The Baffled Right

Reason alone establishes the concept of freedom, and passion collides with it.

Immanuel Kant
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Hello Arlene
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Lately I've been noticing a particular kind of faulty and incongruous thinking on the part of some Conservatives. It seems as if there has been some sort of brainwashing going on to convince people of conditions that are the opposite of what they really are.

Take the case of the woman who erected a flag pole on her front yard and flew an American flag. She was told by a member of the neighborhood organization to remove it. She was shocked. She said she would have expected that if she lived in a liberal neighborhood, but was amazed that it happened the conservative neighborhood she was in. What?

I wanted to tell her that if she were living in a liberal neighborhood no one would be knocking on her door to tell her to take down her flag. That's what liberalism is about, individual rights and freedoms of expression.

Then there's the case of the young boy who killed his neo-Nazi father. The boy is in serious trouble, but the grandmother took the man's other children away and proudly informed the media that they were being cared for in a conservative home. What?

Those children should be in a good liberal home, as far away as possible from conservatism and especially the influence of the extremist conservatives such as the neo-Nazis.

How can two otherwise intelligent people be so confused about things and guilty of such miscalculation unless somewhere along the road they were convinced that both Liberals and Conservatives are something they are not. The problem is those two people and others like them vote.

President Ronald Reagan, whom some Conservatives still consider to have been a great Present in spite of his economic flop, once said "The Liberals have got it wrong again." That remark helped to sew confusion about the reality of the political scene. He should have been President of the United States. Instead he was President of the Republican Party alone.

I may be dreaming, but I hope the day comes soon when both the Liberals and Conservatives have their positions in the country honestly and not misleadingly stated and are spear headed by intelligent and reasonable people who can earnestly present their philosophies to the country without all the emotion and false drama and then let the voters decide.

Some day I may write on how Liberals misunderstand Conservatives.

DB - Vagabond
Never Give Up
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AUTUMN QUESTION

What event over the past year changed your life, a lot or a little?

3 answers so far.

dbdacoba@aol.com

I await your answers.
DB
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Letter To Quitters

"What man wants to do, he can do." This is just a high-sounding tautology. What he wants to do upon the command of his morally commanding reason is exactly what he ought to do.

Immanuel Kant
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Just as vermin crawl through the corpse so the worms of inanity and negativity ooze their way through a human being or a society that has lost its standard of reason and conscience. With a wave and bland smile the destroyers will throw a rope of lies to the struggling spirit. Innocent criminals, self bewildered, brazen fools, parasites in those still living.

As frightening as it may appear to uncertain travelers we must tread on the high places of our reason and not allow the enemy to dwell there. All the claims of failure, hidden error, uselessness, unworthiness must be chased out and trampled on by iron boots.

Logic is a tool in the hands of both the seer and the deceiver. It invites combat, and it is a skilled fighter. We have a choice. We can either join battle in the mud pit of immoral muck or stand on the high ground in the light of reason knowing that the truth sails on the winds of integrity and inspiration. Ignorance, greed and irresponsibility are given license by a dying society. They are the worms that gnaw the vitality out of our lives and they are busy right now, today, this very hour, camouflaging their desperate work with spider webs.

When we stop listening to the blandishments and fancy prose and posing of the deniers and truly think in the highest and clearest manner we know we are not permitted to do just what we please. We are permitted to do what we know is right and we know what is right because we decide.

If you are still alive you know there is no quitting. If you quit the worms are waiting.

DB - The Vagabond
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WINTER QUESTION
(This is not a contest)

What was the most significant event that happened in 2010?

dbdacoba@aol.com

Only 5 responses so far

I await your answer.
DB
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Knocking Knowledge 10/29/08

Truth is the child of time,
erelong she shall appear to vindicate thee.

Immanuel Kant
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It seems to me that all great, new ideas go through three steps. First people summarily dismiss and ignore them. Then they argue and put up defenses against them. And finally they adopt them.

The irony is that when you finally accept the truth of something you've been told you have usually forgotten who it was that told you, oh, so long ago. Not only that, but some people actually come to believe that it was their own idea to begin with. That's an intellectual injustice, of course, but it's inevitable.

When someone says "mark my words" you know damn well that the "my" referred to is probably going to be forgotten about, even though some day the words might be remembered.

I know things today that I refused to believe years ago. But I don't remember where I first heard them. And in my lofty aerie of intellectually superior senior citizenship (?) I know I have given young folks the benefit of my original thinking which has been met with suspicion and disbelief, and that when those folks finally know that I was right they will have forgotten all about me. That's the way it goes. That's life.

These days people are complaining about the toxicity of plastic. I was doing that 30 years ago.

I have even had returned to me one of my own quotes, one of my Vagabondisms, as an "old saying." That made me smile.

I've been humbled enough by time and by a sense of humor to be content with the realization that, about whatever it was, I was right. Forget who gets the credit.



DB - Vagabond Journeys



May all the flies stay away from your ointment.