courage and self-sacrifice in the pursuit of what seemed to them the cause of God and of their country. Their punishment was terrible. Not only had they risked and lost all in the attempt and drawn upon themselves the frightful vengeance of the state, but they saw themselves the means of injuring irretrievably the cause for which they felt such devotion. Nothing could have been more disastrous to the cause of the Roman Catholics than their crime. The laws against them were immediately increased in severity, and the gradual advance towards religious toleration was put back for centuries. In addition a new, increased and long-enduring hostility was aroused in the country against the adherents of the old faith, not unnatural in the circumstances, but unjust and undiscriminating, because while some of the Jesuits were no doubt implicated, the secular priests and Roman Catholic laity as a whole had taken no part in the conspiracy. (Philip Chesney York, an Oxford man.)

****

A post-script for my dad who says he struggles to connect what I see as the “obvious” connection within my posts.

Beyond the bald facts (as presented here), the following questions remains, “What particular training did the Britannica author have which allowed him to make his claim? Was it secular? Or support of some branch of Christianity? And how does the Bible study I am engaged in influence me? Towards sinning ‘against the light” or “in the dark’? By what measure can that be answered?”

For me, the true “Christianity” prevails. “Nothing could have been more disastrous to the cause of the Roman Catholics than their crime,” being the key notion. Fighting may be part of the road to prevailing. But if the fighting causes Christianity to lose, the sin was designed in the dark.

“Low IQ”, Review of “House of Dynamite, by ZDT Chick

Who can forget Hurt Locker? And I have commented elsewhere that Zero Dark Thirty is genuinely remarkable. It’s not a secret that I generally despise movies made by streamers, but for these two portfolio-ck reasons, I held out hope that House of Dynamite would be excellent.

To be sure, it passes the time. That’s the main requirement I have for movies these days. And it succeeds in passing the time divertingly. I’m actually surprised how late it got without me noticing.

But in the time that passed between when the project started to the time it was released, we have seen a tremendous shift in the decisiveness of American leadership at the top. So the whole movie feels less than excellent.

There is a fairly viral video of candidate Trump, and his team at the time, watching the DNC Harris speech together, wherein we got to see an intimate portrait of these people at work. If you haven’t watched it, here’s a link to one dude’s clip of it.

The overall point is, politics aside, the man running the show is decisive. Sure, TACO is a real criticism on some level, but it’s difficult to measure because it is reasonable that many TACO events are only TACO-narrative-feeders if the timeline is the incorrect length. Not to mention, TACO is more about matching talk to walk, not walk as opposed to stay still. Or “paralysis by analysis” as some pilots would say.

For this movie review’s point, which is inescapably a review of the concept of reacting to a nuclear attack on America, President Trump and his team—again, regardless of the politics—will be decisive and with a speed that impresses even “high functioning” people. This belief was actually comforting during the film.

In short, while Bigelow’s movie intends on illustrating that Earth truly is a house of dynamite—the description is not merely a metaphor—it fails. This is because the leaders—metaphorical fathers?—in the film are portrayed as “indecisive and low IQ”. (Except the interrogator guy from ZDT. He gets my vote for who should be in charge.)

Put another way, could someone please make a movie based on the exact same scenario, but show how it would play out when decisive leaders are in charge? That version would be far more interesting to see. And it would naturally offer an actual answer to the still-compelling question, “Do we live in a house of dynamite?”

“I Can Fly. I’m a Pilot” Movie Review of F1, Starring Not Tom Cruise

So Brad Pitt really wishes he was Tom Cruise? Is that what we’re to understand?

He explains that there are exceptional moments during a race, which in fact drive him to race beyond all barriers, when he “feels like he is flying”.

And apparently this is supposed to be confusing to everyone else in the racing business, who is only motivated by money.

Ridiculous.

And what’s more, I can happily report that flying feels nothing like what he describes—something he has no reason to not know, given he flies on planes all the time and has surely asked his pilots.

As I pilot, I can tell you the main two reasons “feels like flying” does not in fact feel like flying, are, “human vision isn’t bird-like,” and “there are others flying through the air too”.

Please indulge me as I re-write the script.

****

“Then why do you do it?” she asks.

“My dad was a mechanic. He gambled. He got me into racing. When I’m out there,” Pitt pauses, eyes impossibly seeing triply turn 4, the entire track, and the Redeemer God, Jesus, at once, “when I’m out there, on the track- it’s a controlled environment. There is no oncoming traffic, no intersections, no work, no family, no teachers, no law, no disease, no death, no surprises. Or at least that’s how it feels ehhhhhhvery once in a while. And ehhhhhvery once in a while, I am in complete control of this shitbox we call ‘life’. Those moments of life?” here, another perfect Pitt pause, his eyes being led by his soul over to her eyes where they stop, as it were, in victory lane before continuing, “They’re my favorite.”

