If I Were The Devil by Paul Harvey

Scopes.com said this essay was written in 1964:

If I were the Prince of Darkness I would want to engulf the whole earth in darkness.

I'd have a third of its real estate and four-fifths of its population, but I would not be happy until I had seized the ripest apple on the tree.

So I should set about however necessary, to take over the United States.

I would begin with a campaign of whispers.

With the wisdom of a serpent, I would whispers to you as I whispered to Eye, "Do as you please."

To the young I would whisper "The Bible is a myth." I would convince them that "man created God," instead of the other way around. I would confide that "what is bad is good and what is good is square."

In the ears of the young married I would whisper that work is debasing, that cocktail parties are good for you. I would caution them not to be "extreme" in religion, in patriotism, in moral conduct.

And the old I would teach to pray — to say after me — "Our father which are in Washington."

Then I'd get organized.

I'd educate authors in how to make lurid literature exciting so that anything else would appear dull, uninteresting.

I'd threaten TV with dirtier movies, and vice-versa.

I'd infiltrate unions and urge more loafing, less work. Idle hands usually work for me.

I'd peddle narcotics to whom I could, I'd sell alcohol to ladies and gentlemen of distinction, I'd tranquilize the rest with pills.

If I were the Devil, I would encourage schools to refine young intellects, but
neglect to discipline emotions; let those run wild.

I'd designate an atheist to front for me before the highest courts and I'd get
preachers to say, "She's right."

With flattery and promises of power I would get the courts to vote against
God and in favor of pornography.

Thus I would evict God from the courthouse, then from the schoolhouse,
then from the Houses of Congress.

Then in his own churches I'd substitute psychology for religion and deify science.

If I were Satan I'd make the symbol of Easter an egg

And the symbol of Christmas a bottle.

If I were the Devil I'd take from those who have and give to those who
wanted until I had killed the incentive of the ambitious. Then my police state
would force everybody back to work.*

Then I would separate families, putting children in uniform, women in coal
mines and objectors in slave-labor camps.*

If I were Satan I'd just keep doing what I'm doing and the whole world go to
hell as sure as the Devil.

CS Lewis couldn’t have said it better.

 

*This is basically what the Soviet Union did.

The Literal Genie

Or if you prefer the evil or really stupid genie.

In his book 2010 book Hacking: The Art of Exploitation, 2nd Edition, author Jon Erickson describes an analogy/joke of a genie to a computer. The genie free from his bottle offers the man who set him free three wishes:

"First," says the man, "I want a billion dollars."

The genie snaps his fingers and a briefcase full of money materializes out of thin air.

The man is wide eyed in amazement and continues, "Next, I want a Ferrari."

The genie snaps his fingers and a Ferrari appears from a puff of smoke.

The man continues, "Finally, I want to be irresistible to women."

The genie snaps his fingers and the man turns into a box of chocolates.

The analogy isn’t bad except it wasn’t a complete analogy.

First, the man said he wanted a billion dollars but not in a briefcase. Therefore if the genie was a computer program, the genie would just materialize the money by itself.

Next is the Ferrari. That’s fine except since the man did not stipulate where to put the Ferrari, the Ferrari could have landed on top of the man for all we know. So, could have the money. That could have been the default location for any wish.

Last is the “irresistible” wish. He could also been turned into a bunch of diamonds. Or even some handsome actor. The response could be random.

Then again instead of having a default for each wish the genie could ask the wisher to be more specific.

The genie is also assuming all the first two objects the man wishes for are not toys.

Quotes and Thoughts from John Adams

Quotes:

