FULL METAL NOVELIST

I’m a horrible bastard, probably

2013-02-24T23:28:36Z

Originally published at Quantum Matrix Scribe. Please leave any comments there.

Tim Carney: An awful loss, a beautiful life, a daunting task | WashingtonExaminer.com.

I’m sure, after you read the linked story above, and read what I’m about to say, you are going to think what the headline says (except I’m the bastard, not you. Probably.)

The above story is from Tim Carney, a columnist at the Washington Examiner, who is understandably conservative. The story is about his nephew, who lived for only 442 days before dying, and suffering every one of those days with spinal muscular atrophy, being just about paralyzed at birth and getting worse as the days went on.

Carney writes about the love that the boy’s Catholic parents had for him, and how he spread love by being an object of attention:

Pat and Elena are devout Catholics from strong families, but their answer to this question can’t be set aside as some teaching in the Catechism. It’s a truth written on the human heart.

Jesus said that the two greatest commandments are to love God and love your neighbor. This is our purpose. This view is not uniquely Christian. It’s understood in other religions and in secular worldviews.

In this regard, John Paul lived a superior life. He exuded love. Before he lost control of his facial muscles, he beamed smiles that made grown men sob. Babies can love those around him with the pure, unconditional love we all should show.

Also, JP drew love from others. Neighbors, relatives and strangers cooked meals and gave time, equipment and money to help the Kilners. JP’s brothers and sisters showered him with affection. And Pat and Elena sacrificed immensely to care for him.

Before the wake at St. Patrick’s in Rockville, during an observance called Stations of the Cross, we read a Gospel passage in which Christ explains our duty to feed the hungry, clothe the naked and visit the sick.

“Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine,” the Lord says in this passage, “you did for me.”

Clearly a call to charity, this is also an exaltation of parenthood. Even moreso, this exalts the work of caring for helpless JP.

Tribulations both reveal character and form it. JP’s struggles revealed his parents’ heroic virtue and fostered virtue in others.</span>

Pat and Elena saw John Paul as a blessing, and they generously shared that blessing with the world. They took him wherever they could, in a chair rigged with a ventilator and an IV. Elena shared wider, by penning hopeful, contemplative letters to John Paul every few weeks, which she posted on a blog.

One friend of mine, who never met the Kilners, read the “Letters to John Paul” blog. She wrote me, “John Paul’s story made me want to be a better person.”

John Paul continued shaping souls even in dying. A priest at St. Patrick’s took confessions during and after the wake. He commented afterwards that he heard some of the more honest, searching and contrite confessions he’s ever heard.

More than 500 people attended the beautiful funeral. One non-Catholic mourner was moved so much by the Mass she told Pat, “Now I understand why you’re Catholic.”

John Paul, who never spoke a word in his life, was the greatest evangelist of love, faith, virtue and hope I have ever met.

I look at this and shake my head. I don’t necessarily see love here. Yes, John Paul’s parents loved him, as any parent would, and they sacrified for him, as any parent would. But I look at this and think, “Why didn’t they just abort?”

Ayn Rand said it best when it came to abortion:

An embryo has no rights. Rights do not pertain to a potential, only to an actual being. A child cannot acquire any rights until it is born. The living take precedence over the not-yet-living (or the unborn).

Abortion is a moral right—which should be left to the sole discretion of the woman involved; morally, nothing other than her wish in the matter is to be considered. Who can conceivably have the right to dictate to her what disposition she is to make of the functions of her own body?

–”Of Living Death”, The Voice of Reason, pgs 58-59

Never mind the vicious nonsense of claiming that an embryo has a “right to life.” A piece of protoplasm has no rights—and no life in the human sense of the term. One may argue about the later stages of a pregnancy, but the essential issue concerns only the first three months. To equate a potential with an actual, is vicious; to advocate the sacrifice of the latter to the former, is unspeakable. . . . Observe that by ascribing rights to the unborn, i.e., the nonliving, the anti-abortionists obliterate the rights of the living: the right of young people to set the course of their own lives.

–”A Last Survey”, The Ayn Rand Letter, IV, 2, 3

Because of this stance, which I agree with, I don’t consider an embryo or a fetus to be a person like a born human, and thus am not a “pro-lifer.” (I’m willing to accept that personhood would emerge when the fetus displays cognition, or “neonatal perception,” but that’s very late in the pregnancy, and virtually nobody gets abortions at that stage.)

That’s also why, when I look at this, I think that the parents should have aborted. If they had known that the fetus was going to have spinal muscular atrophy, and therefore was going to have a short life full of suffering, why bring the fetus to term? Why increase suffering in the world?

Shouldn’t we, you know, work at reducing suffering? And if we should be doing that, then why bring to term a fetus that has congential problems and is going to have a life full of suffering? It doesn’t make any sense, and to me, it seems pretty sick to do so. Of course, I know some will retort that he wasn’t suffering, and the love he was receiving from his family was proof he wasn’t. But that’s crap. He was clearly in pain for 442 days, he was clearly suffering, there is no way around that.

And, at the risk of sounding even more like a “douchecanoe,” as one of my friends would say, I think the parents and family were using this infant to make themselves feel better.

“Oh, look at us! We’re sacrificing so much to take care of this child!” Yes, it is a good thing to take care of others (while I agree with Rand on many things, I am not a Randroid or a bona fide, card-carrying Objectivist.) But when you’re really just using the situation to make yourself look more caring to others, and thus build your social credit (look how they made other people say “I want to be a better person”), and more to the point using a situation you could have easily avoided, I don’t think that’s good. The sad part is that I don’t think the parents even realize what they’re doing, caught up as they are in the Catholic church.

It’s similar, in a way, to Mother Teresa and what she did for years. She actually thought suffering was good:

The common belief is that Mother Teresa worked with the sick and destitute to lovingly return them to health. An examination of her missions will show that this is far from the case. Mother Teresa believed that there is spiritual value in suffering. Once, when tending to a patient dying of cancer, she said “You are suffering like Christ on the cross. So Jesus must be kissing you.” (Christoper Hitchens - The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice, p. 41). For this reason she would not prescribe pain killers in her clinics, choosing instead to allow her patients to experience the suffering that she believed would bring them closer to Christ. Despite the tens of millions of dollars donated to her charity each year, her missions were rudimentary and offered no real health care. Her missions mainly catered to the critically ill and simply afforded them a place to go to die. It is interesting to note that when Mother Teresa became ill she would travel to the finest health care facilities to receive treatment.

This is sick and disgusting, but it is happening, with Mother Teresa and elsewhere. I see a solid connection between Teresa and the family of Carney’s nephew. That may make me a douchecanoe, but I’ll live with that.

And so will all the other people, even pro-life people, who think it is okay to have an abortion if the baby is going to be born with severe complications:

Over one-quarter of pro-life individuals think that abortion should be legal if the baby may be metnally or physically impaired. And for good reason: they don’t want to increase suffering.

Let’s actually try and reduce suffering as much as possible in this world. Stop with the displays of “care,” “compassion,” and “love,” the ones meant to make yourself look good, and actually do something. I’m not perfect–I myself need to take this up–but we can all start. And maybe one of those places is not bringing in infants into the world who are very clearly going to live only in pain and suffering.

Yes, that probably makes me a bastard in many people’s eyes. But so be it.

3 Big Thoughts on Libertarianism

2013-02-20T17:01:39Z

Originally published at Quantum Matrix Scribe. Please leave any comments there.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the stereotypical libertarian and conservative (and libertarian conservative, and conservative libertarian) approach to various topics in modern American politics. It’s pretty weird, and this will be somewhat longish, but I have to get it out of my head. [WARNING: Words ahead. Lots and lots and lots of words.]

First off, there is a huge focus on taxes, mostly accentuated by the conservative group Americans for Tax Reform, their leader, Grover Norquist, and his little “Taxpayer Protection Pledge” (whereby signatories refuse to vote for any tax increases. Ever. Or something.) The end result is we pontificate endlessly about marginal tax rates and the Laffer Curve, and how we should cut taxes to boost the economy and employment, and yadda yadda yadda.

The problem with this approach, though, is that it’s misplacing the blame. The real problem with the government is not taxation. While I agree that taxation is an issue, and there can and should be significant tax reform (flat tax, anybody?), government spending and command and control regulation are way more important and far more serious. Government spending creates huge distortions in the market by moving money around in the private sector that wouldn’t have been if we left decisions up to private citizens, thus negating their power of choice in the market as producers scramble to lap up the government money that is spread around. Meanwhile, government regulation prohibits Americans from doing sensible things every day, not just by changing incentives as taxation does, but by literally saying “No, you can’t do that.”

What is really stopping American business from hiring more workers and reigniting the nation’s economic engine? It is corporate income taxes, or is it a bewildering and byzantine system of government regulations at the federal, state, and local level, that make it a nightmare to hire anyone or even to do business itself? You can get around taxation through creative accounting, and indeed, many major companies have done it so effectively they never paid corporate income taxes for years. So clearly, taxation is not the biggest problem. Government spending and regulation, which breeds cronyism, lobbying, and corruption (talk about being redundant), and prevents people from pulling themselves up on the social ladder (what eggheads call “income mobility”), is–or, at least, is bigger.

There are three more considerations to think of when it comes to taxation. The first is the debt and deficit, which are massive problems today. Would cutting taxes do anything to fix them? Au contraire–they would only exacerbate the problem! Cutting revenue would only make the debt grow larger, because you can guarantee there would be no corresponding cut in spending. So that’s a big no-no. Second, by and large the American populace accepts taxes as the cost of living in America. Sure, they want that cost to be lower, but they’ve accepted it as just the way things are. It’s like grocery shopping; you’re going to shop around the lowest price, or maybe even try to haggle for a lower one, but at the end of the day, you’re still going to buy your food. At the end of the day, Americans are going to pay their taxes because they like America, with all of its flaws and blemishes, and they want it. Running a messaging campaign that myopically focuses on taxes may gin up some support on the passionate right, but it doesn’t quite reach out to middle America and makes you look like a fool in debate with leftists, who can rightly point out that the tax rate was much higher back in the day, but millionaires and billionaires still stayed in America and made things.

The third issue is much more severe. There are many other issues out there which are far more serious and injurious to your liberty than taxes. I happen to think that being thrown in jail for unlocking your smartphone, shot and imprisoned for smoking a joint, spied on by domestic intelligence agencies through drones and wiretapping, living under the cloud of indefinite detention by the military, or potentially even being assassinated by your government, are much bigger problems than having to pay a 25% marginal tax rate. In comparison, the tax problem seems fairly mundane and just simply pales compared to the decimations of civil liberties going on today.

