#like one of those social justice accounts that trusts the government a little too much

[gertritude-art]

Out of context this feels like it would be the profile pic of a mildly annoying Tumblr account

[bustedbernie]

what do you have to say to a leftist who has most of the same criticisms of the Democratic Party as other leftists, but who has also voted for them in every election in which she's been eligible? "well you didn't vote dumbass" like, literally can't be the sum of your defense for every Democratic political failure, can it?

To be patient, that patience brings fruit. Large-scale change happens over timescales that exceed a presidency or two and if you’re not invested in the long-haul, you’re going to be disappointed. To hold officials accountable, write letters, show up to council meetings and other easily-accessible things, even go to congressional offices. And be aware that what we say and do can affect others and their perceptions. That a lot of what Bernie Bros said in the primaries were directly copy/pasted by republicans to attack us (and it worked in a lot of places) hah. That getting voter participation way up is one of our largest goals regardless of where you sit on the left and being hyper-critical of democrats, calling them failures or corrupt, just doesn’t help that cause. And on that point, democrats have universally excelled at expanding voter access in every place they’ve been empowered to do so. But then, I also don’t think democratic failures as presented by leftists are often democratic failures at all. 

The ACA is pointed to sometimes as a democratic failure by this type, but I just don’t see it as a failure. It was a massive step forward. I think too, on this issue, people see the UK with its NHS, Canada with its various provincial single-payer plans, or France with its Sécurité-Sociale and they want something like that here. But, all of those systems were constructed over time and continue to evolve. And we’re not starting in the aftermath of the war. I think our efforts also need to be framed in the context of our politics. And that’s just not a pill that’s easy for this type to swallow. I mean, how can democrats have failed truly in the last 10 years when Mitch McConnell hasn’t even allowed votes on the most basic of democratic proposals? Are democrats really failing or have we been deprived of the power to make effective change? Despite that, we made some decent progress just with Obama at the helm. When they criticize us for being happy that Trump is gone, are you (or your friend) forgetting that Obama DID somehow get some good things through? It was less stressful? That there was that hope that we could keep making those changes as time passed? 

I think it’s also facetious when they spend so much time talking about democratic failures. Regardless of whether or not this particular friend votes, there are many others like them that don’t. Doesn’t this friend bear some of the onus for these “failures” for not getting others like them to vote Democratic? Democrats have routinely been punished for progressive legislation proposals since the 90s. Part of why the ACA was such a massive win was due to the leftover bruises from when Clinton tried to pass his healthcare proposals. What is this friend doing to change the environment to make these proposals less scary? How do you get people that are open-minded to making changes but who currently are comfortable with the system on board? Because Bernie’s “ban private insurance” chased a lot of folks that would perhaps be in favor of wide healthcare reform away. Or “Castro was chill, he taught people to read...” This is a pretty consistent thing leftists do. If we aren’t meeting people where they are and where they are now, how can we win? 

I guess I’d tell your friend that democrats already do reflect on their failures and it’s an attribute that is built into the party apparatus. I’d ask them why they fail to reflect on their own failures, the failures of the progressive caucus in the most general sense, and the failure of the left itself to take accountability? At what point is this “democratic failure” just a projection to escape accountability? Because I’ve noticed that when AOC says most people in swing districts that supported M4A got reelected, she blocks people on twitter for pointing out that many of those “swing-districts” she cites are D+20 districts. Xochitl Torres-Small was hurt by AOC and Bernie Sanders in a R+2/5 district. How do leftists think anything we want (yes, we, because even most “moderate” dems want many of the same things as the leftists despite their claims), without those marginal districts? And how do we win the Senate at all if we can’t field candidates that can win state-wide? 

I think me and lot of the folks that follow this blog do call themselves leftists, or would call themselves leftists, but don’t want to associate with very vocal people like your friend because though we may be pleased that they are voting well, we are frustrated that this friend is hurting us in other ways. We are frustrated that they call our policy accomplishments half-measures or failures. We are frustrated by how many of our leftist allies are willing to sacrifice the need for social justice for perceived economic gains. There are so many domains and areas where we could really increase our margins that are stymied because we get written off as extreme. Progressives that have won council seats now talk about how getting progressive legislation is almost impossible with progressive language (and i use progressive to reference Bernie Sanders-type followers). Yet, they note that you can start making progress with other language. Parking minimums can be voted away by talking about more liberty for development, options for renters and owners, a healthier market, etc. “Incentive programs” are easier to pass than a new tax. Maybe leftists see these things as failures and an abortion of progressive values. But I think we see it as getting things done in a way that CAN be done, and be done now. 

I would ask your friend to look to examples where incrementalism has helped cement democratic power and led to real, physical changes. In this country, the slow embracing of public transit by a larger number of people is a good example. Those first light rail lines in Denver, Houston and Phoenix were heated. Pulling teeth. Sometimes even violent rhetoric was used. For a silly little train. But once you get that first little segment of light rail, over a decade or so, people adjust and it’s not so bad. Then they might even want it to serve THEIR neighborhood. Maybe so they could get to an airport without driving, or see a ball game without parking, or get drinks with friends and enjoy the conversation rather than pay attention to the road. They might even want to use it to get to and from work everyday. Or to run errands. And that’s exactly what has happened in each of those cities. Phoenix in particular defeated a Koch-backed ballot measure and voted to fund multi-mile extensions to its system and begin planning even more. Hopefully, in two more decades, those will bear lots of fruit, leading to more sustainable, humane cities, that are more accessible, cleaner, and dense. We also saw Maricopa County vote blue. Small things, over time, add up. Change happens. Attitudes move.  We can do that with healthcare. If we can get a public option added to the ACA, it will just naturally expose how wasteful insurance actually is. People will be more likely to buy into it. And it will help build trust with people who “don’t want the government involved with my doctor.” And given how we’ve seen the politics shift just since the ACA was passed, something akin to M4A would likely be right around the corner. 

So yeah, hold democrats accountable. But the thing is, we already mostly do that. I’d tell them to remember who the real enemy is, and if they are criticizing Nancy Pelosi or Joe Biden or Kamala Harris or whomever more than they criticize Mitch McConnell and his fascist army, then i have to doubt how progressive your friend is in the first place, regardless of their voting habit. 

[itslmdee]

Fiction: The Imprisonment of Daniel Watkins

In a dystopian future Dan is arrested, not for committing a crime, but for a computer’s prediction that he might somehow cause deaths if left at liberty. mentions of selfharm/suicidal ideation

“Weekly visitation, Watkins.” The masked guard rapped the long stick against the bars.

Dan got to his feet and waited as the guard opened the door. He exited the cell, the guard following, the stick hovering behind his back the whole way there, another two guards armed with Tasers waiting near the end of the corridor.

As Dan approached the guards moved backwards, never letting him get too close. They made their way to the cubicle where a large TV screen was waiting for him. Dan sank into the plastic chair and the image of his wife appeared on the screen.

He longed to touch her, to see her in person even, but even face to face visits were forbidden. Sarah gave him a weak smile but he knew she’d been crying again.

“How are you?” he asked.

She nodded as if to reassure him. “I’m okay.” She was wearing a blouse with long sleeves and he had to take her word for it that she hadn’t reverted to self-harm. “You?”

“Still alive,” he said, trying to sound nonchalant but unable to hide the bitterness in his tone. This was existing, not living. “I haven’t heard from Bryan.” His lawyer was usually better at keeping him updated.

“I called him this morning,” Sarah said. “He’s still waiting to hear from the judge.”

Dan’s heart sank. The judge had demanded more evidence and who knew how long that would take.

“I put some more posts on social media,” Sarah said. “Most of them got taken down but a few were allowed to stay up and even the censored ones got some attention before they were deleted. There are people out there on your side, and Tamara’s video channel has gained another thousand followers. No luck with the TV news.”

The television news delighted in their preferred narrative. Daniel Watkins was a potential murderer, not an innocent victim in their broadcasts and his indefinite incarceration a matter of public good.

“What about that journalist, from the Galaxy Eye?” Sarah asked. “Did he write back to you?”

“Yes. Heavily redacted by the time it got to me. He’s interested but he needs to convince the paper to publish my side of the story. He’s been writing short pieces on his blog but his employers aren’t ready to challenge the mainstream story yet. I’ve asked him to send you hard copies of any further letters.”

Sarah nodded. “I love you,” she said, lip trembling. She placed her hand against the screen. Dan hovered his palm near hers.

They talked a little more but soon Dan was told to end the call. It was automatically cut off mid-goodbyes. He got to his feet and began to walk back to his cell. Rubber gloved cleaners moved to scrub the screen and the desk and the chair behind him.

Dan sat on his bunk, head in his hands. He’d been on his way home from the office when two police officers had dragged him off the street and into a cell. He’d been confused, asked for a lawyer, denied one. This was a matter of public protection and the normal rules did not apply.

He’d been allowed to phone Sarah after he said she’d be reporting him missing. She’d promised to get a lawyer but, as she later told him over a video call, they’d been prevented from contacting Dan during the first phase of his interrogation.

He was held for 48 hours initially, was forced to give blood and hand over his social media passwords. He was told an emergency extension had been applied. After 72 hours he was allowed to speak briefly to his lawyer, who was forced to sit across the room from him.

“It’s the new ICM software,” Bryan Fairfax said. “It’s been running models for a while now and making predictions. Enough of those predictions came true, according to police records, that they moved from using it to confirm perpetrators to catching them. We’ve been following the legal implications closely. But last week they moved further, to attempt to use it to prevent crimes. You got flagged as a potential murderer.”

Dan stared at him, mouth agape. “What?” he said at last. This was like that old movie with the ladies who sat in a bath predicting crime.

“It’s classified data but we’re filing motions to try and get access,” Bryan said. “We have no idea what they’re basing their assumptions on. They’re claiming everything from terrorism to domestic violence to spreading disease. They say you’re at risk of killing anywhere from one to one thousand people.”

“That’s ridiculous!”

Bryan nodded. “Because this is considered a matter of public protection most of your legal rights have been suspended. My firm is doing its best and I’m looking at every angle here. We’re pretty sure this is a test case to see how the public reacts before they fully roll it out, and we’re going to represent you pro bono here. Rollins senior was a great believer in personal freedoms and the firm is keen to be seen upholding civil liberties.”

It sounded like a wonderful opportunity for Rollins, Rollins, and Fairfax. It was less exciting for Dan, treated like a criminal though he’d done nothing wrong.

“I’m going to court in half an hour,” Bryan said. “I’m certain we won’t get bail though I’ll ask for it. You won’t be allowed to attend. They’re treating you as a high security risk.”

So Dan sat and waited. Bryan returned later that afternoon, standing across the room again.

“They’re keeping you for another two weeks,” he said. “I’m sorry. They’re asking for more data from the ICM. And they don’t want me seeing you again. Video calls only from here on out. I protested it was a violation of privacy but the government minister for health said it was, according to the model, too much of a risk to allow you too near any other person. The guards will be keeping their distance and you’ll only be allowed a half hour outside your cell when no other prisoners are in the yard, and to take a brief shower each morning after everyone else has used the facilities.”

Dan had been in solitary confinement ever since, meals pushed through a slot in his cell, his cell hosed down while he showered, only ever seeing masked guards delivering his food or escorting him to the showers or the yard. Two weeks had been extended to four, then six, then nine.

Sarah was frantic and Dan was terrified for her. She’d come a long way in the last few years, from anxious and suicidal to a self-confident woman who’d left her self-harming behind. He was proud of her and told her how it was her own strength and her renewed faith that had made the difference, though she gave him significant credit. She said he’d given her something to live for, someone who loved her and would never belittle or hurt her. He feared a return to her previous state of mind.

After the six week extension, with Bryan sadly certain that nine would again be extended without major new evidence, Dan was, for the first time in his life, feeling helpless enough to wonder if living was worth the pain. He truly sympathised now with Sarah’s despair.

If he killed himself however it would prove the model right; the media would spin it as him being a murderer, albeit of himself. He was getting desperate but he didn’t want ICM’s programmers and those funding the software to win.

“I’ve done nothing wrong,” Dan wrote on the old, tiny tablet he was allowed to use in his cell, the only entertainment he had, frowning at the cracked screen as he typed. “I am innocent yet presumed guilty. I have had my civil rights violated because of a computer programme that no-one outside of the ICM thinktank has been allowed to analyse. I am kept isolated from human contact for 23 hours a day, every day. I am not allowed to see my wife aside from on a computer screen. I am not allowed to talk to my lawyer except on a video call which is monitored by the prison and, I believe, the government and representatives of the ICM. My name is Daniel Watkins and I am not a murderer.”

He sent the message out via email to the newspapers, the TV stations, various bloggers and vloggers and anyone else who might listen. The email might get intercepted by the prison or redacted; he’d copied in Sarah and Bryan and vlogger Tamara Maina (who’d been outspoken in his defence, the first social media influencer to take his side) so they could confirm receipt. Even if it went out intact the message went against the media hysteria: “Mass Murderer Prevented”, “Murderer Jailed BEFORE He Could Kill”, “Innocents Saved by ICM software.”

His professional social media accounts had been frozen after the waves of hatred began, accusing him of murder and wishing him dead.

Dan had voted in every election since coming of age. He knew politicians lied and exaggerated and he knew there were some corrupt cops but he’d always had an overall trust in and respect for his government and the law, and had largely believed people were decent and kind at heart. No longer, not after this.

He lay on his bunk and stared at the stone walls, remembering a time he’d been allowed to lie next to Sarah and hold her hand, to kiss her cheek, and to suggest they shower together before a lazy breakfast and a walk by the river before getting Sunday lunch at their favourite pub. He would probably never get to do any of those things ever again.

ICM was the villain here, not Dan. No, ICM was a machine, and those who had programmed it were at fault. But they’d never face justice even if, somehow, Dan could be freed. ICM’s predecessor, the ICA, had wrongly predicted an outbreak of a disease spread by horses. Millions of beautiful animals had been slaughtered, whole stables razed to the ground by public health officials and a panicked public alike. When other scientists proved with their own models and a battery of tests, that the ICA had been utterly wrong, people had shrugged and said better safe than sorry and the ICA had supposedly been retired, only to reemerge as the ICM, based on the same faulty code.

Dan was collateral, like those poor horses, or a test case, as Bryan suggested, for a sinister move to punish people on mere suspicion of future misdeeds. Both. Neither. It was the same result. Dan was a prisoner and would remain so, possibly for the rest of his existence.

[middleagedangst]

A Penny for your Health?

You see it sitting there, on the countertop positioned conveniently next to the change dispenser. You sometimes reach your hand in and take from it because you’re lazy or selfish. Other times, you’ll empty your hand into it simply because it’s harder to open your pack of Marlboro Lights while carrying out your six-pack of Busch Light with change in your hand. I get it. No judgment here. What is this well of human generosity? The penny tray. Seen in all 50 states in nearly every gas station convenience store. The very idea of it is pretty great. Take a penny, leave a penny. Fucking genius. I mean why not drop a few cents in there anyway? It’s like a pay-it-forward savings account. It’s a way to be a good person while putting in the least amount of actual effort, an important quality of our American social contract. Besides, isn’t it better to help out your fellow man than to totally forget you even have that extra change until you either find it under the couch cushion next to a Dorito of questionable age or even months later in the pocket of last winter’s coat? Shit, it’s only a penny unless you’re one of those really rich motherfuckers that leave something bigger than a nickel.

I can’t remember a time that these trays didn’t exist, and I’m older than the SyFy channel and the original NES. As far as I’m concerned, the penny tray is a part of America, like NASCAR and cheating on your taxes. And the funny thing about it is anyone can use it, regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation, place in the economic strata, whatever gender pronoun you are, etc., without so much as an utterance of disdain or unfairness. It’s true. Never once have I seen protest from the skinheads, or the Black Panthers, Westbrook Baptists, the anti-war hippies, the ACLU, not even fucking Scientology. Nobody gives a flying rat’s ass that these things exist. So why the fuck can’t we have this same outlook on other things that might actually be of some use for the nation as a whole? Like, say, healthcare.

Healthcare coverage in the U.S. is pretty fucked up when you think about it. People usually get the best options through their employer, but just like friends with benefits, it starts out great but sooner or later it comes with some strings attached. For one, employers don’t have to offer group rates, or even offer coverage to employees working part-time or doing contract work. Even then if you do get coverage through your employer and you have a pre-existing condition, like diabetes, then the insurance company can tell you to get bent and deny service. Even better, when you do have insurance but they conveniently deny paying for treatment because something is out of network, or not covered by your plan as stated in the fine print that nobody reads. And don’t get me started on dental insurance. The people that usually need it the most, the poor and the elderly on fixed incomes, have trouble affording it and oftentimes rely on cut-rate plans or Medicaid (which has plenty of its own faults). On top of all this, private insurance doesn’t do a damn thing when it comes to controlling costs, because why can’t the medical and pharmaceutical industries rake in a fuck-ton of money from a chemically dependent consumer base that’s getting bent over and prison raped from a lack of options. It’s an awful lot like a strong arm robbery just for the privilege to get treated when you think about it. That’s capitalism’s influence for you. Anything else is unAmerican and downright evil, right?

There has been a lot of debate on what we can do as a nation and body politic that can help millions get healthcare that isn’t frustratingly shitty and increasingly expensive. For starters, some believe we should just leave the shit as it is and not change anything. Let the free markets reign supreme and the weak will die off leaving a healthy race of super citizens. Under this solution, you are free to choose the insurance company you want to pay your ransom to and they handle the rest. The companies dictate how much you pay and how much they pay or if they pay for any service or medication. Have you ever tried to negotiate what you actually get for your money? No? Didn’t think so. This solution is American as fuck so the argument should stop here, but what fun would that be just listening to one option and calling it a day. That’s like watching the same news channel all day.

Another solution is a more socialist approach in which you pass a law that levies a tax on all Americans earning income and then whatever government bureaucracy is in charge of the money pays out benefits to all Americans. The will of the people can then, through representation, effectively bargain for better prices and more expansive coverage because at that point our tax money is the only game in town. See, I know that’s not the American way, that’s the way of the rest of the civilized world’s way and how can the United States be special if we do the same shit the rest of the developed world does? We can't, and that’s why that commie shit isn’t welcome here.

Now I dare ask the question, what’s the fucking difference? Really. What is it? Because as far as I can tell, both possible solutions are the fucking same. You pay money into a big pot, where there are people hired or appointed into positions that control the money and payouts are dispersed on an as needed basis. When you get a bill from a hospital or doctor’s office and you only owe a fraction of the total, where do you think that money comes from? It sure as hell isn’t all the money you paid the company because that would be more like a rainy day savings account. No, other people paid their monthly bill allowing more money to be used for you. Everyone paying money to the insurance company helped you pay that bill. And just like the tray at the gas station, you’re okay with that. Sometimes, the insurance company doesn’t want to pay that much. Maybe it was an unhealthy month and there were a lot of claims, or the board didn’t think you were worth saving. Who knows. Either way, your bill was subsidized by your fellow policyholders. So to everyone that likes to say that they don’t want to pay for someone else’s healthcare “cuz, this is Amurica, and that’s commeynism,”- shut the fuck up because if you have insurance or pay taxes, you already do.

Can someone explain to me how buying healthcare coverage is different than paying a tax for the exact same or possibly even better outcome? Is the fact that you voluntarily pay money to a business for a servi™ce mean that you are freer? I can’t wrap my mind around how just because it's a business doesn’t mean the concept isn't a socialist idea. It just is.

Maybe there is a difference. Perhaps that difference is that a private corporation operates with profit in mind. These entities, especially in this day and age with boards of directors and publicly traded stock have more incentives to make money, meaning higher prices and fewer expenditures. Now, I’ll grant you that the government can be real fucking dumb, but these corporations are profiting on your desire to not be fucking sick while maintaining the right to deny coverage for any reason. Pre-existing condition? Fuck you, you’re a high priced liability. Cancer? We’ll pay some but you’re still getting stuck with a bill you most likely can’t afford. Want to see a healthcare provider that’s out of network? Fuck you too. These insurance companies can be real fucking assholes sometimes. In my opinion, by supporting this system, you give a tacit agreement to this shit continuing. So you’re an asshole too. Sorry. Guilt by association.

I’m not saying government-funded healthcare is perfect. Far from it. Especially with the current government we have. They’ve lost money before and most likely will again. They’ve borrowed from social security. They’ve been openly corrupt. I get it. We shouldn’t really trust these motherfuckers with much, but it could be better than what we have now. The people united and holding those in power accountable through elections and protests. It is, after all, the job of the government to work for the people, for their betterment and safety, to regulate commerce between the states, and to work towards a common goal. All of those things government tax-funded healthcare can provide. Remember finishing the pledge of allegiance with “liberty and justice for all?” Think about the liberty you’d have not having to worry about the cost of being sick and the justice knowing that your fellow American chips in to help his neighbor because it is the morally correct and just thing to do. It still falls short of utopian but at least it's a step in the right direction. Do I think everything should be covered under the people’s insurance? No. I don’t. Sorry, but your penile implant will just have to wait until you can pay cash.

The health of the people shouldn’t be a for-profit industry. It belongs outside the realm of normal capitalist behavior. Healthcare is something that benefits us all. And the healthier the nation is, the more productive, the happier, and better off we can all be. Right now, the healthy are the ones who can afford it. Is that right? Depends on who you ask. Is it just? Not in what should be a united, civilized people. How can us Americans sit by and watch our fellow citizens fall sick, stay sick, and possibly die and not think that the system has failed somehow? It’s morally bankrupt. Also never forget that we as a nation pay more per person on average than many of the other countries with socialized medicine. So even at the very least, socialized medicine can save you a buck or two. And who doesn’t like to save money? It’s certainly less time consuming than clipping fucking coupons.

So just like the little penny tray, a new system of healthcare can be a benefit to everyone, not just those that can afford it already. You put in a little and other times take what you need without questions. It’s there when you need it and can make your day just that much easier. Let’s, as Americans, make the tray just a bit bigger and make things a little better for everyone. You’re already doing it and just didn’t realize it, comrade.

[newstfionline]

In Denmark, Harsh New Laws for Immigrant ‘Ghettos’

By Ellen Barry and Martin Selsoe Sorensen, NY Times, July 1, 2018

COPENHAGEN--When Rokhaia Naassan gives birth in the coming days, she and her baby boy will enter a new category in the eyes of Danish law. Because she lives in a low-income immigrant neighborhood described by the government as a “ghetto,” Rokhaia will be what the Danish newspapers call a “ghetto parent” and he will be a “ghetto child.”

Starting at the age of 1, “ghetto children” must be separated from their families for at least 25 hours a week, not including nap time, for mandatory instruction in “Danish values,” including the traditions of Christmas and Easter, and Danish language. Noncompliance could result in a stoppage of welfare payments. Other Danish citizens are free to choose whether to enroll children in preschool up to the age of six.

Denmark’s government is introducing a new set of laws to regulate life in 25 low-income and heavily Muslim enclaves, saying that if families there do not willingly merge into the country’s mainstream, they should be compelled.

For decades, integrating immigrants has posed a thorny challenge to the Danish model, intended to serve a small, homogeneous population. Leaders are focusing their ire on urban neighborhoods where immigrants, some of them placed there by the government, live in dense concentrations with high rates of unemployment and gang violence.

Politicians’ description of the ghettos has become increasingly sinister. In his annual New Year’s speech, Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen warned that ghettos could “reach out their tentacles onto the streets” by spreading violence, and that because of ghettos, “cracks have appeared on the map of Denmark.” Politicians who once used the word “integration” now call frankly for “assimilation.”

That tough approach is embodied in the “ghetto package.” Of 22 proposals presented by the government in early March, most have been agreed upon by a parliamentary majority, and more will be subject to a vote in the fall.

Some are punitive: One measure under consideration would allow courts to double the punishment for certain crimes if they are committed in one of the 25 neighborhoods classified as ghettos, based on residents’ income, employment status, education levels, number of criminal convictions and “non-Western background.” Another would impose a four-year prison sentence on immigrant parents who force their children to make extended visits to their country of origin--described here as “re-education trips” --in that way damaging their “schooling, language and well-being.” Another would allow local authorities to increase their monitoring and surveillance of “ghetto” families.

Some proposals have been rejected as too radical, like one from the far-right Danish People’s Party that would confine “ghetto children” to their homes after 8 p.m. (Challenged on how this would be enforced, Martin Henriksen, the chairman of Parliament’s integration committee, suggested in earnest that young people in these areas could be fitted with electronic ankle bracelets.)

At this summer’s Folkemodet, an annual political gathering on the island of Bornholm, the justice minister, Soren Pape Poulsen, shrugged off the rights-based objection.

“Some will wail and say, ‘We’re not equal before the law in this country,’ and ‘Certain groups are punished harder,’ but that’s nonsense,” he said, adding that the increased penalties would affect only people who break the law.

To those claiming the measures single out Muslims, he said: “That’s nonsense and rubbish. To me this is about, no matter who lives in these areas and who they believe in, they have to profess to the values required to have a good life in Denmark.”

Yildiz Akdogan, a Social Democrat whose parliamentary constituency includes Tingbjerg, which is classified as a ghetto, said Danes had become so desensitized to harsh rhetoric about immigrants that they no longer register the negative connotation of the word “ghetto” and its echoes of Nazi Germany’s separation of Jews.

