Becoming a parent brought focus to many new perspectives of my view of man, life, love and human joy. So many common misconceptions about the human mind, learning, knowledge and human nature are revealed as wholly fallacious when you witness first-first hand a child’s transition from the clean-slate of infancy to an individual driven by an insatiable quest to understand and master the world around him.

The expression which I find most endearing, and symbolic of man’s purpose, is that of my son grasping knowledge. The passage below eloquently identifies that expression as well as its significance in a much wider context.

Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal : Ch. 24 - Requiem For Man

I will ask you to project the look on a child’s face when he grasps the answer to some problem he has been striving to understand. It is a radiant look of joy, of liberation, almost of triumph, which is unself-conscious, yet self-assertive, and its radiance seems to spread in two directions: outward, as an illumination of the world—inward, as the first spark of what is to become the fire of an earned pride. If you have seen this look, or experienced it, you know that if there is such a concept as “sacred” - meaning: the best, the highest possible to man - this look is the sacred, the not-to-be-betrayed, the not-to-be-sacrificed for anything or anyone.

This look is not confined to children. Comic-strip artists are in the habit of representing it by means of a light-bulb flashing on, above the head of a character who has suddenly grasped an idea. In simple, primitive terms, this is an appropriate symbol: an idea is a light turned on in a man’s soul.

It is the steady, confident reflection of that light that you look for in the faces of adults - particularly of those to whom you entrust your most precious values. You look for it in the eyes of a surgeon performing an operation on the body of a loved one; you look for it in the face of a pilot at the controls of the plane in which you are flying; and, if you are consistent, you look for it in the person of the man or woman you marry.

That light-bulb look is the flash of a human intelligence in action; it is the outward manifestation of man’s rational faculty; it is the signal and symbol of man’s mind. And, to the extent of your humanity, it is involved in everything you seek, enjoy, value, or love. [emphasis mine]

It is precisely that spark of light that is misunderstood, neglected, and under assault from every cultural front today. That spark is what life is all about. That spark keeps a man alive. Man can benefit tremendously from human relationships, but his core existence is driven from and towards that spark. Meaningful relationships, i.e., ones based on explicitly identified common values, are only possible as derivative manifestations of that spark.

Not only have those who evade, ignore or are oblivious to “the look” missed what I consider the most valuable thread of life, they’re also the ones leading the assault, either directly or by ignorant default, against man, against man’s mind, against joy, against life.

It’s those who, never knowing the spark or all that it leads to, resort to force when dealing with others - uncivilized misfits stuck in a civilized society.

When men hold differing opinions, effective communication of rational ideas is a civilized form of persuasion, whereas an anonymous late-night call threatening my 8-month pregnant wife that her husband should “watch what he writes on the internet” is not.

History illustrates it is precisely those individuals who resort to the latter that have always endeavored to destroy those embodied by the former - and despite centuries of human progress, it’s obvious there are still those who’ve failed to rise above a barbarians view of existence.

For me to abandon usage of the only proper tool of persuasion available to a civilized man - rational communication - would constitute a betrayal of my principles, a surrender my values, and a failure to protect myself and my loved ones from cultural (and inevitably physical) assault.

Given our present course, there will likely be a time where brute force will suppress opposing ideals; and when that time comes, if keeping my views to myself might enable our escape then I’ll do so - but as long as there’s still a chance to escape that desperate reality; I’ll continue to foster the spark in man, I’ll continue to speak, I’ll continue to clown ignorance and those who enable it, I’ll stand by every word, and I’ll defend myself and my family by any means necessary.

How many racist, marxist/communist policies, comments, advisers, associates and staff members does it take for us to agree we’ve elected an aspiring collectivist dictator?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Jones

“A system predicated upon fraud isn’t sustainable. A clearing and settlement system that facilitates counterfeiting and fraud, and is accountable to nobody, isn’t a clearing and settlement system. A media that only touts the party line isn’t a free press. A private cartel of banks, writing trillions of dollars of taxpayer-funded checks while refusing to tell anyone who is receiving the loot isn’t a sustainable banking system. A government that allows all the above to become the status quo, and which twists statistics in order to lie to its own citizenry as well as the rest of the world, isn’t a sustainable government.” - Neo-Feudal Casino-Gulag Plantation-Economy Minion #43G_02101976_73

• Reiterating the fact that a dollar can only be spent once, i.e., that A is A, the current staff of lords announced the shocking revelation that their entitlement piggy-bank of looted wealth isn’t immune to the economic disaster they’ve heaved on the world.
• Unions are learning first hand that a business can’t operate at a loss and still make money, i.e., the law of causality, and that even their precious bully friend Uncle Sam will throw them under the bus when he’s desperate.
• Interesting… Our economy is circling the drain, but somehow there’s still enough loot to fund research into homosexual activity in Argentina and teach Chinese prostitutes to drink responsibly. I’m sure these funds were selflessly donated from the salaries of our esteemed members of congress.
• Importing far more than Chinese goods, Puritan Statists in Minnesota found a new way to tackle online gambling.
• The anointed have discovered that Soda Taxes would fulfill paternalistic nanny-state cravings and fund socialized medicine. What a crafty bunch!

