Freedom or Totalitarianism

Freedom or Totalitarianism
Liberty or Death

Wednesday, December 19, 2018

USA Network: In Plain Sight- Something About Mary McCormack

Source:In Plain Sight Wiki- There's a lot of something about Mary McCormack. 
Source:The Action Blog 

"Sundays, 10/9c beginning June 1st.  In Plain Sight is an hour-long drama that revolves around Mary Shannon (Mary McCormack), a tough, sexy US Marshal who works for the Federal Witness Protection Program. While many of the witnesses under her care are high-maintenance career criminals, some are just innocent people who had the misfortune of witnessing a crime or falling victim to one." 

Source:USA Network- a lot of something about Mary McCormack.
From USA Network



 
Source:IMDB- Mary McCormack, as U.S. Marshal  Mary Shannon 

Did In Plain Sight make actress Mary McCormack a star? I personally knew about her from watching her on ABC's Murder One from back in 1995-96 where she played one of the lawyers at the firm there. And liked her back then both physically, but as an actress as well. And then about ten years later where she played the National Security Advisor on NBC's The West Wing. The West Wing, goes off the air in 2006 and she gets In Plain Sight from USA a couple years later. She's been around for a while and has been very successful for a while, but perhaps In Plain Sight made her a household name.

What In Plain Sight did for ( there's a lot of something about ) Mary McCormack, is not just make her the star of that hit show from USA, but the main reason if not only reason to watch that show. She plays U.S. Deputy Marshal Mary McCormack, who is a badass Federal law enforcement officer who has a no bullshit ( to be frank ) attitude and doesn't take anything from anyone, including her family. Who operates in a world where everyone around her is dependent on her and wants something from her.

Her no bullshit attitude operates in a world of bullshitters where both her mother and adult sister not just live with her, but are dependent on Mary for their economic survival. And she feels used and perhaps abused even by her own family and then she's hard-ass U.S. Marshal who works for the U.S. Witness Protection Bureau and deals with professional bullshit artists for a living which just compounds all of her issues for her. And operates in a world where the only people she really trusts are the people she works with including her partner and supervisor.

Similar to Mariska Hargitay from Law & Order SVU who also plays a badass female cop, as tough as attitude and first impression is, she's just too cute, beautiful, and feminine to completely fool people with her attitude.

Mary McCormack, as well as her character U.S. Marshal Mary Shannon, is a tall, gorgeous, sexy, very cute, sexy blonde who wears tight outfits on her show a lot and unless you're gay or something, perhaps blind as well it would be very hard if not impossible to at least notice her, if not be attracted to her.

On the outside she's a very feminine and attractive woman, but with the attitude of an Army Drill Sergeant, where you would have to be a complete idiot to want to mess with her. And plays this role perfectly and makes a good show very entertaining all by herself.

Wednesday, December 12, 2018

Lew Rockwell: Bionic Mosquito: 'Liberalism and Christianity: Liberal Christianity'

Source:Disqus- Christian-Conservatives vs. Christian Liberals. 
Source:The New Democrat

“Leftism: From de Sade and Marx to Hitler and Marcuse, by Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn

Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn (EvKL) examines what he calls “Real Liberalism” in chapter 13 of this book. I think it is worthwhile to capture his understanding of this political and economic philosophy.

Let us look at the verbal meaning. The root is liber (“free”). The term liberalis (and liberalitas) implies generosity in intellectual and material matters.” 


Liberalism and Christianity implies at least that they're two different things when the fact is there's a fundamentalist and even theocratic version of Christianity way over on the Right, the Christian-Right in America represents that movement. There's a social democratic version of Christianity way over on the Left, that has been lead by people like Reverend Martin L. King, Reverend Jesse and many other left-wing preachers. And there is a liberal version of Christianity that is less government centric than the social democratic version and even the fundamentalist version. That is more about treating people the way you would want to be treated. About respect and earning the respect of others by how you treat people. 

As someone who is not a Christian of any sect or a member of any other religious sect, but who is also not an Atheist, but an Agnostic I actually agree with some of the Ten Commandments.

