In 2009 Americans witnessed the year of statism.  2010 is the year of religion.  And what’s the difference.  Both hold the same premise:  sacrifice.  Sacrifice to the State.  Or sacrifice to a God.

“In an extraordinary breach of congressional decorum, a Republican lawmaker shouted ‘You lie’ at President Barack Obama during his speech to Congress [Jan. 21, 2009].

“‘You lie!’ Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., shouted from his seat on the Republican side of the chamber.

“Wilson’s shout drew immediate condemnation from both sides of the aisle….”
-FOXNews

Now why would a Republican be condemned—for speaking the truth—by fellow Republicans?  Could it be because it’s now the year of the great Republican lie?  A kind of self-flagellation, a projection of what the Republicans have been preparing to foist on the American people when it came their turn?  What is the Republican solution?  Religion.  What’s the difference between faith in a supernatural being, God, and the Democrats’ solution of faith in a supernatural entity, society?  For “…there is no such entity as ’society,’ since society is only a number of individual men….”
-The Virtue Of Selfishness, Man’s Rights, by Ayn Rand (April, 1963).  p. 92 (PB).

Auguste Comte, the founder of Positivism, the champion of science, advocated a “rational,” “scientific” social system based on the total subjugation of the individual to the collective, including a “Religion of Humanity” which substituted Society for the Gods or gods who collect the blood of sacrificial victims. It is not astonishing that Comte was the coiner of the term Altruism, which means: the placing of others above self, of their interests above one’s own.
-For The New Intellectual, by Ayn Rand (1961). p. 36 (SC).

Villains

“Look back at history. Look at any great system of ethics, from the Orient up. Didn’t they all preach the sacrifice of personal joy? Under all the complications of verbiage, haven’t they all had a single leitmotif: sacrifice, renunciation, self-denial? Look at the moral atmosphere of today. Everything enjoyable, from cigarettes to sex to ambition to the profit motive, is considered depraved or sinful. Just prove that a thing makes men happy—and you’ve damned it…go into the desert to mortify the flesh—don’t dance—don’t go to the movies on Sunday—don’t try to get rich—don’t smoke—don’t drink…Every system of ethics that preached sacrifice grew into a world power and ruled millions of men. Of course, you must dress it up. You must tell people that they’ll achieve a superior kind of happiness by giving up everything that makes them happy. You don’t have to be too clear about it. Use big vague words. ‘Universal Harmony’—’Eternal Spirit’—’Divine Purpose’—’Nirvana’—’Paradise’. It stands to reason that where there’s sacrifice, there’s someone collecting sacrificial offerings. Where there’s service, there’s someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master…But here you might have noticed something. I said, ‘It stands to reason.’ Do you see? Men have a weapon against you. Reason. So you must be very sure to take it away from them. Cut the props from under it. But be careful. Don’t deny outright…Don’t say reason is evil—though some have gone that far and with astonishing success. Just say that reason is limited. That there’s something above it. What? You don’t have to be too clear about it either. The field’s inexhaustible. ‘Instinct’—’Feeling’—’Revelation’—’Divine Intuition.’ If you get caught at some crucial point and somebody tells you that your doctrine doesn’t make sense…You tell him that there’s something above sense. That here he must not try to think, he must feel. He must believe.

“…you’ve heard all this…You see it being practiced all over the world. Why are you disgusted?…You’re in on it…You’re afraid to see where it’s leading. I’m not. I’ll tell you. The world of the future. A world of obedience and of unity. A world where the thought of each man will not be his own, but an attempt to guess the thought of the brain of his neighbor who’ll have no thought of his own but an attempt to guess the thought of the next neighbor who’ll have no thought—and so on…around the globe. Since all must agree with all. A world where no man will hold a desire for himself, but will direct all his efforts to satisfy the desires of his neighbor who’ll have no desires except to satisfy the desires of the next neighbor who’ll have no desires….Since all must serve all. A world in which man will not work for so innocent an incentive as money, but for…[t]he approval of his fellows—their good opinion—the opinion of men who’ll be allowed to hold no opinion…Judgment….! Not judgment, but public polls. An average drawn upon zeroes—since no individuality will be permitted…Let all live for all. Let all sacrifice and none profit. Let all suffer and none enjoy. Let progress stop. Let all stagnate. There’s equality in stagnation. All subjugated to the will of all. Universal slavery…The world of the future.

“Insane? Look around you. Pick up any newspaper and read the headlines. Isn’t it coming? Isn’t it here? Isn’t Europe swallowed already and we’re stumbling on to follow? Everything…contained in a single word—collectivism. And isn’t that the god of [2009]? To act together. To think—together. To feel—together. To unite, to agree, to obey. To obey, to serve, to sacrifice. Divide and conquer—first. But then—unite and rule…Collectivism…man has no rights,…the collective is all. The individual held as—evil, the mass—as God. No motive and no virtue permitted—except that of service…Watch the pincer movement. If you’re sick of [the 2009] version, we push you into the other. We get you coming and going. We’ve closed the doors. We’ve fixed the coin. Heads—collectivism, and tails—collectivism. Fight the doctrine which slaughters the individual with a doctrine which slaughters the individual. Give up your soul to a [religion]—or give it up to a leader…Offer poison as food and poison as antidote.”
-The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand (1943).  p. 637-40 (SC)

It’s irritating to hear commentators suggest that Obama’s stupid, or intelligent but without wisdom, thereby dismissing the fact that he knows exactly what he’s doing.  It’s going to be disgusting with religion coming at us from right and left.  And when I see the likes of Glenn Beck practically falling on his knees in prayer as our last hope, it’s all rather frightening.  And Brit Hume urging Tiger Woods to become a Christian.  And on an on everywhere you go.  It’s like a criminal finding the Lord as a possible means of getting a reduced sentence.

