It seems that many of us have difficulty discerning the truth from the counterfeit. Our political discourse preys upon this lack of discernment to sell all sorts of "programs" which purport to solve real or imaginary "problems." What has resulted is the huge mess that our country has fallen into both morally and financially.
I have identified several words which are the most-abused:
Faith - This word is used to mean "religion" in popular vernacular. While most religions exercise faith, their are some who contrast faith with "science," implying that science relies on facts, not faith. Therefore science is a superior arbiter of truth and should always be given higher priority in our decison-making process. Consider how the "theory of evolution" and "global warning" is touted as scientific and is taught as fact in our schools.
But a little closer look at the popular theory of evolution, which claims to account for all of what we see around us, reveals a set of faith-based statements that are supposed to be "scientific."
The evolution proponent believes:
"There is no God"
"Everything we see can be explained by "scientific" principles"
"Man is just another animal"
"There is no objective moral standard for man's behavior"
There are a number of other corollaries to these statements, but, in case you haven't noticed, there is absolutely no evidence to support any of these statements. Rather these premises are supported by a number of "scientists" in a voting process and are being forced upon our unsuspecting children by a perverse educational establishment. They rail against "religious" treaching in our schools, all the while flagrantly teaching these religious ideas as "scientific."
The consequences of this "religious" teaching has given us the mess we are in with our education and with our federal financial indebtedness.
In subsequent essays I will talk more about a number of other words like "rich," "poor," "prosperous." "intelligent," and some others.
What about it, seekers? Can we parse the words and find out what agenda is being promoted?
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Sunday, January 22, 2012
What does it mean to be "rich?"
The word "rich" gets tossed around as if everybody has a good understanding of what it means. To some it means having a lot of money. To some it refers to a nebulous group of people who have stolen money from the poor. To others it is another word for "blessed."
I had the great good fortune to work for one of America's great captains of industry. He had built a relatively small division of a very large company into a major player in the aerospace industry. He told this story to a group of managers in our company:
"We had a large missile contract which was behind schedule, and I decided to go to the facility that was causing the delay and find out what was going on. In the meeting with several of the people in the plant, the machine shop foreman told me the missile guidance module could not be made the way it was designed. In true CEO fashion, I told him if he couldn't do it, I would find somebody that could. He quietly got up from the meeting, left the room got his lunch box and went home. The plant manager sat in stunned silence. I looked around and saw the same look on the rest of the faces at the table."
"I asked around to see where we went from here. Nobody spoke. I started to get an uneasy feeling about George leaving. The plant manager told me that George probably knew more about the machining of exotic metals and close tolerances than anybody in the industry and was constantly pursued by their competitors."
"I decided it was crow-eating time so I got his address from our files, got into my car and drove to his home. His house was very neat and his lawn was impeccable. I was met at the door by a very pleasant lady who told me George had called and said he was on his way home. She was concerned because she thought he might be ill. She brought me a glass of iced tea and I waited for George to come home. I looked around the room. There were pictures of children everywhere, some with football uniforms, and several trophies on the fireplace mantle."
"As I looked around I had a sudden realization that this man was more successful than I and regarded me as something that had crawled from under a rock. I have two sons, but I went to very few of their school activities. They hardly know me. I am treated like a house guest when I come home. All of the millions of dollars that I accumulated meant nothing to them - and they meant nothing to George."
"By the time George returned, I realized that he in many ways my superior. I apologized for my bad behavior in the meeting and asked him if he would consider coming back and show us what we had to do to fix the problems with the missile."
"He came back. We had a lengthy meeting with the engineers and hammered out a solution that George thought would work."
"I came back to my office a changed man. I had discovered that successful companies are built by building around successful people, and that it means different things to people. success is like beauty: it is in the eye of the beholder."
"I set about to completely restructure our internal mobility process to build around these successful people and to abandon the traditional promotion scheme based on MBO (Management By Objective), a system designed to convince people that they are not particularly valuable to the company."
My question is, seekers: What about this? Do we have the intelligence to be "rich" like George, or should we spend our energies resenting people like this CEO?
I had the great good fortune to work for one of America's great captains of industry. He had built a relatively small division of a very large company into a major player in the aerospace industry. He told this story to a group of managers in our company:
"We had a large missile contract which was behind schedule, and I decided to go to the facility that was causing the delay and find out what was going on. In the meeting with several of the people in the plant, the machine shop foreman told me the missile guidance module could not be made the way it was designed. In true CEO fashion, I told him if he couldn't do it, I would find somebody that could. He quietly got up from the meeting, left the room got his lunch box and went home. The plant manager sat in stunned silence. I looked around and saw the same look on the rest of the faces at the table."
"I asked around to see where we went from here. Nobody spoke. I started to get an uneasy feeling about George leaving. The plant manager told me that George probably knew more about the machining of exotic metals and close tolerances than anybody in the industry and was constantly pursued by their competitors."
"I decided it was crow-eating time so I got his address from our files, got into my car and drove to his home. His house was very neat and his lawn was impeccable. I was met at the door by a very pleasant lady who told me George had called and said he was on his way home. She was concerned because she thought he might be ill. She brought me a glass of iced tea and I waited for George to come home. I looked around the room. There were pictures of children everywhere, some with football uniforms, and several trophies on the fireplace mantle."
"As I looked around I had a sudden realization that this man was more successful than I and regarded me as something that had crawled from under a rock. I have two sons, but I went to very few of their school activities. They hardly know me. I am treated like a house guest when I come home. All of the millions of dollars that I accumulated meant nothing to them - and they meant nothing to George."
"By the time George returned, I realized that he in many ways my superior. I apologized for my bad behavior in the meeting and asked him if he would consider coming back and show us what we had to do to fix the problems with the missile."
"He came back. We had a lengthy meeting with the engineers and hammered out a solution that George thought would work."
"I came back to my office a changed man. I had discovered that successful companies are built by building around successful people, and that it means different things to people. success is like beauty: it is in the eye of the beholder."
"I set about to completely restructure our internal mobility process to build around these successful people and to abandon the traditional promotion scheme based on MBO (Management By Objective), a system designed to convince people that they are not particularly valuable to the company."
My question is, seekers: What about this? Do we have the intelligence to be "rich" like George, or should we spend our energies resenting people like this CEO?
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