Liberty and Justice–For Jerks
Thanksgiving is the time of year when Americans are supposed to take stock and give thanks. The mere fact that we can take stock should make us grateful to be alive and conscious. This Thanksgiving, I am particularly thankful that I don't have to go anywhere by plane.
Over the past three or four decades, air travel has become increasingly unpleasant. Travelers have to put up with stupid, callous, and rude airline employees, dictatorial and self-important security officers, and, worst of all, other travelers. America is now, for the most part, a third world country. I am not referring to the Mexicans, Africans, and Subcontinentals, who have so enriched a culture that had been starving on Shakespeare and Bach, but to our right-down regular white Americans, who have forgotten how to bathe, wash their clothes, eat without dropping hunks of food from their mouths, or talk on a cellphone without shouting obscenities. I am talking about the fastfood fatties who think they have a right to half your seat as well as their own and insist on pulling up the armrest to let their blubber expand over you like the SciFi monster the Blob. It is not their fatitude by itself that makes them intolerable but their insistence upon sharing the burden with others. I have known jolly fat people who do not expect special treatment, but most fatties these days act like members of an "underprivileged" minority.
Air travel was intolerable 20 years ago, but our government, whose officials lie awake at night thinking up new schemes to annoy us for our own good, has instituted the most time-wasting and degrading security measures, short of a strip search, that can be imagined. They say it is for our safety, but they are lying as they always lie. As everyone knows, the Israelis, who face the gravest terrorist threats, have devised a system of profiling that is remarkably successful. I've been through it twice and marveled at the cold courtesy and intelligence of the questioners. But, says Ms Napolitano and her crew, such procedures would have to include ethnic profiling. Indeed, Pakistani and Saudi young men would be treated more rigorously than Swedish-American grandmothers and their Girl Scout granddaughters. But, say the terrorizing anti-terrorists, we have to be afraid of "homegrown terrorists." How many terrorist attempts have been made by American born white women and children? How many American-born citizens of any race, unless they have adopted Muslim names or married a Muslim, have been involved in terrorist episodes?
A small dash of common sense would eliminate most of the pointless and humiliating security procedures that give TSA flunkeys their daily thrills. (One of them told a reporter: I don't enjoy this, I'm a professional. Right, a professional who has to work for TSA, groping other people's genitals.) But, if common sense, especially common sense about race, ethnicity, and religion were an option, we might be living in a free country, which we most definitely do not. Diversity and liberty are as incompatible as liberty and equality.
You may be thinking that your government has made air travel as unbearable as it can be, but you would not have taken into account the Jerk factor. Science has proved that wherever three Americans are gathered together, one will turn out to be a complete Jerk, and, if you give them the almost infinite opportunities to congregate provided by the Internet, the percentage goes up. More than one group of Internet morons have been advising travelers to opt out of the body scans, which produce to a blobby black and white negative photo. It is these self-appointed guardians of liberty who have tricked some people into choosing the alternative, which is, of course, the sexual assaults that are being perpetrated by TSA screeners.
This disastrously bad advice was bad enough, but today some travelers are determined to disrupt the system by opting out and playing various games with the screeners. Yes, that will fix them. Those TSA employees might have to be paid overtime, as thousands of passengers--soldiers and students going home, families going to see grandparents--have their lives interrupted by would be comic-book avengers who have spent their lives watching TV and grazing the Internet--browsing, which suggests some measure of selectivity, is too positive a term. The technical word for all these people is: Jerk.
A Jerk is not simply a fool. A Jerk is someone so absorbed in his own sense of self-importance that he does not care what happens to anyone else. He is in a hurry, so he has to cut you off in traffic or pass in a no-passing zone. He gets bored easily so he has to push past other passengers to be the first off the plane. Since rules are made for other people, he travels with lots of luggage and shopping bags and fills up the overhead bins. Unable to endure a moment of quiet, he immediately turns on his iPod or video game and blasts the headphones so loud they can be heard 10 feet away. Now he wants to ruin your Thanksgiving in the name of freedom.
There is no more dangerous delusion than the persistent American delusion that we live in a free country. "If we only can rouse the good hearts and common sense of our people, we can take this country back again." Such people do exist, but most of them have "opted out" of politics. They are too busy leading their own lives to have much time or energy for busybodying into yours. They accept the fact that our government is tyrannical because they know it is simply a reflection of the servile populace. They fully understand that a nation of sports fans, mall shoppers, and petition signers will never possess the moral freedom required of a people that can achieve political liberty. Above all, they want to be protected from the Jerks, whether on the right or left, who try to use the rest of us as cannon fodder for their pointless campaigns. They understand all too well that the average middle class Americans they meet in airports and restaurants--the goodhearted people we are going to save America for--are, if not complete Jerks, well on their way to perfection.
