Author Chris Brady's Leadership Blog

Barbarians at the Helm

Most have heard the phrase "Barbarians at the gates," a reference to Aleric and his Germanic tribes camping outside the gates of Rome in the fifth century AD.  It was a cataclysmic moment representing the fall of Roman civilization.  Of course, things are rarely as simple as cute phrases make them seem, and the fall of Rome was much more complicated than the final capitulation to the Huns would represent. Still, the phrase has lasted throughout the years, probably because of the clarity of the image of a hord of unwashed, "uncivilized," violent, blood-thirsty conquerors swarming in anticipation of rape and pillage. One can only imagine the horror of being helpless against the oncoming assault against one's property, family, wives, and daughters.

Today, we are still faced with figurative barbarians. However, they most certainly are not at the gates. Instead, they are at the helm. 

The barbarians are at the helm of our national media outlets; creating subversivion through propaganda represented as fact and spoon feeding it to the masses. 

The barbarians are at the helm of our educational system; indoctrinating children and college students in the religion of statism and big government, socialism, revisionism, class division, envy, victimhood, and division masquerading as tolerance.

The barbarians are at the helm of our entertainment systems; subtly programming us that things which were repulsive and reprehensible to previous generations are now normal and completely acceptable.

The barbarians are at the helm of our federal court system; legislating activism from the bench instead of upholding the strict interpretation of the Constitution.

The barbarians are at the helm of politics; controlling our government through special interest monopoly strangleholds on the legislative process.

The barbarians are at the helm of our banking and monetary system; fleecing the public with silent theft through un-tethered fiat money inflation.*

No, the barbarians are not at the gates, they are at the controls. In their envy, victim-minded self-righteous smugness, they sneer as they turn the ship of state toward an ice berg. They don't believe it could ever be destroyed because they think it is an unsinkable ship, especially with them in control. Their self-assuredness is only matched by their lack of nautical experience. However, like a cancer that kills the host organism by its own expansion, they are blind to the truth. This severe type of blindness is only possible through eyes that burn with hatred for the truth itself. In fact, in their world, there is no truth. Everyone gets to create his own. Everything is relative. So finally, it just comes down to power. "We're in control now, and you're not. Too bad for you. Now it's our turn to get what's coming to us. We don't believe in earning it. Why would we earn it when we have discovered how to simply take it instead?" So they trample the founding documents, they trample the carefully constructed Rule of Law that was responsible for generating the prosperity they pillage, they slay the performer, they deny his God, they profane the sacred, and they kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.

It is the disappearance of a civlization and way of life, and it has been surrendered almost entirely without a fight. The Romans would recognize a little of themselves in us. We too opened the gates and let the invaders in.     

*(Generalizations are dangerous, of course, and not everyone involved in the above categories purports destructive ideologies or anti-Western dogmas.  However, those who don't are in the extreme minority, and should be cheered for fighting the good fight in the face of a pack of angry wolves.)

Modern Man

I have just read the best definition I have ever come across for the "Modern Man."  Author Alexander Boot describes him as follows:

"A sociocultural type whose intuitive two-pronged animus comes from a desire to destroy the spiritual and cultural essence of West[ern] Heritage, while at the same time magnifying the material gains that were incidental to that heritage."

This is the enemy of our freedom, clearly depicted. May the fleas of a thousand camels infest his tent.

Caption Contest Winners Declared!

Congratulations to the following two Caption Contest winners! As always, if you are one of these two victorious participants, simply leave a comment for me here on this blog posting with your mailing address to receive your free, signed copy of Orrin Woodward and my Launching a Leadership Revolution book! We hope you enjoy it!

And now . . . introducing . . . the winners:

For Caption Contest 2009.7: This contest had me cracking up! I thought it produced some of our funnier results, that is, until Contest 2009.8 came along.  But then, I'm getting ahead of myself.  The lucky winner on 2009.7 is Frank Burgett, with the following entry (Congratulaions Frank!):

Trust me Bob! This will get us on Chris Brady's blog.

Posted by: Frank Burgett | March 31, 2009 at 07:08 AM

For Caption Contest 2009.8: This was by far the funniest set of entries we've had in quite some time. Great job to everyone who participated. Choosing the winner was extremely tough, but the Official Choosing the Winner Committee has finally decided upon the entry by Doug Hines, shown below; (Congratulations Doug!)

The new White House janitorial staff. Designing a back window stimulus entrance for more illegals.

Posted by: Doug Hines | April 17, 2009 at 01:16 PM    

Tea Party Signs - Some Clever Demonstrators!

On Wednesday, all Americans who are engaged in pulling the cart paid in their taxes to those who ride in the cart. "Tea parties," reminiscent of the Boston Tea Party of 1773, which protested taxation that amounted to less than 2%, were staged in cities across the nation.  Apparently the three readers of this blog are not the only ones fed up.  Reader Joe Serra contributed the following photos, which I thought were clever and good for a laugh.  If only they weren't so true!  Enjoy.  (Click on any individual picture to enlarge).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Caption Contest 2009.8

Oliver DeMille Reviews Launching a Leadership Revolution

My team partner and co-author Orrin Woodward posted on his blog a nice review of our Launching a Leadership Revolution book from world-famous leadership expert Oliver Demille.  This is especially pleasing to read because Terri and I have long been fans of DeMille and his incredible book A Thomas Jefferson Education.  The book so inspired us that for years now we have been following its principles in the home schooling of our children.  I would like to not only thank him for the kind comments but also express my gratitude for his example of leadership in action.  America needs more leaders like him!

Happy Easter weekend everyone!  Christ is risen!

