What can be considered "Normal" vs. "Abnormal" (Emphasis on American Context)

 People often tend to think of "Normal vs. Abnormal" based on instinctive observance, usually braced by personal experience.  Most people, even if extremely different, consider themselves normal because they're normal to themselves, normal in this case meaning usual and ordinary to the individual's life.  In a border definition, normal can be grounded in Kant's Categorical Imperative.  What is overwhelmingly considered normal is normal.  I would also include healthy with normal.  What is overwhelmingly HEALTHY is normal.  Americans, especially, love making things as they go and living in romantic fantasy worlds.  In that context, Americans are more than fine with THEIR majority being considered normal, even if that majority is unhealthy.  I argue what is unhealthy cannot be considered normal, is the majority in a democracy thinks it so.  We're talking about human psychiatry, brain health and time tested genetic realities and behaviors.  So what is healthy, keeping in mind that it's improbable anyone has perfect genetics.  

A)  My definition of health is both genetic and behavioral.  Some people just have faultier genes than others.  I put myself in that category (and to show I'm not playing favorites) as I have bipolar disorder, clinical OCD and other various kinks.  The person who's genetically abnormal is, to put it bluntly, screwed.  This person, through no fault of their own, inherited defects from their parents when they were nothing but tiny little embryos.  They can find ways to behave perfectly normally but will always have the predisposition to mutate (aka grow in abnormal ways.)  My argument here is not to say whether this is a proper adaptive advantage in terms of evolution (like turning into an X-Man.)   It's just to say that defective genes will lead to defective health, thus migrating (as it were) the human away from strong physical health.  As humans are a species that has existed and evolved for thousands of years, I can only conclude that most people overall have genes that are at least strong enough to function consistently well.  As over 90% of people are employed, the vast majority of those jobs being steady, I can conclude those people can be considered relatively healthy, as they wouldn't be able to work steadily otherwise, and thus can be considered "normal."  

B) The second definition of health is commonly known to everyone as basic behavior, meaning you don't need to be a geneticist to understand it as we all do it on a daily basis.  Behavioral health comes down to the choices people make.  People with more defective genes (again, myself included) often struggle to make good decisions based on health as their genetic programming twists and turns them into odd and disorderly behaviors.  Substance abuse is now considered a disorder born of bad genes.  Obviously, the substance abuser pursues unhealthy behaviors.  In this person, genetics and behavior overlap.  The defective genes lead to defective, unhealthy and, thus, abnormal behavior.  Behavior as abnormality in this context refers more to people with stronger genes who, for whatever reason, pursue more abnormal behaviors.  This is the classic "nurture over nature."  Perhaps a person is perfectly physically strong and healthy yet pursue destructive behaviors through peer pressures and Group Think.  This is EXTREMELY common in the United States and other democracies where whatever group wins an election or a vote think they have the right to order people around.  We see that most prominently in things such as forced liberalism.  People considered sane and normal don't want their kids to see drag shows (which ARE adult entertainment) yet, if you get certain people in power, those parents face enormous social pressure to make their children go.  In my view, this is the corruptive, unhealthy and, thus, abnormal dysfunction in democracies.  The right of the individual to say no to something they know is harmful and destructive to them is rejected in the name of making a mass of unhealthy, abnormal people who've banded together feel a sense of existential happiness and belonging.  Of course, if it's forced, it's not really legitimate, just like saying you did something with a gun to your head isn't a legitimate confession.  The normal, healthy, stronger person, through no fault of their own, is forced to comply with aberrant behaviors that can only weaken and hurt them.  This is blatantly immoral.  Even if a group of people with defective genes feels isolated and picked on, this doesn't give them the right to hurt innocent people who've committed no sin by being the recipient of proper, healthy, normal genes passed down by previous generations.  

I threw in some "moral vs immoral" with my argument there but it all basically overlaps.  What is destructive and abnormal can also be considered immoral and what is healthy and normal can also be considered normal.  I'm not making value judgments towards people who are truly different.  I'm in that group, myself, due to my genetic reality, one that I didn't ask for.  In this context, however, moral and immoral can be a slippery slope.  If an extremely odd person who believes and acts transgender acts out in a way THEY consider good and normal because it's normal to THEM, can they truly be considered immoral just because it's unhealthy?  My conclusion to that is it all comes down to conscious awareness and moral choice.  Like all people, if transgender people do things they consider morally wrong, they are morally wrong.  If they do abnormal, unhealthy things because they don't know any better, they're not morally wrong.  They're tragic.  

Thanks for reading this far!  I often don't go back to edit and streamline these posts so I hope I didn't ramble too much.  

A Spiritual Perspective on Instinct

Instinct is thought of as the expression of physical perceptions and movements to things sensed.  It's not considered rational or thoughtful.  We react at times because our bodies are trained a certain way.  As we are immaterial souls in physical bodies, I feel our spiritual impressions, those parts of us that are soul, also learn instinctively.  When we're in our souls, which usually just comes from being like when we're meditating or just not trying to reason, we perceive the great beyond, the eternal void.  In a state of purity, that is separated from our animal sides.  Unfortunately, we can't live our lives as our immaterial souls as we're bound by our physical pains, lusts, desires, etc.  I feel that when we're aware of what our souls are and have been in touch with them for any amount of time, our souls become instinctive in interacting with our physical bodies.  Freud would probably call that combining the Id with the Superego.  We don't just naturally recoil from a hot stove.  We SPIRITUALLY recoil from things considered abhorrent or perverted.  We don't just reject corruption because it's physically different.  We reject it because it's borne of various levels of perversion which the immaterial soul, which cannot be physically perverse, recognizes from experience.  I believe the soul evolves in human form.  If that's considered reincarnation, that's fine.  Over that enormous amount of time, we grow as spiritual beings as well as physical ones.  We may be a physical tabula rosa but we are not a spiritual one.  It seems likely every soul alive has learned something positively spiritually that they've carried over from evolution to evolution.  I know from experience that we often lose those instincts depending on our physical realities.  If we have abusive parents, we're probably going to become dysfunctional and, consumed with anger, last out at the physical world.  Even though that programming may be no fault of our own, we've become perverted and corrupted by it and we forget our soulful instincts to be in a state of spiritual grace.  I feel religion exists as a kind of rudder to help us focus and refocus on God and the soul.  The material world corrupts us and the religious world (if operating properly), keeps us on course.  When we reject that guidance, we become materialistic and increasingly physically animalistic.  I have experienced all those states in this life.  The disconnect from the soul, if continued long enough, invariably leads to addiction and other forms of dependence.  We have to get through life somehow and, if we aren't physically connected with our spiritual instincts, we become dark inside and decay.  Political power is all about moral and spiritual decay, which is why its adherents choose physical and financial dominance in the from of sadism as a way of trying to be happy.  Their perverted physical instincts have won and they've become spiritually useless.  

The genetically flawed (of which I'm one) are the greatest tragedy.  The body really only exists to help us express our souls and our spiritual sides.  In that way, it just needs to be functional and healthy.  People with twisted genes like me have to deal with genetic perversion only a daily basis, which forces us to drift farther and farther from our internal souls.  It's the equivalent of needing to cross a bridge to be happy but there are constant walls being constructed in the way.  We have spiritual instincts but they're often blocked by many things that just won't get out of our ways.  Those blockages lead to spiritual pain and hopelessness.  It's a tough responsibility to keep trying to remove those blockages to be the best spiritual beings we can be, to access our souls.  We have to cope as best we can, knowing we can't be where we want to be all the time because we can't be healthy enough to do so.  I understand the physical lessons of being a disabled person.  Are there spiritual lessons to be learned from it?  I think so.  I've learned that the soul and the light within are what really matter but I don't want to become Manichean, thinking that the physical world is evil and the light within good though I can definitely see why Manicheans think as they as I age.  Evil is rampant in the world and the light within is perpetually in a state of goodness.  IF we refine our spiritual instincts and try to BE with them as often as possible, we can bridge the gap as a society to a more beneficial level.  We have to learn to reject the evils of the physical while living our physical lives day to day with proper spiritual instincts.  We can't just disconnect.  We have to bring good to this world in the form of ourselves.  Thank you for reading!  