Government is nothing more than the combined force of society, or the united power of the multitude, for the peace, order, safety, good and happiness of the people.... There is no king or queen bee distinguished from all others, by size or figure or beauty and variety of colors, in the human hive. No man has yet produced any revelation from heaven in his favor, any divine communication to govern his fellow men. Nature throws us all into the world equal and alike....
The preservation of liberty depends upon the intellectual and moral character of the people. As long as knowledge and virtue are diffused generally among the body of a nation, it is impossible they should be enslaved....
There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.
….the legislative, executive and judicial power shall be placed in separate departments, to the end that it might be a government of laws, and not of men.
Wisdom and knowledge, as well as virtue, diffused generally among the body of the people being necessary for the preservation of their rights and liberties; and as these depend on spreading the opportunities and advantages of education in various parts of the country, and among the different orders of the people, it shall be the duty of legislators and magistrates in all future periods of this commonwealth to cherish the interests of literature and the sciences, and all seminaries of them, especially the university at Cambridge, public schools, and grammar schools in the towns; to encourage private societies and public institutions, rewards and immunities, for the promotion of agriculture, arts, sciences, commerce, trades, manufactures, and a natural history of the country; to countenance and inculcate the principles of humanity and general benevolence, public and private charity, industry and frugality, honesty and punctuality in their dealings, sincerity, good humor, and all social affections, and generous sentiments among the people.
I must judge for myself, but how can I judge, how can any man judge, unless his mind has been opened and enlarged by reading.¹
If the people are as wise and honest in the choice of their rulers, as they have been in framing a government, they will be happy, and I shall die content with the prospect for my children.
[Advice to his son:] A young man should weigh well his plans. Integrity should be preserved in all events, as essential to his happiness, through every stage of his existence. His first maxim then should be to place his honor out of reach of all men. In order to do this he must make it a rule never to become dependent on public employments for subsistence.
[Talking about the French Revolution:] I know not what to make of a republic of thirty million atheists.²
Adams told another correspondent. In revolutions, he warned, “the most fiery spirits and flighty geniuses frequently obtained more influence than men of sense and judgment; and the weakest man may carry foolish measures in opposition to wise ones proposed by the ablest.”
My fundamental maxim of government is never to trust the lamb to the wolf.
Reason holds the helm [of the human mind], but passions are the gales.
The rights of one generation of men must depend, in some degree, on the paper transactions of another. The social compact and the laws must be reduced to writing. Obedience to them becomes a national habit and they cannot be changed by revolutions that are costly things. Men will be too economical of their blood and property to have recourse to them very frequently.
If [the] empire of superstition and hypocrisy should be overthrown, happy indeed will it be for the world; but if all religion and all morality should be over-thrown with it, what advantage will be gained? The doctrine of human equality is founded entirely in the Christian doctrine that we are all children of the same Father, all accountable to Him for our conduct to one another, all equally bound to respect each other's self love.

The executive, the governor, should, Adams thought, be chosen by the two houses of the legislature³, and for not more than a year at a time.
Adams was utterly opposed to slavery and the slave trade and….favored a gradual emancipation of all slaves.
Adams would call slavery a “foul contagion in the human character.”   He never owned a slave as a matter of principle, nor hired the slaves of others to work on his farm, as was sometimes done in New England.
Thirteen separate states would have thirteen equal votes, a concept Adams strongly opposed. He advocated voting in proportion to population.
It was the establishment of an independent judiciary, with judges of the Supreme Court appointed, not elected, and for life (“as long as they behave themselves well”), that Adams made one of his greatest contributions not only to Massachusetts but to the country, as time would tell.
He did not believe all men were created equal, except in the eyes of God, but that all men, for all their many obvious differences, were born to equal rights.
Adams had strong views on the matter of recompense for officeholders. He was adamantly opposed to the notion espoused by some that in the ideal republican government public officials should serve without pay. Adams had written earlier while in London, then the consequence would be that “all offices would be monopolized by the rich; the poor and the middling ranks would be excluded and an aristocratic despotism would immediately follow.” He thought public officials should not only be paid, but that their salaries should be commensurate with their responsibilities and necessary expenses.
Greatest was his worry that the country would expect too much of him [as vice president].
If Adams was concerned about making ends meet, Washington had had to arrange a loan to cover personal debts and the expense of moving to New York.
Rank and distinction were essential to any social organization, be it a family, a parish, or a ship, Adams would say. He cared intensely about the future of the republic and, as he had tried to explain in his Defense of the Constitutions, he saw men of education, ability, and wealth as “the natural aristocracy,” the great strength and blessing of society, but potentially also a great threat to liberty, if their power and energies were misdirected.
“The French Revolution,” he wrote to a Dutch friend, Francis van der Kemp, “will, I hope, produce effects in favor of liberty, equity, and humanity as extensive as this whole globe and as lasting as all time.” Yet, he could not help foresee a tragic outcome, in that a single legislative assembly, as chosen by the French, could only mean “great and lasting calamities.”
France was “in great danger.” Ahead of anyone in the government, and more clearly than any, Adams foresaw the French Revolution leading to chaos, horror, and ultimate tyranny.
Source: John Adams (2001) by David McCullough.