Pragmatic economics is bleeding the life out of America. Collectivist politicians have virtually free-reign to unlimited investment backed by our future productivity.

The U.S. government and the Federal Reserve have spent, lent or committed $12.8 trillion, an amount that approaches the value of everything produced in the country last year, to stem the longest recession since the 1930s.

New pledges from the Fed, the Treasury Department and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. include $1 trillion for the Public-Private Investment Program, designed to help investors buy distressed loans and other assets from U.S. banks. The money works out to $42,105 for every man, woman and child in the U.S. and 14 times the $899.8 billion of currency in circulation. The nation’s gross domestic product was $14.2 trillion in 2008.

In their minds, there is no amount of looted wealth that is off the table. There is no political or economic effort for which they lack confidence in the American serf to cover by productive effort. If force is required, so be it.

Man’s nature requires him to think, act and maintain the results of doing so. Our tyrannical government knows too well that we only need a certain range of freedom to act within, and only to keep above a certain threshold of the productive results to ensure our likely compliance to their meddling.

As long as our leash is just long enough and they tactfully throttle or camouflage their looting, the majority of marching ants won’t revolt. So long as the majority complies, their party remains funded. Theirs is a game of control. Control the variables that influence man’s actions so that he’ll either fail to notice the attached IV, or he’ll be too busy gasping for air to remove it. The only thing that matters is that he stays alive and the blood keeps flowing.

The debt that the American government is flagrantly piling on our backs will most definitely require them to push the thresholds of statist regulations and taxation to the point where the rational segment of the population, the segment they need the most, will take reproachful offense.

When that revolt does take place, their only option will be to tighten the screws. The more they tighten, the more their house of cards will crumble. The final scene, as so brilliantly portrayed in the climax of Atlas Shrugged, will place them in a most precarious position. Their only remaining recourse to inspire productivity will be threat of death - with the ironic quagmire being obvious. Either way, the productivity fueling their existence will cease.

Our pop-culture president recently went through the dog-and-pony show experience of Leno. We’re now beginning to see that given the opportunity (predicament) to improvise outside of a teleprompter’s demands, this man will reveal his true character.

It began with the president joking about how bad a bowler he is.

Toward the end of his approximately 40-minute taping on the “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno,” Obama talked about how he’d gotten better at bowling and had been practicing in the White House bowling alley.

“I bowled a 129,” he told Leno.

“That’s very good, Mr. President,” Leno said sarcastically.

But then came the foot-in-mouth moment: “It’s like the Special Olympics or something,” the president said. [emphasis mine]

< sacrastic-response >
Um, like… yea Barack… that shit’s funny yo.
< / sarcastic-response >

Are you kidding me?

Should we consider this notion as enlightened, compassionate or progressive? Does it represent his earnest respect for hope or change? What caliber of intellect carries around such a childish insensitive notion? This ignorant and tasteless blurt is just one candid snippet of the mind that will likely lead America to a much darker time.

Loosen your belt America, we’re just getting started.

A friend sent me this impressive visualization of a very large sum of money - roughly the amount of which the Government has written IOU’s backed by our future productivity. So generous of them to loan such a stupendous amount of money on my behalf.

One Dollar

Ten Thousand Dollars

One Million Dollars

One Hundred Million

One Billion Dollars

One Trillion Dollars

Pretty impressive huh? This is only the beginning…

To accrue reckless debt on behalf of others, and where the only means of payment is the current wealth or future production of one man or a million, be it one cent or one trillion, is a contemptible feat of human evil.

Perhaps the most offensive charge one can hurl at the planet’s leading mega-altruist is the accusation of selfishness.

Don’t worry, false alarm. Rest assured, Obama certainly wouldn’t take any measure that could even slightly resemble alignment with America’s best interest. In case any of us can’t quite measure up in the self-sacrifice department, BO’s got our back. He’ll be there for us when need a helping suicidal hand.

“I agree that we can’t send a protectionist message,” he said in an interview with Fox TV. “I want to see what kind of language we can work on this issue. I think it would be a mistake, though, at a time when worldwide trade is declining, for us to start sending a message that somehow we’re just looking after ourselves and not concerned with world trade.”

