Over the last eight years, during the reign of Marxist and Alinsky-ite community organizer Barack Hussein Obama, who in a speech to the African Union in Ethiopia on July 28, 2015, stated “I also stand before you as the son of an African and Africa and its people have helped shape who I am and how I see the world,” whatever in the end that might mean for the values he personally espouses, since he never took the trouble to enlighten us verbally as to what his African values actually were and how they affected his performance and judgment as U.S. president, keeping in mind that the first time he took the presidential oath, he flubbed it and had to do it over, not an auspicious sign at all, so he could only be judged in that regard as to what his values were by his actions, like starting a civil war in Syria so he could remove someone he didn’t like and replace him with someone who would be like putty for Obama, Marxism is about revolution for change, afterall; and especially after his chosen successor Hillary Rodham Clinton got her mouth into the recent presidential circus we all had to endure, hearing Hillary croaking out over and over again, “that’s not who we are,” meaning her followers, while denouncing everyone who didn’t kneel before her alter a “basket of deplorables,” and even up to the other day, where I heard Trump muttering something about, “our values,” without saying what values he was talking about, I have been wondering what these politicians are on about when they talk about “our American values,” which they never ever try to define.
And for a politician, that is because by never actually saying what “American values” might actually mean to them, they can never be caught betraying them, so there is some simple survival logic for them in that silence they maintain as to what American values are actually defined as.
So with the permission of the Cape Charles Mirror, I would like to explore that subject of “American values” for a moment, because right now in America, there are no common American values that I know of, and that is a fact.
There are Libertarian Party values, for example, as stated in the Libertarian Party Platform in the Preamble, as follows:
As Libertarians, we seek a world of liberty; a world in which all individuals are sovereign over their own lives and no one is forced to sacrifice his or her values for the benefit of others.
End quote
Not being a Libertarian, that is not a value I share with them as an American citizen, so there we have nothing in common at all, and yet, having been in debates with Libertarians, which end up for me like arguing or debating with a lampstand or ash tray, that is an “American value,” and who can argue with them that it is not, if they hold it and they are American citizens.
Afterall, who among us has any kind of right to tell them they can’t have that as a value, even though to me it is pie-in-the-sky, and I am not going to waste time on that dream with winter coming and me still getting a roof on and firewood inside under cover for the cold season to come, which kind of pretty much sums up my own “American values” here in a nutshell of a small nut like an almond.
Hard work will get you through the day better than sitting on your *** and crying about how hard and unfair live is, so get off your *** and get with it and get it done.
The Libertarian values continue on as follow:
We believe that respect for individual rights is the essential precondition for a free and prosperous world, that force and fraud must be banished from human relationships, and that only through freedom can peace and prosperity be realized.
End quote
Now, how about that one, people?
Is that universal, as I think it is, or is that something only an American would hold as a value?
But it can’t really be universal, can it, because ISIS doesn’t hold that as a value, nor does our good friend and Middle East ally Saudi Arabia, nor do a lot of people in this country who make a good living from the use of fraud and force, so it is only a value some Americans hold, and thus, it is not an American value, just a personal one some people in America might hold.
And then we get to this as a Libertarian value:
The world we seek to build is one where individuals are free to follow their own dreams in their own ways, without interference from government or any authoritarian power.
End quotes
Ah, okay, yeah, right!
I have asked many Libertarians exactly how that is supposed to work, where the limit on individuals being free to follow their own dreams in their own ways, like rapers or thieves, or pedophiles and what-have-you, without interference from government or any authoritarian power might come in, and how that would come in, say in the case of somebody who didn’t like indulging the dream of a raper to rape them, and never have I gotten a straight answer, only surliness and defensiveness, like they are trying to hide something there with that “I’ll let you do what you want if you turn your back on what I’m doing “ crap, so I am going to say that that is their value, not an American values, and it certainly is not one of mine, so where are we then?
Heading back to the Libertarians one more time, we have:
In the following pages we have set forth our basic principles and enumerated various policy stands derived from those principles.
These specific policies are not our goal, however.
Our goal is nothing more nor less than a world set free in our lifetime, and it is to this end that we take these stands.
End quote
WOW!
In their Statement of Principles, the Libertarians say thusly:
We, the members of the Libertarian Party, challenge the cult of the omnipotent state and defend the rights of the individual.
End quote
Now, when Hillary Clinton kept saying over and over and over again, “that’s not who we are” in referring to her values and those of her followers, is that what she was making direct reference to, given that she was the living embodiment in our times of the “cult of the omnipotent state” when that statement was being made by the Libertarians?
And if Hillary Clinton and her followers were against that, people who are not Democrats challenging the cult of the omnipotent state the Democrat party represents, while defending the rights of the individual from repression by the Democrat party, can it be considered an “American value?”
Obviously the followers of Hillary would say no, so that ends it, it is not an American value to challenge the cult of the omnipotent state and defend the rights of the individual, and that is that, end of story.
So where are we people – all these words and we still have not cracked the code as to what an American value might in fact be.
