Barbaric or Savage

In the Spherical Model, I use the word savage as the negative, southern hemisphere quality of the social sphere. There are a number of examples in the news these days: i.e., the beheadings of journalists, the execution of non-Muslims who refuse to convert.

Sometimes the news stories and commentary use the word barbaric, and sometimes savage. So I’m spending a day quibbling over word choice while horrendous things are happening—in hopes that greater understanding will help move the world in the right direction.

The words savage and barbaric are essentially synonyms. In my thesaurus, the first synonym for savage is barbarous. And under barbarous/barbaric, savage is listed in the mix. There may be differences, but they’re somewhat subtle. Still, I chose one over the other.

The word barbaric is a word that historically meant, in the ancient world, someone from some culture other than Greek, Roman, or Christian. It could mean less civilized, less technologically advanced, less developed—because much of the world beyond the empires was often backward, or primitive, in those ways. But not always; sometimes it just referred to something foreign or strange, not the way of the culture doing the naming.

Sometimes (often today) the word barbaric is used to refer to behavior: crude, uncouth, boorish, unmannerly, wild, unrestrained—but also brutal or cruel.

The word savage can also refer to a culture that is primitive: lacking in technology and education, possibly lacking in writing. In some circles there’s the idea of the “noble savage,” someone from a primitive culture who is nevertheless more “civilized,” more wise about nature and living a good life, than the supposedly civilized person. But this is pretty much a myth. There may be people within primitive societies who live in a civilized way; they are, then, by definition, civilized, not savage. The mythologized ones are more likely to be looked at through a lens focused on a specific thing, with much else left purposely out of focus.

This is part of an agenda to equate all cultures as equally valid. It’s a lie. You can have a lot of differences between cultures that may be equally valid—food, music, dance, language. But you still only get civilization when you have a religious people, who recognize that their rights come from God, who live a code of behavior essentially equivalent to the Ten Commandments—valuing God, family, life, honesty, and doing good to others.

I chose the word savage, in the Spherical Model, because the behavior description is more accurate. Also, there’s no confusion with the Barbary Coast, an area known for piracy—definitely a barbaric, or savage, behavior—where the word is not actually related to barbarian, but to Berbers, the north African peoples.

So, while barbaric is also the antipathy of civilization, the important contrast is between the bad behavior and our goal: civilization.

I’ve been reading a novel in which the comparison between civilization and barbarians keeps coming up. I’m not sure whether to recommend this book/series—The Kingkiller Chronicles, by Patrick Rothfuss. I read the first one for book club last month, The Name of the Wind. It was an interesting read, a slightly magical world something like our Middle Ages Europe, but not really that. It’s a quest story, with a young man coming of age. But in the near 700 pages of book one, he makes almost no progress on the stated quest. I am now almost 800 pages into the second book, The Wise Man’s Fear, and other than a sentence or two, there’s still been no progress toward the stated quest. [I don’t think book 3 is written yet, so who knows if the quest will be completed, or whether how Kvothe got where he is will be explained.] Nevertheless, some interesting stuff happens.

I had been warned about book two, because there are some rather ridiculous prurient parts with a fairy—going on for at least a hundred pages. Not too explicit, fortunately, but still evidence that the author doesn’t really understand civilization.

But I am tuned in to pick up little conversations about civilization. And this second book has some of that. At one point the main character, Kvothe, is sent on a quest by the Maer (minor king) to get rid of thieves who have been making the roads dangerous, interfering with trade, and confiscating tax money that has to be replaced. One of the mercenaries sent with him is from a different culture, the Adem. The descriptions of the look of the people is what we’d consider northern European—all seem to have sandy colored hair and gray eyes. But their culture seems to be a pretty good replication of some Asian cultures.

Tempi is mostly silent, but dangerous in a fight. Like a ninja. He has trouble with the language, foreign to him. But eventually Kvothe begins to communicate better with him, and learn from him. Chapter 82 (starting on page 545) is called “Barbarians,” referring to those outside of Tempi’s native culture. The differences include how they speak. Tempi’s people, use fewer words and more subtle hand signals And they try to follow some inexplicable guidance from within called Lethani. They also have many layers of meaning, like you might find in Korean, and tonality, like you might find in Mandarin. So it’s not a direct correlation with something specific in the nonfictional world.

Kvothe is telling the story here:

  I nodded slowly, trying to imagine what it must be like for Tempi, constantly assaulted by people too rude to keep their expressions to themselves. People whose hands constantly made gestures that were nonsense. “It must be very hard for you, out here.”

  “Not so hard.” Understatement. “When I leave Ademre, I know this. Not civilization. Barbarians are rude.”

  “Barbarians?’

  He made a wide gesture, encompassing our clearing, the forest, all of Vintas. “Everyone here like dogs.” He made a grotesquely exaggerated expression of rage showing all his teeth, snarling and rolling his eyes madly. “That is all you know.” He shrugged nonchalant acceptance, as if to say he didn’t hold it against us.

  “What of children?” I asked. “Children smile before they talk. Is that wrong?”

  Tempi shook his head. “All children barbarians. All smile with face. All children rude. But they go old. Watch. Learn.” He paused thoughtfully. Choosing his words. “Barbarians have no woman to teach them civilization. Barbarians cannot learn.” 

That detail, of women needed to teach civilization, caught my attention. 

Later in the book, Kvothe travels with Tempi to his home town of Haert, and begins to learn from the people there. Their school teaches “Lethani,” which is unknowable, maybe like chi, and fighting skills—very much like Asian martial arts, including patterns of practice called Ketan, which sound a lot like katas, or my Tai Chi routine (but performed perfectly, at the slow pace of honey spilled on a table, which I have not accomplished).

Women do the teaching, and are considered the better fighters. Kvothe is surprised by that:

  Vashet [his teacher] nodded, pleased [at what he had noticed in a spar between two young boys]. “They fight like puppies. They are young, and boys. They are full of anger and impatience. Women have less trouble with these things. It’s part of what makes us better fighters.”

