e·qua·nim·i·ty

Noun

Mental calmness, composure, and evenness of temper, esp. in a difficult situation

These are difficult times for a lot of people to be sure, and this is an excellent article that I recommend highly. Suicides are up, stress is up, rancor is up, unemployment is up, etc., etc., – these are trying times, but then again, “fundamental transformation” of anything can be difficult. The sad thing is, we didn’t need any fundamental transformation, and the current unsettled societal environment is exactly what Obama needs to continue the decline. This is not by accident. Obama plays on the emotions of every one at every opportunity, and that is by design. But that being said, I want to make an appeal to the common sense on both sides, those on the right and the left, to dial down the rhetoric and just stop and think for a moment.

For those on the left – Obama is playing you. He wants you to think that corporations are evil, that the rich are evil, that America is a misogynistic, racist, imperialistic society, and that white Christian men are paranoid about the changing ethnic landscape. His fundamental transformation of America into a European style socialist country with a more powerful central authority requires that you reject capitalism, that you reject Faith, and that you question the traditional family role. And this distorted belief he needs you to embrace started with your schooling via the ultra liberal educational system in our country, led by 1960’s style radicals that largely failed in that very capitalist system they need you to reject. But I believe you are better than that. I believe that most of you understand that our capitalist system is responsible for creating the most powerful economic engine in the world, for providing the highest average standard of living, and for lifting more people out of poverty than any other economic platform hands down. That our Constitutional model of government is responsible for providing more civil and human rights to more people, and for giving more autonomy to more people than any other country, and there really isn’t even a close second. So my question is, why would you, as part of the “proletariat” want to change that dynamic, and restrict not only your freedoms, but your voice as well?

For those on the right – Obama wants you to become irrational. He wants you to “hate”, to shout, and to become visibly angry. He also wants to divide conservatives, to have the social conservatives battle the fiscal conservatives, and to polarize. That plays right into his hand. He can then better play on everyone’s emotions if we are all at each other’s throats. So why do this? Are we not able to oppose his agenda from an intelligent perspective? Are we incapable of convincing people that the Constitutional model of governance on a capitalist economic platform is best for everyone? Because if we are, and all we can do is shout and call people names, then we have truly lost. We are better than this, and America is stronger than this. We need to begin to appeal to a broad spectrum of people on our terms, and not on just opposition to what Obama is doing. We need to appeal to their common sense, to their intelligence, and to their core belief that America is the beacon of liberty, justice and opportunity. If we stop playing into the hands of the left, dial down the rancor, and show people what we stand for, and not just what we stand against – then we can begin to turn the tide. And that will require a conviction of Faith and composure of the heart and the mind. Equanimity, if you will.

That song was done by the Boomtown Rats and was made in response to the school shooting carried out by Brenda Ann Spencer on January 29th, 1979 in San Diego, California. I admit that I had mentally lost track of it, but it always has been floating around in my head, re-emerging from time to time.  I was 14 years old and living in San Diego at the time.  The shooter was 16.  When asked why she had done it, she answered, “I don’t like Mondays”.

Two people were killed, and 9 injured, including 8 children.  It was a horrifically shocking event which, I’m sure, everyone at the time said they’d never forget.  Ok, so how many of you who were 14 or older in 1979 remember?  How many of you have heard that Boomtown Rats song and never knew what it was about?

We forget and we forget and we forget – and then comes the next massacre and we wring our hands and swear we won’t forget.  But, we do – and then repeat the process.  If we want it to stop, then we have to remember….and keep remembering and start thinking about how it happened.  How is it that prior to 1979 we never had someone pick up a gun and randomly shoot at a school for no identifiable reason?  To be sure, you can find long lists of people who were murdered at schools over the ages – but in each case there was an identifiable cause; some grievance against the school, or the school authorities, or some of the students.  Something you could logically connect to the crime…not because a bored person decided they didn’t like Mondays.

We’ve lost our morals, my friends – that is it.  Only a people increasingly lacking in basic, human decency can breed people who will just kill for no reason.  Until we get back to basic, human decency we won’t get anywhere.  Just more massacres and more memorial services and more (empty) pledges to never forget.

UPDATE:  Rush gets it:

I said, “Twenty-five years ago we were warning about what was going to happen if X kept happening and Y kept happening and if we didn’t stop Z.”  Well, now, we’re there.  We’re no longer talking about what will happen unless we do something about it.  We’re living it.  We’re living the collapse.  We’re living the implosion of our culture and our society.  Politically, morally, religiously, you name it, and it all stems from the fact that no one is allowed to have values.  Values are judgmental.  You have no right to impose values on people.

The death of our civilization is proceeding precisely as predicted in decades past – stodgy, boring, old conservatives (and a few wise liberals) pointed it out and pointed it out and explained with charts and diagrams that all this would happen if we didn’t change course.  We didn’t change course.  We just doubled down on doing it wrong – and now people pretend to be all shocked about it?  Astounding.

Get ready to start imposing the old morality (and, of course, all of us must start by imposing it on ourselves) or get ready for death.  Pick one.  There are no other choices.

While running through the Facebook thread, I came across the following quote:

To be beautiful means to be yourself.  You don’t need to be accepted by others, you need to accept yourself. – Thich Nhat Hanh

Thich, as it turns out, is a Vietnamese Buddhist monk who has gained some vogue in the West – probably initially from the fact that he was one of those dimwits during the Vietnam War who figured that if the United States would just leave and the war just “end” then everything would be just swell.  How anyone by the 1960’s could think that a communist regime would (a) seek cooperation with non-communists or (b) be anything less than hideously brutal once triumphant is beyond my understanding.  But, of course, Thich wasn’t alone – around the world literal tens of millions thought the same way.  In other words, they thought stupidly.  But no one ever called them that.  Reading the quote listed above, though, got me thinking that we who refuse to be stupid have to be a bit more forceful lest stupidity overwhelm us.

Because someone would only post a quote like that if they thought it wasn’t stupid.  You only post something like that if you think it wise.  But, my goodness, what a vapid bunch of pantheist nonsense is wrapped up in that short quote!  To be beautiful means to be be yourself?  What if yourself is a drug addict?  Or a thief?  Or a lazy bum?  It is, indeed, true that you don’t need to be accepted by others but before you go accepting yourself isn’t it rather important to determine if  yourself is worthy of respect?  Suppose you’re a hooker or a con artist – are you supposed to accept that yourself?

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