Liberty is not a natural human condition. It is a precious art form that must be cultivated by people with moral discipline. A nation of Jerks cannot be free, and every attempt they make to recover their freedom will not only provoke more oppression, but it will also subject them to a more degrading form of slavery, the moral and spiritual slavery of the slave who thinks himself free.
When Julius Caesar was establishing his dictatorship in Rome, he seized the national treasures housed in the Temple of Saturn. When a tribune tried to stop him, Caesar rebuked the delusional republican. The poet Lucan, two generations later, thought it odd that in the ruin of their liberties the senators should still care so much about money. As he tells the story, the tribune's friend and colleague warned him against his folly with the memorable lines:
"Libertas" inquit "populi, quem regna coercerent/ Libertate perit; cuius servaveris umbram Si, quidquid iubeare, velis.
When a people is oppressed by tyranny, it perishes by its own liberty. You would preserve the ghost of liberty, if you are willing to do whatever you are ordered.
If I am correctly reading the sense, the Stoic Lucan--who was condemned to death for conspiring against Nero--is pointing out that compliance with a dictator's commands is not wrong so long as the action is not inherently immoral and there is no alternative. "Loss of money [or in our case, convenience and privacy] touches nations that are protected by their own laws; but the poverty of slaves is felt by the master (who has to take care of them) and not by the slaves themselves.
This is a hard saying for self-deluded Americans to accept. They want to raise Hell about 911 or wave their teabags or ogle Sarah Palin on TV. Persisting in their delusion of freedom, they destroy any real freedom they might still enjoy and in behaving like the Jerks they have become--whether by blocking traffic or shouting down a speaker--they degrade what little is left of our civilization.
"Then what's your alternative, wise guy?" Tomorrow, eat well, drink deep, and enjoy the company of the family and friends who gather in your house, and if your nephew or brother-in-law wants to turn on the game, encourage him with good grace to watch it in the other room.
Entries(RSS)
The problem of fatties has confronted my mind for very long. Is it bad manners to be a fat person? Or rather, is it bad manners to eat badly and ruin your health, as far as considerations of other people are concerned?
On one hand, it would be bad manners on my part not to accomodate and tolerate all the fat ladies who swing sideways as they walk. On the other hand, if I didn't play my own part in keeping myself healthy, it may force others to accomodate towards me.
Yet, being extremely fat seems to be a result of working long hours in sedentary conditions, which happens to even people who eat well. They have no choice, if their basic sustenance requires them to sit in one place, handle paperwork, and not move. And it's not like being fat is the problem. The body fat is a counter-response to an otherwise weakening body that can not withstand vigourous physical work, or extremes of cold and heat. If that fat didn't grow, those people would die. In that respect, being fat seems to be a purely social taboo, because being fat is a symptom and not a biological problem in itself.
It's only boggling that a large number of the 300 million Americans include many who fall all over and around you as they move, but those are people who can easily afford good food and regular protein rich diets. The problem probably is of nothing other than them forced on long working hours and little sleep. And maybe not so much of decadence and selfishness.
It is not their fatitude by itself that makes them intolerable but their insistence upon sharing the burden with others. I have known jolly fat people who do not expect special treatment, but most fatties these days act like members of an "underprivileged" minority.
No, serious obesity is not the result of working at a sedentary job. The proofs are pretty obvious: first, clerks have existed since Alexandrian times, but were not known for fatness; second, a person who works a sedentary job can always walk home or work out; third, the evidence of Americans over the past 30 years shows that people who forget how to cook and eat and rely on fastfood and not-so-fast-food turn into fat slobs. They should be regarded with the moral revulsion we normally feel toward heroin addicts or adult videogame players.
"But, say the terrorizing anti-terrorists, we have to be afraid of “homegrown terrorists.” How many terrorist attempts have been made by American born white women and children? "
Yes, and here is a good picture of an American/Moslem checking an American/Catholic for knives and weapons of mass destruction. If a real poet had seen it actually occuring he would have written verse about it and called his poem "The Breaking of Nations" or "Old Bride of Christ: Charitable and Terrible!!" or " In Honor of Mr. Hitchens" or some other appropriate epitaph for his country. see below,
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cjd/1418632004/
"Fatitude" is a wonderful invention. It wittily but not meanly says it's unattractive to be fat. And, as with an attitude, it suggests that being fat is not inevitable (people who avoid sugar-filled soft drinks and simple carbohydrates, and take the precaution of walking instead of driving everywhere, will shed their poundage like fiends, unless they have already ruined their metabolism).