            I was more than slightly surprised to hear her say that. “Women are better fighters?” I asked carefully, not wanting to contradict her.

            “Generally speaking,” she said matter-of-factly. “There are exceptions, of course, but as a whole women are better.”

            “But men are stronger,” I said. “Taller. They have better reach.”

            She turned to look at me, slightly amused. “Are you stronger and taller than me then?”

            I smiled. “Obviously not. But as a whole, you have to admit, men are bigger and stronger.”

            Vashet shrugged. “And that would matter if fighting were the same as splitting wood or hauling hay. That is like saying a sword is better the longer and heavier it is. Foolishness. Perhaps for thugs this is true. But after taking the red [refers to the uniform color, becoming a traveling guardian, called mercenary for lack of a better translation], the key is knowing when to fight. Men are full of anger, so they have trouble with this. Women less so” [p. 763].

It’s an interesting view. In our culture, I think it is assumed emotion is female, and logic is male—even though that is stereotypical and right only about 50% of the time for either sex. It’s probably right only about as often in their fictional world as well.

Unless you assume, not emotions, but specific emotions. Females are less likely to fly to anger, to enjoy harming physically in retaliation for offense; females are more likely to care for and nurture others. Females are less likely to seek to conquer, and more likely to seek reconciliation and collaboration. Some emotions are more civilized than others. And, in general, women tend toward those emotions more than men do.

Maybe that is why God designed the family to have women in the position to civilize the next generation. Men are needed too—to teach hard work, honesty, honor, courage, and being gentle even when you have the strength to be coercive. Those are important in civilization too. But men are more likely to exhibit those characteristics if they were raised by a good woman and have committed in marriage to a good woman.

Children benefit from the civilizing nurturing of mothers as well as the example of a civilized father. Both. In the family, the microcosm of civilization. Parents, “Raise up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6).

There is so much ugly savagery in today’s world. There is news that we can’t even bear to view—because you can’t unview such things. But in the sacred family home, there can be civilization. And from there it can spread.

Bench Slap Needed

The Texas abortion law HB2 is in the news again, and again the Houston Chronicle has a difficult time not coloring the story with their pro-abortion position. Here’s how the Saturday, August 29, front page story begins:

For the second time in 10 months, a federal judge has struck down a key piece of Texas’ tough new abortion law just before its implementation was expected to force clinics across the state to close.

The facts are basically there, sort of. But, if you’re not up on this story, you might think that various judges are consistently finding this “tough new abortion law” too onerous to be legal.  What’s really happening is that one judge, Federal District Judge Lee Yeakel, keeps ignoring the criteria for judging and keeps ruling according to an outcome he wants. He stayed the law’s implementation last fall, and the stay was lifted in three days; then his ruling was reversed entirely in April.

Earlier in August opponents went before the same judge again, saying they shouldn’t have to comply.  I wrote about the admitting privileges part of the law August 7, and son Political Sphere followed up about what’s going on in Mississippi and Alabama with similar laws. [“Admitting Bias, part I, part II”]

Judge Yeakel’s first  ruling claimed the law didn’t pass the “undue burden” requirement, based on the number of clinics that did not have doctors with admitting privileges. At issue before the hearing this past month were again the admitting privileges and also the required upgrades to be as other surgical centers—which were set to take effect September 1^st. He used the upgrade argument to claim undue burden this time.

For both reasons, a number of clinics have chosen to close rather than meet the law. Judge Yeakel is equating the choice of the clinics not to meet the law with undue burden placed on women seeking abortions. But that is not the standard he should be using. The state is not required to adopt laws to make sure clinics choose to do business in the state; the state is merely required to make its regulations meet standards set by the Supreme Court (as if SCOTUS had authority to set such laws in the first place, but I digress).

As the judge was instructed last spring, the law only causes an undue burden if the requirements have no reasonable purpose (health and safety are a reasonable purpose here, particularly in the wake of the Gosnell case and cases similar that have shown up in Texas), and that the law prevents reasonably regulated clinics from operating. The state is not required to “sponsor” such businesses, nor adapt laws to ease the financial costs to entice such businesses.

Nothing has changed. Judge Yeakel is imposing his viewpoint again, rather than judging according to the law. The clinics involved may have shown that fewer clinics are operating, but they have not shown that the law prevented them.

Additionally in Friday’s ruling, Judge Yeakel exempted the El Paso and McAllen areas from the law’s requirements, because no doctors got admitting privileges, and no clinics would remain open. That would mean women seeking abortions in that part of the state would have a longer drive—if they chose to stay in Texas. But they were within 15 miles of a clinic in New Mexico. The out-of-state clinic would not necessarily conform to health and safety rules required in Texas, but the judge just said Texas clinics in those areas would fail compliance as well, and that’s OK—because it’s more important to have abortion clinics in Texas than to have safe and reliable medical facilities. Somehow that shows how caring he is about El Paso women.

The distance rule set by SCOTUS is 150 miles. If the law is fully implemented, with any existing clinics refusing to meet the new standards and therefore closing, it still so happens that 86% of Texas women live within 150 miles of such a clinic. And there is nothing the state is doing to prevent additional clinics from meeting the higher standards to locate near the other 14%. The clinics that are closing are refusing to put their financial resources into health and safety upgrades; they prefer to close rather than to raise the cost of doing their grisly business.

What I expect will happen (and what the state expects to happen) is that the 5^th Circuit will rule quickly, reversing AGAIN Judge Yeakel’s imposition of his personal opinion, rather than following the law. If this happens, it is what in casual legal circles would be called a “bench slap.” The judge is being put in his place for failing to apply the law and instead imposing his opinion of what he wants to be the outcome.

Bench slapping happens to the 9^th Circuit (particularly any three-judge panel operating in California) pretty regularly, when its decisions are vacated by the Supreme Court. And it is becoming something of a habit for the pro-abortion-under-any-circumstances Judge Yeakel. Let’s hope the 5^th Circuit takes care of him again promptly.

