Kort Explores conundrums of the human condition

The Source Of Prosperity

There seems to be growing confusion as to the real source of prosperity. The mass media is full of stories about how the White House and Congress are heroically struggling to stimulate the economy with vast government spending programs. We're also told of the need for ever more controls and regulations to keep greedy corporations from stealing the prosperity that government programs have worked so hard to create.

The golden age of Moorish Spain, when Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived in peaceful harmony under a Muslim Caliph, has become a favorite reference for those promoting the fiction that Islam is capable of peacefully coexisting with Western Industrial Civilization. However, it seems abundantly clear to me that it was the Caliph's well founded fear of Islam, and his aggressive efforts to protect himself from Islamic factional violence that enabled the golden age of Cordoba, not the claimed "tolerance" of Islam.

The Big Bang initially generated a billion times more matter than exists in our current universe. However, it also generated almost the same amount of antimatter, with the result that nearly all of the matter created by the Big Bang was immediately annihilated by contact with antimatter, releasing a flash of energy as particles removed each other from the universe after a spectacular but exceedingly brief existence.

Imagination: "The power to recombine the materials furnished by experience or memory, for the accomplishment of an elevated purpose; the power of conceiving and expressing the ideal."
Webster, 1913

The "king's men" have gone by many different names down through recorded history: knight, samurai, centurion, sheriff, mob enforcer, crusader, inquisitor, brownshirt, Red Guard, endless variations of government agents - the list goes on and on. While the names have changed over time, variations on the theme of the "king's men" have long performed the same function - enforcing the will of a self-declared ruling elite on a resistant population.

I recently watched a documentary series titled "Hitler's Bodyguard". It detailed the 40+ attempts to assassinate Hitler over 25 years, and the often unlikely circumstances that allowed him to survive in spite of the large numbers of people trying to kill him.

It also provided an interesting insight into why it is so difficult for rational society to deal with sociopathicirrationality.

According to the legacy media, the major parties, and what passes for political humor these days, the solution to any problem is another government program. Unfortunately for the future of our once free society, a lot of those advocating government solutions truly believe that government can actually solve problems.

Most of those around the world who "hate" us don't have any idea who or what they're "hating".

Its popular to beat up on America for the mistakes, failings, and outright incompetent bungling of the CIA and other extralegal agencies of our government. The media is full of claims that the meddling of these agencies, in the name of the citizens of American, is the root source of the hatred of America around the world.

Most of those around the world who "hate America" don't have any idea of who or what they're "hating".

It's become popular to beat up on America for the mistakes, failings, and outright incompetent bungling of the CIA and other extralegal agencies of our government. The media is full of claims that the meddling of these agencies in the name of the citizens of American, is the root source of the hatred of America around the world.

There is a terrible irony in being the winner in war. The awful calculus of war makes it necessary for even the most civilized combatant to employ the short term efficiencies provided by the worst aspects of human nature. After all - isn't the very essence of war a recognition that the brutal efficiency of killing your enemy is a more effective short term means of eliminating opposition than seeking willing cooperation through intellectual appeals to logic and reason?