During the foolishness of my “openminded” years, I attended a dozen or so meetings at one of our world’s innumerable worldview factories. A “worldview factory” is, of course, any place where worldview or life philosophy or sense of life or a given set of beliefs is generated. Where humans gather, share, and are told how to live and think, like a university, for example, or science symposium, church, hall of Congress, book club, mosque, Hollywood film company, Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade, any episode of Keith Olbermann’s show (obviously), and every taping of Oprah, etc. The extent of the sharing (or propagation or preaching, if you will) varies by venue.

In the particular factory I visited, and amongst a very sacrosanct-by-appearance constituency, I had the pleasure of learning, growing, and questioning the status quo of my worldview at the time, as well as theirs. Cutting to the chase: When it came time for individual congregants of this group to share experiences, anecdotes, personal stories, etc. each would, in closing remarks, almost invariably make clear mention of his or her own humility, i.e. “This I say humbly?” Wait, isn’t the pronouncement of one’s own humility necessarily self-refuting?

I’m pretty sure the speakers meant well but think it over. The humble would never look for reasons to proclaim such a trait. And although your delightful, bloviating co-hosts Bjorn and Shawn of The BS Show® jest ad infinitum about the immensity of their own levels of humility they are obviously joking (for the most part).

So those of you trying to help us stop the massive hemorrhage of goodness in The West, be careful out there. Teach your kids; tell your friends; grace a stranger. Neither the pursuit nor attainment of personal humility is to be brashly proclaimed, at least not among any who wish to find it, keep it, or be well regarded for endeavoring to do so by the civilized.

 
©2008 TheBSshow.com® and The BS Show®

We, your faithful co-hosts of The BS Show® beg any with an open heart, and  partially wise mind, to read President George Washington’s Thanksgiving Proclamation, dated A.D. 1789, aloud sometime before the main course is  served this Thursday in America. (If Bill Maher, Keith Obermann, or CNN’s Jack  Cafferty should happen to be seated at your table during the reading of same, be sure to apologize to them for your (and Washington’s) offensive lack of faith in their secular extremism and godless worldviews.)

Also, the pleasure and import of a fulfilling, appreciative, and purgative pre-Thanksgiving “cry” may be attained by viewing this short tribute. Wow !

From Bjorn and Shawn, producer Jared, and all at The BS Show,® make it a Happy Thanksgiving everyone !!!

(Special thanks to our thoughtful rocker pal Trace for referring the video.)

Somehow we at The BS Show® ended up on this smart blogger’s email list. Now, for any fans of that faux brand of political ecumenism proffered by the likes of The United Nations, Leslie Sacks has posted a column which will serve as a sobering primer on the UN’s recently adopted speech prohibitions. It’s especially worth reading for any of us who is, as yet, so underdeveloped that he or she admires or even displays one of those callow and platitudinous bumper stickers which uses “religious” symbols to spell out the very rigid preachment: “COEXIST.”

During our search for the “right” version of said sticker online we suddenly realized that the present age’s beautiful (and coercive) acceptance of multiculturalism and of “all views,” rendered any of our judgmental, black-and-white, intolerant discernment unnecessary. Pheewwww, thank gods. Or thank Dear Leader. Or not. (It would depend on the whims of The U.N.)

[ Special thanks to Tom McMahon for a creative and perspicuous derivation of said sticker which pays dangerous new-age softies the compliment of taking them at their word. And to Gilbert Chesterton for enlightening us, in general, as to how to more often confront libertine inanity with morally informed eloquence and logic. ]

You simply cannot know everything about everything if you are merely human and mortal. This is one of the axioms we often offer to fans and friends who sometimes complain that we at The BS Show® are over their heads (and sometimes “in over our own”) to encourage them to keep learning and growing. Yet there are far reaching events within life’s major categories with which most of us must be somewhat familiar (and teach to our children) in order to function more wisely.

One of those events, Kristallnacht, or Night Of Broken Glass, was part of a Nazi pogrom in Germany in 1938. On a single November night, almost 100 Jews were murdered, and 28,000 or so were arrested and confined in concentration camps as those racist thugs of Naziism went marching through the streets exacting a part of Adolph Hitler’s vile anti-Semitic policies. In an historic display of humanity’s capacity for the inhumane, Kristallnacht saw the destruction of thousands of Jewish businesses and homes as well as more than 200 synagogues.

