Civility has been lost, in Politics and Sports

Former Yankees star reliever and current spring training instructor Goose Gossage has shaken Western democracy by denouncing players — home-run bat-flippers, pitching-mound chest-pounders, and the like. 

So the Yankees brought Gossage in for a chat?

Gossage, as per my understanding, said, “Let’s keep some sport in our sport. Bad losers can reasonably be explained and indulged. Bad winners? No way.”

Among the most commonly asked questions by fans who were raised to distinguish right from wrong, good from bad and winning baseball from everything less, has become, “How do managers allow that stuff?”

Baseball players are not the only fools who parade their incivility in this unsportsmanlike manner. Football players ,both American and European, but mostly American Football players, are the most egregious. Basketball is not quite as bad as Baseball or Football, but there is lots of disrespect shown between players in most team sports. Hockey may be the worst in teaching unsportsmanlike behavior to our children, as far as encouraging unsportsmanlike conduct on the ice by allowing fights between players, but Football and Baseball and Basketball are more watched by our impressionable youth.
It appears that most team sports are a parade of fools. 
http://nypost.com/2016/03/14/goose-gossage-absolutely-right-to-call-out-mlb-showboaters/

Civility has been lost, in Politics and Sports.
And it all starts with how they are brought up.
Being respectful and civil in your social interactions and accomplishments was encouraged as a young participant in school as well as play. It's not being taught by parents or teachers anymore. Generation X and Millennial children are seriously lacking in Civility.

The disruptive conduct of protesters at presidential candidate Donald Trump’s rallies is the latest evidence that protesting in a civil manner is not the hallmark of the current electoral campaign. The protesters were bent on causing as much disruption as possible, mostly physical. In Ohio a protester was apprehended when he approached Trump on stage, perhaps intent on inflicting physical harm to the candidate. 

This protester was an anarchist with blogs and Facebook pages showing his hate for America in his words and actions by stomping on the American Flag. It was later learned that his mother is an extreme left wing protester advocating socialism, his father is a preacher.

Other candidates have faced less physical confrontation, but their opponents’ vocal catcalls have disrupted their efforts to speak to their supporters. “Black Lives Matter” advocates have been particularly disruptive, most notably at a Bernie Sanders event. 

It's interesting that the Democratic supporters that demonstrate at Republican events have the most violent outcomes, while the Republican supporters at the Democratic events have not shown any violence. 

If protesters want to attend the rallies of candidates they don’t like, they can do so in a peaceful, non-disruptive manner while still making their point. Years ago a group of protesters quietly took seats in the front row at a speech by someone they opposed, holding opposition signs clearly visible to the speaker and television news cameras. There was no disruption, but the speaker was aware of their protest throughout his presentation.

Why can’t the citizens of a nation whose First Amendment is a protection of free speech honor the right of their opponents to practice that right without harassment? 

It appears to me that the Left wing can't get their voice heard without resorting to violence, even when they demonstrate against other Democrats, at Democratic events.

George Washington Carver ~ "How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in your life you will have been all of these."

TRUTH IN ADVERTISING VS TRUTH IN POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS

It's that time again. Political campaing season is coming, now that the polls are history and the voting is starting.

Businesses have to abide to Truth in Advertising, why don't politicians?

Are they held to a lower standard?

We should have all of the politicians wear a collar that would shock them when they lie to the public.

They should also be held accountable for advertising that is used to sway public opinion on their behalf.

Where have all the honest politicians gone, well they've been dead for a long time.


Here are some of the voices of the past about Politics.

“You're not to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it.”
― Malcolm X, By Any Means Necessary

“In politics as in philosophy, my tenets are few and simple. The leading one of which, and indeed that which embraces most others, is to be honest and just ourselves and to exact it from others, meddling as little as possible in their affairs where our own are not involved. If this maxim was generally adopted, wars would cease and our swords would soon be converted into reap hooks and our harvests be more peaceful, abundant, and happy.”
― George Washington

“The Seven Social Sins are:
1. Wealth without work.
2. Pleasure without conscience.
3. Knowledge without character.
4. Commerce without morality.
5. Science without humanity.
6. Worship without sacrifice.
7. Politics without principle."
From a sermon given by Frederick Lewis Donaldson in Westminster Abbey, London, on March 20, 1925.

“Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
Mark Twain

About political correctness
“There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches

“In politics, stupidity is not a handicap.”
― Napoléon Bonaparte

“Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views.”
― William F. Buckley Jr.

“Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”
― John F. Kennedy

“A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.”
― Edward R. Murrow

“We in America do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate.”
― Thomas Jefferson

“Absolute power does not corrupt absolutely, absolute power attracts the corruptible.”
― Frank Herbert

“An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.”
― Winston S. Churchill

“Extremes to the right and to the left of any political dispute are always wrong.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower

“Corrupt politicians make the other ten percent look bad.”
― Henry Kissinger

“In this country we have no place for hyphenated Americans.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“Leadership is being the first to put others second. Wait, that’s not right. That’s politics."
"I trust politicians to do what’s right. For themselves.
”
― Jarod Kintz

“The promise given was a necessity of the past: the word broken is a necessity of the present.”
― Niccolò Machiavelli

“The short memories of the American voters is what keeps our politicians in office.”
― Will Rogers

DON'T BE BLUE

The Poisonous M&Ms Analogy

The Poisonous M&Ms Analogy has been going around for quite a while. It represents an idea that creates much opposition from the extreme ends of the spectrum. On one side you have the people who want to place limitations on recent events affecting society, or even past events. On the other you have people who do not want any limitations on those aspects of society affected by the events. Both can be right or wrong, depending on which side you are standing.

The Poisonous M&Ms Analogy goes something like this.
Someone says that you can have a whole bag of M&Ms, not a small bag, but the big party bag with 1000 M&Ms in it, but warns you that 1% of them are poisoned. Do you want to still have the free bag of M&Ms? (the actual scenario used 10%, but I feel that's much too high)

The analogy usually refers to something that is certainly meant to stir the emotions when it is referring to a minority of ideologies, like race, religion, ethnicity or any other defining notion.

There's the side believes that treating them all as suspect is validated by not wanting to eat an M&M from a bag were some of them are poisonous. The other side believes it can be used to prop up any kind of harmful stereotype about groups, such as genders, ethnicities, religious and political communities without having to engage the objections to unfair generalizations.

So we should just do away with all of the laws we've made in the past because they are unfair to people who want to commit a crime against innocent people.

The bottom line is this.
We have laws for a reason and the underlying reason is that a minutely small number of a given population has performed an unjust act on the rest of the population with something harmful, like death, in the beginning. It escalated to other less offensive acts that may not have killed anyone, but hurt the physically or financially. If we knew who they were, we wouldn't need the law, but they are hidden among us and acting like us and society is forced be reactive instead of proactive.

Now we are back to the Poisonous M&M Analogy. What if half of the poisonous ones were green, but only about 40% of them. Now you could throw out all of the green ones, but still have .5% poisonous, that’s about 4 out of say 800.

Here's the part they didn't tell you. If you do eat one of the poisonous ones, everyone standing next to you would also die and everyone within 10 feet of you would end up in the hospital, kind of like a virus. Now you have the bag of M&Ms, what do you do with them?

Of course all of the Skittles are free to eat, but what about the green ones?

DON'T BE BLUE

Have we learned nothing about the damned Human Race?

excerpts from a Mark Twain essay - 1905

Man is the Reasoning Animal. Such is the claim. I think it is open to dispute. In truth, man is incurably foolish. Simple things which the other animals easily learn, he is incapable of learning.
In an hour I taught a cat and a dog to be friends. I put them in a cage. In another hour I taught them to be friends with a rabbit. In the course of two days I was able to add a fox, a goose, a squirrel and some doves. Finally a monkey. They lived together in peace; even affectionately.

Next, in another cage I confined an Irish Catholic from Tipperary, and as soon as he seemed tame I added a Scottish Presbyterian from Aberdeen. Next a Turk from Constantinople; a Greek Christian from Crete; an Armenian; a Methodist from the wilds of Arkansas; a Buddhist from China; a Brahman from Benares. Finally, a Salvation Army Colonel from Wapping.

Then I stayed away two whole days. When I came back to note results, the cage of Higher Animals was all right, but in the other there was but a chaos of gory odds and ends of turbans and fezzes and plaids and bones and flesh–not a specimen left alive. These Reasoning Animals had disagreed on a theological detail and carried the matter to a Higher Court.


