Tag: individualism

Posted in In my humble opinion..., Unanswered Questions

Unanswered Question: When did we become mind readers?

Posted on by Susan St.Pierre

When I was a kid, the saying “Sticks and stones will break my bones but names can never hurt me.” was the ‘law’ of Natural Selection.
It didn’t matter “why” someone said cruel things, it was our individual choice not to listen to them. That saying served as a powerful response to what is now considered “bullying”.
Let’s face it, people sometimes have bad days and have their own problems that they sometimes try to impose on the rest of us. But we aren’t supposed to be required to allow them to.

Young women experience wild mood swings once their hormones start flooding their bloodstreams. It was impressed upon me (and since to my granddaughters) that those feelings are our own to handle. To just release a whirlwind on the world, was/is NOT how we should handle it. That philosophy applies to our entire character. A familiar saying at my house is “deal with it”.

But there’s a strange turnabout in the “individual responsibility” genre these days. We are supposed to ‘guess’ why someone acts out, and after that, we’re supposed to respect, even support, the other person as if their emotional state has priority to your own.
First, when did we all become mind readers?
Secondly, why are we supposed to take responsibility for everyone else’s ‘feelings’ before our own?
Compassion doesn’t require an active response. We can ‘care’ without needing to ‘take care’ of others. By not getting ‘all up’ in their business we likely return them to their own empowerment. If they’re filled with self-pity, it doesn’t seem generous to feed that ‘beast’.
There’s a BIG difference between offering a smile, hug, or ‘helping hand’ to someone who’s struggling and bowing to (or enabling) someone else’s destructive behavior.
Aren’t we supposed to (allowed to) distinguish between someone in ‘real’ trouble and someone who is ‘playing the victim’? Sorry but IMHO those two kinds of people are not equally deserving of our concern. But somehow, the term ‘hater’ is thrown around when we don’t comply with, or reward, every single complaint.

Seems the patients have taken over the asylum, folks.

Our society is throwing individual responsibility and freedom overboard and replacing it with “group think” and “the collective”. Hope you know that those changes are a direct step toward Marxism.
Not good for you and not at all healthy for America.


The ‘adults’ who are left are the ones courageously just saying, “NO”.





Posted in In my humble opinion..., Unanswered Questions

Unanswered Question: Why not spend more time teaching kids how to cope?

Posted on by Susan St.Pierre

It appears to me that there’s a great amount energy spent trying to ‘cure’ the World of unpleasantness and ‘evil’. That’s quite a heavy task. It’s almost as absurd as humankind supposing they are empowered to “Save the Planet”, but I digress.
When I had a group of preschool kids in my home on a daily basis, the pleas for ‘justice’ and my intervention were sometimes incessant.
“Susan! He’s in MY spot!”
“Susan! She’s taking MY blocks!”
“Susan! He won’t stop looking at me! “…”Susan! Susan! Susan!”
My approach to those complaints was to offer them a self-initiated way to cope or compromise.

“Does that ‘spot’ have your name on it? Find another one.”
“If there aren’t enough blocks for you to work with, you can choose to come and draw for now, then I’ll give you time alone with all of them later.”
“You must be looking at him to know that. Stop looking at him.”

I pity the current kindergarten teachers. Kids, today, are routinely taught to lodge complaints rather than resolve their own problems. On top of that, mere irritations have now been given “problem” status. This is a sad situation for all involved. Many, many, people have opted to label themselves as victims, and few realize they have the ‘power’ (and responsibility) not to be one.

We can agree that many of us have been true victims of crimes, and wrongdoing, at no fault of our own. But by instructing kids to ask, “What might I do differently?” or “What may I have done to avoid that?”, I assure you the ‘victim’ statistics would be cut in half in no time. That would happily allow for more attention to ‘real’ victims too.

I’ve gotten a lot of push back and ridicule for asking people who are complaining about their problematic situation, “Could you have handled that better?” Those people ‘triggered’ by my question seem to think there’s a ‘side’ to be taken more than a ‘problem’ to solve. I suggest that the most prudent first step in solving all of our own problems is to ask questions of ourselves. Your problems don’t just belong to the world ‘at large’.

“But unkindness is BAD, and evil is destructive!” I totally agree. Yet I realistically understand the only power I have, when facing those things, is my own reaction and approach. Throughout life I’ve learned I’m a participant in ‘goings on’ not an irritated, aggrieved, observer. News Flash: Those “evil and unkind” dynamics of life aren’t going anywhere.

So why don’t we spend more time teaching kids how to cope? Complaining is an overall waste of time compared to taking a personal initiative.

To adults who were raised as individuals, the online ‘bullying plague’ could be solved by suggesting teens turn selected apps off, opt to “block” offensive content, or ‘unplug’ all together. Those options are readily available. The kids who feel that they ‘can’t possibly’ do that, have already IMHO shown they place a stunning level of importance on “What others think.” and those kids could have used more early intervention and instruction in “How to handle yourself safely and confidently in life.”

