Pride Goes Before Destruction…

Proverbs 16: 18 states – “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.” It means that people who are overconfident or too arrogant are likely to fail.

This title comes from Proverbs. I use biblical quotes, and proverbs, because they are insightful and intuitive, and because the wisdom and common sense they contain is universally appropriate regardless of the source. I’m not religious, but aware.

Proverbs, a book of the Cristian Bible, is believed to be written between 970 and 697 BCE: or there about, is a book of Jewish wisdom composed in Hebrew to educate Jewish readers. Amazingly, it’s apropos to our modern times 2,860 years later – give or take a few. In case you’re wondering, it 5784 on the Hebrew calendar.

BCE stands for Before the Common Era and CE for Common Era. These are secular terms defining references to historic eras.

AD stands for Anno Domini, which is Latin for, In the Year of the Lord. It’s the ‘old’ way of counting years based on the estimated birth of Jesus Christ. BC stands for Before Christ, and it’s a way of counting years before His estimated birth. AD starts with year 1 and continues to the present day. The Gregorian calendar places year 0 as the year Jesus Christ was supposedly born, the Hebrew calendar’s year ‘0’ is when 12th century Jewish philosopher Maimonides calculated the creation of the world. So, by Maimonides’ calculations the new Jewish year will be 5784. So according to whose way you choose, it’s 2025, 2024, or 5784. If I continue down this rabbit-hole, I’ll lose most of you… So, I’ll stop here.

Like so many historic texts, Proverbs convey the universality of common sense, after all, it’s the basis for wisdom because wisdom is just applied common sense. It was humankind that corrupted this sanity, warping it to fit their narratives and purposes. Remember; “The End Justifies the Means…”

The dictionary of American aphorisms includes more than 15,000 adages maxims and sayings commonly used in the English language, all of them embody wisdom in colloquial terms. Its unofficial title is ‘American Proverbs.’

Who do we think we are?
I recalled a recording by the British musical group ‘the WHO’ titled “Who Are You…” The lyrics are a bit obscure and difficult to interpret into American English; Colloquial British idioms are sometimes quite difficult to translate being based on local grammatic idiosyncrasies.

The song title started me thinking about this commentary.

Who Are You…

I lumbered through the news feeds this morning while drinking my morning coffee. The stories were about the anti-American & anti-Israel protests that blocked travel in several cities.

The reports mentioned that these protestors are all Radical Democrats, mostly immigrants and immigrant-sympathizers, condemning America’s support for Israel. The story went into some detail about America’s demands for the Israeli government. Apparently, Chuck Schumer demands a new election to replace the existing one, hostile toward Hamas, recommending that the Israeli people revolt against the current administration, because they will not follow American directions for a two-state settlement for Palestine and Israel. One of the included images showed people burning the American Flag, holding placards saying, “Death to America” and chanted by the crowd. Please note – they were in ‘America.’

Free speech in action!

But does free speech allow blocking traffic or preventing people from traveling? The First Amendment mentions “…the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” What I saw seemed peaceful, but preventing people from accessing travel or pursuing their normal activities stretches the intent of the amendment. But isn’t that what Americans do – push everything to its limit, extending a bit more each time until these peaceful demonstrations cost billions of dollars in damages and multiple lives – Like those of Nancy Pelosi’s “Summer of Love Protests,” or the BLM riots supporting drug addiction and violent noncompliance by George Floyd…

I recall historical accounts of mass murder in many countries like China during Mao Zedong’s Communist revolution. Mao, Lennin, and Stalin eliminated Communist dissidents buy killing millions of them during their revolt. The message in these incidents and realization of their goal was to deter future dissension and to discourage any future recurrence. Apparently, it worked – these countries are Communist strongholds.

Did America’s protests, or wars stop Communism’s advance?

Will these immigrants and immigrant-sympathizers have any impact on our political stand with Israel or Iran or China?

How many of the thousands of participants were citizens versus invaders?

How is this illegal action different from the Jan 6 ‘insurrection’ at the US Capitol?

Yes, you’re right… Because Jan 6th serves the Nationalist American Socialist Party’s (NASP) purposes and these protests do not… Equal justice and treatment under the law??? Now they’ve discovered another insurrectionist to persecute – the stepson of a TV star. Will this ever end? Oh sorry… it’s an election year. The NASP needs to smear more innocent people to prove it was all Trumps’ fault.

Does Biden’s open border policy play a role in any of this or have an impact on federal immigration policy?

Will congressional entreaties impact the government of Israel?

These stories – I can’t call them news anymore because they are more fiction than fact, but they call to mind multiple accounts of American ire about the CCP –

Biden’s ‘Home’ World – and their treatment of their people. Things like organ harvesting, Uyghurs, lockdowns for ‘New Covid 99’, failing economics, infrastructure collapses, suppressing information, etc.

Our government has all the answers, and the American Sheeple add their input to solve China’s problems or become apoplectic about reported dubious and questionable events half a world away.

