A Bit of Ancient Wisdom

Sadly, it appears to be a rare thing to read the ancients or the classics for anything but a grade at a university.  I’m one of those few people who ‘bother’ to read from the wisdom of others in an attempt to take lessons previously learned so as to not need to learn them on my own.  With the volume of words I have read some if the lessons have even stuck.  One of which would be from Plutarch, On the Education of Children.  It is a bit lengthy, but it a definitely worth every word, so I will post a paragraph of it, and then explain what I find to be of importance.

For indifference ruins a good natural endowment, but instruction amends a poor one; easy things escape the careless, but difficult pthings are conquered by careful application. One may understand how effective and how productive a thing is application and hard work, if he only direct his attention to many effects that are daily observed. For drops of water make hollows in rocks, steel and bronze are worn away by the touch of hands, and rims of chariot-wheels once bent by dint of labour, cannot, no matter what be done, recover their original lines. The bent staves which actors use it is impossible to straighten; indeed the unnatural shape has, through labour, come to predominate over the natural. And are these the only things which clearly show the potency of diligence? No, but myriads upon myriads. A piece of land is good by nature, but without care it grows waste, and the better it is by nature, so much the more is it spoiled by neglect if it be not worked. Another piece is forbidding and rougher than land should be, but, if it be tilled, straightway it produces noble crops. What trees if they are neglected do not grow crooked and prove unfruitful? Yet if they receive right culture, they become fruitful, and bring their fruit to maturity. What bodily strength is not impaired and finally ruined by neglect and luxury and ill condition? On the other hand, what weak physique does not show a very great improvement in strength if men exercise and train themselves? fWhat horses if they are well broken when young do not become obedient to their riders, whereas if they are left unbroken they turn out stubborn and restive? Why wonder at other instances, seeing as we do that many of the wildest animals are made tame and used to their labours? Well did the Thessalian say, when asked who were the most pacific of the Thessalians, “Those who are just returning from war.” But why discuss the matter at length? For character is habit long continued, and if one were to call the virtues of character the virtues of habit, he would not seem to go far astray. I will cite but one more example on this point and then I shall desist from discussing it further. Lycurgus, the lawgiver of the Spartans, took two puppies of the same litter, and reared them in quite different ways, so that from the one he produced a mischievous and greedy cur, and from the other a dog able to follow a scent and to hunt. And then at a time when the Spartans were gathered together, he said: “Men of Sparta, of a truth habit and training and teaching and guidance in living are a great influence toward engendering excellence, and I will make this evident to you at once.” Thereupon producing the two dogs, he let them loose, putting down directly in front of them a dish of food and a hare. The one dog rushed after the hare, and the other made for the dish. While the Spartans were as yet unable to make out what import he gave to this, and with what intent he was exhibiting the dogs, he said, “These dogs are both of the same litter, but they have received a different bringing-up, with the result that the one has turned out a glutton and the other a hunter.” In regard to habits and manner of life let this suffice.

This is so valuable for all to read, especially children, parents, and those who receive money earned by others.  IT is even more important for all of those people to understand the meaning.   To make it short, the obvious lesson is that lack of natural aptitude can be overcome as easily as those with natural aptitude neglect to use it; that with good training you can excel at just about anything, and with adequate knowledge the sky is the limit.

An excellent small quote is, “Character is habit long continued.”  Are you of the habit of waiting for a handout?  Your character is that of a selfish entitlement, personal neglect, and civic destruction.   Are you in the habit of working hard, not complaining, and doing what has to be done?  Then your character is of a strong work ethic, personal pride and responsibility.   Which of the two is needed more to make a town, city, county, state, or even nation function?    Which of the two should be the focus of our efforts?

There are several ideas about how one should raise their children, there are several ideas as to what one should do in any give set of circumstances, but some of those have, over the ages, proven to be better than others.   If one does not care enough to teach their children responsibility and self-reliance, to teach their children to work hard, be industrious, and never to sit on the sidelines when there is change to be an active member in life, then parents are setting up their children to become institutionalized beggars, uneducated criminals, and life-long burdens to society.