These thoughts started percolating in my head after reading this comment to a really long Popehat post on right-libertarianism vs left-libertarianism. As I kept thinking about it, it made more and more sense. I’m not the only one, though. Reading this page at Libertarianism.com, I’m struck by how many libertarians say “Ignore taxes; spending is the real problem.” Jeffrey Miron, who I admire for a multitude of reasons, says “Slash expenditures; then lower taxes will follow.” Congressman Ron Paul, who has his issues, notes that the real discussion is the proper role of government, not taxation; on that I completely agree. And finally, Lawrence Reed of FEE states that the “real problem is spending. We tax because we spend and if government spends too much, no resulting tax system could be called remotely ‘fair.’” Right on, Mr. Reed, right on.

In summary, we libertarians (and conservatives) focus far too intensively on taxation. We’re missing the forests for the trees, in some sense. That’s not good.

This indirectly also leads into my second topic I’ve been thinking about, which is a basic income and libertarian justifications for it. Basically, a basic income (see what I did there?) is a minimum income, or floor, provided by the state to keep people from becoming too poor. Naturally, libertarians are against this, because it consists of the state taking money from some people to give to others. Normally, I would agree…except for a few things.

One, Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman, two of the greatest libertarians of the 20th century, were both in favor of a universal basic income. (Hayek especially. Milton Friedman a bit less so.) So is Charles Murray, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, though he supports it only as a “second-best” system to no welfare at all, and a far superior model to the bloated mess we have today. Matt Zwolinski, of BHL fame, also makes a strong argument for a small basic income. That’s fair, and definitely one reason why I’m becoming attracted to it.

The second thing is that, while libertarians emphasis “negative liberty” and “negative rights,” if you can’t feed and clothe yourself, they don’t mean much. As one libertarian philosopher puts it:

Most, if not nearly all, libertarians emphasize negative liberties. These rights, for the most part, mean the ability to pursue an activity that does not cause harm to other parties. Thus, the right to vote, to earn a living, to read, to pursue an education, to speak freely, to enter a contract with another agent, and other similar rights are rights that may be pursued without the enslavement of others by means of force and or coercion.

One of the most common criticisms of negative liberties is ‘so what?’ Indeed, it is easy to see the dismal of the negative right to free speech when one is hungry, poor and unemployed. Negative rights for agents in those derelict conditions mean not that much, if any bit at all.[9] For those in the said conditions the offer of positive rights, the right to be free from hunger, to an education, to a home, and to a job are understandable preferences. So of what relevance is the libertarian with his mantra of negative rights to the person in desperate need?[10]

Most right-libertarians take the standard of self-ownership, which most declare to be an axiom, as the sole foundational pillar of libertarian thought and political philosophy. As long as you own yourself and your property, that’s all that matters. But as Matt Zwolinski has been pointing out lately at Libertarianism.org (different site than the one cited above), that’s really far too simplistic and isn’t really adequate.

Also, I recently read John Tomasi’s book Free Market Fairness, examining a “middle way” between libertarians and classical liberals on one side, and Rawlsian “high liberals” on the other. Tomasi notes that a better basis for a libertarian polity, with free markets and a “thick” conception of economic liberties, is not the self-ownership principle. Rather, it is the ability of each citizen to be a “responsible self-author,” able to write his own story and lead his own life. (I don’t have my copy with me, unfortunately, having lent it to a friend, so I can’t give you a page number, but it’s there.)

The way I see it is this: you’re on the street, homeless, starving, and begging for food. Nobody will give any to you, though, and you won’t steal from anyone because you have principles. You end up starving to death. Now, the self-ownership principle was followed, but were you really free? Of course most libertarians would argue that yes, you were, and that is is a horribly over-simplified scenario–which they’re right about, it is over-simplified–and that “positive rights” serve only to enslave others because for that to work you must force someone to provide you with food…but if we have a society where people are starving like this, is that justifiable? Can libertarians really accept such a thing? And if your number one need is survival, if you’re living hand to mouth and living on a subsistence diet, are you really free?

I myself am torn on this, in terms of moral issues. I don’t know the answers to the above questions. I certainly don’t think, though, that targeted economic interventions and wealth redistribution as the left always promotes is the answer. We’ve seen what that has done over the past century, and it’s nothing good. Therefore, in terms of consequentialist issues, I’m totally onboard; it may be “second-best,” as Murray puts it, but it’s a hell of a lot better than what we have today. I’m also in favor of it from a purely PR perspective; Americans do indeed care about the poor, and a movement and/or political party that seems to just want to let the poor starve on the streets is going to be ignored at best, and vilified at worst. A basic income would remove that weakness.

As for how to actually implement…hell if I know. The standard basic income system is simply not feasible, ever. Even if we replaced all other government spending, giving $15,000 to every American, at a population of 300 million, would cost $4,500,000,000,000–that’s $4.5 trillion a year. I don’t think that’s something we can afford, even with a rapidly growing economy (which, as it turns out, we don’t have right now.) Probably the only way we can do this is through a form of the negative income tax. Originally proposed by Milton Friedman, I think Jeffrey Miron has come up with a slightly better version. That one might actually be doable.

At the very least, though, this is something that libertarians and conservatives should be taking seriously. As Mike Munger notes in the abstract of his article on basic income, “A distinction is made between libertarian destinations and libertarian directions.” Basic income may not be–and probably isn’t–a libertarian destination. But to me it seems it sure as hell is a libertarian direction.

Finally, one last thing, again from the left-libertarian playbook, are some thoughts about our environment and natural resources. I’m not what Jeremy Clarkson of Top Gear would call an “eco-mentalist.” I don’t think increased government regulation over the environment is going to solve anything. I don’t think global warming or climate change is a serious problem (and even if it were a problem, I don’t think government would be the answer.) I’m not a vegetarian or a vegan, and I don’t go into any of that crap. I like my big engines and my big burgers just like any other red-blooded American. But I am very sympathetic to an idea amongst left-libertarians that the world is common property.

The basic gist is that left-libertarians are totally free market libertarians, like everyone else, at least until we get to natural resources and the environment. This kind of left-libertarianism is known as “Steiner-Vallentyne libertarianism”–at least on Wikipedia–after it’s two major proponents, Hillel Steiner and Peter Vallentyne. This turns into a strong defense of self-ownership, but holding an egalitarian view on natural resources. I remember reading about this a long time ago when I first researched Henry George and the “Georgist” school (which also has led to geolibertarianism.)

To break it down, wilderness and natural resources are, in their “initial state,” unowned. They become owned when, as John Locke and Robert Nozick put it, someone “mixes their labor” with it. Henry George disagreed with this analysis, pointing out that we own something when we make it, but nobody “makes” or “creates” land; it is just there. How then could we own it? Although he was writing in the late 19th century, before automation and global industrialization, his viewpoint is very appealing to me. It makes a lot of sense.
I should also note that I’ve always considered myself to be a “green-libertarian.” While I’m definitely a libertarian first and foremost, I also care a lot about the environment. That’s why I don’t want to entrust it to the government. That’s probably why I’m feeling sympathetic to this view of “common ownership” of the Earth.

But while the view that we can’t own land–we can merely “rent” it from the rest of the community–because we don’t create it is appealing, it also has significant flaws. First, what’s to say that one must create something in order to own it? Why not mixing your labor with something that is unowned? If someone discards something in the trash and another person claims it, does anyone care? I don’t think so, and I think you would be hard-pressed to say that the latter person doesn’t “own” it because it took it and it had no owner.

But a more fatal argument is the tragedy of the commons argument: that without a clearly defined, individual (or a very small group) owner, the whole ecosystem will go to pot as people overexploit the area. You must have some incentive for people to take care of the land.

Of the three points presented here, this is the weakest and the faintest one. I’m just not sold on it like I’m sold on a pivot away from tax obsession and the idea of a basic income. It is merely an interest. We’re stuck in a rut right now between global warming eco-mentalists on one hand who think we should all go into “deep ecology” and hard-headed conservative types who can’t even dream that the environment may be having problems on the other. There has got to be another way to break out of this. I’m just not sure what at the moment.

I definitely think that we, as a liberty movement, can use some strategic adjustment. I think the vehement opposition to any sort of income redistribution is going to stop us in our tracks; sure, it works fine from a high philosophy standpoint, but nobody on the ground really cares, and anyways, you can make a case for libertarianism with a bit of that as the crowd over at Bleeding Heart Libertarians have shown. (Heck, even Adam Smith, godfather of capitalism, was not as market-dogmatic as modern libertarians.)

…

Well, those are my two cents, anyways.

Dude, we live in space!

2013-02-15T15:21:14Z

Originally published at Quantum Matrix Scribe. Please leave any comments there.

And space is dangerous:

That’s the sound of a meteorite coming down from outer space and blowing up in the atmosphere just over the city of Chelyabinsk, Russia. Yeah.

I’m not entirely sure what’s happened, as I just heard about this when I came into work, but it appears that 500 people are injured and there has been a lot of damage.

The ~~Soviet~~ Russian fanblog “Russian Machine Never Breaks” has a roundup of videos and tweets on the meteorite. Obviously I am not going to compete with them, so I’ll just link to more roundups.

Emily Lakdawalla of the Planetary Society has a good roundup of videos.

And Phill Plait, who is probably the best astronomer out there today, of course is watching it and has been blogging on it for Slate. (No, this is not part of the asteroid near-miss that’s expected to come later today.)

The moral of the story is…we live in space. We’re affected by it. And while events like these are astonishingly rare, we should still sorta prepare for them. And by the way, though I’m a libertarian, I absolutely believe in a publicly-funded global SPACEGUARD program. It’s a simple public good, which is actually within the realm of government (as Adam Smith, who is practically the godfather of capitalism and free markets, actually said.)

But…crikey. ~~500~~ 1000 people injured in Russia from a meterorite. Good thing this didn’t happen 30 years ago during the height of the Cold War. There might not be any humans left.

UPDATE: The Guardian’s video is a good compilation, including what happened to folks inside buildings:

They also have a live update blog going on. It looks like injuries may have risen to 1000.

Finally, they also have a column up about the “meaning” of meteor strikes, including this gem:

Like all random events and misfortunes, we want these things to mean something. The Russian fringe politician, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, rushed to the microphones to claim that the shower of stones that broke windows with their sonic boom, injuring 400 people, was a dastardly test of a new American weapon. Advocates of a renewed space programme have instantly told us that the asteroid pass proves that we need to be in space so that anything that comes closer can be, somehow, shoved out of Earth’s way. More generally, all over Twitter, people are calling on passing rocks to land on, for example, the Sun offices (over publication of photographs of the late Reeva Steenkamp) as once they would have called for the thunderbolts of Zeus, the wrath of Jehovah or Betjeman’s friendly bombs.

