Lies we tell kids is an absolutely fascinating essay by Paul Graham.
I doubt you could teach kids recent history without teaching them lies, because practically everyone who has anything to say about it has some kind of spin to put on it. Much recent history consists of spin. It would probably be better just to teach them metafacts like that.
Probably the biggest lie told in schools, though, is that the way to succeed is through following “the rules.” In fact most such rules are just hacks to manage large groups efficiently.
There are numerous statements in the essay worth pondering for an hour or more. Why do we tell kids these lies? Ultimately we’re teaching them something, but is it something good? My general feeling is no. I despise that I feel compelled to lie from time to time for my own survival and prosperity. I would much prefer to live in a society where truth held higher value and objectivity was more in vogue.
Perhaps I’ll live long enough to see a society that values truth more than this one. I hope so. In the mean time, I must be selective about the truth in order to avoid discrimination, censure and possibly even imprisonment. It saddens me that making people feel comfortable and secure is more important than actively searching for the truth. Sure, death is scary. Not thinking about it or preparing for it scares me worse. Go read the essay.
Every day after work, Freddy Gibbons walks her dogs, Bonsai and Lola, along Monument Creek. It’s been her ritual for years. Last week, Gibbons and her dogs made a couple of discoveries during their daily walk that left her shocked and angry. The first surprise came when Gibbons noticed something near the water not far from where some children were playing. “There, in the sand, was a little black gun,” Gibbons said. “At first I thought it was just a toy. Then I noticed some rust on it. I pulled it out and realized it was a real gun.” Gibbons grew up around weapons and immediately knew what she was holding. “It was a .25-caliber handgun,” she said. “It was a nice little gun.” Her fascination was interrupted by the laughter of children nearby and the scary realization of what might have been.
Note the oh so typical tugging at the reader’s heartstrings by referencing the nearby innocent children but don’t let yourself be distracted by the main point of the story which is: the cops were too lazy to come get the found gun - they actually asked the finder to bring it on down to the station.
The same thing happened to my parents many years ago when they found a bag of pot in my dresser drawer (yes, I experimented and yes, I inhaled). Anyhow, my parents called the police and the police told them to bring it on down to the station. They also warned my mother that if she was caught with the pot on the way to the station she would be arrested and charged. I think she flushed it down the toilet instead of turning it in. That’s rather hard to do with a pistol.
The main point of this story is that when you need them, there is no certainty that police will be available. You may see protect and serve emblazoned on the side of the car, but chances are you will not see the car while you are being mugged. Chances are that you will not be saved by a police officer while you are being held up at gunpoint. And if you happen to find a gun don’t count on the police coming and picking it up in 30 minutes or less. Your best bet is to be prepared to deal with such situations on your own. This applies to any situation in which a typical person has been trained from birth to call 911. I would never suggest that you not call 911 - by all means, please do. Just be prepared to do so after the emergency has already ended. Government does not work on the same time frame as the life or death situation.
As in Hurricane Katrina, people will come in and clean up. They will measure, record, pontificate and pass new rules. The statisticians and the epidemiologists will even suggest measures that could improve safety for the general populace down the road. However, when the shit hits the fan, it will be you and the friends and loved ones you have gathered around who will always be the first responders. As responsible citizens don’t you want to be prepared to defend and protect your own life and and the lives of those around you if possible? I do.
Barack Obama has demonstrated a clear penchant for ignorance when it comes to American government and he seems to be ill informed on world history as well. There are not 57 American states at this juncture in history, and Americans did not liberate Auschwitz. Perhaps he meant his Kenyan uncle?
Barack Obama is either ignorant, lying, or doing what military people call “talking out of your ass.”
If you really pay attention to the many sound bites coming out of this man’s mouth, you begin to realize that he, like every Democratic player in the last 50 years, is just trying to say what he thinks you want to hear. He wants American to believe he is incredibly intelligent but he lacks a basic knowledge of world history. He wants you to elect him President of these States but he doesn’t even know how many of them there are.
Yes, I can understand a few gaffes - campaigning for President of the Socialist States of America is an exhausting process. Keeping track of who you are promising to help and who you are promising to steal from to provide that help is a very taxing process, particularly now that we have 100 million cyclone victims in Myanmar that we are responsible to care for. The federal government is just the agent that keeps us all honest. I’m not saying his main competitor Hillary is honest. Far from it. Hillary is just a more accomplished liar. She has more practice talking about nothing while making it sound vaguely messianic.
Unfortunately for Hillary, she sounds about as sincere as the Wicked Witch of the West. Barack can talk about visiting 57 states of America and sound honest, and that makes all the difference in the world when you are pandering to greedy, fat and dumb Americans who want a sugar daddy to take care of them.
Unfortunately for Obama, not all of us are looking for a messiah to save us from our own pathetic natural state of being. With that in mind, here are some more gaffes gathered from around the web:
Marking the anniversary of the March 1965 “Bloody Sunday” in Selma, Ala., Obama, speaking at a church, said his parents got together “because of what happened in Selma.” Obama was born in 1961.
