Deep & Meaningful stuff; Barriers of many kinds
From a discussion on a subject like unto one my friends & I have discussed

nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/005515.html
Graydon ::: September 10, 2004, 09:54 PM

Prosperity and civilization *do* manage to obscure some basic truths, the learning of a hard life.

One of the most basic of those truths is this -- you cannot kill fear with an ax. You cannot kill fear at all; fear is a thing in your heart, and if you cut your heart out, you are dead, and the shape of fear is dead with you.
I have said before the that American Radical Christian Right isn't, that they're fundamentally atheistic. One of the great teachings of Christianity is that you do not need to fear. With faith, all things are possible; in the love of God, the just and the pious are sure of their reward.


For people who ought -- in the certainty of their faith, and the power of their conviction -- to have no fear at all, they're creatures chained to terror, a terror of losing money, place, and material power. None of those are of themselves bad things; like all things else, what matters about them is what you do with them.


If you need, to build a cage for fear, to brick up the broken knowledge that money is not the same thing as goodness, to not believe that wealth is neither virtue nor the reward of virtue, that the wonder and the glory that is the material world can be understood and used to change all things for the better, to keep all those things away from the certainties of a distant childhood and the fear of surrendered power -- because, God knows, no one would any sense would trust and surrender power to them, and there are none better than them in all the world -- then you will, in whatever haze of deception, come to prefer to destroy your civilization, rather than endure the change that comes from peace and prosperity and letting everybody get at opportunity.


One of the ways you do this is break the machinery of government; treat the public sphere as a mechanism for mass theft, as a machine for making wealth equivalent to virtue, as a device for oppression -- price supports backed up with military power, that ancient doom of empires. So you remember that repetition creates belief -- it does; the insides of our heads are the lands of magic -- and repeat what you want to be true, because if it isn't, then, well, you're a liar and a coward and a skinflint son-of-a-bitch, a stranger to generosity and hope and courage.


All courage isn't found in the service of arms -- ask anyone who has been honest with their children about something they're not proud of, or who has done the right thing at personal cost -- but, well, look at the Right. Not the followers -- it's a ghastly set of certainties, but people will follow any certainty in which they come to believe -- but the folks out front, burning down the house? ...

The comment under
Randolph Fritz ::: September 10, 2004, 08:03 PM
also reflects something mentioned previously

no investment--not equities (stocks), debt securities (bonds), not cash, not gemstones, not precious metal--is certain. Your IRAs and 401(k) may turn into so much worthless paper. And they all depend on policy to maintain their values. When the SEC stopped doing its job, fraud in the securities markets (Enron!) made many stocks into so much worthless paper. Debt securities depend on the rate of inflation--the inflation that is likely if W. Bush is reelected will devalue them dramatically. Investments in any currency depend on international trade policies; it is likely that the dollar will not be the world standard of value in 20 years and there will be many losers in the resultant capital shifts. Metal and gemstones are only valuable as long as most people hold them; in hard times, many people will try to sell and the value will drop.

It all depends on policy--every penny of it. And, since it does, I think it makes good sense to make policy that protects everyone, rather than the minority of lucky investors.


The odd thing is, I'm sure that you--and just about any savvy investor--is aware of the facts I mentioned above. But, somehow, when it comes time to make policy, many of us forget.

and you'll probably notice that
PiscusFiche ::: September 11, 2004, 11:25
puts an example that follows my argument -- concluding "Times are changing, and the more we cooperate, the more able we are to weather it."

At 12frogs.com
September 12, 2004 The Worst Part Is I Don't Want Help

"I have gone on reading binges of an entire book or more in a day."
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"I have wept, become angry or irrational because of something I read."
"If you answered 'yes' to three or more of these questions, you may be a literature abuser

.
Affirmative responses to five or more indicates a serious problem."

Large Killer Tracheophytes

Silent Killers: The True Story Of Deadly Trees
By Gene Weingarten Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 7, 1998; Page C01
America was stunned this week by the tragic deaths of Michael Kennedy and Sonny Bono, who lost their lives to a silent killer.
Trees. [etc.]

[also see (Hughes, Sylvia; "Antelope Activate the Acacia's Alarm System," New Scientist, p. 19, September 29, 1990.) summarised at . This is only a "killer" because the antelope are artificially confined by humans.]

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www.livejournal.com/users/crevette/113659.html
[WARNING!] Review: Night Travels of the Elven Vampire

(After reading 98 3/4 pages of complete and utter badness) ... This is my favorite half paragraph in the book.

Glowing red eyes looked at her, and she turned her eyes away from the sight of the glowing orbs. Each one stood at least seven feet in height, and must have weighed around six hundred pounds. They were covered in fur, had pointed ears, a snout and large sharp teeth. They stood on legs the size of tree trunks.

As an aside, there is a sequel in the works for this that is going to be rated NC-17. I can tell you right now that if I read any kind of porn written by this woman it will make my genitals shrivel up and retreat into my spleen, and I'll have to just pollinate for the rest of my life.

Now, that might make this somewhat more understandable? Or not?

The Rapture Index
www.raptureready.com/rap2.html

The Rapture Index has two functions: one is to factor together a number of related end time components into a cohesive indicator, and the other is to standardize those components to eliminate the wide variance that currently exists with prophecy reporting.
The Rapture Index is by no means meant to predict the rapture, however, the index is designed to measure the type of activity that could act as a
precursor to the rapture.
You could say the Rapture index is a Dow Jones Industrial Average of end time activity, but I think it would be better if you viewed it as prophetic
speedometer. The higher the number, the faster we're moving towards the occurrence of pre-tribulation rapture.

Rapture Index of 85 and Below: Slow prophetic activity

Rapture Index of 85 to 110: Moderate prophetic activity

Rapture Index of 110 to 145: Heavy prophetic activity

Rapture Index above 145: Fasten your seat belts

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www.raptureready.com/photo/antichrists/rap83i.html

Ummm ... www.ericawebb.com/091601
[permalink][comment] - posted by Mez @ 11/08/2004 01:54:00 am