The trouble with wanting random events to acquire significance by afflicting unpleasant, otherwise untouchable powerful figures is that everyone does it. The religious right, Christian and Islamic, are fond of regarding tsunamis and hurricanes as instruments of wrath – Pat Robertson came up with a particularly unpleasant version of this when he attributed Haiti’s problems to divine punishment for an alleged satanic pact made by that country’s successful slave revolution. Nor is this confined to the religious right; rightwing sci-fi writers Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, in their 1977 novel of a comet’s impending collision with Earth, have a character who survives the impact say that the good thing about the calamity was that women’s lib was over. Heavenly vengeance is really an idea that has no place on the left.

Naturally the Guardian is more left-wing, but you can’t help but nod your head and agree with the author. The only thing this meant was that a rock fell out of the sky.

“Wayne Kerr” on Anarcho-Capitalism

2013-01-31T14:56:39Z

Originally published at Quantum Matrix Scribe. Please leave any comments there.

A very intelligent man, who wishes to go by the name “Wayne Kerr,” has this wonderful comment on anarcho-capitalism:

“Anarchism is the center-right equivalent to academic Marxism. A farcically impractical political agenda that would almost certainly lead to mass suffering, perpetuated by moralizing armchair philosophers and overzealous students. In the end it only detracts from those of us actually trying to advance human freedom.”

Indeed.

OTB Comment: Really Only One Way to Save the #GOP

2013-01-30T15:54:48Z

Originally published at Quantum Matrix Scribe. Please leave any comments there.

Here’s a comment I wrote for James Joyner’s post on David Brooks’ proposal for a “Republican-lite” party. It’s so long I thought it might be worth it’s own little post:

Look, there’s really only one way to save the Republican Party, and that’s to become more libertarian. Dropkick the social conservatism out the door. You can’t have a party that says it will stay out of the boardroom invade the bedroom, and you can’t do that to foreign countries either.

Stop bailing out corporations and the banks. Stop the cronyism. Stop the subsidies to keep food prices high. Stop being pro-business and start being pro-market. Look for ways to break down the barriers holding people down and increase income mobility (forget about income inequality, it’s meaningless). Stop denigrating the poor and help them help themselves. Start getting serious about entitlement reform, because we’re already pass the point of no return, and now it’s just a question of how hard we’ll hit. Also, and this one is probably going to be very controversial, but it’s time to look at radical welfare reform. Whether that’s a negative income tax or a basic income, we need to replace the bloated mess we have today, but we do need to establish some sort of minimal safety net or floor so that people at least have a launchpad to get their lives started(and, for those Objectivists, don’t drag on the rest of us).

Stop being hypocritical on government spending: government spending is government spending. That means that you have to take cuts to defense spending too. Stop trying to take that stuff off the table. It’s stupid and makes you look like fourth-graders. If we’re going to cut government, we’re going to cut all of it, not just the parts you don’t like.

And for the love of jesus, stop being so virulently religious. Atheists and the nonreligious are one of the fastest growing demographics today. What’s interesting is that a lot of them are, if not the garden variety conservative, are more free market than people think. They’re not automatically godless Communists. I would say 50-60% are free market libertarians. Enough with the Christian rhetoric in your speeches. You don’t have to be a god-fearing Christian to believe in free markets and individual responsibility. That theoconservatism, combined with the social conservatism, is the #1 reason why the GOP brand sucks today. A lot of people don’t mind the free market and are cool with working for themselves and making some money to get ahead. But they can’t stand the religious crap, even if they are Christians. Nobody is that hardcore outside of Alabama and Georgia, and you can’t win elections with just two states.

Enough is enough is enough.

Caturday: Now With More Flying Sharks

2013-01-28T00:11:41Z

Originally published at Quantum Matrix Scribe. Please leave any comments there.

Well, there goes the pro-life neighborhood….

2013-01-26T14:39:06Z

Originally published at Quantum Matrix Scribe. Please leave any comments there.

In an embarrassingly hypocritical legal suit, a Catholic nonprofit church has argued that “fetuses are not people” in order to get out of paying money for a wrongful death (emphasis here mine):

Lori Stodghill was 31-one years old, seven-months pregnant with twin boys and feeling sick when she arrived at St. Thomas More hospital in Cañon City on New Year’s Day 2006. She was vomiting and short of breath and she passed out as she was being wheeled into an examination room. Medical staff tried to resuscitate her but, as became clear only later, a main artery feeding her lungs was clogged and the clog led to a massive heart attack. Stodghill’s obstetrician, Dr. Pelham Staples, who also happened to be the obstetrician on call for emergencies that night, never answered a page. His patient died at the hospital less than an hour after she arrived and her twins died in her womb.

In the aftermath of the tragedy, Stodghill’s husband Jeremy, a prison guard, filed a wrongful-death lawsuit on behalf of himself and the couple’s then-two-year-old daughter Elizabeth. Staples should have made it to the hospital, his lawyers argued, or at least instructed the frantic emergency room staff to perform a caesarian-section. The procedure likely would not have saved the mother, a testifying expert said, but it may have saved the twins.

The lead defendant in the case is Catholic Health Initiatives, the Englewood-based nonprofit that runs St. Thomas More Hospital as well as roughly 170 other health facilities in 17 states. Last year, the hospital chain reported national assets of $15 billion. The organization’s mission, according to its promotional literature, is to “nurture the healing ministry of the Church” and to be guided by “fidelity to the Gospel.” Toward those ends, Catholic Health facilities seek to follow the Ethical and Religious Directives of the Catholic Church authored by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Those rules have stirred controversy for decades, mainly for forbidding non-natural birth control and abortions. “Catholic health care ministry witnesses to the sanctity of life ‘from the moment of conception until death,’” the directives state. “The Church’s defense of life encompasses the unborn.”

[...]

But when it came to mounting a defense in the Stodghill case, Catholic Health’s lawyers effectively turned the Church directives on their head. Catholic organizations have for decades fought to change federal and state laws that fail to protect “unborn persons,” and Catholic Health’s lawyers in this case had the chance to set precedent bolstering anti-abortion legal arguments. Instead, they are arguing state law protects doctors from liability concerning unborn fetuses on grounds that those fetuses are not persons with legal rights.

Now, what they’re saying is that state law defines fetuses as not people, not the Church itself. But, by using this argument, aren’t they throwing away standard Church doctrine on abortion and the right to life? With $15 billion, shouldn’t they just pay up?

Make no bones about it–I’m a pro-choice kind of guy. I generally follow Ayn Rand’s ideas on abortion. However, I understand–and sympathize with–pro-life arguments that equate abortion to murder. It does make sense; if the fetus is a person, then wouldn’t abortion be murder? I myself am not entirely clear on if a fetus is a person or not, but I generally move against it because, come on, a fetus doesn’t notice anything and isn’t performing cognition in whatever passes for a noggin. It’s a potentiality, nothing more. But, I will accept that, if we discover fetuses performing cognition, that maybe that’s the point where abortion should be denied.

What the above paragraph shows is that this is a deeply complicated issue, complicated over the simple fact that we don’t know when personhood begins. What both sides should realize that this is precisely the worst place for a ham-handed government to get involved.

Unfortunately, it has become clearer and clearer to me over the past few years that the pro-life movement is really not about it’s trumpeted principles at all, but just another way to gin up more votes or more parishioners. A lot of it is just a hypocritical grab for power over women’s vaginas.

I’ve written before that I would gladly trade abortion for gay marriage: take the pro-life, pro-gay route, just to end the stupid culture wars in America and get back to what is really important, fixing our economy and our fiscal problems. But these days, I don’t know if I can. The transparent hypocrisy is showing just a tad too much.

Here’s a grand idea, folks: let’s leave government out of the bedrooms and our private parts. This is not an area for government action. Let’s leave it be.

Dear Social Conservatives: Just stop the hate

2013-01-25T23:35:04Z

Originally published at Quantum Matrix Scribe. Please leave any comments there.

Sometimes, I read something, and I don’t really write about it for days or even weeks afterwards. In this case, I’m still not sure what to say about this piece from Stephen Crowder at FoxNews.com, but I’m going to try and say it anyway:

Can all of the real men in this country please stand up? You there, not so fast. Anyone who’s read my op-eds here on FoxNews.com knows just how much I hate the systematic destruction of man in modern America. No, I’m not just talking about the hyper-metrosexualization of young men, I’m talking about the role of man in modern society as a whole. For real men everywhere, these are some dark times.

[...]

Now I get that Carlos is an extreme example of a screw-up being used by some high-up network executives as a desperate grab for ratings. The problem is that this kind of behavior is becoming increasingly indicative of men in the 21st century.

Today’s left-leaning, pseudo-feminist society has bred men to believe that they are not intrinsically different and/or valuable in comparison to their female counterparts (and vice versa).

I remember in kindergarten, my teacher (who will not remain nameless) told the entire class, “Kids, men can do anything that women can do and women can do anything that men can do!”

I raised my hand.

“Yes, Crowder.”

“But Mrs. Henderson, what about being a dad?”

“Many women do that everyday!”

Sadly, many of those on the left actually believe this. To the left, men and women are interchangeable. How else could you support same-sex marriage?

The only difference between someone like our friend Carlos Short and I, is that he’s bought into the lie. Why shouldn’t he have ten “baby-mammas”? Those women, sorry, persons, don’t need a man or a husband. Who needs a nuclear family with a strong male figurehead when you’ve got politically correct, warm fuzzies on which to fall back?

Also, suggesting that a mother needs a husband and that a child needs a father… well that’s getting dangerously close to the line of “judging.” To many on the left, that already has you walking on paper-thin ice.

Stop. Just stop.

I am absolutely sick to high heaven of people going around and lecturing one others on how they should live their lives. Most of the time, the ones doing the lecturing are not symbols that should be raised up. And even if they are, where do they get the idea that they can write screeds denouncing other people’s personal lives?

I’m not saying that the TV show Stephen is blasting is one that I would like, or that it’s some model to hold high to the rest of the world. It probably isn’t. But by the same token, neither is the same kind of backwards, barbaric, and utterly brain-dead misanthropy that leads him to turn this into an anti-gay marriage barb.