On its 70th anniversary a colleague forwarded to us this video segment by Los Angeles area TV station KTLA. After viewing the piece I wrote the following reply to our colleague making the case that KTLA’s effort inadvertently did more harm than good. The nature of my argument will hopefully serve to provide “gettable” basic building blocks for our fans who, prior to discovering The BS Show,® might have been more or less unaccustomed to the clarity and power of no-holds-barred analysis and the pragmatic ramifications of worldview.*

Dear [name withheld]:

I was initially glad and very impressed that anyone in mainstream pop media would actually run a story on such a consequential and fundamentally wrong historical act. But KTLA’s handling of it, in the big picture, actually diminished the travesty and import of Kristallnacht. Here’s why:  

I would suggest that our culture’s fanatical devotion to relativism (replete with its stealth but far-reaching practice of a very fuzzy, self-serving type of so-called “tolerance”) severely limited KTLA’s intended mission. Setting aside the hostess’ failure to even learn to pronounce Kristallnacht correctly, or consistently, I was most taken aback by Mrs. Cohen’s response as to its significance: “… it started with discriminatory measures, turned neighbor against neighbor, and it marginalized a small percentage of the population into ‘the other.’  It’s important to cherish our democracy and to really be mindful of any act of discrimination.” This nice lady is an expert? Did she say any act of discrimination?

Apparently unable, or unwilling (or unaware of how?) to parse the matter using the clarity afforded by morally clear language (i.e. mass murdering, racist genocide, evil, absolutely wrong), KTLA’s “historical expert” on the matter gave the viewership a shallow set of platitudinous and relativistic axioms which, in actual practice would, for example, incrementally make unnecessary the need for any police, judges, or jails in any age. It is an indisputable fact of life that all laws discriminate. Think about it. Most of that discrimination is very good at least in present day America, where most of us happen to show a pragmatic adherence to an understanding and acceptance of “good versus evil” simply by how we live. 

For example, in a reasonably sane society convicted pedophiles are justifiably and swiftly “marginalized, and held to be ‘the other.’”  Would Ms. Cohen’s worldview ask us not to deem their evil/unlawful actions bad, while we deem our abrogative actions against their behavior “good.”  In a separate instance, though it might turn “neighbor against neighbor” were my wife to rightfully testify against the man on  our own street for extorting 50 million dollars from the museum, the very decent will be so glad upon his conviction for a healthy (good) moral standard, which protects, serves, AND limits, that they will not even think to regret that JUSTICE started with “discriminatory measures, turned neighbor against neighbor, and it marginalized a small percentage of the population into ‘the other.’ ” Of course, other pragmatic and frightening examples would be myriad.

Moreover, Ms. Cohen’s subsequent genuflection of “democracy” without subsequent qualification should’ve at least been followed by Dennis Prager’s perennial foundational query: “Which is more important: democracy or Goodness?”  That one question handled with any seriousness at all would have done much more to raise meaningful questions and discourse (not to mention recognition of inescapable moral and ethical realities) which might help prevent the next Kristallnacht, than the “cute” and fuzzy feeling, but ultimately dangerous segment KTLA offered. 

None of us has all the answers but we should all wish that this race, the human race, could more often recognize a misleadingly vapid substitute. Even when it is well meant. 

[ *Worldview is a word which might also be called "life philosophy," or sense of life, or convictions, or macro narrative, or even "faith." Every volitional human who's ever lived had, or has, a worldview which he or she practices (and often attempts to "sell" to others). By way of example, Bill Maher,  Oprah,  Rick Warren, Hilary, and Katie Couric: each of them has (and pushes) his or her own worldview. As do Peter Jennings, Rosie, Deepak, Ted Turner, James Dobson, Spike Lee, Moby, Stephen J. Gould, David Letterman, Michael Martin, Barbara Walters,  Studs Terkel, Marilyn Monroe, Marilyn Manson, Al Franken, Hitler, Tom Cruise, Rikki Lake, yours truly, and, of course, you. Moreover, if humility and logic had a tongue they would assure us that "worldviews have consequences" and that individual worldviews are no more "equal" than are the abilities of individual basketball players. ]

©2008 The BS Show and TheBSshow.com

2008 Election Aftermath. Arianna Huffington Gets Her Way. CNN’s Robjectivity. Racists Of All Colors Get Called On The Carpet.

Commander-in-chief Obama! Nuanced congrats are in order as a nation of too many lefties (and several untethered righties as it turns out) gets itself analyzed for signing on to four years of well-spoken, charismatic platitudes. With due respect our co-hosts Bjorn and Shawn dig just a bit deeper than your regular brand of talk show to bring forth the kind of challenging discourse expected of The BS Show.®

Segment 1 of 7

To VIEW any subsequent segments of this week’s porchcast of The BS Show With Bjorn and Shawn, click on “See the rest of this entry.”

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Yes. Whether we have paid attention or not, honored them or not, thanked or not, what remains of our liberty in America has been made possible only by measured strength, by force of arms. Today we at The BS Show® show appreciation for the foundational and often sacrificial contributions of our American armed forces. 

The BS Show thanks Jeffers M. Dodge for bringing this clip to our attention. Mr. Dodge has posted an open letter to President-elect Obama here.