That there are not common American values which we all hold dear is made quite clear from these following three sentences from the Libertarian party platform, to wit:
We hold that all individuals have the right to exercise sole dominion over their own lives, and have the right to live in whatever manner they choose, so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others to live in whatever manner they choose.
Governments throughout history have regularly operated on the opposite principle, that the State has the right to dispose of the lives of individuals and the fruits of their labor.
Even within the United States, all political parties other than our own grant to government the right to regulate the lives of individuals and seize the fruits of their labor without their consent.
End quote
Think on that last sentence people, as we hear these politicians from these other parties, namely the Democrats and Republicans, mouthing the words “American values” to us without ever talking about what those values might in fact be – ALL political parties other than the Libertarians, and no I’m an independent, so I’m not a member, nor do I wish to be, grant to government the right to regulate the lives of individuals and seize the fruits of their labor without their consent.
So, finally, there we start to come to some substance as to what the “American values” of a Democrat or Republican politician in America might in fact be, and in the next installment, we shall pick things up from there, and thank you for your attention as fellow American citizens, no matter what your personal American values might be.
As to my values, they are quite simple and are eloquently expressed as follows at page 2 of THE SOLDIER’S HANDBOOK for the U.S. Army circa 1968 which was issued to me as a U.S. soldier on entering basic training that year:
Each individual in this nation has the duty to contribute as much as he can TO THE WELL-BEING of the nation and its people.
End quote
As to what I consider to be universal American values, or what universal American values should be, they come from the political essay “A Citizen of America: An Examination Into the Leading Principles of America” by Noah Webster dated October 17, 1787, as follows:
The preamble to the constitution is declaratory of the purposes of our union, and the assumption of any powers not necessary to establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, will be unconstitutional, and endanger the existence of Congress.
End quote
And with that I said, I will rest, but stay tuned, for more is yet to come.
Paul Plante says
Ah, yes, people, “American values!”
Does anyone have a clue as to what they could possibly be, outside of anything and everything under the sun depending on who you might be talking to, or listening to?
Consider the Mediaite article “Trump Reportedly Fed Up With Rex Tillerson: ‘Rex Just Doesn’t Get It’” by Aidan McLaughlin on 28 AUGUST 2017, wherein was stated as follows:
President Donald Trump’s patience with Rex Tillerson, his secretary of state, is wearing thin according to a new report from Axios.
One source told Swan that after Trump returned from a recent meeting on Afghanistan, the president said “Rex just doesn’t get it, he’s totally establishment in his thinking.”
Trump’s frustrations were likely compounded by Tillerson’s eyebrow-raising comments to Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday, in which the secretary of state seemed to distance himself from Trump’s response to the Charlottesville terror attack.
When asked about the “president’s values,” Tillerson said “the president speaks for himself,” a remark that left Wallace perplexed.
end quotes
Wallace isn’t the only one perplexed there, and this is exactly the crap I am talking about, where we keep hearing the word “values,” but we never hear that taken any further, especially by this Chris Wallace dude on Fox News Sunday who should have interrupted Tillerson to ask him point blank to expand on that subject of “values,” which of course, in this day and age of craven and cowardly, politically correct TV personalities, never happened.
And then there was an ASSOCIATED PRESS article entitled “Tillerson says Trump ‘speaks for himself’ on racial violence” dated 27 AUGUST 2017, wherein we were informed about “American values” as follows:
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is suggesting that President Donald Trump’s values should be considered separate from America’s values when it comes to race.
Tillerson replied that “we express America’s values from the State Department” and that when it comes to Trump’s values, “the president speaks for himself.”
Tillerson said the nation’s commitment to fighting racial injustice is unquestioned, and that he doesn’t “believe anyone doubts the American people’s values” or the government’s commitment to that goal.
end quotes
Uh, okay, right, right, now there is a news story that uses the words “values” five separate times, and still, we don’t have a clue as to what Rex Tillerson is really taking about when he says he doesn’t “believe anyone doubts the American people’s values,” especially in the light of the following commentaries on values by several different people in America in the SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE article “Masked anarchists violently rout right-wing demonstrators in Berkeley” By Lizzie Johnson, Erin Allday, Michael Cabanatuan and Nanette Asimov 28 AUGUST 2017, as follows:
An army of anarchists in black clothing and masks routed a small group of right-wing demonstrators who had gathered in a Berkeley park Sunday to rail against the city’s famed progressive politics, driving them out – sometimes violently — while overwhelming a huge contingent of police officers.
As the crowd swelled to several times that size, officers stepped aside and allowed hundreds of people angered by the presence of the right-wing rally to climb over the barriers into the park, said Officer Jennifer Coats, a spokeswoman for Berkeley police.
The masked counterprotesters, often referred to as antifa or antifascists, significantly outnumbered the people who had come for the rally, many of whom wore red clothing supporting President Trump.
The anarchists chased away the right-wingers, and in one case four or five pummeled a man with fists and sticks before a radio host for Reveal, Al Letson, jumped in to shield the victim.