And for the record, Steve, support for gay marriage has nothing to do with “men and women are interchangeable” beliefs. It has everything to do with treating people as individuals, and protecting their individual rights–you know, what conservatives harp about constantly? Guess you don’t practice what you preach.

There are many families that follow the model that Stephen here would want them to–and yet they still turn out horribly dysfunctional. And there are many people who might not fit his views of gender roles–and they turn out to be just fine, wonderful people.

Just stop hating people. Just stop judging people. I am utterly sick and tired of conservative folk, especially the evangelical and fundamentalist Christians, going around and doing nothing but judging others. Wasn’t there a major message in the Bible that said “don’t judge?”

“Do not judge so that you will not be judged. “For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you. “Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? “Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and behold, the log is in your own eye? “You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye. (Matthew 7:1-5)

People need to stop moralizing about others and go back and fix their own lives. Stop criticizing other people because they follow a life that’s different from yours. One of the first colonies in America was Rhode Island, a refuge for Jews, atheists, homosexuals, and a whole bunch of other people who didn’t fit in anywhere else. If having different lifestyles like that isn’t American, then nothing is–and certainly not your Puritanistic moralizing nagging that nobody buys today.

Aannnnddd….I’m out. I don’t know if I have any more to say on this topic. Just that I find this crap very aggravating and I wish it would stop.

UPDATE: My friend linked to this on Facebook, and a commentator there had a really good point:

[I]t is not social conservatives, but prescriptive social conservatives. People can be socially conservative all day, if it primarily involves their own behavior. Under these terms, I would consider myself a social conservative.

The problem is when people decide that they know what’s best for others and they will force you at the point of a gun, if need be, to shape your behavior in a way they approve.

Yes, this is the real problem. Those who are personally “socially conservative” but don’t bother other people are harmless and perfectly okay. I do think, though, that a lot of unnecessary crap in this country comes from moralizing, and people of all stripes–liberals, conservatives, even libertarians–need to just stop. Just shut up. Nobody wants to be lectured on how to live their lives, period. So knock it off.

Comment on BHL Blog: Science, Religion, and the Great Stagnation

2013-01-17T16:02:36Z

Originally published at Quantum Matrix Scribe. Please leave any comments there.

Seems to be the comment system over at BHL is eating up my comments. Ah well. Here is what I’ve been trying to say on this post:

Original comment got eaten. Aaargghhh….

1 – I’m not sure if science and theistic religion are really all that compatible. Theism, in all its myriad ways, purports that there is an omniscient deity that not only created the universe, but gets involved in humanity on a daily basis (or some other time interval.) As the intelligent design argument has shown, science has effectively ruled this out completely. You can’t really talk about physics and biology and then say there is some deity pulling all the strings so we look exactly how we are now.

2 – *Deism*, on the other hand, may be a different matter, because all deism is about is that there is a god, who created the natural laws that lead to the universe, and then was never seen again. Although there are problems with this view too (Austin Cline notes that the universe appears much more dynamic and chaotic than one would suppose it would be if it were designed) I think deism and science are fairly compatible, and indeed, deism could easily become the new religion of the US as trends continue.

3 – As for the social status of scientists, I don’t really think that’s the basis for the problems we face today. Leaving aside the matter of if we have a great stagnation or not, it seems clear to me that the problems really stem from cronyism, fiat monetary systems, and special interests gaming the market to the point where it is more like participatory fascism, as Randall Holscomb puts it. While there are certainly problems with science today–namely how it has been politicized over climate change and environmentalism, to the point where it has sustained serious damage to its credibility–I don’t think the lack of “Likes” on scientists’ Facebook fan pages is the reason for the problems and difficulties we’re facing today. I mean, we’re churning out new products and technologies all the time. Hell, in 20 years, we might even have an outpost on Mars, for all we know.

EDIT: Aha! And now the comment system is back, meaning my original comment is up there, but this one, which retrospectively feels superior, is not. Blast it, Zwolinski, are you trying to confound me?

Is the US a democracy or a republic? Both.

2013-01-05T14:30:58Z

Originally published at Quantum Matrix Scribe. Please leave any comments there.

You talk like they’re mutually exclusive.

There are some things that just annoy me in American politics. Well, everything annoys me, but there are some things that are relatively minor, small details, that just infuriate the crap out of me. Perhaps one of the largest of these minor things is the continuing notion of many on the right that we live in a republic, not a democracy, and how they loudly proclaim in places that America is not a democracy, as if that’s a good thing.

For some reason, they think that A) this is correct and B) it is good marketing. Why, I have no idea, as I’m about to lay out.

For starters, let’s go to the dictionary, and get the definition of some terms:

Democracy: government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system.

This has two interpretations here, which are usually defined as “direct democracy” and “representative democracy”:

Direct Democracy: a form of democracy in which the people as a whole make direct decisions, rather than have those decisions made for them by elected representatives
Representative Democracy: a type of democracy in which the citizens delegate authority to elected representatives

Clearly, the United States has a representative democracy, because we elect representatives to whom we give authority to craft laws. Might not be the best solution, but that’s what we have. Now, let’s look at the final piece of this puzzle:

Republic: a state in which the supreme power rests in the body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by representatives chosen directly or indirectly by them.

Now, I don’t know about you, but that sounds pretty much like a representative democracy.

The problem comes from some of the words of the Founding Fathers. I’m not saying that the Founders were wrong, but rather that the English language has changed and adapted since 1775. Back then, “democracy” meant “direct democracy,” and the Founders were wise to inveigh against it. Today, though, “democracy” means “representative democracy”….which basically means “republic.”

The real thrust of conservatives here is that, supposedly, under a republic, the rights of the minority are protected through a constitution against depradation by the majority. But this really isn’t the case. For example, take Israel. It is a republic, since the government is elected by the people. But, it has no constitution. While there are several “Basic Laws,” the consitution has never been agreed upon, and thus remains unwritten, and drastic changes can be made at any time by the Knesset, Israel’s legislature.

But the whole thing is just stupid. First off, nobody really cares. The vast majority of Americans do not pay attention to constitutional law or political theory, and are simply uninterested in what is little more than a game of creative semantics. Second, it makes you look foolish. I mean, when you talk to the average American, and tell them that the “United States isn’t a democracy,” and say it positively, they’re going to think you’re a fascist. And do you really think that looking like a fascist will help you to win voters over to your side?

I’ve been told by some older conservatives that the failure to recognize the difference between a republic and a democracy is a terrible thing for the younger generation. This somehow shows, they argue, how we have lost sight of what is important and this will be our country’s doom. Except…that’s not at all what it is. It is little more than a semantic word game. And I’m sorry, but no game of semantics is going to be the downfall of a civilization, no matter what Orwell wrote in 1984. Is language powerful? Oh lordy yes. But is something like this going to be doom? Of course not. It’s so silly I would laugh, except I weep instead.

This is what it has come down to, then. The left has such a horrid grasp of economics that it hurts precisely the people it purports to save, and such ignorance of basic liberties that it creates more horrors in its pursuit of sweet dreams. Meanwhile, the right is still plagued by bigotry, intolerance, and being hopelessly stuck in a nonexistent past while abjectly refusing to deal with the future that’s on its doorstep. While I am optimistic for the long-term–more and more people are becoming libertarians, and something will give soon–when I see stupid arguments over “democracy vs. republic,” I’m not hopeful for the short term. There needs to be a change of direction from silliness like this, and soon.

Atheism Did Not Cause The Newtown Tragedy

2012-12-17T14:31:43Z

Originally published at Quantum Matrix Scribe. Please leave any comments there.

In the wake of the Newtown tragedy, many stupid things occurred. The media, for one, completely failed to deliver any reliable information, but Matt K. Lewis of the Daily Caller has already ripped them to shreds on that, so I have no need to. Instead, I’m going to tackle those who blamed the Newtown tragedy on a lack of religion and atheism.

Yes, that is what some people have said, and they are the worse for saying it.

I first saw this sentiment expressed in my Twitter feed by Jon Gabriel (@exjon), who tweeted the following:

I usually don’t wear my faith on my sleeve, but this country doesn’t need another law or government program. This country needs God.

— Jon Gabriel (@ExJon) December 14, 2012

Post-Christian America sucks and I fear things will only get worse.

— Jon Gabriel (@ExJon) December 14, 2012

(And I’m fine with being flamed about the previous two tweets. Doubt I’ll respond.)

— Jon Gabriel (@ExJon) December 14, 2012

I was really annoyed with him, but I didn’t respond to those tweets specifically because at the time I had no desire for a Twitter war, especially in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy.

Of course, someone far more famous (sorry, Jon) said something similar, so I can just bash him instead:

Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee (R) weighed in on the massacre at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn. on Friday, saying the crime was no surprise because we have “systematically removed God” from public schools.

“We ask why there is violence in our schools, but we have systematically removed God from our schools,” Huckabee said on Fox News. “Should we be so surprised that schools would become a place of carnage?”

This line of reasoning isn’t new for Huckabee.

Speaking about a mass shooting in Aurora, Colo. over the summer, the former GOP presidential candidate claimed that such violent episodes were a function of a nation suffering from the removal of religion from the public sphere.

“We don’t have a crime problem, a gun problem or even a violence problem. What we have is a sin problem,” Huckabee said on Fox News. “And since we’ve ordered God out of our schools, and communities, the military and public conversations, you know we really shouldn’t act so surprised … when all hell breaks loose.”

Riiiiiiiiiiiight. Let me go through three major points to show how BS this all is.

The first thing I want to say so I can get it out of the way is that these guys, both conservatives (or, in Jon’s case, maybe a conservative libertarian), sound awfully like liberals. I mean, it is always the liberals pushing for gun control, and the conservatives rebut with, “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” They are right to put the blame on the perpetrator and not any tool or inanimate item, but aren’t these guys committing the same fallacy that liberals are here? Instead of putting the blame on the shooter, they’re attempting to reroute that blame onto something else–in this case, religion, society, and specifically atheism. Man, why aren’t you guys in the Democratic Party?

With that out of the way, it’s time to move to a much more constructive and solid argument: data.

The first piece of evidence in this one-two punch is the violent crime rate, which is at it’s lowest in the past 40 years:

The number of violent crimes in the United States dropped significantly last year, to what appeared to be the lowest rate in nearly 40 years, a development that was considered puzzling partly because it ran counter to the prevailing expectation that crime would increase during a recession.

In all regions, the country appears to be safer. The odds of being murdered or robbed are now less than half of what they were in the early 1990s, when violent crime peaked in the United States. Small towns, especially, are seeing far fewer murders: In cities with populations under 10,000, the number plunged by more than 25 percent last year.