I never fly anywhere anymore, but if I were exposed to that kind of thing, I would sarcastically demand that a woman do the feeling up. If the officials became boisterous, I would hammer them with political incorrectness. "I'm a homophobe, okay? Along with St. Paul and the Bible. Do you mind? But if a lesbian works for you, I will be glad to have her search me."
"How many terrorist attempts have been made by American born white women and children?"
None as far as I know, but screenwriters like to create them. On the "Law and Order Los Angeles" TV show a few weeks ago, a group of white Americans, young men and women, planned a terrorist bombing for the glory of Islam. The show's intrepid cops and prosecutors acted as if this was normal.
Like its predecessor set in Manhattan, the current L&O has a policy (in the episodes I've seen) of "white criminal suspects only."
This whole TSA fracas reminds me of a passage from A. Manzoni's The Betrothed.
"The arm of the law by no means protected the quiet inoffensive man, who had no other means of inspiring fear. Not, indeed, that there was any want of laws and penalties against private violence. Laws came down like hail; crimes were recounted and particularized with minute prolixity; penalties were absurdly exorbitant; and if that were not enough, capable of augmentation in almost every case, at the will of the legislator himself and of a hundred executives; the forms of procedure studied only how to liberate the judge from every impediment in the way of passing a sentence of condemnation; the sketches we have given of the proclamations against the bravoes are a feeble but true index of this. Notwithstanding, or rather in great measure for this reason, these proclamations, republished and reenforced by one government after another, served only to attest most magniloquently the impotence of their authors; or if they produced any immediate effect, it was for the most part to add new vexations to those already suffered by the peaceable and helpless at the hands of the turbulent, and to increase the violence and cunning of the latter. Impunity was organized and implanted so deeply that its roots were untouched, or at least unmoved, by these proclamations. Such were the asylums, such were the privileges of certain classes, privileges partly recognized by law, partly borne with envious silence, or decried with vain protests, but kept up in fact, and guarded by these classes, and by almost every individual in them, with interested activity and punctilious jealousy. Now, impunity of this kind, threatened and insulted, but not destroyed by the proclamations, was naturally obliged, on every new threat and insult, to put in force new powers and new schemes to preserve its own existence. So it fell out in fact; and on the appearance of a proclamation for the restraint of the violent, these sought in their power new means more apt in effecting that which the proclamations forbade. The proclamations, indeed, could accomplish at every step the molestation of a good sort of men, who had neither power themselves nor protection from others; because, in order to have every person under their hands, to prevent or punish every crime, they subjected every movement of private life to the arbitrary will of a thousand magistrates and executives. But whoever, before committing a crime, had taken measures to secure his escape in time to a convent or a palace, where the birri had never dared to enter; whoever (without any other measures) bore a livery which called to his defence the vanity and interest of a powerful family or order, such an one was free to do as he pleased, and could set at nought the clamour of the proclamations. Of those very persons to whom the enforcing of them was committed, some belonged by birth to the privileged class, some were dependent on it, as clients; both one and the other by education, interest, habit, and imitation, had embraced its maxims, and would have taken good care not to offend it for the sake of a piece of paper pasted on the corners of the streets. The men entrusted with the immediate execution of the decrees, had they been enterprising as heroes, obedient as monks, and devoted as martyrs, could not have had the upper hand, inferior as they were in number to those with whom they would have been engaged in battle, with the probability of being frequently abandoned, or even sacrificed, by those who abstractedly, or (so to say) in theory, set them to work. But besides this, these men were, generally, chosen from the lowest and most rascally classes of those times: their office was held base even by those who stood most in fear of it, and their title a reproach. It was therefore but natural that they, instead of risking, or rather throwing away, their lives in an impracticable undertaking, should take pay for inaction, or even connivance at the powerful, and reserve the exercise of their execrated authority and diminished power for those occasions, where they could oppress, without danger, i.e. by annoying pacific and defenceless persons."
"A nation of Jerks cannot be free." That is an immortal phrase that sums up American history.
A laugh-out-loud piece - anyone who likes this type of writing and isn't subscribing to Chronicles is missing out on a monthly Fleming Fix.
I would only add that we carefully consider the "look at the Israelis" argument. We can see them as a procedural benchmark in a vacuum, but take caution never to devolve into their mentality with respect to security.
#7: I heartily concur.
I'd get that slogan printed on a bumper sticker, but I'm afraid most Americans would certainly misinterpret the "nation" in that phrase to be Iraq, Iran or North Korea. But then again, I'm not the bumper sticker sort...
Hilarious! I hope some day the good doctor finds a few chosen words for the phenomenon of tatooing. These people are everywhere now, what degree of jerkiness do they aspire to!?