Intolerance on Its Head

A judge says to a New York couple, “Open up your home to provide a gay wedding or face $10,000 in fines plus $3,000 in damages.” Not kidding. 

There must be more to the story. Yes, a bit. But this is the basic truth of it. (Read more here and here.)

Photo originally screen capture from website,
found in this story

The New York couple, Robert and Cynthia Gifford, own a family farm. As you might imagine, making a living from a family farm is tenuous. But the location is rustically scenic. So they do additional business by allowing events there. These include various kinds of events: business parties, school events, birthday parties, and sometimes weddings and receptions.

The main covered venue is a large barn, above which is the couple’s living space, where they are raising their two children. When the Giffords consent to do a wedding, they do the decorating, the food, the setup…. Some events they are less involved in, including receptions elsewhere on the property. But a wedding, in their home—their rustic barn home—is something they take on as a partnership with the couple being married.

You can imagine they can’t take on that kind of event every day. They have to want to celebrate with the couple. After all, this is in their home, and it’s taking up their life and livelihood for some significant amount of time.

So, along comes a lesbian couple who want their wedding in the barn/home. The Giffords are religious Christians. They are not comfortable putting their heart and soul into something that goes against their belief in traditional marriage. So they suggest lesser services, such as a reception on the grounds. Not good enough. The lesbians insist they want the whole shebang or nothing. So the farm owners shrug their shoulders and say they’re sorry they can’t help.

What would a tolerant engaged couple do? Respect the kindly and respectfully offered decision, and go find another venue. Not this couple. They insist it is their right to force this farm family to open their home and give them the full-service wedding. Or else! And the or else was a lawsuit. With a liberal judge, who thinks it’s OK to enslave someone into servitude, not just in their own business but, in this case, in their own home. He gets away with this travesty by claiming the lesbian couple is “suffering” intolerance from the farm owners.

The entire exchange happened in a “recorded” three-minute phonecall.

I have handled wedding events for all three of my children, with receptions in Texas and out of state. These required a lot of phonecalls, plus some in-person visits. I never once considered recording a phonecall. Why would I? If service couldn’t (or wouldn’t) be rendered by a particular vendor, I’d simply go elsewhere. And if there were details that needed to be remembered, I wrote notes, followed up with emails, or called again to clarify. I think that’s normal.

There was a business that turned us away, with prejudice. This was some months before daughter Social Sphere’s wedding. Just a couple of weeks afterward was the wedding of my daughter-in-law’s sister, who has long been a friend of Social Sphere. So the girls all got together, over Christmas break, to do some wedding exploration. Between our houses (about 40 miles apart) there’s a business we see from the freeway that does wedding-related business. We hadn’t ever been inside, so I wasn’t sure if they did dresses, had a reception venue, provided decorations for your venue, or a variety of other services. So I suggested the girls stop in and find out what they offered. They had granddaughter Little Political Sphere with them, at age 2 ½. She can be a handful, but at the time was clean and fed and under control. I think an older sister, with babe in arms, was also helping. The proprietor came up to these girls—two of them wearing engagement rings and ready to explore all kinds of wedding spending—and sent them out of the place because they had children with them. Talk about prejudice. We think that the proprietor didn’t believe the girls were seriously shopping. But the message was clear: people like you (people who have the nerve to bring a child with them) are not welcome here.

So, Weddings by Debbie, in Katy, Texas, gets no recommendation or business from us. Ever. In fact, after knowing how strongly they preferred not to do business with us, I wouldn’t want their services. The idea of forcing them to do something for us, through the courts, never came up.

The fact that it came up for Jenny McCarthy and Melissa Erwin, after a brief—recorded—phonecall, leads me to believe they were seeking a chance for a lawsuit more than then were seeking a lovely, rustic wedding venue.

What we don’t know is how many venues they contacted before they could find one that would offend them suitably for a lawsuit.

The fines might not put the Giffords out of business, but that is a risk. And in their case, losing the business could mean losing their home. Their options are to appeal to the state Supreme Court, or to countersue for violation of their religious freedoms. Either of those options requires money, which they may not have access to. Another consideration is hiring an event planner to separate them from participating in any event they might not want to be involved in. This would also cost them.

None of their options—for living their lives according to valid religious beliefs, in their business and in their home—is easy or inexpensive.

But it’s better than being beheaded, right? Yes. ISIS is moving through the Middle East, summarily executing anyone who holds religious beliefs not meeting ISIS approval. They don’t tolerate dissent.

Neither do the lesbian couple and the New York Judge. If execution were an optional punishment for failure to agree with the homosexual agenda, would they seek it? I don’t know. I hope not. But enslaving someone into service in their own home—because of the pain and anguish you suffered from a three-minute phonecall in which they said they were willing to serve you in other ways—is pretty spiteful. It is not, by any stretch, tolerant.

In the Spherical Model world, honoring family and living according to the Ten Commandments are two components necessary for freedom, prosperity, and civilization, found in the northern hemisphere. Tolerance where there is disagreement, and respect toward all people is part of civilization. Forcing someone to violate their religion is southern hemisphere savagery. ISIS is clearly savage. The difference between their intolerance and that of the Giffords’ opponents is a matter of degree. The more savagery is tolerated, the more civilization deteriorates into more severe savagery. There is no civilization to be found going in that direction.

Preparing the Ground, Part II

The last post was a request not to “draft Romney” for President, even though he’s a great man, made for our times. The reason has to do with the culture—a culture that rejected him when the alternative was a known failure.

So what we need to talk about, rather than who should run, is how to improve the culture. Very quickly. Now.

Related to culture, on the Glenn Beck radio show last week, Pat and Stu were discussing “a new poll” about religion and beliefs. I tried, unsuccessfully, to track down exactly which poll—or perhaps a collection. My guess is that the info comes from the Pew Research Foundation, or possibly this Harris Poll (a Nielsen company),but they didn’t say. So I’ll just go with Pat and Stu’s numbers.