Money

 Of all the things in my life, money and everything to do with it probably confused me the most.  I say that in a spiritual sense.  As I have become an enormously spiritual person, I see money as an evil.  Not a necessary evil.  Just an evil.  I think money is disgusting and repulsive.  It's an immortal tool people use to dominate and control others.  It's a vessel for producing pain.  For me, acts of kindness are free and should be free.  I commit acts of kindness without any thought of payment because that's where the pure spirt of goodness lies IMO.  I fully understand the basics of economics and how money is seen by us arrogant humans as a wonderful invention meant to facilitate the flow of goods and services blah blah blah.  Economics is cold, empty and robotic, three reasons why I've always hated it.  It's lifeless materialism.  All this said, I worry about my life as I'm disabled and have no job thus I have no money.  This is the confusing part.  I know my feelings about it but I still have to live in this shitty world and I don't want to be thrown out on the street.  So making money is apparently important.  How do I do so?  Or do I sit back and let God (meaning family) take care of me my whole life?  Try as I might, I can't not be a nihilist about money.  It's so important to so many people and it just makes me sick.  The times in my life I've pursued money, I've had prescription drug addictions and did it merely to live and because it was just want people do, which makes me feel like a coward.  That makes me think money is a product of nothing but physical evolution, which is illusion and fleeting.  I hate rich people who exist just to make money.  I want to take their money not for myself but to just destroy it and ask them who they feel then.  I bet they'd have no calling at all.  The next day they'd wake up and ask what they need to do to make more money.  It's the Id impulse.  Humans scurry like lizards to make enough to anesthetize themselves to the pains of life or make tons to dish pain out.  As I get older, I can't not see life in a much more Manichean way.   All that really matters is the spirit, the light in us all.  All the physical does is clutter and corrupt us.  Or am I just a dumb asshole who doesn't get anything?  Younger Jeff Riley would look at me as confused deadbeat philosopher, which is what I've become.  Younger Jeff would hate older Jeff as older Jeff hates younger Jeff.  I hate what I once was.  

Purpose

 As someone who's had the "normal" procedure of a human life denied to him, I very frequently seek a purpose for myself and my life.  By normal, I mean the life of a normal person.  Spouse, job, kids, age, grandkids, death.  As a bipolar person who can't work a full time job and hasn't made a penny as a writer, I have to almost constantly assess and reassess my purpose in life as to not fall into a great depression.  As I began failing physically in the 1990s for the first time, I had no coping mechanisms or education or awareness of what I was or what I was to be.  I was very much a materialist and felt like my life would be dictated by such materialism.  As my health failed, those ambitions and aspirations faded and disappeared and I was left adrift mentally, emotionally and spiritually.  I had a hard reality forced on me and became totally lost for what I felt like my destiny/fate would be.  By destiny/fate, I mean that instinctive sense of why we're here on Earth, each as individuals.  I'm not referring to nihilists, which so many people are (nihilism being people who believe we're here to live and die and that's it with no purpose.)  I'm talking the idea that we're all here for a reason.  My reason for being here is not to have kids and spread my genes as that would be a disaster, right not both for me and the world.  I've thought perhaps my purpose is to be an entertainer as I am a naturally gifted writer and storyteller but the works I have online are largely ignored.  It's also the wrong era for me as I find that white male writers are increasingly ignored and minority writers and women are pushed forward.  That said, I'm also in a minority group as a bipolar person but the book I've written based on my experiences with mental illness has also met with no reaction.  I've only finished a third of the story and maybe I'm meant to finish it all.  Time will tell.  As is, I have no desire to finish a story I already know just to have it completely ignored by everyone else.  

So my purpose for being on this Earth isn't physical and, thus far, doesn't appear to be creative so what is it?  I've been on meds for bipolar disorder and have been for years.  It doesn't seem like there's any purpose in my symptoms for study as I just pretty much take my meds and talk to my doctor once every three months for more meds.  Perhaps my purpose is over my cancer treatments.  Maybe the experimental injections I'm getting will pave the way for new treatments.  Maybe it's important that I be the one to get the shots.  

Any which way I look at it, I can't help but conclude my purpose hasn't materialized yet.  At age 50, with two cancer surgeries behind me, riddled with clinical OCD and Bipolar I and seemingly no future in the classic sense, I have no idea what that could be.  If I'm being a nihilist, I would conclude my life is meaningless and I'm only here because I'm not not here but I consider that thought process defeatist.  There's a reason for me to be here and it can't have arrived yet.  It may be for something very important though I definitely don't see that for me, personally.  Though a very interesting person, I'm very much a grain of sand on the beach, possibly more valuable as a guinea pig than anything else.  If so, the doctors who create the treatments are the stars and the ones who are truly valuable and it takes nothing special to get jabbed twice a week with needles to make sure my cancer doesn't spread.  So we'll see.  I feel I'll know it when it happens.  I hope I will.  

I hate myself...

 ...during those years, too.  How could I have been so stupid to let all that happen to me and then to do it to myself?  

My fake life- 1992-1996

 I can this period my fake life because I was in full denial about my growing mental problems.  Unable to cope with what would be diagnosed as my Bipolar Disorder and very chronic OCD, I crafted a fake life with a fake future for myself during those years, one marked by rampant psychiatric drug use and abuse and the lie that it had "fixed me" and that I wasn't crazy.  In short, I popped pills and went about my business, only caring if I felt okay/not depressed and completely unconcerned with diagnoses and actually trying to fix problems.  I'm so adrift during those years, completely unable to cope with my growing disability, which would become overwhelming, and convincing myself I can have a normal life like everyone else.  Hey, I had just some depression and anxiety!  Give me some anti-depressants and benzos and I'm good to go!  I'm normal!  That's how I lied to myself.  In my defense, I also got some terrible advice from my GP (who I resent to this day) and I came to identify with my symptoms.  The anti-depressants cycled the mania I didn't know I had into overdrive.  One misdiagnosis later and I was convinced I was some sort of god, that I was a superior being.  Hey, my GP said those crazy thoughts I was having were really me and my brain is telling me I'm a god so I must be a god!!  I was also manipulated by a drug addicted mother which kept me a drug addict for those four years.  I look back on it it now and it's hell on Earth.  I'm trapped in a dark, manic dead zone, like a permanent mixed episode.  I can't help but be resentful as i was failed by everyone during the most important time of my life, when it was time for me to go out into the world and have a life.  I resent my mother for her endless meddling and manipulating.  Think Hillary Clinton trying to keep someone on her team and that's my lying mother.  My Dad didn't understand and quit when my Mom left him.  He even had a girlfriend and went to her kid's hockey games while rejecting me.  It clear to me this little kid was a sports replacement now that I was done playing baseball in HS.  Darkness and anger and depression.  Only started getting better after my seizure and near death experience in 1996.  I was woken up.  I've long since accepted my problems and I'm permanently on meds now.  I hate those years so much and I hate several of the people in my life during those years so much.  

How we define "Good" and "Evil"

 There are two different ways we look at the ideas of good and evil.  The first is an irrational, illogical ideology based on our own biases.  We consider ourselves good and anyone we don't like evil, regardless of behaviors.  This is all too common in the American Republic.  Millions of Americans see themselves as good and Donald Trump as evil for no other reason then they don't like the guy.  What they do and what he does is irrelevant.  He's just bad and they're just good just because.  Obviously, that view of good and evil is thoughtless and irrelevant.  It's good and bad as black and white regardless of other factors.  It's brainless "either/or" with nothing else in it.  The second way is the proper way of looking at such concepts, as being catch all categories for certain traits.  When we think of good, we think of various qualities that can be shoved into the term.  Good means responsible, giving, just to the less fortunate, honest, helpful, non-abusive, etc.  Evil includes things like murder, rape, manipulation, lying, etc.  The levels of Hell in Dante's Inferno is a great example of how to separate the traits considered evil into various tiers.  I feel what a person is labelled (if we can use that term) depends on how much of each quality they have, keeping in mind that the vast majority of human activity is based on just regular behaviors not included in either category.  There's no good or evil way to go to the grocery store.  As humans, we go because we need food.  There's no good or evil to it (unless we describe the meeting of our basic needs as good.  The flip side of that can be seeing overindulgence in our basic needs as being evil.)   Such labelling is like various points on a spectrum.  The more positive qualities we have, the farther towards good we go.  The more negative, the farther we go towards evil.  It's much easier to condemn a person as evil based on one trait.  An unrepentant murderer can be considered evil, even if he or she is almost saintly in every other way.  It's much tougher to qualify a person as good based on one quality.  Just because a person is extremely giving or nice or helpful doesn't mean they're good if they're also an abusive liar.  We have much greater standards for people being good.  They need A LOT of good qualities to be on that list.  We frequently hear someone being built up as good then someone who knows them chimes in, "Yeah, but they lie all the time."  Thus, they stop becoming good in our perception because we rarely use the term "less good."  We don't say a person is good but they're less good than others, though there are some colorful expressions intelligent people use occasionally.  I'm reminded of Frederick Douglass calling Abe Lincoln, "A first rate second rate man," a perfect way of saying he's a good man but only to a point.  He's "sort of" good.  There's also a comedic expression going around by the American establishment that the US "isn't as bad" as other nations.  We're bad, we're just not as bad!  😄  So what a proper thinker sees as good and evil is involved with much thought and depth.  It's frequently stated simply but it's actually complicated and involves multiple insights.  That separates it from the borderline personality view of good and evil, the "anti-Donald Trump" way of looking at it.  When discussing these ideas, if our goal is to learn anything, we have to make sure we know who we're speaking to, as some will understand good vs. evil in one of the two ways illustrated.  The "we're just good and they're just bad" perception that dominates modern politics leads to nothing, while the philosophical and intellectual way of looking at it can bear much fruit.  Thanks for reading!  

