Politics

“They’re Americans.”

…Yes, we Americans will “make America great again!”

Registered as an INDEPENDENT unaffiliated VOTER, I average out to be CENTRIST – similar to Libertarians.

Liberty and Freedom

Contact/Feedback via Twitter – Jim Lantern @TimeglassZone

I choose not the lesser of two weevils. I believe in a third choice – that there should be a third choice.

joe-lantern-color

JIM LANTERN

I frequently monitor CNN, FNC (FOX News), and MSNBC on TV, plus other news sources while checking the Google News feed online and searching Google News for news stories about certain issues or subjects, and for updates on major news stories. I also monitored news sources via Twitter. Most of my editorial articles have been about my reactions to major news stories – my opinions.

A favorite author and novel…

revolt

“Successful revolution is big business – make no mistake about that. In a modern, complex, and highly industrialized state, revolution is not accomplished by a handful of conspirators whispering around a guttering candle in a deserted ruin. It requires countless personnel, supplies, modern machinery and modern weapons. And to handle these factors successfully there must be loyalty, secrecy, and superlative organization.” – Excerpt from the story “If This Goes On—” in the novel REVOLT IN 2100 by Robert A. Heinlein.

CENTRIST

  • I agree with Conservatives on most but not all economic and government issues.
  • I agree with Liberals on most but not all personal and social issues.
  • I “average out” to be “Centrist” by agreeing with Democrats and Republicans, an equal number of issues each, making me half-Conservative and half-Liberal, resulting in considerable contrast within my life.
  • I’m not a Moderate.
  • I’m similar to Libertarians but not as far left Liberal and not as far right Conservative as they are.
  • I’ll change my position on an issue only if new information comes to light to then be able to make a better informed decision.
  • I’m opposed to the Tea Party clogging up the Republican Party and Congress.
  • I’m 100% opposed to Statists – totalitarians – extreme opposite of Libertarians and to some extent the Tea Party.
  • I’m registered as an Independent (unaffiliated) voter in Oklahoma.
  • I’m not a member of any political party.

My basic beliefs…

  • I believe in “each to their own way of life” – economic, political, religious, social – that each person should be free to live the way they want to live, without the ways of life of other people being forced upon them, and that they should not force their way of life on others.
  • People should be free to BELIEVE what they want to, but the freedom to ACT on those beliefs may be limited by laws that are acceptable to the majority of people. For example, freedom of religion may not include human sacrifices, or torturing and executing nonbelievers.
  • All people have the legal right to self-defense against anyone who threatens to harm or kill them, or to force their way of life on them. I believe in Castle Doctrine and Stand Your Ground Law, strictly as self-defense – must not be abused by engaging in pursuit of others for offensive action.

Personal Political History…

  • I was born into a Republican family in the oil business. When I first registered to vote at age 18 in 1974, I was a Republican.
  • I became a Democrat during 1994. I found the Kansas Democrats to be in a useless state of anarchy, which I cold not tolerate.
  • I became registered as an Independent voter in 1995.
  • I’m not a member of any political party.
  • In 2008, I discovered I’m a “Centrist” after taking the World’s Smallest Political Quiz.
  • I average out to be a Centrist by agreeing with Democrats on about 50% of specific issues – mostly personal and social, while agreeing with Republicans on about 50% of specific issues – mostly economic and government. I’m not a Moderate.
  • Now in 2015, President Obama, and the Obama Democrats in government, who I believe are Statists rather than Liberals, have done so much damage to this country, especially with the impact of ObamaCare aka “Affordable” Care Act, that it has pushed me further to the political right in order to support all or most Conservative and Republican candidates.
  • It may be described that my liberal mind is anchored in science fiction and fantasy as a science fiction author, while my conservative mind is anchored in science and reality as a political journalist. I’m very interested in political ideas in science fiction and religious ideas in science fiction. I’m especially interested in alternate history, time paradoxes, and time travel. If we humans can’t learn to accept our differences, then what will happen when we finally do encounter people from another planet – whose differences will truly be alien? Go to war with them? Or accept our differences and engage in peaceful trade? It appears to me there’s more profit in mutual acceptance.

As an author and fan of science fiction, I’m interested in…

Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones. Scene 5…
Anakin Skywalker: I don’t think the system works.
Padmé: How would you have it work?
Anakin Skywalker: We need a system where the politicians sit down
and discuss the problem… agree what’s in the best interest of all people… and then do it.
Padmé: That’s exactly what we do. The trouble is that people don’t always agree.
Anakin Skywalker: Well, then they should be made to.
Padmé: By whom? Who’s going to make them?
Anakin Skywalker: I don’t know. Someone.
Padmé: You?
Anakin Skywalker: Of course not me.
Padmé: But someone.
Anakin Skywalker: Someone wise.
Padmé: Sounds an awful lot like a dictatorship to me.
Anakin Skywalker: Well, if it works.

Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith…
Padmé: What if the democracy we thought we were serving no longer exists, and the Republic has become the very evil we have been fighting to destroy?

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” – Preamble, US Constitution.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” – First Amendment, US Constitution.

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” – Edmund Burke, Whig politician and statesman who is often regarded as the father of modern conservatism.

“No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.” – General George S. Patton.

IF THIS GOES ON—

Excerpts from Wikipedia article…

  • “If This Goes On—” is a science fiction short novel by Robert A. Heinlein, first serialized in 1940 in Astounding Science-Fiction and revised and expanded for inclusion in the 1953 collection Revolt in 2100. The novel shows what might happen to Christianity in the United States given mass communications, applied psychology, and a hysterical populace. The novel is part of Heinlein’s Future History series.
  • The story is set in a future theocratic American society, ruled by the latest in a series of fundamentalist Christian “Prophets.” The First Prophet was Nehemiah Scudder, a backwoods preacher turned President (elected in 2012), then dictator (no elections were held in 2016 or later).