First they were talking about what American people believe:

·         62% of Americans believe in Satan and hell; 75% believe in heaven.

·         42% believe in evolution.

·         82% believe in God; 8% don’t believe in God; 10% are unsure.

·         79% believe in miracles; 74% believe in angels.

·         41% believe in ghosts; 35% believe in UFOs; 31% believe in witches.

·         74% believe Jesus is the Son of God; 72% believe Jesus was resurrected; 60% accept as truth the virgin birth.

·         25% generally attend church weekly.

So far it’s just interesting. We Americans still have a pretty strong belief in God, especially compared to other countries. But if you measure dedication to belief by attendance, one in four is not that good. That’s certainly down from my childhood. (My childhood home, Utah, still has the highest attendance of 74% attending weekly—the highest in the US.)

Then Pat and Stu started talking about a specific surprising shift in belief. I’ll let their transcript tell the story:

Stu: Right now adults now support "same-sex marriage" by 54-38%; a 16-point margin now support "gay marriage." For more than a decade only about a third of Americans supported the idea, ranging from 27% in 1996 to 35% in 2009. So in 2009 it was 35%, and today it’s 54%. A 19-point move in that type of topic is incredibly fast. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen anything like it, to be perfectly honest with you. In 2011 it was the first time it crossed over the plurality level, and 2013 was the majority. Now we’re at 54%.

Listen to these numbers, though, broken down by age category. Those 60 and older oppose "gay marriage" 50-39%. They’re the only group now that opposes it.

Pat: Sixty and older.

Stu: Sixty and older, uh huh. [Age group] 45-59 favor "gay marriage" by a percentage of 49-40%. Between the ages of 30 and 44, they favor it 55-38%. So that’s a 17-point margin. But this is where you find—and this is, you know, where democrats are going, you know, because they try the same arguments over and over again. But these are the numbers they’re basing these arguments on: Those aged 18-29 favor "same-sex marriage" 75-18%. Seventy-five to eighteen!

Remember, this is a topic that Karl Rove is known as the architect because of—the idea that he organized a bunch of constitutional amendments on "gay marriage" to get conservatives out to vote, and they voted George W. Bush in for a second term in 2004. That’s the general reason he’s known as the architect, because he thought of that idea. That it was so popular to be opposed to "gay marriage" and to support traditional marriage back in 2004, that it was the thing that motivated people to go to the polls over a presidential election. Now we have a situation where it’s a 16-point margin among all people, and it’s 75-18% for younger people. Pretty amazing….

I mean, that’s just a societal study. You’re kind of seeing how people’s views change. I will say, on "gay marriage," I don’t know that I’ve ever seen something move that fast. 19 in five years is an astounding move for something that has been… You know, it wasn’t like a, you know, an idea no one had ever thought of. This is something that people considered for a really long time. And about a third of people said, “Yeah, there should be 'gay marriage.'” And all of a sudden, 19 points in five years. Interesting.

What else has happened during this five years? A civilization-hating president has been in the white house. Certainly he hasn’t helped, by lying during his campaign about what he wanted to do on this issue (lying about pretty much any issue, if he didn’t want us to make a judgment based on truth) and then going so far in the other direction that people are prosecuted for their beliefs, or forced out of business if they don’t go along with the homosexual agenda.

But it can’t be all just him. The speed of the change is alarming.

Meanwhile, more people are educated on the Constitution and basic human rights than ever before—mostly in the same time frame—about five years since the Tea Party started popping up. Albeit with the mistaken idea that Mitt Romney isn’t conservative enough, but at least making it clear that adhering to the Constitution—which we read and carry with us—is required of anyone we vote for.

If we’re looking for a reason the changes could happen so quickly, I think we have to look at the diversity of the media. We connect with each other instantaneously and widely, where such communication used to take days, weeks, or months, and was much more limited.

This blog is a tiny little example. The Spherical Model think tank is just me, and my computer, and whatever resources I put to use (which include my son Political Sphere, my son Economic Sphere, and my daughter Social Sphere). As obscure as this spot on the internet is, during the past week, it reached people not just in the US, but also in Russia, Ukraine, Taiwan, France, Singapore, South Korea, United Kingdom, Canada, Philippines, China, and New Zealand. If you add beyond this week, there were also significant readers in Turkey, Poland, Lavia…. Thank you, readers, for sharing. I write because I hope that what I have to say can help people seeking freedom, prosperity, and civilization. Such people are kindred spirits, wherever we are in the world.

Elder David A. Bednar
speaks on flooding the earth with positive messages.

David A. Bednar, former BYU-Idaho President, and now an Apostle in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, gave a talk this past week in which he suggested that we flood the world with positive messages. Use the internet for good, for uplifting one another. He said,

"I exhort you to sweep the earth with messages filled with righteousness and truth—messages that are authentic, edifying, and praiseworthy—and literally to sweep the earth as with a flood."

We need to flood the world with truth, in greater quantities than the opposition is flooding the world with lies. On the issue of same-sex “marriage,” for example, the widespread message/lie has been, “It’s discriminating to prevent gays from marrying.” In truth, no homosexual is prevented from marrying, according to the definition we’ve always had; they simply choose not to. They choose instead to force a change in the definition, so that we no longer have what marriage has always been.

What if every time any media source supported “gay marriage,” a clarifying message showed up saying, “homosexuals insist on changing the definition of marriage, so that it no longer includes permanence, exclusivity, nor the sexual act that can lead to procreation, but refers simply to any two people declaring they are currently in some sort of sexual relationship”? What if every time any media source referred to “a ban on gay marriage,” a more accurate reference showed up: “a change in the definition that would throw out the millennia-old definition of marriage and replace it with a new definition that lacks all the known benefits”?

The term “gay marriage” is quicker to say than what is actual. And the term “banning gay marriage” is quicker to say than what is actual. But going with the “quick” and “easy” over and over, in a flood of messages, has led to a change in thinking that is harmful to civilization and to freedom. (More, new, examples another day.)