My final note is about the Big Picture of “individualism” versus “victimhood”. Free countries can only exist with one of those mindsets. I have no doubt that Marxism is currently winning the battle between those two.


Posted in In my humble opinion..., Unanswered Questions

Unanswered Question: Might we guess why progressives erase ‘standards’?

Posted on by Susan St.Pierre

It just occurred to me while listening to a Progressive member of Congress how often people of that political persuasion use nearly meaningless and generic terminology.
The woman speaking wants (nearly) open borders to “welcome new Americans”.
That tells me that she has no concern for any definition or “standard” for “What is an American?”. Apparently, to her, an American is someone occupying space on our soil. I can conceive of her making a further argument that visa holders are actually, kinda, sorta, Americans too. It’s time to listen to these self-described ‘altruistic’ people far more closely!

Progressives oppose all standards and simply make-up their own definitions to fill that void. And,they do it cleverly. We already know that the Left insists that a woman is anyone who likes the color pink, wears feminine attire, and cries a lot. Any scientific standard that ‘begs to differ’ is simply disregarded. Luckily, our medical professionals haven’t gone totally off that deep end because I’ve been told they still keep actual REAL records attached to the “trendy” ones they are intimidated to compile in order to keep their funding and individual licenses to practice.

Without standards anything goes. Feelings can reign and Marxism can flourish. Equity, itself, is a term promoting a standardless society. Holding anyone to any standard of merit is now racist, unfair, and non-inclusive. Serfdom cannot actually work when diversity of any kind exists. Mediocrity… compliance… and ‘one whole’ are the direct opposites of thriving…independence …and individualism.

And what might we all be being nudged to be included in? A Utopia, Shangri-La, or a gulag? [Only one of those places exist in reality.]

Might we guess why ‘progressives’ erase standards?

Most of we who want to preserve our country might want to consider what’s really going on.

Posted in Sideshows

My Thoughts… My Sympathies

Posted on by Susan St.Pierre

English: the picture consist of articles on bu...
English: the picture consist of articles on bullying, I obtained it from public domain. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Since this blog is primarily a journal of my thoughts, I’m exploring my internal philosopher again and you are invited to listen and comment.

I had an energized discussion yesterday (on Facebook) over my previous post. Bullying is an emotionally charged subject that brought many varying opinions and experiences to light. While considering what I learned yesterday, I kept returning to my own life experiences. I’ve been very blessed by having positive role models in my life.

 There were many times that “bad” things happened to me, though. My reaction to them, seems to me, the only power I had then and to this day. It is a power we all have.
First, I do not believe in a pre-written design to anyone’s life.

Second, I have not had “troubles” any greater than others,in fact, I’ve been fortunate and my troubles have been lesser than most, so far.

My questions remain the same:

Do any of a person’s troubles come from their own attitude? Does any of their good fortune come from their own attitude?

I’d like to believe it does, otherwise, why bother to try? We would be without any responsibility in the direction of our journey. People would be like balls in a pinball arcade game, subject to only outside forces.

When I see a family of underprivileged kids and witness some of them “do well” and others get hopelessly lost, I ask myself, was it only because the forces of luck favored the successful ones or was it, in part, their own doing?

 Success is defined, in this context, as leading lives of good citizenship, harming no one and pursuing happiness. We discussed that bullies often come from bad environments. Why don’t all kids from “bad environments” become bullies? My search for these answers is often mistaken as an insensitivity to the problem. I am looking for answers because I believe there are solutions to discover and we are capable of affecting changes. I also believe we (people) can only control our own actions and reactions in any situation. Sorry, making laws, rules, regulations don’t cure problems…murders are illegal, ya know.

Yes, I do have sympathy for bullies, as well as, victims of bullies. Once I state that bullies are created not born (sociopaths excluded), don’t they deserve my sympathy? I don’t understand why my sympathy for the abuser takes away from my wishes to protect the victims?

There is an extraordinary effort to reduce bullying in schools. Victims of bullies become scarred for life and there is not one moment that it should be tolerated!
My cause is to make victims harder for bullies to locate and maintain. One way, is to arm kids with skills to ward off bullies.I will call these skills “social”.

“To behaviorists, social skills are learned behavior that allow people to achieve social reinforcement.”

Labeling every kid who hits, or says something cruel, or takes part in a group motivated unkindness, as a bully, is as detrimental to the effort as ignoring that bullies DO exist. I think the “over labeling” is a real, imminent, threat in schools. Over-crowded and understaffed, schools have little time to investigate every report and will have to err in favor of the “victims”. It’s the only choice.

I’m convinced that the gusto and emotion this problem invokes will cause another problem if we aren’t careful. I’ll call it “free-range victimship”.

What do all kids want…attention. They learn very early that attention is most swiftly attained when they are wronged or believe to have been wronged. I hope adults will weigh each and every complaint carefully. Wouldn’t want to end up like our court system which we all know is overflowing with “victims”.