Man is the Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion–several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself, and cuts his throat if his theology isn’t straight. He has made a graveyard of the globe in trying his honest best to smooth his brother’s path to happiness and heaven.
He was at it in the time of the Caesars, he was at it in Mahomet’s time, he was at it in the time of the Inquisition, he was at it in France for a couple of centuries, he was at it in England in Mary’s day, he has been at it ever since he first saw the light.................. he is at it today, in Crete, occasioned by the battles between Christians and Muslims.

He will be at it somewhere else tomorrow. The higher animals have no religion. And we are told that they are going to be left out, in the Hereafter. I wonder why? It seems questionable taste.


Who is the Higher Life Form?
The difference between an man and an animal is that the man is cruel and the animal isn’t; and that the man wantonly destroys what he has no use for, but the animal doesn’t. This seemed to suggest that the animal was not descended from the man. It also seemed to suggest that the man was descended from the animal and had lost a great deal in the translation.
There is this difference between man and the higher animals: he is avaricious and miserly, they are not.
Among the animals man is the only one that harbors insults and injuries, broods over them, waits till a chance offers, then takes revenge. The passion of revenge is unknown to the higher animals.


Roosters keep harems, but it is by consent of their concubines; therefore no harm is done. Men keep harems, but it is by brute force, privileged by atrocious laws which the other sex were allowed no hand in making. In this matter man occupies a far lower place than the rooster.


Indecency, vulgarity, obscenity–these are strictly confined to man; he invented them. Among the higher animals there is no trace of them. They hide nothing; they are not ashamed.  Man is the only animal that blushes.

Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel. He is the only one that inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it. It is a trait that is not known to the higher animals.
The higher animals engage in individual fights, but never in organized masses, except to obtain food. He is the only one that gathers his brethren about him and goes forth in cold blood and with calm pulse to exterminate his kind. Animals are territorial and will gather in mass to expell an intruder, but the animals will abandon the task once the intruder has left. Man will continue beyound his territory to hunt them down for no good reason.


Man is the only animal that robs his helpless fellow of his country–takes possession of it and drives him out of it or destroys him.
Man is the only Slave. And he is the only animal who enslaves. He has always been a slave in one form or another, and has always held other slaves in bondage under him in one way or another, for wages, service, nobility or ancestry.


Man is the only animal with the "Moral Sense". The ability to distinguish good from evil; and with it, necessarily, the ability to do evil; for there can be no evil act without the presence of consciousness of it in the doer of it. And man will try to explain it away as an animal instinct or an insaine act like an animal who doesn't know right from wrong.


So....It obliges me to renounce my allegiance to the Darwinian theory of the Ascent of Man from the Lower Animals; since it now seems plain to me that the theory ought to be vacated in favor of a new and truer one, this new and truer one to be named the Descent of Man from the Higher Animals.


The Damned Human Race – Mark Twain Essay, published in 1905
http://www.zengardner.com/the-damned-human-race-mark-twain-essay/
DON'T BE BLUE

to the United States Congress

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil ------- is for good men to do nothing."

- Edmund Burke, among others.

Hypocrisy of hip-hop

The Hypocrisy of hip-hop & rap "music".

Artists and producers of Hip-Hop and Rap "Music" claim the lyrics are only a statement of our current life and times. A picture of the environment of life in our modern culture. And I suppose that makes it right?


I could probably accept Hip-Hop and Rap, if it wasn't for it's roots.


The roots and lyrics were and even today are MISOGYNISTIC, homophobic, hateful, racist, vulgar, anti-authoritarian and an all-around bad influence on anyone's children. The list of grievances against hip hop is a long one, and are all present in the lyrical content of Hip-Hop and Rap "Music", and nowhere to be found in the lyrics of the Disney classic "The Song of the South", which was a statement of our life and times in the 40s and 50s.



Politicians, journalists, and critics refuse to condemn the content of Hip-Hop and Rap, yet will shout to the walls and condemn the content of "The Song of the South", even today.
Contrary to popular belief, the "The Song of the South" story takes place after the Civil War and after slavery, it was not during or even about slavery.

"The Song of the South", has a happy feeling and atmosphere, while there is no happiness in any part of most rap and hip-hop music in it's foundation, not then and hardly now.