How do we get out the truth, on this issue and so many others, when the message is harder and longer to say? I don’t know. Twitter might not be enough. And we don’t want to put out contention on Facebook or Pinterest. A blog, like this, at least has a chance of saying the fuller message—to people who choose to seek it.

But we have to get into the minds of young people, and older people, to get the ground ready for re-planting a great tree of civilization.

And, not to put too much pressure on, but a year from now we’ll be deciding who to put forward as president against the anti-civilization crowd currently dominating the media.

Flood! Positive, uplifting, truth! Now! Go!

Preparing the Ground, Part I

When is the best time to plant a tree? Twenty years ago. When is the next best time? Today.

I’d like to offer a variation on that theme. When is the best time to have Mitt Romney as President? Since 2009. When is the next best time to have Mitt Romney as President? Since 2013. When is the next best time to have Mitt Romney as President? From January 2017 on.

But I’m not planting that tree. I am not hoping he runs again.

It matters who is president—because a president can do so much damage to our country, our freedom, our economy, and our society. We have seen that deterioration in action more during the current administration than any in US history.

But the problem isn’t on the shoulders of a single person. The current climate in this country is not about an ineffectual, America-hating socialist; it’s about an electorate who chose an ineffectual, America-hating socialist—when they had the option of an extremely successful executive, with a long record of turning difficult situations into successes, who lives the highest level of civilization, honoring God, prioritizing family, and giving service generously.

 

There are people who are saying, “I told you so” at this point. It is true that Romney was right—about Obamacare, about taxes, about international conditions and America’s best role in a dangerous world, about, well, pretty much everything.

But there are also people, still, among conservatives who claim the problem was that Romney wasn’t a good enough candidate to beat the known-to-be-bad-for-America Obama. These include some names I would like to trust on conservatism: Glenn Beck, Mark Levin, various Facebook fellow conservative soldiers, Tea Party associates, the county GOP chair…. The main claim is that, since Romneycare (Massachusetts medical insurance plan) was the blueprint for Obamacare, Romney couldn’t possibly be anything but a liberal being shoved down our throats by RINO party leadership.

The lie about "Romneycare" came from the Obama campaign. That ought to be a clue. If you need a refresher, I wrote a seven-part assessment of Romney the candidate near the end of 2011, called “Measuring Mitt.” Most pertinent might be part VI on MassachusettsCare. Anyone who looks into it can see one thing really clearly: Obama and minions patterned NOTHING on anything that could be called Romney policy. Romney worked with Democrats to get policy that would be the most conservative possible—because that would be best for the people. And he succeeded in changing every organization he ever touched from debt-prone to profitable.

We admire George Washington because he was an honorable man, who gave selflessly for the country he loved, working always toward freedom rather than personal aggrandizement. Washington happened to be the wealthiest of colonists at the time of the founding. But it was not his wealth that was memorable; it was his character.

Lincoln started out in poverty and worked his way up, with much opposition. He was made for such a time. It was also his character that we admire. His strength, his dedication to principle, his love of the goodness of our country as a whole. He did things that were divisive—because to be good required division from those who preferred the continuation of a great evil. You can't compromise with evil and remain whole. Dedication to principles of truth and freedom gave the American people something to hold to in wholeness.

Reagan, who earned his significant wealth in Hollywood, is also remembered for his character. He stood strong and bold against evil. He honored America’s goodness, without even a hint of shame for country love. And he spoke directly and clearly to the good hearts of good Americans.

Our best presidents had valuable qualities, made for such times as they faced.

Romney has the experience, ability, and character to precisely fit this decade. He has the attitude of servant leadership that we admired in Washington. We simply would not be in much of the messes we’re in, if we had chosen him instead of the ignominious alternative. Yet many of the best conservatives among us missed the obvious and said, “Not good enough!”

I do not trust people so recently blind to suddenly see the light. They don’t even yet recognize their error.

So, please, don’t “draft Romney.” He is available to help wherever needed, in various campaigns, perhaps in a cabinet position later. Unlike most people in politics, he is motivated by a desire to serve. We can still let him, without putting him and his family through yet another “you’re not good enough” campaign, which is not likely to pull in the masses of even less informed voters.

I do not know who the candidate should be. No democrat should be allowed to win again in my lifetime; they have proven incapable of leading America and Americans. So that is a given. Almost any Republican would be better. But better than a democrat is hardly enough to move us from our sinking southward position, back up to the northern hemisphere of freedom, prosperity, and civilization. We could use a great man, made for the time. One who is so obviously right that every voter can be held responsible for an informed vote.

I’m leaning toward Ted Cruz. He is bold, and principled, and clearly willing to stand up against great opposition. There may be others. I pray the Lord will lead us to someone meant for the even more difficult job of restoration-after-destruction.

But my greater concern is the blinded society.

In the metaphor I began with, it’s about preparing the ground for planting. The current soil is in great need of nutrients.  The culture needs to be…cultivated.

Pointing out the blindness took this whole post. So it’s going to take a second part to consider how to get better cultural conditions.

Defining Terrorism

The other day I came across a little video supposedly about Islam being a peaceful religion. That isn’t actually what it was; it was pro-terrorist propaganda. Normally I would just ignore such a thing, but what bothered me is that it was linked by a friend, passing it along as useful for us to think about, to be more open minded.

So I thought I’d spend a post going over how to recognize propaganda and define terms—rather than letting the enemy redefine perfectly useful words.

Definition of Terrorist

Terrorists are persons or groups who use mass murder aimed at innocent civilians in an attempt to coerce submission to the terrorist’s control, particularly control over beliefs.

In the internationally agreed upon rules for war, terrorism is outside any acceptable form of engagement. Terrorists are typically without uniform, dressed or disguised to look unlike recognizable combatants. While terrorists can come from a variety of ideological views, in today's world virtually all are Islamist (radical Muslims who see anyone outside their beliefs, including moderate Muslims, as the subhuman enemy).

