Freedom is not empowerment. Empowerment is what the Serbs have in Bosnia. Anybody can grab a gun and be empowered. It’s not entitlement. An entitlement is what people on welfare get, and how free are they? It’s not an endlessly expanding list of rights – the “right” to education, the “right” to food and housing. That’s not freedom, that’s dependency. Those aren’t rights, those are the rations of slavery – hay and a barn for human cattle. There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.

-P. J. O'Rourke, as copied from here

Not much improved....................

 

     Technology is fine, but the scientists and engineers only partially think through their problems.  They solve certain aspects but not the total, and as a consequence it is slapping us back in the face very hard.

-Evelyn Fox Keller, A Feeling for the Organism: The Life and Work of Barbara McClintock, 1983

that divine proposition.....................

 

     Is the idea of man as an image of God not utterly preposterous?  How could flawed man, even the lowliest man or woman, possess a direct relationship to the divine?  Man, with his propensity for decrepitude, suffering, and death; his self-evident insignificance contrasted with nature and the cosmos; the brevity of his life—why attribute value to something so fleeting in its existence and contemptible in its inadequacy?  But, in the absence of that divine proposition, where would we be? . . . How could we possible manage without the tradition of inalienable rights and intrinsic individual responsibility that is the logical consequence of that axiomatic proclamation of our sacred worth?

-Jordan B. Peterson, We Who Wrestle with God: Perceptions of the Divine

sooner or later......................

 

Sooner or later we all sit down to a banquet of consequences.

-Robert Louis Stevenson, from here

spare......................

 

      There's an elephant in the room here that can't be tidied away, of course, which is that the consequences of any given choice might be vastly more sever for some people than for others. . . . But for most of us, if we're being honest with ourselves, the temptation is often to exaggerate the potential consequences, so as to spare ourselves of making a bold choice.

-Oliver Burkeman, Meditations for Mortals

trade-offs.....................................

 

       Whatever choice you make, so long as you make it in the spirit of facing the consequences, the result will be freedom in the only sense that finite humans ever get to enjoy it.  Not freedom from limitation, which is something we unfortunately never get to experience, but freedom in limitation.  Freedom to examine the trade-offs—because there will always be trade-offs—and then to opt for whichever trade-off you like.

-Oliver Burkeman, Meditations for Mortals

consequences..................

 

You are free to do whatever you like.  You need only face the consequences.

-Sheldon B. Kopp

being finite.....................

 

Consequences aren't optional.  It's in the nature of being finite that every choice comes with some sort of consequences, because at any instant, you can only pick one path, and must deal with the repercussions of not picking any of the others.

-Oliver Burkeman, Meditations for Mortals:  Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts

logical consequences...........

      

     Is the idea of man as an image of God not utterly preposterous?  How could flawed man, even the lowliest man or woman, possess a direct relationship to the divine? . . . But in the absence of that divine proposition, where would we be? . . . How could we possible manage without the tradition of inalienable rights and intrinsic individual responsibility that is the logical consequence of that axiomatic proclamation of our sacred worth?

-Jordan B. Peterson, We Who Wrestle with God: Perceptions of the Divine

engagement..................

 

Anything that lets us see a clear connection between effort and consequences—and that helps us feel in control of a challenging situation—is a kind of mental vitamin that helps build resilience and provides a buffer against depression. . . . Flourishing—that of rats and humans alike—seems to require an environment with "open problem spaces" that elicit the kinds of bodily and mental engagement bequeathed us by evolution and cultural development.

-Matthew Crawford, Why We Drive: On Freedom, Risk and Taking Back Control

nonetheless...........................

 

When you stop believing in God, there is no sudden explosion of light or darkness. The world continues on its accustomed course. The sky does not fall. The sun still shines. Life goes on. But something is lost nonetheless, something important that gives life connectedness, depth and a sense of purpose; that gives you a feeling of participating in something vast and consequential.

-Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, The Great Partnership: Science, Religion, and the Search for Meaning

Can I get an Amen.......................................?

 -  The funny thing is - this would work. Any politician would have to deploy for any war they vote funds for. If over 35-years old their kids would have to sign up

-Chris Lynch

Asking......................

 .............................the tough questions.

Truth and consequences.............

.................from this Martin Gurri essay:

This may be the proper place to bring up a question first raised by Nietzsche: Is truth at war with life? For all his irony, Nietzsche was an extreme Romantic who exalted strength and the instincts as the “will to power”—the great myth-making impulse that engendered meaning and dignity both for a civilization and the individual. To this end he opposed the “will to truth,” which he held to be cold, rational, instinct-denying and myth-destroying. That was the particular disease of the Western world, which “proposes as its ideal the theoretical man equipped with the greatest forces of knowledge, and laboring in the service of science, whose archetype and progenitor is Socrates.” The rise of theoretical man meant the death of the Christian God and a paralytical incapacity to pursue any other high ideal. The examined life, in that sense, was the affirmation of decadence and death.

Such notions may sound paradoxical, if not preposterous, to a modern hipster, but I make it an iron rule always to take Nietzsche seriously. Consider: Science is a neutral method, not a value system. It’s not by coincidence that scientists served monsters like Hitler and Stalin with as much loyalty and brilliance as they have dedicated to democracy. Heroic materialism as a way of life, which science ordains, typically degenerates into hedonism—the love of money and things. Obsessive self-examination leads directly to the mirror of Narcissus. A society built on self-worship has no conceivable future.

Simple.......................

 When there are multiple solutions to a problem, choose the simplest one.

The greatest enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan.” Stick to the good plan. Traditional.

It takes wisdom to know what we don’t know.

So please don't forget that considering the probabilities of future returns only begins the decision-making process. Decisions have consequences. If the consequences of being badly wrong about future returns would imperil your financial future, be conservative.

-John C. Bogle, as excerpted from The Little Book of Common Sense Investing

Evasions.....................

 We can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality.

-attributed to Ayn Rand.

Uh-oh..............................

..........................now what are you  going to do?

Does this strike you as ironic...................?

Every time Democrats look at a problem, they think of a program. And while those programs often point the way forward, they need to focus their energy on convincing the middle class that they share their values more than just their economic interests. There is more to voters than their wallets. To do that, Democrats need to prove to them that they know the difference between right and wrong, and that begins with owning the terms accountability and responsibility. No matter how privileged, Democrats need to be the ones demanding that those who fall short be made to answer for their own decisions. Every one of us should have to live by the same moral and ethical codes. The nation’s elite shouldn’t have any special license to take the easy way out.


-Rahm Emanuel, as extracted from here


via

Well, good................

Opening paragraphs...................

     In 49 BCE, with the dramatic proclamation "the die is cast," Julius Caesar made the fateful decision to cross the Rubicon River at the head of his 13th Legion.  The crossing of the Rubicon was momentous because the river demarcated the boundary between Italy and the province of Gaul to the north, where Caesar was serving as governor.  Suspicious of his growing power, the Senate had ordered him to disband his army and return to Rome.  But Caesar, defying the Senate, decided to return not in submission but in rebellion, marching on Rome with his legion.  By crossing into Italian territory with an army, Caesar had irrevocably made himself a traitor.
     For all its notoriety, Caesar's river crossing was a relatively modest affair in which the future ruler and his legionnaires merely waded across a shin-deep stream.  Nonetheless, this act put him in irreconcilable opposition to Rome's Senate, making the expression "crossing the Rubicon" forever synonymous with passing a point of no return.

-General Stanley McChrystal,  Leaders:  Myth and Reality