Now I know what Tom Clancy felt like after the Berlin Wall fell. I'm practically done with my book and it looks as if Liberalism is eating itself alive. I don't know whether to write a post-mortem or add some salt.
However, I have a fertile mind and will finish my book and then begin on something else. Such is my mind, never vacant for very long as there is a long list of ideas waiting to bear fruit.
I read a blog today about how the young are liberals and as you get older you become more conservative. Based on the Nancy Pelosi model I think we jump into a second childhood shortly after that first bo-tox shot.
As I've mentioned here before, I've been conservative since conception. Evidently it takes two hippies to make a staunch conservative, and in my gifted way I realized I was an Objectivist and decided to let the market decide on that. So far my little theory on individual freedom and severely limited government is catching on. I stand on the shoulders of such giants as Aristotle and Ayn Rand. It's looking OK from here.
Some find my blog political, and yet it's not. It's philosophical. Because I ponder quite a bit, questions a bit more, and try to draw some epistemological conclusions. Philosophy answers five questions:
1. Where am I? What is reality? This is metaphysics.
2. How do I know? This is epistemology.
3. What should I do? This is ethics.
4. How do I deal with people. This is politics.
5. How do I keep going? This is aesthetics.
As you can see, politics is a part of philosophy. It's a huge part of philosophy, and thus why many people see me as political, when really, all I want you to do is THINK.
Let me give this example. I am married to a wonderful man who has almost a cellular understanding of computer networks. He's constantly tinkering on ours (this is not always a good thing as I am remembering several music drives that were toasted, b0rked, and FUBAR) and is the most brilliant man I know. He's also the dumbest smart man I know. He's a man child who puts about as much thought into the words that spew from his mouth as most of us do pouring a cup of coffee. None at all. I have tried, for 12 fruitless years to get him to think outside his self-made box. Trust me, get him talking computers, routers, blades, nodes and he's authoritative, self-assured, and righteous. I never don't believe the words he says that I actually understand. He's right, he knows it, and is deigning to step off that pedestal to explain it to you. It sends chills up my spine and I get a Chris Matthews "tingle" when he starts geek-speak.
However, get him off on to any other subject, and I mean ANY other subject and he regresses into a nine year old boy who just says words so that you think he knows what he's talking about. In the past year and a half, with his involvement in the Tea Party, he's gotten better when it comes to most of his erroneous assumptions. He still doesn't think before he blurts something ridiculous out. I've tried showing him that words have a meaning to the listener so he should always choose his words carefully. At this point in his life, I'm not sure anything will ever change. He will continue saying the wrong thing and everyone around him will allow him to get away with it because he's a genius and we all figure, at first, that it's some little joke we just don't get.
After eleven years of living with the man, it's not. It's just him. It's a part of him and I accept it. Doesn't mean I like it, I just realize it's him.
This brings me to my point. Words. Words are important. Aristotle realized this when he made grammar one of the corner stones of learning (which was spelled out in the Medieval Trivium). Grammar is the structure of language. If you understand your language you can understand everything about your culture, which is important. Especially these days when government and Liberal Euphemism is at its height. When you know what people are saying, really saying, you have a greater understanding of THEM. That brings you to ways you can deal with those people.
See how it all goes around? If I remember my classical education correctly, this would be called Argumentum ad circulum. Philosophy will do that to you.
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