“We call them ‘ghetto children, ghetto parents,’ it’s so crazy,” Ms. Akdogan said. “It is becoming a mainstream word, which is so dangerous. People who know a little about history, our European not-so-nice period, we know what the word ‘ghetto’ is associated with.”

She pulled out her phone to display a Facebook post from a right-wing politician, railing furiously at a Danish supermarket for selling a cake reading “Eid Mubarak,” for the Muslim holiday of Eid. “Right now, facts don’t matter so much, it’s only feelings,” she said. “This is the dangerous part of it.”

For their part, many residents of Danish “ghettos” say they would move if they could afford to live elsewhere. On a recent afternoon, Ms. Naassan was sitting with her four sisters in Mjolnerparken, a four-story, red brick housing complex that is, by the numbers, one of Denmark’s worst ghettos: forty-three percent of its residents are unemployed, 82 percent come from “non-Western backgrounds,” 53 percent have scant education and 51 percent have relatively low earnings.

The Naassan sisters wondered aloud why they were subject to these new measures. The children of Lebanese refugees, they speak Danish without an accent and converse with their children in Danish; their children, they complain, speak so little Arabic that they can barely communicate with their grandparents. Years ago, growing up in Jutland, in Denmark’s west, they rarely encountered any anti-Muslim feeling, said Sara, 32.

“Maybe this is what they always thought, and now it’s out in the open,” she said. “Danish politics is just about Muslims now. They want us to get more assimilated or get out. I don’t know when they will be satisfied with us.”

Rokhaia, her due date fast approaching, flared with anger at the mandatory preschool program approved by the government last month: Already, she said, her daughter was being taught so much about Christmas in kindergarten that she came home begging for presents from Santa Claus.

By focusing heavily on the collective cost of supporting refugee and immigrant families, the Danish People’s Party has won many voters away from the center-left Social Democrats, who had long been seen as the defenders of the welfare state. With a general election approaching next year, the Social Democrat party has shifted to the right on immigration, saying tougher measures are necessary to protect the welfare state.

Nearly 87 percent of Denmark’s 5.7 million people are of Danish descent, with immigrants and their descendants accounting for the rest. Two-thirds of the immigrants, around half a million, are from Muslim backgrounds, a group that swelled with the waves of Afghan, Iraqi and Syrian refugees crossing Europe.

Critics would say “the state cannot force children away from their parents in the daytime, that’s disproportionate use of force,” said Rune Lykkeberg, the editor in chief of Dagbladet Information, a left-liberal daily newspaper. “But the Social Democrats say, ‘We give people money, and we want something for this money.’ This is a system of rights and obligations.”

Danes have a high level of trust in the state, including as a central shaper of children’s ideology and beliefs, he said. “The Anglo-Saxon conception is that man is free in nature, and then comes the state” constraining that freedom, he said. “Our conception of freedom is the opposite, that man is only free in society.”

“You could say, of course, parents have the right to bring up their own kids,” he added. “We would say they do not have the right to destroy the future freedom of their children.”

Of course, he added, “There is always a strong sense of authoritarian risk.”

Ms. Hussain, the high school student from Tingbjerg, is accustomed to anti-immigrant talk surging ahead of elections, but says this year it is harsher than she can ever remember.

“If you create new kinds of laws that apply to only one part of society, then you can keep adding to them,” she said. “It will turn into the parallel society they’re so afraid of. They will create it themselves.”

[davidjjohnston3]

7.24.2021'Reflections of a Russian-Romantic-Orthodox-Post-Soviet Obstetrician / Aspiring Catholic-Post-Reformation-Unified-Church Pediatric Neurosurgeon (Divider of Freak-Conjoined Child-Brains) cum. Bethlehem College and Seminary M. Div. Global Studies + Savior of Worldwide North Korean Studies + Policy  + Final Flaming Sword Destroyer of Democrat Intellectual Arrogance, Child-Hate, God-Hate and Anti-Korean Racism' Flaming swords that divide people, change the world, change souls... Russia's determination to remember tragedy as well as mercy and a spirit of gentle adoption whereby they treat students and other young people much different from what I did; also Russian anti-Nazism - everlasting I imagine - in an age when respect-me-or-die attitudes, moral purity, intellectual hubris and Scientism, messianic corporatism and much else are either being accelerated or badly necromanced as everyone tries to settle every little score (an easy way to forget all the starvation, organ-harvesting, betrayal of human promise that is going on every second).  I'm only writing this because it's 7:08 in the morning and it's easier to write than not to write.  Lately I developed the habit of 'Holding the Dream' to paraphrase the title of a Nora Roberts novel about children that I tried to turn in to 'Project 521' in a gentler time.  I read a C.S. Lewis essay though I forget which one, perhaps 'Home,' about being known.  When I read this essay at night it reminds me of a more trusting whole time as does Knausgaard's 'A Time for Everything' whose title is a joke at several levels; a book I'll finish reading, if I even finish 'Autumn' which is my favorite work of his about an unborn daughter, a 'notebook-letter-bouquet' which is a genre I appreciate.For a while I felt I was close to greatness and that my mind and heart were in unison with those I most respect around this globe such as Chancellor John Piper with respect to abortion-culture - playing God - but no matter what I say this is a Maoist era in which power has to be backed by guns or other 'hard' resources.  I was also compelled or perhaps tempted to provide background for my spiritual development which in retrospect attracted 'assassins' who were only interested in cherry-picking my worst moment. I honestly came to feel that there is some 'unconditional evil, unconditional hatred' in some that makes them - no matter how nobly they speak or how hard they worked in the past - determined to destroy something at the end rather than build something or help someone or do what they said they would do.I wondered if I blasphemed someone or something so that God allowed the Prince of Darkness through these people, every professing Christians or family-members.  People are talking about spirit and intellect and insight but forget that Lucifer has all these in abundance.  I've had some delusions and kept responding to people outside of myself.  I learned a lot about people whom understanding was without purpose or profit as a) telling them to themselves, that their expectations were wrong or criminal or sadistic or nihilistic or of the party of 'the protest of ultimate futility' - the messaging whereby someone says ultimately nothing matters or you don't matter - was never going to alter their mindsb) this increased experience of human / spiritual evil didn't really constitute increase of knowledge, wisdom, understanding but only more 'CCP-esque pimp-love lie-fare gas-lighting brain-damage; brick to the head' or to put it more gently a wrong emphasis of factors which distorted mood or disposition as an orchestra with good rehearsal, preparation, and conductor could be eroded in the wrong hands over time, and people were just trying to wear me down in a 'Bleed France White' war of attrition against everything I've tried to be and do  I also realized of late the time had come to give up certain perquisites that I had had in mind to one day gain or 'help myself to.'  At the bottom of my soul I guess I always wanted to cash in; someone else on FB after the miraculous sparing of my life in 2012 started spreading around an experience that I had had with a student in 2012 which was nothing like the K-wave NC-17 version could have been the CCP deepfake character-assassination pretext for WW3 or Covid unrestricted biowarfare against white guys.  Words can't fly back in to the mouth that once let them out and at this point I have no idea what my legacy could be - or in a way hopefully no one even cares anymore although I suspect they keep some version of the story somewhere for a dinner-party IDK why I am saying this; you can reason with some people / try and teach them but if they have no compelling reason to change they might just savage youI wondered lately whether some people really believe.  They want life but their interpretation / understanding or imago of life - who knows?  'Tomorrow will be like today only more so' (Isaiah, mutatis mutandis).  They might love life or hate life but they want it and they also often don't care where it comes from, which is part of why right now the debate over social justice or the fact that so much in the United States comes from outside of the United States, or the fact that poor Millennials et al. are often still unable to get married and have children while Boomers ride emperor-on-palanquin- style on top of the Social Security system and reproach us for believing, like the title of a novel about Shanghai, 'What We Were Promised' at the breakfast-table or in (public, Democrato-Maoist-intellectual-town-bike-fruitbasket) schools about freedom, self-esteem, magic - world peace, nuclear disarmament, the 'salvation' of the natural environment, outer space, technology, non-traditional families, racial reconciliation, international adjudication of breaches of international law and esp. enforcement of human rights.  It struck me several times in recent months and years that the rulers, the sovereigns, the princes and great captains of the nations I admire such as Israel and Korea were often either a) special forces soldiers (such as Moon Jaein, Ehud Barak)b) human rights lawyers (Roh Moohyun, Moon Jaein again)c) spies (the individual who might actually have closest to total control of world-events right now; or at least the ultimate veto of everything and everyone, with variable selectivity and specificity / detail) I don't know if I was overreacting or what; I was comfortable with my 'modest income' from mental illness and felt adequately justified since I was engaged in respectable activities; I felt I hadn't really had a moment's rest in life since I was about 4, constantly shot at, judged, abused, thrown to wolves etc. and blamed for my own problems since I 'didn't "make" daddy____.'   I even believed I had a chance to re-emerge since everyone amid Covid appears to be essentially on the same side.  Before recent events I event felt an 'FDR-moment' / 'New Deal moment' was feasible under Biden though I now see clearly I believe that JRBJr. can't control his underlings, staff, et al. as FDR was able to do; and America and the world are simply too complicated.  Vladimir Putin was saying - and he doesn't always lie - basically that constitutional democracies are too weak.  Neoliberal+ shills, 'Wahh bureaucracy, Milton Friedman, grist for our mill, cliche, cliche, eat the poor, abandon the weak, post-partum-abortion, God is dead' but a lot of these people are part of a bureaucracy as well and Russia's got government bureaus, CCP does, Korea does.  Anyone who ever loved or admired Confucius or studied China knows - though many such as Ezra Vogel and Tu Weiming and some dumb-ass Australians and Indian-Singaporean pervert this knowledge for pleasure and profit - what can be achieved through sincere, spiritual, loving, reverent, educated, talented, qualified, also beauty-loving, statecraft.I guess the only question in a way is whether Microsoft themselves have nuclear weapons or Google built the guidance-systems or something and that's not an LRB title though if I had lived a purer life to this point I might be on staff there or at least they'd welcome me in the cake-shop.  Howbeit at this point my 'last wish' is kind of to die in Korea where they journalists are NOT affected or mercenary, and the rag-picking of ppl like me is not fake or ultimately egocentric / meretricious / simulacrum or sham-virtue (again I hate to talk about Nietzsche since I wanted to move on to just David Platt, Saint Augustine, John Piper, John MacArthur, global Christianity 2022).  Korea's also, I noticed, a country where the Covid body-account appears to be honest and I know for a fact, as Dr., Prof, much else Eric Feigl-Ding has been talking about on Twitter about 25 hours a day, a country in which the Democrat mentality of 'you got sick you're stupid' or the Milwaukee mentality of 'you got sick bypass watch you die joke at bar but we're still good Christians South Park Satan must be good to be evil sometimes' isn't in effect and people have resolved to do everything they can both to prevent and to mitigate as well to contain or pocket though no one wants to talk much about that.  Like I said the other day I wish I were in Korea; I also had a dream about one of those free-standing station-stops in rural Japan that reminded me of 'Cafe Lumiere' by Hou Hsiao Hsien and a conversation I had with Prof. Ban Wang fmr. Rutgers and last I checked Stanford about how Japan had built these intricate rail-systems in order to help preserve rural culture.  Another good film about rural Japan is 'Hanamizuki' although IDK if post-Covid anyone is going to want to talk again about micro-sized kindergartens, the Iraq War, fishing, the meanings of trees, following through on commitments or promises, or returning gratitude and love.  IDK whether the stuff I read over the last 5-10 years about housing-prices in places like rural Japan or, alternatively, Vladivostok are as low as I've read but if they have good internet I might go if only b/c  people there aren't interested in teaching you every lesson or extracting the max. from you then leaving you to die in the name of 'getting to know one.'  There's a short Somerset Maugham book called 'The Moon and Sixpence' though I don't admire Maugham that much and prefer his literary criticism / critical appreciations of other writers and cultures to his fiction but it feels like what some people are looking for today is more like 'huge amounts of money, charming personality, offer we can't refuse, satisfying sexual favor or we either vivisect you or pozz you up with 1st-gen anti-psychotics / kill you with ECT and still deny the exist of God, as well as demons.'My other privileged Millennial friends are all mad at me for not bearing fruit and my 'last love' said I dishonored my parents but Koreans  & maybe they don't get just how much Mark Johnston et al. are totally committed to reversing course at the most destructive possible moments and never paying what they said they'd pay; like how terrorists will sometimes detonate one bomb for the civilians and another for the first responders on the scene - though maybe I just ran out of chances.

[scifimagpie]

Evil is Boring, and Other Unexpected Things

Like a chipmunk crouching in a forest next to a nuclear reactor, Canada is in close proximity to the slow-motion disaster that is the United States of America. With a president who coasted into office on a wave of electoral fraud constantly compromising the safety of the country's information and people.

A part of me - perhaps unbelievably - is a little embarrassed to be excoriating Trump as thoroughly as I am, even though it's nearly a universally understood truth at this point - and even though his party's legislation has directly resulted in the caging of immigrants and their children, and their detainment in concentration camps.

That said, I think one of the hardest things to understand about Donald Trump is that, inasmuch as he's basically as evil and villainous as it gets, he's not the kind of villain I was raised to to expect.

What is evil?

That's a complex question, but for our purposes, I'm going to reference both aesthetics and intentions. My personal stance on evil is that it's more of a verb than a noun. One's actions, weighed in the balance of their impact, as well as the current historical or contemporary perspective, tend to determine whether or not one is classified as evil. For instance, Winston Churchill tested mustard gas on Kurdish villagers before deploying it during WWII, and the otherwise admirable Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who created the "New Deal" and a number of important social security measures for American citizens, also was responsible for the internment of Japanese-Americans. Canada has its own examples of leaders with similarly mixed legacies. In the context of colonialism and that resulting violence, it's hard to canonize any leaders, especially those in the "New World."

That being said, Adolf Hitler's actions and his legacy are pretty good examples - nearly archetypcal examples - of what we see as evil nowadays. (Well, those of us who are not neo-Nazis, anyway.)

But do they look evil?

Between Disney and other fantastical films, very clear portrayals of "a villain" emerged - a villain was supposed to be stylish, attractive, usually or frequently non-white, damaged, and either coded-gay or overtly homosexual (sometimes asexual). In contrast, heroes - especially in the nineties - were usually laid-back slackers, usually white, straight, and male; always heterosexual, and both mentally and physically well, often athletic or extremely nerdy, and usually lacking self-confidence and/or social skills. Frequently, said heroes were disproportionately popular, due to some inexplicable "leadership quality," and I'm sure many of my readers will be familiar with the token reward girlfriends usually accorded to such heroes as a matter of course.

The state of the present

Much hay has been made of the idea that young white men grew up seeing themselves as heroes based on their birthright, and therefore, have not had to do anything to deserve that mantle. Said young and less-than-young men are also increasingly fond of mocking marginalized people who dare set boundaries on the portrayals of their cultures, sexuality, and themselves.

Given that white men and white women voted for Trump in droves, and have continually shuffled out of the way when held accountable for inequality issues, I feel it's fair to say that both the left and right have come to see straight, white, cisgender, heterosexual, and able people as - well, the "enemy," or at least a source of antagonism - and as a "persecuted minority," respectively. That said, from what I can tell black people and other people of colour don't really hate white people, not really - but centuries and decades of persecution and marginalization and abuse have led to a lot of pain and entirely reasonable resentment.

More recently, in addition to the many nigh-endless microaggressions and larger acts of violent discrimination perpetrated against people of colour, images of the cargo shorts-clad and tiki-torch wielding racist protesters trying to "defend their white heritage and children" are inescapable. For white queers, a similar dynamic exists with "the straights" - it's not that we hate straight people, but we exist in a constant state of trepidation, wary of that moment when a friend or relative will suddenly reveal that they hate people like us, or have no interest in preserving the rights of people like us.

Because narratives cut us out of the spotlight or cast us in antagonistic roles, queers and people of colour grew up fixating on minor characters and often, on villains. When I thought about it tonight, my heart cracked to realise that the people who were supposed to be the heroes fighting injustice - ordinary white men - seem to care little about our rights and their so-called birthright - and those who were always cast as villains had ended up being, well, the ones fighting for people's rights to marry, control their own bodies, vote, and not be incarcerated or killed on fatuous or fabricated charges.

Coping with it

On the other hand, I finally had the emotional resources and the chance to watch Black Panther recently, and I think the movie - which did not disappoint - offers both hope and some potential solutions. Martin Freeman's (hilariously) American CIA agent is overtly (and rightly) called a colonizer, but he learns to listen to Nakia and Shuri rather than questioning them or assuming he knows better. The movie nods to the historical reality of American interference in other countries' governments, but unlike Andy Serkis' character, he doesn't refer to the Wakandans as "savages."

The peaceful resolution at the end of the movie brings tears to my eyes as I recollect it. Conquest and murder won't make reparations for the sins of the past (and present). But resources and nurturing might, and will save the current and future generations - as well as enriching all of us.

And personally, that's the future I want. Let me be clear - as a scary leftist, all I want is for everyone in my city, my province, my country, my continent, and this world to be housed, fed, and safe; for people to be happy, healthy, and loved. That includes the straight, white, cisgender people, not just the marginalized.

I want to see what the world can be if we work together to take care of it. I want to see what kind of art we can produce when we have the opportunity to make it, and what we can discover if we put the resources towards the sciences. And from what I've gleaned from talking to anarchists, communists, socialists, and even many people on the liberal spectrum - that's what all of us want.

But to do that, we have to figure out what we're fighting for, and maybe, who we're fighting.

As a writer...

I was never prepared for this eventuality. Will Ferguson's Happiness (TM), a book in which the end of the world is wrought by a self-help book, had some excellent points about the banality of evil. I think a lot of us still think of evil as stylish and classy, but where in that schema do we place a tasteless human vuvuzela like Trump? The bland and smiling "worst teacher you had in high school" persona of Mike Pence has something of a place in the rogue's gallery of archetypes, especially in dystopian fiction. But how do we reconcile with the fact that the people we were taught to trust and idolize - for instance, cops and parents - are only too happy to hurt us?

Honestly? I don't have an answer, so I want to know how all of you feel about this. Reblog, comment, and answer - how do you feel about this reversal? How are you going to write about villains and antagonists?

***

Michelle Browne is a sci fi/fantasy writer. She lives in Lethbridge, AB with her partner-in-crime, housemate, and their cat. Her days revolve around freelance editing, knitting, jewelry, and nightmares, as well as social justice issues. She is currently working on the next books in her series, other people's manuscripts, and drinking as much tea as humanly possible. Catch up with Michelle's news on the mailing list. Her books are available on Amazon, and she is also active on Medium, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Tumblr, and the original blog.

[uberhero-chorus]

🕰 ((u already know))

Sneak Peek

(( Prepare yourselves kiddies you are about to read one helluva drabble.This also explains some of V; Uberhero High ‘s World btw ))

Hatapon lost count of the years for awhile, as many long-lived Patapon did. He still did his duties in leading hunts and the occasional army to drive away a giant or two, and he still remained a very important member of the tribe.

Except, he witnessed his tribe grow steadily. The population grew in size, and thus needed more space. The tribe became a village, and then a town, before becoming a small city. Then, as relations with Zigotons and Karmens became stronger, some of them joined the mix. Soon enough, Patapolis had become a sprawling metropolis full of Patapons, Zigotons, and Karmen alike.

With the Zigotons and Karmen came advanced knowledge of materials not well known by the Patapons. And the brightest of them all pooled their knowledge together to gradually create new technologies for all to enjoy.

Somewhere along the way, something extraordinary happened. The masks of Heroes and Uberheroes were starting to be unearthed, and their powers still intact. And while they no longer had the essence of Almighty Patapons in them, and the amnesia they had given to Heroes and Uberheroes of old seemed to have vanished or had been reduced, something still had to be done with those who accepted their powers. From then on, anyone who should obtain a mask would be required to attend special training academies.

Hatapon happened to think about the Uberheroes while he read the papers one day. While most of the masks had been found (sometimes, there were even duplicates of the same mask recovered!) he had heard nothing about a particular mask he had hidden away long ago. He wondered if they would ever find it, actually...

Myamsar Mask Located at Long Last in Mater Park

The emboldened headline in the papers that next day caught Hatapon’s attention right away. How could it not? Every time he saw or heard that name, his attention was immediately stolen away. He had made good on his promise to Arye that day, that he would not be a forgotten hero. The tales of Arye the Almighty of justice, Kitt the Hero of the Patapons, and the “Ballad of the Uberhero” were popular folk tales that had been passed down from generation to generation. They had even been illustrated, painted, and put into print! Some textbooks even held excerpts of the tales within them!

And, lo and behold, here in the newspaper before him.

The mask that the Almighty Arye once used to fend off the Archfiends has been discovered once again after centuries upon centuries of hiding.

“Didn’t think I hid it too well.” Hata giggled. “All I did was bury it, guys.”

The new holder of the Myamsar mask is a twelve-year-old Patapon from the outskirts of Patapolis. The article continued. His identity and exact place of residence have been withheld from the general public to protect his identity.

“As they should.” The Flagbearer huffed.

The new Myamsar will be seeing a tutor immediately, and will start attending a Hero Academy once he turns fourteen.

“Hrmph.” Hatapon slumped a little. “New Myamsar”, something about that just didn’t sit right with him. The Myamsar he knew, however, was Almighty Arye fused with the Hero Kitt, though... This kid was probably very different. He probably wasn’t going to be the Myamsar he knew.

Well, he’d just have to wait and wonder.

The news about the Myamsar mask’s recovery had been... What? Four years ago now? And quite a lot seems to have gone down since then.

First, being called out  on a special case: To find an Uberhero who had fled his abusive foster parents and remained on the run for quite some time. They had contacted Hatapon and the Trifecta when the situation was getting desperate, and the safety of the kid was most definitely a concern.They did find him. Well, Chin did. It was a rainy, cold evening when the Tatepon found the Uberhero, bleeding on the soaked pavement. Turns out he had encountered the wrong crowd, who attacked him with a switchblade.

The Flagbearer, amid the organized panic that was the Trifecta, had frozen when he saw just which Uberhero he was handling here.Myamsar

It had been forever since he had seen that cat-like mask on an actual Patapon.

And when he had heard the kid was in foster care, and that he was now out of a home after this incident... Well, the ever kindly and now powerful Meden dropped a few hints on CPS regarding their newest foster parent, and Hatapon was given a call about a “Sixteen-year-old Uberhero in need of a home.”

On the day he showed up to pick Myamsar up, his Zigoton social worker seemed to immediately swoop in and pull him aside. She had a lot of things to explain, as evident by a hearty stack of folders containing paper after paper on things regarding this kid.

“-And here is the medicine he is currently taking.” Kyuton said. “This here is his emergency allergy shots- he should have at least one of these on his person at all times. And this one is his painkillers.” She praddled on, talking a bit quickly. “He needs one half of these everyday. If he is feeling any abnormal pain, then call his doctor- number here!” She pointed out a phone number on the label. “Next... Um... I should probably explain why he needs the medicine...”

“Where... Where the heck is the rice in this place?”

Supermarkets usually got Hatapon a bit confused as he tried to find one or two items within such a large and cluttered place, and he was rightfully teased for being ‘Old Man Hata’ because of it. Fair enough.

It was getting a little late, and he really had to get started on dinner soon. While he had to buy a little extra for the other mouth he now had to feed, Hatapon swore to his foster charge that he would be using the government checks on his needs and only his needs. He had to admit, though, that money was quite a savior to his bank account! It felt good to foster properly, knowing he was putting the money towards its intended use.

While Hata was still trying to track down the rice, he happened to catch a whiff of the fish as he passed the meat isle. He slowed down and looked to a cute chalkboard sign.

Super Saturday Sale! All fish products, 50% off!! It read.

“...Fifty percent?” Hatapon speculated. “Sounds kinda... Fishy. Heh.” He joked to himself, making his way to the clerk in charge of this section. If Myamsar were here, he’d probably make some kind of noise in between a laugh and an “UUGGHH MISTER HATAPON-”

“’Scuse me.” Hatapon said to the clerk. “Is uhh... The fish priced like this for a particular reason or...?”

“Aha! Nah, buddy, nothins’ gone bad, I promise!” The accented Dekamen running the fish isle laughed. “Nah, it’s only on sale ‘cause the guy who orders the stuff bought WAY too many, so we knocked down the prices until the stock evens out.” He explained.

“Oh, okay, good!” Hata giggled. He remembered one tiny detail about the Myamsar he had known long ago... He had always loved fish. If a traveling merchant was passing by with a load of fish, he and the Trifecta knew what would be for dinner that night.

Perhaps...

“Okay... How about I get some tuna, rainbow trout, some grouper,,, And some salmon.” Hatapon ordered.

“Comin’ right up, sir.” The Dekamen replied, gathering up the fish in some paper bags.”

“Thanks, and... Where’s the rice?”

“Down three isles, it’s right by the pastas.”

“Thanks!”

“I’m home, Myams!” Hatapon called as he stepped into the apartment, carrying a good load of groceries in each arm. “Where have ya got to...?”

To Hatapon’s amusement, he had stepped into the living room to fins Myamsar fast asleep on top of the radiator. His school jacket and bag had been tossed onto a chair, he must’ve come home from a meeting and conked right out.

“Heh, imagine that.” The Flagbearer giggled. “I’m not sure if I’m looking after an Uberhero, or an actual cat!” He gave the teen a nudge. “You conscious, Myam?”