Lycurgus’s words have made their way to our own country and culture.  There are two types of people in this country, those who hunt for success and who are gluttons, feeding upon the success of the hunters.

Realize which one of these groups our Constitution supports and which group is not supposed to even get a penny from the government according to the Constitution and we can see that the liberals ignore both classical wisdom and the supreme law of the land in order to keep their lap dog votes paid for with the bribes of perpetuated poverty in the form of hand outs.  When will we the people agree this needs to stop?

Killing in the Womb based in the Sex of the Child

Full article here:

Swedish health authorities have ruled that gender-based abortion is not illegal according to current law and can not therefore be stopped, according to a report by Sveriges Television.

No, there is no health risk, there is no contrived mental health risk, there is no economic strain on the family, the mother, or the aborted child.   To put it plainly, “Mom didn’t want another daughter.”The woman, who already had two daughters, requested an amniocentesis in order to allay concerns about possible chromosome abnormalities. At the same time, she also asked to know the foetus’s gender.

Doctors at Mälaren Hospital expressed concern and asked Sweden’s National Board of Health and Welfare (Socialstyrelsen) to draw up guidelines on how to handle requests in the future in which they “feel pressured to examine the foetus’s gender” without having a medically compelling reason to do so.

The board has now responded that such requests and thus abortions can not be refused and that it is not possible to deny a woman an abortion up to the 18th week of pregnancy, even if the foetus’s gender is the basis for the request.

The death of children at the whim of the mother is a pathetic state of affairs in our modern society.  A previous article of mine explains why scientifically abortion is obviously the termination of a human life, but here we can see how science plays no role in the issue because it is now a  Women’s Rights Issue.   Except of course for the female who just killed by her own mother for the simple fact that she was a female.  But that child does not pay taxes, does not protest, scream at the cameras, nor carry signs for a feminist agenda, so the government nor the special interests care about the death of the child.

I’m sure this happens frequently in the United States as well.   Children get to die in order to keep mommy happy.  Think about this, please.

H1N1 and the Uninsured

With so few people dying because of H1N1 and the fact that it appears that most normal strains of flu are equally as lethal, and spread much quicker, why is this rather unimpressive virus still in the news?

Could it be an attempt to push socialized medicine?  Perhaps.

“At top labs, scientists are optimistic they can make a vaccine that’s effective against the new virus. But in a country where one in seven people lack medical insurance, doctors worry that some individuals won’t get needed protection because of cost.”

Yes, the corporations are concerned that one in seven (if we accept that number as truth) people will miss out on a chance to give them money.  Remember, so far this virus hasn’t moved quickly, nor is it very lethal.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Rep. Lois Capps, D-Calif., have introduced legislation to pay for temporary medical treatment for uninsured people during a public health emergency. It could be a natural disaster such as an earthquake or hurricane, a bioterror attack, or a medical emergency such as a flu pandemic. “We can’t afford to have barriers that keep people from getting care when an epidemic is sweeping the community,” Capps said. Separately, Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, has proposed to offer all individuals a free flu shot each year.

Strangely, with a budget busting at the seams, a down economy, and an unstable world, Congress seems to find new ways to spend money we do not have on projects the Constitution does not permit.   A ‘free’ (as if no one pays for it) flu shot every year?   Outstanding for the corporations.   No need to advertise, no need to do anything but lobby government.   Remember President (then candidate) Obama talking about how tired he was of lobbies and PACs?   Good to see Congress feels this way.

The reason this is all being able to be done is because the world is fearing a rather plain virus as if it were a sweeping plague.   Remember: “Rule one: Never allow a crisis to go to waste,” Mr. Emanuel said in an interview on Sunday. “They are opportunities to do big things.”

Obama’s ‘Spread the Wealth’ comment, and Emanuel’s comment show their plan…. they lay it before us to see, and we the people fall for it.  They tell us we’re entitled to it, and so many Americans have no sense of self-worth, or understanding of cause and effect, so many Americans swallow it hook, line, and sinker and actually think they are indeed entitled to so many things.  Wake up America, do something for yourselves… and keep doing it.

