No Paine, No Gain

"If you can keep you head when those about you are losing theirs, perhaps you've misunderstood the situation."

Gyles Brandreth, The Joy of Lex.

"These are times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but the man who stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we all have this consolation with us: that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we attain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives every thing its value...."

Thomas Paine, The Crisis.

I read an uncritical biography of Paine earlier today, one that I feel does the man a disservice by edging toward hagiography rather than toward honest reporting. I can admire and respect people I don't like. I admire and respect Cromwell, warts and all, even though he is, to my mind, a mostly repulsive person. Maybe it's the Puritain in me that makes me think that my fellows and I are not perfect, that we are indeed not very good, and highly unlikely to be much better than we are even if we improve ourselves throughout our lives. I expect that people will examine their lives and try to do at least better if not good. I don't expect perfection. I get nervous when I encounter the highest of utopian visions of Man. I like people, and very much so, but I don't hold out hopes of perfection. I admire Thomas Paine, but the man is not perfect.

I live for now at least in a foreign nation. It's foreign in more ways than are many other nations, this being a nation of dhimmi Left fascists who drive me nuts. But the average normal Canadian is slowly changing from a 60's utopian phantasy view of Humanity to something more reasonable and settled in reality. Recently one of the local political leaders here claimed that some people are "mentally ill." A month ago that man might well have been arrested for hate speech if he'd made that statement in public. Now things are changing, and rapidly so. People are starting to shed the idiocies of decades of social engineering for common sense. Crazy people are mentally ill now, and again. At last. Perhaps the time has come to finally bury the long dead R.D. Laing. Nutters are not sane people living in an insane society. they are nuts. Common sense, regardless of Karl Menninger's opinions and ph. d. Canada becomes less foreign as the days go by.

We face some major house-cleaning in our nations. We have to begin with our minds, washing them clean of decades of encrustation and ideology dropped down upon us from above. The layers of crud are starting to peal off already; but there is much to do yet. We can start by admitting that not only are crazy people mentally ill, we can say too that Islam is a dangerous poligion, a violence-driven pseudo-religion from the early Middle Ages that is unreformed and repuslive without redemption. And we can turn to our equally disgusting Left dhimmi fascists and see them as they objectively are-- and call them such as they are. No more advertising slogans to describe our world. Reality is far preferable, even if it's not as pretty as the lies we put up with for so long. The nation seems to be coming clean at last.

Some things are crazy, not just people but whole societies. Our local politician got away with calling nutters mental patients-- in public. We can follow his lead. This is one very scary idea, one I find myself shocked by, that we can follow the honest speech of a local politician. Yes, we can be as honest in public as a local politician!

Muslims are dangerous because they follow an evil poligion. If we're not in a panic, we must be crazy.

My personal life sucks, if the truth be known. It's not because I lack civil rights. I'm not no victim of society. Tax-payers in this nation are victims of society, but I mean something different. None of us really lacks civil rights here. No, not even Muslims. Civil rights suck. What we need and should be demanding from our governors is a restoration of our personal rights. My personal life sucks, not because of society or even because of my restricted personal rights. My personal life sucks because I don't have a free society of free fellows to live among. If you live in fear of jihadis and the p.c. thought police, then of course my life sucks because you're not able to be the person you truly are, and I can't meet you as you are, less than perfect thing you might be. I wouldn't like you at all if you were perfect. Civil rights are messing up my life by attempting to perfect society and the people who live within it. It's time to say this is mental.

We face a long and bloody war against an out-of-control world of savages who are emboldened by our timidity and "self-inflicted wounds." There's a real chance that now and for long years to come we will have to wage ruthless war on primitives who are out of their minds and violent. We in the modern West let it happen. It's probably not the fault of the average savage that we must soon destroy him and his rotten society. The only worthwhile question now is which side we will take in the coming struggle for common sense and common Human decency. We face a great struggle, one filled with the potential for heroism and glory. It won't be easy to win. Most people will try to avoid anything to do with it. But some of you will take your rightful part. I ask you to join us in our discusssions at the library on Thursday evenings so we can try to catch up with a local politician's honesty. You don't have to be a perfect person to join us, and we aren't expecting to come up with perfect solutions to our struggle. Just come and join us in our discussion of the possible. There's a price to pay for this, and perhaps a dear one; but if you won't consider paying it, then your children will have to pay it for you, and they might have to pay with their lives. That would be what we here in Vancouver, Canada now refer to as mental illness.

Thursday, VPL, 7-9:00 pm, atrium near Blenz Coffee bar. See you there.