¹A kindred spirit.
² Like the old Soviet Union for example.
³This is the parliamentary system Great Britain and other countries have today.

President Obama signs Executive Order allowing for control over all US resources

From the Examiner.com (March 17):

On March 16th, President Obama signed a new Executive Order which expands upon a prior order issued in 1950 for Disaster Preparedness, and gives the office of the President complete control over all the resources in the United States in times of war or emergency.

The National Defense Resources Preparedness order gives the Executive Branch the power to control and allocate energy, production, transportation, food, and even water resources by decree under the auspices of national defense and national security.  The order is not limited to wartime implementation, as one of the order's functions includes the command and control of resources in peacetime determinations.

Additionally, each cabinet under the Executive Branch has been given specific powers when the order is executed, and include the absolute control over food, water, and other resource distributions. [read more]

Does this fall under “never let a crisis go to waste” I wonder?

What the heck do we need a Congress for? Not emergency management I guess. Obama to the rescue!

A Sampling of Les Shroud’s Survival Advice

Trust your guide, but don’t rely on him or her. In other words, you must be self-reliant.

Disaster often strikes in mysterious ways. And you may be separated from your travel companions at any time. Just as you shouldn’t rely completely on your guide, you shouldn’t rely completely on your partner or partners.

[Surviving] requires clear-headed, rational thinking, mental toughness, and a positive attitude. It requires a never-yielding will to live.

Survival can be harsh at the best of times. If you become one with anything or anyone while you are trying to survive out there, it is with yourself.

Survival is not about “man versus wild.” Nor, at the other extreme, is it about “becoming one” with nature. The key to survival is the middle ground of “going with the flow” of nature.

But make no mistake about it. Nature must be respected, watched, listened to, and considered constantly, if you expect to survive.

Source: Survive! Essential Skills and Tactics to Get You Out of Anywhere—Alive (2008) by Les  Stroud with Michael Vlessides

 

The moral of this “story” is that the gov’t isn’t going to save you. Just about everything he said is against the Left’s philosophy. In a survival situation not only does mankind rule himself he must be able to rule himself to survive.

Wyoming Native American tribe gets rare permit to kill bald eagles

From Fox News.com (March 14):

CHEYENNE, Wyo. –  The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has taken the unusual step of issuing a permit allowing an American Indian tribe in Wyoming to kill two bald eagles for religious purposes.

The agency's decision comes after the Northern Arapaho Tribe filed a federal lawsuit last year contending the refusal to issue such permits violates tribal members' religious freedom. Although thousands of American Indians apply for eagle feathers and carcasses from a federal repository, permits allowing the killing of bald eagles are exceedingly rare, according to both tribal and legal experts on the matter

Federal law prohibits the killing of bald eagles in almost all cases. The government keeps eagle feathers and body parts in a federal repository and tribal members can apply for them for use in religious ceremonies.

The bald eagle was removed from the federal list of threatened species in 2007, following its reclassification in 1995 from endangered to threatened. However, the species has remained protected under the federal Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act. [read more]

Maybe it is just this particular tribe but I thought Native Americans are supposed to respect the wildlife? At least that’s what the Left always says. That the Native Americans are in “tuned” with nature. You know since this tribe was allowed to kill two bald eagles what’s to stop them from wanting to kill more in the future? After all they aren’t going to stop practicing their religion. I did a little research this “religious purposes” is a Sun Dance ceremony done every year usually around the Summer Solstice. The eagle plays a large part in the Sun Dance for it is one of the Plains Indians' most sacred animal (so, they kill it? Hmm.)   That’s right other Native American tribes (over a dozen) partake in this ceremony too. So, what’s to stop them from saying “hey, you let this tribe kill bald eagles what about us?” Then the bald eagle will go back on the endangered species list. I guess being threatened is not as bad as being endangered.

Talking about religion since when has the gov’t under this regime er administration ever respected religious rights? Oh, I’m sorry I forgot. I’m bad. They just don’t respect Christian  rights is all. All the other religions rights are to be respected. 

I wonder since the bald eagle is America’s national bird and a symbol did this fact have any influence on the Wildlife Service’s decision? Just asking.