Immoral: Taking from Person A to Give to Person B

Most people think charity a good thing in order to help those in need, or to help a cause that one values and finds worthy of giving to in the form of money, time, a place to meet, one’s own expertise, or whatever else they may need.  I too feel this is a great thing, and my wife and I both give to a host of charities for reasons which are our own and we decide which they will be on a number of factors — none of which are the government’s concern.

We, the People of the United States of American are some of the most giving and generous people in the entire world; we know we have a good life and do not mind sharing it with others who, through sudden tragedy, or circumstance of location at birth have lost or simply do not have a chance to attain what we have here in our great country.  Western culture as a broad and general group all feel this way and it shows, and not a shocking surprise it is also Western culture which is the driving force of the entire world.

When one gives his or her wealth, or time, or efforts, freely and without coercion this is a very worth-while endeavour and something that shows the moral fiber of the individual and is a positive reflection of their society as well.  There is another form of giving more akin to Robin Hood, though in the story of Robin Hood is made clear that the money is not so much being taken from the rich a it is being taken from corrupt and abusive merchants and government officials (tax collectors, nobility, etc.) to give back to the down trodden and abused.  This is a story far worse than Robin Hood, this is a story of theft against the populace without regard to how they came about their wealth.

When the government, and federal government particularly, takes money from one person and simply hands that money to another person because the federal government had deemed the receiver more worthy to have that money, this is immoral at its core and unconstitutional to boot.  The Constitution outlines the reasons the federal government may raise taxes, and nowhere is it listed that government financed re-allocation of wealth is permitted.  Whether this is for giving money to a homeless person, or a failing large corporation, there is no enumerated provision listing any such actions as permissible.  Some misguided souls find this government redistribution to the akin to charity, or supplementing charity when we the people have not given enough (an appraisal they made based on what?). Charity stops being charity when the government can come and take your property and your freedom by force if you fail to comply with the edicts issued by our own ‘public servants’.   When the government decides some people are less worthy of their own money than others who have not earned their way the government is in the business of redistribution, of ‘spreading the wealth’ and this is not a function of the federal government.

There is another problem with these government hand outs to those making less money:  If  half the nation pays almost no taxes as it is, where is the money coming from?   The money is coming from a small minority of people who do not have anyone looking out for their own interests.  Both parties do this, but the Democrats have made it into a campaign pillar:  they promise the world of money to the poor and to the ‘forgotten middle class’ the whole time inciting class warfare by railing on about the rich not paying ‘their fair share’.  If the rich, the top 10% pay the majority of the bill, then they are already paying more than the average person and thus their fair share is already done.  But if the top 10% are forced to pay for the vest majority of the social hand-outs, then all the Democrats need to do is bribe (YES, BRIBE) the other 90% to vote for them.   We’ve heard this from the current administration in the form of, 95% of the country will see a tax break (thus 5% will have to make up the difference), to pushing for government hand-outs for health care, to President Obama’s own words about spreading the wealth.

Unfortunately bribing the poor used to be harder because at one time they had pride and dignity and would not take such charity.   Now, they have been conditioned to live off the efforts of the more productive and they have become greedy in their ways wanting more and more, and now we have a substantial portion of the population ready to taken ill-gotten money in order to perpetuate their own lifestyles.  These people rarely ask what is best for their country, they only care for what seems best for their own immediate future.  They willfully drive the nation into debt for their own personal benefit.   not only is this unpatriotic, but completely immoral since it adversely effects us all.

It is immoral for politicians to make the poor become dependent upon those same politicians in order to survive.  This dependency is similar to a drug deal stringing out their customers on addictive substances – the customers become dependent upon these substances and will do whatever it takes to have them continue – including losing their dignity, self-reliance, and any form of pride.

The immorality is obvious, appreciation for the work and efforts of others has diminished, and the idea that getting free money from the efforts of others as a ‘right’ has taken hold.   Pathetic we have become.

We need to, as a country, stop and reverse this trend.

