Alan Watts - Consciousness, Existence, and Our Everyday Being...

 When fascism came to America it came clutching a bible and waving the flag.  On January 20, 2025.


When you run after your thoughts, you are like a dog chasing a stick: every time a stick is thrown, you run after it. Instead, be like a lion who, rather than chasing after the stick, turns to face the thrower. One only throws a stick at a lion once.

Milarepa 

“Just as it is k na nown that an image of one's face is seen depending on a mirror but does not really exist as a face, so the conception of "I" exist dependent on mind and body, but like the image of a face the "I" does not at all exist as its own reality."   Nagarjuna

"Thanks to impermanence, everything is possible.  Nagarjuna


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And The Carnage Continues...

The Left LOVES machineguns –– in the hands of terrorists, dissidents, pirates, thieves, and marauders of all kinds –– ANYONE who UPENDS GOOD ORDER and DESTABILIZES the STATUS QUO –– , but absolutely CAN'T STAND the idea that any decent, law-abiding Americn Citizen should have guns in his home to PROTECT HIMSELF and HIS FAMILY from ATTACK by those very fiends whom the Left so ADORES. FreeThinke 2/15/18 Yesterday another mass shooting occurred at a Broward County Florida High School. 17 studends lay dead, senselessly cut down before they had an opportunity to fulfill their promise, start a family, enjoy life, and grow old. America, alledgedly the greatest nation on earth also has approximately 350 million guns in circulation. Not surprising, the death rate due to firearms in the U.S. is nearly double the global average . In the aftermath of each and every terrible gun related tragedy the nation grieves, politicians offer their heartfelt condolences, then politicians debate the ...
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Illinois Democrats Move To Tighten Firearm Regulation/Restrictions...

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by: Les Carpenter Rational Nation USA Liberty -vs- Tyranny As the country struggles to understand, and come to grips with random acts of firearm violence by unstable and unbalanced individuals Illinois is already taking action to further regulate firearms. Like the millions of law abiding citizens I am torn between the right to bear firearms and finding the point at which it makes logical sense to restrict that right. In a modern society in which the tools of warfare are advanced beyond what the founders could possibly have envisioned, and the efficiency of modern armies are such that the citizens would stand no reasonable chance against the modern army, does the possession of semiautomatic assault weapons have any real purpose for the homeowner and sportsman? If deemed they do should they not be highly regulated and restricted to HELP reduce the incidents of tragedies like Sandy Hook? I certainly do not have the answers, nor do I believe the anti-gun crowd has the answers eith...
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Scalise - Face of the GOP?...

Rational Nation USA Purveyor of Truth Is this what the party of Lincoln has turned into? WASHINGTON — Speaker John A. Boehner on Tuesday expressed “full confidence” in Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the No. 3 Republican leader in the House, as he sought to quell a racially charged controversy shaking the party after Mr. Scalise confirmed that he had addressed a white supremacist group a dozen years ago. Mr. Boehner’s statement of support was his first public comment since the news broke on Monday night, a period filled with calls from some Republican and conservative commentators, as well as Democrats, for Republican leaders to shove Mr. Scalise from the leadership post. The flap roiled Republicans just as they were poised for a celebratory takeover of Congress when the new session opens next week. “More than a decade ago, Representative Scalise made an error in judgment, and he was right to acknowledge it was wrong and inappropriate,” Mr. Boehner said. “Like many...
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A Scientific and Rational Perspective......

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The conflicts between religion and science have existed and been well studied for generations, yet many people deny they exist at all. As someone who studied religion in college, I’ve seen both sides of this. On one hand, it’s true that many people apply religion and science in different ways, meaning they don’t always conflict. But on another hand — a much bigger hand — it’s impossible to ignore the war that has been waged between science and religion throughout human history. Jerry Coyne , who literally wrote the book on this subject in Faith Versus Fact: Why Science and Religion Are Incompatible , has a piece up at the Conversation pointing out how science and religion actually “represent incompatible ways of viewing the world.” In contrast to the methods of science, religion adjudicates truth not empirically, but via dogma, scripture and authority — in other words, through faith, defined in Hebrews 11 as “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of thi...
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Recommended Reading, Thomas Piketty’s best-selling new book, “Capital in the Twenty-First Century”...