Is it possible for a state to commit terrorism? Yes. If the state purposely attacks innocent civilians rather than military installations or infrastructure—particularly for the purpose of coercing submission to belief change.

During the rules of war, collateral damage can include significant numbers of civilian casualties. When Britain carpet bombed Berlin, that was not terrorism. When the US dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that was not terrorism. Both were defensive actions carried out militarily, with the intent to cease invasion by the aggressive enemy, and were both proven to have saved lives in the long run.

Were these bombs terrifying? Yes. But they were not terrorist attacks carried out by terrorists. They were defensive military attacks carried out by uniformed military.

When Hamas attacks Israeli citizens, purposely targeting civilians, that is terrorism. Hamas is a known terrorist organization. It does not follow rules of war. It doesn’t have any legitimate state purpose. It doesn’t have uniformed military. It has an ideology it intends to impose through coercion by mass murdering innocents.

Israel’s response to Hamas attacks is not terrorism. Israel’s military responds, legally, in self-preservation of the state. It goes way out of its way to avoid civilian casualties. But Hamas tries to force attacks on civilians by attacking from schools and hospitals, and then pressuring people to stay and face possible death so that they can use the civilian casualties in a propaganda war against their civilized enemies.

Here’s another thing that is not equivalent to terrorism: having a military base in a foreign country, by agreement with that country, for the purpose of benefitting that country as well as our own interests in the region.

It would not even be terrorism if we occupied bases in those countries against their will (Guantanamo in Cuba, for example). We would simply be seen as exerting our power. When Russia exerts power, as it is doing in Ukraine, that is an act of aggression, for the imperialist purpose of increasing power—bad, but not terrorism. When the US military exerts power, helping nations become independent and self-sufficient, that is not only within the rules of war, it is defensive, not offensive or imperialistic.

The US does not coerce ideology, nor does it subject nations and peoples to its imperialist rule. Our military assistance to allies should not be construed as imperialist—let alone as terrorism. Anyone who calls what the US has done in Afghanistan or Iraq as terrorism is misusing the word.

In the Spherical Model, while war is a terrible thing, people living in the northern hemisphere of freedom, prosperity, and civilization CAN engage in war justifiably—in order to preserve their way of life from those who would threaten to take it.

Terrorism—using mass murder to coerce belief change—is savage. Always. It is down near the south pole of the miserable southern hemisphere. Down that far south, it is a short distance from the chaos of terrorism to the control of coercive tyranny. It is engaged in by savage tyrannists. There is NO path connecting terrorism to freedom, prosperity, and civilization.

Spotting Propaganda

Some time back I wrote a piece about identifying propaganda. Here are the questions to ask:

·         What is the point of view of the information source?

·         Do the themes coincide with known principles?

·         Is there documented and verifiable evidence following a line of logic, rather than implication and accusation?

So, looking at the video in question, I can see that it is developed by a Muslim. And because it supports the idea that terrorism is just, it is not from a peaceful, moderate Muslim, but from an Islamist. Is it from an actual terrorist? I can’t tell that without knowing more, but its script indeed does support the possibility that terrorism is justifiable--which it is not. I do not recognize names, and I hesitate to do too much searching, or mentioning of names, for the sake of privacy and safety.  I hope I am safe in linking the video below.*

The other questions are answerable by looking at the script. So below is the transcript, with my comments in brackets.

The video takes place in a classroom setting. The teacher, Mr. Kahn, is talking about the comparison between the number of times (41) jihad is mentioned in the Koran [their spelling, so I’ll go with it], and how many times (355) mercy, peace, and compassion are mentioned.

Girl Student: If Islam truly is a religion that preaches peace, then how come the world’s most troubled spots—the West Bank, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq—they’re all plagued with Islamic terrorism? [She asks a reasonable question, which he dismisses.]

Mr. Kahn: That depends on your definition of terrorism. [No it doesn’t. Regardless of your definition, her question is valid. A lot of unrest, outside of military conflict, involving mass murder of civilians by non-uniform-wearing attackers is happening in those places.] Some might argue that the US invasions of countries like Iraq and Afghanistan are also acts of terrorism. [Some might argue that, but it isn’t a valid argument. Military attacks are not terrorism, whether justified or not. And he is erasing that difference and implying lack of valid reasons in one stroke—without any evidence to justify his assertion.]

Girl Student: No. Those were acts of war to get rid of despotic regimes. [They were acts of war. Whether they were solely to get rid of despotic regimes is debatable. Also implied by placing these words in the mouth of the naïve student is the validity of getting rid of so-called despotic regimes as justification for war. This is an attempt to delegitimize anything the US may have done.]

Mr. Kahn: Or means of getting other countries’ oil. [This implies that the US had ulterior, self-serving motives for war in Iraq. But there is the historical fact that the US never took Iraqi oil—or anyone else’s. The US helped Iraq build infrastructure so it could sell its own oil for its own benefit.]

Boy Student: Conspiracy theories.

The teacher allows an answer from Riyaz, a young man who joined the class a minute late.

Riyaz: Mr. Khan is right. I mean, if we’re talking about terrorists, the world’s biggest terrorists are the white superpowers. [Notice that he has equated military action, for any reason whatever, with terrorism—which it is not, by definition. This is a lie. He adds the racial component—probably to imply racism on the part of the US and Britain, but in reality revealing the racism of the propagandist. The US and Britain do not choose which Iraqis to support based on the amount of melanin in their skin—but based on their belief in freedom and human rights.]

Another Boy Student: Come on, now.

Riyaz: Really. Stop and think about it. [Implying that he is the thinker, and the others are not.]

Girl Student: Explain 9/11.

Riyaz: Okay. Do you know how many people died in the twin towers strike?

Girl Student: Around 3,000.