Corporations: Neither an Enemy nor a Friend

Far too often corporations are demonized for making money and are called greedy, selfish, and even oppressive.  They have people at the top who make far more money in a one or a few years than most people will make in their lifetime.   Corporations seem not to care about any individual employee in the workforce because there are just so many that they can either be replaced or ignored without too much of a problem at any given time.   Corporations look for the way to make the most money and will up and leave any current location to go to any other if wages and other costs tend to be less.  To a certain extent, all of the above can be true.  All of these reasons and many other lead some people to say that corporations are an enemy.

Those who support corporations tend to say that corporations provide jobs for many people and thus having a corporation in your community increases the income of the entire town / region because of people having jobs and thus money to spend in their own towns.  Corporations, unlike small shops, can afford the lofty costs of research and development in order to make advances in technology and refine existing methods and processes which cost vast sums of money and promise no guarantee of a return on such an  initial investment.  Corporations also buy failing small companies who have good ideas / employees but for some reason are failing (mismanagement, no marketable product, etc.) thus keeping ideas and workers employed.  Those who make these and other similar claims are also correct.

Corporations are really no different than an individual in that we all look for a good deal, do not want to spend a lot, decide on a mixture of quality vs. costliness and want to do more with less.  Many people frequent corporations and corporate enterprises like WalMart, Target, and so on because of the prices and possibly the selection.  When people continue to frequent such places there is only one thing that can happen:  the corporation makes a profit and thus grows.   Then people, many times the same people who shop there, manufacture outrage at the idea of such a mega-corporation like WalMart who ‘puts smaller stores out of business’.    So, as many people shop at the corporation we are reminded that they provide a service to people and the people respond to the offer of service by frequenting the stores; then we are reminded of the evils of the corporation as some smaller businesses fail because they can not compete.

Now let’s take a look at this situation as if you owned a small business, or if you work of any business at all.  You have a product or service you wish to sell.  You have a price which is competitive.  You have either a marketing team or hire a marketing firm too help advertise to get your name and product / service know to the town / region.   The competition revises their strategies as appropriate.   You do well and take market-share away from some of the competition, resulting in one of your competitors to close their door.   You and the rest of the remaining competition pick up that market share they still had as well as you hire some of the more adept staff from the old business in order to assist you in making money.   This goes on for a few cycles and another competitor fall to the way side.   You open up a larger web-presence and have people ordering from online.   This online ordering can affect sales from around the country and indeed possibly the world.  Competition is pinched again.   You expand to a second location, forcing the competitors to take even more notice.   You hire more people, sell more product, and things are good.

Question 1:  When is it your duty, responsibility, or concern to help out the competition to keep them in business?

Question 2: Would your own employees like it if you couldn’t pay them, give them raises, etc. because you didn’t want to make more money?

Question 3: If you’re a publicly owned company, would your shareholders (read: partial OWNERS) appreciate you giving quarter to competition who would take your market share if possible?

Question 4:  Would the town / region appreciate losing the jobs and tax revenue because you didn’t take the idea of making a profit seriously?  There’s never a promise when a business leaves that another will take its place.

Some will argue that my scenario is for a more local or regional business and not a multinational corporation.   They are wrong.   The same situations apply, but they are on a larger scale.   The worst thing we are seeing now is that we have loads of politicians, from both parties in the US, falling over themselves to give the money of the citizenry into the hands of either the inept or the corrupt in business.   Two things should be remembered about why having a business go broke is not a bad thing:  Either the business is not competitive and this the product should either be made elsewhere or not at all, or when the failing / corrupt are removed an entrepreneurial force may reform the business / product and bring new life and ideas to the table.   Either way, the death of a business is a natural thing.   Is anyone upset that the government didn’t bail out the horse-drawn buggy business because of the competition from the automotive industry?   Should we have fed money to home-delivered milk services when they declined?   Did people lose their jobs, career, and means of living?  Did we, as a whole, do just fine in the end?