The whole problem of airport security is one of mass cowardice. Terrorism works only if people are terrorized, that is, if they react by acting on fear. Several years ago, when security was much more bearable but still annoying, I was traveling with a friend, and standing in line, having to remove my hat, coat, and shoes, I remarked to her how annoying it was. She said: “Oh, I would much rather go through this than be blown out of the sky!” I replied: “Mary Jane, that is not the choice you are asked to make. The choice you are asked to make is between going through this hassle every single time you fly, or taking the 1 in 100,000 chance that you will be blown out of the sky. I would take the 1 in 100,000 chance every time if they’d let me.” Unconvinced, she said, “Oh, you’re a philosopher.” Exactly. Philosophy is common sense put into syllogisms.
Far too many people think like Mary Jane. They will accept anything—in fact demand it—if it’s sold to them as “safety.” Overriding concern for safety used to be called cowardice. Cowardice is a mass epidemic in the Western world. Solzhenitsyn pointed this out already in the 1970’s in his Harvard address. People act as if they did not know that we all have to die some time, and dying young may be better than dying old. Especially if the price of dying old is constant fear and never enjoying, or never even doing, things you could enjoy. I am a fearful person by nature and this realization came late to me. Several years ago I was being driven around Transylvania by a young Hungarian priest who drove like a maniac (common there). He was pointing out to me historical sites tied deeply to the history of Hungary, places I had heard and read about and had always wanted to see, and I could not even pay attention, I was so terrified that an opposing car might indeed be coming around the bend when he was passing in the left lane. Then suddenly I said to myself: “Which is better? To die on the roads of Transylvania at the age of 63 or in an American nursing home at the age of 93?” The answer was clear and from one moment to the next I was enjoying every minute of the trip. And the answer has stayed with me ever since.
The whole problem of airport security would be solved if people decided that they will take that 1 in 100,000 chance, if they decided that there are much worse things than 500 or 5000 people dying suddenly—since death cannot be quantified. Terrorism would no longer work, and we could also have pleasanter air travel.
Amazing, is it not, how much mileage the government has gotten out of 9/11? One -- one! -- terrorist attack on that day, and maybe half a dozen more against America in the decade following, and the government institutes a never ending war against Eurasia (or is it Eastasia?). Plus the police state caricature at the airports.
FDR could get barely four years of warfare out of Pearl Harbor.
And now we have a permanent state of siege.
Bush II brought us into the Middle East War by claiming the USA was fighting a war for liberty. Obama was going to be Hope and Change (now it is Grope and Change). And here we are with the government implementing one of the most grotesque violations of liberty and basic decency since...I do not know what.
We have tons of people in this country who glorify the civil rights era. One wonders if they will be out there protesting the TSA's civil rights violations? But I suspect they will bow down before "the man."
And I wonder how many small government conservatives (other than Ron Paul) will be opposing the pornscanners.
Well, let us hope that Americans wake up, turn off their TV sets, and tune in to the reality of the terminally stupid administration.
Science has proved that wherever three Americans are gathered together, one will turn out to be a complete Jerk, and, if you give them the almost infinite opportunities to congregate provided by the Internet, the percentage goes up.
With the TSA, it is three out of three.
http://home.earthlink.net/~jamiranda/terminallystupidalgorithmtsa/id3.html
Burke101, you may have read this essay, but you're missing the point. They accept the fact that our government is tyrannical because they know it is simply a reflection of the servile populace. "Fighting back", as the link you provided suggests, will do nothing but increase the tyranny and will turn whoever "fights back" into one of the Jerks Mr. Fleming describes.
Being a Jerk will not restore liberty to a people who do not have the moral discipline to cultivate it.
Thanks, George, for the subscription pitch. Only a minority of those who visit this site regularly are actually subscribers. I know you realize, too, that in suggesting we examine Israel's airport security I am not recommending that we shell apartment complexes or deliberately subjugate and degrade the people who were here before we arrived.
