Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
The title of this post is a byte-for-byte copy from a headline I found…well…I haven’t actually found that headline anywhere. Instead they all look like this…
BBC News – Scottish referendum: Scotland votes ‘No’ to independence
Scotland votes to remain part of United Kingdom…
Scotland votes ‘No’ to independence
Scotland Votes to Stay the Same, and for Change
Opponents of Scottish independence hold lead
Scotland votes in independence referendum
Scotland Rejects Independence From United Kingdom
Scottish Independence: Scotland to Stay in U.K.
It interests me, although I’m an American — because “independence” is the natural state. Dependence is the exception. Just like “cold” is technically a nonsensical term since what is being measured is heat, cold being the absence of it. If you held a vote with your wife on turning down the thermostat, and she won…well of course she would win, she’s a female and it’s a vote…you wouldn’t say, the household voted to reject a proposal to turn the heat down. You’d say the household voted to keep the heat, and pay out the ass next time the electric bill shows up.
Seems to me that’s what Scotland did, they voted to remain dependent. It’s a bit strange that it’s not headlined that way…I mean, to the best I can research it, ever. It’s headlined as “rejecting independence” or “remaining part of the UK.”
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“It interests me, although I’m an American — because “independence” is the natural state.”
Well, Morgan, I would respectfully beg to differ. When you look at the long term history of the world, some form of tyranny is the natural state of things. Even here in the United States, we really can’t claim to be free any more. It’s been that “frog-in-the-pot” syndrome for over sixty years or more.
We started out as a Republic, but we’ve devolved into a democracy. Alexander Tyler’s words describe the rest quite well:
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over lousy fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average of the world’s great civilizations before they decline has been 200 years. These nations have progressed in this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; from faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to Complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependency; from dependency back again to bondage.”
Given the choice, the vast majority of people are lazy. They will choose dependence. They will trade the animating and sometimes dangerous contest of freedom for at least the perceived feeling of security and stability.
- Moshe Ben-David | 09/20/2014 @ 05:03Let me correct my comment further. We have devolved into a perceived democracy. In truth we live in an oligarchy. There is a shadow government. Our ostensibly representative government is just window dressing. Our constitution has been trashed and ignored.
I remember years ago being made fun of for talking about the Trilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Bilderburgers. Now it’s all right out in the open. We have the Patriot Act and the NDAA. Freedom does not exist any more.
- Moshe Ben-David | 09/20/2014 @ 05:10So…dependence is the natural state?
It may be the “comfy” state, but it isn’t natural. “Nature” is filled with “wildlife.” The dependent-relationship comes after an event of transformation, not before.
My point, I guess, is that this is an important part of how it happens, this “taming” I suppose we should call it. The proliferation of an errant mindset that “natural” has to do with being domesticated, it is the wilder specimen hunting for his own food that becomes the anomaly. This is almost like a special brand of cultivated insanity, in fact, “voting against independence” possesses a certain oxymoronic quality to it from my Damn-Yankee point of view. Sounds to me like “deciding not to be able to decide things.”
- mkfreeberg | 09/20/2014 @ 05:20At the risk of sounding like I’m wearing tinfoil headgear, I have two semi-plausible theses here:
1) Scottish independence might give certain more excitable members of the American public the wrong idea. “Rejecting” it is therefore good. Calling it “dependence” might remind those excitable folks of what they’re tethered to. And we can’t have that, because MiniTrue’s job is to influence public opinion, not report the facts.
2) On related lines, “dependence” implies that one does not have full and perfect freedom in Big Brother’s utopia. We’re already independent….in our minds… so long as we pay our taxes, vote the right way, and only voice approved opinions.
- Severian | 09/20/2014 @ 06:20House of Eratosthenes: It interests me, although I’m an American — because “independence” is the natural state.
So Wyoming is dependent on the United States? Dallas is dependent on Texas? Wouldn’t interdependent be a more appropriate term?
- Zachriel | 09/20/2014 @ 07:21Gosh, I only saw (para) But “England” PROMISES to gladly pay Tuesday, for a hamburger today” waaaaaay below the fold.
- CaptDMO | 09/20/2014 @ 09:34Kinda’ like Dems to Reagan? Or Antonio to Shylock?