BACK TO THE FUTURE

The late great Francis Schaeffer showed in his books and TV series how modern, humanist man had attempted to find universal truth through reason alone and had failed.

The consequence of this failure was that humanist man then came to the conclusion that the pursuit of truth leads only to despair and therefore the road to 'happiness' or 'fulfilment' can only come through non-reason.

I don't think he realised just how prophetic he was at the time during which he was operating.

I have been working through his series; How Should We Then Live....

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwSQACrrFBXMdq-A3mQIZBeIw9e8GNwAW

...with my youngest son and I have been amazed at the perspicacity of his observations. It is also quite ironic to view scenes such as those in episode 8 where the young students of UC Berkeley riot in favour of free speech and then consider how that same university today has been at the forefront of closing down the very free speech that those 60's students fought for.

The series is worth a revisit.

THE HOLLOW WEST

The fundamental crisis facing the West today is that in the face of religious extremism from Islamist radicals the best that the secular elites can call for is a 'reformation of the Koran' and 'an adoption of civilised values', which means in truth the destruction of the former and embracing nothingness; the nihilism of secularism.

Pointing to the reformation of Christianity as undertaken during the 16th Century is disingenuous and a false flag. The reformation was a return to biblical values from the syncretised and false belief systems introduced into Christianity over centuries, whereas the proposed 'reformation' of the Koran would be to turn away from its medieval values to something new, not a reformation but a reinterpretation and something that most Koran believing Muslims would not even consider never mind attempt:

The religion is the problem; the scripture is the problem. We should do nothing to give it an ounce of credibility. Sharia law lovers, fundamentalist Imams, jihadis, terrorists and the Johnny-come-lately ISIS are mere symptoms. [P Smith, Quadrant, 5.5.17]

The rights of man, as these have come to be understood throughout the course of the history of European nations, will be of little help in bringing Muslims to see their moral practices reasonably from a certain distance; as we now understand them, human rights imply the pure and simple disappearance of Islam as a form of common life. Muslims are too attached to their moral practices and to their religion to give into the temptation to become ‘modern individuals’ by disappearing as Muslims. [Pierre Manent, Beyond Radical Secularism, (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 2016), p. 81]

The West has shifted away from transcendent values for so long that the intellectuals of the 'new order' have nothing to offer except narcissistic nihilism and the 'fruits' of such a belief (or rather a non-belief) system are on evidence in the daily news cycle. Would the religious fanatics that serve their bloodthirsty master see pornography, decadence, narcissism, consumerism and egregious waste as tempting....I think not, and neither do I.

The difference is that I do not take up arms and violence to try and make the secular despots change their ways, but the fact remains secularism, existentialism, post-modernism and all of the empty 'isms' that populate the philosophical realm of the 21st century have very little to offer as an alternative.

Unfortunately the only logical result to such a dilemma can be conflict.

SOCIOPATHIC 'ELITES'

This Trump Derangement Syndrome that has captured the left-wing glitterati, the intellectuals and the left-wing press is symptomatic of kicking over a rock and watching all the creepy crawlies making like Usain Bolt for the darkness once more.

Light has never been an attraction for creatures of the occult:

Occult: Available only to the initiate; secret or mysterious: occult lore. See Synonyms at mysterious,  beyond the realm of human comprehension; inscrutable: The causes of those phenomena remain occult: Hidden from view; concealed:

.....and these are what now populate, en mass; the media, the university's, certain elements of the political elite (left & Right) and Hollywood.

Little wonder therefore that we see these creatures screeching for darkness to once again protect their scurrilous activities.

Light is a killer to people such as these:

So what is a sociopath? A serial killer that strolls from one victim to another? Possibly, but not often. Ask yourself this: is the person you're concerned about unable to form any kind of emotional bond with another person? Does he or she seem to be always without empathy for others, even their own family? Does he or she do things that to you seem beyond comprehension; and then carry on as if those actions made no difference? Does she/he lie without compunction? Is he or she in trouble with the law and other authorities? Does he or she like dangerous, outrageous or socially/sexually unacceptable activities that provide a thrill? If you see this dynamic in your partner, family member, coworker, or friend, you are very probably dealing with a sociopath.

BLOODTHIRSTINGLY BOOTILICIOUS

Marxism has taken over the West's universities, particularly the humanities departments. The social chaos and absurdities we see on a daily basis are the results of this philosophy.

