Carl Mumpower

[Carl Mumpower @drmumpower]

@RealJamesWoods Charms...

[Carl Mumpower @drmumpower]

IS SOCIALISM BETTER THAN CAPITALISM?

MOUNTAINX DEBATE SERIES

On the right - Carl Mumpower:

Previously, my colleague has suggested socialism and capitalism are so culturally intertwined as to defy differentiation.

I agree but see the difficulty as more about corruption than dictionary conflict.

In Asheville, as surely as nationally, we deceptively practice hybrid crony-capitalism that panders to special interests, selectively doles out entitlements, manipulates tax policy, recycles budgetary pretense and cheers the seductive promise of something for nothing.

Done correctly, capitalism and socialism function as differently as a beer and a joint.

Capitalism’s prudent benevolence is a beer. You don’t get drunk on a beer.

Socialism’s pretend altruism is weed. You get high every time you fire one up.

The core premises of authentic free enterprise are equitable rules, competition and liberated productive enterprise as a viable path to broader prosperity. History repeatedly proves that it works. The evidence is affirmed by America’s remarkable history of economic achievement.

The core premises of socialism are selective rules, collectivism and controlled enterprise as an imagined path to prosperity. History repeatedly proves that it doesn’t work.

That assertion was personally affirmed by a Cuba trip some 20 years ago with my then-teenage son. We traveled to explore the realities of socialism. The poverty, decay, armed guards on corners, protein-deprived population and cattle car transportation system taught him far more than the pretensive bias of his public education.

Yes, Asheville, the theory of socialism — let’s all work together — sounds great.

I’d even wager that in the end, this attractive con is going to prevail.

Unfortunately, we will thus collide with an inevitable fatal flaw in this system — selfishness.

People dependably like less work over more work; security over liberty; rules for the other guy; and generosity toward our fellow man only after our own fickle needs are met.

Contrastingly, free enterprise taps into our innate self-interest with a viable success equation — Liberty + Opportunity + Responsibility = Prosperity.

Consider the four kinds of people populating our world: chickens, chickens acting like eagles, eagles acting like chickens, and eagles.

The first group lives within a fence, stuck in a pecking order, while desperately seeking sustenance amid the funkiness. The second group poses and postures, but its members are similarly confined. The third is afraid, confused and/or paralyzed. The fourth group embraces the courage and discipline necessary to reach one’s fuller potential.

Socialism offers false promises to the first three groups, while constraining them within a fence perfected and violently maintained by lavish-living leadership.

Capitalism offers opportunity for all four groups to reach high and fly out of the script Henry David Thoreau highlighted in suggesting most of us “lead lives of quiet desperation.”

Watch the growing bedlam coming out of Asheville’s governing Council of crony-socialists for a front-row seat on collectivism’s fabricated fantasies. For magnification, revisit your latest property tax appraisal.

More directly, witness the historic ruthlessness of despotic socialist leaders once they manipulate their way into controlling us chickens.

Chicken processors and socialistic regimes share common enthusiasms.

“I was guilty of judging capitalism by its operations and socialism by its hopes and aspirations; capitalism by its works and socialism by its literature.” — Sidney Hook

://mountainx.com/opinion/commentary/is-socialism-or-capitalism-better-for-wnc-i-beg-to-differ/

[Carl Mumpower @drmumpower]

One Minute Psychologist #175 — SCIENCE IS SCIENCE?

Real science is rigorous – never lazy...

