The Only Ice-Sculpting Bear Known to Man

“Look ye Starbuck, all visible objects are but a pasteboard mask. Some inscrutable yet reasoning thing puts forth the molding of their features. The White Whale tasks me…he heaps me. Yet he is but a mask. It is the thing behind the mask I chiefly hate. The malignant thing that has plagued and frightened man since time began…the thing that mauls and mutilates our race…not killing us outright but letting us live on with half a heart and half a lung.”~ Captain Ahab

It’s incredible how I’ve learned not to take anything on “face value” anymore. Nothing, absolutely nothing is as it appears. Church no longer has anything to do with God. Rather, it has become a universal school of “Nice”…with lots of empty seats. Congress is 100% theater in its masterful illusion of “for the people”, and 1,000% business in what it is doing “to the people”!

Most of us who have lived for any length of time beyond our twenties know that something’s seriously out of whack. We know, for instance, that societies that have an honest to goodness relationship with God aren’t capable of producing the tabloid sleaze that has become our mainstream headlines. And we know that the few pages of our entire Declaration of Independence, our Constitution and Bill of Rights were inspired examples of a government doing “for”…in dark and sinister contrast with the thousands of pages of political sorcery done “to” you and me! Ah, if Shakespeare were alive today…

It is still entirely possible, depending on your address, to go about your business this weekend in a world that appears completely normal. For instance, after attending a faux Mass at St Stephens, where everyone appears loving and “Nice”, we’ll meet some friends at a local winery and listen to some live music…never once giving a thought to the tumor behind the eye of the Holy See in Rome, or the unseen reality of small business suffocating under the weight of Ahab’s “Thing”! And yet it is there and growing behind everything we smell, touch, eat and drink…every single day!

It becomes much easier to see the true nature of things when you examine them in the context of “stakeholder benefits”. For example, let’s look at some older things where there has been ample time for results:

• War on Poverty

Stakeholders– Poor People, Tax-payer, Government

Winners– Government

Losers– Poor People, Tax-payer

• War on Drugs

Stakeholders– Our Children, Drug Gangs, Taxpayer, Government

Winners– Drug Gangs & Government

Losers– Our Children & Taxpayer

And now to the more recent charade~

• War on “Climate Change”

Stakeholders– Small Business, Big Business, Polar Bears, Taxpayer, Central Planners, Government, American Sovereignty

Winners– Central Planners, Big Business, Government

Losers– Small Business, Taxpayer & American Sovereignty

Unaffected– Polar Bears (there’s actually more of them)

• War on Guns

Stake Holders– Law-abiding gun owners, Criminals, Victims, Taxpayer, Government, Gun Manufacturers & Distributors

Winners– Criminals, Government, Gun Manufacturers & Distributors

Losers– Law-abiding gun owners, Victims & Taxpayer

Unaffected– Guns (there’s actually more of them)

Is there a more reliable and revealing way to look at some of the greatest issues of our day…issues with the greatest impact on who we are and who we are becoming as a society? I don’t think there is!

Now that we have this “Stakeholder” thing down, what if we now examine the Moral issues of our present day…or shall we refrain from the obvious? After all…we still have half a heart and half a lung. Ah, if Melville were alive today…Thar she blows!