It is interesting to observe the different human types working for TSA in, say New York or Chicago, as opposed to Chattanooga or even Dallas. Generally speaking, the smaller and more Southern the airport, the more polite are the employees. The best screener I ever had was in Edinburgh, when the US government was suddenly demanding tougher measures in Europe. A pleasant but tough middle-aged Scot approached me and said, "I'm sorry, sir, but I am required to search you," and explained, as he worked, what the situation was and repeatedly told me in advance what he was going to do, apologizing all the time. He did not, of course, do any of the things that people are now quite justifiably angry about, but his courtesy and cool professionalism went a long way to defuse my irritation. At the same time, an American (Jewish) was asked why he was taking two six packs of Coca Cola back to the USA. The little American became insulting, "Yours is better--it isn't made with corn syrup, you moron, etc. etc." The screener was just doing his job and asking what seemed to me a perfectly legitimate question, but the American had to be a jerk. In general, Axelrod's Tit for Tat strategy is a good one in public interactions: If the clerk or government agent is polite, be polite to him. If he is not, then without losing your temper or being insulting, express your disapproval. I would add this caveat: Never say anything to a TSA screener, if you can avoid it. I once made the mistake of saying to an extremely rude and pushy black screener at O'HAre, "You could be more polite." He became extremely angry and threatening and called his supervisor and told him I had threatened him. I calmly explained the situation to the supervisor (also black but rational) who took the madman away. It could just as well have gone the other way. Still sometimes one has to say something. I once saw a screener (again, black) pushing old ladies to hurry them up. I quietly informed him that his actions constituted assault in the state of Illinois. He got furious and started shouting threats. I took out my cell phone and told him I was calling the police and was prepared to miss my flight. He walked away and quit putting his hands on the women. I'm not sure I would say anything today. Entering O'Hare, I imagine I am in prison or back at Fort Jackson taking my induction physical. I well remember the wiseguy, who, when told to spread his cheeks, put his hands on his face and pulled. The sergeant insulted him, and the wiseguy responded by saying, "You have no right to abuse enlisted men," citing the military regulation, "and, besides, I'm not in the army." "You're not what?" came the inevitable response and by the time I was going home--flat feet, bad eyes, petit mal medications--I saw the wiseguy, wearing dogtags, sweeping the floor. Sometimes it pays to keep your mouth shut.
Not to jump the track on the subject matter at hand but I hope Dr Fleming is kidding us about most of the people posting here not being subscribers to the magazine!
Please say this isn't true!
We did a survey online and the two most interesting results were: 1) many people in a peremptory and rude manner demanded more Chronicles copy on the website, while 2) admitting that they were free-riders. It is not a little discouraging, not only because of the cost of the website and the time it takes all of us here but also because of what it says about the free-riders. Among people I know subscribe are" Robert (and his alter ego Robert II). NGPM. George Ajjan. JDS, Daniel Maxwell, and, of course, such editors and contributors as Clyde Wilson and John Seiler. Let us hear from others!
I've been a long-time subscriber going back until at least the late 80s.(Not too long ago I purchased the entire 1989 set because a move cost me most of the issues from that year) I also have bought virtually every book offered from Chronicles and have purchased Dr. Fleming's Latin course, Joseph Pearce's course on the Christian Imagination in Literature and a myriad of cd/tape sets including Dr. Trifkovic's Islam lectures among many others.
So, I hope in some small way I've helped compensate for those with alligator arms. Perhaps there is a way your website people could link our posts with our subscription rolls and for those still not on board the site could play that rock tune "Free Ride" in the background!
" Only a minority of those who visit this site regularly are actually subscribers."
Thanks for noting me Dr Fleming. I should add though, that I was convinced to finally subscribe after a previous plea of yours. Chronicles is an oasis among the American right - no where else can you find such original thinkers instead of the usual trash of idealouges apologizing for their co-idealouges bad behavior.
In fact, I will go on a limb and say that the idealization and group think of nearly the entire right is one of our greatest threats. I've watched the traditional Catholic community go from a noble resistant movement into anti-intellectual clones. There are many more examples. That is why I think Chronicles is needed more than ever, and I urge regular readers to support their work.
"We did a survey online and the two most interesting results were: 1) many people in a peremptory and rude manner demanded more Chronicles copy on the website"
I admit to being partly guilty of requesting more activity on the website, but I had in mind original pieces or perhaps blog type posts that were not featured in the magazine. I know the magazine is the priority, but sometimes it gets mighty quiet around here.
I am a subscriber and frequent visitor to this website.
I spent a wonderful Thanksgiving with friends out here in balmy California. I asked the youngsters present what they were learning in school. A student at one of our fine Cal State campuses said she was taking the following four courses, paid for largely by taxpayer subsidies:
TV and mythology
Ethnic studies
Aerobics
Statistics
Is it any wonder why we're not free?
(P.S. Give Chronicles subscriptions for Christmas.)
In self-defense let me say that as a former reader of CM I no longer count myself an adherent of the position(s) taken by the mag or it's editors and contributors on most issues. I stopped reading it altogether when the abominable Mr. Sobran began his regular column.
Also, now that I'm down to one-and-a-half meals per day, free-riding and corner-cutting are imperative. (I suddenly feel like a stock character, the parasite, in a Plautine comedy.)
As a parent and teacher I became suspicious of double answers, such as "I was too sick to do my homework and besides my dog ate it" or "I did not bang up the car. I didn't even take it. Besides, it was the other guy' fault" or less obviously "I'd love to write this article for you but I dont have a good angle on the topic. BesidesI have too much on my plate." which is it? The three cents a day or the late Joe Sobran's 4 pages a year out of 600?