One of the vulnerabilities of social media is constant exposure to “scientific” information posted as fact. It is wise to be very careful – not the same as cynical – about most of those claims. The notion of “science” has been stretched – politically, economically, scholastically, and emotionally – so as to sometimes be undisguisable from propaganda, manipulation, and self-service. A quick glance at the heart of the authentic scientific model finds three truisms — real science is (1) observable (2) measurable and (3) repeatable. Take any one of these away, and you may or may not have something that is true and good, but you most certainly do not have something that is scientific. That is because real science is rigorous. It is never lazy. Real science does not take shortcuts, attempt to artificially prove something, or make assumptions to suit a preconceived narrative. Unfortunately, in today’s world, the frequency with which we do these things in the name of science has reached epidemic proportions. That is certainly the case on social media – “eat 2 ounces of hay a day and you will loose 20 pounds within 20 days” – but it has also become true within the “scientific” community. How many times have you been told that this thing is the best thing, and then some years later, been told the opposite? Take the food pyramid. For years we were told that carbs and grains were the foundation of a good diet – that chart has now been flipped. What to believe? May I suggest that at this unstable juncture in our culture, resist the temptation to believe anything that you have not made a reasonable attempt to validate through trusted sources. Yes, I know, that word trust is glitchy. Avoid confusing trust with certainty and perfection. Nothing of the hand of man is either of those things, but good people doing good things try. The success with which we have been broadly conned by “scientific” claims with food, covid, climate, medications, gender confusion, and marijuana broadly demonstrate that a scientific thinker winks at his own vanity before he gets to work...

“Science has made us gods even before we are worthy of being men.” — Jean Rostand

[Carl Mumpower @drmumpower]

One Minute Psychologist #174 — DOING BAD WITH BAD?

Key components of an endless trauma loop...

Sometimes it seems that there is something bad lurking behind every bush just waiting to leap out and grab us. Fortunately, the opposite is true – the good in life far outweighs the bad. Most bushes conceal nothing but air and more bushes. But for the same reason we react negatively to 0 degrees or 100 degrees and quietly take 70 degrees for granted, bad stuff is just naturally more able to capture our attention. Well, if the bad stuff is in a minority, why do we not learn to avoid overreacting, count our blessings, and move on? The answer circles back to the fact that bad stuff hurts and good stuff does not. The dog that bites you will get your attention far more than the dog that licks you. It is quite natural that our antenna be geared to bad over good. But there is a problem with that. That radar operates more out of fear and worry than bravery and liberation. Fear and worry are two of the most addictive behaviors known to man. There is a reason these partners are the most referenced “sins” in the Bible (365 times). They take us away from God’s will and our best interests. Yet, if you ask the average person, they will tell you that fear and worry, though unpleasant, is natural. That may be true, but cancer, heart attacks, and diarrhea are natural too. That does not mean we should not attempt to avoid them. Here is the bottom line. Most of us create our own stress loop by licensing to0 much fear and worry. In turn, that fear and worry leads to more bad stuff in the form of depression, anxiety, addiction, exhaustion, anger, and other miseries. We can thereby become our own source of bad on top of bad. If the truth be known, that is true more often than not. Breaking that pattern requires we limit how much we punch our fear and worry buttons. How to do that is a skill, but we will save that minute for another day. Until then, start working to not make the bad that you run into worse by adding your own bad through unleashed fear and worry. Fear and worry are the foundation of most trauma loops...

“FEAR has two meanings: Forget Everything And Run —
Face Everything And Rise.” — Unknown

[Carl Mumpower @drmumpower]