Unsound Money System Needed by Government for Wealth Confiscation

Way back before Alan Greenspan became Chairman of the Federal Reserve, he penned a now famous essay for inclusion in Ayn Rand's book, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.  In the article, Greenspan explains the stability and logic behind a gold-standard-based money system, and then makes the following observation:

"But the opposition to the gold standard in any form -- from a growing number of welfare-state advocates -- was prompted by a much subtler insight: the realization that the gold standard is incompatible with chronic deficit spending (the hallmark of the welfare state). Stripped of its academic jargon, the welfare state is nothing more than a mechanism by which governments confiscate the wealth of the productive members of a society to support a wide variety of welfare schemes."

Two major points can be seen in this small excerpt:

1. our government does not want a sound money system because it would not allow them to get away with deficit spending

2. inflation and deficit spending are a hidden way the government can take from the productive and give to the free-loaders

Our nation is in an idealogical war between those who want to ride in the cart and those who are pulling it.  For too long the cart-pullers have allowed themselves to become loaded down with sneaky, subtle, guilt-inflicting, victim-mentality, falsely-compassionate, welfare-state-minded free-loaders.  Ayn Rand, never one to pull a punch, called these free-loaders "looters."  

 

The original rebellion in the American colonies was instigated by less than 2% taxation!  Assuming anyone reading this is a cart-puller and not a free-loader, your likely level of taxation is somewhere between 48 and 64%, once considering federal income tax, property tax, Social Security, Medicare, school and local taxes, sales taxes, gasoline taxes, telephone taxes, tolls, licenses and fees, and in many cases state income tax. 

According to author and political commentator Amity Schlaes, fully 40% of the U.S. population are now riding in the cart.

This can not go on much longer.

 

Ignorance Destroys Beauty

Watching the death of freedom is heartbreaking. This magnificent construct called the United States of America was built by a collection of talent the likes of which world has rarely seen. For a crowded moment in time, in a small strip of sea-side colonies, some of the greatest minds ever assembled put aside their sundry differences and collaborated to produce an experiment in government that literally changed the world. Whether or not you are an American citizen reading this, it is unarguable that you have been affected by what those men did two and a half centuries ago.

What the United States founding fathers accomplished was something that had never been done before, and although often copied, has never been duplicated. Their Constitution, and the Bill of Rights upon which the ratification of the Constitution hinged, are literally works of art. They satisfy every concept of the term: 1) solving a complex problem 2) doing so elegantly 3) and moving the audience while in the process. 

This work of art was chiseled out of the Judeo-Christian world-view, founded upon a strong distrust of government power, polished with the principles of justice for all, and finished with the sanctity of the individual and his or her right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This masterpiece was then bestowed upon the people as a guardian of their freedoms against governmental tyranny.

Today, however, the administration in Washington and its Congress are defacing this work of art as though it were just another dusty heirloom. I heard one analogy that it's as if the teenagers have taken over the principle's office; weilding the power without any understanding of how it got there or what it is for. For some reason, in a cruder illustration, my mind goes back to the old Kevin Costner movie Dances with Wolves, in which a disenfranchised Civil War veteran finds himself in love with an Indian woman. Throughout the middle of the movie Costner's character writes a beautiful and moving diary of his feelings and experiences but loses it as he is re-captured by his countrymen. In a display of arrogance and insolence, one of the soldiers, unable to read, used the diary as tiolet paper. 

Every time I think of that analogy it strikes me as somewhat offensive, and perhaps it is a bit too strong for use here. But I use it to demonstrate a simple truth: ignorance destroys beauty. What is happening in Washington right now can only be described as ignorance. If it is not ignorance, then it must be something much worse, for who would knowingly and in full understanding trample something so beautiful?

There are many fronts on which we could discuss the new and proposed policies coming out of Washington:

1. Moral grounds (as in, It's not Right!)

2. Grounds of Fairness (as in, it's not Fair!)

3. Constitutional Grounds (as in, it's not Authorized!)

These would all warrant complete articles of their own.  These three, however, are easily opposed by people with strange world-views. Without a Judeo-Christian ethos, moral grounds become relative, and without absolutes, who's to say what's moral? For someone playing the victim card, the second one disappears as such a person only wants justice for them and not justice for all. For power-lovers the Constitution can easily be trampled in the name of expediency. So, arguments for these three reasons often fall upon deaf ears.

The fourth front, however, is unarguable, or should be. It is supported by history, facts, and adequate experimentation around the world. The fourth category is:

4. Pragmatics (as in, it's not workable!)

Even if we leave off speaking about moral absolutes, fairness and justice, and the constructs of law through the Constitution and Bill of Rights, we are still left with the extremely important understanding of what works. And quite simply, the policies being passed into law in Washignton right now do not work. Outrageous government spending (which, by the way, happened to catastrophic levels under George W. Bush's adminstration, as well), does not stimulate the economy, but wrecks it. Abortion does not help a society, it destroys it. Befriending terrorists does not appease them, it emboldens them. Celebrating diversity does not unite, it divides. Nationalizing private industry does not lead to productivty gains, but to the death of competitiveness. Nationalizing health care does not lead to better care for all, but to worse care for most. Eliminating guns does not lead to less gun crime, just less protection against gun crimes. 

I could go further, but my point should be clear. These things are not theories left untried, but are a compilation of failed policies from other nations and history that have crashed miserably every time they've been tried! As I have said before in this blog, Why must we repeat bad policy just to make sure it's still bad?

Ignorance, my friends.

Or worse.

New Website Up

The folks over at Obstacles Press have done it again! They have just launched a new website promoting co-author Orrin Woodward and my book, Leadership: Tidbits and Treasures. I hope you enjoy it!