This datapoint is not in dispute. Violent crimes rate, while perhaps up in some urban localities, are down across the board quite dramatically.

Concurrently, there has been a rise in disbelief in America:

Unbelief is on the uptick. People who check “None” for their religious affiliation are now nearly one in five Americans (19%), the highest ever documented, according to the Pew Center for the People and the Press.

The rapid rise of Nones — including atheists, agnostics and those who say they believe “nothing in particular” — defies the usually glacial rate of change in spiritual identity.

Barry Kosmin, co-author of three American Religious Identification Surveys, theorizes why None has become the “default category.” He says, “Young people are resistant to the authority of institutional religion, older people are turned off by the politicization of religion, and people are simply less into theology than ever before.”

Kosmin’s surveys were the first to brand the Nones in 1990 when they were 6% of U.S. adults. By 2008 survey, Nones were up to 15%. By 2010, another survey, the bi-annual General Social Survey, bumped the number to 18%.

Meanwhile, the Roman Catholic Church, the nation’s largest religious denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, Methodists and Lutherans, all show membership flat or inching downward, according to the 2012 Yearbook of American & Canadian Churches.

The 19% count is based on aggregated surveys of 19,377 people conducted by the Pew Research Center throughout 2011.

If we take these two datapoints together–a dramatic decline in violent crime, and a similarly dramatic rise in nonreligious Americans–and then use Gabriel’s and Huckabee’s logic, what do we get?

“Jesus, atheism and nonbelief have surely led to a decrease in crime! We should all become atheists to stop all murders!”

Of course, the above statement is completely untrue and nonsensical–but then, so are Gabriel’s and Huckabee’s comments. The fact is, religion–or the lack thereof–had nothing to do with the tragedy in Newtown, and to try and pin it to that is a sign of sheer stupidity.

What I think they’re really trying to say is that there is a dearth of moral teaching going on in our schools and society, but then this brings me to my third major point: is the Bible really such a good source of morality? Look, I don’t want to start a theological war here, but if we’re going to talk about morality, let’s look at the text that is the core of Christianity and from which Christians wish to use to teach young people morals.

I mean….it’s pretty freaking violent. You have Abraham who comes this close to killing his son. You get two cities nuked with Sodom and Gomorrah. You have the Israelites murder everyone in pre-Israel Canaan, and do it gleefully. And then there’s the smut; I mean, for crying out loud, you have sons sodomizing their fathers and Lot’s daughters sleeping with him. I’m not sure that would be something I want to teach to my kids.

Maybe it’s better we don’t have that stuff in schools.

There are also numerous examples of Christian-based violence in the modern world. Take some of these:

The 2009 assassination of abortion provider George Tiller
The 2004 murder of Larry Hooper for being an atheist (and the cheering for his death)
The Hutaree group arrested in 2010
Myriad examples of “Christian terrorism” in the United States
The Jonestown Massacre

Christianity is not innocent, so to blame this tragedy on a lack of it doesn’t make any sense at all to me.

The point of this all is that religion and nonreligion are completely irrelevant to why this shooter went into a school and shot a bunch of children. While Christianity is itself a violent religion in many aspects (Crusades, anyone?) I wouldn’t blame it for what happened either. The blame for Newtown doesn’t lie with organized religion, or the lack thereof. It doesn’t lie with society. It doesn’t lie with the education system. It doesn’t lie with guns. The blame lies solely with the man who did this. It was his choice to do so, and he did.

Both sides are trying to pin the blame on something nebulous and distant. Stop it. The blame is with the shooter. Saying anything else is nonsensical and morally wrong.

Questions on CT School Shooting

2012-12-14T18:46:40Z

Originally published at Quantum Matrix Scribe. Please leave any comments there.

At least 26 dead in shooting at Connecticut elementary school | Fox News.

DEVELOPING: Authorities say at least 26 people, including 18 children, were killed Friday when a gunman opened fire inside a Connecticut elementary school.

A law enforcement official said the shooter, who is dead, is believed to be a father of one of the students at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown.

An official with knowledge of the situation told the Associated Press that the man apparently had two guns.

Earlier reports of a second gunman are unconfirmed. The Connecticut Post reports that police are also questioning a handcuffed man in connection with the shooting. Witnesses told the newspaper he was led out of the woods by officers.

I’m not going to talk about gun control. I’m not going to lay down any of those challenges. Although there is a part of me that thinks such bans imposed by others (EDIT: I’m referring here to those “bans” on talking about gun control or political issues immediately after a tragedy has happened, not gun bans themselves), in the name of sacredness or whatever, are silly, I’m not going to do that. I can’t be arsed.

Just two quick thoughts on this tragedy:

Until and unless we learn to excise force from human vocabulary, until we get to the point where all of humanity believes that using force is anathema and repulsive, these acts will continue. Ultimately, we need to do more than just promote free markets or liberty or whatever. We need to get people to just stop using force, period. For the most part, as Stephen Pinkner has pointed out in his book The Better Angels of Our Nature, we’ve done that. Violence is at an all-time low. But unfortunately, we have not completed that journey. So I must ask: when the hell are we going to get there?
I’m noticing calls from all over the Twittersphere calling on people to pray for the families in Connecticut. As an atheist, I don’t pray. I don’t even meditate. I’m curious what other atheists would do in this instance–would they say “Our thoughts are with the families”? I don’t know. I’d like to find out.

And for now, let us come together and denounce this as the tragedy it is. Hopefully my questions will be answered at some point.

EDIT: Actually, I have one more question that you would think I should have grasped earlier, because it is so obvious:

Who the hell shoots kids? As much as I detest and abhor violence, I can see the case for shooting an adult from time to time, in certain circumstances. But a child? I just don’t get that. I don’t get how you could shoot a kid. The only thing that comes to me is what I’ve known all along: people are irrational fuckwits. People are not rational. End of story. But that isn’t really adequate. So I must keep asking: who the hell shoots kids?

Scary polls on demonic possession

2012-10-31T21:10:27Z

Originally published at Quantum Matrix Scribe. Please leave any comments there.

Poll: Nearly six in ten voters believe in demonic possession | The Daily Caller.

From my friend Mike Bastasch, who works at the Daily Caller News Foundation:

The “Exorcist” may have moved public opinion more than previously thought. Nearly six in ten registered voters believe it’s possible for people to become possessed by demons, according to a new poll by Public Policy Polling.

Fifty-seven percent of voters believe possession is possible. Republicans are more likely than Democrats to believe in demonic possession by a 68 percent to 49 percent margin. Furthermore, women are more likely than men to believe possession is possible by a 59 percent to 56 percent margin.

The most interesting part, though, is this:

Republicans by a 39 percent to 35 percent margin. And women are more likely than men are to believe in ghosts by a 39 percent to 35 percent margin.

Democrats are also more likely than Republicans to say that they have seen a ghost by a 31 percent to 22 percent margin. However, only 26 percent of voters at large say they have seen a ghost.

And they say Republicans are unscientific.

Second most interesting:

Despite, widespread fear of ghosts and demons, they don’t actually rank as the scariest monster. That dubious honor goes to zombies with 29 percent of voters saying they are the scariest, and coming in a distant second were vampires with 15 percent saying they are the scariest monsters. However, the category “something else” did actually beat out vampires suggesting voters have something much spookier in mind than lame Twilight vampires.

And Mike scores points for bashing Twilight.

To be fair, even though I’m an atheist, I’m not what they would call a “philosophical naturalist,” who totally rules out ghosts and such like that. I am inclined to think that these things don’t actually exist in real life…but I have never experienced such a thing, and I like to keep my mind open, particularly on ghosts. I mean, they could be artifacts from trans-dimensional bleedthrough, and only some people are sensitive enough to notice.

I don’t know, though, but when you consider that 41% of Americans think Jesus will return by 2050, it’s not all that surprising to see such high numbers.

Disney Buying Lucasfilm for $4 Billion – NYTimes.com

2012-10-30T22:02:35Z

Originally published at Quantum Matrix Scribe. Please leave any comments there.

Disney Buying Lucasfilm for $4 Billion – NYTimes.com.

Emperor’s Black Heart:

5:03 p.m. | Updated LOS ANGELES — The Walt Disney Company, in a move that gives it a commanding position in the realm of fantasy movies, said Tuesday it had agreed to acquire Lucasfilm Ltd. from its founder, George Lucas, for $4.05 billion in stock and cash.
The sale provides a corporate home for a private company that grew from Mr. Lucas’s hugely successful “Star Wars” series, and became an enduring force in creating effects-driven science fiction entertainment for large and small screens. Mr. Lucas, who is 68 years old, had already announced he would step down from day-to-day operation of the company.

Oh, how horrid! Can you imagine? Leia as a Disney Princess! Every scene involving magical talking animals? Lessons about the power of friendship? EVERY MOVIE WILL BE A NEW STAR WARS CHRISTMAS SPECIAL!

Snark aside, while Twitter is predicatably blowing up about this, I’m not terribly worried. It might even be good. They might reset the Expanded Universe, which after the horror of the Yuuzhan Vong and the New Jedi Order would be a good idea, and is absolutely mandatory for the garbage Legacy of the Force and Fate of the Jedi series that came after. After all, the stories are more or less done, it’s not like they’re really going to make any new movies–

In a hastily convened conference call with investors Tuesday afternoon, Robert A. Iger, Disney’s chief executive, said the company plans to release a seventh “Star Wars” feature film in 2015, with new films in the series coming every two or three years after that. Mr. Lucas will be a consultant on the film projects, Mr. Iger said.

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT.

I have a bad feeling about this….

Dear Lew Rockwell: Go Fuck Yourself

2012-09-08T18:02:51Z

Originally published at Quantum Matrix Scribe. Please leave any comments there.

Lew Rockwell — Patron saint of insanely retarded right-wing hillbilly bigot conspiracy theorists everywhere.

Dear Lew Rockwell, in the Name of God, go Fuck Yourself with a Mammoth Unlubricated Studded Metal Brick propelled by a 1000 HP engine in the Motherfucking Ass.

I give you the reason why you must go Fuck Yourself so Very Good and Very Hard (Emphasis Mine):

‘Libertarian’ Presidential Candidate Gary Johnson: Warmonger?

