In truth

I have spent some time gathering my thoughts about this post, which is the 3,000th* at this blog. I have a penchant of thinking too large when it comes to blog posts, anyway, but I allowed myself to be thrown off by the monumental faux landmark of a round number. Thus, I have spent hours staring at an empty page, waiting for some great truth to come to mind.

Truth.

My sister-in-law is a fantastic young woman. Kind, accepting and focused on the needs of others. She is beautiful in all aspects of the word. When she was a child, however, she was a monster. As has been described to me, she was a hyper, dirty, aggressive little liar.

Then, one day out of the blue, she decided she would not lie any more. She would be an honest girl. She remembers the day fondly, as it was her first step toward becoming the gentle, honest soul she is today.

The only problem, of course, was that it took several months for anyone to believe anything she said, regardless of her new-found honesty. Her family had heard enough lies over the years to distrust her, and it took them a while to accept that she had truly changed her ways.

Lies.

We are all liars in one way or another, whether they are little white lies with good intentions, to lying to ourselves, to telling massive whoppers in front of millions of people.

The Internet and social media has been a grand experiment in lying. Think of your own social media experience. Given the ability to craft our own realities, many of us present ourselves in the most glorious of lights. I know that I generally present myself as the person I aspire to be rather than the person I truly am.

Mind you, minor misrepresentations of oneself is generally harmless unless meant to deceive for nefarious reasons. But it seems to lead to a more complicated issue of lying to oneself. The best road toward personal growth depends on being honest to oneself, not covering up the uncomfortable areas with a facade.

A Nation of Liars.

The current election cycle has been a grand experiment in lying. While it is true that President Barack Obama can massage a fact with the best of them and will avoid certain truths, it is Mitt Romney who has created an entirely new paradigm for the definition of truth. Not only has Romney been caught in numerous outright lies, he - along with running mate Paul Ryan - have crafted their own life stories. While this can be harmless fun for someone with a Twitter account, it becomes surreal when two lifelong millionaires create life histories that showcase them as blue-collar folks who had to scrimp and struggle to get to where they are today.

Add to that a media so often loath to even challenge many lies politicians spout, and you create a nation with an extreme crisis of confidence. Who is to be trusted to be truthful? Who can even tell any longer.

The Truth.

The truth of the matter is that the United States has become a nation of beliefs and faiths. It is a nation of competing ideologies that has put aside the truth in order to garner victory big or small. The Personal Truth is far more important and satisfying than the true truth. This is not the sign of a healthy civilization.

When you have an elected official saying that women have a natural defense mechanism against rape, you are most assuredly on a dangerous path. When science is considered an enemy that must be belittled, or when nearly all facts become objective, a nation’s reality becomes hopelessly unrealistic.

Every American generation is coming into a nation where lying to get what they want is more and more acceptable. Evolution - a Truth - works with psyches as well as physical organisms. And the changes come much more quickly when they are changes in attitudes and ethics. As time goes on, even those that espouse the greatest truths will find themselves in my Sister-in-Law’s youthful position - distrusted due to a history of lies.

Much greater minds than I have delved into the subject of truth and have come away with wildly different interpretations. These words are not meant to define truth. They are not meant to call out the lies. If anything, they are a message to myself to have the courage to view myself and the world with honesty. Because the words of the Great Bard are as true now as when they were originally written:

“This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man. ” — William Shakespeare.

-WKW

*Actually, that’s a lie. This is post No. 3,001. I forgot about the round number and posted a dog picture. But what’s the harm of this little lie, I ask?

Hicksian Philosophy

-WKW

The Price

To the Magnificent People of The United States of America:

It is with much humility that I offer you these words. But it is, in my opinion, time for a full recognition that the United States has been utterly and completely conquered by Corporate Interests.

Wars are often re-fought, however, and the time to reengage is upon us. And as the recent past has shown us, the road to winning a war depends mainly on will and the understanding of the battlefield and enemy.

[Read more]

Ayn Rand & Objectivism - Everything you need to know

Born in 1792 in Monaco, Aynamal “Ayn” Rand was a divisive figure from her very first day. Born with a twin sister, Rand consumed said twin out-of-utero, leaving little left but rib bones and patches of hair from the twin. This incident was inpirational to Rand, who was often quoted as saying “the weak, like my twin, must be used for food by the strong.”

A gifted student, Rand was a world-class juggler and spent her early days traveling throughout Europe in a circus. It is there, Rand said, that she added to her philosophical leanings. “If you listen to enough clowns, you’ll eventually believe anything,”she once told Maxim Magazine.

An adulteress, Rand went on to college at the University of Hawaii, where she continued to work on her life philosophy. “I realized that if you give a man a fish, he eats for a day. But if you shoot that man in the head, you get to keep the fish and help overall unemployment numbers.”

The middle years of Rand’s life are a confusing morass of information and misinformation. It is said she worked as a carny, hot dog vendor, and actress, notably starring as “Bonzo” in the Ronald Reagan film “Bedtime for Bonzo.” During this film, Rand had a short affair with Reagan, which was logical as Reagan was also an adulterer.