Excerpts from “Philosophy: Who Needs It”

Existentially, the rise of the welfare state broke up the country into pressure groups, each fighting for special privileges at the expense of the others—so that an individual unaffiliated with any group became fair game for tribal predators. Psychologically, Pragmatism lobotomized the country’s intellectuals: John Dewey’s theory of “Progressive” education (which has dominated the schools for close to half a century), established a method of crippling a child’s conceptual faculty and replacing cognition with “social adjustment.” It was and is a systematic attempt to manufacture tribal mentalities.

There are only two means by which men can deal with one another: guns or logic. Force or persuasion. Those who know that they cannot win by means of logic, have always resorted to guns.

The mental process underlying the egalitarians’ hope to achieve their goal consists of three steps: 1. they believe that that which they refuse to identify does not exist; 2. therefore, human ability does not exist; and 3. therefore, they are free to devise social schemes which would obliterate this nonexistent.

Defiance, not obedience, is the American’s answer to overbearing authority. The nation that ran an underground railroad to help human beings escape from slavery, or began drinking on principle in the face of Prohibition, will not say “Yes, sir,” to the enforcers of ration coupons and cereal prices. Not yet.

If America drags on in her present state for a few more generations (which is unlikely), dictatorship will become possible. A sense of life is not a permanent endowment. The characteristically American one is being eroded daily all around us. Large numbers of Americans have lost it (or have never developed it) and are collapsing to the psychological level of Europe’s worst rabble.

The academia-jet set coalition is attempting to tame the American character by the deliberate breeding of helplessness and resignation—in those incubators of lethargy known as “Progressive” schools, which are dedicated to the task of crippling a child’s mind by arresting his cognitive development.

We cannot fight against collectivism, unless we fight against its moral base: altruism. We cannot fight against altruism, unless we fight against its epistemological base: irrationalism. We cannot fight against anything, unless we fight for something—and what we must fight for is the supremacy of reason, and a view of man as a rational being.

Source: Philosophy: Who Needs It (1982) by Ayn Rand.

Socialism 101 Part 7: The Philosophy of Auguste Comte

Following the trend of the Christian development since the Renaissance, the power [the 19th century philosophers] named was: the neighbor (or society, or mankind).

The result was a new moral creed, which swept the romanticist circles of Europe from the time of the first post-Kantians, and which continues to rule Western intellectuals to the present day. The man who named the creed is the philosopher Auguste Comte. The name he coined is altruism.

The medieval adoration of God, says Comte, must now be transmuted into the adoration of a new divinity, the “goddess” Humanity. Sacrifice for the sake of the Lord is outdated; it must give way fully to sacrifice for the sake of others.

Source: Ominous Parallels.

Hitler’s War on Reason

If men uphold reason, they will be led, ultimately, to conclude that men should deal with one another as free agents, settling their disputes by an appeal to the mind, i.e., by a process of voluntary, rational persuasion. If men reject reason, they will be led, ultimately, to conclude the opposite: that men have no way to deal with one another at all—no way except physical force, wielded by an elite endowed with an allegedly superior, mystic means of cognition.

In some (usually unverbalized) form, [a dictator] knows that he cannot demand unthinking obedience from men, or gain their consent to the permanent rule of brutality, until he has first persuaded his future subjects to ditch their brains and their independent, self-assertive judgment.

What Germany needs, [the romanticists] concluded, is a new kind of institution: not cold, cognition-centered “learning-schools,” but feeling-centered “Lebensschulen” (life-schools). Encouraged by liberal progressives and conservative nationalists alike, the romanticist educators proceeded gradually to supply this need—first in the empire, then in the Republic. (Thus the schools were ready for the Nazi educators, when their time came.)

In epistemology, as a result, subjectivists hold that a man need not concern himself with the facts of reality; instead, to arrive at knowledge or truth, he need merely turn his attention inward, consulting the appropriate contents of consciousness, the ones with the power to make reality conform to their dictates.

Source: Ominous Parallels.

Socialism 101 Part 6: The Philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Reality, declares Hegel, is inherently contradictory; it is a systematic progression of colliding contradictions organized in triads of thesis, antithesis, synthesis—and men must think accordingly.* They should not strive for old-fashioned, “static” consistency.

Hegel describes the above as a new conception of “reason,” and as a new, “dialectic” logic.