Posted by David Kramer on September 7, 2012 03:30 PM

Statement issued by Gary Johnson on the tenth anniversary of the false flag attack on the United States sheeple:

“As we all pause this weekend to remember the events of September 11, 2001, our thoughts are with those who lost their lives, those who saved so many lives, and a nation that showed its greatness in countless ways. 9/11 and the days after were a time when ordinary Americans did extraordinary things. Our thoughts and our gratitude are also with the amazing men and women of our military who are putting themselves on the line every day to keep us safe. The fight against those who would do us harm continues today, and it is a fight we must carry out with the same determination that was so magnificently displayed by the heroes of 9/11.”

[Thanks to Scott Horton]

Let me get this straight. You honest to god believe that 9/11 was a false flag attack on the American people, perpetuated by the US government? You think that Uncle Sam, which in every other instance you decry as being too fucking retarded to know its ass from a hole in the ground, somehow pulled off an extremely complicated covert operation to attack it’s very own people, without being detected by our omnipresent media or leaked by some do-gooding whistleblower?

ARE YOU GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKING PAINT-HUFFING RETARDED?

I would apologize for my language, but dear mother of god, I am absolutely beyond sick and tired of these idiots. It’s one thing to be an anarcho-capitalist and preach an ideology that just doesn’t work. Fine; that may make you stupid, but that’s okay. You may even be a neo-confederate, and while that’s kinda sorta not okay, and makes you retarded, that’s still lightyears better than what Lew Rockwell and his ilk are: a bunch of crazy homophobic bigoted anarchists who dare call themselves libertarians and pretend they are the only true prophets of the movement while decrying the libertarian presidential candidate who wants to cut military spending by nearly half a “warmonger” because he doesn’t follow their whacked out philosophy and then simultaneously regurgitate one of the most retarded and sickening conspiracy theories regarding one of the worst tragedies in American history that makes you look like a complete assclown.

To these guys I really have only one thing to say: Go Fuck Yourself and Get Out.

These guys are making the rest of libertarians look bad. They’re making us look like insane people, people who need to be locked up in a mental institution, the worst of the conspiracy theorists and lunatics. The fact that they call themselves libertarians, say they’re the only true libertarians, and then spout this crazy-ass shit actually endangers the overall mission of bringing liberty to America.

I’m a libertarian because I want to increase liberty in this country. I want to educate people that freedom is okay, it’s fine, and it’s nothing to be scared about. Freedom works, and it works well. But I can’t fucking do that when assclowns like Lew Rockwell are out there saying that he’s in the same group as me and wearing tinfoil hats and talking about false flag operations and how government nanobots in flouride attach to your teeth and let “them” read your mind. Kinda damages my credibility, and people don’t listen to folks with damaged credibility.

Not that it bothers Lew Rockwell’s crowd. They’re all disciples of THE ROTHBARD, who preached the HOLY LAWS OF PRAXEOLOGY, namely THOU SHALT NOT USE SCIENCE OR EMPIRICISM OR REASON, JUST YOUR OWN BELIEFS IN YOUR OWN NOGGIN, WHICH MAY OR MAY NOT BE CORRECT BUT EH, FUCK IT.

So get the fuck out. Go get your own movement. Stop calling yourself a libertarian. You’re not so much a libertarian as a massive fromunda stain on the libertarian movement. If you really wanted liberty here, you wouldn’t say such stupid shit, but it’s clear you don’t care about that. You’re just another attention whore and shitstirrer, who cares more about your own self-aggrandizement than the greater cause of liberty. So get the fuck out, and don’t let the door wallop your pasty white ass.

In the meantime, people like me are going to talk like intelligent, rational adults, and articulate a clear vision for individual liberty in America. We’re not going to give in to conspiracy theories or crazy ideas that make non-libertarians shirk away or laugh at us. We’re going to actually do something useful and productive, while you slink back to your bunkers and wank.

Good riddance.

P.S.: If you’re wondering why I didn’t offer a rebuttal, or an argument, against Lew’s claim of a false flag op, think about this: if an adult man came to you and starting talking about unicorns, would you entertain a long argument to explain to him that unicorns don’t exist? No, you would just say “Unicorns are fairy tales, jackass” and move on.

P.P.S.: And before you get it up in your panties that I’m kicking anarchists out of the liberty movement and being a tyrannical dictator bent on purity, first off, I’m not kicking out anarchists, just the Lew Rockwell crowd, and second, they’ve been saying minarchists like me aren’t libertarians for years. Folks in glass houses and flying stones and all….

P.P.P.S.: Okay, so it’s “David Kramer,” not Lew Rockwell himself. But it’s his website. It’s his crowd. It’s his group. And I bet Lew Rockwell would not disagree with any of that shit that Kramer wrote. So it’s still him (and besides, this invective was also aimed at his entire batch of followers, too.)

GOP Primary Process A Disaster

2012-08-28T22:50:01Z

Originally published at Quantum Matrix Scribe. Please leave any comments there.

While watching the nomination roll call for the Republican nomination, I heard a CNN reporter say that they weren’t able to have the “theater” of New Hampshire putting Mitt Romney over the top because they weren’t “sure of the math,” or where all the Ron Paul delegates were.

I’m sorry, what?

You are a national political party. You have a war chest built on hundreds of millions of dollars. You control one chamber of Congress. You’re trying to take back the presidency from the Democrats.

And you can’t figure out your own caucus results?

This is beyond absurd. This is embarrassing. This is humiliating. Not just for the party, but for all Americans. Already there were two huge errors in the primary battle, the beclowing in Iowa which claimed the career of the state GOP chair and the colossal fuckup that happened in Maine. (Maine is particularly sensitive, since the Paul campaign still claims that state as a win.) Then there is the utterly ridiculous convention process that occurs, with Ron Paul picking up delegates in the precinct, county, and state conventions that follow the caucuses the media follows.

On the one hand, I almost find it believable, with all that baloney, that the party doesn’t know the math. But on the other…

ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?

This is ridiculous. No party should carry on like this.

It’s time to end caucuses and just have binding primaries. Yes, that will suck for Ron Paul supporters. But as much as I love Ron Paul and his message, the only reason he got as much as he did is because of packing his supporters into caucuses run by arcane, byzantine rules. That’s not fair. That’s not democracy.

The Republican party needs to get its collective head out of its collective ass and reform its own nominating process. It should go something like this:

No caucuses
Any state that pushes it’s primary earlier than permitted loses ALL delegates. Not 50%–every single one. That’s the only way it’s going to keep state parties in line and not have a mad dash to be the first.
Use regional primaries, where a bunch of states in an area vote on the same day. I’ve seen most suggestions along these lines have four regions, but I think that’s too big. Make it more like eight or ten regions. That makes it far tighter and less traveling is necessary.
Randomize the order of regions, so there’s never any one region that acts like Iowa or New Hampshire.
And for the love of the baby jesus, embrace early voting already. Not everyone can trudge through the snow or whatever to show up on a day to vote.

And while we’re on the subject of voting reform, let me reiterate my stance on voting reform nationally:

Replace first-past-the-post with approval voting already.
Repeal the 17th Amendment and return the election of Senators to state legislators, and take them out of the people’s (direct) hands
In the electoral college, have every state adopt the Nebraska/Maine model, basing the electoral college not on the states themselves, but rather their Congressional districts. All states will still have at least two at-large votes to award (some, only having one Representative, will have three.)
Establish Congressional term limits: eight years for Representatives, twelve for Senators (even those elected by state legislatures, under Proposal 2)
Greatly reduce ballot access requirements and allow more people to get their name on the ballot. Yes, some of these people may do so for frivolous purposes…but that is a small cost for democracy.
Abolish all “sore-loser laws” (more like “sore-winner laws”) and allow those who fail in a primary to pursue an independent campaign, at their own cost.
End taxpayer support of internal party primaries and party conventions.

Not that I think any of this would ever happen, but, it would go a long way towards fixing our screwed up electoral process. And maybe it would make our democracy less idiotic and more responsive to what we really want.

Another random post: Types of Libertarians

2012-07-21T13:08:25Z

Originally published at Quantum Matrix Scribe. Please leave any comments there.

Hot on the heels of my “random” post about Objectivism and Austrian economics, here’s another “random” post that deals with libertarianism.

I was just searching one day for “types of libertarians” in Google, on a whim, to see how people see us. I was expecting everyone to just classify us as anarcho-capitalists (which a fair amount of us aren’t.) Turns out I was wrong on that front.

A blogger who goes by the handle of “Lord Keynes” (so you know he is biased from the start) put this classification up late last year of libertarians:

(1) Randians

(2) Austrians

(i) the Anarcho-capitalists, like Rothbard and Hoppe;

(ii) The minimal state Austrians like Mises (with his praxeology);

(iii) Austrian supporters of Hayek’s economics, with a minimal state;

(iv) The “orthodox” Austrians who have a moderate subjectivist position (like Israel Kirzner and Roger Garrison);

(v) Austrian radical subjectivists like Ludwig Lachmann;

(3) Non-Austrian libertarians (but influenced by Austrian economics)

I suspect that it is also possible to put many of the “Free Bankers” in this category.

(4) Neoclassical libertarians (but influenced by Austrian economics and neoclassical theory)

(i) followers of Robert Nozick’s libertarianism;

(ii) followers of David D. Friedman’s anarcho-capitalism, and other non-Austrian anarcho-capitalism (e.g., Jan Narveson);

(iii) other non-Austrian, neoclassical influenced libertarians (e.g., Tom Palmer, Bryan Caplan and Tyler Cowen).

This is an interesting start, though I feel its inadequate. The main reason is that it focuses almost entirely on one’s views of economics, rather than politics and where one sees the purpose and the status of the state.

It’s understandable, since libertarians do talk a lot about economics. (That’s because economics and politics are inexorably intertwined; it used to be called “political economy” back in the day.) But there is more to it than just Econ 101. There are civil liberties to think about, liberties such as the right to marry who you please (as long as they consent), the right to speak your mind, etc. These are all extremely important and are not optional for a fully functioning, healthy society.

Also, “neoclassical liberalism” has a few different meanings, particularly with regards to Bleeding Heart Libertarians, so calling anyone who isn’t at least an “Austrian-influenced libertarian” a “neoclassical libertarian” can, I think, lead into some major complications.

Moving on, though, “Lord Keynes” later put up another post, full of links where he supposedly “debunks” Austrian economics, and a more detailed typology of just Austrians:

(1) The Anarcho-capitalists
E.g., Murray Rothbard, Hans-Hermann Hoppe and Jörg Guido Hülsmann;

(2) The minimal state/classical liberal Austrians in the tradition of Mises
This variety often supports praxeology and utilitarianism;

(3) Hayek’s economics, with a minimal state, and with an empirical (or Popperian) approach to economic method, in place of praxeology;

(4) Moderate subjectivist Austrians
E.g., Israel Kirzner and Roger Garrison;

(5) Radical subjectivists like Ludwig M. Lachmann (1906-1990), and Austrians influenced by him.