I’m opposed to government intervention on behalf of businesses because of that:   The market (read: WE the people) speaks and if those listening are too slow / stupid / corrupt to act upon our words and actions, then we will go elsewhere until those businesses catch on, or fail and others come in and are more receptive.   No business has my ‘loyalty’ because no business would ever be ‘loyal’ to me.  They are not friends, though the people who work in one may be.  They are not my enemies; I understand their purpose and function and know how to deal with them.

Government intervention to preserve failing businesses is an act of idiocy – this fact remains the same regardless of which party is for it.  One of the biggest reasons that business is LESS dangerous than the government is that when a business is so obviously inept or corrupt the business will go under and die.  When the government suffers from such ailments taxes are raised, services cut and excuses made.  Both entities, government and businesses, want to preserve their being, but only one will fold under normal conditions, and so that is the one I will favor because of this mortality.

Remember these things when the government wants to get involved with businesses and provide services to us, the people.  The government looks to preserve and for many, expand its existence — for better and worse.

Abortion and Science

With the issue in the news again dealing with President Obama’s decision on what a health provider must do in relation to abortion, it is a good time to question why, when we have legal definitions for murder, theft, rape, and many other topics, why the issue of life has not come up as being something worth defining.

As a matter of principle I find it of no good use or value to bring religion or any other matter of faith, hope, or any other non-definitive source for such an important definition.  As a matter of the same principle, we should use science when possible and see if they have any good, solid information on the subject.   For that I turn to the study of biology.

Astrobiology Magazine has an article about this:

Living things resist entropy by taking in nutrients. This biochemical process of taking in energy for activities and expelling waste byproducts is known as a “metabolism.” If metabolism is a sign of life, scientists can look for the waste byproducts of a metabolism when searching for life on other worlds.

Another quality of all life on Earth is a dependence on water. Since water plays such a crucial role in all known life forms, many scientists believe that water-use will be a quality universal to all life. But Benton Clark, an astrobiologist with the University of Colorado and Lockheed Martin, says that water is really a side issue.

According to Clark, living organisms exhibit at least 102 observable qualities. Adding all these qualities together into a single – if exceedingly long – definition still does not capture the essence of life. But Clark has picked out three qualities from this list that he considers universal, creating a new definition of life. This definition says that “life reproduces, and life uses energy. These functions follow a set of instructions embedded within the organism.” The instructions are the DNA and RNA “letters” that make up the genetic code in all organisms on Earth.

Dictionary.com defines life (first definition) as: the condition that distinguishes organisms from inorganic objects and dead organisms, being manifested by growth through metabolism, reproduction, and the power of adaptation to environment through changes originating internally.

With these solid and agreeing definitions in mind we can look into what makes a human a human:  DNA.

Fertilization

When the sperm find the egg, the first one to penetrate the egg creates a barrier to all the other sperm. The cells of the fertilized egg (zygote) begin to multiply, staying clustered together in a ball. This ball of cells, called a blastocyst, slowly makes its way down to the uterus (three or four days after ovulation) and burrows into the uterine wall (five to seven days after ovulation), a process known as implantation. Even before the placenta and umbilical cord are formed, the cells of the developing embryo start getting their nourishment from the mother-to-be’s uterine wall.

DNA

DNA is the carrier of our genetic information, and is passed down from generation to generation. All of the cells in our bodies, except red blood cells, contain a copy of our DNA. At conception, a person receives DNA from both the father and mother. We each have 23 pairs of chromosomes. Of each pair, one was received from the father and one was received from the mother. These 23 pairs of chromosomes are known as nuclear DNA because, with the exception of red blood cells, they reside in the nucleus of every cell in our body.

So, we have a scientific definition of life (as good as ti gets since a virus only has some of these and is a confusing concept, but for humans we have a good definition), we know when a human becomes a human (when 23 pairs of chromosomes combine at conception), and we also know that at conception there is growth, celular reporduction, and it requires nourishment.   This fits the definition of life as laid out by science.  DNA tells us this is a human life.  Not the life of the mother, not the life of the father, but an independent, unique life all of its own.   Even the sex has been determined via DNA at conception.   Conception creates a new life and that life is, without a doubt, human.