The Candid Conservative – Carl Mumpower
TWO THINGS THAT WILL GET YOU THROUGH...
“You will never always be motivated, so you must learn to be disciplined.” — Shubham Shrivastava
Though it is popular to suggest otherwise, we do not live in bad times. Things – in many, many ways – are better than they ever have been.
Yes, I know. It’s fun to reminisce about the good old days when mothers could stay home; the average family could afford a home; T-Bones were $.99 a pound; cars cost $2,000; and Bonanza, The Andy Griffin Show, and Walt Disney World graced our TV sets.
All that is true and all that was special.
What those evocative reflections don’t take into consideration is that in the sixties, $125 a week was considered a middle-class living and that $125 left little room for T-Bones except for special occasions.
In my home, like most homes in WNC, we ate meat at dinner 3 or 4 days a week, and most of that meat was chicken. Pinto beans, cornbread, onions, and fried potatoes grounded dinner more often than not.
Desert was something for Sunday and birthdays.
I didn’t even know what a casserole was until the first time a big spoonful of one was alarmingly slopped onto my tray in a chow hall.
If it hadn’t been for the all-I-could-drink $.99 a gallon milk my blessed step-mother bought for me to consume every other day, I don’t think my bones would have formed.
I distinctly remember having two pairs of jeans and two shirts in high school.
That earlier mentioned anything-but-wicked step-mother would starch the button-down shirts popular at the time, but I had to handwash the jeans.
I couldn’t count the times I did a tinman-like walk to the bus with wintery frozen-stiff jeans that had failed to dry the night before.
The consequential rheumatism my grandmother swore would result has yet to materialize.
The fact is what’s been lost in the transition from yesterday to today is not prosperity, it’s truth and responsibility.
We spend far less of our income on housing, food, clothing, and other necessities today than we once did.
Today, eating out is taken for granted. Then eating out – especially for a family – was about as rare as a bigfoot sighting.
And where did a family go on bigfoot days? McDonald’s of course, for a $.15 burger, $.10 fry, and $.10 soda.
If you’ve heard that back in the day Ronald insisted on fresh-cut potatoes and beef tallow for his fries, you’ve heard right.
Today, Mickey-D’s fries are frozen concoctions cooked by chemistry insuring a “down in the floorboard” half-life that will outlive your car’s transmission.
Pass through any poor neighborhood in Asheville – and there are proportionately very few – and you’ll find that almost every domicile has cable, wide-screen TV’s, a car, plenty of food, and enough computer and cellphone power to have taken our astronauts to the moon.
In our public schools, breakfast and lunch are free for anyone who requests it.
We do an excellent job filling our students with sugary-fattening food, but filling their brains with knowledge has been replaced with filling them with political correctness.
When kids are stuck on race and gender fascinations and cannot do basic math, visualize a world map, or write a legible term paper, it’s fair to assume something is getting missed today that was not missed in the past.
And so it is with life in general. Every generation has things that are good and things that are bad.
The greatest generation that reached their productive peak in the sixties, but had to endure WWII and the cold war that followed as a counter to their blessings.
Though very few young people realize it, we live in a time of amazing material plenty ironically countered by a deficit of societal and moral bounty.
We have become so dedicated to social justice for one “victimized” special interest group or another, that the ideas of unity, love of country, and normalized values have been broadly tossed.
When a large swath of our populace celebrates the college campus murder of a respect-driven, courageous, free-speech role-model in front of his family, we know that the idea of social justice has been distorted into something that is anything but social and about anything but justice.
The suggestion there is something missing today is absolutely correct.
We’ve abandoned the pillars of any sustainable civil society found in truth and responsibility.
Today, almost everything we see is grounded in deception. The rot in our systems of education, justice, finance, governance, and faith is covered in sexy paper mâché happy faces that dependably prioritize public relations over public service.
Truth and responsibility have fallen way down our list of priorities in deference to pleasure, comfort, imagery, and group-think.
When these two things are removed from any life equation, nothing works for long – absolutely nothing.
For those looking for a hopeful way to navigate today’s confusing, chaotic, dishonest, and corrupted world, grab hold of the dated notions of truth and personal responsibility.
Do those two, and you will be able to face what comes...
Conserve [v. kuhn-surv] To use or manage wisely; preserve; save...

[Carl Mumpower @drmumpower]

The Candid Conservative – Carl Mumpower

OBSTACLES AHEAD...

“Civilization is like a thin layer of ice upon a deep ocean of chaos and darkness.” — Werner Herzog

Don’t look now, but the world as you know it is in trouble.

That’s not me holding up an ‘end of the world’ poster.

It’s me watching historical patterns; reading the thoughts of people much smarter than me; and absorbing news from anything but our corrupted US mainstream news media.

Here are a few things to keep your eyes on—

Consuming versus saving— We are officially a debtor nation. From the top of our government down to those stumbling around our streets, we’ve become dependent on the grace of others to get by. Fully half of Americans live from paycheck to paycheck. The only ones not in harm’s way are a thousand or so parasitic billionaires who figured out a way to herd America’s middle-class into a debt corral. Ask a cow if corrals are sanctuaries.