If you recall my earlier post on objections to two strains of thought in libertarianism, I put one objection with the Austrian School on the basis of praxeology; I think it’s dangerous, a bit silly, and not at all something we should be really entertaining. If LK is correct here, though, then Hayek represents a different strain from Mises (and Rothbard), where he actually uses empiricism for his work rather than praxeology. Judging from his work that I’ve read, that sounds right to me, and I’m definitely closer to Hayek than any other Austrian scholar (the vast majority of whom look like a bunch of wingnuts.) BTW, it should be noted that even Hayek was okay with a minimal welfare state, and even, at one point, suggesed we have a universal basic income.

Another division with libertarians is explained by Steven Horwitz in his post on “The False Dichotomy of Rothbardian Anarchism and Hayekian Classical Liberalism.” These guys are almost always mixing it up in libertarian circles, but Horwitz notes that we have to “deconstruct this binary” and that there are more than just two things here. For the ease of translating his article, I have made a simple graph explaining what he’s on about:

Bow before my mad MS Paint skillz.

One thing that stood out to me was that I realized what really annoyed me about anarcho-capitalists. It’s not so much that they’re anarchists–I myself would love it if we lived in a world where there was no government–but that they’re Rothbardians. And let’s be frank, that guy was kind of a nut. At least with “Hayekian anarchists,” while we may disagree, they’re not going to vehemently denounce me as an evil statist, and we can have a civil conversation. With the Rothbardians, the crazy seems to (inevitably) rise to the surface. (Just look at some of Ron Paul’s fans.)

Lastly, of course, there is this awesome series of videos that LearnLiberty.org has created, with my friend Nigel Ashford, on the schools of thought within libertarianism. Here is Part 1, with links inside the video to all of the rest:

After examining all of this, I think I am becoming more of a Nozick type libertarian. I’ve never been a real anarchist; I think it’s a nice concept, but will never work in reality. But as I see the nuttery that goes around, more and more I think we’ll need the absolute minimal state necessary in order to survive. I do believe in some welfare as a transitionary state, to get from here to there, but there won’t have any of it. I also, even though I’ve always been a mix of the “consequentialist” and “deontological” libertarians, I’m trending towards “deontological” (or maybe, if this is Nozick, “contractrian” libertarianism.) It doesn’t matter if something will be more efficient or better; there are just some lines you don’t cross. There are certain things that are just wrong. For me, this is a bizarre path to take, since I’ve thought of myself as something akin to a moral relativist in the past, but maybe I’m changing.

Anyways, a random post to show that, indeed, there are many different kinds of libertarians, and we are not all the same.

The Stupidity Olympics: USOC Sues Ravelry over “Ravelrympics”

2012-06-21T19:51:49Z

Originally published at Quantum Matrix Scribe. Please leave any comments there.

Look, I am not an anti-IP guy, I think IP is wonderful and should be maintained, but there are just some lines that shouldn’t be crossed. Like this*:

If you mess with the Olympics trademark, a cloud of legal hurt will descend on you faster than Tyson Gay in the Men’s 100 meters. Case in point: The U.S. Olympic Committee has sent a cease and desist letter to a knitting-based social network for hosting a knitting “olympics.” Now, knitters are in revolt.

2012 was to be the third year that the knitting social network Ravelry—yes, this exists and is surprisingly popular—hosted a “Ravelympics,” a knitting competition for users that includes events like an “afghan marathon,” and “scarf hockey.” Knitters were supposed to compete in their events while watching the actual Games on TV.

And why, exactly, did Ravelry need to stop? According to the letter the United States Olympic Committee sent:

The athletes of Team USA have usually spent the better part of their entire lives training for the opportunity to compete at the Olympic Games and represent their country in a sport that means everything to them. For many, the Olympics represent the pinnacle of their sporting career. Over more than a century, the Olympic Games have brought athletes around the world together to compete at the Olympic Games and represent their country in a sport that means everything to them.

[…]

We believe using the name “Ravelympics” for a competition that involves an afghan marathon, scarf hockey and sweater triathlon, among others, tends to denigrate the true nature of the Olympic Games. In a sense, it is disrespectful to our country’s finest athletes and fails to recognize or appreciate their hard work.

My response:

Oh boo-fucking-who-waaah.

If you’re an Olympic athlete training for London, I will bet you a thousand dollars you haven’t even heard of the Ravelrympics unless a friend or family member is a Ravelry member. And if you have, and you feel slighted by knitters participating in something modeled somewhat after your tough, enduring challenges, then you are a mammoth pussy who needs to grow some testicles. Also, you should be kicked off the US Olympics team, because you’re a very bad example for America. Or something.

Honestly, how the “Ravelrympics” denigrates the US Olympics team is something beyond my comprehension. People do this crap all the time. We have casual “olympics” at the bar when we eat chicken wings and drink beer; does that denigrate the US Olympics Committee or its athletes? Come on, grow a spine.

I’m not a lawyer, but what I think this is a product of is the BS doctrine in America where you have to actively fight these battles in order to retain your copyright. It’s a “use it or lose it” mentality. From what I understand, Japan doesn’t have anything like that, which means that fan made stuff gets produced all the time, they sell it for money, and you know what? No one blows a gasket. Everything is fine. Maybe we should import that from Japan and not worry about these things.

Oh, and the folks who sent this out should grow up and stop being babies. For real.

Note 1: I have family members on Ravelry, so that’s what piqued my interest. Also, it is really, really stupid.

Note 2: I don’t normally link to Gawker, since its run by pretentious totalitarian jerks, but hey, when their content is interesting…

On Editing and…Ichthyosexuality?

2012-06-15T19:20:43Z

Originally published at Quantum Matrix Scribe. Please leave any comments there.

Data validation is like a condom during sex. Sure you could go w/o one and finish faster but you never know what kind of bug you'll catch!

12 minutes ago via Twitter for iPhone ReplyRetweetFavorite

@jkrwld

Jokerswild

The same thing could be said about editing. Always go back and read through at least once, and if you have the time, at least twice. Otherwise, you’ll end up with embarrassing stuff like this:

Missouri: Totally down with Ichthyosexuality

Then again, there is the argument that you can look at something a dozen times and not catch it. That’s why you always have at least two or three people to check it.

Unless you’re in Missouri, apparently. They need to ask the fine folks in Lousiana for help.

Thoughts on the future of the American Liberty Movement

2012-06-14T17:58:17Z

Originally published at Quantum Matrix Scribe. Please leave any comments there.

Quick question to those who follow American libertarianism:

Do you think that the liberty movement is going through an adolescence period, and sometime in the near future it will “grow up” and get serious and finally have some major successes?

Because looking at the crazy–mostly the Ron Paul types who can’t accept that he lost–it looks to me like a teenager who thought he was invincible until he first encountered disappointment and failure.

Posted from WordPress for Android

I Discover Star Wars Has Died Two Months Too Late

2012-06-12T16:04:39Z

Originally published at Quantum Matrix Scribe. Please leave any comments there.

In a sign that I am really, really out of step with the mainstream, I have just discovered that this excrable piece of poodoo exists:

I know what you’re saying. “Oh, come on, it’s all in good fun.” And yes, I can buy that argument…up to a point. But there is a line upon which, if one crosses, it is no longer good fun. It is just stupid.

Pray tell, would you ever see a game where Sigourney Weaver would have to win a dancing competition, and that if she lost, the Xenomorph would get to eat her? Of course not. And I’m not arguing that Star Wars is the same thing as Alien–they are about as far as one can get while staying in the science fiction genre–but they do share some thresholds. This one was crossed.

Han Solo would never do those dances. Ever. Seeing him perform the “Trash Compactor” is just degrading. Leia I can see, yes (though she’d probably shoot you for making her do that), ~~or maybe even Mara Jade~~ (er, second thought, no.) But Han Solo is not, and never will be, some pop star singer/dancer that Neyo has signed on to his record. That’s not what his character is.

There is a part of its that charming and hilarious (I actually like the song they sing, by the way) but something about this deeply and inexorable grates on my soul. And I just don’t know how to say it, other than: THIS SUCKS.

Tell Me More, Mr. President.

2012-06-01T20:22:05Z

Originally published at Quantum Matrix Scribe. Please leave any comments there.

Oh, you have a busy day today? Tell me more, Mr. President.

— Condescending Wonka (@OhWonka) May 31, 2012

Political Religions Of The Left & Right

2012-05-29T16:07:44Z

Originally published at Quantum Matrix Scribe. Please leave any comments there.

I swear to Jim Butcher that my next blog post on here will be about fiction I’m working on–honestly–but after the hullaballoo over Chris Hayes and the war dead, I could not help but think about how all of politics has basically devolved into religion, and how much it sickens me.

What the incident has shown me is that both sides of the American political sphere–the so-called “left” (AKA “liberals,” “progressives,” “pink socialist commies”) and the so-called “right” (AKA “conservatives,” “fundamentalist right-wing populists,” the “1%”)–are by this point nothing more than religions, with their own tenets, gods, and apostles (not to mention heretics and unforgivable sins.) They are, in a phrase, “political religions.” The guy who wrote the book on them (though I haven’t read it, unfortunately), Emilio Gentile, defined them as a:

“more or less developed system of beliefs, myths, rituals and symbols” that creates an “aura of sacredness around an entity belonging to the world and turns it into a cult or object of worship or devotion.”

Both sides of the political sphere today put down the government as essentially their core deity. Although they have other gods they more directly worship, the government–the state–is their Absolute, their Ultimate, the Neoplatonic Ideal to which they aspire. It is, quite frankly, sacred, and their give their devotion to it.

I’ve identified at least two political religions on both sides of the aisle off the top of my head. For the progressives, there are the churches of global warming/environmentalism; Keynesianism; and simple wealth redistribution. For the right, there is, well, an actual religion–fundamentalist Christianity–plus the veneration of the military, which sadly has infected even some of my more libertarian friends.