From: Les Carpenter Rational Nation USA Purveyor of Truth Time to shed the right -vs- left, socialism -vs- capitalism hyperbole and purchase Thomas Piketty's new book " Capital in the Twenty-First Century. " PARIS — Thomas Piketty turned 18 in 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell, so he was spared the tortured, decades-long French intellectual debate about the virtues and vices of communism. Even more telling, he remembers, was a trip he took with a close friend to Romania in early 1990, after the collapse of the Soviet empire. “This sort of vaccinated me for life against lazy, anticapitalist rhetoric, because when you see these empty shops, you see these people queuing for nothing in the street,” he said, “it became clear to me that we need private property and market institutions, not just for economic efficiency but for personal freedom.” (emphasis mine) But his disenchantment with communism doesn’t mean that Mr. Piketty has turned his back on the intellectual ...
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Something To Consider Before Casting Your Ballot...

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by: Les Carpenter Rational Nation USA Liberty -vs- Tyranny It appears, at least to David Wasserman anyway, the House of Representatives will remain in republican control. It is possible republicans could actually gain seats in the House. This of course either a good or a bad scenario, depending on how you view good or bad. It depends actually on whether or not President Obama is reelected. If he is we can almost be assured, based on his prior four years serving as President, of continued partisan gridlock. Assuming the Senate remains in democratic control of course, which it no doubt will. On the other hand if Mittens is elected the chances of actually getting anything done increases. Why? Simply because Romney, governing in a overwhelming democratic state ( MA ) had to take a bipartisanship stance. Everything else aside, Romney knows how to work across the partisan aisle. The Weekly Standard - Democratic hopes of capturing the House next Tuesday are long gone. And Democ...
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Spoken Like a True Dyed In the Blue Statist...

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by: Les Carpenter Rational Nation U S A Purveyor of Truth Ever hear of or read Mother Jones ? Well I just did, and as near as I can figure she must be Woodrow Wilson's or Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Mother. I say this because she sure as hell is pro statist and pumped up for growing the government bureaucracy. The article is short so it is being reproduced here in full. This site appreciates Mother Jones candor in expressing the statist credo and the desire on the part of the left for an ever larger and more intrusive presence in our daily affairs and lives. January's job numbers were fairly dismal, but the bad cheer wasn't equally spread. Private sector employment, as usual, increased—by 142,000 jobs last month. At the same time, public sector employment declined. Government employment at all levels was down 29,000 in January. Aside from the brief census blip in early 2010, this has been the usual state of affairs for the past four years, ever since the rece...
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Politics, Fake News, and Noise...

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Every so often it is necessary to turn off the noise, step back, take a long breather, and put all things in proper perspective. If El Donaldo has done anything of value since his inauguration it is that he has shown the rest of the world, and some in America, what a red, white, and blue jackass looks like. For this I thank him, tenfold times over. The offshoot of this, at least for now anyway, is that this weblog is dropping out. Turning to things that will provide a positive healthful physical and mental environment, one that politics, the media, and the continual left-right struggle for total power only destroys. Be well. Perhaps someday, after El Donaldo and company have disappeared from the scene, we'll return. Until then: “What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.”   T.S. Eliot
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Are We Americans Capable of Entering Into Rational, Honest, and Productive Discusion Over Sensitive Matters?...

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SCOTUS Affirms Marriage Equality...

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Rational Nation U S A Purveyor of Truth We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. From Declaration of Independence Preamble We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. Preamble... United States Constitution Yuppers, the majority decision legalizing marriage equality stands on firm ground . Further, a majority of Americans now accept (and or approve of) marriage equality . Following is a roundup of articles: Gay Marriage Backers Win Supreme Court Victory Huckabee blasts SCOTUS "I will not acquiesce to an imperial court...
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