Anarchists also attacked reporters who documented their actions.
“We’re just puzzled as to why people consider violence a valid tactic,” said Kristin Leimkuhler, 60, of Berkeley, who with a group of neighbors left the protests when they turned chaotic.
“We felt disappointed and surprised by how many people were not in any way discreet about being with antifa — in fact being very bold and prepared to be violent.”
“No Trump, no KKK, no racist USA!” crowds chanted early in the day at Civic Center Park.
Hundreds of mostly local residents converged at Berkeley’s Ohlone Park to oppose hate speech, racism and white supremacy.
They carried signs reading “Berkeley stands united against hate,” “Queers against hate” and “End white supremacy.”
“It’s important for people to show up and make it unacceptable for right-wing white supremacists to spew hate and incite violence,” said Jeff Conant, 50, of Berkeley, who helped organize the anti-hate rally.
He praised Saturday’s “tremendous victory in San Francisco” and said Sunday was about “galvanizing a movement to oppose white supremacy and the structures that support it.”
The swamping of right-wing political ideas by left-wing demonstrators has become a recurring theme in Berkeley and other California cities.
In Berkeley on Sunday, some observers derived satisfaction from watching far-left protesters beat up and chase off a young man at the rally in apparent support of Trump.
“It’s a good time,” said Tom Martell, 70, of Crockett, who stood in Civic Center Park with his girlfriend, Lisa Argento, 53.
“They’ve got to be chased out,” Argento said.
“I moved to the Bay Area and pay good money to live here.”
“I don’t want these people here.”
“They need to leave us the f— alone.”
Argento said she has mixed feelings about ignoring members of the political right who rally to drum up support for their views.
“What are we waiting for?” she asked.
“They already hold the White House.”
“They are already dragging people away in the middle of the night.”
But others thought the actions of the masked counterprotesters were shameful.
“What hypocrites,” said Linda Fuentes Rosner, 69, a Spanish-language interpreter from Vallejo, who glared at a group in the park chanting anti-Trump slogans.
“They don’t know what they’re talking about.”
“You think it’s OK that a Trump supporter gets beat up?”
“It’s embarrassing.”
“The left has prevented the right from speaking.”
“That’s not American, that despotism.”
end quote
I’m 71, two years older than that lady who says “That’s not American, that despotism,” and I am not ashamed or afraid to say I agree with her.
Where do you stand, people of America?
Which side are you on – the side that is pro-despotism, or the other side?
The candid world would like to know?
John says
This is enough. Do not know why I have waited this long. With your tirade, Stuart ‘s Charles’s Paul’s platform to spew nothing but BS. Do not replay I am deleting The Mirror as it offers no news no information
Stuart Bell says
Any time you would like to discuss my postings, please leave your contact info. I will contact you asap. You are complaining to the wrong person. By the way, as you are a Liberal, this is not a threat. It is merely an attempt to get this conversation away from a moderated forum, so that we may have an adult conversation…….Any Time!
Paul Plante says
As one gets older, especially as a combat veteran, the less one gets surprised when some poor soul out there like this poor John above here, wandering through this world of woe like a wayfaring stranger all alone, all of a sudden, likely from an inability to cope adequately with the vicissitudes of life, and how hard and unfair life can be, especially if you are poor in a cold place like me; becomes quite apparently unhinged, by normal standards, anyway, as such things are measured, and starts raving about God alone knows what, something to do with “Stuart‘s Charles’s Paul’s platform to spew nothing but BS,” and “Do not replay I am deleting The Mirror as it offers no news no information!”
HUH?
What planet is John tuning in from, anyway?
But wait, no, John IS NOT tuning in anymore.
He has done us all a favor by canceling out his on-line existence, and personally, with his brain apparently snapped by that, where he then invents some kind of incomprehensible TWEETERESE gobble-di-gook gibberish with three names in a row all apparently being possessive of each other, his “Stuart‘s Charles’s Paul’s,” which so far has our linguistic experts up here stumped as to exactly what dialect of gibberish John is employing there in his attempt at communication above here, or his fanciful, some dreamed-up “platform to spew nothing but BS,” which sounds very much like a reference to DEMOCRATS UNDERGROUND to me, where on Sat. Feb. 4, 2017 12:43 AM, a poster sounding very much like our now-departed John but code-named billfmsd for some unknown reason, a craving for anonymity, I would say, posted as follows about his own American values, and perhaps those of our John, as well, such as they are:
Hello everyone.
I am an addict.
And I need help.
I’m more of a political junkie than I want to be.
Anyway, I look forward to continuing political discourse here where it’s more welcome to speak favorably of democrats.
I do need help.
I need more democrats and less republicans in elected positions to cure my political addiction.
In short, I wouldn’t accept that Democrats were equally as bad as Republicans.
end quote
Now, I am a compassionate older person here in America, having been twice-wounded in combat against the COMMIE HOARDES in VEET NAM, and I have to tell you all in honesty that that cry for help over there by this billfmsd at this therapy site for unhinged and addicted Democrats, who like billfmsd, cannot deal with reality, but instead seek the company of only their own kind, brought not a tear, but a torrent of them to my eyes.