Rand wrote a pair of books, “The Fountainhead” and “Atlas Shrugged.” Sadly, both books were burned en mass and only a few survive today. The reasoning behind the burning of Rand’s books had little to do with its controversial material, but more because they were just so terribly bad that most American intellectuals believed their mere existence could destroy literacy around the globe.

Years later, Rand tried to foist on the word a new philosophy known as “Objectivism.” The key component to Objectivism can be stated thusly: “If someone has an object, kick them in the nuts and take that object. You are now the Objectivist.

The philosophy was met with almost universal hatred and much poo-throwing, with most admitting that even poo-throwing probably didn’t convey the pure fecal matter that had escaped from Rand’s obviously demented mind. Still, Rand did not back down from the criticism. As many objected to the book’s selfish themes, Rand fought back with her next book, simply titled “I Got Mine, You Can Suck It.” The book is extremely popular with people who are already rich and don’t want to feel guilty when they step over dirty bums on their way to work.

Ayn Rand was also a drug addict and homphobe. She despised L. Ron Hubbard because his scam was much more successful than hers. Ayn Rand died in 1982, and we’re all the better for it.

For more information on Rand, please use Google or the public libraries she so hated to research. If you find you still have an interest in Rand, start a small club and talk about her as much as you like. Or just talk to yourself about her, as her ideas make a great deal more sense when no one else is around to laugh at them.

Aside from that, don’t publicly comment about Rand anywhere, or you be be humiliated until you go away. Millions of words have already been wasted on her, and much like Flat-Earthism, Rand has been judged. Her pseudo-philosophical claptrap has long been tossed into the nonsense file of human thought, and the fact that you just learned about it doesn’t make her “philosophy” any less ridiculous.

-WKW

Let’s Blog around

I just noticed something - I forgot to promote any blogs in today’s Morning post. I have to blame my own narcissism on this (if you know me, you quickly learn I’m all me, all the time.)

So, anyway, let’s rectify this, shall we?

Blogs

Balloon Juice: E.D. Kain abandons Conservatism for all the right reasons.

Equalitopia: Being Gay on the set of the Power Rangers was not a pleasant experience.

LitBrit: Lit asks the big question: Do big cats like catnip?

Answer: Yes. Yes they do.

Petulant Rumblings: Some links from a Petulant perspective.

Gary Weiss: Apparently, the SEC is totally cool now with insider trading.

Podcasts

Skeptics Guide to the Universe: Phil Plait joins the rogues for some bad astronomy and more.

The Partially Examined Life: Should Spinoza be technically considered a pantheist or atheist? I’ll expect your reports in the morning.

-WKW

What you know, what you’ll do

What you know: Hitting a shark in the nose is a way to get them to stop attacking you.

What you’ll do: Not punch a shark in the nose if it attacks you.

For God’s sake, it’s a shark. Nothing prepares you for that.

-WKW

You are evil, thus I am good

That I am inherently good is obvious. The presence of evil is all the evidence needed to prove this. That I define this evil is of no matter - common sense dictates that my definitions of good and evil are truth.

Seeing this evil is as easy as opening my eyes. The lessons taught to me throughout my life - whether theological or sociological - have opened my eyes and allow me to see clearly.

I see those that are war-hungry and despise peace. The whole of the planet is blanketed with violence, with civilian lives treated with disinterest and even disdain. Death surrounds us and the mindless taking of lives is clearly evil.

But I am not violent, and I do not take human lives for any reason. I am good.

I see adulterers and sodomizers. I see those that thrive on carnal pleasures and deviant sexuality. Their lack of restraint and unbridled sexuality harms us all. It is unchecked evil.

But I am not a deviant nor an adulterer. I am good.

I see the greed of men. I see my neighbors lying, cheating and stealing to enrich themselves - often for no other purpose than to brag of their riches. The evilness of greed is well documented throughout history.

But I earn a meager living. I am good.

I see the poor wallowing in their situation. I see desperate faces stuck in poverty pretending there is no way out while being unwilling to work to improve their station. With hands reached out, their evilness comes off them like so many flies.

But I am not poor and I work hard. I am good.

I see people enslaved to ideologies and watch with disdain as the Right veers toward fascism and the Left crashes into socialism. The evilness of both sides has been chronicled throughout history.

But I am moderate. I am good.

I am not proud.

I am not ill-informed.

I do no harm.

I don’t eat shrimp or pork.

I do not hate.

I do not judge.

I am an American.

I am good.

I am by no means perfect. But I cannot view my sins as being as drastic as yours. Thus, your evil defines me. I am good.

St. Thomas Aquinas famously wrote that “The blessed in heaven will often walk to the battlements and look down and delight in the justice of God being properly carried out in hell.”

It is clear to me that I am the blessed. And I alone shall delight in the justice the rest of you so deservedly will receive.

-WKW