Toying with a wounded bear— Russia lost 35,000,000 people during WWII. That’s a generations-long impact that makes our finding the magic place between surrender and drum beating doubly important. We haven’t even tried. Putin is not our friend – he doesn’t need to be – but NATO’s decades long antagonism toward Rusia has been remarkably short-sighted.

Ignoring China, Inc— For too long we have let the CCP get away with social, economic, and literal murder. Each time we responded passively, they took it as a license to fast-track. They’ve now accelerated to a point they cannot recover. War will be a temptation that their battered leadership will be hard placed to resist as a way out of economic failure and leadership shame.

Liberal, progressive, socialist, Democrats— The political party zombifying half of our population has lost its mind. Witness AOC and Bernie as millionaires. Witness the party that stole the presidential nomination for a lady actress with a track record so punctuated with narcissistic missteps that she deserves a TV series. Witness dedications like defunding our police, trans-gendering our children, removing our borders, making people dependent on government, the pursuit of endless wars marketed as nation building, and the wholesale slaughter of the unborn. The party of the working man has evolved into the party of the crazy man.

Invasion as compared to immigration— For fifty plus years we’ve betrayed measured migration coached in citizenship and assimilation for invasion defined by chaos and law and order breakdown. Lazy politicians, corrupt Chambers of Commerce, and unscrupulous employers have led us to a state of social chaos where people running from their own country’s dysfunction are duplicating those messes in our country.

Islam­­ophobics— Yes, that’s me. Not because I dislike Muslims, but because these folks cannot get along with anyone – including one another. This is not a faith of peace. Watch our Muslim members of congress – Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, André Carson, and Lateefah Simon – and witness their ‘my way or the highway’ approach to diversity of belief. Watch any Muslim theocracy and their violent reaction to liberty.

Language as a weapon of social conquest— The Southern Poverty Law Center’s title sounds reasonable – but not if you’re into adult behavior. It’s a cover for an ultra-liberal public policy group with the diversity of thought found in a brick. It’s that way with most everything on the left. Whatever they call their latest gig, you can bet it’s focused on just the opposite. Planned Parenthood is the violent enemy of parenthood.

Antifa Mischiefa— This has got to be the most confused bunch of misfits on the planet. I admire their creativity and enthusiasm, but their lazy approach to change, relentless anger, and destructive appetites reveal moral bankrupcy. Sorry guys, gals, and others in umbrellaed black, it’s not possible to do good things through bad means.

Drugs-R-Us— We live in a nation that doesn’t know how to have fun, build a life, or be happy in their own skin without being intoxicated. Getting high means you are pursuing an alternate reality. In the meantime, the real one is carrying on without you. That’s not a good thing. Cultures indifferent to reality get clobbered by reality.

Morality matters— Our country’s moral code has slipped almost as much as our state of dress and maturity. People of compassion and character have never been in a majority, but when these traits fade, bad things happen. The American success equation cannot survive without a bedrock of morals. Ours was birthed out of Christianity. Lying, cheating, laziness, anger, violence, greed, addiction, selfishness, and obsession with sex have nothing to do with that faith.

In truth, no one knows our future.

But it can be said with confidence that we’re going to experience some serious moments ahead. There’s too much national and personal debt; too little accountability; and too many enemies to dodge.

Solutions? Be a good guy/gal; think about ways to feed, protect, and otherwise care for your loved ones; get out of debt; invest in your faith foundation; and definitely don’t depend on government to save you.

Encounters with reliable authority are about as frequent as meets with Big Foot, negative drug screens, and honest liberal politicians.

Conserve [v. kuhn-surv] To use or manage wisely; preserve; save...

[Carl Mumpower @drmumpower]

@JoelWBerry Judging by the shrill vs. measured outrage, you seem to be correct.

[Carl Mumpower @drmumpower]

One Minute Psychologist #76 — KILLING YOUR HEALTH?