Was Trump vs. the Establishment America's Gracchi Moment?

 As I re-watch Garrett Fagan's Teaching Company lecture series on the History of Ancient Rome, I can't help but see parallels between the situation which started the downfall of the Roman Republic beginning in 133 BC with the election to Tribune of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus and the political situation starting with the ascension of Donald Trump through the year 2022.  Was Trump a modern day Tiberius Gracchus?  

Though experiencing the typical bumps in the road of any growing Republic, the Roman Republic had largely avoided any major internal crisis through to  the 2nd century BC.  That changed when Tiberius Gracchus was elected as one of two Tribunes in the Tribal Assembly of the Plebs (common people) in 133 BC.  A member of a family of the highest prestige, I see Tiberius Gracchus as a man with a Caesarian view of his own importance.  Namely, a man at the top of the social order destined to change everything by his actions.  I think his motives are beyond reproach.  Land reform in Rome was desperately needed as the rich bought up the land of poorer farmers, most of whom spent enormous amounts of time away from home in the Roman legions.  As those now landless men increasingly became members of the poor collecting in Rome, something needed to be done to change the situation, even if it meant taking a certain amount of land from the rich and giving it back to the farmers.  This should not be seen as "Communist."  It should be seen as the rectification of a major problem started by the greedy, greed which traditional Roman patriotism wouldn't have created in the first place as any rich patricians wouldn't have bought up the land of those who served their country militarily, leaving those people essentially homeless upon their return to Rome.  As Tiberius grew more aggressive in trying to make this necessary reform happen, the Roman Senate, bound by their own traditions apart from the masses, moved to squash it by manipulating Gracchus' Tribunal colleague into vetoing his proposals.  At this point, tradition and policy take over as the Senate digs in and Tiberius, through his role as a Tribune, destroys precedent and has his colleague in the Tribal Assembly, who offered the veto, removed.  Tiberius breaks further tradition by running for Tribune for an unprecedented third time.  The Senate's response these tradition breaking actions?  Making up a reason why Gracchus wanted to be a dictator and eventually killing him and his followers.  

SO MUCH of that drama has repeated itself, granted in slightly different ways, with populist "man of the people" Trump opposing the American establishment, namely Nancy Pelosi and the Democrat controlled House and the Democrat controlled Senate with the collaboration of Neocon Mitch McConnell and his cabal of associates including Lindsey Graham, John Cornyn and Mitt Romney.  

So where are the parallels?  The first upset in American political history is the rise of Andrew Jackson, a man greatly opposed by both the Founding generation and the then establishment led by people like House Majority Leader Henry Clay.  Jackson, in Trump-like fashion, became a populist hero, earning the undying support of millions of Americans and riding that popularity to victory in, essentially, three elections (the one in 1824 was notoriously stolen from him.)  So, early on, we have a precedent of a populist like Gracchus and later Trump throwing a monkey wrench into the plans of the then establishment.  What follows is the Age of Jackson, where (white male) America spreads to the West Coast and rises as a world power.  

At this point, I'm largely going to gloss over the Civil War.  Yes, it is THE great political upheaval in American history but it is very different than the situations between Jackson/Trump and the Founders/Clay/Pelosi and McConnell.  Northern and Southern America had become two different civilizations by 1861, separated along the lines by slavery and other vast cultural differences.  The war was fought after the South seceded and became its own country, therefore that conflict can be seen as a war between two different nations.  Neither the Confederacy nor the Union were bound by any laws to support the other side at that point.  So we move on past this point.  

The US post Civil War is one beginning to integrate its freed slave population into the general populace, a process which, IMO, has irreparably destroyed its civilization, not because integration is unjust (it isn't) but because black and white Americans refuse to get along and that has irrevocably divided the country for good.  In short, Americans on both sides of the fence refuse to integrate properly.  BUT I DIGRESS from my narrative for that personal opinion!  So, other than the bumps in the road of America's racial problems, the American establishment has largely gotten along well enough to lead us into 2015.  The Pelosi and McConnell wings oppose each other politically but are generally good friends away from Congress.  Politics is often a blood sport but, for most of the 20th Century, firebrands in politics were few and far between and no real Jacksonian level figure had emerged...

...and then a certain gentleman rides down an escalator.  At first, the establishment is amused.  After all, Trump is a man they know, a man of enormous public voice and power via his wealth, and it's not like he has a chance of actually winning!!  He's one of them, the establishment says, and life will continue as smoothly as ever once his sideshow quickly passes.  BUT suddenly something happens.  Trump, instead of opting to kiss the ring of Mitch McConnell and literally rub elbows with Nancy Pelosi as he does, goes into a completely opposite direction.  Trump, like Gracchus, sees problems with America and Trump,  like Gracchus, decides to go to the people the establishment ignores, "the masses," as a way of seeking power by bypassing the traditions of the established order.  That establishment reacts just as the Roman Senate and the American Senate/House of Henry Clay and Co. reacted.  That Trump is a dangerous man to the Republic and must be stopped at all costs.  Suddenly, virtually that entire establishment responds like never before in my lifetime (born in 1973.)  Politicians on both sides attack and denounce him.  The media goes from his fawning toadies to his deadly enemies, making up fake story after fake story in the desperate attempt to stop him, a process beginning in 2016, motoring through the Russia collusion lie and into the present.  Trump responds to this like both Tiberius Gracchus and his brother, Gaius Sempronius Gracchus.  A blood feud erupts between he and his populists vs. the established order (the Roman Senate/American Congress.)  The nightmare scenario is completed in 2016 as Trump wins the Presidential election.  Now, as Tiberius Gracchus was an elected official causing trouble for his Senate, Trump is an elected official causing trouble for his Senate/House.  Both Tiberius and Gaius (even more extreme and hateful of the Roman Senate than his brother) need to go.  There can be no negotiations or peaceful resolutions.  The Roman Senate responds by murdering Tiberius Gracchus literally then later murders his brother both politically then literally.  The American Senate/House responds by murdering Trump's reputation and public standing,  thus murdering him politically.  (And, honestly, there also isn't one person in that establishment that didn't want a random American citizen killing Trump literally.)  Thousands of followers of both Tiberius and Gaius are also murdered in the Roman Senate's attempt to "cleanse" the political scene.  Hundreds of influential voices in the Trump movement are purged on social media and constantly (and often unfairly) attacked in the mainstream press, the mechanisms that hold the keys to public perception in any democracy, thus also murdering them politically.  Thus, Trump and the followers of Trump are murdered by the establishment in the eyes of the people, the people being the ones who vote to give others power. 

So IMO this is A Gracchi moment in American history.  HOWEVER, because of the establishment media's stranglehold on public perception (and that's not hyperbole), there's a better than average chance that the average American won't even see it!!  🤣🤣🤣   Politicians have been burying their misdeeds, ranging from lies and manipulations to worse, for thousands of years.  No one did it better than the Romans and the current American establishment is doing its best to emulate that behavior.  What the mainstream power establishment (political and media) wants to do is just sweep the Trump years under the rug.  The followers of Nancy Pelosi and the Fox News Neocons will eventually just pretend the Trump years didn't happen.  In Democrat circles, he'll be a great boogeyman like the constantly invoked Hitler.  "We don't talk about that creature or those years" will be the refrain, much like the Emperor Augustus didn't want to talk about his early political years where he proscribed thousands of wealthy Romans, leading to their murders and a seizure of their properties.  The Lindsey Graham/Paul Ryan Fox News Republican will also sweep these years under the rug as a "time when we lost the better angels of our nature" and other mountains of self-righteous rhetoric.  American textbooks will be manipulated to portray Trump as both Hitler and a Satanic figure.  However, what those groups can't sweep under the rug is that the Trump years ACTUALLY happened and no amount of purging from the ranks  of American history textbooks can change that.  He didn't seize power.  He was CHOSEN for it by the people.  So why did it all happen and what happens from here?  I've stated several times how the traditional establishment feels but there are many who will remember the Trump years fondly as a time when the common man/woman took on the rich, traditional aristocratic oligarchy and actually won for a time. 