We country people up this way monitor that DEMOCRATS UNDERGROUND site as part of a long-term study we are conducting into the psyches of hardcore, card-carrying Democrats like this billfmsd, who wouldn’t accept that Democrats were equally as bad as Republicans, and so was driven to the need to make a haj or retreat to the therapy center that is DEMOCRATS UNDERGROUND. and we older folks up here trying to solve the puzzle of what is a Democrat find that an interesting process to study.
Of course we are honest with ourselves and freely admit that we don’t think that in our lifetimes we will ever discover what makes a Democrat tick, and why it is they can’t converse with regular people like us in here who aren’t Democrats, like this billfmsd at DEMOCRATS UNDEGROUND who tells the candid world “Anyway, I look forward to continuing political discourse here where it’s more welcome to speak favorably of democrats.”
WOW, people, talk about being haughty, and discriminatory, but you know what, that to a Democrat is a vital part of democracy, having to always have a minority of have-nots like me, people who aren’t Democrats and therefore can be snubbed and discriminated against, and beaten to a pulp to silence our views by clubs and iron pipes wielded by ANTIFA, the paramilitary wing of the Democrat party; people whose presence John in here, who really does sound an awful lot like billfmsd over there at DEMOCRATS UNDERGROUND, can’t stand to the point of totally erasing themselves from CYBERSPACE, as if they had never been, and all because they are incapable, like billfmsd, of accepting that Democrats were equally as bad as Republicans.
Such it is and so it goes, people, another chapter is now written in this search of ours for what in fact real American values might be, so stay tuned, now that we are past this campy drama of John removing himself from our reality because of an inability of his to handle it, for there is much more to come.
Mike Kuzma, Jr. says
I may not agree with what you have to say(in this case, I agree with every word Paul wrote) but will defend to the death your right to say it.
Keep on keepin’ on, Paul. As we’ve been told forever- if someone doesn’t like it they can change the channel.
Happy Fall everyone!!!!!
Paul Plante says
And as the ripples of John’s sudden and very dramatic departure from this thread subside, as they should now that the shock of his manner of leaving is over, where right before our eyes, he canceled his existence in the sector of CYBERSPACE we inhabit in here, as if he had never even been, we are right back to the unanswered question of what the heck are American values, anyway, which takes us to a Tribune Washington Bureau article entiled “‘Disappointed’ and ‘let down,’ disaffected Trump voters voice their dismay” by David Lauter, 31 August 2017, wherein we were informed as to American values held by some, but not by all, as follows:
With each crisis of the young Trump administration, reporters and pollsters have documented the steady support he continues to get from his most ardent backers, the roughly one in four Americans who consistently tell pollsters that they approve of his performance in office, agree with him on most issues and like his personality.
Tuesday night at a focus group in Pittsburgh, a group of reporters heard from a different slice of Trump voters — ones he’s lost for now.
“Outrageous,” “disappointed,” “not ready” were among the adjectives that focus group members tossed out when asked for a single word to describe the president — and those were from the participants who had voted for him.
“He has got to be his own worst enemy,” said Tony Sciullo, a lifelong Pittsburgh resident and a registered independent who works for an insurance agency and described Trump as an “abject disappointment.”
“He’s such an incredibly flawed individual who has articulated so many of the values that I hold dear,” Sciullo said, adding that he almost wished Trump were on the other side of the political divide because of the damage he sees him doing to conservative causes.
end quote
He’s such an incredibly flawed individual who has articulated so many of the values that Tony Sciullo, a lifelong Pittsburgh resident and a registered independent who works for an insurance agency and who described Trump as an “abject disappointment,” holds dear?
HUH?
How on earth is that sentence to be taken other than this Tony Sciullo holds dear the values of someone he considers an abject failure who is his own worst enemy?
If someone is that big a loser, why on earth would you hold their values dear?
You would think that if someone found someone else to be an abject failure, that they would find that person’s values repugnant, not dear, so color me still confused here by that.
And then we come to another Tribune News Service article entiled “Pentagon chief says he’s been ‘widely misinterpreted,’ denies any rift with Trump” By W.J. Hennigan, Tribune Washington Bureau, 1 September 2017, wherein we had this to consider:
Defense Secretary James N. Mattis moved Thursday to knock down speculation that he was at odds with the White House, less than a week after a video of him talking to troops about American values led to widespread speculation that he was criticizing President Donald Trump.
end quotes
HMMMMMMMMMM!
Interesting.
But nothing at all about what “American values” the “Mad Dawg,” as Mr. Mattis is affectionately known all over the candid world, was actually making reference to.
The article does give us this to consider, however, with respect to exactly how polarized this nation has become since Hillary Clinton got up on her high horse during the presidential campaign season and started a Culture War in this country by labeling people in this country she did not like as a “basket of deplorables,” to wit:
In the impromptu speech to U.S. forces deployed in Jordan, which was surreptitiously recorded on cellphone video, Mattis talked about political divisiveness in the wake of the racially inspired violence in Charlottesville, Va.