“Worry, negativity, anger, guilt, and control...”

Just in case you have not picked up on the trend, America’s health is in marked decline. Though modern medicine is doing some great things, the pretense that intervention can compensate for a dramatic indifference to prevention, is a grave error in public and personal policy. For the same reason that changing your car’s oil is starkly preferable to changing a worn-out motor, preventive maintenance on the human mind, heart, body, and soul is a smart mission. You know the drill – exercise, eat decently, get sleep, and otherwise take time and energy to patrol your health. But from a psychological point of view, there is a special thing you can do that can make a substantial difference in your physical health – watch out for what I like to call The Big Five. There are five behaviors – worry, negativity, anger, guilt, and control – that will literally kill you. They do that by wearing out or otherwise triggering your auto-immune system; feeding the things that cause cancer; overloading your cardio-vascular system; stealing your sleep and the reset that comes with it; and increasing your misery factors to the point you can become reckless and open to giving up. Might it help to quickly summarize The Big Five? Worry is a form of circular thinking that leaves you feeling powerless and stuck. Negativity is an over focus on what is wrong that tends to crowd out gratitude for what is right. Anger is a form of emotional drunkenness used to conceal fear, hurt and other vulnerable emotions. Guilt is a refusal to accept mistakes, learn from them, forgive, and move on. Control is the need to spend more time micro-managing the world than yourself. Put the five together, and you have a deadly cocktail that can steal your joy and wreck your health. Anyone not believing that how you approach the psychology of living impacts your physical health, needs to spend a little time perusing the research. It is consistent. How you live sets the stage for how long you live and how well you live. Watch out for The Big Five. They like to hide under your radar...

“We forget very easily what gives us pain.”
– Graham Greene

[Carl Mumpower @drmumpower]

One Minute Psychologist #75 — MEMORY LOSS?

“Feeling fuggy and fozzy...”

It has been three years since I was hospitalized for covid. As groundwork for the subject of memory, I was there ten weeks; spent five on a trach/ventilator; lost sixty pounds; and misplaced my ability to walk, eat, or even sit. Recovery was and is a booger. My lungs were scarred; my ability to run (exercise of choice) dramatically impaired; and my overall state of health significantly assaulted. I continue to marvel at how our government, scientists, medical community, and pharmaceutical companies rallied so decisively (and inaccurately) to the Covid crisis, and yet have absolutely no answers for the millions since stuck in long-covid purgatory. One stellar symptom example being the much-touted impairment called ‘brain fog.’ Thought and memory issues are certainly not limited to covid recoverers. This is a top five concern of the over-fifty crowd and a growing apprehension with younger people as well. My favorite post-covid moment on memory loss was when asked how I was doing and responding with, “I feel fuggy and fozzy.” That’s a covid-brain’s version of “foggy and fuzzy.” With time and work, my memory has improved back to my normal. Exercise, good food, work, and persistence have helped me rewire what was the functional equivalent of a smashed computer. So, what about your memory issues? May I suggest giving greater attention to the words “clutter” and “inactivity” than dementia, illness, aging, or other sources of reduced mental capacity? If you hear a clomp, clomp, clomp, do you assume it is a horse or a zebra? Clutter and inactivity are the much more common sources of memory impairment. Clutter comes from too much worry, holding on to old guilts and negative memories, and a critical inner voice that loads your brain up with misery. Inactivity is just that – a failure to keep your mind, heart, body, and spirit on the move in order to keep things functional. Tires crack and rot with time if they do not get rolled around. Feeling “fuggy and fozzy?” Ride the horses before you chase the zebras...

“Memory loss is one way of coping with damage.” — Jeanette Winterson

[Carl Mumpower @drmumpower]

THE ONE MINUTE PSYCHOLOGIST #38 — BLAME?
“Discovery is a great beginning to our life journey.”