My conclusion as a college history graduate?  The Roman Republic eventually fell and became the Empire, the rule of one, but I don't see it happening in the United States, at least not as a result of Donald Trump.  The Romans were male dominated and valued the dictatorial spirit of military conquest and might making right above all else.  By its very nature, it was ripe to eventually fall to one man who could defeat all his competitors (Julius Caesar) like a player in a tournament. The American Republic is much more complicated than the Roman Republic due to its integrated racial diversity and the impact of women in power positions.  Yes, we have an infuriating aristocratic oligarchy who are, essentially, a cabal of kings and queens that operate in the perceived holistic bubble of being more than one person.  Only in the hands of one person is a dictatorship seen.  For thousands of years, parliaments of nobles have ruled "non-dictatorships" in the fashion of dictatorial minorities and the reaction of our establishment to Trump proves we're no different.  The people elected Trump?  SCREW THE PEOPLE!  We, the aristocratic few, are in charge.  We don't like him so he has to go.  Screw what you want!  They painted Trump as a dictator but was it so?  Was Trump a dictator trying to conquer a wonderful, positive, essentially good establishment (as they claim) or a freedom fighter trying to bring a corrupt Uniparty who largely ignores regular people to account?  THAT will be the argument for real historians.  The current Joe Biden establishment has fake historians kissing its ass and telling it what it wants to hear but it's all much more complicated than that and real historians will eventually dig into the Trump years like a banquet feast to study how it all went down.   IMO, due to media control (and they know it), Donald Trump was A Gracchi moment but it isn't THE Gracchi moment.  His time as President proves he wasn't a dictator and the reaction to him was far worse than anything he did.  In trying to smear and destroy a man they considered without honor, the traditional power establishment did the most dishonorable things possible.  

Thank you for reading this far!  

Why the Church has to reject Secular Materialism NOW

 Firstly, I'll just say that there's a definite place for secular humanism, while I completely reject secular materialism.  That said, the Church, an institution that MUST exist to meet the SPIRITUAL NEEDS of society, has moved dangerously close to, and in too many cases fused with, secular materialism.  I write this post because I just saw old nuns on NBC at a Notre Dame basketball game on IPhones.  I'm guessing they weren't doing the work of the Church or the Lord.  A minor criticism?  Possibly but it's illustrative of the shift in the modern Church from deep thought and the pursuit of spiritual development to one of wanting to be cool with the secular masses.  I'm sure the nuns I saw are considered "great nuns" and are very hip and cool with those they speak with, meaning they probably teach the modern secular liberalism that's made globalization so profuse.  We already have WAY too much of that.  If the Church doesn't go back to its spiritual disciplines sooner rather than later, it's become useless to civil society because it will have ceased to be the alternative its supposed to be.  

VERY SORRY I wasted my time and emotions on the United States

 As the 2022 midterms come to a close and my place in society is once more invalidated and irrelevant, I have to express my final feelings on politics in the United States as being a complete waste of time, thought and emotion.  The ancient Romans, even in their Republic, had an illusory system of "democracy" which only existed to favor the very rich and powerful, always in the concept of a super minority of family connections.  The regular people suffered and did all the work.  Guess what we have in America?  The same thing.  We have a political Uniparty, essentially their own family power structure, which exists solely to further its own financial and power lusts.  Outsiders need not apply, just like they need not have applied thousands of years ago.  America sucks.  It's always sucked in some capacity and it always will.  America is a nation of the Godless, the materialistic, the addicted, the empty and the mentally imbalanced.  It's fake "freedom," the "freedom" to detach from reality and live a fantasy where the natural laws of mankind can be ignored and denied to the inevitable detriment to all involved.  Reality WILL not be denied.  It can't be.  It has its effect whether it's acknowledged or not.  The United States is fantasy. It's a nation LOADED with problems which its arrogant nature refuses to see or cope with.  When we live in the light of reality, we see that the United States is a great enemy. as all elements who choose to live in fantasy in a world where we must acknowledge reality are fated to become.  The wealthiest will once again be the only ones who profit while the decent people suffer.  The most corrupt people will continue to harm the most innocent.  The brainless herd will desperately try to nudge their way into the elite classes to benefit in the useless materialism and the fake security it affords.  Just like in ancient Rome, one of the most corrupt "civilized" civilizations in human history.  Fake, illusory, savage and vicious.  Sorry I tried to save you, America.  YOU wasted MY time.  

Short Post: Are our emotions spiritual or physical?

Spiritual.  In my experience, our emotions are spiritual and eternal.  They go way beyond the physical.  They're as close as we get to God, which is encapsulated in the idea that "God is Love."  Our emotions are not scientific.  Our emotions are not disposable like our physical bodies.  When we die, our emotions do not cease like our physical bodies as our emotions are not guttural and instinctive.  Our emotions are our souls and make up who we really are in the ether of eternity.  We cease to be physical people.  We never cease to be emotional beings.  

Is Mathematics hard reality like science or creatively conceptual like poetry?

 Just watched a neat philosophy lecture on Pythagoras and it made me think of mathematics.  We all know science is physical reality.  It's tangible. something we can feel.  It has mass.  It has a cause and effect impact of us and your world.  Mathematics is intellectual and at least perceived as in the galaxy of scientific reality but is it really?  If a piece of wood is at a right angle, we know the wood is real but how are we to analyze its right angle?  Abstract thinkers (as they were back in the day) came up with a thought process that this piece of wood had a certain bend to it and that numbers, merely ways of counting physical objects, could be applied to this bend but was seeing a bend in the wood necessary at all?  Why would we need to conceptualize this angle in the first place?  It's a hunk of wood and has the laws of physical science behind it.  We MUST acknowledge it's a hunk of wood.  It can be in our way.  It can hit us over the head.  It has a potential impact outside ourselves we can't deny.  But must we acknowledge mathematics?  Nothing about the wood or ourselves changes if we don't see the wood is at a right angle.  Physical reality goes on whether we see it or not.  In that way, is mathematics a necessary application in the real world at all?  If we didn't conceptualize math, with all its intricate calculations, would we be the worse off for it?  

In that way, I see math as being a bit like poetry.  Like the poetry of beautiful things.  We experience beautiful things like flowers in the real world because they have mass like the block of wood.  We then think of ways we can creatively express what we're seeing in an aesthetic way.  We apply it to our emotions.  in contrast, we apply the idea of a right angle in a block of wood with pure intellect, largely free of the emotions.  We can get emotional over a right angle but it seems rather silly!  While it's virtually impossible to create good poetry about a flower without some sort of emotional aesthetic.  In that way, mathematics can be seen as emotionless poetry, intellectually creative yet devoid of any need for an emotional connection.  Mathematics is often very important for creating a sense of order in our lives which helps makes our existence bearable in a technical fashion.  It's a facilitator of problem solving.  However, if all we need to do is see the block of wood as just a hard, physical object devoid of shape and we need not use our emotions to conceptualize it, is mathematics even necessary to our existence as the acknowledgement of the physical and the emotional are?  Food for thought!  

My Spiritual Views

 As no one reads my blog anymore, this is pretty much for me.  

I grew up a Catholic and I went from believing it definitely to being more questioning to being agnostic to being a complete disbeliever.  Certain experiences (like a near death one) have opened my eyes to the idea of spirit, specifically the "great beyond" as it were.  

Combination of views and philosophies:  

As I've grown, as my senses have been blown wide open and I've largely separated from the social distractions that come from organized religions, I've studied different views and I've become a combination of humanism and ancient tenets and philosophies.  

Roman Stoicism:  

All intelligent people eventually "figure out" religion, meaning realize a lot of stuff in religious stories is made up to prove points and build a common mythology.  Nothing wrong with that at all but, if we're searching for spiritual truth, more aesthetically pleasing than helpful.  So, a seeker of truth turns to more thoughtful, intellectual concepts in searching for truth and that means studying other "religious" ideas and classical philosophy.  I love the ideas of ancient philosophers the most because they lived in times where there were fewer mental and emotional distractions, therefore their insights are a bit more clear headed.  I love the later Germans and Brits but there's SO much for them to consider that they become SO complicated!  Beautifully tough to learn but very cluttered!  So I love the ideas of Parmenides and Heraclitus, especially because they're simple, eternal and at the root of perception.  "No man steps in the same river twice" is a perfect concept for evolution.  Parmenides' view that life and time are eternal and present and that we essentially never go anywhere is a perfect concept of the timeless nature of soul and spirit.  In terms of looking at society, I really like Roman Stoicism, maybe because I love old Roman history and because it's a more masculine view I can connect with.  That all things happen for a reason, even the horrible things, that we can't comprehend is a great thought process for letting go, for trusting in life and the processes of life.  Without such concepts, we try to control everything and we can't get through a day without being overwhelmed by the horrors of the world, especially in today's social media climate.  Which leads me to the next idea I've come to embrace. 