Do you trust what you see from the Corporate Media Complex (CMC)?

Oh, by the way, China considers us an ineffectual object of ridicule – We are their useful idiots.

My immediate reaction was – Who the “Fornication Under Consent of King” do we think we are? How do we have the audacity to tell another country how to run their government… especially, when ours is a global laughingstock, and probably intergalactically for all I know.

America is on the verge of collapse.

The negatives are all well known, so I won’t cite the catalog; we all know them.

What struck me was the assuredness, chutzpa – Schumer – a Jewish-American – actually believes he knows what’s best for that nation, and its 9.5 million people. Mind you, he and his ilk have destroyed America with their fakakta (Yiddish for silly or ridiculous) ideas of government. Schumer knows bubkis (nothing), drek (shit).

This instance is only one of the hundreds of examples I encountered in the past several years; each of those presupposes that we know best for everyone else.

Oh… the unbelievable, unmitigated audacity and arrogance of Americans.

If we’re so smart, why can’t we fix our problems?

We have ALL the answers; or so we allege.

It’s simply blatant American hubris.

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You, hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” ~ Matthew 5: 3-5 (85 CE)

Matthew’s passage reminds us that we often pass judgment on others to keep from examining ourselves. It is obnoxiously and hypocritically wrong. Before we start removing someone else’s grain of sand, we had better get the blinding boulder out of our way. I’ve discovered that’s too direct for many people searching for the deeper meaning in these axioms, often missing the simplicity of the message “First… Look in the mirror!” How revealing that would be, which is precisely why we don’t do it. We follow the example set by our government to deflect the responsibility to someone or something else.

“It was all my predecessor’s fault… “ Sound familiar?

Here’s another oldy and goldy…

“People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.” Written in 1385 by Chaucer. It means that people, or countries; with the same or similar faults should not criticize others for those faults. That was 639 years ago, and it still applies.

This proves the follow-on adage – “Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.” ~ Santayana.

I’ll close with one of my favorite quotes: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” ~ Albert Einstein

How we’ve made it into the Twenty-first Century is beyond me. We should have blown ourselves up, or extinguished all life on this planet several time, most recently with the Wuhan Virus. That could have easily been an extinction level event, a life ending epidemic, but we got lucky – this time.

It’s Russian Roulette with an automatic weapon…

Chances are, that somewhere in a secret lab in some third-world country, where we have ‘an understanding’, – wink wink – scientists are engineering and gene-splicing pathogens to create the next super-virus, but under strict safety protocols and in a totally secure lab of course – just like Wuhan.

We live in a glass house and throw stones at our neighbors.

We have boulders in our eyes but insist on removing the sand from others.

We tinker and toy with the wonders of the universe “for the good of mankind” never understanding the implication or ramifications of our action. When will we learn that our cavalier and anecdotal approach to science is hubris.

We are the proverbial ‘monkey with a machine gun.’

Too few of the leaders on this planet have the awareness to stop projecting their faults and problems onto others, but we follow them like dutiful sheeple. It’s where we’ve acquired the tendency to ‘follow blindly’, never questioning or challenging their ludicrous assertions or decisions. We’re contented to follow the leader.

How did that work for Germany, China, Russia, and the Middle Eastern countries.

When you examine the policies and programs prevalent in America, you can appreciate their lunacy when measuring their success. Our open border is a prime example.

Every city in this country is buckling under the financial burden of this heinous political blunder, but the leadership of American government is committed to destroying this republic for political and their personal gain.

How can they even pretend to counsel another country or suggest becoming more like America?

How dare they!

It’s demented: crazy, insane, mad, unbalanced, deranged, crazed, and lunatic. But that doesn’t stop our politicians from recommending that the world follow our counsel and advice.

“Don’t base your decisions on the advice of those who don’t have to deal with the results.” ~ Kushan Wisdom

“He that gives good advice, builds with one hand; he that gives good counsel and example, builds with both; but he that gives good admonition and bad example, builds with one hand and pulls down with the other.” ~ Sir Francis Bacon

April 20, 2024

~ The Author ~
Charles R. Dickens was born in 1951, is a veteran of the Vietnam war, for which he volunteered, and the great-great grandson of the noted author, whose name he shares.

He is a fiercely proud American, who still believes this is the greatest country on the planet, with which we’ve lost control and certainly our direction. He grew up in moderate financial surrounding; we’re not rich by any stretch, but didn’t go hungry – his incredibly hard working father saw to that. As most from that era, he learned about life from his father, whose story would take too long to tell, other than to say that, he is also a fiercely proud American; a WWII and Korean war, veteran Marine.

Charlie was educated in the parochial system which, demanded that you actually learn something, and have capability to retain it before you advance. He attended several universities in pursuit of a bachelor’s degree, and chased the goose further to a master’s, and has retained some very definite ideas about education in this country.

In addition, Charlie is a retired blues guitar and vocalist – a musician. This was his therapy career. Nothing brings him as much joy as playing music, and he wishes that he could make a living at it… but alas… life goes on!