“Our country, right now, it’s got problems that we don’t have in the military,” Mattis said.
“You just hold the line until our country gets back to understanding and respecting each other and showing it.”
end quotes
“Mad Dawg,” dude, you are spot on there when you say the country right now, it’s got problems, which reminds me, quite frankly, of the “Atticus II” essay in the Independent Chronicle and the Universal Advertiser, a precursor of the Cape Charles Mirror as I see it, in Boston, Massachusetts on October 18, 1787, to wit:
Parties produce great attendance and carefulness respecting elections.
Parties keep any one interest from swallowing up the rest.
The idea of an opposite party influence, renders every part of the community anxious to secure itself.
Each wishes to recommend itself by illustrious deeds, which shall increase the numbers of its advocates.
Each interest equips itself with all kinds of powers, for reducing the exorbitance of other parties, and strengthening itself.
The chieftains, seek to excel in all the arts of policy.
Each separate interest marks out, and publicly exposes the errors and illegal proceedings of the rest.
But here lies the danger of parties.
Two factions of nearly equal strength, violently played off against each other by ill designing or mistaken men, would either mutually destroy each other, and suffer a third power to prevail, or the contest would terminate in the utter extinction of one, and the insolent triumph of the other.
Either event would introduce a most insupportable tyranny.
Hence the necessity of a third power sufficient to check the exorbitances of each.
Have we a third power sufficient to restrain them?
This is the question.
But it must be answered at some future day, if you have the candor to read the speculations of ATTICUS.
end quote
And that future day is now, and there is where we now are, on the verge of that “most insupportable tyranny” mentioned by Atticus on October 18, 1787, and no, people, with the madness and insanity rampant in this nation, where we have people, if they are not hired actors as I suspect they are, dressing up like Nazis, on the one hand, which is a sign they are complete head-cases or kooka-dooks if they are not paid actors, and on the other hand, dangerous people calling themselves anti-fascists or anarchists, as if this were Spain or Europe prior to WWII, which makes them complete nut-jobs and kooka-dooks, we do not have a third power, a sane and rational power, sufficient to check the exorbitances of the Republican and Democrat parties in this country, to our detriment as a nation, which takes me to this statement in the “Foreigner I” essay in the Philadelphia Independent Gazetteer, another CCM precursor, on November 02, 1787, to wit:
The world has long been in doubt, whether mankind is worthy of the free will, the grand gift of the Creator, and capable of a republican government, or if men are the most voracious beasts upon earth, that would devour each other if they had power and liberty.
end quotes
As we watch these right-wing nut jobs battling it out with these left wing nut jobs as happened recently in Charlottesville, Virginia, in their mutual bid to prove conclusively and beyond a shadow of a doubt that both men and women are the most voracious beasts upon earth that would devour each other if they had power and liberty, which is what the present contest between them is about, with the left-wingers gaining ascendency through superior violence, I find myself brought back to these words from p.170 of “World Wars And Revolutions” by Walter Phelps Hall, PhD, of Princeton, copyrighted 1943, in the section “THE GREAT DEPRESSION AND THE NAZIS,” as follows:
The chancellor was Bruning, a Centrist.
Neither politically nor financially was the republic to be aided in her death struggle.
The very liberalism of the Weimar Republic was telling now against it.
For years the Nationalists and the Nazis had been organizing and drilling informal private armies of their own, the former the Steel Helmets, the latter the Sturmabteilung (Brown Shirts).
Even the peaceful Social Democrats had done likewise with the Reichsbanner corps.
Germany was seething with violent disorder.
Armed bands were attacking Jews and Communists, the former not retaliating, the latter fighting back.
Between the accession of Bruning in March, 1930, and the burning of the Reichstag building in February, 1933, which threw Germany into Hitler’s power, the utmost confusion reigned.
Plot and counterplot followed.
There were two presidential and two Reichstag elections; there were innumerable street riots and many murders; and the political balance swayed backward and forward between the defenders of Weimar and the Nationalists, the Nazis, and the Communists who hated the republic.
Much is still obscure concerning these three hectic years during which the Nazis and the Nationalists, wearing their private uniforms, marched out of the Reichstag and into it again, during which Bruning, a confirmed moderate and well-wisher of the republic, was compelled to rule largely by decree until he lost the support of the President, during which also the Junker aristocracy played constantly with fire (Adolph Hitler), only in the end to be badly scorched.
end quote
Time is a loop, people.
The past becomes the present.
So I was told by my teachers when I was but five years old at the end of WWII, and such it has turned out to be.
So what are American values, then?
Stay tuned, for more is yet to come.
Paul Plante says
And that brings us back to the question of what exactly are “American values,” and if there are no “American values” common to all 300+ million of us, can we call ourselves a nation?