The following paragraphs have been excerpted from the 1986 Baen Book printing of Robert A. Heinlein’s novel titled “Revolt in 2100” –from the story titled “If This Goes On—”:

  • I was kept busy but my work was fill-in work, since I was awaiting assignment. I had time to dig into the library and I looked up Tom Paine, which led me to Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson and others – a whole new world was opened up to me. I had trouble at first in admitting the possibility of what I read; I think perhaps  of all things a police state  can do to its citizens, distorting history is possibly the most pernicious. For example, I learned for the first time that the United States had not been ruled by a bloodthirsty emissary of Satan before the First Prophet arose in his wrath and cast him out – but had been a community of free men deciding their own affairs by peaceful consent. I don’t mean that the first republic had been a scriptural paradise, but it hadn’t been anything like what I had learned in school.
  • For the first time in my life I was reading things which had not been approved by the Prophet’s censors, and the impact on my mind was devastating. Sometimes I would glance over my shoulder to see who was watching me, frightened in spit of myself. I began to sense faintly that secrecy is the keystone of all tyranny. Not force, but secrecy . . . censorship. When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, “This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know,” the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything—you can’t conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.
  • My thoughts did not then fall into syllogisms; my head was filled with an inchoate spate of new ideas, each more exciting than the last. I discovered that travel between the planets, almost a myth in my world, had not stopped because the First Prophet had forbidden it as a sin against the omnipotence of God; it had ceased because it had gone into the red financially and the Prophet’s government would not subsidize it. There was even an implied statement that the “infidels” (I still used that word in my mind) still sent out an occasional research ship and that there were human beings even now on Mars and Venus.
  • Maybe someday the United States would have space ships again.

“In a time of universal deceit — telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” ~ George Orwell.

“It’s no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.” ~ Mark Twain.

POLITICAL SPECTRUM ORIENTATION:

I’m aware from a poll that the majority of my readers – or at least those who have so far answered the poll – are Libertarians.

Libertarians support a great deal of liberty and freedom of choice in both personal and economic matters. They believe government’s only purpose is to protect people from coercion and violence. They value individual responsibility, and tolerate economic and social diversity. Some of my friends have been Libertarians.

Centrists favor selective government intervention and emphasize what they commonly describe as “practical solutions” to current problems. They tend to keep an open mind on political issues. Many centrists feel that government serves as a check on excessive liberty. I’m a Centrist. I’m similar to Libertarians, but not as far left as they are and not as far right as they are. I’m Conservative on most but not all economic and government issues. I’m Liberal on most but not all personal and social issues. People “average out” to be Centrists. There is no true third choice for most issues to define a Centrist, who basically must “Agree” or “Disagree” on each issue. “Maybe” is not an acceptable choice. “Maybe” is the usual choice of Moderates. Centrists are not Moderates. Centrists know where they stand on each issue. Many Centrists are registered as Independent voters, like I am, or otherwise are Unaffiliated – not members of any political parties.

Left-Liberals, Democrats, generally embrace freedom of choice in personal matters, but support central decision-making in economics. They want the government to help the disadvantaged in the name of fairness. Leftists tolerate social diversity, but work for what they might describe as “economic equality.” Over the years, most of my friends, co-workers, and employers, have been Liberal Democrats.

Right-Conservatives, Republicans, and Tea Party members have at times been the majority of readers here at The Lantern Journal. They favor freedom of choice on economic issues, but want official standards in personal matters. They tend to support the free market, but frequently want the government to defend the community from what they see as threats to morality or to the traditional family structure. I was born into a Conservative Republican family in the oil business with wells in Kansas and Oklahoma.

Statists are the real enemy of everyone else. Statists want government to have a great deal of control over individuals and society. They support centralized planning, and often doubt whether liberty and freedom of choice are practical options. At the very bottom of the chart, left-authoritarians are usually called socialists, while right-authoritarians are generally called fascists.

smallest_political_quiz

The World’s Smallest Political Quiz

Please Take the World’s Smallest Political Quiz at:

http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz/quiz.php

Then answer the following poll by selecting your quiz result. The quiz has 5 areas on the political spectrum – Left Liberal, Right Conservative, Libertarian, Statist Big Government, and Centrist. In the poll, I’m also asking for where you placed within the Centrist square, if you scored as a Centrist, for Centrist Left, Centrist Center, or Centrist Right. It does not matter if you are above or below center within the Centrist square, just left or right of center within the Centrist square, or in the center of the Centrist square.

It is possible for a person to give answers opposite of another, and both end up in the Centrist square – one being left of center but still within the Centrist square, and the other being right of center but still within the Centrist square. So two different people can be in total disagreement with each other, but still be classified as Centrists.

———-

TIMEGLASS BABYLON

As witnesses and reporters of various kinds of U.S. and world events, amateur independent journalists are a kind of modern-day “Watchmen” but without the superhero aspects. “Amateur” means we are not paid professionals. “Independent” means we are not associated with any news agencies.

The use of the term “Watchmen” does not exclude women…

watchmen SILK spectre poster

The 2009 movie Watchmen involves alternate history.

[For any concerns about legal use of this material, read the Legal Notices Page.]

The Times They Are A-Changin’
Bob Dylan lyrics

Come gather ’round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you
Is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’
Or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’. 

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who
That it’s namin’
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin’. 

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There’s a battle outside
And it is ragin’
It’ll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’.

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin’
Please get out of the new one
If you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’. 

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin’
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin’. 

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