I received an angry "Take me off your mailing list" letter today from a man who said Taki's complaints about people who dress and act badly are destroying civilization. I suppose Catullus, Horace, Juvenal, Martial, John Donne, Ben Jonson, Sam Johnson, and Alexander Pope also were wreckers of civilization. What a nation of whimsy chiseling children we have become. I know very wealthy people who tell me they don't need to subscribe because a neighbor gives them his copy. I always tell such people sweetly not to be surprised when we go out of business. Contrast this with Fr Ian Boyd, editor of the Chesterton Review who refuses a comp because any reader who likes a magazine should pay for it.
I don't give money to NPR except in taxes because I hate even their canned music programs but I also don't have the nerve to complain to them about their programming. One of the minor bad fruits of the Internet is the encouragement it gives young people to sponge.
I do think every subscriber who writes in should be designated as such. To Mr Maxwell all I can say is that the website costs us time and money we can ill afford.
My spell check turned whiny into whimsy.
Kudos Dr. Fleming - - - you are spot-on.
The destruction of pride, manners, and common decency is rampant. In addition to traveling, one only needs to view his / her surroundings in a restaurant. Men wearing baseball caps . . . women dressing very provocatively with stomachs hanging out . . . kids unable to hold a fork properly . . . people slurping their drinks and chewing like cows.
Visiting a US supermarket is an eye-opening experience. People walk around as if they just crawled out of bed and lack a home mirror. I’ve literally had to hold my breath when walking by people who seem not to understand the concept of showering or brushing teeth. All stemming from the “Oh, who cares” mentality. With such pinnacle role models, one can easily see why TSA rent-a-mall cops get away with “unreasonable searches and seizures.”
@ 1 Prateek Sanjay
With all due respect Prateek, working long, sedentary hours is a cop-out for people who do not take responsibility for their actions and lack self-pride. Many years ago, the US obesity rate was nowhere near what it is today. People destroy their body chemistry by eating chemical-ridden food / drinks to the point of toxicity. Homemade meals are replaced fast-food and convenience drinks. Many overweight people cannot seem to go anywhere without a Venti Starbucks Frappuccino in hand. One only needs to simply view the shopping carts of 80% of the public and it will give you a good indication as to “why” that shopper is obese.
Healthy weight and well-being is 80% diet (selection and portion control). Overweight people claim lack of time / long work hours that prohibit movement. Well, anything good in life comes from work. If it means rising a little earlier to take a walk in order to generate circulation and metabolic burn, then one must do so. This is far from easy; It's self-discipline. This has become a huge problem in the US.
@ 8 George Ajjan
LOL! Completely concur!
" “Oh, who cares” mentality."
Exactly, and its easy for many of us to fall into this trap, claiming convenience is more important than not looking like garbage in public. It was my excuse for years. Super markets arent as telling as a trip to Wal Mart, where I have seen women so lazy they literally go in their PJs and 'bed head' hair. And yet, here I sit, a bit overweight, wearing a T shirt with an unshaven face and my bad-habit long hair.
".” which is it? The three cents a day or the late Joe Sobran’s 4 pages a year out of 600?",/i>
Cost cutting is partly psychological. Besides, those pennies can add up. And each one is a penny earned. Sobran was the straw that broke the camel's back.
I subscribe and contribute what little I am able. I'm an unemployed quadriplegic slowly eating up my 401K and doing low paying part-time tutoring to survive. But Chronicles is one of the three places I find any sanity in this world of jerks. (The other two being my church and family, both of which are clueless on politics, but still usually behave with manners and traditions and are capable of common sense most of the time.)
I'm not sure I would have remained Christian, truly conservative or sane all these years were it not for the anchor of Chronicles--my family and church, decent as they are, are fairly incapable of clearly articulating why one should hang onto the good things, even though they try.
P.S. I hate "tooting my own horn," but I figured I can forego modesty for a good cause like Chronicles.
"What a nation of whimsy chiseling children we have become."
"I don’t give money to NPR except in taxes because I hate even their canned music programs but I also don’t have the nerve to complain to them about their programming."
I'm not sure if those arrows were directed at me, but for the record I'm not complaining, I'm merely explaining.
If you read Chronicles online, you should subscribe to the magazine.
I am currently a subscriber and wish I give more, but I am unable to do so at present.
#11. Dear Lady, you are correct that servile acceptance of airport "security" outrages is due to cowardice. However, I don't think the cowardice relates to fear of terrorism. Most people know that is not likely on their flight. The cowardice is much deeper and more destructive---fear of loss of respectability and giving offense by recognising the plain fact that some people are different from others.