And that question of “common values,” which I no longer believe we share in this country, which makes us the “house divided” Abraham Lincoln warned about back when, the house divided that cannot stand, brings us to the USA TODAY article “Hillary: Bernie’s attacks ‘paved the way’ for Trump” by William Cummings, 6 September 2017, where we are told that excerpts released from Hillary Clinton’s upcoming book “What Happened, How I Became A Political Two-Time Loser,” or as it is known up this way, “The Book Of The 10,000 Excuses,” looking at her failed 2016 presidential campaign, shows that the former secretary of State blames her defeat at least partly on her primary rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders.
In passages shared on social media, Hillary said that because she and Sanders agreed on most policy issues, the Vermont senator resorted to “innuendo and impugning my character.”
end quote
OMG, people, you know what I am saying here?
Obviously, Hillary and Bernie do not share common values, so it is no wonder the rest of us don’t as well.
Getting back to Hillary in the USA TODAY article:
“His attacks caused lasting damage, making it harder to unify progressives in the general election and paving the way for Trump’s ‘Crooked Hillary’ campaign,” wrote Clinton.
Clinton said she didn’t “know if that bothered Bernie or not.”
“He certainly shared my horror at the thought of Donald Trump becoming president,” she said, adding that she was grateful for his support during the general election.
But Sanders is an independent and “isn’t a Democrat,” Clinton said.
“He didn’t get into the race to make sure a Democrat won the White House, he got in to disrupt the Democratic Party,” she wrote.
Clinton said Sanders was right that Democrats needed to focus more on working-class families and less on wealthy campaign donors, but she said he was “fundamentally wrong about the Democratic Party.”
Citing some of the party’s successes Clinton said, “I am proud to be a Democrat and I wish Bernie were too.”
end quote
Now how about that, will you, people – according to Hillary, and really, let’s face it, who would or should know better than her, Bernie Sanders is an independent and “isn’t a Democrat,” which takes us back to the question of values raised in here at the beginning of this thread.
Quite obviously, according to Hillary, and again, who is better qualified to say, there is a wide divergence between the values of a Democrat, whatever in fact those might be, and the values of an independent, especially, if as Hillary says, and would she lie, Bernie Sanders got into the race against Hillary for no other purpose than to disrupt the Democratic Party.
And believe it or not, people, that takes us back in time to February 26, 2017 and the Cape Charles Mirror essay series “WHO ARE WE THEN, HILLARY; The Candid world would really like to know!” which thread http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/news/paul-plante-who-are-we-then-hillary-the-candid-world-would-really-like-to-know/ had 39 Comments, and included this on American values:
And that is after being quoted in an earlier article in THE HILL entitled “Clinton: ‘This is not who we are’” by Brooke Seipel on 29 January 2017, where we were told as follows:
“I stand with the people gathered across the country tonight defending our values & our Constitution.”
“This is not who we are,” Clinton tweeted.
end quotes
And that brings us to the title of this thread above – if that is not who we are, and I am not even sure at this point as to exactly which “that” we are even talking about, then who are we instead?
end quotes
In that essay at that time, I said that since it was such an important American political icon as Hillary Clinton who had posed that question to us, “that is not who we are,” I thought it was incumbent upon all of us here in the United States of America who take our citizenship responsibilities seriously to pause and reflect on that question for the moment, and here I am still at it, people, because dspi8te my asking, the question was never answered.
And while I am still pondering that question, like clockwork, along comes Hillary to let us know that Bernie Sanders was fundamentally wrong about the Democratic Party, as if that tells us anything about either Bernie or the Democrat party, and that Hillary is “proud to be a Democrat” and she wishes Bernie were too, which sounds very derogatory and elitist, at least to my commoner’s ear, anyway.
There are Democrats like Hillary, who are special and exceptional, and then, there is the rest of us, who are the contents of Hillary’s “basket of deplorables,” as if we collectively have no other socially redeeming qualities than being used as a punching bag by Hillary, who is so much superior to us that I lack the words to describe fully her exalted status among us, as though she were a living goddess walking among u mere mortals.
As for me, as an American citizen, who identifies himself as an American citizen, without further reference to ethnicity or sexual preference or even whether I have a sexual identity or not, I always find it interesting when people like Hillary never identify themselves as an “American,” but instead, as a “Democrat,” which then raises the question of what exactly is a Democrat, compared to an American.
Does an American share any common values with a Democrat?
Do we even speak the same language?
From what Hillary is saying about Bernie as she bashes him, and blames him, along with misogyny, former FBI director James Comey, Wikileaks and Russian interference for her 2016 defeat, that answer is firmly no, we don’t.
And there we are once again, people, with the question of common American values still unanswered, so stay tuned, more to follow.
Paul Plante says
I have come over time to view the Cape Charles Mirror as a sort of cosmic gravity well here in CYBERSPACE where total absurdities connected with what calls itself “modern American society” seem to be drawn in with the rapidity of lint heading for a black sweater which one just got for an important occasion, that observation being made in here at this time by on the one hand, an ASSOCIATED PRESS article from 6 September 2017 entitled “Engineers 20 years ago warned of flooding risk,” wherein was stated:
A report released two decades ago on the Harris County reservoir system predicted with alarming accuracy the catastrophic flooding that would besiege the Houston area if changes weren’t made in the face of rapid development.