Riyaz: And do you have any idea how many people died in the bombings of Afghanistan? Take a wild guess. More than 15,000 people died. And that’s just conservative figures. About 50,000 tons of explosives were dropped on innocent civilians. Men, women, children. [He has just done a bait and switch. 9/11 was a terrorist attack on innocents, to create chaos with the purpose of terrorizing and eventually coercing submission to the terrorists’ rule. Afghanistan losses occurred over a decade of battle, in which military people attacked specific terrorist groups—the Taliban, and Al-Qaeda—and not only attempted to avoid civilian casualties, but attempted to free and help those previously subjected to the Taliban to have freedom and self rule. He is equating using bombs designed to infiltrate mountain caves hiding terrorists with using airplanes to fly into skyscrapers. They are not equal. The US was never limited to a certain number of Taliban deaths or tons of explosives for the purpose of taking out those who were guilty of attacking American citizens on American soil. The US military had every right to go to any lengths necessary to wipe out that enemy. Were some innocents killed in the process? No doubt. But the US always attempted to minimize such casualties; it did not seek them.]

Girl Student: Yes, but that was because of the Taliban.

Riyaz: Now that you brought it up, did you know that the Taliban was a creation of the CIA, to fight the Russians? [But this is a lie. The Taliban dates back to around 1992, with its first major military action in 1994, and ruled Afghanistan from 1996-2001, ending when NATO forces defeated them. This is entirely after the fall of the Soviet Union and the official end of the Cold War. During the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan during the 1980s, the US joined with Saudi Arabia to offer financial support to the local Afghani resistors to Soviet invasion. The US never created nor supported the Taliban, nor did it seek to support any tribal entities that sought to enforce Islamist Sharia law.]

Another Boy Student: Whatever. They were still harboring terrorists.

Riyaz: Yeah, right. Terrorists that were never found. [This is another lie. Osama Bin Laden and dozens of his higher and lower minions were taken out. Al-Qaeda trained between 10-20,000 terrorists in Afghanistan  before 9/11. These were the enemy NATO forces were fighting in Afghanistan. He’s pretending these enemies never existed, and that the US and NATO forces simply attacked innocent Afghani citizens. Re-read Lone Survivor.] Just like the weapons of mass destruction that were never found in Iraq. [Another twist of the facts. The weapons of mass destruction in question in Iraq were those listed as known to be in the possession of Saddam Hussein at the end of the Gulf War—which had not been shown to be destroyed. All intelligence sources agreed then, and still do, that Saddam Hussein had not destroyed those listed weapons, and that he was seeking ways to use them. He was in violation of the Gulf War peace treaty; whether they were found or not was always irrelevant to whether the US and NATO forces should hold Hussein accountable. The fact that they were not found means there is still the possibility that he transferred them elsewhere, possibly Syria. Or, less likely, that he destroyed them but refused to show evidence that he had done so.] Do you want to get into the death toll in Iraq? 500,000 civilians and counting. [He’s implying here that the US attacked the peaceful Iraqis, which is exactly opposite of the facts. Hussein attacked his own people if they sought freedom. Remember that his sons used a wood chipper to dispose of dissidents? The US did not seek to destroy Iraqi civilians, but to help them free themselves and develop a free government.] And what do Britain and America say when they don’t find these weapons? It’s simple. They just say, “sorry.” And still refuse to relinquish control of these countries. [US facilitated self-rule. To claim the US refused to relinquish control is a lie. It is certainly, now, arguable that the US has removed help prematurely, and the resurgence of Islamists there is a predicted result.]

Yet Another Boy Student: What are you trying to say?

Riyaz: What I’m trying to say is that, just because you’re American, wear a fancy suit and call yourself the president doesn’t make you any less of a terrorist. I’m saying that if you don’t stop meddling in other people’s countries, you will face a backlash. [What he’s doing is threatening. Using the term “terrorist” to refer to civilized national leaders is simply a ploy. Terrorism is savage and never justifiable. He isn’t redefining terrorism to include us to make us see how bad it is; he is redefining it to distract us from noticing that he advocates and justifies terrorism.]

Girl: If Muslims like you feel that way, then why don’t you get out of our country?

Riyaz: We will. As soon as you promise to leave ours. [This is another lie. They don’t call us The Great Satan because we have legal, invited military bases in some Muslim countries. They call us The Great Satan because they hate us and want to destroy us—along with everyone else in the world who doesn’t share their beliefs. Our show of weakness would not lead to peace; it would encourage more bold attacks.]

One advantage to using the Spherical Model is that you can see where things fall. Terrorism falls in the savage tyranny zone, near the southern pole. The US Constitution resides in the upper northern hemisphere where people thrive with freedom, prosperity, and civilization. They’re not close.  

___________________________
*Post by Chik Fakhrul Azzam, found here:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=427180640761529&set=vb.100004087890982&type=2&theater

 

 

Chinese Food for Thought

This past week a colleague of Mr. Spherical Model was in town from China. He is a Chinese native, but an employee of the same US-based company Mr. Spherical Model works for. Whenever he comes to town, we try to go to dinner. Usually we go to a Chinese restaurant, but this time we went Texan and had steak. (He had lobster, which we also had last time at an Asian restaurant.)

Chinese dragon medallion;
our Chinese friends always bring a gift

Much of the conversation was work related, which was necessary. But we also had enough time to learn quite a lot about China.

Many of the Chinese who come here adopt an American name, to make pronunciation easier for the rest of us, so for our purposes here, we’ll call our friend Lee. He is forty-ish, married, I’m unaware of any child. Unlike most Chinese, he is Christian. Or at least his wife is Christian. She works for an international Christian non-profit. One of the things she works to accomplish is the rescue of children with relatively small deformities, such as cleft palate, who would otherwise be disposed of (put to death). I don’t know how that works, but there must be some secretly working with hospital nurses to smuggle such children out. They send them to the US or elsewhere, where they get the surgery they need. And he didn’t spell it out, but I think they are then put up for adoption—although I suppose it’s possible their parents want them and wanted the disallowed surgery for them, and somehow arrange to get them back.