In other words, “Please EU! Don’t be mad at us… we’re not selfish, we promise to give it all away - or destroy it first!” And by concerned he means willing to toss as many Americans into the sacrificial furnace of altruism as needed to make the point.

As stated by John Galt:

“You have reached the blind alley of the treason you committed when you agreed that you had no right to exist. Once, you believed it was ‘only a compromise’: you conceded it was evil to live for yourself, but moral to live for the sake of your children. Then you conceded that it was selfish to live for your children, but moral to live for your community. Then you conceded that it was selfish to live for your community, but moral to live for your country. Now, you are letting this greatest of countries be devoured by any scum from any corner of the earth, while you concede that it is selfish to live for your country and that your moral duty is to live for the globe. A man who has no right to life, has no right to values and will not keep them.” - Atlas Shrugged

I honestly don’t know what would qualify as the most detestable facet of this scenario: the fact that our leaders would subjugate our economic policy to the opinion of the EU or the World Trade Organization; that our economic ignorance is such that trade restrictions would be considered a viable means to boost the economy; that we’ve abandoned virtually all respect for individual rights to the extent that such restrictions are legal; that we feel the need to apologize for (what was incorrectly deemed as) acting in our own self-interest; or the colossal culmination of all of the above - that the only barrier protecting us from more rights-clobbering regulation (exactly what led us into this shit-storm) is that such measures might offend the EU as an act of selfishness.

How such a horrendous muck of neurotic contradictions can appeal to consensus in a modern enlightened society is a stunning tribute to our philosophical decline.

Well, the day has come when America has elected a president of a different race than all that preceded him. The usual suspects boast of America’s progress and lament how proud Martin Luther King would be - as if their collectivist triumph, which happens to be championed on this particular day by a man of mixed race, carry the same moral nobility as Dr. King’s genuine crusade for a colorblind world.

MLK correctly promoted that men abstain from taking the crude intellectual shortcut of assessing another man based on his genetic lineage, i.e, overlooking an individual in favor of a group. Yet, in this great day of change, a tremendous number of people did exactly that, and on a more fundamental level, they elected a man who’s an avowed collectivist, i.e, one who overlooks individuals in favor of a group as his exclusive method.

Draw your own conclusions about progress.

A man’s philosophy drives his every decision. When such decisions extend into the realm of wielding force against a nation of individuals, the importance of his philosophy is immeasurable. How he regards our rights to life, liberty, and property, how he reveres the proper scope of government, his sense of justice – these are the keys one should consider when evaluating a political candidate, especially one looking to rule a nation.

I didn’t vote. Given the choice of poison or venom - I’ll stay home. Yes, the current dimwit imbecile is on his way out - good for America. No, we won’t be harnessed by a theocratic regime - great for America. At least our march into collectivist stagnation will be orchestrated with the style and class of a charismatic and well-spoken dictator.

Race, like sex, doesn’t determine one’s philosophy, intelligence or ability. However, for a country plagued in its infancy by the irrational collectivist disease of slavery, and since longing to be colorblind - today is one of symbolic significance. For a culture rank with sloppy attire, unintelligible slang and nearly void of aspiration to achieve anything of rational value, a neatly dressed, extremely well-spoken man in a successful and honored position is a unprecedented role-model and cultural icon. This is good for America.

What the man will do is not. Obama is a collectivist by his every statement. He does not regard individuals with any degree of sanctity. People are merely spokes in the wheel of his vision. This is bad for America. Obama will treat men as property of the State, and as such, what should properly be considered as rights will be treated as privileges. When property is a privilege, wealth can be confiscated, guns can be collected, and business regulations can be enforced. When men are seen as means to a collective end, any portion of their life, liberty or property can be used as the ruler desires. As in every collectivized society in the history of man, individuals drained of their rightful motive and means to survive will stagnate in passivity. This is bad for America. Men wrangled with regulation, dictates and plunder, while also being denied the proper means to protect themselves from other men in desperation from the same oppression is a society doomed to resort to animalistic survival. This is bad for America.

If instead of an avowed collectivist, this candidate were a rational-minded individual who valued justice, freedom, and rights, this day could be one celebrated by all Americans. Instead, such a day of pride for many Americans coincidentally spearheads a likely fatal stab in the back of all Americans by way of undermining our essence. I’d like very much to share the celebratory sentiment, but in the context of freedom and individual rights, today is a very dark day.

Send this to every productive individual you know.

I’m unfamiliar with the host or the associated website, but insofar as this video is concerned I agree. Just close your ears during his reference of “drugs for the elderly” as a supposed proper role of government.