The report released in 1996 by engineers with the Harris County Flood Control District said the Addicks and Barker reservoirs were adequate when built in the 1940s.
But it noted that as entire neighborhoods sprouted over the years around the reservoirs in western Harris County, as many as 25,000 homes and businesses at the time were exposed to the kind of flooding Harvey has now brought.
end quotes
How about that, people.
Getting back to that article:
In the report obtained by The Dallas Morning News , engineers proposed a $400 million solution that involved building a massive underground conduit that would more quickly carry water out of the reservoirs and into the Houston Ship Channel.
“The primary flood threat facing the citizens of west Harris County and west Houston comes from the inability to drain the Addicks and Barker reservoirs in an efficient manner,” the report said.
When asked about the report, Harris County flood control officials said they could not immediately locate a copy and were unfamiliar with the details.
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Yes, people. American values are on parade there for all to see:
“Do nothing and accept risk of flooding,” the report warned.
The report was filed away without action, then last week Harvey struck.
The usually dry Addicks and Barker reservoirs quickly filled until, on Aug. 28, they were nearly full and water had spread to their surrounding neighborhoods.
The Army Corps of Engineers opened the floodgates to let a controlled amount escape.
But instead of the normal 4,000 cubic feet per second, Corps officials opened the gates wide enough to release more than 13,000 cubic feet per second to keep the rising reservoir levels from overtopping the dams.
They did so knowing it would flood neighborhoods downstream.
And just as the 1996 report predicted, water in many of the flooded homes would not drain for days or even weeks.
Who gets the blame?
end quotes
And the answer, of course, is no one, because in the America of today, it is a no-fault society, where no one is ever held to account, starting with the politicians who bury these kinds of reports because here in America, no regulations are to get in the way of land development, which is a key driver of the U.S. economy, which of course, takes us back to what are American values today, and that Associated Press story above here about Houston makes those values quite clear – government agencies are in business to protect the profits of the land developers, not the public health and safety of the public itself.
That point is well made in these following couple of sentences from that article, to wit:
The issue (who is at fault) is moot for Aaron Voges, whose family home is in a neighborhood located inside a flooded reservoir.
“For some s—-d reason I thought that levee that I see on my way home, I thought that protected me,” he said.
“I had no idea that there were plans in place to flood me to protect other people, which blows my mind.”
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As an engineer who knows what it is like to be forcibly suppressed by a governmental unit, in this case, the state of New York, because I would not keep my mouth shut about threats to the public health and safety related to “development,” which is a strange term to apply to the creation of crap, but it is America, and such it is today; that does not blow my mind, at all.
And that brings us to a CBS NEWS entitled “Report: Obama won’t sit idly by if Trump ends DACA” from 4 September 2017, wherein we were provided with this following sentence directly relevant to this thread today, as the hurricane bears down on Florida with its mass emigration out of there to anywhere but there:
Mr. Obama said as he left office he would comment on Mr. Trump’s actions at “certain moments where I think our core values may be at stake.”
end quotes
Ah, yes, people, now we have not only values, which remain undefined as of yet, but also, “core values,” also undefined, as would be expected of Barack Hussein Obama, a slippery and crafty Marxist politician who knows that words in America are nothing more than putty, so he can talk about such ephemerals and will-o-the-wisps and chimeras as “core values” without ever being called out to explain what they might in fact be, at least in the main-stream media, which lacks the courage and intestinal fortitude to challenge these politicians like the slippery and crafty Obama when they mouth empty words like “core values” without ever saying what they are
Except in here, that actually is not so – in here, Barack Hussein Obama, being nothing more than just another American citizen, can get called out on his empty statements about American values, and here is a case in point, because according to an internet article entitled “The Values Americans Live By,” by L. Robert Kohls. then Executive Director of something called “The Washington International Center” in Washington, D.C., this being in April of 1984, which states as follows, this aimed at foreigners coming to this country so they can understand before they get here, that contrary to Obama’s empty blather about “core values,” American really don’t have any in common, to wit:
Most Americans would have a difficult time telling you, specifically, what the values are that Americans live by.
They have never given the matter much thought.
Even if Americans had considered this question, they would probably, in the end, decide not to answer in terms of a definitive list of values.
The reason for this decision is itself one very American value—their belief that every individual is so unique that the same list of values could never be applied to all, or even most, of their fellow citizens.
end quote
Ah, okay, people, ponder that for a moment, as I have been doing, and see if you can find in those statements any kind of whiff or hint of these “core values” Obama says we have, or more likely, the core values his Marxist followers have, which I do not believe are in any way related to the traditional American values that were instilled in me when I was young back in the days of John F. Kennedy, and “Don’t ask what the country can do for you, ask instead what you can do for the country” in part by this admonition at page 4 of the Soldier’s Handbook that I was issued by the United States Army in 1968, as to why it was we were serving in uniform back then to stand up to the Barack Obamas of the world of those times who chose to try to overthrow our Republican frame of government in this country to replace it with a worker’s paradise based on the principles of Karl Marx, to wit:
Today, communism is the major threat to our nation.
end quotes
But times change, people, so kiss that admonition good-bye, and such it is and so it goes, where we just had eight long years of our first openly Marxist president in this country, because according to Obama, “it was the right thing to do!”