He told us about religion in China. And here I’m not certain whether all of it applies to Buddhism and Confucianism, or just to Christianity and other non-standard religions or philosophies. Anyway, most churches are public churches. The government does the hiring of clergy. The government determines much of the doctrine. Mainly, the order of priorities is loyalty first to the government, and then to God and family and community. In other words, it is dogma that government is the greatest force in the universe, but as long as you acknowledge that, then you can be allowed to believe in God if you want to.

This is an improvement, certainly, over Mao’s cultural revolution, which did away with religion entirely. And it is also a huge improvement over just a couple of decades ago when bringing a Bible into the country was illegal.

The non-public option is the family church. Technically they’re not legal. There’s no freedom of assembly, so if you have more than, say, seven people gathered, you have to report all the names and the purpose of the meeting. You might be able to call it a training meeting, but then, after not too long, the government will start interrogating all the attendees, asking why they need so much training. So it’s better to limit to just a few friends. If too many show up, you might get away with separating into two groups in separate rooms, if you’re lucky.

The difficulty with these family churches is that you can’t determine truth, or doctrine. It’s just the opinions of whoever happens to show up a specific week. It will be someone different, putting forth different opinions, the next time. Lee went with this option for a while but got frustrated with it.

He mentioned one man, a Christian, who had a practice every Friday of inviting a friend in (not someone he worked with) to come to his office and study scriptures—from 11:00 till 2:00. If you’re a good Christian, that’s not the way to show devotion; you have promised those hours to your employer, and if you do something other than work during work hours, you’re not meeting your commitment to your employer. That is clearly wrong; you should do your study on your own time, Lee said.

We talked a bit about the one-child policy. It is very real. I asked how that would affect a Chinese person who lives in the US. Lee would very much like to have that opportunity. And it doesn’t seem out of the realm of possibility. It also seems quite possible for Chinese workers at American countries, who come to work in the US, to become US citizens. For those of us who lived through the Cold War with the USSR and the stricter communist years of China past, this still seems surprising.

Lee mentioned one famous actor (not by name), who made his fame in movies in the US and in China. While in the US he had a long-time live-in girlfriend whom he eventually married, and they had three children together. But he decided not to renounce his Chinese citizenship, and to move back—Lee was still surprised by this, the only person in such a position that he knew of who chose to stay Chinese rather than choose the freedom of the US. But once he and family got back to China, he became subject to the one-child law. He was forced to pay about a million dollars per child for breaking the law. Only because he was a famous actor could he have that option.

At one point, Lee was talking about the differences between government over-control—which is frustrating but often manageable if you don’t fight it—and the chaos of lack of government control. I can’t remember the examples now, of where they were even allowed to have chaos. Maybe it was just the threat of chaos if there wasn’t enough control. Mr. Spherical Model tried suggesting that I write about such things, but I didn’t see a way to suddenly explain the northern hemisphere of freedom without taking over the conversation, so I didn't introduce him to the Spherical Model.

After dinner we brought Lee back to our house, to visit a bit longer. He said, “I love American houses!” And he said a house like ours would cost $2 million in China. For perspective, the median home price in Houston, as of a year ago, was about $185,000. Our home value is well below that. It’s the nicest house I’ve ever lived in, but there are plenty that are bigger and nicer. He was also amazed at the size of our back yard—which, we were shocked to learn when moving here, is measured in square feet, rather than portions of an acre. I think it’s around an 8^th of an acre—so, a postage stamp-sized lot. But we have a few trees, a shed, and a garden.

Chinese knot,
a gift from another Chinese friend

Mr. Spherical Model pointed out that a house like this would cost nearly a couple million in downtown San Francisco as well, so location matters. But here in the US, generally a relatively successful middle-class worker can live in a comfortable house like this. In China (or the people’s republic of San Francisco) a two-bedroom apartment is about all you have to look forward to.

A couple of days after the dinner, I was flipping through channels while fixing dinner and watched a portion of the 1982 movie Night Crossing [with John Hurt and Beau Bridges], about a family that escapes from East Germany in a homemade hot air balloon. The wife of the escaping family has a conversation with her mother, whom they have not informed of their plans. She asks, “Have you ever thought about applying to emigrate?” The mother’s answer was no, not unless things got a lot worse than they were then.

There was no freedom to move about the country, nor to travel elsewhere. There was little choice about where to work, and a lot of explaining about any use of free time, or use of resources. Things we take for granted, still, were significant difficulties for the East Germans. But there was enough food to avoid starvation, there was shelter, there was work. It was hard on the human spirit, but not impossible to live through.

Most of the people in the world through history have lived in such times—dependent on the limited tyranny of the potentate.

Last week we also talked with our son stationed in South Korea, and he talked a bit about North Korea. The people there are the most isolated in the world. They are told their country is the best in the world, and no evidence to the contrary is allowed in. But people are starving and struggling in significant ways. Occasionally someone tries to escape. But if they escape into China, they get picked up and returned. If they escape to South Korea, they will probably be assumed to be a spy and summarily shot. They’re on a peninsula; there aren’t a lot of escape options. So they continue trapped by their tyrannical government.

Eventually world pressure (such as Reagan’s “Tear down this wall” speech) caused the German wall to crumble. Korea’s “wall” has held firm for almost sixty years, and the people get very little opportunity to even dream of better. I don’t know what will happen in China's future. For the sake of its economy—because no socialist state can continue economically after it uses up the capital built up during freer markets—China has allowed more free trade, better education, and therefore more exposure to the amazing (by comparison) wealth of the free world. And their people want it.

I think it is true that human nature yearns for freedom, and wants to pursue personal dreams and work of our choosing. I hope China is able to peacefully gain more and more freedom—in a violence-free revolution against tyranny. The people themselves are not our enemies; they want much of what we want, as they become familiar with what we have.

I also hope that we do not let our freedoms further erode, just because too many of us tolerate sinking into the southern tyranny sphere just because things aren’t impossible to tolerate yet.