I can understand the rationale of the critics of "The Song of the South", but those same critics encourage their children to listen to bad rap and Hip-hop, give them awards in televised events and bestow them with "Best of" honors. Which is a sad commentary on the state of the music industry to bestow accolades on something that is at best a sad story of disrespect for everyone and everything and not even good rhyming.

Don't buy the lyrical abusers' CDs, don't buy their gear, don't go to their concerts, don't watch their videos, don't memorize the lyrics to their songs, and don't dance to their tunes.
Wrong is wrong, no matter what color you are.

Check out:

Hip Hop Hypocrisy: When Lies Sound Like the Truth

Alfred 'Coach' Powell (Author), Donna Williams (Editor)

http://www.acoachpowell.com/

http://hiphophypocrisy.blogspot.com/

Also: Who's Afraid of the Song of the South? And Other Forbidden Disney Stories by Jim Korkis.

The genre may have changed, slightly, but the legacy lives on. It's a sad commentary on the music industry when a Grammy Winner, several times in his career, is looked down on when the fans, fellow artists and producers of Hip Hop & Rap music complain that his music is not "black" enough. Just ask Will Smith about it.

 DON'T BE BLUE 

The future of Presidential Elections in America.

In the future, all presidents will be elected by minorities, entitlements will be the law of the land, and entrepreneurship will be a thing of the past.

Obama and the Democrats believe demography is on their side. Census 2010 made abundantly clear that racial and ethnic minorities, especially Hispanics, are dominating national growth and will for decades to come. The Democratic agenda— favoring broader federal support for medical care, housing, and education seems designed to curry the favor of these groups, which played a huge role in tipping the balance in his favor in several key swing states.

In 2010, minorities were 26 percent of the electorate. Yesterday (Nov 7, 2012), 28 percent. A 2 percent bigger slice of the pie doesn't sound like much, but in a tight election it's everything. If conservatives want to win, we must broaden our appeal. But that doesn't mean abandoning our core principles. Assuming the country can survive another four years of Obama, Tuesday's loss might actually be good for the long-term health of the GOP, and thus, the nation. A victory would have allowed Republicans to sweep their problems under the rug — and postpone taking that long, hard look in the mirror. But let's face facts: Republicans simply must confront the fact that, at minimum, they need a makeover.
By next year, 500,000 more Latinos will have turned 18 in our country — and every year after that for the next two decades.
The irony, for those Republican primary voters who demanded tough stances on immigration, is that this is one problem Obama has inadvertently solved. The economy is so lousy under his stewardship that immigrants have stopped coming.

The Census Bureau also makes projections of the future population based on fertility rates, family size, immigration and other factors. Its latest estimate projects that by 2030 the black and Asian populations will be about unchanged in percentage terms, but the Hispanic population will rise sharply from 16 percent to 22 percent. On the question of whether they favor bigger government or smaller government, Hispanics favor big government by a 75 percent to 19 percent margin.

We must also address the issue of birthright citizenship or we will continue to have illegal immigration as far as the eye can see. Without changes in birthright citizenship, we will have future waves of illegal immigration looking to take advantage of the soon to be implemented plea for amnesty. The 14th amendment in its current form ensures birthright citizenship, automatic citizen status to anyone born or "naturalized" on American soil. Changing the Constitution to deny citizenship to children born in the US to parents who are not documented citizens is the solution Graham and many in his party are advocating for.
The bill for the Social Security and Medicare alone will be over 500 trillion ANNUALLY, once amnesty is given to ILLEGAL immigrants.

The worst part is that the Democrats refuse to acknowledge the word ILLEGAL, since it can not even be found in any dictionary used by the Democratic Party.

http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2012/05/01-race-elections-frey
http://theweek.com/bullpen/column/236006/what-the-election-means-for-minorities-the-supreme-court-the-gop-and-more
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/election-2012/latinos-minorities-obama-win-election-article-1.1198477
http://www.hacer.org/usa/?p=1799



 DON'T BE BLUE 

The Mathematics of Religion: One God, but whose?

Updated 3/31/2017

The Mathematics of Religion

.....between religion and arithmetic, other things are not equal. You use arithmetic, but you are religious. Arithmetic of course enters into your nature, so far as that nature involves a multiplicity of things. But it is there as a necessary condition, and not as a transforming agency. 