Taoism - "The Way" 

Roman Stoicism is a great way to learn to let go of trying to change what cannot be changed in the physical world.  Taoism is then a great direction on a new direction to go in, namely getting in touch with the rhythms of the universe and ourselves, the metaphysical, the eternal, the spirit beyond the world.  It eliminates the distractions of the physical and allows for clear contemplation of the ideas of God and the universe, which then leads to the question of why we're on Earth and where we go when we're done.  Also if there's any purpose we have, if there's anything we need to do on this planet and why we're here.  I find that being in touch with the natural order of the universe, not the disorder of the physical world, purifies my thought and thus my spirit to a certain extent.  If I ponder what is good, I ponder what is good and bad in me, what I need to work on, bad traits I need to eliminate, etc.  It's spiritual work, not material work, which can carry all sorts of poisons with it.  Even evil men have jobs, as they say!  It's learning to go with the flow of the eternal and NOT the flow of society.  I used to go with the flow of society and I lost a lot of ground doing so.  In trying to navigate the world, I became a mouthpiece for the current, as we see so many people do, especially in the media.  "What's happening now?!  Because whatever is happening now is good!  I need the latest device to be cool, etc!"  You become lost, easily willing to not rock the boat in order to get along.  After a time, you look at yourself and you just feel weak.  You have no purpose.  You live and fight for nothing.  Maybe you have nice surroundings and a nice job because you get along but, take those away, and what do you have?  Just an empty shell that needs the illusions and distractions of the physical world to be able to function mentally and emotionally.  That emptiness leads to such pain, which is why people seek faith and spiritually in the first place.  I'm proof positive that material pursuits and success, no matter what the cost, is ultimately a dead end, and no addiction or pleasure in the world can heal the disconnect from what is truly universal.  Spirit is depth and soul and happiness.  Being at one with the universe is peace.  

Neo-Platonism: 

That said, being one with the eternal, the Nous, is one of the top ideas of Neo-Platonism which I've come to embrace.  For me, we no doubt become one with the Nous, the universal concept of what is considered God, when we die as we no longer have a physical body to stop us.  I kind of see The Way as God coming to us.  I see Neo-Platonism as us going to God.  The former is finding peace in the physical world by conceiving oneness with God.  The latter is actually being in his arms, which I feel is a very loving thing.  We become good when we're associated with good, when we're connected with good.  The physical grounds us in pain and the progressive corruption of human desires.  The spirit, the soul within, is free from such things.  Merge our souls in eternal love, goodness and happiness and we have a place we will never leave.  We will have arrived.  

People Currently Responsible for the Current Race Violence in America

Here are the people currently involved in and leading the current violence. There are a lot of them which leads to a perfect storm shit show.

1. Older liberals/Democrats who desperately want to get rid of Donald Trump and believe discord and violence is the way to do it. They're the worst of the worst. They're the old guard Democrats like the Nancy Pelosis and the Charles Schumers. They know exactly what they're doing and they don't care if the country burns because they think one man is literally Satan.

2. Black people/liberals who legitimately believe white people are hunting them on a daily basis. I feel bad for some of them and some of them are just paranoid and uneducated. The latter are abused and used by the liberals in No. 1 to do their dirty work for them. I see people like Chris Cuomo as being in this group.

3. Liberal/Communist/Feminist/Anarchist Media who are only interested in achieving their social gains. The feminists at rags like the New York Times fit this group. Combined with No, 1, these people are the lowest of the low because they relish the violence and egg it on simply to stop a President whose very existence has dominated their emotions for four years. People like Don Lemon are in both No. 2 and No. 3.

4. Little shit bag suburban liberals of all races who think being a revolutionist is "cool and fun!" They're the Black Out Tuesday people who think they're street and cool to attack cops and promote protesting. Once this is over, they'll move on to their next "cause." These people are symptoms of the disease. Buzzfeed is the perfect example of this group of annoying little shits.

5. Antifa. The terrorist wing of the Democratic Party. Liars who say they only exist to fight fascism when really they exist to destroy ANYONE who disagrees with them by labeling them fascists whether they are or not. No. 3 defends and protects this group and some are no doubt involved with their activities. No. 3 also believes these people are some sort of heroes when, in truth, they're violent thugs with no real set purpose other than producing fear.

6. Hollywood. Stupid celebrities believing and saying stupid things. The group with arguably the most clout combined with the least competence.

7. Black athletes and their white sycophants. The people with arguably equal clout with Hollywood. Most of the voice of black athletes are from people with CTE or guys closer to Bad Newz Kennelz than they are PETA. But they're black so people think they know what they're talking about. Have a ton of clout with the actual rioters and looters and have been cheering them on the whole way. LeBron James is in this group. Certain black athletes like Colin Kaepernick who grew up well off who suddenly think they're oppressed victims. People who, if they weren't athletes, would be front and center robbing Target Stores. Their white sycophants are the those on networks on ESPN like Colin Cowherd and Skip Bayless who think people like LeBron James are social heroes (insert laughter emoji.) I grew up playing sports and sports culture is black so there's a ton of whining going on by rich black guys who should be praising America for their lives instead of bashing it. Rich whiners included people like Shannon Sharpe, who apparently thinks he speaks for "his people" about shit that happened hundreds of years ago.

8. Black Lives Matter. This is the most interesting group because there are parts of them in all Numbers 1-5. It's a murky term that means different things for different people. Antifa/terrorism is included in it. Well meaning black people who think white people are hunting them for sport. Black people like the 1619 Project so filled with hate and delusion that they don't even believe their hate and violence is hate and violence. Black Karens (to use the term) are in this group and they want to see your President about making white people kneel and bow to them. They're dangerous instigators only interested in satisfying a horribly toxic need for social revenge over their lot in life. Little shit bag liberals who think Black Lives Matter isn't a black panther redo and that it honestly attacks evil racists. Hollywood and black athletes are mouthpieces for it.

9. Legitimate revolutionaries. The deadly people. The truly malevolent force that wants social destruction, no police presence to stop their lust for power and victory over and dominance of white people. The only good cops are dead cops to them. Also the hardcore socialists that want society to burn because it best helps initiate Socialism/Communism. An increasing number of Black Lives Matter members are in this group. They're the 2020 Black Panthers. Murderous sociopaths using tragedy to rape, pillage and plunder. Some of Antifa overlaps here, too.

A lot of elements have to combine in life for a horribly violent catastrophe to occur. The nine examples above are responsible for the current chaos. I'm not talking justice for George Floyd. I'm talking the CURRENT CHAOS.

It's Time, America. It's Time for an Enlightened Military Oligarchy to Run this Country

I'll preface this by saying "military oligarchy" does NOT mean military tyranny.  It does not mean a fascist takeover.  I'll elaborate below.  I want to get this out now so I'm only going to post basic ideas and policies.  I will elaborate more in the future.  

Qualifications:  I have a history degree with a political science minor from Wisconsin-Whitewater.  

Note:  These are obviously my opinions for the direction the government of the United States.  

Voting: 

Eliminated.  This would be the biggest system change.  The citizenry of the United States, due to recent events, has forfeited its right to choose its own government.  Military officials would be chosen by patriotic, nationally interested men and women with the power and will to enforce its laws and enforce societal order.  They would run the important governmental offices with speed and efficiency.  All unimportant offices will be eliminated.  In short, you've lost the competence to govern yourselves, America.  Time for orderly, sane, competent, capable, mature individuals to mete out policy and justice.  

Rights:  

So what does this mean for your rights?  You would essentially still have them except the right to vote or cause dissension based on free speech.  Social (more below) and racial dissension would be considered "fire in a crowded theater" and not tolerated. The Constitution would still exist (amended where necessary but that is a separate discussion.)   I realize amending the Constitution is an enormously important issue but the vast majority of it will be the same.  You WILL have the right to criticize your government but make the criticisms COUNT.  Don't be lying about or slandering your government because it would still WORK FOR YOU.  The only change would be the leadership that would make that happen.  

Media: 

The media in America is the No. 1 source of discord and disorder.  CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, and all independent media "think tanks" would be 100% eliminated.  No Sean Hannity.  No Don Lemon.  No Chris Cuomo.  No fake Meet the Press BS.  No White House press conferences.  No "gotcha" media like Jim Acosta.  Local and national media would still exist but it would be under a tight system where facts and statistics are given and ALL political rhetoric will be eliminated.  Political opinions based on Left/Right ideology would be eliminated.  "We report, you decide" will be enforced and all biased factual inaccuracies will be met with severe penalties.  Social media sites that engage in actual time responses like Twitter would be eliminated.  Thus, the coordination of violent activities and other threads being in illegal rhetoric would be, at least, squashed before they pick up any momentum.  Strict ground rules for "illegal rhetoric" would be made very clear to all.  Companies like Facebook and Instagram would be tightly regulated to prevent immediate coordination of violence.  

Legal System: 

Instead of a chaotic system of jury trials and biased elected officials, sane, competent groups of educated military officials would run the trials based on dispassionate evidence.  Testimony would still be heard, things like fingerprints and DNA evidence would still be used.  Our trial system today is not a disaster.  However, this tweak will streamline it.  It's doubtful there would be more OJs or Casey Anthonys because the politics and media garbage would be eliminated.  Justice, not politics, would be the SOLE focus.  

Illegal Immigration: 

No more of it.  No open borders.  There would be both walls and increased border security.  Don't even try coming in illegally.  If you do, military personnel would have the authority to use lethal violence if necessary.  This is not for the average illegal immigrant, obviously.  If illegal immigrants come to our southern border, Mexico will be responsible for letting them in their country via THEIR southern border.  

Violent protests:  

Eliminated 100%.  If you are using violence and you persist, you will be arrested at the very least and military personnel would be instructed to use lethal force at worst.  The current (June 2, 2020) race riots would be met with an immediate lethal response.  If you're going to use violence, you're going to get violence.  As stated, that response would be immediate.  