Heroes

“The founders of the American Republic built into its polity a fundamental tension. The nation state would have no responsibility to promote religion even though, most of the founders believed, the survival of the new nation depended in part upon its citizens’ morality, which most saw as deriving from religion. In the Northwest Ordinance, Congress proclaimed unequivocally that “Religion, Morality and knowledge” were “necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind.” Yet in it Congress provided financial support for schools but not churches.

“The Constitution, written the same year, contained no appeal to God for sanction or guidance, not even to the vague “Nature’s God” or “Creator” of the Declaration of Independence. It did include “in the Year of our Lord” in the date and prohibited counting Sunday in the ten days allowed the president to veto a bill, but neither provision undermined the inescapable conclusion that the writers of the Constitution purposefully left God out, that they intended to create a secular national government, one with no responsibility for religion or morality. The Constitution left both religion and morality to the states. The First Amendment, with its troubling tension between a ban on establishing religion and “prohibiting” its “free exercise” (a confusion that has kept courts occupied into a third century) did nothing to undermine the secular nature of the new federal government. Rather, the Bill of Rights, of which it was a part, affirmed and codified the Revolution’s emphasis on individual liberty. The First Amendment did not apply to the states, of course. Most provided some acknowledgment of God’s guidance in their constitutions, and in all, regulating public morality remained…a “crucial obligation.” Even the states, though, disestablished religion. Starting in Virginia in 1785 and ending in Massachusetts in 1833, all of the states that had once had established churches separated church and state.”
-Moral Reconstruction: Christian Lobbyists and the Federal Legislation of Morality, 1865-1920, by Gaines M. Foster (2002). p. 10

“The post office had transported mail on Sunday since the beginning of the Republic, but in 1810, Congress passed a law requiring postmasters to open their offices every day on which mail arrived and to deliver any item requested by a patron on any day of the week. Even though the postmaster general interpreted the law to minimize the time post offices would be open and to avoid conflicts with worship services, ministers and churches protested the new law.”

Ibid., p. 9

By 1815 over a hundred petitions, from churches in virtually every state, had been filed with Congress urging the repeal of the 1810 law.
-The Godless Constitution, The Case Against Religious Correctness, by Isaac Kramnick and R. Laurence Moore (1996). p. 133 (HB).

However, [t]he legislatures of three states filed petitions with Congress in 1830 opposing repeal of the 1810 law. Indiana’s included a ringing endorsement of the godless Constitution. Passing laws “to regulate or enforce the observance of religious duties” infringed on the freedom of religion. “Any legislative interference in matters of religion” constituted “a violation of both the letter and the spirit of the Constitution.” The Indiana petition sternly concluded, in words as meaningful today as in 1830, “There are no doctrines or observances inculcated by the Christian religion which require the arm of civil power either to enforce or sustain them: we consider every connection between church and state at all times dangerous to civil and religious liberty.”

Ibid., p. 137-8.

Enlarged View

Thomas Jefferson said, “Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear,” On the frieze below the dome of the Jefferson Memorial is a metaphorical quote by Jefferson: “I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.” This is above all a reverence for America as the sublime man-made creation it is.

Indianapolis Star

Schools cut back time to teach handwriting

August 29, 2009

Brownsburg — Third-graders can expect a scaled-down cursive lesson this year, leaving more time to hone their keyboarding skills.

A letter distributed to parents this week said some of the instructional time previously dedicated to cursive writing will be used to teach computer keyboarding.

“It is clear to us that cursive is becoming more obsolete,” said Donna Petraits, the district’s director of communications. “We are hearing equal amounts of praise and criticism on this decision, which we fully expected.”

The district will not completely cut cursive out of the curriculum. They plan to curb it back, teaching students only how to write their name and how to read it.

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In grade school, there were two subjects this writer received grades of A in.  And only two:  Penmanship and Art.  I believe it was in second grade that we learned to write in Cursive.  It was faster than first-grade Print writing, and overwhelmingly lovelier.  [As an aside:  as a Sophomore in Catholic high school I was the only boy in Typing class.  I miss that Remington Rand typewriter with it's resistance against pressing the keys and the loud clicking sound.  By the way by the end of the course, I was the fastest typist in class at 80 words per minute.  Today's computer keyboard is too quiet along with so weak a pressure against the fingers, I find myself down to maybe 40 WPA.]

Below is an example of my own penmanship, written some 25 years ago when I was around 35 years old.  At that time I did not even own a typewriter, so anything I wrote had to be written the way I still write today — in Cursive.  My print writing is, although excellent in first grade, now difficult for me the few times I’m made to write that way on a form, etc.

I truly hate to see Cursive writing go the way of the “dead language”, Latin.