A slight ear twitch, but he otherwise showed no sign of waking.

He was really starting to remind him of Arye now, it was almost frightening. While it was never a radiator, the Uberhero did find quite a few... Unusual places to take catnaps. And when he did that, it was either impossible to find him or impossible to wake him up. The only thing that stirred Arye from his beauty sleep was...

Hatapon began to work on dinner right away. While he had initially planned on making something else, he knew that fish should be prepared as soon as possible to prevent spoiling. He set the other fish in the freezer in favor of the salmon tonight, Arye’s favorite...

Lemon seasoned salmon with wild rice on the side was dinner tonight, and the aroma was pretty good (for now). When everything was pretty much done, Myamsar had finally been drawn to the kitchenette, a yawn escaping him.

“I see you’re back among the living!” Hatapon greeted. “Have a good nap on the radiator?”

“..Hrrm? It’s a warm spot...”

“Yeah, but it’s also metal. Don’t go killing your muscles now.” He advised. “Now sit down, dinners ready.” The flagbearer smiled. “...And I think you might like this one!”

Myamsar sat down at his plate, not hesitating on trying some salmon. Instantly, his expression perked into a more wide-awake one.

“Oh, wow! This is really good!” He mewed. “What is it?”

“Salmon. It’s a type of fish.”

“It’s really tasty! It feels... Nostalgic, even...” The teen nodded as he ate more of dinner.

Hatapon was speechless. This... This can’t be a coincidence anymore. It seemed that as Myamsar opened up to Hatapon more and more, he only continued to resemble the Arye he knew...Maybe he should ask now...

“Say... Myams?”

“Mister Hatapon?”

“Do you... Do you trust me, Myamsar?”

“...Yeah, I’m pretty sure I do now.” The Uberhero admitted. “I mean, thinking back on it, you did help me when I got stabbed that one time... And you are one of the kindest fosters I’ve ever had.” He mused. “I feel like I can actually talk to you, you know? Even though I’ve been through so much, you’ve been really patient with me.”

“That’s.... That’s good, because...” Hata began. “Myamsar, I know that Uberheroes keep their birth names between themselves and immediate family, but... Do you mind telling me your name? The one you were born with?”

Myamsar remained silent for awhile, causing Hatapon to worry.

“I-it’s okay if you don’t-”

“Kitt.”

“-Huh?”

“My name? It’s Kitt.” Myamsar said. “Kind of a... Dumb name, yeah.” He rubbed the back of his head nervously. “...You look kind of wide-eyed there, Mister Hatapon. Does “Kitt” mean something to you?”

...So it’s true. Hatapon summed up in his head. This seriously can’t be coincidence anymore, they’re just too alike... Almighty Arye, did you revive the Hero Kitt’s soul with a fragment of your own?

“Oh, Myamsar... Kitt isn’t a silly name, now.” Hatapon said wholesomely. “It... It actually does mean something very important to me...”

Welcome back, Arye... Kitt... Myamsar.

[bootycallreverie]

"Please can we not make her mayor?"

I woke up today to this fascinating question regarding Cllr. Ana Bailão’s votes to uphold systemic oppression within the Toronto Police. “Please can we not make her mayor?”

It was a deceptively complex question that got me thinking of some of the fundamentals of activism, social change and politics, that I wanted to unpack this question bit by bit.

I’ve cut it into five sections: PLEASE, CAN, WE, NOT MAKE HER, MAYOR.

///

1. PLEASE

I assume this softens the meaning of the phrase - “I want her out of politics” is pretty harsh – especially in the context of a man publicly critiquing a woman. Yet it shows us something important – we are implying we need permission to participate in politics.

Why are we asking for permission? And to whom is this appeal directed? Last time I checked, I don’t need permission to do most things in life, including participating in the political process. Our US-based friends did not ask for permission when they recently revolted against their governments; they did it even though they faced police brutality, neo-Nazi paramilitaries, psychological warfare, a global pandemic and more.

The “please” comes out of the respectability politics that makes “Ontario” as a political entity so curious. “Please don’t gut our healthcare!” is not coming from a position of strength. (Anyway, it’s much easier for progressives to walk back overzealousness in the name of justice than it is for people to walk back bigotry.)

To best challenge power, we must never apologize for having ambitious convictions. We need to champion big ideas, even if they’re ahead of the curve. Two months ago, police reform would have been considered impossible in America. And they were right, it was impossible...under the existing model. So they changed the model.

Change – especially lasting change – comes from the grassroots, so while it’s not a bad thing to support progressive political candidates, parties and organizations, it is *significantly* more important to support issues-based activists and organizations (i.e. if you give $10 monthly to the NDP, why not also give $10 to your favourite advocacy group?). Issues-based groups are formed to challenge one specific cog of power at a time and can therefore deliver deep, fundamental and long-lasting impacts. (Plus…this is a great way for potential candidates to gain some experience; get those ppl knocking on doors now and they’ll do much better in 2022.)

2. CAN

If we are asking “do we, as a community, have the capacity to elect someone better?” The answer to this is yes, but if we’re instead asking “will someone within the existing structure please FINALLY get off their ass and challenge her?” then we might ask ourselves why this hasn’t already happened. The civic left has largely allowed Cllr. Bailão (and, to a lesser extent, Mayor Wonderbread, who is merely a pathetic, respectable version of Rob Ford) to go unchallenged because she’s been deemed impossible to beat, but by not challenging her, the civic left has allowed her career to continue essentially unfettered because they don’t want to spend resources on a race they’re unlikely to win. If only there were some other downtown districts where a new, young generation of activists can start to build their careers…except the seats available are full with straight white boy progressives.

Why does the civic left protect Gord Perks, Joe Cressy and Mike Layton? Like…honestly…I just don't see what the big deal about Joe Cressy is. He bumped Ausma Malik out of the 2018 election instead of doing the right thing and making way for a supremely talented racialized woman like I'd hope someone committed to true justice would. There is even a movement in the democratic party to ask white men to not run in safe seats. [This paragraph and the next have been edited for tone, thank you to Colin Burns for encouraging me to rethink my words and my misdirected anger, my frustration naturally lies with Cllr. Bailāo's behaviour.]

Gord Perks verged into alt-left territory last year as a free-speech absolutist and consequently an apologist for bigotry when he should have defended trans folk. He even shared his disappointing thoughts publicly (yup, he did, they’re still up, don’t @ me on this one, you’ll regret it: http://gordperks.ca/toronto-public-library-chief-librarians-decision/) so considering who he seems to be, we can do better after 14 years? (TL;DR – there’s need for renewal in a lot of parts of our movements, and the labour movement is no exception.)

Mike Layton is a lovely man with his heart in the right place. I’ve volunteered for him and would gladly do it again. It therefore pains me to recognize that his last name is more than a name. I’m happy for everything he (and his team) has contributed in a rapidly changing district. My concern is that lefties can’t afford to support dynasties in the same way that liberals and conservatives can, especially in downtown districts where our odds of winning are good and where we ought to be supporting talented Black, Trans, Indigenous, disAbled and economically-disadvantaged candidates that are already on the front lines of social change. (This list is illustrative, not exhaustive.) By the time of the next election, Mike Layton will have been there for 12 years. Perhaps it’s time for him to open an opportunity for others.

3. WE

Who is “we”? Is it people in this district? Is it people in Toronto? Is it progressives? Whoever can identify this “we” and mobilize them will have the best shot of defeating her. This is the “coalition” people describe as needed to win election. Of course, this includes whoever’s running for office and their team. That organizing work needs to start right now if there’s going to be any chance of a lefty winning this seat in 2022. (If you think she isn’t already considering her council seat successor, remember that her old boss was Mario Silva, who was *coincidentally* Davenport’s City Councillor and MP for a combined 16 years.)

4. NOT MAKE HER

This is maybe the biggest hurdle to get over since “NOT ANA BAILAO” is not an option on the ballot. Considering there are no formal (lol) parties or slates on council, her name recognition is her biggest electoral asset, so a keep-it-safe campaign won’t work. Plus her public image is fairly non-toxic, so as pissed off as we all are, most people won’t be swayed by a STOP BAILAO campaign from the left (the trope of the conservative woman can be very powerful – thanks Maggie – so expect her campaign to lean pretty typically right).

When we say “Cllr. Bailão should not be Mayor” we rob ourselves of the ability to say “I think this person would make a great mayor” or “these are the some of the values I want in a mayor.” – and I don’t mean just of the City Council types. (At this point, Josh Marlow is the other councilor to watch.)

I hate hearing “why can’t we have AOC or Jacinta Arden or Anne Hidalgo or Ilhan Omar?” They didn’t come out of thin air. We already have those people here, we just haven’t elevated them to where they can make a difference and this is why. (Also, lefties, let’s seriously push for term limits and ranked ballots…especially the term limits, most ppl out there love the idea, it costs zero dollars and ensures districts have a healthy amount of turnover.)

5. MAYOR

Toronto City Council is a “weak mayor” system. The Mayor need council approval for pretty much everything important. The Mayor will find success or failure on how well he can build a team of reliable allies on council. It’s something thing Mayor Wonderbread does too well: his allies don’t offer a lot of different views. A hypothetical Mayor Bailão would probably do similar.

So then how rigid should a politician be? Are they supposed to be trustees, where we trust them to do what’s best for us and we have a check-in every 4 years? Or are they supposed to be conduits of public opinion with little regard for context? Or is a councillor meant to reflect the demographics of their district, even though they can only truly embody one set of lived experiences as an individual? Or perhaps, in the case of Cllr. Bailão, someone not dedicated to steering the ship but merely running the engine, not caring where it sails even though we've seen icebergs on the horizon? We’ve grown up in a SimCity generation where we think the mayor can make whatever they want happen. As great as that might sound sometimes, in a democracy, accountability matters. But it must come with a recognition that SimCity mayors don't fear the wrath of the voters.

///

I want to recognize that a 10% reallocation is fucking pathetic and still Toronto council couldn’t do it…but at least we know where we stand, and with whom.

We often look at politics as a sport or a soap opera, and it feels great when your team scores points or your favourite character delivers a knockout performance. Even I was like “dang girl” when Nancy Pelosi defiantly ripped up the President’s speech. I was also touched by Jagmeet Singh’s touching display of emotion the day after he was ejected from the House of Commons for calling out bigotry. But that’s not politics, that’s a long running TV drama series, so as disappointed as I am in what happened, I’m not gonna yell at her in the street because White Man Raging is not a great look these days…or ever.

So let’s not make this about my neighbour, Cllr. Ana Bailão. Let’s make it about the system of oppression she has willingly chosen to uphold and tearing that motherfucker down piece by piece.

[rogerjharding]

Essay in the #OurOtherNationalDebt collection in response to the COVID-19 crisis. Full report and responses to it available here: https://www.ourothernationaldebt.com/

FULL TEXT:

The coronavirus has illuminated who is truly indispensable in modern Britain.

While some are confident this will bring about new-found respect and reward for working class people, I’m sceptical. The financial crash also brought the sense that things wouldn’t be the same again, and they weren’t, but not for the reasons we hoped. Working class people rarely fare well during or after economic turmoil and, with the financial crash in the rear-view mirror, many of us know it.

I worry an anger is building in many working class communities about how inequitably the current costs and risks are being shared. Just like the idea ‘we’re all in it together’ after the crash, the idea this crisis is the same for all of us just isn’t ringing true. The disconnect presents fertile ground for polarisation, pessimism and populism to grow.

The pain in communities is raw and real – and it risks being deepened by middle class activists and commentators too readily racing to talk about the ‘opportunities’ this time presents. Working class movements can, however, start to think – carefully, cautiously, compassionately – about the things we can win together if we stick together. The young people at RECLAIM kicked this off with a rapid response campaign to thank #TheIndispensables but we will need to have a medium and long term plan if we’re to make sure Britain’s working class comes out of this time stronger and more united.

Right now, YouGov polling for the Times Red Box suggests that there’s a reasonable degree of togetherness but in a recent report the Collective Psychology Project highlighted that there’s a fairly consistent progression in collective emotional responses to major events. The initial ‘heroic’ phase is met with high altruism and is then followed by a ‘honeymoon’ phase of great togetherness and optimism. However, this relatively quickly gives way to a long ‘disillusionment’ phase marked by increased polarisation, feelings of abandonment and concerns about the limits of the response.

It is hard to say whether we have reached a disillusionment phase of this crisis, but the toll on people’s mental health is already clear. Ipsos Mori polling for Kings College London finds that half of us feel more anxious and depressed and 29% are finding lockdown extremely difficult (or expect to) in the next four weeks (notably rising to 42% for 16-24 year olds).

Working class people are already experiencing greater threats to their jobs (as reported by the Resolution Foundation), living in more densely populated areas (as covered here by the FT), not having enough space at home (as reported by the JRF), not having as much access to decent green spaces (as reported by CABE), having poorer lung health due to being more likely be exposed to air pollution (as reported by Asthma UK), being more likely to have underlying health conditions (as reported by the King’s Fund), finding it harder to get online or have enough devices for everyone at home (as reported by the Sutton Trust), having less ability to home school (also reported by the Sutton Trust), having less access to affordable food (as reported by the Food Foundation), being less able to access cheap credit (as reported by the Centre for Social Justice) and low paid workers are disproportionally represented in the key worker jobs that expose them and families to increased risk (as reported by the IFS).

Put even more starkly, Office of National Statistics data shows that living in the poorest neighbourhoods means you're twice as likely to die from the coronavirus as people living in the richest ones.

Strangely, I’m not sure that horrific reality is the thing likely to generate the most anger. Having a shorter life due to your postcode was already the pre-coronavirus reality. Instead it’s often the subtle, more visible things that anger people more.

Who is (not) in the room always shows in a crisis

Being working class often makes you acutely aware of the little ways people unconsciously reveal they’re better off. Despite us now being physically separate, social media, video calls and simply how we talk about our lockdown experience is giving people greater insight into ‘how the other half lives’. People won’t easily forget their sneak-peek into the bigger, nicer, greener space of others doing less essential work or making fewer sacrifices.

This moment also tells us a lot about who makes decisions and what informs them. There’s one example that features frequently in discussions at RECLAIM. In early March, during the government’s new daily press conference, ministers and scientists provided guidance on what to do if you suspect someone in your home has the virus. It encouraged those self-isolating ‘to use a separate bathroom’ if possible. This obviously isn’t bad guidance, but the assumption this was more important to cover than how, for example, you deal with isolating in an already-overcrowded home, is telling. I similarly doubt the need for guidance – then flouted in at least one notable case – on whether you can use your second home will be forgotten either.

Some working class people will also be asking themselves why it is that old unemployment and housing benefit rates (the improvements noted in Ashwin Kumar’s essay) aren’t good enough now that it isn’t just them who need to claim them.

This sore created by the coronavirus is only likely to increase when our divides are further exposed by the lockdown easing. People will spot that middle class professionals are more able to continue to work from home and that middle class young people are benefiting from more home-schooling and tutoring (as reported by the Sutton Trust). The young people we support at RECLAIM already often flagged the state of their high street and related areas as top of their list of local economic concerns. Boarded up shops and ever-decreasing visitors are visible signs of something not being right, and sadly many high streets will look a lot worse when the lockdown ends.

In this context it’s not surprising that people hanker for the past. While activists on Twitter enjoy sharing slogans about how ‘we can’t return to normal, because normal was the problem’, much of the British public have been enjoying nostalgia. Recent research from Thinkbox, the TV marketing body, reveals a lockdown surge in the number of us watching old TV, with Last of the Summer Wine and Only Fools and Horses repeats doing especially well. Spotify has seen something similar, with increased subscriber use of ‘throwback’ playlists.

Part of why we get comfort from the past is that we see it through rose-tinted glasses. Comparisons (many unhelpful) are regularly drawn between this crisis and WW2. Our national mind’s eye view of the end of the war is the street celebrations of VE day. Many hope for something similar at the end of this period. What we don’t tend to reflect on is the disillusionment and anger many people felt soon after 1945.

While some people cautiously but thankfully dreamt of us building back better, many just wanted done with Britain. David Kynaston’s Austerity Britain notes that in spring 1948, just weeks before the creation of the NHS, a Gallup poll found that 42% of people wanted to emigrate (up from 19% in 1945). We also tend to ignore the post-war resurgence of antisemitism on the streets of our cities, showing that hatred and division can quickly re-emerge.

Turning anger into accountability

It’s hard to know what the exact dividing lines will be this time, but in crises there are always those who encourage working class people to fear one another. White people encouraged to fear people of colour, working people in towns and villages told to be wary of those in cities, southerners to suspect northerners and vice versa, and longer-standing residents urged to fear more recent arrivals. As Kitty Usher notes in her essay, one new split in this crisis might be those furloughed and those not.

We face a double threat here – populists on the right exploiting divisions and some on the left being parasitic on people’s pain. There are some who get excited by a crisis, despite all the human misery, because they see this as a necessary price for change. It’s often not even subtle: at one recent webinar for organisers I heard a left activist happily tell people ‘I don’t know about you, but I’m really excited by all this’. Those don’t feel likely to be the words of someone who spends a lot of time truly listening to working class people.  

We need to get past the anger and turn it into a drive for real accountability. The list of policy, societal and business responses needed to do justice to those leaning into risk or having to get by with even less is huge. This collection covers a good number of starting points on wages, job security (see Andrew Pakes’ essay), the strength of our social security (see Ashwin Kumar’s essay), housing (see Rachael Orr’s essay), our approach to immigration (see Satbir Singh’s essay) and much more. This will all be vitally important to honouring the country’s other national debt, but so will ensuring working class people have a permanent seat around the country’s top tables, regardless of which party is in power and whether we are facing good times or bad.

We need much more direct involvement of working class people in the decisions that affect our lives, starting with specific youth assemblies as part of the national commission outlined in the introduction to this collection. At every layer of society – not just in the professions, business and politics but in charities and funders too – we need class inclusion to be a core equality concern.

There is a very real risk an unrepresentative charity sector becomes more distant from the country when the register of which organisations survive is taken (as noted on race by Charity So White). As work we supported young people on last year showed, the current approach of some charities inadvertently alienates young working class people. If organisations in any sector want to build back better they will need to look as much at their own practice as the changes they demand in others. At RECLAIM we’re reshaping our work and are pleased to see a growing number of organisations work with us and the young working class people we support to go on co-discovery processes to work out the specific changes needed in their field.

Finally, we all need to get better at explicitly calling out those that sow division amongst working class communities. Emerging research from the US shows this is the best framing approach to counter hateful populism. This approach means campaigners on economic issues getting more comfortable explicitly talking about race and immigration, rather than always hoping to pivot away from them. This also means helping everyone to feel included by being explicit about how policy ideas deliver for working class people whether white, black or brown, a more recent arrival or someone whose family has been here for generations. Most importantly, to be successful this requires campaigners getting as busy delivering better communication messages to the unconverted as they can be debating how best to fine tune them with the choir.

That we owe working class people is so beyond question it unites the Guardian, Telegraph and FT. This situation is also changing so quickly that it’s hard to know what exact prescription of proposals will do their contribution and sacrifice justice. The only way to know for sure is to have working class people round the table when it’s decided. This should be a central legacy of this crisis, the idea that essential workers are essential voices. Working class people more than have the talent, strength and ideas to finally steer the country they so obviously drive. It’s time for all of us to make it happen.  

Roger Harding is Chief Executive of RECLAIM, the Manchester-based charity powering young working class people to change the country today and lead it tomorrow. He is a trustee of Victim Support.

@Roger_Harding

[lovehaswonangelnumbers]

New Post has been published on https://lovehaswonangelnumbers.org/february-2020-energy-report/

February 2020 Energy Report

February 2020 Energy Report

By Jennifer Hoffman

February has a few special gifts, one being the palindrome date on 02-02-2020, which hasn’t happened in 909 years and the next one is going to be 12-12-2121. We have a very powerful Mercury retrograde this month too, which is going to bring up some new lessons and we have a 30 year cycle ending.

The theme for February is ‘renewal’, time to re-purpose those old lessons and start considering new options. We are now in the expansion phase of our ascension journey so there’s no slowing down or stopping, we just keep forging ahead and making course corrections as we go. There are no mistakes, just energetic re-alignments and re-considerations.

February starts with some relief from the relentless energies we’ve had since December 2019. So maybe a little relaxing is in order and taking time for some reflection on what has happened since we began this journey. Do you remember January 1991? We’re closing a cycle which began then. What were you doing then and what is different now? This is big because it involves a Saturn cycle and he’s been a big player this year with the Saturn/Pluto conjunction. Oh and that isn’t over either, it’s just taking a little break for a month or two then it will be back on our agenda.

February’s Mercury retro is in its shadow period beginning on the 2nd and it goes into full swing on the 16th. This one is strong because it’s in Pisces, the opposite sign to Virgo, Mercury’s second planetary rulership (although I believe Chiron should rule Virgo). In this Mercury retro cycle we’re going to have to look at our Martyred Healer issues and consider whether we still want to maintain our soul contracts, responsibility, obligations, and commitments.

While it’s a noble gesture to be the healer, we have arrived at a point where we can no longer maintain that level of energetic connection in others’ lives and on their paths. We have shifted our participation from being a source of inspiring light to diving headfirst into their healing journey. With this Mercury retro we will be given an opportunity to shift that, as well as to take a bigger look at how our own energy trauma is compelling us to participate so strongly in healing others.

Are we trying to heal them or heal ourselves?

Do we feel validated if we heal them and does that make our personal suffering less intense?

Have we spent so much of our energy, time, and effort healing others that we have forgotten what our own path of joy looks like?

That’s part of our personal renewal theme and the re-purposing of our energy. What can you accomplish in your own life with all of the energy you’re pouring into others’ healing?

And further to February’s theme of renewal and repurposing we cannot forget about the Saturn/Pluto energy that will be playing in the background all year. It will continue to compel us to open up to the portals of potential that our soul holds for us, examine how we’re using our energy, looking at our energy boundaries, and whether we are operating at our highest potential that is fully aligned with our soul’s energy priorities.

One other aspect that isn’t discussed too much but it is also very powerful and active all year and that is the square between Pluto and Eris, the energy warrior for social justice. To understand Eris’ energy think of Zena the Warrior from the TV series. The fighter for truth and justice, she fights for the underdog, the victims, the marginalized, and those who cannot speak for themselves.

Any wonder that the most victimized in society, victims of human and child trafficking, are getting so much attention, as well as the vast corruption in politics and government? We’ll see a lot of that being uncovered this year thanks to Eris’ activity.

While we need to take action in February, we also need to spend some time in contemplation, reviewing our options, being open to new energies, giving ourselves time to process our grief over unmet expectations, losses, and disappointments, as we re-align ourselves with our souls purpose and potential to renew our commitment to our 3D/5D ascension path and the joy, peace, love, and abundance.

We are most effective when we are healed, whole, and congruent on our own energy path. Take the time this month to get re-aligned with your soul’s mission because March opens a whole new portal of potential as Saturn moves into Aquarius for the first time since January 1991. Buckle up and shine on. Have a great month.

*****

LoveHasWon.org is a Non-Profit Charity, Heartfully Associated with the “World Blessing Church Trust” for the Benefit of Mother Earth

Share Our Messages with Love and Gratitude

LOVE US @ MeWe mewe.com/join/lovehaswon

Visit Our Online Store for Higher Consciousness Products and Tools: LoveHasWon Essentials

http://lovehaswonessentials.org/

Visit Our NEW Sister Site: LoveHasWon Angel Numbers

https://lovehaswonangelnumbers.org/

Commentary from The First Contact Ground Crew 5dSpiritual Healing Team:

Feel Blocked, Drained, Fatigued, Restless, Nausea, Achy, Ready to Give Up? We Can Help! We are preparing everyone for a Full Planetary Ascension, and provide you with the tools and techniques to assist you Home Into The Light. The First Contact Ground Crew Team, Will Help to Get You Ready For Ascension which is Underway. New Spiritual Sessions have now been created for an Entire Family, including the Crystal Children; Group Family Healing & Therapy. We have just began these and they are incredible. Highly recommend for any families struggling together in these times of intense changes. Email: motherofallcreation@lovehaswon.org for more information or to schedule an emergency spiritual session. We can Assist You into Awakening into 5d Reality, where your experience is one of Constant Joy, Wholeness of Being, Whole Health, Balanced, Happy and Abundant. Lets DO THIS! Schedule Your Session Below by following the Link! Visit:  http://www.lovehaswon.org/awaken-to-5d/

Introducing our New LoveHasWon Twin Flame Spiritual Intuitive Ascension Session. Visit the link below:

https://lovehaswon.org/lovehaswon-twin-flame-spiritual-intuitive-ascension-session/

Request an Astonishing Personal Ascension Assessment Report or Astrology Reading, visit the link below for more information:

https://lovehaswon.org/lovehaswon-ascension-assessment-report

https://lovehaswon.org/lovehaswon-astrology/

Experiencing DeAscension Symptoms, Energy Blockages, Disease and more? Book a Holistic Healing Session

https://lovehaswon.org/lovehaswon-holistic-healing-session/

To read our Testimonials you can follow this link: http://www.lovehaswon.org/testimonials

Connect with MotherGod~Mother of All Creation on Skype @ mothergoddess8

Request a copy of our Book: The Tree of Life ~ Light of The Immortals Book

Order a copy of Our LoveHasWon Ascension Guide: https://lovehaswon.org/lovehaswon-ascension-guide/

**If you do not have a Paypal account, click on the button below:

If you wish to donate and receive a Tax Receipt, click the button below:

Donate with Paypal

Use Cash App with Our code and we’ll each get $5! FKMPGLH

Cash App Tag: $lovehaswon1111

Cash App

Donate with Venmo

VENMO

Support Our cause in the creation of the Crystal Schools for Children. Visit our fundraising link below:

LoveHasWon Charity for Crystal Schools

Support Our Charity in Co~Creating the New Earth Together by Helping Mother of All Creation. Visit our fundraising link below:

Support Mother Earth!