In Hegel’s version, reality is a dynamic cosmic mind or thought-process, which in various contexts is referred to as the Absolute, the Spirit, the World-Reason, God, etc. According to Hegel, it is in the essential nature of this entity to undergo a constant process of evolution or development, unfolding itself in various stages.

The ethics and politics which Hegel derives from his fundamental philosophy can be indicated by two sentences from his Philosophy of Right: “A single person, I need hardly say, is something subordinate, and as such he must dedicate himself to the ethical whole. Hence if the state claims life, the individual must surrender it.”

Since everything is ultimately one, the group, he holds, has primacy over the individual. If each man learns to suppress his identity and coalesce with his fellows, the resulting collective entity, the state, will be a truer reflection of reality, a higher manifestation of the Absolute.

It [the collective State] is itself an individual, a mystic “person” that swallows up the citizens and transcends them, an independent, self-sustaining organism, made of human beings, with a will and purpose of its own.

As a manifestation of the Absolute, it [the State] is a creature of God, and thus demands not merely obedience from its citizens but reverential worship.

Source: Ominous Parallels.

 

*Karl Marx borrowed from this in his dialectic materialism theory.

Socialism 101 Part 5: The Philosophy of Immanuel Kant

[Kant’s] method of attack is to wage a campaign against the human mind. Man’s mind, he holds, is unable to acquire any knowledge of reality.

In any process of cognition, according to Kant, whether it be sense experience or abstract thought, the mind automatically alters and distorts the evidence confronting it.

Reason is impotent to discover anything about reality; if it tries, it can only bog down in impenetrable contradictions.

Since reason, logic, and science are denied access to reality, the door is now open for men to approach reality by a different, nonrational method. The door is now open to faith.*

And no matter how powerful the rational argument against their faith, that argument can always be dismissed out-of-hand : one need merely remind its advocate that rational knowledge and rational concepts are applicable only to the world of appearances, not to reality.

Kant also found it necessary to deny happiness, in order to make room for duty. The essence of moral virtue, he says, is selflessness—selfless, lifelong obedience to duty, without any expectation of reward, and regardless of how much it might make one suffer.

Morality, according to Kant, possesses an intrinsic dignity; moral action is an end in itself, not a means to an end. As far as morality is concerned, the consequences of an action are irrelevant.

Many false ethical theories have been advanced, in Kant’s view, but “the principle of one’s own happiness is the most objectionable of all. This is not merely because it is false... Rather, it is because this principle supports morality with incentives which undermine it and destroy all its sublimity....”

Source: Ominous Parallels.

 

*Misplaced faith can be bad and sometimes hazardous to a person’s health or to the health of a country. Like for instance faith in a political leader like Hitler or Stalin. Or a leader who talks about “social or economic justice.” That’s blind faith. That’s what I believe the author is talking about. Only faith in God is the only right kind of faith.

What Kant is talking about isn’t religion so much but a delusional philosophy. Most main stream religions teach physical reality exists but there is also a spiritual reality too. Any religion where you can’t question or use reason or even to have doubts is not a religion but a cult.

Miscellaneous Thoughts Part 24

• The Stanford Mock Prison experiment is an example of how power corrupts.
• Any legislator or president that presents a bill that majorly affects the economic or social systems (like Obamacare) of America should be treated like an amendment to the Constitution.  None of this “we have to pass it first to find out what’s in it” crap. 
• The only knowledge gov’t wants to have is how to retain power.
• One man to another: We divorced on reconcilable differences. She was an insane progressive and I wasn’t. 
• When a business grows it has a tendency to hire more employees. When a gov’t grows, its power grows too. And so does its corruption. Which can lead to tyranny.
• Good intentions is like William Tell saying oops when he shot his son’s forehead instead of the apple. Oops doesn’t change things. The son still has an arrow stuck in his forehead.
• Audible.com is a good website for audible e-books. I especially liked the audible  version of Gray’s Anatomy. Think about it.
• Maybe what we need in America’s Congress are people that are humble, patriotic, and have a good credit score. Being brilliant is nice, but being able to think about side-effects would be better. After that’s why there is a Library of Congress in Washington. So, you can learn what you need to know.
• During the presidential campaign Obama is not only going to take off the gloves but he is going to put on brass knuckles instead. After all it is the Chicago way.
• To any girl who wants the gov’t to cover her birth control: Ever heard of self-control? Close your legs. That won’t cost you or the taxpayers a dime. You are not an animal after all.