@16 TJF wrote:
"It is not a little discouraging, not only because of the cost of the website and the time it takes all of us here but also because of what it says about the free-riders."
Exactly. As a business woman, I understand the time, money, and effort required to operate a business. Chronicles is unlike any other magazine, as the contributors are serious thinkers and unparalleled analysts that represent the true founding principles of the America Republic. This is why I subscribe. Otherwise, I would have no right to complain or post a comment. I believe people that share a common interest should be dutifully supported.
Again, common courtesy and proper business protocol. I will continued subscribing.
As a website afficionado who seldom comments, let me state that I have subscribed for over 20 years and also contribute. I am here for the articles but also for the contributions of the various commenters who are almost always stimulating. Most of you I would never have heard otherwise. Online is great, but cash realities are just that. Those of you who are truly strapped are forgiven, I'm sure, but to the rest: hear and heed!
I subscribe.
I also am a long-time subscriber who gives a couple of gift subscriptions and direct contributions. (Dr. Fleming you add notes to your acknowledgement letters asking if I am the same Andrew G Van Sant who comments occasionally on the website. Yes, it is me.) I’m going to send another contribution in response to your latest request as soon as I figure out how much I can afford. My property tax payment is due and I need to catch up on my tithing to my church.
Concerning gift subscriptions, I have decided to try giving one to the library of the agency where I work. That might provide the most “bang for the buck.” (I’m not sure if the local branch of the public library will accept a subscription to Chronicles, but I’ll look into it.)
Concerning the jerk who is “in [such] a hurry [that] he has to cut you off in traffic or pass in a no-passing zone,” I think the more prevalent jerks are those who intentionally obstruct the free flow of traffic. They are the ones who drive side-by-side while the traffic ahead disappears over the horizon and the traffic behind builds up and extends for miles, limited to whatever speed the jerks think is appropriate. These jerks speed up to keep you from passing and then slow down when they have you trapped.
OK, I just renewed my subscription after quite a few years. Am I over the top in thinking the name "Black Friday" was carefully thought out as an anti-holiday to demean and supplant Thanksgiving and Christmas?
Good advice on how to we should handle this present situation at the airports. How long before this is done at every conceivable entry port, terminal, or turnstile of your choice?
Anyways, I have been lax in my subscription which I have maintained a decent record for over 20 years. I just signed up for another year.
I subscribe. Anyone who can afford the internet connection necessary to comment on the site can afford a subscription to the actual magazine. Maybe a Chronicles issue on simplifying life and saving money is in order?
My sympathies to Mr. Wihowski. I commend your courage and good cheer in the face of such terrible luck as to have become quadraplegic. Isn't our useless government supposed to give you some kind of welfare disability payment? If not they certainly ought to, in preference to all the worthless minorities, not to mention Third World migrants, getting their checks from The (white) Man.
If our govt has left you high and dry, I am even more disgusted than usual (of course, let's not expect the First Muslim to support giving any money to white people if he can help it ...).
Meanwhile, I have an idea. Chronicles is not a charity, but perhaps it could be a clearinghouse of sorts. We need to take care of our own. I will donate $100 to Mr. Wihowski, if he would accept it. Would others?
Conservatives need to stop being so charitable, including to churches. Do you know where your money goes? I do, and out here in CA it's often to the same non-white (and presumably non-conservative) deadbeats as the state welfare provides for. Why should we give them our money? To feel good handing the lucre to the churches - without strings? We should help our own, and build a social philosophy on that principle (it's called "nationalism", or really, "tribalism", and we need to start practicing it).
A subscription is something like $20/year -- do yourself a favor and subscribe!
I believe I responded to that survey as a subscriber and recommended more online conntent because I believe it will increase subscriptions. I think I susbscribed in 2003 and would not have had it not been for limited online content available then to entice me.
I understand Dr. Fleming's frustration, but count me as another who would not have become a subscriber (and perhaps would not even heard of the magazine except through biased accounts by enemies) if there were not some free content available on the website.
God forbid that Chronicles should ever go out of business. In that connection, I'm concerned that Chronicles' heavy dose of Catholicism on its web site may deter many potential readers and subscribers. I have nothing against Catholicism--I found the path to Rome some 20 years ago (and am in arrears now but not for any doctrinal reasons). Anyway, my suggestion would be to find an evangelical religion editor, just for starters.
But isnt the bulk of Chronicles readership Catholic, Orthodox, or otherwise high church protestant anyway? I imagine thats what the survey done a few months ago said.
I have to admit, a heavier dose of evangelical protestantism (not, say, the serious sort of Robert Peters) would probably scare me away; most evangelicals hop from one fad to the next, and their worship more closely resembles entertainment. Ive also noticed Dr Fleming takes a decidedly anti-Calvinist stance, at a time when some Baptists are trying to regain their Calvinist roots.