Social and economic issues:  

Good jobs for good money would be available to all.  Hiring practices would be by military personnel.  Discrimination would be eliminated as would reverse-discrimination.  All citizens would be equal both before the law and in practice.  Equality would be enforced as will crushing all dissension based on race.  That dissension is NEGATIVE, harmful dissension.  It is not crushing free speech.  Just dangerous, potentially violent free speech.  Race rhetoric beyond scientific conversation will be considered inflammatory and unacceptable.  Thus will the economic and social problems that cause discord and violence be eliminated.  Capitalism will exist.  Business will be business.  Economic inequalities can still exist but that means billionaires can be billionaires.  The difference will be poverty and homelessness would be eliminated so that pain would be gone.  All people with mental illnesses would be put on medication and afforded any help they need, be it economic or things like housing.  Social security would still exist and would be still be administrated.  The medical community would exist as always.  

Race rhetoric:  

Eliminated 100%.  Any race politics and race discussions beyond scientific ideology would be eliminated.  All race information will be based on statistics, not opinion.  

Political Parties:  

The Media system and the political system will be the two most radically chanted institutions.  Political parties would be eliminated and made illegal.  No Right or Left rhetoric.  No political or social power to the citizenry.  Things like religious beliefs and assembly would be allowed as always.  People would have the right to hang out in whatever groups they choose and they can discuss Left vs. Right ideology is they choose but it would be gone from the national discussion.  

Identity Politics: 

Eliminated.  All people with different sexualities and gender identities will be welcome and tolerated but the political pushing of identity politics as a means of social "progress," which is, in truth, divisive, would not be tolerated.  

Sociology:  

NO policies will be made under the biased banner of the pseudoscience "Sociology."  

Police: 

Law and order (not as a dog whistle) would be the only focus for police.  They would be taught to understand different people with various problems to better help their performance but they would be there to enforce our laws, not cheerlead our citizenry or make biased political decisions.  

Creativity:  Political dissension on a mass scale would be eliminated in mass media like movies and TV.  Political dissension AS AN IDEA would be more tolerated (though not much more) in literature but not much more.  

Education: 

No more "white privilege" kind of stuff in schools.  No more liberal sociology in schools.  No religious rhetoric in public schools.  Only fact based education.  ALL "teaching" from politically motivated individuals designed to manipulate and "change minds" will be eliminated and those that persist in such biases will be fired without protections from unions.  

That's it for now.  The only real difference between our country now and under this system is that proper, competent military officials that care about the country would run the show, not the average citizen.  The only real liberty people would lose would be the vote.  Yes, that's a big one but society must move forward.  Americans have proven they are not capable of doing that.  Life will still essentially be the same but the political discord will be completely eliminated.  

This would still be the United States!!!  It would just be a better United States.  

That's mostly the gist of my argument, though without the necessary details for the moment (as I just started thinking of this last night.)  

Previous art with more work

More art

Writer. Intellectual. Bipolar. Views of Jeffrey Riley. : Playing around with Microsoft Paint

Writer. Intellectual. Bipolar. Views of Jeffrey Riley. : Playing around with Microsoft Paint

More Microsoft Paint

Playing around with Microsoft Paint

A critique of American liberal thought

Growing up a Republican before realizing I'm much more of a Centrist, I've long pondered conservative American thought.  Based on the personal beliefs I was taught and experiences with Republican friends and family, it's been relatively easy to understand how personal bias colors how right wing people see the world.  Most of that comes from limited contact with anyone outside the tribe.  In American conservatives, that typically means being diversity free and, thus, not understanding of the experiences and motivations of people that are different; namely, other races (black, Hispanic, Asian, etc), sexualities (LGBT) and anything else not experienced by the exclusive American conservative (namely, very white) grouping.

The election of Donald Trump and the radicalization of the American Right has proven a disgusting, despicable revelation for me as I loathe everything at its root, namely the ferocious racism of its stupid, overwhelmingly white adherents and the subhuman talk radio shock jocks that give it life and sustenance.   This is how I never saw conservatives growing up.  I saw Ronald Reagan and the conservative ideological pursuit against things evil (whether you think the Soviet Union was evil or not is your opinion) and Reagan's endlessly inspiring, compassionate oratorical skills as being the epitome of all that was good with the world.  Conversely, Trump's childish, insulting, dimwitted, "insert a million more scathing realities" rhetoric, playing to the worst traits in the lowest common denominator has forced me as an educated man, like many other educated men like George Will, to disgustedly and, to a certain extent, forcibly detach from all things Trumpian.  In short, "American conservative thought" has become an oxymoron.  The intellectual ideology is gone in favor of the dipshitted ilk of grade school dropouts like Limbaugh and Hannity.   American conservative voters found their inherent stupidity while conservative spineless politicians keep allowing it to fester because a non-Democrat is in the White House.  

So I'm disgusted!  The party that I thought were the good guys are decidedly not. The people that I thought were about justice and principles are not.  So what is an American thinker to do?  For me, that means considering the other side.  I break from many on the new American Right because I very much believe in social justice.  That means justice FOR ALL.  As I will illustrate in a moment, liberals only believe in social justice for liberals but I'll get to that.  I want life, liberty and pursuit of happiness for everyone.  I admit that comes with caveats.  If I feel certain people are jerks, I'm not interested in them prospering.  It's not that I want these people to die but I don't want them to be successful, either, until they become better people.  I also have the animal instincts all human beings have.  In this case, I feel the tribal energies and pulls like everyone else but I choose not to succumb to them.  I want to be a better, broader human in a better, broader, more egalitarian world.  "Whiteness" used to provide me with great comfort and joy because it's what I knew and I didn't have to think about the uncomfortable realities of "different" people.  Truthfully, I could easily go back to being a very white, narrow minded right wing person but, as stated, I don't want that.  I'll also state that right wing people are not the inherently monstrous people non-understanding liberals make them out to be.  Right wing people very much love and care about their families.  However, as conservatives, that tends to be the only groups they care about.  I'll further comment on any other right wing views as I go along but I'd like to get to my critique of how I see American liberalism in 2018.  I have to preface this by saying this comes mostly from my observations of liberal culture and contacts with liberals on Twitter, YouTube or other forms of social media.  I have had many contacts and conversations of this kind so I feel I've gleaned a few things.

1.  Liberals are just as tribal as conservatives, though not in the same way.

Due to the indoctrination of various groups, American liberalism is a looser tribal confederation than the more homogeneous conservatives.  Liberals, in their attempts at beating the more racially centralized conservatives, learned some time ago that organizing and indoctrinating different ethnic, sexual and racial groups was their best option.  The organizing overwhelmingly comes from white educated liberals, those with education enough to have abstract views of right and wrong in America.  The marginalized groups (blacks, gays, etc) are primarily used to being marginalized.  That's their American experience.  They vote Democrat out of a feeling of necessity because of the perception (and frequent reality) that it's all they can do against people who hate them.  This makes for a conglomeration of diversity that isn't exactly unified yet isn't distinct (at least politically.)  The more educated, typically white liberals very much want a strong, inclusive group dynamic.  They're the ones who preach American ideals like "Give us your poor, your tired, your huddled masses..."  They're the main tribal organizers because, as typically self-indulgent, self-righteous Americans, they KNOW in their hearts it's the correct way to go.

The problem is that modern American liberal thought is stuck in the past.  Listening to liberals today is like listening to a speaker from 1850.  To them, slavery and segregation essentially still exist and they're the ones how have to combat it.  This outdated thought is very dangerous to America because it ignored progress and teaches a form of learned hopelessness.  Thing are bad, always have been bad and always will be bad is the rhetoric.  America has made progress in racial matters.  Trump being elected doesn't change that.  However, the PERCEPTION that has accompanied the election of Trump, fueled by the "mainstream" media, had created the idea that we're just as racist a nation as we were 200 years ago and that is false.  Not only is it false, it's dangerously false because it stirs up potentially violent action in the name of falseness.  I'm not sure if Democrats at the top are using such rhetoric to keep themselves as unified as they can be or not.  I do think they all honestly believe we're as racist now as we were in 1819 and that is without question not the case.

