Tag Archives: Politics

Little, Big WORDS

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Language is our window into reality, but language is not our reality.

Little words can make a big difference in what we see. For example, how often do you see “FREE”? To understand the separation of “language” and “reality”, it may be helpful to understand the sources of the language we often use without thinking.

You’ve probably heard the phrase, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” ? The source of that phrase is “Stranger in a Strange Land”, by Robert Heinlein. The story of the book is set in a world after a nuclear holocaust. It comes from a time when school children were being conditioned to duck under their desks when they heard a warning siren. Looking back, it is apparent to see the foolishness of thinking a “school desk” would be protection from an atomic bomb. But that was the mentality of the 1950’s in America.

A summary of the situation: A young girl encounters an older man, wearing a protective suit (for radiation) in a wasteland similar to the scene of Hiroshima after the first atomic bomb was dropped. She asked if he could share anything to eat and he replied, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” The details reveal a small hole in his suit, which had been patched with something like duct tape. It is left to the reader to realize that the price the man had paid for that suit was to kill the person who had been wearing the suit. It was stories such as this that led a generation to fear a nuclear holocaust as the end of humanity.

Today’s advertising abuses the word “FREE”. How many offers have you heard for a FREE BOOK? The catch (and there are a couple) is that you are expected to pay the “shipping and handling”. The reality is that you probably also pay their actual cost of the book, which gives them your email address and credit card account at no cost to them. When you realize that listing companies often pay in excess of $25 for active leads, you can see what a good deal this is for them. For example, last week I clicked on a link about refinancing my home. So far, I have received FOUR follow up phone calls offering to refinance my home. None of them expressed an interest in going to work for me. 🙂

Finally, the first REAL lesson in economics is this: The “government” has NO money. It only has what it has first taken from someone else. The further misunderstanding is that when the “government seizes that money” (taxation and fees), it deducts a healthy administrative charge. While some states receive as much as $1.27 for every dollar they send to Washington, other states receive as little at $0.77. What is the rate for your state. For more information, you may want to check out http://www.OpenTheBooks.org.

Ken@wishbudranch.com

Fantasy vs Reality for Adults

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A lengthy read about a very sad case, but I only add this story (cited below) for a warning about YOUR media consumption. Hate and fear produce anxiety. When people are angry, frightened or worried – they seem to gravitate to the “NEWS”. ??

In their disturbed mental state, people forget to “think critically”. They fail to apply reason, logic or comparison to the information they receive. They just let the “news” go in one ear and then bounce around in an apparently empty head. Even worse, the information which people accept as “true” is mostly “paid advertising” with the primary purpose of increased “profit” for somebody – be it Big Pharma, Big Agriculture, or some Politician and their friends.

When an organization becomes a “Party of Hate” – such as the Democrats with their #resist bs and then you add anti-American revolutionaries espousing Alinsky tactics, such as BLM or Antifa or public sector unions, MEDIA jumps on the opportunity for sensationalism to gain “market share” of the eyeballs – for the purpose of increasing advertising revenues. Unions want more dues from members; BLM and Antifa want more “free stuff” from the government.

The result is that public discourse becomes a myriad of psychoses! Reality becomes confused with fantasy. So, for the two girls in the Slender Man case, fantasy turned into a harsh reality. The real tragedy happens when adults fail to realize that they have allowed their “virtual existence” to become their reality. Life is not a game; there is no dress rehearsal.

As you read the following story, think about what you consider to be true and accurate. Whom do you “believe”? More importantly, why do you believe those whom you chose to believe? Keep in mind that the highest salaries paid to psychologists, are paid by advertising agencies. Folks, the world is “playing with your mind.”

The story: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/08/slender-man-stabbing.html

 

Minimum, Minimum – Bah, Humbug!

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Looking back, I suppose my “teacher burn-out” in my educational career began with the fad of Minimum Competency Standards. Although I was not able to speak eloquently of my distrust of the concept at the time, in retrospect I can now understand that seed of displeasure which lurked within me.

 

True learning does not come from achieving minimum standards; true learning is measured by that which is beyond the minimum. After all, what credit should be given to that person who only does what everybody else does? What person is recognized as a scholar, who knows only what everybody else knows? Heroes are those who go beyond the minimums; heroes are those who do those things which most other people will not do. Scholars are those who already know what others have not yet learned.

 

It is not enough for a student to gain learning by study. True learning comes from action which produces results. Sometimes this can be called experience. Not all action produces positive results, but even learning which comes from negative consequences can be a positive outcome.

 

In today’s culture, far too many people have accepted “Minimum Standards” as their personal goals. The very idea that a “Minimum Wage” should be a “Living Wage” is an idea that comes from a “Socialistic Perspective”. It is a leveling of humanity in which everybody shares the same level of misery. In recent years, the Chinese government has expressed a concern about the “lack of creativity and invention” by its younger population. Perhaps it sounds too simple to attribute such a lack of creativity and invention to a lack of a need to do better than the minimum, or to contribute more than the minimum. The mantra of Communist/Socialist: “From each according to his ability; to each according to his needs.”

 

Perhaps, the level of invention, or lack thereof, may be attributed to a felt need to stand out. When first stated, the concern that all people have a right to have their “needs” met by society sounds like an irrefutable statement of compassion. However, the human condition allows people to become comfortable at their “minimum level”. At the level of the cave dweller it becomes: “If I am warm, I can sleep; I don’t need to gather more wood for my fire.” Problems arise when the cave dweller awakes to find his fire is low and a storm is raging outside the cave. The cave dweller sees that the easiest source of more wood to be the supply that his neighbor brought in before the storm. The petty crime of stealing a twig becomes a war to decide who gets the woodpile.

 

And so it is in America today. America has groups of people who demand an increase in the minimum wage without considering any increase in the “value of the labor”. This is the miracle of “Capitalism”. “Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a pathway to your door.” For proof, look at the chemical company which realized the limitations of mousetraps and then created “mouse poison.” That company, incidentally, is now selling that patented chemical to the medical community as a “blood thinner”.

 

Since I have been distracted, I would invite any reader to provide a concluding paragraph to this post.aavelken