Most 'intellectuals' who follow this Machiavellian philosophy do so with 'innocent' intentions, they are what Lenin called the useful idiots....usually those who entertain Utopian dreams and often because they have lived in the abundant luxury of the West for so long they have been seduced into believing that this is the norm. Many perhaps most, have turned away from a belief in a transcendent being and are therefore looking to fill this Pascalian vacuum with a fresh passion and in doing so latched on to the pernicious cultural cancer named Marxism.

There are some however who are not 'useful idiots' but instead see the resultant chaos of a Marxist society as the way to rip themselves some booty. These are the Ghengis Khans/Stalinists of the new order, those to whom millions of deaths are not a tragedy but a statistic (et al Stalin).

Critical Theorists will no doubt carve themselves an exemption for atrocities committed in the “service of the revolution” or some similar nonsense, but the horrendous body count of Marxist communism is indisputable. The most commonly accepted estimate places the 20th century total at 100 million victims, with the repressive communist societies of the Soviet Union and Maoist China constituting the two deadliest regimes in all of human history. Lesser communist societies leave similarly devastating death tolls practically every place they are attempted, the only difference between them and Stalin being a matter of scale.
With a few noted exceptions who retreat into the Soviet equivalent of Holocaust denial, most modern Marxists try to dissociate themselves from these numbers by insisting the perpetrators were not sufficiently authentic adherents of Marxism. This excuse is intellectually flimsy, and tends to overlook the fact that every one of these regimes (1) considered itself Marxist, (2) believed itself to be implementing Marxist ideas, and (3) enjoyed alarming degrees of support and enthusiasm in its own time by contemporary Marxist intellectuals, particularly before their death tolls were widely known. All said, the empirical evidence of Marxism’s connections to unprecedented levels of death and devastation is impossible to escape.

LAST ONE OUT SWITCH OFF THE LIGHTS!

Chavez's Venezuela is a classic example of how socialism devastates everything it touches:

Venezuela descends into chaos. Its people, once the wealthiest in Latin America, starve. Even The New York Times runs headlines like "Dying Infants and No Medicine." [J Stossel]

A country with the greatest measurable deposit of oil in the world is dying on its feet.
Why?
Because of socialism of course.

Socialism has failed in Angola, Benin, Cambodia, China, Congo, Cuba, Ethiopia, Laos, Mongolia, Mozambique, North Korea, Poland, Somalia, the Soviet Union, Vietnam and now Venezuela. We are yet to experience the blessed event of seeing one socialist country succeed. Remember also that the NAZI Party was the Nationalist SOCIALIST party and Hitler despised capitalism because he said it sprang from the Jews (Of course that did not prevent him from enacting 'Crony Capitalism' which is an oxymoron, and flies in the face of real free enterprise).

In 1973, when Chile abandoned its short-lived experiment with socialism and embraced capitalism, Chilean income was 36 percent that of Venezuela. Today, Chileans are 51 percent richer than Venezuelans. Chilean incomes rose by 228 percent. Venezuelans became 21 percent poorer.
Venezuela has greater oil reserves than Saudi Arabia. But because some people believe socialism is the answer to inequality, Venezuelans starve.

Socialism(and Crony Capitalism) always results in the greatest  concentrations of wealth landing in the fewest of pockets even though most of its proponents claim otherwise. In fact regarding those who refuse to acknowledge the truth of socialism, consider these air-headed elites who champion socialism from their air-conditioned multiple mansions, including Noam Chuomsky, the infamous American radical who backs many of the most pernicious regimes on earth:

So are American celebrities who championed Venezuela's "people's revolution" embarrassed? Will they admit they were wrong?
"No," says linguist and political writer Noam Chomsky. "I was right."
Sigh.
Actor Sean Penn met with Hugo Chavez several times and claimed Chavez did "incredible things for the 80 percent of the people that are very poor."
Oliver Stone made a film that fawned over Chavez and Latin American socialism. Chavez joined Stone in Venice for the film's premiere.
Michael Moore praised Chavez for eliminating "75 percent of extreme poverty."
Hello?! In Venezuela, Chavez and his successor, Nicolas Maduro, created extreme poverty.[ibid]

Michael Moore could do with spending at least a year in Venezuela himself:

My Venezuelan-born friend Kenny says his relatives are speaking differently. Cousins who once answered "Fine" or "Good" when asked, "How are you?" now say, "We're eating."
Eating is a big deal in the country that's given birth to jokes about a "Venezuelan diet." A survey by three universities found 75 percent of Venezuelans lost an average 19 pounds this year.[ibid]