2.  Liberal Americans are flaming hypocrites.

American liberals are in that sick, dark place where rhetoric and practice are near complete opposites.  Their preaching is in the typically American style of perfect self-indulgent self-righteousness that affects both sides.  "I'm right and you're wrong because I'm going to say all these wonderful things that you do and we don't."  For liberals, it was the idea of "When they go low, we go high."  After Trump's election, many Democrats went public with their disdain for this idea.  They lost an election to a HATED opponent and lost their marbles and principles at the same time.  American liberals tend to be driven more by their emotions than their logic.  When they get in a downward spiral, this can prove deadly because they don't reason their way out of it.  They don't catch their breath and think, "Okay.  Calm down.  I've got this."  They become easy proponents of what's happening now in the arena of rage and hate.  That's where American liberals are right now with Donald Trump and the US Presidency.  They're full of rage and hate on a daily basis.  Whether you consider it righteous or not, it's still very toxic and frightening.  The fake "counter balance" is their rhetoric of peace, love and understanding.  The reality is that they're movement is peace, love and understanding FOR SOME, which means whoever is in their group.  I've read and experienced several comments from LGBT people, for instance, that talk about how they're all about love in one breath then they spew as much hate as you could ever possibly read towards right wing people the next.  Apparently, "love" only means their group.  Have LGBT people faced hate and discrimination in American history?  Definitely.  However, claiming they're all about social love when they also spew social hate is hypocritical.  I don't mean to pick on the LGBT community.  I'm just giving an example as they're in the liberal tribe.  Liberals will also throw people under the bus (like mentally ill people) if it fits their agendas on issues like gun control.  Hey, I thought you guys were inclusive!  Just not towards crazies and white men, apparently (pardon the personal rant.)

3.  Liberals are not self-aware.

"Know thyself" and be humble in what you find are ideas lost on the American liberals of 2019.  Amazingly, they typically don't see their rather startling level of hypocrisy in attacking people not in their tribe.

More to come later.

Types of Pride, from Physical to Social

Physical:  The most animal, the least objective, and most understandable form.  In a society where beauty and performance are usually considered to be absolute (we all know what a "perfect" body looks like and what a sports victory is), this from of pride is expressed simply by sight and activity.  The individual feeling the pride typically uses it, whether for their own self-worth or for things like athletic success and successful physical relationships with a sexual partner.  This pride is both most hated and admired.  

Intellectual:  Comes from different angles but, like all pride, is fully evinced by self-awareness.  The physically proud knows he or she is good looking and/or dominant.  Intellectual pride is expressed in different ways.  Basic knowledge is the most understandable.  If you know more things about more things than anyone you know, it will often manifest as pride (though it can also come as shame if you feel you know too many trivial things!)  Pride can also come via intelligent insight.  This can be a form of street smart instead of book smart.  You have the ability to read people and situations on your feet and on the fly.  This kind of insight is usually not seen as intellectual but I believe it definitely is as it frequently comes from the great mental ability to assess and analyze on your feet.  A form of overall self-awareness and self-knowledge also qualifies.  "Knowing thyself" can often be the hardest thing humans can aspire to.  Those that greatly achieve this can be intuitively brilliant without being book or street smart.  

Existential:  This is pride for the sake of pride.  It's expression is simply the individual feeling proud for no real reason.  "I feel proud!"  However, unlike happiness and sadness, existential pride seems silly.  Whereas it's understandable we can feel things like happiness or sadness just for the sake of it, pride seems ridiculous if we're not actually proud of something.  "What are you proud of?"  "Uh...nothing in particular! I just am!"  This attitude may be encouraging and empowering to the individual but it makes you look like an idiot to everyone else.  

Positive, healthy pride:  This pride comes from being proud of all the right things.  If you're a good parent, a good role model for your children, if you work hard to support yourself and your family, if you do charity work, if you want the best for people, etc, etc, etc.  This is really the only kind of pride that's vital to the individual (though there are combinations like a proud pro athlete who uses his skills to support his family.)  This is the responsible pride that is much more about self-worth and self-esteem.  It's the "good person" pride that makes mankind positively evolve as a species.  

Religious and Social pride :  Now we're getting into the infinitely more abstract and potentially dangerous forms of pride.  Though many religions preach against feeling proud, as a human emotion, it will seep into everything we do that we feel is right.  Most religions preach good things.  However, the interpretations of these "good things" and the perception of implementation has been responsible for many, many atrocities in human history across the globe.   At an equal level is social pride, though that level often comes in the form of the potential more than the actual.  People on the right of the political spectrum tend to feel more pride in religion as a social factor.  People on the left side feel the social pride that comes from a feeling of self-righteousness in the form of ideas and beliefs on issues like social justice.  Religious fanaticism is much less a problem in the Western world today than it is in the Middle East, where ideas of religious righteousness go back thousands of years and can result in acts of terror against perceived opponents like 9/11.  Social pride is the major issue in the Western world today.  A more integrated society, invariably seen as the moral, righteous path by those in the mainstream, often degenerates into the worst aspects of human pettiness, such as tribal behavior based on racial or sexual identity. We're supposed to get along but, as a GroupThink species, we often don't nor do we even care to.  Now we have group pride, which is the most dangerous form of social pride as it usually comes at the cost of individual decision making or sensible reason. It becomes a social contagion fueled by aimless emotion and passion where people profess to believe the same things, no matter what or how competent they are, as the orthodox standard of right vs. wrong.  If you stray from that, you are suddenly considered "the enemy" and a terrible person, even if what you believe is correct.  Individuals are usually held accountable for what they do as individuals, whether socially or legally.  Group pride often takes the form of mob justice grounded in peer pressure based on perceived evils, ideas of racial or sexual extermination of those different, and racial pride in believing your race is superior simply because it exists and you're in it.  This is the lowest, dumbest, most disgusting form of pride because it takes no intelligence or insight to achieve.  It's humanity as a group of apes in the jungle. At least physical pride is an expression of individuality mixed with awareness.  Social pride is pure act and react and, in a civilized society, is very dangerous.    

Thank you for reading! 

The Electrical Man - A Ghostly Halloween Short Story

“Life is often just an interim between nightmares.” 

         

        The comment from the young woman named Martha, no older than 20, took Joyce Butler, 32-year old retail office worker, by surprise as only routine small talk about life, in general, had preceded it.  Yes, it being after midnight made it Oct. 31, Halloween, with the office decorated accordingly, but that didn’t mean glumness need be the prevailing mood.  It made work more difficult and that’s why they were in the office at 1:45 AM on Halloween.  They were there for work because it wasn’t 1950 anymore.  It was 1984 and computers were the wave of the future and she, Joyce, being the youngest office worker with any real tenure, was the senior most employee stuck with learning about the damn things.  She normally worked first shift but was appointed the sacrificial lamb stuck in a week-long third shift course learning about the computers so she could teach the other office workers what she’d learned when she resumed her place on first shift.  Martha was a newly hired employee who would be trained more thoroughly.  Computers and young women were apparently both waves of the future.  Joyce had been making small talk with Martha but the perplexing comment threw her enough that she struck an incorrect key on her keyboard. 

          “No, that’s not right,” the young man, also no older than 20, mumbled impatiently.  Her company had hired him to teach the two women the “ins and outs” of creating things like spreadsheets on the computer for better office efficiency.  He appealed to Joyce as a cold, logical type, the kind of technology person she had little use for, the kind of man that ignored the sunshine of the outside world and all its sensory wonders to spend all his time cooped up with computers and television sets.  She didn’t resent or feel superior to such people; they just weren’t her cup of tea. 

                “You have to press this key here, see?” he said, blandly, leaning over her shoulder and pointing.  He felt icy, like the smell of the wintergreen gum he was chewing.  Joyce repressed a sarcastic reply and pressed the key as the man went to help the young woman a few seats over.  Joyce looked around the office.  Fake spider webs hung from the ceiling with fake spiders intermixed.  Paper Jack O’Lantern, ghost and witch cut outs adorned the walls.  It reeked to her of corporate commonality. 

          “I can’t wait to go home,” she thought. 

          Suddenly, the lights flickered, came back on fully then dimmed nearly to darkness.  The young man, afraid of losing the progress of the software download, scrambled to Joyce’s computer.  Before he could press a key, the lights went out.  Though they were in an enclosed, familiar space, the darkness combined with the surroundings made Joyce shudder.  The decorations now moved in her mind.  The spiders crept along the cobwebs and the witches and ghosts took flight.  The young man swore and the young girl held her breath.  The only exit was via elevator.  If the power stayed off, what would they do? 

          A minute passed.  Lost in darkness, none of them spoke.  The sound of machinery coming to life was then heard and the lights came back on.  Joyce breathed a sigh of relief.  Martha seemed very afraid, the young man very irritated.  Moving to the young woman’s computer, he grunted in frustration as it rebooted. 

          “What kind of place is this?” he growled.  “What kind of business is this?” 

          “I’ve never seen the power go out here,” Joyce said. 

          “He hates the electricity,” a man’s voice said behind them.  Startled, Joyce swung her head to see a janitor who had come in from the warehouse the office was connected to.  He wore a typical janitor’s uniform and was holding a mop resting in a wheeled bucket full of dirty water.  The young man moved towards him and put his hand out to shake. 

          “Hi,” he said.  “I’m George.” 

          The janitor, a man with a wizened face and awkwardly groomed white hair held up his hands and said, “Oh, no.  Look.  You wouldn’t want to get your hands dirty, would you?” 

          The man felt very odd.  Though she’d never seen him before, Joyce, lost in the moment, laughed to herself. 

          “A man comes out of the dark,” she thought.  “Has a ghost visited us on Halloween?” 