There are side arguments about this that I have heard like there is no heart and humans have a heart, so it is not a human.   This is not true.  Humans only need a heart when they are developed enough to need one in order to circulate blood to a variety of organs and parts of the body in a timely way.

Another argument is that the idea that killing that ‘group of cells’ (so called that because people have a hard time accepting the reality of the situation so euphemistically they refer to the fetus as anything but human) is nothing more than if someone cut off a chunk of finger.  No one would consider that to be ‘killing’.   Of course even cutting off a whole finger is not the same as terminating the life of a human since you would live through having a finger removed.   If however you sustained enough l damage that you could no longer heal, that cellular trauma would be considered death.   Human death.  If you destroy enough cells of a fetus, or if you make it so the fetus can not survive you are killing an individual human life.  Science says so, and it is not an opinion but a fact.

Another arguement is that many pregnancies are aborted by the mother’s body on their own, and if that happens did the mother kill it?   This thought process is confused in the idea that the mother has a choice what happens in her womb naturally.   This would be like saying someone who died in their sleep committed suicide since their body shut down.

Yet another argument outlines that a fetus is not a human because it can not live on its own outside the womb.  This sophomoric idea is folly for two reasons:  Science is making it so that babies can live outside the womb earlier and earlier, so this ‘moving target’ for a date when a baby becomes a human loses all value.  A second reason this is the argument of someone who has not given the subject great thought is to ask the person if a new born baby can survive for long outside the womb without maternal (or other human help).  At two months out of the womb, a baby is just a feeble as a baby with two months to go in the womb.  It still must be kept warm, fed, and protected — just like in the womb.

Science, not religion, can handle all of the answers one needs to understand what is going on.   The fetus is NOT part of the mother’s body since it has its own DNA, and it obviously is not part of the mother’s body if the fetus is male!  The baby resides inside the mother, but is not PART of her.

So now we have one side who knows that life begins at conception and understands that the life of children of any age is worth protecting going against a group who claim that killing such a human should be the choice of the mother.   It is almost as if the mother should be able to play the roll of Caesar and with the turn of a thumb life or death will be decided at Caesar’s whim.  Somehow this has been warped into a ‘woman’s rights’ issue, as if about of the abortions are not destroying females.   But since those females have yet to burn a bra or claim oppression at the hands of a man, they could far less.   They also can not give to the cause — neither money nor time, and as a matter of fact, pregnancy could take a feminist out of the picture while giving birth and that can’t help the cause.  Because of this they count less as humans, and as matter of fact for many liberals the life of a murderer is more valuable than that of an baby about to be born since they will fight harder to get someone off of death row than to keep a baby alive.

When thinking of this issue, do not let foolish arguments get in the way of scientific facts:

A fetus is alive

A fetus is an individual human

A fetus looks like this:

Human Fetus - 8 Weeks

Human Fetus - 9 Weeks

Human Fetus - 11 Weeks

Human Fetus - 22 Weeks

Human Fetus - 24 Weeks

Zero Tolerance = Zero Logic

Hugs have been banned in one Connecticut School.  Principal Catherine Williams sent out a letter earlier in the week telling parents recent behavior has seriously impacted the safety and learning at the school.”Observed behaviors of concern recently exhibited include kicking others in the groin area, grabbing and touching of others in personal areas, hugging and horseplay. Physical contact is prohibited to keep all students safe in the learning environment,” Williams wrote.

Instead of looking at situations children get in on a case-by-case basis and determining the correct response like an adult should be able to do, high-fives and hugging are now equated to kicking someone in the groin.  At this point it should be looked into in order to see if there is anyone who actually is an adult at that school.  Hammering down on pats on the back is supposed to keep everyone in a safe learning environment, but in reality it is another example of zero tolerance failing to do anything good at all.

Zero Tolerance is the weakest excuse for discipline possible.   Some people goof up, others are malicious, yet others might not even know there’s something wrong with their actions when it comes to touching someone else, so having the same policy for every case is laughable at best and outlines ineptitude at its worst.