Getting back to “The Values Americans Live By,” by L. Robert Kohls, then Executive Director of something called “The Washington International Center”:
Although Americans may think of themselves as being more varied and unpredictable than they actually are, it is significant that they think they are.
Americans tend to think they have been only slightly influenced by family, church or schools.
In the end, each believes, “I personally chose which values I want to live my own life by.”
end quotes
And there it is, I guess, that would be one of the core values a Marxist like Obama would be a supporter of – in the end, each believes, “I personally chose which values I want to live my own life by,” which is the definition of anarchy, not orderly society.
That is the major belief of both the Neo-Nazis in this country and the paramilitary anarchist wing of the American Democrat party who come out to inflict bodily harm on those the Democrat party considers a “basket of deplorables,” who unlike the anarchists of the Democrat party, who do have the right to choose which values they want to live their own lives by, do not have the right to choose which values they want to live their own lives by, which is the formula for the chaos we are witnessing in this fractured American society we now find ourselves mired in, as if caught in a swamp of oozing and sucking slime.
But getting back to American values, that essay continues as follows:
Despite this self-evaluation, a foreign anthropologist could observe Americans and produce a list of common values that would fit most Americans.
The list of typically American values would stand in sharp contrast to the values commonly held by the people of many other countries.
end quotes
Now, as we shall see in but a moment, that is a very important point to not lose sight of, as the hurricane bears down on Florida, and Republican governor Rick Scott is screaming at the top of his lungs to get out while you can, because if you don’t, law enforcement won’t be able to save you, to wit:
We, the staff of the Washington International Center, have been introducing thousands of international visitors to life in the United States for more than a third of a century.
This has caused us to try to look at Americans through the eyes of our visitors.
We feel confident that the values listed here describe most (but not all) Americans.
(Author’s note: they sure as hell do not describe my values, but that is just me – as Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead sang so long ago, today, I am just old and in the way, so it follows that I would still be adhering to some really anachronistic values carried over from days of yore by old fools like myself.)
Furthermore, we can say that if the foreign visitor really understood how deeply ingrained these 13 values are in Americans, he or she would then be able to understand 95% of American actions—action that might otherwise appear strange or unbelievable when evaluated from the perspective of the foreigner’s own society and its values.
end quotes
Ah, there we are, people – actions that might otherwise appear strange or unbelievable when evaluated from the perspective of the foreigner’s own society and its values, and so they are, even to me, who was born here.
And here is where irony comes rushing in to fill the void created by the statement of citizen Barack Hussein Obama that we have “core values,” which irony then crashes together with a cacophonous sound to stack up on itself like a very unstable inverted pyramid:
The different behaviors of a people or a culture make sense only when seen through the basic beliefs, assumptions and values of that particular group.
When you encounter an action, or hear a statement in the United States that surprises you, try to see it as an expression of one or more of the values listed here.
Before proceeding to the list itself, we should also point out that Americans see all of these values as very positive ones.
In fact, all 13 of these American values are judged by many of the word’s citizens as negative and undesirable.
It is important to state emphatically that our purpose in providing you with this list of the most important American values is not to convert you, the foreign visitor, to our values.
We couldn’t achieve that goal even if we wanted to, and we don’t want to.
We simply want to help you understand the Americans with whom you will be relating—from their own value system rather that from yours.
end quote
And le voila, people – the stacked-up irony is right here in front of us in American Value No. 1, to wit:
1. PERSONAL CONTROL OVER THE ENVIRONMENT
Americans no longer believe in the power of Fate, and they have come to look at people who do as being backward, primitive, or hopelessly naïve.
To be call “fatalistic” is one of the worst criticisms one can receive in the American context; to an American, it means one is superstitious and lazy, unwilling to take any initiative in bringing about improvement.
In the United States, people consider it normal and right that Man should control Nature, rather than the other way around.
http://www1.cmc.edu/pages/faculty
end quotes
Yes, people, you are reading that right, as we witness these people fleeing the wrath of the storm in Florida – in the United States, people consider it normal and right that Man should control Nature, rather than the other way around.
So then, what is going on down there in Florida?
If Americans really do have this control over nature, rather than the other way around, why aren’t the people of Florida standing fast and huffing and puffing together in unison and three-part harmony to blow this storm back out to sea?
A question for our times, indeed.
Not surprisingly, being an old curmudgeon crossed with an old coot with some codger thrown in the mix, I think, based on my life experiences with nature, that has to be one of the stupidest values I have ever heard of, but you know what, it is so America, it just is not funny.