Support Us on PATREON

PATREON

Support Us Through Our LoveHasWon Wish List

LoveHasWon Wish List

We also accept Western Unionand Moneygram. You may send an email to michaelsilver@lovehaswon.orgfor more information.

***If you wish to send Donations by mail or other methods, email us at motherofallcreation@lovehaswon.org or  michaelsilver@lovehaswon.org***

**** We Do Not Refund Donations****

MeWe ~ Youtube ~ Facebook~ Apple News ~ Linkedin ~ Twitter~ Tumblr ~ GAB ~ Minds ~ Google+~ Medium ~ StumbleUpon ~ Reddit~ Informed Planet~ Steemit~ SocialClub~ BlogLovin~ Flipboard ~ Pinterest ~ Instagram ~ Snapchat

[risalei-nur]

TAFSIR: Risale-i Nur: The Rays Collection:The Fourteenth Ray.Part66

In His Name, be He glorified! 

Today, due to a spiritual warning, I felt a disquiet, a grief, on account of you. Just when I was feeling upset at those of my brothers who being anxious about their livelihoods want to be released quickly, a blessed memory occasioned a truth and some good tidings to be imparted to me: the ‘Three Months’ will begin in five days time, which are truly blessed and are the months of highly meritorious worship. For if the reward yielded by good works at other times are tenfold, in the month of Rajab they are more than a hundredfold, in Sha‘ban they exceed three hundredfold, and in Ramadan they reach a thousandfold, while on Fridays in Ramadan they reach thousands and on the Night of Power may reach thirty thousand. It is certainly highly profitable therefore, to spend those three months -which are thus a sacred market for the trade of the hereafter earning plentiful gains for it, and an exceptional exhibition for the people of reality and worship, and in three months may secure for the believers a life of eighty years- in this School of Joseph, which increases the profits tenfold. Whatever the hardships suffered, they are pure mercy. As with worship, so with the service of the Risale-i Nur; with respect not to quantity but quality, its profits are fivefold. For people are continuously entering this guest-house, then being released, and they are means of the Risale-i Nur’s lessons being disseminated. Sometimes one man’s sincerity yields the benefits of twenty men. It is of no importance if such a man suffers a little hardship and distress so that the mystery of the Risale-i Nur’s sincerity might spread among the unfortunate prisoners, who are inclined to be political heroes and are much in need of the Risale-i Nur’s solace. In regard to the problem of livelihood, since these three months are a market for the hereafter, I felt perfectly easy at it and understood that being here inside until the Bayram is a great bounty, for since all of you were sent to this prison in place of numerous other Risale-i Nur students, and some of you in place of a thousand, they will help out in your business outside.

S a i d N u r s i * * *

In His Name, be He glorified! 

My Dear, Loyal Brothers! 

Firstly: I offer you congratulations with all my heart and soul for the month of Rajab and the holy night of Ragha’ib tomorrow.

Secondly: Don’t give up hope, and don’t worry or be alarmed. God willing, Divine grace will come to our aid. The bomb that was being prepared these last three months exploded. The news given by my stove, Feyzi’s beaker, and Husrev’s two drinking-cups turned out to be true. But it was not terrible, it was slight. God willing, the fire will be extinguished completely. All their assaults are to discredit my person and taint the Risale-i Nur’s conquests. The blow the man more harmful than the covert dissembler in Emirdag and merely a pawn in the hands of secret atheists, and the ‘semi-hoja’ who favours the innovations, were trying to strike us as hard as they could was reduced twentyfold. God willing, they will cause us not even one wound, and what they think and intend and their plans to scare us away from each other and from the Risale-i Nur will come to nothing. It is absolutely essential that out of respect for these blessed months, trusting that they are gaining abundant reward for us, we steadfastly offer thanks in patience, and relying on God, submit to the rule ‘He who believes in Divine Determining is saved from unhappiness.’ 

S a i d N u r s I

To the Prime Minister’s Office, the Ministry of Justice,  and Ministry of Home Affairs

All members of the Government who saw the Proclamation of the Constitution, the First World War, the Armistice Period, the setting up of the Nationalist Government, and the Republic know me well. Nevertheless, with your permission, we shall take a look at my life as though on a film. 

I was born in the village of Nurs in the province of Bitlis. As a student, I debated with the scholars I encountered, and through Divine favour, defeating in scholarly debate all who opposed me, I came as far as Istanbul. In Istanbul, winning calamitous fame, a victim of my rivals’ trouble-making, I was dragged to the lunatic asylum on the orders of Sultan ‘Abdulhamid. On the Proclamation of the Constitution, I attracted the attention of the government of the Committee of Union and Progress with my activities during the Thirty-First of March Incident. I confronted them with the proposal to open an Islamic university in Van called the Medresetü’z-Zehra, resembling al-Azhar University. I even laid its foundations. On the outbreak of the First War, I gathered together my students and took part in the War as the Commander of a militia force. I fought on the Caucasian Front and was taken prisoner at Bitlis. I escaped from where I was being held and returned to Istanbul. I was appointed a member of the Darü’l-Hikmeti’l-Islâmiye. During the Armistice period, I worked against the occupying forces with all my might, and on the victory of the National Government, in appreciation I was summoned by it to Ankara, where I repeated my proposal to open the university in Van. 

The life I had lived up to then had been that of a patriot. I had wanted to serve religion by means of politics. But from then on, I turned my back on the world completely, and in my own words, buried the ‘Old Said’. As the ‘New Said’, devoting myself entirely to the hereafter, I withdrew from the world. Retiring from social life, I went into seclusion on the hill Yusha Tepesi in Istanbul. Later on I went to Bitlis and Van, in my native region, where I lived in a cave. I remained alone with the pleasures of my spirit and conscience. That is to say, taking as my principle “I seek refuge with God from the Devil and politics,” I plunged into the depths of my own spiritual world. Passing my time studying the Qur’an of Mighty Stature, I started to live as the ‘New Said.’ But the manifestations of Divine Determining sent me as an exile to other places. Then, getting those with me to write down the inspirations born in my heart from the effulgence of the Qur’an, a number of treatises came to be written. I gave them the name of the Risale-i Nur. This name was born in my conscience, for truly they were based on the light of the Qur’an. I believe absolutely certainly that this was Divine inspiration, and I said to those who were acting as scribes: “Barakallah!” For it is not possible to begrudge others the light of belief. 

Exchanging copies, these treatises of mine were written out by a number of believers. I formed the opinion that they were driven on by God in order to strengthen the injured belief of Muslims. I understood that just as no believer could obstruct this Divine prompting, so I considered it a religious obligation to encourage it. Anyway these treatises, which now number one hundred and thirty, consist entirely of discussions of the hereafter and belief, and contain no deliberate mention of politics or this world. Nevertheless, they became the object of interest of a number of opportunists. Investigations were carried out into them, and I was arrested and sent to the prisons of Eskishehir, Kastamonu, and Denizli. Trials were held. As a result, truth was manifested and justice was executed, but those opportunists never wearied of hounding us. This time they arrested me and sent me to Afyon. I am under arrest and am being interrogated. They accuse me as follows: 

1) You have founded a political society. 2) You publish ideas opposing the regime. 3) You harbour political aims. 

The evidence for these are ten or fifteen sentences in two or three of my treatises. Respected Minister! As Napoleon said:

“Bring me a straightforward sentence to which no second meaning can be attached, and I’ll have you executed for it!”

There is no sentence uttered by man which may not constitute an offence by having forced meanings attached to it. Especially the writings of someone like me who has reached seventy-five years of age, has withdrawn entirely from the life of this world, and has dedicated his life here to that of the hereafter - they will certainly be free. Being close to having a good intention, he will be fearless. It is unfair to study them simply in order to seek out offences in them. It is nothing other than unjust. Not one of any of my one hundred and thirty treatises comprises any purpose connected to the matters of this world. Proceeding from the light of the Qur’an, they are all to do with the hereafter and belief. In any event all the trials held up to now have come to the same conclusion and have resulted in acquittals. It is therefore a shame to busy the courts unnecessarily and take innocent believers away from their work and business in the name of the country and nation. While the Old Said spent all his life for the sake of the happiness of the country and nation, how could the New Said be preoccupied with politics when he is seventy-five years old and has completely withdrawn from the world? This is your opinion too. 

I have only one aim; it is this: at this time as I approach the grave, I hear the hooting of the Bolshevik owls in this country, which is a Muslim land. The sound is damaging the fundamentals of belief of the Islamic world. Making them lose their belief, it binds the people, and particularly the youth, to itself. Struggling against it with all my strength, I am calling the youth and all Muslims to believe. I am struggling against these unbelieving masses. I want to enter the Divine presence with this struggle of mine. This is all I do. As for those who prevent me from doing this, I am frightened that they are communists! For me it is a sacred aim to co-operate with the forces of religion who have embraced the struggle against these enemies of belief. Release me! Let me work to reform the youth, poisoned by communism, and for this country’s faith! Let me serve Divine unity! 

Prisoner  

S a i d N u r s i

[networkingdefinition]

Benefits Quotes

Official Website: Benefits Quotes

• A benefit is estimated according to the mind of the giver. – Seneca the Younger • A civilization is a social entity that manifests religious, political , legal, and customary uniformity over an extended period, and which confers on its members the benefits of socially accumulated knowledge. – Roger Scruton • A private man has always the liberty (because thought is free) to believe or not believe in his heart those acts that have been given out for miracles, according as he shall see what benefits can accrue by men’s belief, to those that pretend, or countenance them, and thereby conjecture whether they be miracles or lies. – Thomas Hobbes • A productive mistake is: (1) made in the service of mission and vision; (2) acknowledged as a mistake; (3) learned from; (4) considered valuable; (5) shared for the benefit of all. – Pete Seeger • A sacred illness is one that educates us and alters us from the inside out, provides experiences and therefore knowledge that we could not possibly achieve in any other way, and aligns us with a life path that is, ultimately, of benefit to ourselves and those around us. – Deena Metzger • A Spaniard will seek to persuade you that the bull-ring is an institution got up chiefly for the benefit of the bull. – Jerome K. Jerome • Above all trust in the slow work of God. Only God could say what this new spirit gradually forming within you will be. Give our Lord the benefit of believing that His hand is leading you, and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete. – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin • Africa’s agricultural sector has enormous scope for development, which would benefit both the continent’s economy and its people. – Richard Attias • All religions try to benefit people, with the same basic message of the need for love and compassion, for justice and honesty, for contentment. – Dalai Lama • All socialism involves slavery…. That which fundamentally distinguishes the slave is that he labors under coercion to satisfy another’s desires. The relation admits of many gradations. Oppressive taxation is a form of slavery of the individual to the community as a whole. The essential question is — How much is he compelled to labor for other benefit than his own, and how much can he labor for his own benefit? – Herbert Spencer America, Leisure, Facts • An isolated man like Alexander Selkirk might feel the benefit of a stock of provisions, tools and other means of facilitating industry, although cut off from traffic, with other men. – William Stanley Jevons • An optimist is somebody who thinks our various political and social systems, schools and churches, support groups and Boy Scout troops, jury trials and congressional committees, are on the up-and-up. That they are intended for the benefit of the members. The reality is that they are designed to keep everyone in line. – Jack McDevitt • An uniformity of weights and measures, arranged upon mathematical principles, would be a benefit to the whole commercial world, if it were wise enough to adopt such an expedient. – Jean-Baptiste Say • And as we continue to improve our understanding of the basic science on which applications increasingly depend, material benefits of this and other kinds are secured for the future. – Henry Taube • And preserving our open spaces or having them there for recreational purposes is one of the things that contributes to the high level of quality of life that we offer in Pennsylvania, and that also translates into economic benefits.- Ed Rendell • And seeing every man is presumed to do all things in order to his own benefit, no man is a fit Arbitrator in his own cause – Thomas Hobbes • As a Texas loyalist who followed Bush to Washington with great hope and personal affection and as a proud member of his administration, I was all too ready to give him and his highly experienced foreign policy advisers the benefit of the doubt on Iraq. Unfortunately, subsequent events have showed that our willingness to trust the judgment of Bush and his team was misplaced. – Scott McClellan • As for comics, one has only to turn to the characteristic output of Marvel Comics, for the period from about 1961 to about 1975, to find not an expression of base and cynical impulses but of good, old-fashioned liberal humanism of a kind that may strike us today, God help us, as quaint, but which nevertheless appealed, in story after story, to ideals such as tolerance, technological optimism, and self-sacrifice for the benefit of others. – Michael Chabon • As to the advantages of temperance in the training of the armed forces and of its benefits to the members of the forces themselves, there can be no doubt in the world. – William Lyon Mackenzie King • As you know, in the 2000 campaign I articulated a point of view that we ought to have personal savings accounts for younger workers that would make sure those younger workers receive benefits equal to or greater than that which is expected, … I still maintain the same position. – George H. W. Bush • As your life continually poses new questions, it also poses new answers – which cause expansion. As your life presents new problems, it also presents new solutions – which cause expansion – and All-That-Is benefits from your willingness to live and consider and explore … and expand. – Esther Hicks • At times like the present, when the evils of unsound finance threaten us, the speculator may anticipate a harvest gathered from the misfortune of others, the capitalist may protect himself by hoarding or may even find profit in the fluctuations of values; but the wage earner – the first to be injured by a depreciated currency and the last to receive the benefit of its correction – is practically defenseless.- Grover Cleveland • Atheism can benefit no class of people; neither the unfortunate, whom it bereaves of hope, nor the prosperous, whose joys it renders insipid, nor the soldier, of whom it makes a coward, nor the woman whose beauty and sensibility it mars, nor the mother, who has a son to lose, nor the rulers of men, who have no surer pledge of the fidelity of their subjects than religion. – François-René de Chateaubriand

  jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'benefit', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '68', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_benefit').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_benefit img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); ); • Being famous has its benefits, but fame isn’t one of them. – Larry Wall • Benefits are acceptable, while the receiver thinks he may return them; but once exceeding that, hatred is given instead of thanks. – Bill Vaughan • Benefits bestowed upon the evil-disposed, increase their means of injuring you. – Aesop • Benefits should be granted little by little, so that they may be better enjoyed. – Niccolo Machiavelli • Books are never harmless…they either strengthen us or they weaken us in our faith. Some of them do this even as they entertain us, others as they teach us. In an invisible way their teaching penetrates into our hearts and souls, to continue its work inside, and we inhale the spirit of these books as healing or poisonous vapors. They can bring the greatest benefits and the greatest ruin, for from their ideas that they spread come the deeds of the future. – Peter Prange • Businessmen are notable for a peculiarly stalwart character, which enables them to enjoy without loss of self-reliance the benefits of tariffs, franchises, and even outright government subsidies. – Herbert J. Muller • But revolutionary is not an acceptable term to those who benefit from, and deny at the same time, the savage exploitativeness of the social system. – Herbert Schiller • But when the good people do know, as they certainly do, that three million persons (at the least estimate) were starved to death in one year by the methods they approve, why do they still fraternize with the murderers and support the measures? Because they have been told that the lingering death of the three millions might ultimately benefit a greater number. The argument applies equally well to cannibalism. – Isabel Paterson • By reacting to aggression with aggression we lose the opportunity to spiritually benefit from the experience. – Kyriacos C. Markides • By utility is meant that property is any object, whereby it tends to produce benefit, advantage, pleasure, good, or happiness(all this in the present case come to the same thing) or (what comes again to the same thing) to prevent the happening of mischief, pain, evil or unhappiness to the party who whose is considered: if that party be the community in general, then the happiness of the community; if a particular individual; then the happiness of that individual – Jeremy Bentham • Capital, and the question of who owns it and therefore reaps the benefit of its productiveness, is an extremely important issue that is complementary to the issue of full employment… I see these as twin pillars of our economy: Full employment of our labor resources and widespread ownership of our capital resources. Such twin pillars would go a long way in providing a firm underlying support for future economic growth that would be equitably shared. – Hubert H. Humphrey • Communism worked honestly by officials devoid of human frailties and devoted to nothing but the good of its slaves, would have certain manifest material advantages as compared with a proletarian wage-system where millions live in semi-starvation, and many millions more in permanent dread thereof. But even if it were administered thus Communism would only produce its benefits through imposing slavery. – Hilaire Belloc • Concerning the utility of Rhetoric, it is to be observed that it divides itself into two; first, whether Oratorical skill be, on the whole, a public benefit, or evil; and secondly, whether any artificial system of Rules is conducive to the attainment of that skill. – Richard Whately • Consumers are realizing the benefits of in-car entertainment and navigation systems. When used properly, these products are great tools that help drivers focus on the road. Consumers need to remember to follow state laws, watch the road and use common sense when putting these and other products to work. – Gary Shapiro • Courtesy is a science of the highest importance. It is…opening a door that we may derive instruction from the example of others, and at the same time enabling us to benefit them by our example, if there be anything in our character worthy of imitation. – Michel de Montaigne • Cultural differences should not separate us from each other, but rather cultural diversity brings a collective strength that can benefit all of humanity.” Also: “Intercultural dialogue is the best guarantee of a more peaceful, just and sustainable world. – Robert Alan Aurthur • Dads in the family are even more important than women in the workplace. The workplace benefits from women, but the family needs dads. • Despite the Internet ‘s origin in the late 1960s as a government sponsored means of communication between the Department of Defense, private industry, and academia, it has been at its best and generated the greatest economic, social, and technological benefits since it was ‘liberated’ by the hordes of ‘geeks’ who were originally hired to run it by employers who were not themselves conversant with computers, and couldn’t tell when their employees were exchanging official traffic or trading dirty jokes and recipes for marijuana brownies. – L. Neil Smith • Discover real peace and harmony within yourself, and naturally this will overflow to benefit others. – S. N. Goenka • Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it. – Gautama Buddha • Do they still call it infatuation? That magic ax that chops away the world in one blow, leaving only the couple standing there trembling? Whatever they call it, it leaps over anything, takes the biggest chair, the largest slice, rules the ground wherever it walks, from a mansion to a swamp, and its selfishness is its beauty…. People with no imagination feed it with sex — the clown of love. They don’t know the real kinds, the better kinds, where losses are cut and everybody benefits. It takes a certain intelligence to love like that — softly, without props. – Toni Morrison • Dominion by land or sea will appear equally destitute of attraction, when it comes to be generally understood, that all its advantages rest with the rulers, and that the subjects at large derive no benefit whatever. – Jean-Baptiste Say • Emancipation of human labor from economic servitude and exploitation, i.e., from organizations of production in which the conditions of work are determined by a master class who own the means of production, and in which the fruits of work are alienated from workers to the benefit of masters. – Mortimer Adler • Even the alleged benefits of war, so far as more than alleged, spring from the fact that conflict of peoples at least enforces intercourse between them and thus accidentally enables them to learn from one another, and thereby to expand their horizons. Travel, economic and commercial tendencies, have at present gone far to break down external barriers; to bring peoples and classes into closer and more perceptible connection with one another. – John Dewey • Every time a significant discovery is being made one sets in motion a tremendous activity in laboratories and industrial enterprises throughout the world. It is like the ant who suddenly finds food and walks back to the anthill while sending out material called food attracting substance. The other ants follow the path immediately in order to benefit from the finding and continue to do so as long as the supply is rich. – Bengt I. Samuelsson • For kindness begets kindness evermore, But he from whose mind fades the memory. Of benefits, noble is he no more. – Sophocles • For the sake of humanity it is devoutly to be wished that the manly employment of agriculture and the humanizing benefits of commerce would supersede the waste of war and the rage of conquest; and the swords might be turned into ploughshares, the spears into pruning-hooks, and as the Scripture expresses it, “the nations learn war no more. – George Washington • Free services like Wikipedia I don’t think benefit anyone – they don’t benefit the professional because they’re not paid. – Andrew Keen Freeman Dyson • Freud was a hero. He descended to the “Underworld” and met there stark terrors. He carried with him his theory as a Medusa’s head which turned these terrors to stone. We who follow Freud have the benefit of the knowledge he brought back with him and conveyed to us. He survived. We must see of we now can survive without using a theory that is in some measure an instrument of defence. – R. D. Laing • Friends with benefits? More than friends? Don’t sample the goodies unless you’re willing to risk addiction and withdrawal. – Ann Landers • Girls Scouts taught me to succeed (cookie selling) and to fail (knot tying) and to learn and benefit from both. – Carol Bellamy • Global sports tournaments have a range of benefits that go far beyond the games themselves. They can transform the image of a country or a region. They bring people together and reveal new possibilities to a nation’s youth. – Richard Attias • God has given us a gift in Jesus Christ. And people don’t understand: it’s for our benefit. One of the things that says, “For unto you is born this day a savior.” They say, “Well, I don’t need a savior.” Believe me: if you didn’t need one, God wouldn’t have sent it. Because he wouldn’t have wasted the time. – Rick Warren • Had Allah lifted the veil for his slave and shown him how He handles his affairs for him, and how Allah is more keen for the benefit of the slave than his own self, his heart would have melted out of the love for Allah and would have been torn to pieces out of thankfulness to Allah. Therefore if the pains of this world tire you, do not grieve. For it may be that Allah wishes to hear your voice by way of Dua’a. So pour out your desires in prostration and forget about it and know; that verily Allah does not forget it. – Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya • He who is running a race ought to endeavor and strive to the utmost of his ability to come off victor; but it is utterly wrong for him to trip up his competitor, or to push him aside. So in life it is not unfair for one to seek for himself what may accrue to his benefit; but it is not right to take it from another. – Chrysippus • Heaven is a wonderful place and the benefits for the believer are out of this world! – Billy Graham • I always tell employees: The group’s benefit is more important than your personal benefit. – Terry Gou • I am learning that mature faith, which encompasses both simple faith and fidelity, works the opposite of paranoia. It reassembles all the events of life around trust in a loving God. When good things happen, I accept them as gifts from God, worthy of thanksgiving. When bad things happen, I do not take them as necessarily sent by God — I see evidence in the Bible to the contrary — and I find in them no reason to divorce God. Rather, I trust that God can use even those bad things for my benefit. – Philip Yancey • I am tired of the warmakers making war with our children. I am tired of our tired troops being sent over to do the dirty work for mob bosses who are going to squeeze the life out of Iraq and not leave until every asset and every natural resource has been raped from the country. I am tired of seeing Iraqis burying their loved ones and hearing the reverberating screams of mothers all over our country who are being destroyed for the benefit of a very few. – Cindy Sheehan • I believe that marriage is between a man and a woman. But I also believe that gay and lesbians and gay and lesbian couples, those who have been in long-term relationships, deserve to be treated respectfully, they deserve to have benefits. – Dick Cheney • I believe that space travel will one day become as common as airline travel is today. I’m convinced, however, that the true future of space travel does not lie with government agencies — NASA is still obsessed with the idea that the primary purpose of the space program is science — but real progress will come from private companies competing to provide the ultimate adventure ride, and NASA will receive the trickle-down benefits. – Buzz Aldrin • I believe we must protect Medicares guaranteed benefit, and I will oppose any effort to dismantle Medicare and turn it into a voucher system. – Ann Kirkpatrick • I benefit from contemplation, but it’s a great antidote to that, having someone interesting come into the studio environment to be painted, so that I can experience a little bit of their world. – Stuart Pearson Wright • I can’t actually imagine a time in which the need for more diversity would ever cease. Affirmative action has been an issue since segregation practices. The question is not when does it end, but when does it begin [..] When do people of color truly get the benefits to which they are entitled?- Eric Holder • I do believe in what I call the stewardship of influence as well as the stewardship of affluence. And that is you use whatever God gives you not for your own benefit, but use it to help people who have no benefit. And when you use whatever God gives you, he gives you more of it. When you use it well, he gives you more of it. – Rick Warren • I do not know what meaning classical studies could have for our time if they were not untimely that is to say, acting counter to our time and thereby acting on our time and, let us hope, for the benefit of a time to come. – Friedrich Nietzsche • I do think that there is a big difference between family farms and agri-business, and one of the distressing things that I think has occurred is with consolidation of farm lands. You’ve seen large agri-businesses benefit from enormous profits from existing farm programs, and I think we should be focusing most of those programs on those family farmers. – Barack Obama • I don’t need to put jewels on to make myself feel important. I’d rather drop them for the benefit of less fortunate people. I don’t need to put gold on my body, and I’m not criticizing people who do, but for me, I’d rather be around my family and see them be happy because that’s worth more to me than gold. – Immortal Technique • I firmly believe that the method which sets theological theories against scientifically ascertained facts, is fatal to the current theology and injurious to the spirit of religion; and that the method which frankly recognizes the facts of life, and appreciates the spirit of the scientists whose patient and assiduous endeavor has brought those facts to light, will commend the spirit of religion to the new generation, and will benefit–not impair–theology as a science, by compelling its reconstruction. – Lyman Abbott • I gave myself over to music and art a long time ago, so I don’t get to relax and I don’t get to sit still. The best I can do is constantly create my own environment so it benefits what I need to accomplish in the next step. – Jack White • I have occasionally thought that some [TV] hosts have needed treatment, and some of these hosts have even admitted they could benefit from therapy. Having said that, I think most people can benefit from treatment. Those who need it and refuse to get it generally have the most “issues. – Robi Ludwig • I have yet to see a career that is similar in benefit as computer science for doing the advanced exercises. – Frederick Lenz • I learned about the benefits and the vast limitations of such types of exploration, as did all my generation. – Frederick Lenz • I met BSB at a benefit gig we were both doing, and they are really humble, nice guys – and very hard working – Usher • I often use detective elements in my books. I love detective novels. But I also think science fiction and detective stories are very close and friendly genres, which shows in the books by Isaac Asimov, John Brunner, and Glen Cook. However, whilst even a tiny drop of science fiction may harm a detective story, a little detective element benefits science fiction. Such a strange puzzle. – Sergei Lukyanenko • I respect every mother and I believe people are entitled to use whatever benefits, claims and entitlements, if you like, that are available to them – Chris Bowen • I should like to begin with a philosophical comment. I do not think that when one is speaking of hardships or benefits one can reasonably speak in terms of classes or social groups but only in terms of individuals. – John James Cowperthwaite • I suppose that the main benefit of being rich (over just being independent) is to be able to despise rich people (a good concentration of whom you find in glitzy ski resorts) without any sour grapes. It is even sweeter when these farts don’t know that you are richer than they are. – Nassim Nicholas Taleb • I tend to like people that are generous and give other people the benefit of the doubt. – Tina Weymouth • I think both sides [China and United States] should work hard to build a new type of relationship between big powers. The two sides should cooperate with each other for a win-win result in order to benefit people from the two countries and the world. – Xi Jinping • I think I governed effectively. I don’t have any doubts about that. I had the benefit, when I was in office, of having an excellent relationship with the Republican Party. We had superb bipartisan support and we had the highest batting average of any president since the Second World War, except Lyndon Johnson. He had a little better average than I did. – Jimmy Carter • I think people can benefit tremendously from really asking why they’re doing certain things. – Elizabeth Holmes • I think that music, or at least the kind of music that I make, benefits greatly from improvisation. – Ryan Adams • I think that the important point is we’ve got to have a president who understands the benefits of free trade but also is going to enforce unfair trade agreements and is going to stand up to other countries. – Barack Obama • I think women of a certain generation, mine in particular, feel like we can have it all because that’s what we were fed. It’s like, we reap the benefits of the feminist movement – they did all the legwork and now we’re going to try to be parents and successful business people and great wives and good friends and take a cooking class and blah, blah, blah. – Sarah Jessica Parker • I was dubious about the effects of the Alexander Technique when I first went in to experience it, but I found out almost immediately that the benefits were total – both physically and mentally – and, happily, have also been long-lasting. – Joanne Woodward • I was well on the way to forming my present attitude toward politics as it is practiced in the United States; it is a beautiful fraud that has been imposed on the people for years, whose practitioners exchange gelded promises for the most valuable thing their victims own: their votes. And who benefits the most? The lawyers. – Shirley Chisholm • I wish there was something more that performers could do other than get out there and sing at benefit performances. I wish I felt that if I had an empty room I’d like to bring in someone and make it a hospice, but I’m not Mother Teresa. I can’t do that. – Bea Arthur Ideas, Giving, Doe • If a teacher wants to know something why doesn’t she look it up herself instead of making we students do it? We benefit ourselves more by listening to her, after all she’s the teacher! – Bel Kaufman • If I think the universe is triangular, and you think it is square, there cannot be room for two universes. We may argue politely, we may argue humanely, we may argue with great mutual benefit: but, obviously, we must argue. – Gilbert K. Chesterton • If people can’t make ends meet at home with food, benefits, health, and health care in particular, how can they be present, engaged, knowledge workers when they come to work? – Mark T Bertolini • If the community wish to have the benefit of more knowledge and intelligence in the labouring classes, it must dispense it at the public charge. – Jean-Baptiste Say • If we are not happy, if we are not peaceful, we cannot share peace and happiness with others, even those we love, those who live under the same roof. If we are peaceful, if we are happy, we can smile and blossom like a flower, and everyone in our family, our entire society, will benefit from our peace. – Nhat Hanh • If we give all of the people who filed incorrect tax returns the benefit of the doubt and assume that every single one of them simply made an honest mistake, then doesn’t common sense tell us that maybe the tax code is just a little too complex? – Glenn Beck • If you could help millions of people, you can certainly make millions of dollars. I try to influence everyone I know to be a giver because the person that benefits most by giving is the giver. – Tony Robbins • If you have any helpful suggestions I’d be pleased to hear them. If all you can do is make snide insinuations then it would probably benefit all concerned if you bestowed the fruits of your prodigious wit on someone with the spare time to give them the consideration they doubtless deserve. – Iain Banks • If you help yourself to the benefits of being married when you are single, you’re likely to help yourself to the benefits of being single when you’re married. – Manis Friedman • If you look at Washington, you see permanently camped on the banks of the Potomac spread around in concentric circles an army representing thousands of selfish interests. The sole purpose of their presence is to plunder, by hook or crook, the public treasury for the benefit of their particular people or corporations. – Charley Reese • If you put in the work, put in the time, put in the effort, you’re going to reap the benefits. – Richard Sherman • If you seek to develop the mind fully, for the enlightenment process, you will benefit if your career is related to computer science, law, medicine, or the arts. – Frederick Lenz • If your motives are high and noble and your work is hard and you do a good job, then whatever the task is in your life, it will benefit you. – Frederick Lenz • If, in 2008, I could have not been in equities, I wouldn’t have been in equities. If I could have not bet on the Seahawks in the Super Bowl, I wouldn’t have bet on the Seahawks. Life and statesmanship are not lived with the benefit of hindsight. – Bret Stephens • I’m all for crossovers if they benefit the individual books. – J. Michael Straczynski • I’m glad I was faced with different cultures when I was growing up because I wasn’t fazed by it. It has been a huge benefit to me; I feel comfortable wherever I go. – Jessie J • Important benefits often accrue to states that behave in an unexpected way. – John Mearsheimer • In contrast to the asexual chasteness of official communist art , Nazi art is both prurient and idealizing. A utopian aesthetics (physical perfection; identity as a biological given) implies an ideal eroticism: sexuality converted into the magnetism of leaders and the joy of followers. The fascist ideal is to transform sexual energy into a “spiritual” force, for the benefit of the community. – Susan Sontag • In short, Anarchism means a condition or society where all men and women are free, and where all enjoy equally the benefits of an ordered and sensible life. – Alexander Berkman • In the national debate about a serious issue, it is the expression of the minority’s viewpoint that most demands the protection of the First Amendment. Whatever the better policy may be, a full and frank discussion of the costs and benefits of the attempt to prohibit the use of marijuana is far wiser than suppression of speech because it is unpopular. – John Paul Stevens • In Washington, the U.S. House passed a bill unanimously. Every single member of both parties voted for it. What was it? To deny Social Security benefits to Nazis. So from now on, no SS for the SS. – Craig Ferguson • Inequalities of wealth, unjustly established, have assuredly injured the nation in which they exist during their establishment; and, unjustly directed, they injure it yet more during their existence. But inequalities of wealth justly established, benefit the nation in the course of their establishment; and, nobly used, aid it yet more by their existence. – John Ruskin • Instead of loving a God, we love each other. Instead of the religion of the sky-the religion of this world-the religion of the family-the love of husband for wife, of wife for husband-the love of all for children. So that now the real religion is: Let us live for each other; let us live for this world without regard for the past and without fear for the future. Let us use our faculties and our powers for the benefit of ourselves and others, knowing that if there be another world, the same philosophy that gives us joy here will make us happy there. – Robert Green Ingersoll • Intelligence is something that is not just thinking, it’s feeling. Ultimately, the highest reflection of intelligent life is cooperative life in which all benefit. – Frederick Lenz • Is it stupidity or is it moral cowardice which leads men to continue professing a creed that makes self-sacrifice a cardinal principle, while they urge the sacrificing of others, even to the death, when they trespass against us? Is it blindness, or is it an insance inconsistency, which makes them regard as most admirable the bearing of evil for the benefit of others, while they lavish admiration on those who, out of revenge, inflict great evils in return for small ones suffered? Surely our barbarian code of right needs revision, and our barbarian standard of honour should be somewhat changed. – Herbert Spencer • It benefits all artists to help one another – it raises the whole profession. – T. Allen Lawson • It is a bitter disappointment when you have sown benefits, to reap injuries. – Plautus • It is clear that the main tenet of socialism, community of goods, must be utterly rejected, since it only injures those whom it would seem meant to benefit, is directly contrary to the natural rights of mankind, and would introduce confusion and disorder into the commonweal. The first and most fundamental principle, therefore, if one would undertake to alleviate the condition of the masses, must be the inviolability of private property. – Pope Leo XIII • It is often the mistakes of others that benefit the rest of us and, sadly, not them … For the antifragile, harm from errors should be less than the benefits. – Nassim Nicholas Taleb • It is our duty not to not only hold fast, but to hold forth the Word of life; not only to hold fast for our own benefit, but to hold it forth for the benefit of others, to hold it forth as the candlestick holds forth the candle, which makes it appear to advantage all around, or as the luminaries of the heavens, which shed their influences far and wide. – Matthew Henry • It was always intended, though, that where Australian workers could negotiate better benefits as well with their employer, that those benefits come in in addition to the existing paid parental leave scheme. – Chris Bowen • It’s in our interest to take care of others. Self-centrednes s is opposed to basic human nature. In our own interest as human beings we need to pay attention to our inner values. Sometimes people think compassion is only of help to others, while we get no benefit. This is a mistake. When you concern yourself with others, you naturally develop a sense of self-confidence . To help others takes courage and inner strength. – Dalai Lama • Just when all seems to be going right, challenges often come in multiple doses applied simultaneously. When those trials are not consequences of your disobedience, they are evidence that the Lord feels you are prepared to grow more. He therefore gives you experiences that stimulate growth, understanding, and compassion which polish you for your everylasting benefit. – Richard G. Scott • Laughter is very infectious, and why it should be so is a most interesting neurological problem. But it also has other, more physiological, benefits. Apparently it boosts the immune system, reduces stress hormones, massages the heart and diaphragm and engenders a ‘feel good’ factor. – Semir Zeki • Laws ought to be fashioned unto the manners and conditions of the people whom they are meant to benefit, and not imposed upon them according to the simple rule of right. – Edmund Spenser • Let the Unions become engines for the working people to right their wrongs. Not benefit societies, or burial clubs. Let the Unions become civilian regiments to fight in the cause of the people. – Richard Llewellyn • Let your cares drive you to God. I shall not mind if you have many of them if each one leads you to prayer. If every fret makes you lean more on the Beloved, it will be a benefit. – Charles Spurgeon • Life is an opportunity, benefit from it. • May I say, for the benefit of those who have been carried away by the gossip of the last few days, that I know what’s going on. I’m going on, and the Labour government’s going on. – Harold Wilson • My object, having a surplus to deal with, is to consider how I can deal with it to the greatest advantage to the consumer – how, without inflicting any injury on Canada, I can secure the most substantial benefit to this country, to the manufacturing, to the commercial, and to the agricultural interests. The real way in which we can benefit the working and manufacturing classes is, unquestionably, by removing the burden that presses on the springs of manufactures and commerce. – Robert Peel • My own views on all matters of public revenue and public expenditure are conditioned by an acute appreciation of whose is the sacrifice that produces public revenue and to whom accrues the benefit of public spending. – John James Cowperthwaite • My view is there will be problems and bad people as long as the earth exists, and since we’re moving into a completely interdependent global environment, we’re better off building a world we’d like to live in when the United States are not the only military superpower. That is, we need to build a world of shared responsibility, shared benefits, and shared commitment to our common humanity. – William J. Clinton • Nature has ordained that the man who is pleading his own cause before a large audience, will be more readily listened to than he who has no object in view other than the public benefit. • Nature hath made men so equal in the faculties of body and mind, as that though there be found one man sometimes manifestly stronger in body, or of quicker mind than another, yet when all is reckoned together, the difference between man and man is not so considerable as that one man can thereupon claim to himself any benefit to which another may not pretend as well as he. – Thomas Hobbes • NBC has suspended Brian Williams for six months without pay. Williams said he’s not worried because soon his veterans benefits will kick in. – Conan O’Brien • No one appears on our stage unless the director has placed them there for our benefit – Paramahansa Yogananda • No one supposed that dinoflagellates might actively kill fish as an evolved response for their own specific advantage, including a potential nutritional benefit for the algal cells. And yet the dinoflagellates do seem to be killing and eating fishes in a manner suggesting active evolution for this most peculiar reversal. – Stephen Jay Gould • North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms has signed a deal with Random House to write his memoirs. Scholars will no doubt benefit from the reflections of a man who was wrong on every major issue for 40 years. Helms’ aides say the proceeds from the book will be donated to the non-profit Jesse Helms Center where they apparently have more experience burning than publishing them. – Paul Begala • Not in the name of a necessary protection of the white race did the European break into China, but for the benefit of the Jewish-mercantile greed for profit. He thus dishonored himself, destroying a whole civilization, provoking justified indignation. China fights for its myth, for its race, and its ideals, as does the renewal-movement in Germany against the mercantile race that rules all stock markets and the actions of most governments. – Alfred Rosenberg • Nothing in life is certain except death, taxes and the second law of thermodynamics. All three are processes in which useful or accessible forms of some quantity, such as energy or money, are transformed into useless, inaccessible forms of the same quantity. That is not to say that these three processes don’t have fringe benefits: taxes pay for roads and schools; the second law of thermodynamics drives cars, computers and metabolism; and death, at the very least, opens up tenured faculty positions. – Seth Lloyd • Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet. – Albert Einstein • Now in business we do a cost benefit analysis before we make policy changes. Washington should as well. – Vicky Hartzler • One man is a splendid fighter — a god has made him so — one’s a dancer, another skilled at lyre and song, and deep in the next man’s chest farseeing Zeus plants the gift of judgment, good clear sense. And many reap the benefits of that treasure. – Homer • One of the most important axioms is, that as the quantity of any commodity, for instance, plain food, which a man has to consume, increases, so the utility or benefit derived from the last portion used decreases in degree. The decrease in enjoyment between the beginning and the end of a meal may be taken as an example. – William Stanley Jevons • One ought not to hoard culture. It should be adapted and infused into society as a leaven. Liberality of culture does not mean illiberality of its benefits. – Wallace Stevens • One should do nothing other than what is directly or indirectly of benefit to living beings. – Shantideva • Optimism is a tool with a certain clear set of benefits: it fights depression, it promotes achievement and produces better health. – Martin Seligman • Organized religion has too often followed the road of other people’s institutions. It has made adjustments, compromises, and surrenders to a materialistic civilization for the benefit of material security in spite of occasional twinges of conscience and moral protests. The result has been that today much of organized religion is materialistically solvent but spiritually bankrupt. – Saul Alinsky • Our devotional life with God is more like the planting of a garden. When we arise from sowing into the secret place, we will not usually be able to point to immediate results or benefits. What we sow today will require an entire season of growth before the results are manifest.- Bob Sorge • Our very success, gained you will agree by skill, will draw more people than ever to see it. And that will benefit many more clubs than Rangers. Let the others come after us. We welcome the chase. It is healthy for us. We will never hide from it. Never fear, inevitably we shall have our years of failure, and when they arrive, we must reveal tolerance and sanity. No matter the days of anxiety that come our way, we shall emerge stronger because of the trials to be overcome. That has been the philosophy of the Rangers since the days of the gallant pioneers. – Bill Struth • Perhaps the greatest charity comes when we are kind to each other, when we don’t judge or categorize someone else, when we simply give each other the benefit of the doubt or remain quiet. Charity is accepting someone’s differences, weaknesses, and shortcomings; having patience with someone who has let us down; or resisting the impulse to become offended when someone doesn’t handle something the way we might have hoped. Charity is refusing to take advantage of another’s weakness and being willing to forgive someone who has hurt us. Charity is expecting the best of each other – Marvin J. Ashton • Preaching is God’s great institution for the planting and maturing of spiritual life. When properly executed, its benefits are untold. When wrongly executed, no evil can exceed its damaging results. – Edward McKendree Bounds • Prostitution is criminal, and bad things happen because it’s run illegally by dirt-bags who are criminals. If it’s legal, then the girls could have health checks, unions, benefits, anything any other worker gets, and it would be far better. – Jesse Ventura • Scripture urges and warns us that whatever favors we may have obtained from the Lord, we have received them as a trust on condition that they should be applied to the common benefit of the church. – John Calvin • Selfishness does not mean only to do things for one’s self. One may do things, affecting others, for his own pleasure and benefit. This is not immoral, but the highest of morality. – Ayn Rand • Sensible policies on global warming should weight the costs of slowing climate change against the benefits of slower climate change. Ironically, recent policy initiatives, such as the Kyoto Protocol of 1997, have been introduced without any attempt to link the emissions controls with the benefits of the lower emissions. – William Nordhaus • Side by side with the miseries of underdevelopment…we find ourselves up against a form of superdevelopment, equally inadmissable. This superdevelopment consists in an excessive availability of material goods for the benefit of certain social groups and makes people slaves of “possession” and immediate gratification, with no other horizon than the multiplication or continual replacement of the things already owned with others still better. This is the civilization of consumption, or “consumerism,” which involves so much throwing away and waste. – Pope John Paul II • Some people never learn how to talk to kids. They turn up the volume and enunciate with extra care, as if talking to a partially deaf immigrant. They sound as if they’re reading lines somebody else wrote for them, or as if what they’re saying is really for the benefit of other adults listening and not just for the child. Kids sense that and turn off. – F. Paul Wilson • Some, while deploring animal abuses, on the same breath approve ‘benefits to humans from certain animal abuses’! Who would criticize the Jewish holocaust or Black slavery, and YET praise the benefits to Germans or Whites??? This convenient ambiguity at the expense of animals is unacceptable!!! – Adela Popescu • Sometimes electricity provides unexpected benefits. In a remote village in China’s Fujian province in which young men have traditionally had a hard time finding wives, the arrival of electricity has attracted more brides – Christopher Flavin • Spiritual destiny is manifested in the lives of those who stand out from the masses and actually do something, who live a creative life for the benefit of others. – Sivaya Subramuniyaswami • Staying married may have long-term benefits. You can elicit much more sympathy from friends over a bad marriage than you ever can from a good divorce. – P. J. O’Rourke • Terrorism benefits the Arabs, it may lay waste the Yishuv and shake Zionism. But to follow in the Arabs’ footsteps and ape their deeds is to be blind to the gulf between us. Our aims and theirs run counter: methods calculated to further theirs, are ruinous to us.- David Ben-Gurion • The benefits brought to the Russian people by Bolshevism exist only on paper painted in glowing colors by Bolshevist propaganda. – Emma Goldman • The benefits kids get from watching “Sesame Street” can be as powerful as the ones children get from preschool. – Julie Roginsky • The benefits of biomedical progress are obvious, clear, and powerful. The hazards are much less well appreciated. – Leon Kass • The benefits of medical research are real – but so are the potential horrors of genetic engineering and embryo manipulation. We devise heart transplants, but do little for the 15 million who die annually of malnutrition and related diseases. Our cleverness has grown prodigiously – but not our wisdom. – Martin Ryle • The best antidote I know for worry is work. The best cure for weariness is the challenge of helping someone who is even more tired. One of the great ironies of life is this: He or she who serves almost always benefits more than he or she who is served. – Gordon B. Hinckley • The best that can be said about embryonic stem cell research is that it is scientific exploration into the potential benefits of killing human beings. – Tom DeLay • The best way to live / is to be like water / For water benefits all things / and goes against none of them. – Laozi • The caretaker needs to be taken care of, in wages and benefits. Not enough emphasis is put on the importance of these caretakers. – Chad Urmston • The combination of the Liberal and Labour Parties is much stronger than the Liberal Party would be if there were no third Party in existence. Many men who would in that case have voted for us voted on this occasion as the Labour Party told them i.e. for the Liberals. The Labour Party has “come to stay”…the existence of the third Party deprives us of the full benefits of the ‘swing of the pendulum’, introduces a new element into politics and confronts us with a new difficulty. – Austen Chamberlain • The Constitution does not protect the sovereignty of States for the benefit of the States or state governments as abstract political entities, or even for the benefit of the public officials governing the States. To the contrary, the Constitution divides authority between federal and state governments for the protection of individuals. – Sandra Day O’Connor • The desire of gold is not for gold. It is not the love of much wheat, and wool and household stuff. It is the means of freedom and benefit. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • The dissemination of the individual’s opinions on matters of public interest is for us, in the historic words of the Declaration of Independence, an ‘unalienable right’ that ‘governments are instituted among men to secure.’ History shows us that the Founders were not always convinced that unlimited discussion of public issues would be ‘for the benefit of all of us’ but that they firmly adhered to the proposition that the ‘true liberty of the press’ permitted ‘every man to publish his opinion’. – John Marshall Harlan II • The Escalation programmers come from a completely different background, and the codebase is all STL this, boost that, fill-up-the-property list, dispatch the event, and delegate that. I had been harboring some suspicions that our big codebases might benefit from the application of some more of the various “modern” C++ design patterns, despite seeing other large game codebases suffer under them. I have since recanted that suspicion. – John Carmack • The Exclusion Principle is laid down purely for the benefit of the electrons themselves, who might be corrupted (and become dragons or demons) if allowed to associate too freely. – Alan Turing • The female brain may confer distinctive economic advantages, to the benefit of all, and we should, therefore, pursue seriously having equal numbers of women in topic economic and financial posts. If we persist in having unequal numbers, then we should advantage the women and have a smaller percentage of men. – Semir Zeki • The first Rudiments of Morality, broach’d by skilful Politicians, to render Men useful to each other as well as tractable, were chiefly contrived that the Ambitious might reap the more Benefit from, and govern vast Numbers of them with the greater Ease and Security. – Bernard de Mandeville • The four BIAs in the area support it. Operational benefits include accessibility and a place for police officers to come and go when they’re working. Everyone’s clamoring for more police presence. – Julian Fantino • The fundamental fact in the lives of the poor in most parts of America is that the wages of common labor are far below the benefits of AFDC, Medicaid, food stamps, public housing, public defenders, leisure time and all the other goods and services of the welfare state. – George Gilder • The government of the Union, then, … is, emphatically, and truly, a government of the people. In form and in substance it emanates from them. Its powers are granted by them, and are to be exercised directly on them, and for their benefit. – John Marshall • The great benefit of science is that it can contribute tremendously to the alleviation of suffering at the physical level, but it is only through the cultivation of the qualities of the human heart and the transformation of our attitudes that we can begin to address and overcome our mental suffering… – Dalai Lama • The great question for our time is, how to make sure that the continuing scientific revolution brings benefits to everybody rather than widening the gap between rich and poor. To lift up poor countries, and poor people in rich countries, from poverty, to give them a chance of a decent life, technology is not enough. Technology must be guided and driven by ethics if it is to do more than provide new toys for the rich. • The greatest achievements are those that benefit others. – Denis Waitley • The harsh reality is that America moves on four wheels, powered by conventional internal-combustion engines. At this point, while the elite media (excluding Newsweek) trumpet the benefits of hybrids and Ford and Toyota plan to lead the nation into a low-powered, high-mileage hybrid Utopia, the multitudes remain loyal to the gas-guzzling family bus in the driveway. – Brock Yates • The idea of a wanton woman is something I have inserted into almost all of my books. An outlaw figure who is disallowed in the community because of her imagination or activity or status – that kind of anarchic figure has always fascinated me. And the benefits they bring with them, in spite of the fact that they are either dismissed or upbraided – something about their presence is constructive in the long run. – Toni Morrison • The illegitimate use of a state by economic interests for their own ends is based upon a preexisting illegitimate power of the state to enrich some persons at the expense of others. Eliminate that illegitimate power of giving differential economic benefits and you eliminate or drastically restrict the motive for wanting political influence. – Robert Nozick • The immense accumulations of fixed capital which, to the great benefit of mankind, were built up during the half century before the war, could never have come about in a Society where wealth was divided equitably. – John Maynard Keynes • The important thing is to firmly fix our gaze on our own weaknesses, not run away from them, but to battle them head-on and establish a solid self that nothing can sway. Hardships forge and polish our lives, so that eventually they shine with brilliant fortune and benefit. If left in its raw, unpolished form, even the most magnificent gem will not sparkle. The same applies to our lives. – Daisaku Ikeda • The investor has the benefit of the stock market’s daily and changing appraisal of his holdings, ‘for whatever that appraisal may be worth’, and, second, that the investor is able to increase or decrease his investment at the market’s daily figure – ‘if he chooses’. Thus the existence of a quoted market gives the investor certain options which he does not have if his security is unquoted. But it does not impose the current quotation on an investor who prefers to take his idea of value from some other source. – Benjamin Graham • The key to genuine happiness is in our hands. To think this way is to discover the essential values of kindness, brotherly love and altruism. The more clearly we see the benefits of these values, the more we will seek to reject anything that opposes them; in this way we will be able to bring about inner transformation. – Dalai Lama • The natural proclivity of democratic governments is to pursue public policies which concentrate benefits on the well-organized and well-informed, and disperse the costs on the unorganized and ill-informed. – Peter Boettke • The number one benefit of information technology is that it empowers people to do what they want to do. It lets people be creative. It lets people be productive. It lets people learn things they didn’t think they could learn before, and so in a sense it is all about potential. – Steve Ballmer • The processes are doubly ruinous: they impoverish the earth by hastily removing, for the benefit of a few generations, the common resources which, once expended and dissipated, can never be restored; and second, in its technique, its habits, its processes, the paleotechnic period is equally inimical to the earth considered as a human habitat, by its destruction of the beauty of the landscape, its ruining of streams, its pollution of drinking water, its filling the air with a finely divided carboniferous deposit, which chokes both life and vegetation. – Lewis Mumford • The rule of friendship means there should be mutual sympathy between them, each supplying what the other lacks and trying to benefit the other, always using friendly and sincere words. – Marcus Tullius Cicero • The trials and pressures of life–and how we face them–often define us. Confronted by adversity, many people give up while others rise up. How do those who succeed do it? They persevere. They find the benefit to them personally that comes from any trial. And they recognize that the best thing about adversity is coming out on the other side of it. There is a sweetness to overcoming your troubles and finding something good in the process, however small it may be. Giving up when adversity threatens can make a person bitter. Persevering through adversity makes one better. – John C. Maxwell • The trouble with blaming powerless people is that although it’s not nearly as scary as blaming the powerful, it does miss the point. Poor people do not shut down factories… Poor people didn’t decide to use ‘contract employees’ because they cost less and don’t get any benefits. – Molly Ivins • The universal basis of co-operation is the proportioning of benefits received to services rendered. – Herbert Spencer • The usual sniggering examples of animal behaviour were brought in to explain cheating. Funny how the behaviour of shrews and gibbons is never used to explain table manners or road safety or gardening, only sex. Anyway, it was bad Darwinism. Taking the example of a monkey and applying it to yourself misses the point that animal behaviour is made for the benefit of the species, not as an excuse for the individual. Being incapable of sustaining a stable pair and supporting children is really not in the interests of our species. Neither is it really in the best interests of the philanderer. – A. A. Gill • The value of a smile… It costs nothing, but creates much. It enriches those who receive, without impoverishing those who give. It happens in a flash and the memory of it sometimes lasts forever. None are so rich they can get along without it, and none so poor but are richer for its benefits. It creates happiness in the home, fosters good will in a business, and is the countersign of friends. – Dale Carnegie • The wage of a people has meaning only when it arises from production. Every increase in production should benefit the whole people and raise the people’s standards of living. – Adolf Hitler • The writing of a novel or short story or poem or whatever should elevate the audience, not drag the writer down to some level beneath herself. And she – the author – should fight always to prevent that dragging down, especially when the only possible benefit of allowing it to happen is monetary. – Caitlín R. Kiernan • There are many pleasant fictions of the law in constant operation, but there is not one so pleasant or practically humorous as that which supposes every man to be of equal value in its impartial eye, and the benefits of all laws to be equally attainable by all men, without the smallest reference to the furniture of their pockets. – Charles Dickens • There are many special interests skilful at manipulating circumstances and communications in such a way as to benefit their own ends and not necessarily the public good. – Randal Marlin • There is but one mode by which man can possess in perpetuity all the happiness which his nature is capable of enjoying, – that is by the union and co-operation of all for the benefit of each. – Robert Owen • There’s no doubt that there will be many trials and tribulations along the way in taming space for the benefit of all, unmasking its truths and using the boundless resources available to us. Taking a chance allows us to seek new horizons — and we all benefit from being horizon hunters. – Buzz Aldrin • There’s not much benefit in attacking an empty house. – Eiji Yoshikawa • This time we’ll hate, alright – but we’ll hate the enemy – the vicious gang of colored scum attackers and Jewish-Communist traitors – rather than one part of our own people hating another part for the benefit of the Jews and their army of scum! – George Lincoln Rockwell • Those who prize freedom only for the material benefits it offers have never kept it for long. – Alexis de Tocqueville • Times are difficult globally; awakening is no longer a luxury or an ideal. It’s becoming critical. We don’t need to add more depression, more discouragement, or more anger to what’s already here. It’s becoming essential that we learn how to relate sanely with difficult times. The earth seems to be beseeching us to connect with joy and discover our innermost essence. This is the best way that we can benefit others. – Pema Chodron • To be a holy person means that the elements of our natural life experience the very presence of God as they are providentially broken in His service. We have to be placed into God and brought into agreement with Him before we can be broken bread in His hands. Stay right with God and let Him do as He likes, and you will find that He is producing the kind of bread and wine that will benefit His other children. – Oswald Chambers • To condemn free-market capitalism because of anything going on today makes no sense. There is no evidence that capitalism exists today. We are deeply involved in an interventionist-planned economy that allows major benefits to accrue to the politically connected of both political parties. One may condemn the fraud and the current system, but it must be called by its proper names — Keynesian inflationism, interventionism, and corporatism.- Ron Paul • To destroy an offender cannot benefit society so much as to redeem him. – L. Frank Baum • To estimate the value of Newton’s discoveries, or the delight communicated by Shakespeare and Milton, by the price at which their works have sold, would be but a poor measure of the degree in which they have elevated and enchanted their country; nor would it be less grovelling and incongruous to estimate the benefit which the country has derived from the Revolution of 1688, by the pay of the soldiers, and all other payments concerned in effecting it. – Thomas Malthus • To oblige a friend by inflicting an injury on his enemy is often more easy than to confer a benefit on the friend himself. – Anthony Trollope • Today, if you’re an American business, you actually get a benefit for going overseas. You get to defer your taxes. So if you’re looking at a competitive world, you say to yourself, “Hey, I do better overseas than I do here in America”. – John F. Kerry • Twelve to seventeen minutes is plenty on the treadmill–if it’s done fast. That’s all you need for cardiovascular benefit. You don’t need to spend that extra time unless you are over weight and you need to burn off extra calories. Do it vigorously, like somebody is chasing you. You’ve got to do it hard. Otherwise, if you just take it easy and do it longer, you are spending all that time when you don’t need it. Use that extra time with your weights instead. – Jack LaLanne • Tyranny is abhorrent, freedom benefits all, whereas violence benefits no one for long.- Mark Kingwell • Unless the fundamental categories of economics such as ‘property’ were to be redefined in a radically personal way the liberal rationalist curse which had established economics as a scientific discipline cut off from human interests would proliferate. Economic models … have failed to incorporate any meaningful index of individual benefit other than the original utilitarian one, … the index of increasing income or an increasing flow of commodities. – John Carroll • Vanity as an impulse has without doubt been of far more benefit to civilization than modesty has ever been. – William E. Woodward • Wages is a cunning device of the devil, for the benefit of tender consciences, who would retain all the advantages of the slave system, without the expense, trouble, and odium of being slave-holders. – Orestes Brownson • We are not denying that Turkey has a right to defend itself from extremists but some of its actions are not serving any democratic purpose in Turkey or in Iraq. This will not benefit the relations between the two countries. – Jalal Talabani • We deeply need the humility to know ourselves as the dependent members of a great community of life, and this can indeed be one of the spiritual benefits of a wilderness experience. … [T]o know the wilderness is to know a profound humility, to recognize one’s littleness, to sense dependence and interdependence, indebtedness and responsibility. – Howard Zahniser • We generally learn languages for the benefit of reading the books written in them – Thomas Jefferson • We have to adjust the age retirement for younger people. People of my income level are going to have to have their benefits means-tested. Democrats are going to want a simpler tax code. – Lindsey Graham • We know the costs of Europe. What are the benefits? – Nigel Farage • We need government and business to work together for the benefit of everyone. It should no longer be just about typical “corporate social responsibility” where the “responsibility” bit is usually the realm of a small team buried in a basement office – now it should be about every single person in a business taking responsibility to make a difference in everything they do, at work and in their personal lives. – Richard Branson • We’re the richest economy in the history of the world. For the majority of Americans not to get the benefits of this extraordinarily prosperous economy, there’s something fundamentally wrong. – Robert Reich • What is the best way to go beyond self-interest and obsession with personal demands, needs and disappointments? The answer is: Whatever you do, may it benefit everyone. – Gurumayi Chidvilasananda • What will you do if your product still further increases next year? You should then destroy again the warehouses which you are now preparing to build, and build bigger. For the reason why God has given you fruitful harvests is that He might either overcome your avarice or condemn it; wherefore you can have no excuse. But you keep for yourself what He wished to be produced through you for the benefit of many – nay, rather, you rob even yourself of it, since you would better preserve it for yourself if you distributed it to others. – Ambrose • What would people think of a tradesman, that was to give a ball in his shop, hire performers, and hand refreshments about, with a view to benefit his business? – Jean-Baptiste Say • When every benefit received is a right, there is no place for good manners, let alone for gratitude. – Theodore Dalrymple • When taxes are too high, people go hungry. When the government is too intrusive, people lose their spirit. Act for the people’s benefit. Trust them; leave them alone. – Laozi • When the mass of families in a State are without property, then those who were once citizens become virtually slaves. The more the State steps in to enforce conditions of security and sufficiency; the more it regulates wages, provides compulsory insurance, doctoring, education, and in general takes over the lives of the wage-earners, for the benefit of the companies and men employing the wage-earners, the more is this condition of semi-slavery accentuated. – Hilaire Belloc • When war becomes a trade, it benefits, like all other trades, from the division of labour. – Jean-Baptiste Say • While Jesus was at Jerusalem there came a voice from heaven. For what purpose was the voice sent? For the sake of those who stood by. “Jesus answered and said, This voice came not because of me, but for your sakes” (John xii, 30). Of what benefit was the voice when those who heard it were unable to distinguish it from thunder? “The people therefore, that stood by and heard it, said that it thundered” (29). – John Remsburg • White privilege is the unquestioned and unearned set of advantages, entitlements benefits and choices bestowed on people solely because they are white. Generally white people who experience such privilege do so without being conscious of it. – Peggy McIntosh • Wise men, when in doubt whether to speak or to keep quiet, give themselves the benefit of the doubt, and remain silent. – Napoleon Hill • Write your injuries in dust, your benefits in marble. – Benjamin Franklin • Writers don’t seem to benefit much by the advance of science, although they thrive on superstitions of all kinds. – Northrop Frye • You know, in an ideal world, people would just be intrigued and go and see a film without knowing anything about it, because that’s where you’re going to have the most experience of a film, the biggest, the most revelation of a film. But at the same time, I think there are benefits of having seen a trailer where you actually look forward to seeing moments in a film knowing that they’re coming up. I don’t know which is better. – Duncan Jones • You may well ask why I write. And yet my reasons are quite many. For it is not unusual in human beings who have witnessed the sack of a city or the falling to pieces of a people to set down what they have witnessed for the benefit of unknown heirs or of generations infinitely remote; or, if you please, just to get the sight out of their heads. – Ford Madox Ford • You never come right out and admit you have stretched the rules for your own benefit. You do it and shut up about it, and hope you don’t get caught, because if you are caught no one or no one who has any sense will come forward and say he has done the same thing himself. – Janet Malcolm

  jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'a', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_a').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_a img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'e', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_e').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_e img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'i', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_i').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_i img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'o', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_o').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_o img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'u', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_u').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_u img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'y', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_y').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_y img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

[equitiesstocks]

Benefits Quotes

Official Website: Benefits Quotes

• A benefit is estimated according to the mind of the giver. – Seneca the Younger • A civilization is a social entity that manifests religious, political , legal, and customary uniformity over an extended period, and which confers on its members the benefits of socially accumulated knowledge. – Roger Scruton • A private man has always the liberty (because thought is free) to believe or not believe in his heart those acts that have been given out for miracles, according as he shall see what benefits can accrue by men’s belief, to those that pretend, or countenance them, and thereby conjecture whether they be miracles or lies. – Thomas Hobbes • A productive mistake is: (1) made in the service of mission and vision; (2) acknowledged as a mistake; (3) learned from; (4) considered valuable; (5) shared for the benefit of all. – Pete Seeger • A sacred illness is one that educates us and alters us from the inside out, provides experiences and therefore knowledge that we could not possibly achieve in any other way, and aligns us with a life path that is, ultimately, of benefit to ourselves and those around us. – Deena Metzger • A Spaniard will seek to persuade you that the bull-ring is an institution got up chiefly for the benefit of the bull. – Jerome K. Jerome • Above all trust in the slow work of God. Only God could say what this new spirit gradually forming within you will be. Give our Lord the benefit of believing that His hand is leading you, and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete. – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin • Africa’s agricultural sector has enormous scope for development, which would benefit both the continent’s economy and its people. – Richard Attias • All religions try to benefit people, with the same basic message of the need for love and compassion, for justice and honesty, for contentment. – Dalai Lama • All socialism involves slavery…. That which fundamentally distinguishes the slave is that he labors under coercion to satisfy another’s desires. The relation admits of many gradations. Oppressive taxation is a form of slavery of the individual to the community as a whole. The essential question is — How much is he compelled to labor for other benefit than his own, and how much can he labor for his own benefit? – Herbert Spencer America, Leisure, Facts • An isolated man like Alexander Selkirk might feel the benefit of a stock of provisions, tools and other means of facilitating industry, although cut off from traffic, with other men. – William Stanley Jevons • An optimist is somebody who thinks our various political and social systems, schools and churches, support groups and Boy Scout troops, jury trials and congressional committees, are on the up-and-up. That they are intended for the benefit of the members. The reality is that they are designed to keep everyone in line. – Jack McDevitt • An uniformity of weights and measures, arranged upon mathematical principles, would be a benefit to the whole commercial world, if it were wise enough to adopt such an expedient. – Jean-Baptiste Say • And as we continue to improve our understanding of the basic science on which applications increasingly depend, material benefits of this and other kinds are secured for the future. – Henry Taube • And preserving our open spaces or having them there for recreational purposes is one of the things that contributes to the high level of quality of life that we offer in Pennsylvania, and that also translates into economic benefits.- Ed Rendell • And seeing every man is presumed to do all things in order to his own benefit, no man is a fit Arbitrator in his own cause – Thomas Hobbes • As a Texas loyalist who followed Bush to Washington with great hope and personal affection and as a proud member of his administration, I was all too ready to give him and his highly experienced foreign policy advisers the benefit of the doubt on Iraq. Unfortunately, subsequent events have showed that our willingness to trust the judgment of Bush and his team was misplaced. – Scott McClellan • As for comics, one has only to turn to the characteristic output of Marvel Comics, for the period from about 1961 to about 1975, to find not an expression of base and cynical impulses but of good, old-fashioned liberal humanism of a kind that may strike us today, God help us, as quaint, but which nevertheless appealed, in story after story, to ideals such as tolerance, technological optimism, and self-sacrifice for the benefit of others. – Michael Chabon • As to the advantages of temperance in the training of the armed forces and of its benefits to the members of the forces themselves, there can be no doubt in the world. – William Lyon Mackenzie King • As you know, in the 2000 campaign I articulated a point of view that we ought to have personal savings accounts for younger workers that would make sure those younger workers receive benefits equal to or greater than that which is expected, … I still maintain the same position. – George H. W. Bush • As your life continually poses new questions, it also poses new answers – which cause expansion. As your life presents new problems, it also presents new solutions – which cause expansion – and All-That-Is benefits from your willingness to live and consider and explore … and expand. – Esther Hicks • At times like the present, when the evils of unsound finance threaten us, the speculator may anticipate a harvest gathered from the misfortune of others, the capitalist may protect himself by hoarding or may even find profit in the fluctuations of values; but the wage earner – the first to be injured by a depreciated currency and the last to receive the benefit of its correction – is practically defenseless.- Grover Cleveland • Atheism can benefit no class of people; neither the unfortunate, whom it bereaves of hope, nor the prosperous, whose joys it renders insipid, nor the soldier, of whom it makes a coward, nor the woman whose beauty and sensibility it mars, nor the mother, who has a son to lose, nor the rulers of men, who have no surer pledge of the fidelity of their subjects than religion. – François-René de Chateaubriand

  jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'benefit', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '68', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_benefit').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_benefit img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); ); • Being famous has its benefits, but fame isn’t one of them. – Larry Wall • Benefits are acceptable, while the receiver thinks he may return them; but once exceeding that, hatred is given instead of thanks. – Bill Vaughan • Benefits bestowed upon the evil-disposed, increase their means of injuring you. – Aesop • Benefits should be granted little by little, so that they may be better enjoyed. – Niccolo Machiavelli • Books are never harmless…they either strengthen us or they weaken us in our faith. Some of them do this even as they entertain us, others as they teach us. In an invisible way their teaching penetrates into our hearts and souls, to continue its work inside, and we inhale the spirit of these books as healing or poisonous vapors. They can bring the greatest benefits and the greatest ruin, for from their ideas that they spread come the deeds of the future. – Peter Prange • Businessmen are notable for a peculiarly stalwart character, which enables them to enjoy without loss of self-reliance the benefits of tariffs, franchises, and even outright government subsidies. – Herbert J. Muller • But revolutionary is not an acceptable term to those who benefit from, and deny at the same time, the savage exploitativeness of the social system. – Herbert Schiller • But when the good people do know, as they certainly do, that three million persons (at the least estimate) were starved to death in one year by the methods they approve, why do they still fraternize with the murderers and support the measures? Because they have been told that the lingering death of the three millions might ultimately benefit a greater number. The argument applies equally well to cannibalism. – Isabel Paterson • By reacting to aggression with aggression we lose the opportunity to spiritually benefit from the experience. – Kyriacos C. Markides • By utility is meant that property is any object, whereby it tends to produce benefit, advantage, pleasure, good, or happiness(all this in the present case come to the same thing) or (what comes again to the same thing) to prevent the happening of mischief, pain, evil or unhappiness to the party who whose is considered: if that party be the community in general, then the happiness of the community; if a particular individual; then the happiness of that individual – Jeremy Bentham • Capital, and the question of who owns it and therefore reaps the benefit of its productiveness, is an extremely important issue that is complementary to the issue of full employment… I see these as twin pillars of our economy: Full employment of our labor resources and widespread ownership of our capital resources. Such twin pillars would go a long way in providing a firm underlying support for future economic growth that would be equitably shared. – Hubert H. Humphrey • Communism worked honestly by officials devoid of human frailties and devoted to nothing but the good of its slaves, would have certain manifest material advantages as compared with a proletarian wage-system where millions live in semi-starvation, and many millions more in permanent dread thereof. But even if it were administered thus Communism would only produce its benefits through imposing slavery. – Hilaire Belloc • Concerning the utility of Rhetoric, it is to be observed that it divides itself into two; first, whether Oratorical skill be, on the whole, a public benefit, or evil; and secondly, whether any artificial system of Rules is conducive to the attainment of that skill. – Richard Whately • Consumers are realizing the benefits of in-car entertainment and navigation systems. When used properly, these products are great tools that help drivers focus on the road. Consumers need to remember to follow state laws, watch the road and use common sense when putting these and other products to work. – Gary Shapiro • Courtesy is a science of the highest importance. It is…opening a door that we may derive instruction from the example of others, and at the same time enabling us to benefit them by our example, if there be anything in our character worthy of imitation. – Michel de Montaigne • Cultural differences should not separate us from each other, but rather cultural diversity brings a collective strength that can benefit all of humanity.” Also: “Intercultural dialogue is the best guarantee of a more peaceful, just and sustainable world. – Robert Alan Aurthur • Dads in the family are even more important than women in the workplace. The workplace benefits from women, but the family needs dads. • Despite the Internet ‘s origin in the late 1960s as a government sponsored means of communication between the Department of Defense, private industry, and academia, it has been at its best and generated the greatest economic, social, and technological benefits since it was ‘liberated’ by the hordes of ‘geeks’ who were originally hired to run it by employers who were not themselves conversant with computers, and couldn’t tell when their employees were exchanging official traffic or trading dirty jokes and recipes for marijuana brownies. – L. Neil Smith • Discover real peace and harmony within yourself, and naturally this will overflow to benefit others. – S. N. Goenka • Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it. – Gautama Buddha • Do they still call it infatuation? That magic ax that chops away the world in one blow, leaving only the couple standing there trembling? Whatever they call it, it leaps over anything, takes the biggest chair, the largest slice, rules the ground wherever it walks, from a mansion to a swamp, and its selfishness is its beauty…. People with no imagination feed it with sex — the clown of love. They don’t know the real kinds, the better kinds, where losses are cut and everybody benefits. It takes a certain intelligence to love like that — softly, without props. – Toni Morrison • Dominion by land or sea will appear equally destitute of attraction, when it comes to be generally understood, that all its advantages rest with the rulers, and that the subjects at large derive no benefit whatever. – Jean-Baptiste Say • Emancipation of human labor from economic servitude and exploitation, i.e., from organizations of production in which the conditions of work are determined by a master class who own the means of production, and in which the fruits of work are alienated from workers to the benefit of masters. – Mortimer Adler • Even the alleged benefits of war, so far as more than alleged, spring from the fact that conflict of peoples at least enforces intercourse between them and thus accidentally enables them to learn from one another, and thereby to expand their horizons. Travel, economic and commercial tendencies, have at present gone far to break down external barriers; to bring peoples and classes into closer and more perceptible connection with one another. – John Dewey • Every time a significant discovery is being made one sets in motion a tremendous activity in laboratories and industrial enterprises throughout the world. It is like the ant who suddenly finds food and walks back to the anthill while sending out material called food attracting substance. The other ants follow the path immediately in order to benefit from the finding and continue to do so as long as the supply is rich. – Bengt I. Samuelsson • For kindness begets kindness evermore, But he from whose mind fades the memory. Of benefits, noble is he no more. – Sophocles • For the sake of humanity it is devoutly to be wished that the manly employment of agriculture and the humanizing benefits of commerce would supersede the waste of war and the rage of conquest; and the swords might be turned into ploughshares, the spears into pruning-hooks, and as the Scripture expresses it, “the nations learn war no more. – George Washington • Free services like Wikipedia I don’t think benefit anyone – they don’t benefit the professional because they’re not paid. – Andrew Keen Freeman Dyson • Freud was a hero. He descended to the “Underworld” and met there stark terrors. He carried with him his theory as a Medusa’s head which turned these terrors to stone. We who follow Freud have the benefit of the knowledge he brought back with him and conveyed to us. He survived. We must see of we now can survive without using a theory that is in some measure an instrument of defence. – R. D. Laing • Friends with benefits? More than friends? Don’t sample the goodies unless you’re willing to risk addiction and withdrawal. – Ann Landers • Girls Scouts taught me to succeed (cookie selling) and to fail (knot tying) and to learn and benefit from both. – Carol Bellamy • Global sports tournaments have a range of benefits that go far beyond the games themselves. They can transform the image of a country or a region. They bring people together and reveal new possibilities to a nation’s youth. – Richard Attias • God has given us a gift in Jesus Christ. And people don’t understand: it’s for our benefit. One of the things that says, “For unto you is born this day a savior.” They say, “Well, I don’t need a savior.” Believe me: if you didn’t need one, God wouldn’t have sent it. Because he wouldn’t have wasted the time. – Rick Warren • Had Allah lifted the veil for his slave and shown him how He handles his affairs for him, and how Allah is more keen for the benefit of the slave than his own self, his heart would have melted out of the love for Allah and would have been torn to pieces out of thankfulness to Allah. Therefore if the pains of this world tire you, do not grieve. For it may be that Allah wishes to hear your voice by way of Dua’a. So pour out your desires in prostration and forget about it and know; that verily Allah does not forget it. – Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya • He who is running a race ought to endeavor and strive to the utmost of his ability to come off victor; but it is utterly wrong for him to trip up his competitor, or to push him aside. So in life it is not unfair for one to seek for himself what may accrue to his benefit; but it is not right to take it from another. – Chrysippus • Heaven is a wonderful place and the benefits for the believer are out of this world! – Billy Graham • I always tell employees: The group’s benefit is more important than your personal benefit. – Terry Gou • I am learning that mature faith, which encompasses both simple faith and fidelity, works the opposite of paranoia. It reassembles all the events of life around trust in a loving God. When good things happen, I accept them as gifts from God, worthy of thanksgiving. When bad things happen, I do not take them as necessarily sent by God — I see evidence in the Bible to the contrary — and I find in them no reason to divorce God. Rather, I trust that God can use even those bad things for my benefit. – Philip Yancey • I am tired of the warmakers making war with our children. I am tired of our tired troops being sent over to do the dirty work for mob bosses who are going to squeeze the life out of Iraq and not leave until every asset and every natural resource has been raped from the country. I am tired of seeing Iraqis burying their loved ones and hearing the reverberating screams of mothers all over our country who are being destroyed for the benefit of a very few. – Cindy Sheehan • I believe that marriage is between a man and a woman. But I also believe that gay and lesbians and gay and lesbian couples, those who have been in long-term relationships, deserve to be treated respectfully, they deserve to have benefits. – Dick Cheney • I believe that space travel will one day become as common as airline travel is today. I’m convinced, however, that the true future of space travel does not lie with government agencies — NASA is still obsessed with the idea that the primary purpose of the space program is science — but real progress will come from private companies competing to provide the ultimate adventure ride, and NASA will receive the trickle-down benefits. – Buzz Aldrin • I believe we must protect Medicares guaranteed benefit, and I will oppose any effort to dismantle Medicare and turn it into a voucher system. – Ann Kirkpatrick • I benefit from contemplation, but it’s a great antidote to that, having someone interesting come into the studio environment to be painted, so that I can experience a little bit of their world. – Stuart Pearson Wright • I can’t actually imagine a time in which the need for more diversity would ever cease. Affirmative action has been an issue since segregation practices. The question is not when does it end, but when does it begin [..] When do people of color truly get the benefits to which they are entitled?- Eric Holder • I do believe in what I call the stewardship of influence as well as the stewardship of affluence. And that is you use whatever God gives you not for your own benefit, but use it to help people who have no benefit. And when you use whatever God gives you, he gives you more of it. When you use it well, he gives you more of it. – Rick Warren • I do not know what meaning classical studies could have for our time if they were not untimely that is to say, acting counter to our time and thereby acting on our time and, let us hope, for the benefit of a time to come. – Friedrich Nietzsche • I do think that there is a big difference between family farms and agri-business, and one of the distressing things that I think has occurred is with consolidation of farm lands. You’ve seen large agri-businesses benefit from enormous profits from existing farm programs, and I think we should be focusing most of those programs on those family farmers. – Barack Obama • I don’t need to put jewels on to make myself feel important. I’d rather drop them for the benefit of less fortunate people. I don’t need to put gold on my body, and I’m not criticizing people who do, but for me, I’d rather be around my family and see them be happy because that’s worth more to me than gold. – Immortal Technique • I firmly believe that the method which sets theological theories against scientifically ascertained facts, is fatal to the current theology and injurious to the spirit of religion; and that the method which frankly recognizes the facts of life, and appreciates the spirit of the scientists whose patient and assiduous endeavor has brought those facts to light, will commend the spirit of religion to the new generation, and will benefit–not impair–theology as a science, by compelling its reconstruction. – Lyman Abbott • I gave myself over to music and art a long time ago, so I don’t get to relax and I don’t get to sit still. The best I can do is constantly create my own environment so it benefits what I need to accomplish in the next step. – Jack White • I have occasionally thought that some [TV] hosts have needed treatment, and some of these hosts have even admitted they could benefit from therapy. Having said that, I think most people can benefit from treatment. Those who need it and refuse to get it generally have the most “issues. – Robi Ludwig • I have yet to see a career that is similar in benefit as computer science for doing the advanced exercises. – Frederick Lenz • I learned about the benefits and the vast limitations of such types of exploration, as did all my generation. – Frederick Lenz • I met BSB at a benefit gig we were both doing, and they are really humble, nice guys – and very hard working – Usher • I often use detective elements in my books. I love detective novels. But I also think science fiction and detective stories are very close and friendly genres, which shows in the books by Isaac Asimov, John Brunner, and Glen Cook. However, whilst even a tiny drop of science fiction may harm a detective story, a little detective element benefits science fiction. Such a strange puzzle. – Sergei Lukyanenko • I respect every mother and I believe people are entitled to use whatever benefits, claims and entitlements, if you like, that are available to them – Chris Bowen • I should like to begin with a philosophical comment. I do not think that when one is speaking of hardships or benefits one can reasonably speak in terms of classes or social groups but only in terms of individuals. – John James Cowperthwaite • I suppose that the main benefit of being rich (over just being independent) is to be able to despise rich people (a good concentration of whom you find in glitzy ski resorts) without any sour grapes. It is even sweeter when these farts don’t know that you are richer than they are. – Nassim Nicholas Taleb • I tend to like people that are generous and give other people the benefit of the doubt. – Tina Weymouth • I think both sides [China and United States] should work hard to build a new type of relationship between big powers. The two sides should cooperate with each other for a win-win result in order to benefit people from the two countries and the world. – Xi Jinping • I think I governed effectively. I don’t have any doubts about that. I had the benefit, when I was in office, of having an excellent relationship with the Republican Party. We had superb bipartisan support and we had the highest batting average of any president since the Second World War, except Lyndon Johnson. He had a little better average than I did. – Jimmy Carter • I think people can benefit tremendously from really asking why they’re doing certain things. – Elizabeth Holmes • I think that music, or at least the kind of music that I make, benefits greatly from improvisation. – Ryan Adams • I think that the important point is we’ve got to have a president who understands the benefits of free trade but also is going to enforce unfair trade agreements and is going to stand up to other countries. – Barack Obama • I think women of a certain generation, mine in particular, feel like we can have it all because that’s what we were fed. It’s like, we reap the benefits of the feminist movement – they did all the legwork and now we’re going to try to be parents and successful business people and great wives and good friends and take a cooking class and blah, blah, blah. – Sarah Jessica Parker • I was dubious about the effects of the Alexander Technique when I first went in to experience it, but I found out almost immediately that the benefits were total – both physically and mentally – and, happily, have also been long-lasting. – Joanne Woodward • I was well on the way to forming my present attitude toward politics as it is practiced in the United States; it is a beautiful fraud that has been imposed on the people for years, whose practitioners exchange gelded promises for the most valuable thing their victims own: their votes. And who benefits the most? The lawyers. – Shirley Chisholm • I wish there was something more that performers could do other than get out there and sing at benefit performances. I wish I felt that if I had an empty room I’d like to bring in someone and make it a hospice, but I’m not Mother Teresa. I can’t do that. – Bea Arthur Ideas, Giving, Doe • If a teacher wants to know something why doesn’t she look it up herself instead of making we students do it? We benefit ourselves more by listening to her, after all she’s the teacher! – Bel Kaufman • If I think the universe is triangular, and you think it is square, there cannot be room for two universes. We may argue politely, we may argue humanely, we may argue with great mutual benefit: but, obviously, we must argue. – Gilbert K. Chesterton • If people can’t make ends meet at home with food, benefits, health, and health care in particular, how can they be present, engaged, knowledge workers when they come to work? – Mark T Bertolini • If the community wish to have the benefit of more knowledge and intelligence in the labouring classes, it must dispense it at the public charge. – Jean-Baptiste Say • If we are not happy, if we are not peaceful, we cannot share peace and happiness with others, even those we love, those who live under the same roof. If we are peaceful, if we are happy, we can smile and blossom like a flower, and everyone in our family, our entire society, will benefit from our peace. – Nhat Hanh • If we give all of the people who filed incorrect tax returns the benefit of the doubt and assume that every single one of them simply made an honest mistake, then doesn’t common sense tell us that maybe the tax code is just a little too complex? – Glenn Beck • If you could help millions of people, you can certainly make millions of dollars. I try to influence everyone I know to be a giver because the person that benefits most by giving is the giver. – Tony Robbins • If you have any helpful suggestions I’d be pleased to hear them. If all you can do is make snide insinuations then it would probably benefit all concerned if you bestowed the fruits of your prodigious wit on someone with the spare time to give them the consideration they doubtless deserve. – Iain Banks • If you help yourself to the benefits of being married when you are single, you’re likely to help yourself to the benefits of being single when you’re married. – Manis Friedman • If you look at Washington, you see permanently camped on the banks of the Potomac spread around in concentric circles an army representing thousands of selfish interests. The sole purpose of their presence is to plunder, by hook or crook, the public treasury for the benefit of their particular people or corporations. – Charley Reese • If you put in the work, put in the time, put in the effort, you’re going to reap the benefits. – Richard Sherman • If you seek to develop the mind fully, for the enlightenment process, you will benefit if your career is related to computer science, law, medicine, or the arts. – Frederick Lenz • If your motives are high and noble and your work is hard and you do a good job, then whatever the task is in your life, it will benefit you. – Frederick Lenz • If, in 2008, I could have not been in equities, I wouldn’t have been in equities. If I could have not bet on the Seahawks in the Super Bowl, I wouldn’t have bet on the Seahawks. Life and statesmanship are not lived with the benefit of hindsight. – Bret Stephens • I’m all for crossovers if they benefit the individual books. – J. Michael Straczynski • I’m glad I was faced with different cultures when I was growing up because I wasn’t fazed by it. It has been a huge benefit to me; I feel comfortable wherever I go. – Jessie J • Important benefits often accrue to states that behave in an unexpected way. – John Mearsheimer • In contrast to the asexual chasteness of official communist art , Nazi art is both prurient and idealizing. A utopian aesthetics (physical perfection; identity as a biological given) implies an ideal eroticism: sexuality converted into the magnetism of leaders and the joy of followers. The fascist ideal is to transform sexual energy into a “spiritual” force, for the benefit of the community. – Susan Sontag • In short, Anarchism means a condition or society where all men and women are free, and where all enjoy equally the benefits of an ordered and sensible life. – Alexander Berkman • In the national debate about a serious issue, it is the expression of the minority’s viewpoint that most demands the protection of the First Amendment. Whatever the better policy may be, a full and frank discussion of the costs and benefits of the attempt to prohibit the use of marijuana is far wiser than suppression of speech because it is unpopular. – John Paul Stevens • In Washington, the U.S. House passed a bill unanimously. Every single member of both parties voted for it. What was it? To deny Social Security benefits to Nazis. So from now on, no SS for the SS. – Craig Ferguson • Inequalities of wealth, unjustly established, have assuredly injured the nation in which they exist during their establishment; and, unjustly directed, they injure it yet more during their existence. But inequalities of wealth justly established, benefit the nation in the course of their establishment; and, nobly used, aid it yet more by their existence. – John Ruskin • Instead of loving a God, we love each other. Instead of the religion of the sky-the religion of this world-the religion of the family-the love of husband for wife, of wife for husband-the love of all for children. So that now the real religion is: Let us live for each other; let us live for this world without regard for the past and without fear for the future. Let us use our faculties and our powers for the benefit of ourselves and others, knowing that if there be another world, the same philosophy that gives us joy here will make us happy there. – Robert Green Ingersoll • Intelligence is something that is not just thinking, it’s feeling. Ultimately, the highest reflection of intelligent life is cooperative life in which all benefit. – Frederick Lenz • Is it stupidity or is it moral cowardice which leads men to continue professing a creed that makes self-sacrifice a cardinal principle, while they urge the sacrificing of others, even to the death, when they trespass against us? Is it blindness, or is it an insance inconsistency, which makes them regard as most admirable the bearing of evil for the benefit of others, while they lavish admiration on those who, out of revenge, inflict great evils in return for small ones suffered? Surely our barbarian code of right needs revision, and our barbarian standard of honour should be somewhat changed. – Herbert Spencer • It benefits all artists to help one another – it raises the whole profession. – T. Allen Lawson • It is a bitter disappointment when you have sown benefits, to reap injuries. – Plautus • It is clear that the main tenet of socialism, community of goods, must be utterly rejected, since it only injures those whom it would seem meant to benefit, is directly contrary to the natural rights of mankind, and would introduce confusion and disorder into the commonweal. The first and most fundamental principle, therefore, if one would undertake to alleviate the condition of the masses, must be the inviolability of private property. – Pope Leo XIII • It is often the mistakes of others that benefit the rest of us and, sadly, not them … For the antifragile, harm from errors should be less than the benefits. – Nassim Nicholas Taleb • It is our duty not to not only hold fast, but to hold forth the Word of life; not only to hold fast for our own benefit, but to hold it forth for the benefit of others, to hold it forth as the candlestick holds forth the candle, which makes it appear to advantage all around, or as the luminaries of the heavens, which shed their influences far and wide. – Matthew Henry • It was always intended, though, that where Australian workers could negotiate better benefits as well with their employer, that those benefits come in in addition to the existing paid parental leave scheme. – Chris Bowen • It’s in our interest to take care of others. Self-centrednes s is opposed to basic human nature. In our own interest as human beings we need to pay attention to our inner values. Sometimes people think compassion is only of help to others, while we get no benefit. This is a mistake. When you concern yourself with others, you naturally develop a sense of self-confidence . To help others takes courage and inner strength. – Dalai Lama • Just when all seems to be going right, challenges often come in multiple doses applied simultaneously. When those trials are not consequences of your disobedience, they are evidence that the Lord feels you are prepared to grow more. He therefore gives you experiences that stimulate growth, understanding, and compassion which polish you for your everylasting benefit. – Richard G. Scott • Laughter is very infectious, and why it should be so is a most interesting neurological problem. But it also has other, more physiological, benefits. Apparently it boosts the immune system, reduces stress hormones, massages the heart and diaphragm and engenders a ‘feel good’ factor. – Semir Zeki • Laws ought to be fashioned unto the manners and conditions of the people whom they are meant to benefit, and not imposed upon them according to the simple rule of right. – Edmund Spenser • Let the Unions become engines for the working people to right their wrongs. Not benefit societies, or burial clubs. Let the Unions become civilian regiments to fight in the cause of the people. – Richard Llewellyn • Let your cares drive you to God. I shall not mind if you have many of them if each one leads you to prayer. If every fret makes you lean more on the Beloved, it will be a benefit. – Charles Spurgeon • Life is an opportunity, benefit from it. • May I say, for the benefit of those who have been carried away by the gossip of the last few days, that I know what’s going on. I’m going on, and the Labour government’s going on. – Harold Wilson • My object, having a surplus to deal with, is to consider how I can deal with it to the greatest advantage to the consumer – how, without inflicting any injury on Canada, I can secure the most substantial benefit to this country, to the manufacturing, to the commercial, and to the agricultural interests. The real way in which we can benefit the working and manufacturing classes is, unquestionably, by removing the burden that presses on the springs of manufactures and commerce. – Robert Peel • My own views on all matters of public revenue and public expenditure are conditioned by an acute appreciation of whose is the sacrifice that produces public revenue and to whom accrues the benefit of public spending. – John James Cowperthwaite • My view is there will be problems and bad people as long as the earth exists, and since we’re moving into a completely interdependent global environment, we’re better off building a world we’d like to live in when the United States are not the only military superpower. That is, we need to build a world of shared responsibility, shared benefits, and shared commitment to our common humanity. – William J. Clinton • Nature has ordained that the man who is pleading his own cause before a large audience, will be more readily listened to than he who has no object in view other than the public benefit. • Nature hath made men so equal in the faculties of body and mind, as that though there be found one man sometimes manifestly stronger in body, or of quicker mind than another, yet when all is reckoned together, the difference between man and man is not so considerable as that one man can thereupon claim to himself any benefit to which another may not pretend as well as he. – Thomas Hobbes • NBC has suspended Brian Williams for six months without pay. Williams said he’s not worried because soon his veterans benefits will kick in. – Conan O’Brien • No one appears on our stage unless the director has placed them there for our benefit – Paramahansa Yogananda • No one supposed that dinoflagellates might actively kill fish as an evolved response for their own specific advantage, including a potential nutritional benefit for the algal cells. And yet the dinoflagellates do seem to be killing and eating fishes in a manner suggesting active evolution for this most peculiar reversal. – Stephen Jay Gould • North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms has signed a deal with Random House to write his memoirs. Scholars will no doubt benefit from the reflections of a man who was wrong on every major issue for 40 years. Helms’ aides say the proceeds from the book will be donated to the non-profit Jesse Helms Center where they apparently have more experience burning than publishing them. – Paul Begala • Not in the name of a necessary protection of the white race did the European break into China, but for the benefit of the Jewish-mercantile greed for profit. He thus dishonored himself, destroying a whole civilization, provoking justified indignation. China fights for its myth, for its race, and its ideals, as does the renewal-movement in Germany against the mercantile race that rules all stock markets and the actions of most governments. – Alfred Rosenberg • Nothing in life is certain except death, taxes and the second law of thermodynamics. All three are processes in which useful or accessible forms of some quantity, such as energy or money, are transformed into useless, inaccessible forms of the same quantity. That is not to say that these three processes don’t have fringe benefits: taxes pay for roads and schools; the second law of thermodynamics drives cars, computers and metabolism; and death, at the very least, opens up tenured faculty positions. – Seth Lloyd • Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet. – Albert Einstein • Now in business we do a cost benefit analysis before we make policy changes. Washington should as well. – Vicky Hartzler • One man is a splendid fighter — a god has made him so — one’s a dancer, another skilled at lyre and song, and deep in the next man’s chest farseeing Zeus plants the gift of judgment, good clear sense. And many reap the benefits of that treasure. – Homer • One of the most important axioms is, that as the quantity of any commodity, for instance, plain food, which a man has to consume, increases, so the utility or benefit derived from the last portion used decreases in degree. The decrease in enjoyment between the beginning and the end of a meal may be taken as an example. – William Stanley Jevons • One ought not to hoard culture. It should be adapted and infused into society as a leaven. Liberality of culture does not mean illiberality of its benefits. – Wallace Stevens • One should do nothing other than what is directly or indirectly of benefit to living beings. – Shantideva • Optimism is a tool with a certain clear set of benefits: it fights depression, it promotes achievement and produces better health. – Martin Seligman • Organized religion has too often followed the road of other people’s institutions. It has made adjustments, compromises, and surrenders to a materialistic civilization for the benefit of material security in spite of occasional twinges of conscience and moral protests. The result has been that today much of organized religion is materialistically solvent but spiritually bankrupt. – Saul Alinsky • Our devotional life with God is more like the planting of a garden. When we arise from sowing into the secret place, we will not usually be able to point to immediate results or benefits. What we sow today will require an entire season of growth before the results are manifest.- Bob Sorge • Our very success, gained you will agree by skill, will draw more people than ever to see it. And that will benefit many more clubs than Rangers. Let the others come after us. We welcome the chase. It is healthy for us. We will never hide from it. Never fear, inevitably we shall have our years of failure, and when they arrive, we must reveal tolerance and sanity. No matter the days of anxiety that come our way, we shall emerge stronger because of the trials to be overcome. That has been the philosophy of the Rangers since the days of the gallant pioneers. – Bill Struth • Perhaps the greatest charity comes when we are kind to each other, when we don’t judge or categorize someone else, when we simply give each other the benefit of the doubt or remain quiet. Charity is accepting someone’s differences, weaknesses, and shortcomings; having patience with someone who has let us down; or resisting the impulse to become offended when someone doesn’t handle something the way we might have hoped. Charity is refusing to take advantage of another’s weakness and being willing to forgive someone who has hurt us. Charity is expecting the best of each other – Marvin J. Ashton • Preaching is God’s great institution for the planting and maturing of spiritual life. When properly executed, its benefits are untold. When wrongly executed, no evil can exceed its damaging results. – Edward McKendree Bounds • Prostitution is criminal, and bad things happen because it’s run illegally by dirt-bags who are criminals. If it’s legal, then the girls could have health checks, unions, benefits, anything any other worker gets, and it would be far better. – Jesse Ventura • Scripture urges and warns us that whatever favors we may have obtained from the Lord, we have received them as a trust on condition that they should be applied to the common benefit of the church. – John Calvin • Selfishness does not mean only to do things for one’s self. One may do things, affecting others, for his own pleasure and benefit. This is not immoral, but the highest of morality. – Ayn Rand • Sensible policies on global warming should weight the costs of slowing climate change against the benefits of slower climate change. Ironically, recent policy initiatives, such as the Kyoto Protocol of 1997, have been introduced without any attempt to link the emissions controls with the benefits of the lower emissions. – William Nordhaus • Side by side with the miseries of underdevelopment…we find ourselves up against a form of superdevelopment, equally inadmissable. This superdevelopment consists in an excessive availability of material goods for the benefit of certain social groups and makes people slaves of “possession” and immediate gratification, with no other horizon than the multiplication or continual replacement of the things already owned with others still better. This is the civilization of consumption, or “consumerism,” which involves so much throwing away and waste. – Pope John Paul II • Some people never learn how to talk to kids. They turn up the volume and enunciate with extra care, as if talking to a partially deaf immigrant. They sound as if they’re reading lines somebody else wrote for them, or as if what they’re saying is really for the benefit of other adults listening and not just for the child. Kids sense that and turn off. – F. Paul Wilson • Some, while deploring animal abuses, on the same breath approve ‘benefits to humans from certain animal abuses’! Who would criticize the Jewish holocaust or Black slavery, and YET praise the benefits to Germans or Whites??? This convenient ambiguity at the expense of animals is unacceptable!!! – Adela Popescu • Sometimes electricity provides unexpected benefits. In a remote village in China’s Fujian province in which young men have traditionally had a hard time finding wives, the arrival of electricity has attracted more brides – Christopher Flavin • Spiritual destiny is manifested in the lives of those who stand out from the masses and actually do something, who live a creative life for the benefit of others. – Sivaya Subramuniyaswami • Staying married may have long-term benefits. You can elicit much more sympathy from friends over a bad marriage than you ever can from a good divorce. – P. J. O’Rourke • Terrorism benefits the Arabs, it may lay waste the Yishuv and shake Zionism. But to follow in the Arabs’ footsteps and ape their deeds is to be blind to the gulf between us. Our aims and theirs run counter: methods calculated to further theirs, are ruinous to us.- David Ben-Gurion • The benefits brought to the Russian people by Bolshevism exist only on paper painted in glowing colors by Bolshevist propaganda. – Emma Goldman • The benefits kids get from watching “Sesame Street” can be as powerful as the ones children get from preschool. – Julie Roginsky • The benefits of biomedical progress are obvious, clear, and powerful. The hazards are much less well appreciated. – Leon Kass • The benefits of medical research are real – but so are the potential horrors of genetic engineering and embryo manipulation. We devise heart transplants, but do little for the 15 million who die annually of malnutrition and related diseases. Our cleverness has grown prodigiously – but not our wisdom. – Martin Ryle • The best antidote I know for worry is work. The best cure for weariness is the challenge of helping someone who is even more tired. One of the great ironies of life is this: He or she who serves almost always benefits more than he or she who is served. – Gordon B. Hinckley • The best that can be said about embryonic stem cell research is that it is scientific exploration into the potential benefits of killing human beings. – Tom DeLay • The best way to live / is to be like water / For water benefits all things / and goes against none of them. – Laozi • The caretaker needs to be taken care of, in wages and benefits. Not enough emphasis is put on the importance of these caretakers. – Chad Urmston • The combination of the Liberal and Labour Parties is much stronger than the Liberal Party would be if there were no third Party in existence. Many men who would in that case have voted for us voted on this occasion as the Labour Party told them i.e. for the Liberals. The Labour Party has “come to stay”…the existence of the third Party deprives us of the full benefits of the ‘swing of the pendulum’, introduces a new element into politics and confronts us with a new difficulty. – Austen Chamberlain • The Constitution does not protect the sovereignty of States for the benefit of the States or state governments as abstract political entities, or even for the benefit of the public officials governing the States. To the contrary, the Constitution divides authority between federal and state governments for the protection of individuals. – Sandra Day O’Connor • The desire of gold is not for gold. It is not the love of much wheat, and wool and household stuff. It is the means of freedom and benefit. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • The dissemination of the individual’s opinions on matters of public interest is for us, in the historic words of the Declaration of Independence, an ‘unalienable right’ that ‘governments are instituted among men to secure.’ History shows us that the Founders were not always convinced that unlimited discussion of public issues would be ‘for the benefit of all of us’ but that they firmly adhered to the proposition that the ‘true liberty of the press’ permitted ‘every man to publish his opinion’. – John Marshall Harlan II • The Escalation programmers come from a completely different background, and the codebase is all STL this, boost that, fill-up-the-property list, dispatch the event, and delegate that. I had been harboring some suspicions that our big codebases might benefit from the application of some more of the various “modern” C++ design patterns, despite seeing other large game codebases suffer under them. I have since recanted that suspicion. – John Carmack • The Exclusion Principle is laid down purely for the benefit of the electrons themselves, who might be corrupted (and become dragons or demons) if allowed to associate too freely. – Alan Turing • The female brain may confer distinctive economic advantages, to the benefit of all, and we should, therefore, pursue seriously having equal numbers of women in topic economic and financial posts. If we persist in having unequal numbers, then we should advantage the women and have a smaller percentage of men. – Semir Zeki • The first Rudiments of Morality, broach’d by skilful Politicians, to render Men useful to each other as well as tractable, were chiefly contrived that the Ambitious might reap the more Benefit from, and govern vast Numbers of them with the greater Ease and Security. – Bernard de Mandeville • The four BIAs in the area support it. Operational benefits include accessibility and a place for police officers to come and go when they’re working. Everyone’s clamoring for more police presence. – Julian Fantino • The fundamental fact in the lives of the poor in most parts of America is that the wages of common labor are far below the benefits of AFDC, Medicaid, food stamps, public housing, public defenders, leisure time and all the other goods and services of the welfare state. – George Gilder • The government of the Union, then, … is, emphatically, and truly, a government of the people. In form and in substance it emanates from them. Its powers are granted by them, and are to be exercised directly on them, and for their benefit. – John Marshall • The great benefit of science is that it can contribute tremendously to the alleviation of suffering at the physical level, but it is only through the cultivation of the qualities of the human heart and the transformation of our attitudes that we can begin to address and overcome our mental suffering… – Dalai Lama • The great question for our time is, how to make sure that the continuing scientific revolution brings benefits to everybody rather than widening the gap between rich and poor. To lift up poor countries, and poor people in rich countries, from poverty, to give them a chance of a decent life, technology is not enough. Technology must be guided and driven by ethics if it is to do more than provide new toys for the rich. • The greatest achievements are those that benefit others. – Denis Waitley • The harsh reality is that America moves on four wheels, powered by conventional internal-combustion engines. At this point, while the elite media (excluding Newsweek) trumpet the benefits of hybrids and Ford and Toyota plan to lead the nation into a low-powered, high-mileage hybrid Utopia, the multitudes remain loyal to the gas-guzzling family bus in the driveway. – Brock Yates • The idea of a wanton woman is something I have inserted into almost all of my books. An outlaw figure who is disallowed in the community because of her imagination or activity or status – that kind of anarchic figure has always fascinated me. And the benefits they bring with them, in spite of the fact that they are either dismissed or upbraided – something about their presence is constructive in the long run. – Toni Morrison • The illegitimate use of a state by economic interests for their own ends is based upon a preexisting illegitimate power of the state to enrich some persons at the expense of others. Eliminate that illegitimate power of giving differential economic benefits and you eliminate or drastically restrict the motive for wanting political influence. – Robert Nozick • The immense accumulations of fixed capital which, to the great benefit of mankind, were built up during the half century before the war, could never have come about in a Society where wealth was divided equitably. – John Maynard Keynes • The important thing is to firmly fix our gaze on our own weaknesses, not run away from them, but to battle them head-on and establish a solid self that nothing can sway. Hardships forge and polish our lives, so that eventually they shine with brilliant fortune and benefit. If left in its raw, unpolished form, even the most magnificent gem will not sparkle. The same applies to our lives. – Daisaku Ikeda • The investor has the benefit of the stock market’s daily and changing appraisal of his holdings, ‘for whatever that appraisal may be worth’, and, second, that the investor is able to increase or decrease his investment at the market’s daily figure – ‘if he chooses’. Thus the existence of a quoted market gives the investor certain options which he does not have if his security is unquoted. But it does not impose the current quotation on an investor who prefers to take his idea of value from some other source. – Benjamin Graham • The key to genuine happiness is in our hands. To think this way is to discover the essential values of kindness, brotherly love and altruism. The more clearly we see the benefits of these values, the more we will seek to reject anything that opposes them; in this way we will be able to bring about inner transformation. – Dalai Lama • The natural proclivity of democratic governments is to pursue public policies which concentrate benefits on the well-organized and well-informed, and disperse the costs on the unorganized and ill-informed. – Peter Boettke • The number one benefit of information technology is that it empowers people to do what they want to do. It lets people be creative. It lets people be productive. It lets people learn things they didn’t think they could learn before, and so in a sense it is all about potential. – Steve Ballmer • The processes are doubly ruinous: they impoverish the earth by hastily removing, for the benefit of a few generations, the common resources which, once expended and dissipated, can never be restored; and second, in its technique, its habits, its processes, the paleotechnic period is equally inimical to the earth considered as a human habitat, by its destruction of the beauty of the landscape, its ruining of streams, its pollution of drinking water, its filling the air with a finely divided carboniferous deposit, which chokes both life and vegetation. – Lewis Mumford • The rule of friendship means there should be mutual sympathy between them, each supplying what the other lacks and trying to benefit the other, always using friendly and sincere words. – Marcus Tullius Cicero • The trials and pressures of life–and how we face them–often define us. Confronted by adversity, many people give up while others rise up. How do those who succeed do it? They persevere. They find the benefit to them personally that comes from any trial. And they recognize that the best thing about adversity is coming out on the other side of it. There is a sweetness to overcoming your troubles and finding something good in the process, however small it may be. Giving up when adversity threatens can make a person bitter. Persevering through adversity makes one better. – John C. Maxwell • The trouble with blaming powerless people is that although it’s not nearly as scary as blaming the powerful, it does miss the point. Poor people do not shut down factories… Poor people didn’t decide to use ‘contract employees’ because they cost less and don’t get any benefits. – Molly Ivins • The universal basis of co-operation is the proportioning of benefits received to services rendered. – Herbert Spencer • The usual sniggering examples of animal behaviour were brought in to explain cheating. Funny how the behaviour of shrews and gibbons is never used to explain table manners or road safety or gardening, only sex. Anyway, it was bad Darwinism. Taking the example of a monkey and applying it to yourself misses the point that animal behaviour is made for the benefit of the species, not as an excuse for the individual. Being incapable of sustaining a stable pair and supporting children is really not in the interests of our species. Neither is it really in the best interests of the philanderer. – A. A. Gill • The value of a smile… It costs nothing, but creates much. It enriches those who receive, without impoverishing those who give. It happens in a flash and the memory of it sometimes lasts forever. None are so rich they can get along without it, and none so poor but are richer for its benefits. It creates happiness in the home, fosters good will in a business, and is the countersign of friends. – Dale Carnegie • The wage of a people has meaning only when it arises from production. Every increase in production should benefit the whole people and raise the people’s standards of living. – Adolf Hitler • The writing of a novel or short story or poem or whatever should elevate the audience, not drag the writer down to some level beneath herself. And she – the author – should fight always to prevent that dragging down, especially when the only possible benefit of allowing it to happen is monetary. – Caitlín R. Kiernan • There are many pleasant fictions of the law in constant operation, but there is not one so pleasant or practically humorous as that which supposes every man to be of equal value in its impartial eye, and the benefits of all laws to be equally attainable by all men, without the smallest reference to the furniture of their pockets. – Charles Dickens • There are many special interests skilful at manipulating circumstances and communications in such a way as to benefit their own ends and not necessarily the public good. – Randal Marlin • There is but one mode by which man can possess in perpetuity all the happiness which his nature is capable of enjoying, – that is by the union and co-operation of all for the benefit of each. – Robert Owen • There’s no doubt that there will be many trials and tribulations along the way in taming space for the benefit of all, unmasking its truths and using the boundless resources available to us. Taking a chance allows us to seek new horizons — and we all benefit from being horizon hunters. – Buzz Aldrin • There’s not much benefit in attacking an empty house. – Eiji Yoshikawa • This time we’ll hate, alright – but we’ll hate the enemy – the vicious gang of colored scum attackers and Jewish-Communist traitors – rather than one part of our own people hating another part for the benefit of the Jews and their army of scum! – George Lincoln Rockwell • Those who prize freedom only for the material benefits it offers have never kept it for long. – Alexis de Tocqueville • Times are difficult globally; awakening is no longer a luxury or an ideal. It’s becoming critical. We don’t need to add more depression, more discouragement, or more anger to what’s already here. It’s becoming essential that we learn how to relate sanely with difficult times. The earth seems to be beseeching us to connect with joy and discover our innermost essence. This is the best way that we can benefit others. – Pema Chodron • To be a holy person means that the elements of our natural life experience the very presence of God as they are providentially broken in His service. We have to be placed into God and brought into agreement with Him before we can be broken bread in His hands. Stay right with God and let Him do as He likes, and you will find that He is producing the kind of bread and wine that will benefit His other children. – Oswald Chambers • To condemn free-market capitalism because of anything going on today makes no sense. There is no evidence that capitalism exists today. We are deeply involved in an interventionist-planned economy that allows major benefits to accrue to the politically connected of both political parties. One may condemn the fraud and the current system, but it must be called by its proper names — Keynesian inflationism, interventionism, and corporatism.- Ron Paul • To destroy an offender cannot benefit society so much as to redeem him. – L. Frank Baum • To estimate the value of Newton’s discoveries, or the delight communicated by Shakespeare and Milton, by the price at which their works have sold, would be but a poor measure of the degree in which they have elevated and enchanted their country; nor would it be less grovelling and incongruous to estimate the benefit which the country has derived from the Revolution of 1688, by the pay of the soldiers, and all other payments concerned in effecting it. – Thomas Malthus • To oblige a friend by inflicting an injury on his enemy is often more easy than to confer a benefit on the friend himself. – Anthony Trollope • Today, if you’re an American business, you actually get a benefit for going overseas. You get to defer your taxes. So if you’re looking at a competitive world, you say to yourself, “Hey, I do better overseas than I do here in America”. – John F. Kerry • Twelve to seventeen minutes is plenty on the treadmill–if it’s done fast. That’s all you need for cardiovascular benefit. You don’t need to spend that extra time unless you are over weight and you need to burn off extra calories. Do it vigorously, like somebody is chasing you. You’ve got to do it hard. Otherwise, if you just take it easy and do it longer, you are spending all that time when you don’t need it. Use that extra time with your weights instead. – Jack LaLanne • Tyranny is abhorrent, freedom benefits all, whereas violence benefits no one for long.- Mark Kingwell • Unless the fundamental categories of economics such as ‘property’ were to be redefined in a radically personal way the liberal rationalist curse which had established economics as a scientific discipline cut off from human interests would proliferate. Economic models … have failed to incorporate any meaningful index of individual benefit other than the original utilitarian one, … the index of increasing income or an increasing flow of commodities. – John Carroll • Vanity as an impulse has without doubt been of far more benefit to civilization than modesty has ever been. – William E. Woodward • Wages is a cunning device of the devil, for the benefit of tender consciences, who would retain all the advantages of the slave system, without the expense, trouble, and odium of being slave-holders. – Orestes Brownson • We are not denying that Turkey has a right to defend itself from extremists but some of its actions are not serving any democratic purpose in Turkey or in Iraq. This will not benefit the relations between the two countries. – Jalal Talabani • We deeply need the humility to know ourselves as the dependent members of a great community of life, and this can indeed be one of the spiritual benefits of a wilderness experience. … [T]o know the wilderness is to know a profound humility, to recognize one’s littleness, to sense dependence and interdependence, indebtedness and responsibility. – Howard Zahniser • We generally learn languages for the benefit of reading the books written in them – Thomas Jefferson • We have to adjust the age retirement for younger people. People of my income level are going to have to have their benefits means-tested. Democrats are going to want a simpler tax code. – Lindsey Graham • We know the costs of Europe. What are the benefits? – Nigel Farage • We need government and business to work together for the benefit of everyone. It should no longer be just about typical “corporate social responsibility” where the “responsibility” bit is usually the realm of a small team buried in a basement office – now it should be about every single person in a business taking responsibility to make a difference in everything they do, at work and in their personal lives. – Richard Branson • We’re the richest economy in the history of the world. For the majority of Americans not to get the benefits of this extraordinarily prosperous economy, there’s something fundamentally wrong. – Robert Reich • What is the best way to go beyond self-interest and obsession with personal demands, needs and disappointments? The answer is: Whatever you do, may it benefit everyone. – Gurumayi Chidvilasananda • What will you do if your product still further increases next year? You should then destroy again the warehouses which you are now preparing to build, and build bigger. For the reason why God has given you fruitful harvests is that He might either overcome your avarice or condemn it; wherefore you can have no excuse. But you keep for yourself what He wished to be produced through you for the benefit of many – nay, rather, you rob even yourself of it, since you would better preserve it for yourself if you distributed it to others. – Ambrose • What would people think of a tradesman, that was to give a ball in his shop, hire performers, and hand refreshments about, with a view to benefit his business? – Jean-Baptiste Say • When every benefit received is a right, there is no place for good manners, let alone for gratitude. – Theodore Dalrymple • When taxes are too high, people go hungry. When the government is too intrusive, people lose their spirit. Act for the people’s benefit. Trust them; leave them alone. – Laozi • When the mass of families in a State are without property, then those who were once citizens become virtually slaves. The more the State steps in to enforce conditions of security and sufficiency; the more it regulates wages, provides compulsory insurance, doctoring, education, and in general takes over the lives of the wage-earners, for the benefit of the companies and men employing the wage-earners, the more is this condition of semi-slavery accentuated. – Hilaire Belloc • When war becomes a trade, it benefits, like all other trades, from the division of labour. – Jean-Baptiste Say • While Jesus was at Jerusalem there came a voice from heaven. For what purpose was the voice sent? For the sake of those who stood by. “Jesus answered and said, This voice came not because of me, but for your sakes” (John xii, 30). Of what benefit was the voice when those who heard it were unable to distinguish it from thunder? “The people therefore, that stood by and heard it, said that it thundered” (29). – John Remsburg • White privilege is the unquestioned and unearned set of advantages, entitlements benefits and choices bestowed on people solely because they are white. Generally white people who experience such privilege do so without being conscious of it. – Peggy McIntosh • Wise men, when in doubt whether to speak or to keep quiet, give themselves the benefit of the doubt, and remain silent. – Napoleon Hill • Write your injuries in dust, your benefits in marble. – Benjamin Franklin • Writers don’t seem to benefit much by the advance of science, although they thrive on superstitions of all kinds. – Northrop Frye • You know, in an ideal world, people would just be intrigued and go and see a film without knowing anything about it, because that’s where you’re going to have the most experience of a film, the biggest, the most revelation of a film. But at the same time, I think there are benefits of having seen a trailer where you actually look forward to seeing moments in a film knowing that they’re coming up. I don’t know which is better. – Duncan Jones • You may well ask why I write. And yet my reasons are quite many. For it is not unusual in human beings who have witnessed the sack of a city or the falling to pieces of a people to set down what they have witnessed for the benefit of unknown heirs or of generations infinitely remote; or, if you please, just to get the sight out of their heads. – Ford Madox Ford • You never come right out and admit you have stretched the rules for your own benefit. You do it and shut up about it, and hope you don’t get caught, because if you are caught no one or no one who has any sense will come forward and say he has done the same thing himself. – Janet Malcolm

  jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'a', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_a').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_a img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'e', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_e').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_e img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'i', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_i').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_i img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'o', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_o').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_o img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'u', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_u').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_u img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'y', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_y').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_y img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Welcome to Political Confessional, a column about the views that Americans are scared to share with their friends and neighbors. In an increasingly polarized political climate, adherence to party or ideological orthodoxy seems de rigueur. Social media serves only to amplify that perception at times.

But Americans’ political views are often idiosyncratic and sometimes offensive, and they rarely adhere neatly to any particular party line. In this column, we want to dig into Americans’ messy opinions on politics, morality and social mores. We hope that this exercise gives readers a glimpse into the minds of those with whom they might disagree — or agree! If you have a political belief that you’re willing to share with us, fill out this form — we might get in touch.

This week we talked to Owen, a 37-year-old white man from the Bay Area in California. He wrote that he is “open to mass surveillance if it can lead to a world where a much higher percent of crimes are caught, leading to better public safety and, ideally, shorter [or] lighter sentences (because you don’t need as big a threat of punishment to deter people from crimes if the likelihood of catching them is very high).”

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Clare Malone: How did you come to this position?

Owen: I first started thinking about this after I heard a Radiolab episode that was about a period where, I think, Mexican cities were monitored by overhead drones that were taking a picture of the entire city maybe every 30 seconds. If a murder was committed, they could then go backwards in time and could say, “OK, here’s when we think the murder happened, here’s a car that showed up just before, here’s where that car went, here’s some other cars that recently committed some crimes and look, they all ended up in the same place. It looks like we found a gang.” And they were actually able to bust significant gangs through the ability to have a picture of the entire city every 30 seconds.

It just made the benefits of that type of surveillance very tangible, and it got me thinking, “Well, the benefits there are so obviously good, and if we could just get a lot of the stuff around law enforcement right — which is obviously an ‘if’ — then the public benefits are so large.”

It brings up all these other questions around racial justice [and] law enforcement: Are we actually policing the crimes we want to police? Is there still this rich-poor divide where rich, mostly white people get away with stuff and people of color do not? Those are all still open questions, but the idea that we would give up on this potential just because surveillance is icky … seems like there’s some baby being thrown out with the bathwater there.

All that said, in the wrong hands, surveillance is the tool of the oppressor. If you look at what’s going on in China, it’s super scary, and it’s enough to make me think, OK, maybe I should be backing off here, not dabbling in these waters.

CM: I want to drill down into what kind of mass surveillance you’re thinking of. Are you thinking about a London-style system where you have video cameras everywhere? Should authorities be able to access your phone? How far do you think it should be able to go?

Owen: What we think of as public space, I think it’s OK if we have our eye on because in many public streets, we have security cameras in one place or another.

CM: What if your workplace, without you realizing it, has cameras?

Owen: That’s getting into the middle of the gradient where I’m not exactly sure. I think the workplace is maybe more public than private. I think I’m maybe more OK with visual surveillance than audio surveillance. People should be able to say what they want without thinking, “The government is going to get me,” unless I’m talking seriously about committing violence. And then, how do you know I’m talking seriously about committing violence?

When it gets into private communications, I think maybe those should be totally private, but then you’re allowing people to conspire.

CM: So you lean toward: “People’s private communications stay private?”

Owen: Yes.

CM: What about the creepiness quotient? How do you answer to that?

Owen: The creepiness factor is real. I think a lot of it comes down to: “Do you trust the creeper? Do you trust the person at the other end of the camera?” Government surveillance, when you don’t trust the government, is uncomfortable.

CM: Do you trust the government?

Owen: I am a comfortably middle-class white person and I haven’t had many interactions where I’m like, “Uh oh, this policeman might fuck me up right now,” whereas I have black friends where that’s something they have to think about all the time.

CM: You mentioned before that there were racial and social justice issues that come up. A lot of what you’re talking about sounds like broken windows policing to me. How would you answer to that?

Owen: And that’s crossed my mind, and it makes me super uncomfortable. Who ends up getting policed when you do stuff like this? I like to think of it as something completely neutral, almost an algorithmic system where the robot watches all and just identifies crime, whoever’s doing it. But we’ve seen all these examples where someone creates an AI [artificial intelligence system], and depending on what you expose the AI to, the AI becomes racist.

CM: Do you feel unsafe in your neighborhood or city?

Owen: That’s not where it started, honestly. I generally feel pretty safe. Now I have a kid and another on the way. I think a little more about, “Is my kid going to be safe?” But I generally don’t walk around too worried about it. But it feels like the potential is there to largely do away with gangs. There are some parts of the country where that’s a serious issue.

CM: Have you talked to anyone about this?

Owen: Most of my friends are liberal. I think the general reaction is, “No, you can’t do that. The government surveilling everyone is clearly a bad idea.” I mentioned it to a black friend of mine and he said, “Yeah, you do that, and the camera is going to be over the black neighborhood, and it’s going to be the thing that makes it way easier to police black people for random shit.”

CM: Do you remember how you felt about the Edward Snowden revelations of mass surveillance a few years ago?

Owen: I was totally pro-Snowden. It didn’t feel like the government was really making the case for what it was doing. I think if you want to mass surveil, it should be a totally open thing, where you’re talking about what you’re surveilling and why, and what the benefits are.

CM: Do you think your notion of privacy has changed at all in the last few years?

Owen: Sure. Because it isn’t a core issue for me, it’s more wet clay than most issues are in my mind. You could show me a study that said: “The state tried surveillance, and it was a total nightmare, and they locked everyone up.” That might sway me back the other way — this tool is too powerful for any government, and let’s just lean hard in the privacy direction and hope for the best.

And before, you asked me if I trust the government, and I certainly don’t trust this administration, and I don’t trust the American electorate to constantly produce politicians that I do trust. What I do trust is a good system of checks and balances and incentives; that part is very important, too. If you don’t have the ability to audit the surveilers, you’re asking people to trust the government en masse, but also then you’re saying everyone who enters the government has to achieve that level of trust, which is crazy.

CM: You’re saying you don’t trust this administration — would you trust a Democratic administration more? Because the Snowden revelations occurred during the Obama administration.

Owen: I would trust a Democratic administration more. But I actually think this might work better as a municipal thing. Your legislators are your neighbors, to a degree. There’s more accountability.

There’s this little mini-movement of progressive prosecutors — and that’s mostly happening at the city level — and it feels like the things they can get done at the city level are more difficult to get done on the state or federal level.

And a bit of a side note, but the progressive prosecutor movement seemed to be buoyed by all the Black Lives Matter stuff. A major part of that was [that] all the violence against people of color by the police is now being recorded because everyone has a phone on them. And you get all these horrifying videos that are impossible to ignore. Statistics — you can brush off and move on with your day. But if you see the Eric Garner video — what if there was no Eric Garner video? I feel like the ability to see some of this stuff has pushed us in a more social justice-y direction, in a really good way.

[duaneodavila]

Making Censorship Respectable Again

For all his twits about Fake News and “Enemy of the People,” Trump hasn’t done more than make noise. Offensive as it may be to denigrate the Fourth Estate as evil, even a president gets to complain about things he dislikes, even if he does so in a way they dislike.

And in fairness, the media hasn’t always helped itself, replacing factual reporting with “advocacy journalism,” the mechanism of telling the news in such a way as to include only those parts the lead the public to the conclusion members of the media believe are “right.” Sometimes this means omitting inconvenient facts. Sometimes it means outright lying. In their defense, advocacy journalists argue that they don’t lie as much as Trump, and their cause is “just,” so no harm, no foul. But it’s not news. It’s not journalism. And Trump does it too.

Democratic candidate for president, Andrew Yang, whose big issue is Universal Basic Income of $1000 per month, payable in dollars rather than Cheetos, has come up with a new proposal: the creation of a position of News and Information Ombudsman. Apparently, the days of calling someone the Czar are over, and Ombudsman seems softer, kinder, as they wield the Ax of Truth.

The problem?

“Fake news” is a rampant problem.  Online media market incentives reward ‘clickbait’ and controversy even as our social media feeds send us more and more outrageous stories to incite a reaction.

The rewards for publishing inflammatory content are high with no real penalty.  At the extreme end, those who wish to misinform the American public can do so with little fear of repercussions.  The lack of trusted news increasingly isolates us in information silos that hurt our democracy.

The key phrase in there is “with no real penalty.” After all, it’s uncontroversial to say “fake news” is a problem, but is the solution to impose a “real penalty”?

We must introduce both a means to investigate and punish those who are seeking to misinform the American public.  If enough citizens complain about a particular source of information and news is demonstrably and deliberately false, there should be penalties.  I will appoint a new News and Information Ombudsman with the power to fine egregious corporate offenders.  One of the main purposes of the Ombudsman will be to identify sources of spurious information that are associated with foreign nationals.  The Ombudsman will work with social media companies to identify fraudulent accounts and disable and punish responsible parties.  The Ombudsman will be part of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

There are two curious components to this proposal. The first is obvious, the idea that the government will be in charge of deciding “true news” from “fake news” at all. Yang graduated from Columbia Law School in 1999, so he must have taken Con Law and, presumably, was there the day they talked about the First Amendment. Of course, he may be of the living Constitution view, so that the freedom of the press is inviolate as long as it’s the right press, because why would the First Amendment protect news that was just wrong?!?

But the second curious piece is that this New Czar (sorry, old habits die hard) wouldn’t require a new law, a new federal agency, any approval of Congress whatsoever. It would be created with the stroke of a pen, maybe a text message, within the existing agency, the Federal Communications Commission. There are already tons of rules and regs, all enforceable at the end of a gun, and surely they could shoehorn the Censor in Chief in there somehow.

Bad idea? Silly idea? Of course it is, and nobody except the kids in the basement eating Cheetos would ever consider Andrew Yang for president, so who cares what he proposes? But this isn’t about Yang getting the nod, or the imminent creation of a New Czar. This is about the Overton Window.

The Overton window is the range of ideas tolerated in public discourse,

For a few years now, the attack on speech has been waged with astounding success. The low-hanging fruit went first, with “hate speech” being the easiest sell, but also tiny slices like “harassment” and “revenge porn” being peeled off by claims of how hurt feelings are traumatic, so something must be done. In other words, this has been building, normalizing, for years.

And finding acceptability on a piecemeal basis, for anyone who would question the criminalization of such horrifying and socially damaging speech is relegated to the Nazi side of the binary. There is no spectrum, anymore, as you’re either a social justice warrior or a racist, sexist, etc. Are you one of those awful “free speech absolutists” who run around using horrible words?

But this is just some whackadoodle named Yang, one of the 435 candidates running for the Dem nomination, so who cares? First, that a proposal of such outrageously unconstitutional dimensions would find its way into a candidate’s platform speaks to where the Overton Window is today. Censorship has gained respectability, at least sufficiently to be part of acceptable political discourse.

But second, it’s not just Yang plus a few crazies with their respective axes to grind. In the New York Times, Sarah Jeong* writes about how Mark Zuckerberg is ready to hand over the “trash botton” at Facebook to someone getting a government paycheck, thus taking the burden off him to do the dirty work and, far more importantly, removing his platform from the line of fire for whatever censorship comes of it. After all, Zuck doesn’t care what gets censored, as long as you keep using Facebook, he gets his ad revenue and he doesn’t have to appear before Congress to explain why he didn’t do more to prevent the Ruskies from buying ads.

Jeong says it’s not going to happen in the United States, even as it’s happening in Europe already, where there is no First Amendment equivalent.

We’re not likely to see a Facebook Supreme Court — not an American one, in any event. The Hays Code died after the First Amendment was extended to movies; a Hays Code for the internet will probably be dead on arrival.

Much as Jeong’s capacity to reason hasn’t improved with her new job, not only is her leap of faith suspect, but her blithe dismissal of a future where some analogue of the the Hays Code isn’t instituted, but applauded by the woke, may be wishful thinking. If the notion of a Censorship Czar can be part of reasonable political discourse, and the powerful like Zuck support it due to enlightened self-interest, not only is it possible, but respectable. After all, you’re not one of those Free Speech Absolutist Nazi racists, sexists who supports hate speech and white supremacy, are you?

*Is this her first by-lined op-ed since her hiring as a member of the Editorial Board, and subsequent castigation for the revelation of her performative twitting about how she hates white men.

Making Censorship Respectable Again republished via Simple Justice