The Tribune dug this up: Obama, in his memoir, Dreams of My Father, writes of a story in Life magazine that influenced him — about a black man trying to bleach his skin white. No such article could be found in Life or Ebony.
“On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes — and I see many of them in the audience here today — our sense of patriotism is particularly strong.” Um, dude, fallen heroes are six feet under, not in the audience.
“In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died — an entire town destroyed.” The actual death toll: 12.
Earlier this month in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, Obama showed off his knowledge of the war in Afghanistan by honing in on a lack of translators: “We only have a certain number of them and if they are all in Iraq, then it’s harder for us to use them in Afghanistan.” The real reason it’s “harder for us to use them” in Afghanistan: Iraqis speak Arabic or Kurdish. The Afghanis speak Pashto, Farsi, or other non-Arabic languages.
More recently, Obama as he traveled through Florida seemed to give some contradictory statements about Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez and the Colombian terrorist group FARC. On Thursday Obama told the Orlando Sentinel that he would meet with Chavez and “one of the obvious high priorities in my talks with President Hugo Chavez would be the fermentation of anti-American sentiment in Latin America, his support of FARC in Colombia and other issues he would want to talk about.” OK, so a strong declaration that Chavez is supporting FARC, which Obama intends to push him on. But then on Friday he said any government supporting FARC should be isolated. “We will shine a light on any support for the FARC that comes from neighboring governments,” he said in a speech in Miami. “This behavior must be exposed to international condemnation, regional isolation, and - if need be - strong sanctions. It must not stand.” So he will meet with the leader of a country he simultaneously says should be isolated? Huh?
What is the bottom line? Political leaders shouldn’t pretend to be experts in areas they know little to nothing about. Voters should expect Presidential candidates to have a good handle on international and domestic history and politics. Obama fails the litmus test. He is a classic demagogue. John McCain isn’t a guy I’d vote for, but in the areas of domestic and international politics as well as history, John McCain is much better informed, more knowledgeable and more savvy. I’m still going to cast my vote for Ron Paul.
In conclusion, have you ever tried sitting in an attic all day? They get pretty damn hot. I call bullshit.
Unfortunately, too many in our party are not yet ready to return to the path of limited government. Instead, we are being told our message must be deficient because, after all, we should be winning in certain areas just by being Republicans. Yet being a Republican isn’t good enough anymore. Voters are tired of buying a GOP package and finding a big-government liberal agenda inside. What we need is not new advertising, but truth in advertising.
Unfortunately for Mr. Coburn, while his thoughts are sometimes on the right track, they don’t go anywhere near far enough.
Republicans can tear up the “emergency spending” credit card and refuse to accept any new spending whatsoever, including for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, until Congress does its job of eliminating wasteful spending. The federal budget contains a vast unexplored area of offsets. My office alone has identified $300 billion in annual waste. Borrowing from the next generation when we haven’t done our job of oversight is unconscionable.
How about legislation making earmarks illegal? How about disbanding the DEA and the ATF and then looking at every other alphabet soup agency and making deep cuts? How about returning some of the unconstitutionally owned federal lands to the public? So John McCain is a humble man eh? Then why is he in politics? I would love to hear an honest answer to that question. We need less government, not more. The Republican party is utterly clueless when it understanding that government in this country is so large that it now creates more problems than it solves.
Until the idea of federal shrinkage is part of the basic agenda and platform of a major party, this country will continue a downhill slide in the areas of morality, personal responsibility, economics, education and quality of life. Many readers will try to argue that all these things or at least some of them are improving but I would beg to differ. I’m guessing kids growing up in the 50’s and 60’s had a lot more quality of life than the fat little shits I see waddling around now. Those blubbertubs are the creation of the federal behemoth that has been steering us since World War II began. They’ve been taught that they can have whatever they want, whenever they want and that someone else will pay for it. Thank you Republicans, for being a part of the problem.
I’ve wanted to post this video of DEA agent Lee Paige shooting himself in front of a classroom full of students for years. However, I haven’t had the time until now. Enjoy!
Once you are done laughing at the video, head over to The Smoking Gun (irony) and read about Mr. Paige’s lawsuit against the government for leaking the video. Encouraging a mentality like Mr. Paige’s - one where you can be a complete dumbass and get paid money for it - is a major factor in the degradation of the quality of life in America.
Are you really that weak Mr. Paige? You pulled a dumbass move by shooting yourself on video camera and now you want it buried? Own up, man up, toughen up. You’re supposed to be acting like a grown up. Have you learned anything from your dumb mistake? Why do you still have a job protecting Americans from themselves in the biggest nanny organization in a nation of whining babies? You’ve proved you can’t handle the responsibility.
Sign up for a monastery somewhere and take a few years to discover what true character is. Come on back, watch the video with the rest of us and then prove you’ve changed for the better. Grow up Lee Paige. A real professional would never make a statement like “I am the only one in this room professional enough to . . . (insert whatever here)” - that’s a sign of arrogance not professionalism.