If you’re into therapy, politics, or mainstream news, there’s a phenomenon to watch out for. When you’re in pain it’s important to find the cause. Care must be taken to not get stuck on the cause and lose touch with the solution. In our zest to help, therapists, newscasters, and activists are particularly vulnerable to this misstep. Example? It’s absolutely appropriate to identify the harmful things your parents might have done to you. And identifying harsh traumas and impacts is certainly smart. If you’re not careful, however, it’s easy to get stuck there and spend the rest of one’s life recycling these miseries in a trauma loop. The Vietnam War ended fifty years ago. I was there during our last year of direct engagement, and find great sorrow in how many of my fellows were harmed by that experience. Among the saddest are those diagnosed with PTSD who’ve spent the rest of their lives recycling that time and not moved forward. Trauma – no matter the source – is not a get-out-of-life-free pass. No matter what one has been through, there’s a call to work through it to something better. Ask the untouchables born in a trash dump in India who have pressed on. Ask the surviving Jews of The Holocaust who didn’t give up there or in the hard years after. Ask the German POW’s in the Soviet Union who struggled through a one-in-ten survival ratio by doing things like filtering feces for undigested grains. Ask the paralyzed, burned, and or catastrophically broken who have prevailed and built on what was left versus mourned what was lost. If you struggle in life – and who doesn’t – do you need to understand the birthplaces of your hardships? Absolutely. But that’s just the beginning. From there you and I are called upon to press through and reach forward to leave a fruitful footprint on the world. Discovery is a great beginning to our life journey – but recovery is the brighter beckoning goal...

“The paradox of trauma is that it has both the power to destroy and the power to propel and resurrect.” — Peter A. Levine

[Carl Mumpower @drmumpower]

@Sassafrass_84 Big mistake - your new car will reveal why sooner than you might imagine.

[Carl Mumpower @drmumpower]

@GuntherEagleman @AdamSchiff Sad, addicted, lost?

[Carl Mumpower @drmumpower]

THE ONE MINUTE PSYCHOLOGIST #31 — IS IT REALLY MENTAL ILLNESS?

“Everything you think, do and say, is in the pill you took today.”

Psychological health – or the absence of such – is all the rage these days. When I first began practicing, people were generally embarrassed by the need for mental health intervention. That wasn’t good, but now it seems to have swung to another extreme as a ‘get-out-of-responsibility free’ sanctuary. The numbers of people receiving psychoactive medications and/or psychotherapy are off the charts. There is great irony in the Zager and Evans song ‘In the Year 2525’ and the lyrics, “Everything you think, do and say, is in the pill you took today.” They predicted the trend, but severely overestimated the timing. What’s the problem? Well, almost every mental health drug and most therapy practiced is designed to do one thing – make you feel better. Unfortunately, life is not grounded on what you feel – it’s built on what you do. Anything that makes you feel better without having to actually do better is an individualized doomsday machine setting you up for failure. You have to do good to feel good and feeling bad is what helps you figure out that we need to stop doing bad. Numbing your feelings or artificially indulging them can impair vs. uplift. Which brings us to an important point. It would be a personal observation that most mental health problems are actually unaddressed maturity problems allowed to morph into something worse. What can you do? If you’re feeling bad, start by listening to your heart head, heart, body and spirit. What are they telling you? Do you need to grow? Do you need to learn something? Do you need to make a lifestyle change? Do you need to find a way out of a toxic relationship? Do you need to look up? Sometimes medications and supportive therapy are necessary and can reduce symptoms to a point you might be better able to take action. Use them to avoid action, and you’ll land on a mental health merry-go-round from which there’s no easy exit…

“I was terrified when my doctor told me that I had a unique and interesting personality trait, but then he told me about Zoloft or Prozac and now I just take three pills a day and I blend right into this horrible inbred corporate landscape.” — Doug Stanhope

[Carl Mumpower @drmumpower]

@JDVanceNewsX No - at least not without mature conditions.

[Carl Mumpower @drmumpower]

We https://t.co/kDHRjbs70r

[Carl Mumpower @drmumpower]

https://t.co/4DYgA4bKCj

[Carl Mumpower @drmumpower]

https://t.co/8231TuhMaX