Will such recorded reality now change the minds of fools such as these? I fear not. Emotion, pride, power and pettiness blinds the eyes to true-truth and until intellectuals and rich fools such as these live under and experience the depravity of socialism they will never acknowledge its failures, and that is a sad state for the majority of people living under these regimes:

As Tupy wrote elsewhere about another socialist fool, "As much as I would like to enjoy rubbing (his) nose in his own mind-bending stupidity, I cannot rejoice, for I know that Venezuela's descent into chaos -- hyperinflation, empty shops, out-of-control violence and the collapse of basic public services -- will not be the last time we hear of a collapsing socialist economy. More countries will refuse to learn from history and give socialism 'a go.' 'Useful idiots,' to use Lenin's words ... will sing socialism's praises until the last light goes out."[ibid]

In South Australia we are living under and in increasingly bold socialist regime.
Ergo our electricity bills are the highest in the country, and are almost the highest in the world....and are set to increase later this year. All of this and we are living in a country that has been blessed with coal and gas reserves that few other countries possess.

My mind boggles at the stupidity of it all, until that is I read the bible and I see that the nature of mankind has changed not a jot over the past few thousand years.

WHO DARES WINS

We ordinary taxpayers of the Western World....yes, THOSE people; the patriarchy, the colonialists, the capitalist pig-dogs, those who throw their white privilege around like the oppressors they are, we 'normal's'....or what Madam Felonia Von Pantsuits# called the deplorables'........yes, we the compliant and law-abiding middle-class producers of economic comforts for the grossly expanding, parasitical, bureaucratic snowflakes who seek to dominate via a million little frustrating petty rules each of which not only costs more money(a hidden tax) but takes away freedoms with each stroke of the socialist pen.....We are being played for the fools we appear to be:

"LONDON (AP) — The World Health Organization routinely spends about $200 million a year on travel — far more than what it doles out to fight some of the biggest problems in public health including AIDS, tuberculosis or malaria, according to internal documents obtained by The Associated Press.

As the cash-strapped U.N. health agency pleads for more money to fund its responses to health crises worldwide, it has also been struggling to get its own travel costs under control. Despite introducing new rules to try to curb its expansive travel budget, senior officials have complained internally that U.N. staffers are breaking the rules by booking perks like business class airplane tickets and rooms in five-star hotels." [Maria Cheng]

 #Kudos to Kurt Schlichter's marvellous descriptor

BANANADRAMA

Note well that the anti-development phrase NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) has now entered the period of BANANA (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anybody).

It is also pertinent to note that many (if not most) of the 'BANANA'S' whom we see chirping about the ecology, environmentalism, Green energy etc etc are those who have made their money and are sitting comfortably on a pile of filthy lucre and usually flying to and fro lecturing the rest of us on how to live 'sustainably' all the while living the high life themselves.

There is a word for that....um....let me think....hyp...hypo.....:

That liberals (Lefties in Australia) are hypocrites is not news. Just take a look at the net worth of any Democratic Party(Labor Pollie) leader who routinely rails against the “1 percent.” But in the age of Trump, where the hatred that normally drives what we’re told is the “tolerant” left has been turned up to 11. All standards have gone out the window; no hypocrisy is too great, no conspiracy theory too insane for someone on the left to advance it and its drone army to believe.
It must be easy to be a liberal in 2017. You don’t have to think for yourself. You don’t have to prove anything. And your life can swirl in a bubble where you’ll never have anything you say challenged in a serious way. Liberals have become the bad guy in Lethal Weapon 2 – their membership in the progressive club grants them a sort of diplomatic immunity from reality.

........................and

Liberals, particularly journalists, have morphed into something very disturbing since the arrival of Donald Trump onto the political scene. They’ve achieved a new level of hypocrisy and disgusting cruelty that would shame a normal person.
Something deep inside them, at their core, is fundamentally damaged. Whether it was broken before the election or not is irrelevant, it’s their driving force now. Were they civilians, they’d likely be shouting at streetlights and losing the argument. Since they’re journalists, they’ll probably win a Pulitzer.  [Derek Hunter]

The main stream media have been hijacked by the Left and have no credibility at all. They are as the above commentator mentions; 'broken' and this brokenness is creating an environment where nothing that they write about can be believed and in fact much of what passes for 'news' these days would have been seen a treason or libellous not so long ago.

Most newspapers are fit only for wrapping fish and chips in.