No one is invariably "justified" by his faith in the multiplication table. But in some sense or other, justification is the basis of all religion. Your character is developed according to your faith. This is the primary religious truth from which no one can escape. Religion is force of belief cleansing the inward parts. For this reason the primary religious virtue is sincerity, a penetrating sincerity.

In the long run your character and your conduct of life depend upon your intimate convictions. Life is an internal fact for its own sake, before it is an external fact relating itself to others.

Religion is the art and the theory of the internal life and strife of man, so far as it depends on the man himself and on what is permanent in the nature of things. But all collective emotions leave untouched the awful ultimate fact, which is the human being, consciously alone with itself, for its own sake.

Religion is what the individual does with his own solitariness. It runs through three stages, if it evolves to its final satisfaction. It is the transition from God the void to God the enemy, and from God the enemy to God the companion. Thus religion is solitariness; and if you are never solitary, you are never religious. Collective enthusiasms, revivals, institutions, houses of worship, rituals, religious tomes, and codes of religious behavior, are the trappings of religion, in its passing forms.

Accordingly, what should emerge from religion is individual worth of character. But worth is positive or negative, good or bad. Religion is by no means necessarily good. It may be very evil. The fact of evil, interwoven with the texture of the world, shows that in the nature of things there remains effectiveness for degradation. In some the religious experience the God with whom you have made terms, may be the God of destruction, the God who leaves in his wake the loss of the greater reality. 

For those that say, "God is everywhere, all around us." Your God, nor mine, may not be everywhere.
He was not in that café in Kabul that was just blown up by a terrorist, at least not my God!
He was not in that store or building that was terrorized by some crazed person with a gun that shot those innocent people, at least not my God.


Do you believe in GOD!
A question that frequently emerges from people who are deeply religious, but unfortunately what they are really referring to is..............Do you believe in THEIR God?
Believing in God is, in the long run, not as important as living your life as if you believed in God and even more importantly extolling the attributes of a good, kind, and just God.


When asked that question I usually would reply, which God is that? Is your God a tolerant God? Does your God say that only those who follow your religion, will be welcome into Heaven, and there are many religions? Will your God accept everyone who lives their life not only in acceptance of other's beliefs but also condemning people who practice evil in the name of God?


If you believe in God, then you must believe in Satan, the God of evil. Where God is the semblance of creating order out of chaos, Satan is the opposite, striving to create chaos out of order. Those who practice harm to innocent people, in the name of God, are worshiping Satan.


All religious leaders need to take a stand against Satan's followers. Any terrorist who wages war for their god has fallen away from the teachings of their church, synagogue or mosque and is now in league with Satan, the god of evil, the god of hate.


Pity the Atheist, which they vehemently deny is also their religion, Atheism, but it speaks to the act of being tolerant of others beliefs, which Atheists are not. They say they only believe in science. They are so arrogant that they say they would not believe in God if he came down and stood before them. Otherwise you're just an agnostic, in wolf's clothing.


Atheists have no history of being or doing good or living your life as a person who rejects evil for the sake of being a good, kind, and just person. They force their beliefs upon others, just as all religions do, but demand you denounce what goodness any religion preaches. If they were tolerant of others, they would not be so demanding and they would be encouraging goodness over evil.




In considering religion, we should not be obsessed by the idea of its necessary goodness. This is a dangerous delusion. The point to notice is its transcendent importance; and the fact of this importance is abundantly made evident by the appeal to history. All religions have defectors that still claim allegiance to their religion, be they Christian or Jew or Muslim or Buddhist or Mormon or whatever. The deeper they go into harming not only those outside their religion, in the name of God, but even those believers in the same religion, the closer they come to actually worshiping Satan. Satan worshipers revel in dominating the many by the few.




So ask yourself again, WHO IS MY GOD!

You are the sum total of all you have experienced, learned, thought, felt, believed and acted upon. 
What you are -- is inside of you, influenced by external forces, both good and bad. 
You are -- what you believe, based on who taught you and how you interpreted their ideology. 

My God lives and can only live, inside of me, guiding me.

Excerpts from:

Religion in the Making by Alfred North Whitehead (1926)

http://alfrednorthwhitehead.wwwhubs.com/ritm1.htm

Suggested reading:

The Psychological Origin and the Nature of Religion by James H. Leuba

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/39511/39511.txt

 DON'T BE BLUE