Ruminations 1: the Western dilemma, Starry Starry Night

In the US

After a tiring and insanely expensive, long-winded gabfest, many voters in the US have found themselves between a rock and a hard place -- and there's no way out. A truly bumpy ride awaits the country's journey ahead. That's what you get when you have elections -- insanely expensive, massive preparations for a circus and a gabfest.

In the UK

There's a serious political divisiveness created in the wake of the Brexit referendum, and it looks unlikely to be easily bridged. Some voters may even be regretting about having chosen the Yes vote. Unappeasable Londoners are on the warpath against Brexit, and major economic problems loom ...

Elsewhere

Referendums? Forget it! Just when the exit idea appears to be picking up among other EU denizens, their leaders are taking no more chances of opening a Pandora's box by staging pesky referendums that may turn out against their wishes.

However, chances are more disaffected countries will follow the British lead in good time. So how about taking some tips on doing referendums the Asian way? Need I say more?

It's just a piece of paper kicking up a storm, stupid!

Blame the politically correct, popular vote-crazy West which turns to the ill-informed and emotional masses to decide national issues.

Which is not really surprising since it's in consonance with their rigid political religion called democracy which regards the ritual of elections and voting as an integral part of choosing a country's leaders and making decisions on national issues.

In fact, elections and referendums are unnecessary exercises and an insane waste of taxpayers' money and time as well as one of the major roots of a country's problems.

They are like unscrupulous and obscenely expensive whores whose currency of business is a piece of paper called the vote and who promises power and ecstasy to the winner of the highest number of votes -- cast on the basis of religion, ethnicity, political loyalty, populism and everything else except neutral, well-informed and expert judgement.

More goodies  on the way

Now electoral democracy has more goodies for the politically-correct West. The infestation of the West in general and Europe in particular.

The West is swarming with old and new immigrants -- legal and illegal -- of a different ethnicity, religion, culture and economic status. In time their ever-increasing numbers will be counted as votes and send the West down the medieval drain.

The take-over of the West will be startlingly accomplished not by the sword but by just a piece of paper called the vote! And it's all legit.

It's a case of the camel pushing its master out of the tent. It's already happening and it's going to seriously affect the rest of the world since the flow of science, technology and all modern ways of life and ideas start in the West and flow to the rest of the world -- a one-way street.

Also, the West is the last refuge from political or religious persecutions and an opportunity for a better standard of living.

Will the West wake up, find its feet and take serious action to prevent the subversion of their culture and hard-won freedoms and be ruled by non-native people who originally came to the West from poor, violence-ridden countries for economic reasons?

Yes, distance lends enchantment,  but there's hell out there!

You lie underneath the canopy of thousands of twinkling little stars and look up to the "heavens" in wonder and amazement at the "creation" of the Big Bwana in the sky. How breath-taking and beyond words, says your "spiritual" feelings.

Yes, distance lends enchantment, as they say, so let's leave our friend alone to enjoy his wonderment and "spiritual experience" -- really an emotional state of mind, a poetic sense of joy and elation, and nothing much more.

Just a small reminder though: the billions of "cool" stars you are gazing with so much "spiritual" feelings are really unimaginably hot burning stars just like our sun, and that for the really cool ones you need to go to a disco and tank up on the "spirits" there.

And there's always a time to take off the rose-tinted spectacles and enter the full glare of reality. And does reality bite!

The universe may be an awe-inspiring and mind-boggling sight but it certainly isn't your picturesque little village in a peaceful valley for you to go and live there. In reality, we know that all is not "calm and quiet" up there.

Fact is, there's veritable murder and mayhem going on out there. Just ask the astronomers. Here's some of the goings-on we don't normally see in our day-to-day life and only notice them when things get all too violent to ignore:

Asteroids and meteors
They are the cause of pock-marked, disfigured planets quietly crying destruction, and the reason why Mars' blooming life abruptly came to a halt. More ominously, they -- and gigantic comets -- could one day be the cause of the death of humanity. Remember the dinos?

Occasional strikes, like in Chelyabinsk, Russia; huge craters on earth due to their earlier visitations, hair-raising close shaves with meteors are some of the reminders of what could happen to us one fine day.

Besides, there are burning towers of gases, intense heat, hazardous rays, big stars gobbling up smaller ones in a life-and-death struggle, galaxies and constellations on collision course -- all indicating the dangerous, hostile and terrifying nature of our universe.

In short, it's more like hell dressed up as heaven up there. And remember, heaven and hell are right here on earth -- not out there.

Sorry about bursting your spiritual bubble, but of course, distance certainly lends enchantment.