What a hilatrious and accurate piece, Dr. Fleming.
I can only echo others here and urge folks to subscribe to the print magazine which is a national treasure in these dark times. I sent a gift subscription to my childrens' parochial school principal this past month.
Mr. Van Sant and I share a common irritation with drivers. I don't know why I am but I continue to be astounded that drivers in the US don't understand that the four lane highways are neither a speedway for driving above 100 mph nor are they designed to line four vehicles up in paralellel and have them drive at the same (slow) speed. But how can drivers be bothered to pay attention while yammering on the phone or eating breakfast. I've seen much during my commutes. Once in Chicago rush hour traffic I watched a woman eating a stack of syrupy pancakes from a plate with her fork while driving. No, seriously.
I was a subscriber for a couple years and then had to drop it due to lack of employment. That was around ten years ago. Then, I found the website for the first time in 2003 or 2004. I was a free rider for perhaps a year, mainly because I reasoned that I didn't have time to read the magazine, so why buy it? That was sincere reasoning, until guilt got the better of me and I subscribed anyway.
Besides, if I had time to read the website and blog, why couldn't I read the magazine? Answer: For a year or so, back in 03 and 04, since I was new to the web, I intended to explore all of it. That wastes a lot of time, much more than I realised. Later, after I got my fill of the net and stopped exploring because I realised that it was a life destroyer like too much liqour, my new job began to consume a lot of overtime at certain times of the year.
I went for several years receiving the magazine and mostly not reading it for lack of time. However, in the last year or so I have been able to read books as well as Chronicles all the while holding the same job that used to keep me from reading very much. 2010 was the first year since I dropped my original subscription that I managed to read every issue of Chronicles.
Yes, I realise that this is a bizarre and ridiculous story, but it's true.
So my point is that if you can afford it, then subscribe. Even if you cant read it, it's the right thing to do. Also, stay the hell away from the net, except for (as I was doing) searching new sources of everything you might find useful, from google books and archive.org, to the free downloadable pdfs and djvus of the 1911 Britannica. Listen to Faulkner at Virginia, subscribe to the Abbeville Institute and listen to their online lectures, get the good podcasts that are out there, visit Chronicles, even buy their books, then go to some mainstream bookseller and order some good, truthful books like Ian Smith's 'Bitter Harvest' or go buy Library of America's leather bound volume of Washington's writings (16 bucks on sale, and free shipping!!!!!)or a used LOA edition of Jefferson's writings, then get off of the net, work on your car, read your books, and read Chronicles, and have a nice glass of wine or some Crown Royal Black.
Somewhere in all this, find some time for your wife or girlfriend, maybe even a friend or two.
Sincerely,
A recovered netaholic.
Let us hear from others!
I'm a subscriber and in the past I have posted a few responses here under the S/N "I am not Spartacus."
A few of those responses enkindled the ire of Mr. Fleming but because that result requires so little rhetorical tinder to begin with I didn't take it personally.
#42 KDZ writes,
"I’m concerned that Chronicles’ heavy dose of Catholicism on its web site may deter many potential readers and subscribers. I have nothing against Catholicism ...."
Yes, I have found that heavy doses of orthodoxy are a deterrent for most "American Catholics" as well. Even most of my Catholic friends prefer the First Things variety of religion in the public square. Yet, several of my friends from Chronicles are rather serious protestants who despise such random and capricious opinions posing as a tradition. I have no solution except for the civilized virtues of tolerance and humility. I doubt that Clyde Wilson will be turning towards Rome any time soon but he is one of my favorites, so it can be done. There were Catholics and Protestants who fought on both sides of the war between the states. Likewise the heart of Christ, similar to the Mason/Dixon line, is still being drawn across the heart of every man.
I confess to not being a subscriber, for the following reasons:
1. The anti military tone of far too many of the articles. I work as a contract mech designer around the couuntry, and my best paying gigs are on DoD projects. Civilian oriented jobs pay far less, and the mental challenge is far lower. I understand that much of the defense establishment is corrupt, and many of the brass are without honor, but I have far too much respect for those that served, even in "pointless" wars. Both my wife and I are USAF vets.
2. I am not Catholic, nor much of a Christian.
3. I am not in one location long enough to be able to receive magazines.
4. Your site is blocked by most clients' net nannies, as are other conservative sites.
5. Limited funds for recreation.
I rarely comment on any web site that I don't subscribe to. In an ideal world, where I was making a lot of money, I would be subscribing to about 20 sites, as well as the professional journals that I need to maintain my professional qualifications. So I confine my subs to magazines for contractors and engineering pros.
I enjoy this website, but I would be able to live without it if the free content is taken away.