          “I’m sorry if I scared you,” the man said with a chuckle.  “My name is Alfred.  I’ve been here for a time but my shift is almost over.  Well, I guess everything is okay now.” 

          As he turned to reenter the warehouse, the young man called him back.

          “Whoa, whoa there.  What did you mean by ‘He likes to play with the electricity?’  Who does?” 

          “The Electrical Man,” the janitor replied matter-of-factly, as if it were common knowledge.  “Surely you know of him?”

          The three employees all said they hadn’t.  Joyce felt goosebumps.  The young lady, clearly very sensitive, shivered. 

          “His name is William Place.  His physical body left this world decades ago when the building down the street was a prison.  He was the first man electrocuted.  Three tries but he wouldn’t die.  Each time the generator had to recharge.  His skin had melted by the fourth attempt.  The generator exploded and all the lights on the block went out.  Some reports said William Place had disappeared when they came back on.  So, he hates the electricity, you see? When he comes back, he makes all the lights go out.” 

          “When he comes back?” the young man asked rhetorically.  “Are you saying the ghost of William Place haunts this building?” 

          Alfred smiled.  “When the lights flicker, I always think, ‘He's come back to visit.'" 

          The air in the room felt leaden.  A small clock on one of the work stations pinged twice. 

          “Ooh, that’s for me,” Alfred said.  “My time is over now.  Goodbye.”  With a smile, he steered the wheeled bucket by the mop handle back into the warehouse.  The office stayed silent for several seconds before the young man spoke. 

          “Like I was saying, ‘What kind of business is this?’  How many weirdos do you have around here?” 

          The question snapped Joyce out of a kind of trance. 

“I’ve never seen that man before,” she replied, her voice trailing.  Her sense of her frightened mood made her angry.  She continued: 

“We don’t have ‘weirdos’ around here, George.  I’ve never seen the man before but I normally don’t work third shift.  He’s just a man that cleans up around here, obviously.” 

“I don’t like people with those kinds of stories,” George said with irritation.  “I don’t like creeps or creep stories.  Life is logical and real.  There aren’t any ghosts in it.” 

          Joyce looked to Martha and saw her trembling. 

          “Did the man scare you, dear?” Joyce asked. 

          “I don’t think I’m supposed to be here,” Martha whispered. 

          “I still wonder what kind of place this is,” George said with contempt. 

          Joyce angrily brushed off his comment, dug some change out of her purse, rose and approached the young woman, who looked up at her with dancing eyes. 

          “Here, sweetheart,” Joyce said.  “Why don’t you go to the cafeteria and get us some sodas.  George, what would you like?”

          “Nothing.  I don’t drink soda,” he said dryly, staring at her computer screen as he pressed buttons on her keyboard. 

          “I’ll take a Coca-Cola,” Joyce said tenderly to the young woman.  “You get whatever you want.” 

          With a disconcerted nod, the girl rose and left the room for the cafeteria. 

          “You could be nice, you know,” Joyce said to George rhetorically.  "The man clearly unnerved her,”

          “I have no time for nonsense,” he said, still looking at her computer screen and pressing keys.  “If she has no nerve, that’s her problem.”

          Joyce had had enough of George the computer expert but she resolved to get along until the shift was over.  The clock read 2:15 AM.  Three hours and forty-five minutes and she would meet the 6 AM morning crew before going home.  It couldn’t come fast enough.  She looked at the fake spiders.  Did one of them just move?  The lights began to flicker again.  

          An ear shattering scream from the cafeteria made her jump.  She looked at George, who had also jumped and seemed very irritated he had.  Joyce ran towards the cafeteria and froze when she saw Martha sprinting towards her, bathed in a sea of lights flickering like an electrical storm.  She barely dodged in time as the girl ran past towards the office and into the warehouse as Joyce followed. 

          “Martha!  Stop!” she shouted uselessly.  The warehouse was between the office and the elevator which is where the girl, who proved too fast for Joyce, was running towards.  She had nearly reached her destination when the lights went out.  Joyce froze again.  Largely unfamiliar with the warehouse’s layout, she quickly convinced herself it was folly to run around with the lights off.  Deep down, she was terrified.  What was happening?  Why had the girl screamed? 

          The lights came back on and Joyce saw she was alone.  She whipped her head around looking for the girl then jogged lightly towards the elevator.  Nothing.  The elevator made a ping sound when opening.  Joyce had heard no sound.  The warehouse was cavernous.  Had Martha gotten confused in the dark?  Was she still in the warehouse?  Joyce walked back to the office and found George still working at her computer. 

          “Did Martha come back in here?” she asked.  He didn’t answer, as if she wasn’t there. 

          “Hey, George!” she said, snapping her fingers impatiently.  “Did Martha come back through here?”

          He turned his attention towards her and said, eyes rolling towards the ceiling, “I think I do know what kind of place this is now.”  He nodded to himself and went back to work.  For the first time, Joyce felt the surreal nature of the situation.  She opened her mouth to speak again but no words formed in her mind.  She felt the need to walk up and touch George but didn’t.  Where was that janitor?  He must have left.  He did say his time was over.  Surely...surely, she would have heard the elevator ping for him, too...  

          Rousing her courage, she resolved to search the warehouse.  She took care of the easy things first, a quick look behind the cardboard box crusher and a scan of the assembly lines calling "Martha" at various intervals.  An unidentified sound at the other end of the warehouse nearly made her scream.  The resulting silence felt like a panic.  After a minute, she began breathing deeply again.  
        "Just something slipping off a shelf," she convinced herself.  "Probably happens all the time."  
        Regathering her nerve, she continued with the search.  Next was the large area with the metal merchandise trees, a dead forest of steel barely visible in the darkness.  In the distance, a small light crackled next to an old, dusty unused storage room.  She couldn't stop her mind from spinning.  How many monsters have come out of those kinds of places in movies?  How many people that meet them are never seen again?  The size of the place pressed down upon her, the large swaths of darkness weighing heavily.  She stepped towards the storeroom.  The light barely shone, almost imperceptible. Too frightened to speak, she quickly backpedaled, fast walking to the center of the warehouse where the large, industrial lights on the ceiling still shone.  No, the girl wasn't there.  She clearly wasn't there.  Joyce crossed to the design staff’s office.  Pausing at the entrance way, she saw the white outline of store mannequins.  She tried to call Martha’s name but her throat could only reflexively spasm with no words.  A rustle.  One mannequin head seemed to turn.  Another smiled.  Another took a step…

          No!  Stumbling back, angered by her imagination playing tricks, she committed to searching the last hidden place.  Maybe Martha was hurt and couldn’t speak.  Maybe Joyce just wanted to prove to herself nothing supernatural was happening.  Maybe she should call for Alfred, too...

        Two rows of storage materials, tucked away and dark even when the lights in the rest of the warehouse were on, were last.  Used to the office activity of the day shift, the silence and the darkness seemed a tomb, like she’d reached the end of her life and all that awaited was the grave.  She took small steps down the first row.  Different sizes of merchandise bags stuffed the shelves.  A moldy smell caused her to recoil slightly.  Yet another rustle in the next row made her freeze.  Her heart thudded and her eyes bulged.  Her body leaned slightly forward.  The industrial lights seemed to groan then one exploded. Joyce screamed.  She ran out of the warehouse to the light of the office. 

          In a near whisper, she called for George but got no reply.  The room was empty.  With desperate energy, she did a running search of the the cafeteria and bathroom. Nothing.  George had vanished.  They'd all vanished.  The horror that she was all alone seized her like a shower of freezing water.  Her stomach plunged as she resisted the strong urge to fall to the floor.  The lights flickered on and off in the same electrical storm that had consumed Martha.  It was him!  The Electrical Man!  He was coming!  
     With the energy of pure terror, she ran as fast as she could through the office, knocking over two chairs in her path, into the warehouse and then to the lit elevator room.  In the distance, she saw the flickering office lights go out.  The  warehouse lights began flickering like mad then went out one by one.  Now crying uncontrollably, she slammed her hand against the elevator button then pounded on the closed doors. 

          “Help!  Help!” she shrieked.  The light in the elevator room began to flicker, all around nearly pitch black.  The light dimmed to its lowest level…

          Joyce heard the ping sound and the elevator doors opened.  She tumbled in and frantically pushed the button to close the doors.  The light in the room went out, only the light in the elevator staying on. The darkness reached for her...  

          As if by a miracle, the doors shut and the elevator began it’s descent.  She grabbed her head with both hands as hard as she could and slumped to the ground.  The elevator reached the first floor but the doors didn’t open.  The ping didn't sound.  The light in the elevator flickered…then went out. 

          At 6 AM, two of Joyce’s first shift co-workers, surprised she hadn’t met them at the door as planned, turned off the outside alarm and entered the building.  They turned on the hallway lights, which shone without a glitch. Walking to the elevator, one of the women pressed the button.  The doors opened with a ping.  Into the empty elevator they stepped.