Thou shalt not kill: meaning we shouldn't take innocent lives.

Thou shalt not steal: any moral person can agree that theft and burglary are wrong and immoral.

The Golden Rule is not a Ten Commandment, but it's a great rule and gets back to one of my points about Liberal Christianity having to deal with respect which is do unto others as you would have done to you. Treat people the way you want them to treat you. Don't live life thinking you're superior to everyone else and that it should be someone else's honor just to be in your presence. And therefor you can get away with being a jerk ( to be generous ) around other people simply because you're better than them and they don't want to lose you.

Live and let live: here's a moral value that Liberals and Libertarians at least can fall in love with. Also goes to Economics Professor Walter Williams broader definition of property rights which also goes to the liberal value of free choice. Which is free people should be aloud to live freely and don't need big government trying to manage their personal affairs for them and telling them how they should live. Short of hurting innocent people with our personal freedom and choices.

Goes back to two of the Ten Commandments that I mentioned earlier which are thou shalt not kill and thou shalt not steal. Add thou shalt not abuse others either physically or verbally. Thou shalt not rape would be another good example of this. Thou shalt not hurt innocent people with what they're doing especially children and women. The second one some might believe is sexist, but so what.

I'm not a Christian of any sect, but someone with my liberal values could get into a liberal version of Christianity instead of Christians trying to use government to manage people's lives for them and punish people simply because of how they communicate or what they do with their personal times and lives because they see those choices as immoral. Or the Christian-Left, trying to turn government into some national charity and perhaps even replacing charity with some national welfare or charity state using it to take care of the poor by taxing the rich, instead of using government to empower the less-fortunate to be able to take care of themselves. If there was a Liberal-Christian sect like I mentioned, I could become a Christian myself.

Wednesday, December 5, 2018

Graham Brown: Life Is About Choices- We Are What We Choose To Be

Source:Success Magazine- Great Graham Brown quote 
Source:The Daily Review

"Maxime Lacoste-Lebuis and Maude Plante-Husaruk ((Husaruk), both filmmakers, were researching their upcoming trip to Central Asia when they first heard a man named Raïmberdi talk about plants. “We stumbled upon a French TV program about [Tajikistan] where Raïmberdi had briefly appeared, and we immediately thought he was a very interesting man and that there was definitely more to his story,” Lacoste-Lebuis told The Atlantic."
Source:The Atlantic- The Botanist


Anyone who says that they have no regrets or have never made any mistakes, either is bullshitting you to your face and perhaps thinks you're an idiot as well, or perhaps hasn't really lived at all. Perhaps spent their entire life in an institution where everything was done for them and was always told what to do. Maybe they spend their entire time in their house and don't even ever cross the street for fear of falling or getting hit by a car. For someone like this they have to be so cautious and so conservative in the sense that they never take any risks, because they're always afraid of making mistakes and screwing up.

As Graham Brown says here, "life is about choices. Some we regret, some we're proud of. Some will haunt forever. The message: we are what we choose to be." Being human is about making choices and then living with the consequences of them for good and bad. Enjoying the rewards from the good decisions that we make, but dealing with the consequences for our bad choices. Anyone says they've never made a mistake in life and has no regrets, is either bullshitting you and thinks you're an idiot, or hasn't lived a life outside of an institution where they're always told what to do and everything is done for them. Perhaps spent their entire life in a coma. Which is I guess one way to honestly live without regrets. But who the hell wants to live in a coma simply to avoid having regrets and making mistakes?

It's not about whether we make mistakes in life and life with regrets, but the question is what do we do about it. Do we bitch about life being unfair and too hard, we can't go on and simply give up not just on life, but ourselves as well, or do we use our regrets and mistakes as learning opportunities. And look at them as opportunities to improve ourselves and look at where we failed and how not to do what we were trying to do there and learn how to do it right the next time so we don't make the same mistakes again. We all screw up, we're all wronged at some point in our lives, many times life is unfair and hits us si hard that it almost knocks us out. But as long as we're alive we're never knocked out and always have the wheels and power to move forward and to get better. As Graham Brown said we are what we choose to be base on the decisions that we make in life for good and bad.