GutenbergMuses

[GutenbergMuses @GutenbergMuses]

"Knowledge of the historic and philosophical background gives that kind of independence from prejudices of his generation from which most scientists are suffering. 1/

[Arnold Schwarzenegger @Schwarzenegger]

Nope! I always say there is no such thing as self-made. It’s a myth.

It took millions of people - from my parents to mentors to friends to competitors to fans and voters - to write my success story. I did not write it alone.

That’s the American Dream - not a lie about going it alone - but the truth that none of us do, and there is always someone with their hand out to lift us up.

[GutenbergMuses @GutenbergMuses]

@Schwarzenegger And, tellingly in my view, the Founders were thankful for the nation they'd been given.

They realized more thoroughly than large swathes of polite society nowadays do, just how much "given" they'd gotten!

[GutenbergMuses @GutenbergMuses]

@Schwarzenegger If life is a gift then no one can be self-made, leastways not in the sense of needing nothing, or in the sense of not being answerable to anything.

All the gifts from everyone else in our lives point us back to this fact about what life is.

[Cynical Publius @CynicalPublius]

📸JULY 4TH WEEKEND AMERICA 250 PHOTOGRAPHY TIMELINE CLEANSE📸

America the Beautiful!

As many of you know, in addition to prattling on endlessly about politics and the military, I am a passionate landscape and street photographer as well.

I have been so anxious to post my amazing photos from my recent, awesome Norway vacation that I realized--thanks to @monetization_x (who, BTW, is someone you should be following if you want to make money on X)--that I really ought to instead be posting pictures of the beauty of the USA.

Soooo... that's what I'm going to do all weekend. Please keep on the lookout, I will do this every few hours.

Let's start with our nation's Capitol, shall we? That beautiful building deserves beautiful light.

Nikon D300, Nikkor 18-300mm zoom @ 65mm, f/3.5. ISO 400, 1 second, mounted on a tripod whose brand I can't remember.

[The Kids Are Not Alright @HideYourKids0]

It’s worth noting that 1980s-90s South Africa, especially Cape Town, was the hub for the interfaith liberation theological alliance between Muslims and “Christians.”

[Andrew Snyder @Andrewnsnyder]

"The truth, my friends, is that America is exceptional because here, nothing is fixed into place. ... But the work of fulfilling the values first enshrined in the Declaration of Independence — that work endures, and it belongs to us all."

If nothing is fixed in place, why are we appealing to the values of the Declaration of Independence?

If nothing is fixed into place, there are no fixed values.

This kind of philosophy upholds rights for the people like Lucy holds a football for Charlie Brown.

[GutenbergMuses @GutenbergMuses]

@DataRepublican @matt4etc @ImMeme0 Further—

This same stance nasty towards the universal the ‘leftist’ hold… can also be held towards the particular cases as well.

When that happens you get a tyrannical father of a different sort than the absenteeism(?) of the ‘left’.

[GutenbergMuses @GutenbergMuses]

@DataRepublican @matt4etc @ImMeme0 This is the why, so I think, behind the misprioritization.

The loss of Natural Affection we have been warned against.

It’s a very ugly thing to see ‘humanity’ invoked as a shield to faux-justify ‘do as thou wilt’ (‘oh just be kind!’).

[GutenbergMuses @GutenbergMuses]

@peterrhague @cglassey_author Gaslighting

[James Lindsay, anti-Communist @ConceptualJames]

I'm not completely sure, but I think this is just a graph describing gasoline prices. Americans' inability to think long-term or to endure suffering for large-scale strategic objectives for the country is a major liability our enemies realize and know how to exploit, purposely.

[Andrew Snyder @Andrewnsnyder]

Kierkegaard on fatherliness:

“Then you perceived that it is not because you have a father or because human beings have fathers, that it is not for this reason that God is called Father in heaven, but it is as the apostle says - from him all fatherliness in heaven and on earth derives its name. Therefore, even though you had the most loving father given among men, he would still be, despite all his best intentions ... a reflection, a simile, an image, a dark saying about the fatherliness from which all fatherliness in heaven and on earth derives its name” (Strengthening in the Inner Being).

[Andrew Snyder @Andrewnsnyder]

Timid Telemachus is emboldened when Athena reminds him of Odysseus’s legacy and sends him to get news of his father.

Luke becomes a hero by perceiving the reality of his father in the underworld of the Dark Side.

Across the ages, we see versions of this idea again and again.

[James Lindsay, anti-Communist @ConceptualJames]

Woke 2.0 is coming. It's starting already.

Rather than foregrounding identity politics, it will push:

1) Affordability (Marxist materialism);
2) Anti-corruption (ironic but an excuse to go after Trump);
3) Anti-Israel (pro-Palestine).

It will be warm to political violence.

[James Lindsay, anti-Communist @ConceptualJames]

Communism 101:
Betray people and say it was someone else's fault.
Tell them their sense of betrayal is legitimate, then point to the wrong cause so you can keep doing it.
Lenin called this "accelerating the contradictions."

[GutenbergMuses @GutenbergMuses]

@PhilipDBunn @ConceptualJames @megbasham An accurate observation, actually.

Podium pulpiteering is a common social dynamic—naming that dynamic aloud is what is uncommon (weird).

[Frank Turek @DrFrankTurek]

Most people are not on a truth quest. They’re on a happiness quest, whatever is going to make them happy they’re going to believe.

[GutenbergMuses @GutenbergMuses]

@PhilipDBunn @ConceptualJames @megbasham Said like a man who spends too much time talking to people who can't talk back.

[GutenbergMuses @GutenbergMuses]

@ConceptualJames @megbasham Where does the system cease to answer to itself.

I'm inclined to think procedure for its own sake is not any comfort in the long term any more than it is in the short.

[GutenbergMuses @GutenbergMuses]

@ConceptualJames @megbasham But leaning into this and we're left with the fact that evidently we live at the mercy of institutional inertia, stylizing itself as precedent, rather than common sense.

The pundit class might be biased towards trouble, but it isn't just them -- it is the dissenting Justices.