Modern Prayer, From One Modern Dad, In One Modern Marriage

Of late, especially due to participation in a CBS (Community Bible Study) study of the Psalms, I have been hearing Metallica’s lyrics (as sung by James) more and more as prayers. If the reader can understand this concept, then they can understand that the following cryptic glimpse into my marriage is likewise more than a blogpost.

“In six years you haven’t learned that giving the kids snacks right before dinner ruins their appetite for dinner and sets in motion a painfully long pleading to finish, but you’re going to learn how to get rich at a three day everyone-knows-its-a-(un)Christian-scam conference on day trading?”

Using Nebraska-Corn-Fed Boobies in 2025 and Beyond

This is mostly intended to entertain international readers who find themselves daily longing for Americana. But the wisdom herein is universal just the same.

I grew up in the suburbs of Kansas City, KS. Picture an endless, rolling sea of clothesline-less backyards in neighborhoods of single-family homes. Try and imagine that the size of the houses and yards grows proportionately to their distance from the city. Got it? Good. That should give you some idea of it.

Our perspective on girls was probably exactly that of any group of boys anywhere on earth. There were hot ones, “doable” ones, and ugly ones. Also similar to any group of boys, these designations were perfectly harmless as no boy was actually going to approach a girl, no matter her place on our assessment.

After highschool came college. I chose to go to a small, private college in a small town of the neighboring state of Missouri. This was the first time I heard the description “townie” as applied to the citizens of that small town. These townies were, as expected, totally different than us college kids. It was fascinating to me. Also fascinating was how the girl situation suddenly changed and its vocabulary too. It was here that kids from all the across the midwest and bread-belt of America gathered, mostly on-scholarship, and it was here that I first noticed, what I quickly learned were colloquially known to rural boys as, “Nebraska-corn-fed boobies”.

The concept at once made me chuckle. My mind was flooded with questions. Was such a thing really possible? If so, why did Nebraska’s corn, in particular, produce big boobs? Why had I not heard this before? How many other people knew? Why wasn’t Nebraska’s population booming? Was Nebraska’s population booming? What else about our world do I not know?!

Okay, hook over—expect a return of concept. But here comes the wisdom.

About two years ago, as I discussed the merits of homeschooling with my brother and his wife, I noticed something that I hadn’t before noticed. They continually shot down every benefit of homeschooling, while also agreeing that the weaknesses of public school I identified were real. Finally, and proudly, I said what I thought was the fairest thing I could, being, “Here’s the thing. You’re sniping everything I say, but you haven’t made one positive claim. I know what you’re against, now I want to hear what you are for.”

That was the last line and last conversation on the matter. I still have no idea what they would do with their kids, which, as should be expected, is moot because they don’t want kids anyhow.

The other day, Scott Jennings was doing his thing, the topic being the No Kings events. He said the exact same thing to his co-panelist. “Okay. But what are you for?”

This is very sad to me. It is sad because I believe we, those in the right, should be able to make a dent during conversations. If we can’t make a dent, then the new question and problem is, “Why even try?”

So when I listen to the current, only critical mind-set of the Left, I would say that it can be fairly summarized in some relevant sense by, “DJT is the source of all my problems.”

In my most empathetic attempt at understanding them, I say to myself, “Just give them this as a fact”. So I do.

I concede, not just for argument’s sake, that it is gospel truth that Donald J. Trump is the source of all their problems.

There.

I said it.

Truth be told, it wasn’t as hard as I expected.

Okay. What happens next?

Because while Trump is the source of all your problems, Donald J. Trump is not the source of all my problems.

And this is where “Nebraska-corn-fed boobies” re-enter the picture.

Like Archimedes, Newton, and Gauss before us, we have two sides of an equation in apparent inequality. Who among us can find the missing variable?

Symbolically, we can write [DJT➡️p] ~ [DJT,p] = 1.

Spelled out, “IF -Trump-THEN-I-have-problems is relationally equivalent to Trump-unrelated-to-problems EQUALS UNITY”.

Put plainly, how can one person, one man, simultaneously be and not be the source of problems?

I submit to you that the variable is Nebraska-corn.

Now, you might be tempted to generalize and say, “I think I see. You’re saying, Pete, that the variable is ‘internal’ to the person—nurture, though, not nature. Something like ‘the way someone is raised inescapably equips them for life, and these people for whom Trump is the source of their problems weren’t raised right’, correct?”

No, I mean Nebraska-corn. 😘