Global Warming/Environmentalism: This one is fun. Even if you get past the people who say that Brooklyn will be underwater by 2050 (which might not be entirely bad*), you find a great number who have done the impossible: they have placed their faith in science, or more accurately, scientists. Of course, science is not based on faith, and to do so is to reject science, but they have done it anyway. This is observed whenever you start really asking questions about how global warming is going to kill us all, and they begin contorting themselves into absurd positions in order to defend it, when the rational mind would have said “This is stupid” long ago and jettisoned it. A great example is when the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published a report saying that the glaciers in the Alps were melting. They based this evidence on…an unpublished paper by a grad student, who in turn based this on…some anecdotal quotes from hikers who said, “Yeah, the glaciers look a bit smaller than the last time we were through here.” Science, people. This is science.
Keynesianism: This one is even more fun, in a way, but more aggravating. Keynesianism, in a nutshell, is the idea that the government must “prime the pump” of the economy by injecting loads of money into it. Of course, this totally ignores the fact that the only place the government can get the money in the first place is from the economy itself, so it’s just taking money out of the right pocket and putting it into the left pocket (and there’s never any consideration of what happens when stimulus must, invariably, end.) This religion’s foremost prophet is Paul Krugman, who has repeatedly demonstrated that not only he is a fool, but he’s also quite ignorant of human life itself. Of course, Keynesians like to hide behind mountains of models that “prove” their theory correct, but in the end, they never seem to translate well to the real world, and are thus very similar to such works like the Bible and the Quran.
Wealth Redistribution: Similar and linked to Keynesianism above, the Triumphant and Occupying Church of the 99% wants more money to be taken from those who are wealthy and redistributed to the poor. It literally hates success and wealth and constantly engages in class warfare. Never mind that income inequality has not changed at all over the past twenty years. They will promptly ignore that, and just call for more taxes on the rich–even though they’re the guys who ultimately get everyone else in this country jobs. They will literally put their fingers in their ears and
Fundamentalist Christianity: The only political religion on this list which is based around an actual religion, the fundamentalist Christianity that conservatives mostly follow is not, I would argue, actually devoted to serving Christ and their fellow man. It is, instead, a play for power in the halls of government, a way to keep one set of cultural values superior to all others, by using the force of government to impose said values. When you ask people who want to force their anti-gay beliefs and pro-life stances upon others why don’t they follow the “Render unto Ceaser what is Ceaser’s” maxim, you get the same sort of contortions (or just outright “that doesn’t matter”) you get from environmentalists. You can’t criticize it; you’re just a heathen.
Military: This one came out in force over the weekend with the Chris Hayes’ controversy. It largely comes down to “You shall not criticize the military” and “You shall DEFINITELY not say ANYTHING on Memorial Day. Just. Shut. Up.” I’ve already gone over this in the past two posts, so I won’t spend all that much time on this particular entry, but only that it is extremely prevalent and is becoming more and more dangerous.

The reason all of these stances go beyond ideology and have become political religions is that ideologies can change, adapt, and evolve, and that people can do so via the power of reason. Religion, on the other hand, is against reason. It is entirely based on faith, which is “X is true and I believe it with all my heart and soul and if it turns out to be false I’ll end up like these guys.” The radical environmentalism and global warming believers don’t use reason to evaluate their statements, and the Keynesians have long ago discarded reason in order to stay in bed with their government overlords (a weakness that was well explained in Public Choice Theory.) Arguably, there was never any reason applied to either the Wealth Redistributionists or the fundamentalist Christians, and the lack of critical thinking towards the military has not yet overpowered reason entirely–as evidenced by the pushback, even from military veterans themselves, on the issue–but it is growing and has been accelerating in particular over the past decade.

Without reason, we can not advance, we can not develop. It was a lack of reason and slavish devotion to the Church and feudal lords that kept Western civilization mired in the Medieval period for so long (which, while good fodder for D&D campaigns, is not so good for real life.) The lack of reason that led to the Soviets and Communism in general led to hundreds of millions of deaths. And the lack of reason that is permeating the entire “discussion” over how to deal with the financial crisis, the recession, and the looming disintegration of the Eurozone is only promising more danger, more failures, and a harder fall in the future. On the other hand, using that giant brain of ours gave us fire, the wheel, electricity, democracy, free markets, the computer, the iPhone, space shuttles, abundant food supplies, and Pokemon. (Okay, bad example.)

This is why I’m both a libertarian and an atheist (and why I’m really, really irritated that so many atheists have basically swapped out Jesus with the state; they’re not “really” atheists, they just call their god Capitol Hill). It’s also why, for the first time in many years, I’m actually getting very worried about the direction of this country. Ultimately, while many terrible things have happened over the past decade or so, it always looked to me that eventually, libertarianism and the free market would win out. People see how things are failing miserably, give it a shot, and would revel in the new found freedom and prosperity. Our logic, in the end, would be inescapable and irrefutable, although it would take a long time to get there. But that only works if people are open to reason, and if they’re not–if they’re just following political religions, which they cannot disagree with or else they will be excommunicated, their lives destroyed–then we don’t really have much of a chance. You can’t reason with them. You can hope to convert, but that’s a long shot.

For the first time in a long time, I’m a pessimist.

2 More Great Posts on the @ChrisLHayes Kerfluffle

2012-05-29T14:42:32Z

Originally published at Quantum Matrix Scribe. Please leave any comments there.

I wish I found these sooner, but they’re good and I want to share.

First, is Will Wilkinson from the Economist (or, at least, I’m told he’s running that blog now):

[Chris Hayes is] not wrong about that. Calling “hero” everyone killed in war, no matter the circumstances of their death, not only helps sustain the ethos of martial glory that keeps young men and women signing up to kill and die for the state, no matter the justice of the cause, but also saps the word of meaning, dishonouring the men and women of exceptional courage and valour actually worthy of the title. The cheapening of “hero” is a symptom of a culture desperate to evade serious moral self-reflection by covering itself in indiscriminate glory for undertaking wars of dubious value. A more confident culture would not react with such hostility to Mr Hayes’ admirable, though cautiously hedged, expression of discomfort with our truly discomfiting habit of numbing ourselves to the reality of often senseless sacrifice with posturing piety and too-easy posthumous praise.

Indeed, the adolescent vehemence of the reaction to Mr Hayes’ mild confession seems to me to underscore the idea that America has become so deranged by war that anyone who ventures to publicly question any element of America’s cultural politics of endless conflict will instantly mobilise indignant hordes who will bear down to silence him.

The other is from a blog I’ve never heard of called “Emptywheel”:

Chris Hayes touched on a critical and under appreciated point: there is far too much cheerleading for war propagated through obligatory honor of the souls the powers that be send to fight the wars. It does cloud and mask the reality of what is transpiring on the greater moral and humanitarian stage, and does so very much to the detriment of society and the relevant discussion. That is just a fact in my book.

By the same token, the older voices among us, even those of us who grew up with the mess that was Vietnam, still grew up in the halo years of WW II, with the remnants of WW I that preceded it. When I think of Memorial Day, it is under a mental framework cast in those terms, that was still the framework conveyed in the 60?s and, even if lesser, still in the 70?s and 80?s. Vietnam was the aberration, not the norm, for a very long time when considering war and “war heroes”.

And that was me, a kid who mercifully avoided the draft and never served. I think the feelings could, and may well be, even stronger among those who did serve or, like Olivier Knox, who have land and families free today because of the last devotion expended on the beaches of Normandy or Okinawa.

To an older generation, and the differently situated, Memorial Day exists to honor true heroes. American soldiers who died so that you, me, Chris Hayes and everyone else may all have the discussions we do. The fact they gave what they did allows that. And, yes, they ARE heroes.

It is indeed a complex dynamic. Could Chris Hayes have exercised a bit more rhetorical discretion; no question. And he would be wise to not paint it quite as much as he does so primarily in terms of Afghanistan and, presumably, if not mentioned, Iraq (leaving aside Yemen and our other, um, areas of interest/conflict); there is a much larger and older framework, as Hayes himself cogently noted in his lead in.

But move beyond the patina of insensitivity, and Chris Hayes was quite right. We need desperately to unhinge the valor of our troops from the moral squalor of our leaders. Memorial Day may be a touchy time to hear that, but it needs to be said.

Great reads. And well said, both of them.

Why I Agree With @ChrisLHayes

2012-05-28T17:14:43Z

Originally published at Quantum Matrix Scribe. Please leave any comments there.

There’s been a lot of hullabaloo over the weekend about comments that liberal commentator Chris Hayes made on MSNBC regarding veterans, namely that he is “uncomfortable” calling them “heroes:”

If you want the text (which is what I’ve been using):

“Why do I feel so uncomfortable about the word hero?” Hayes said. “I feel uncomfortable about the word hero because it seems to me that it is so rhetorically proximate to justifications for more war. Um, and, I don’t want to obviously desecrate or disrespect memory of anyone that’s fallen, and obviously there are individual circumstances in which there is genuine, tremendous heroism, you know, hail of gunfire, rescuing fellow soldiers and things like that. But it seems to me that we marshal this word in a way that is problematic. But maybe I’m wrong about that.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0512/76799.html#ixzz1wAuhAjNG

If you read the link, there’s a lot of coverage of the predictable bashing Hayes has received from the conservative blogosphere. None of it is surprising. There is a lot of “you’re wrong.” There’s a lot of questioning of his gender (Ann Coulter says the Marines died to protect his right to menstruate, which just shows you how juvenile and unintelligent she is.) We even get disgusting comments like this:

Try ‘turd’. RT @BenHowe: I’m uncomfortable with calling @ChrisLHayes a man.

— Chris Of Rights (@ChrisOfRights) May 28, 2012

So an individual is now a “turd” for simply stating his discomfort?

I think, in a way, these guys have all proved Chris Hayes’ point. And that’s why I agree with him.

Although respect of our military and men and women in uniform have always been part of our culture, particularly over the past decade, it has gone from just respect to almost hero worship. The left has its political religions of enviromentalism and Keynesianism; the right has its religion of the military. Any anti-war argument gets shut down in the name of “patriotism” and “you’re disrespecting our troops.”

We see it all the time. Anyone who puts on a uniform is automatically labeled a “hero,” regardless of their actual moral character. Just by signing up and joining the military, one has put himself above his (civilian) peers, and in most cases, beyond reproach as well. Because they are “defending our liberties,” they are automatically awesome and mighty, and the only reason you can even voice your disagreement with having wars is because of the sacrifices that they’ve made.

Doug Mataconis at Outside the Beltway picks up on this part of Hayes’ comments:

Now, on some level I will admit that there is merit in the argument that the term “hero” is tossed around far too loosely these days. Going back to the Ancient Greeks and the Romans, after all, “hero” has long been a term that was applied sparingly. That’s why the United States awards special honors, ranging from commendations to the Bronze Star, the Silver Star, and the Congressional Medal Of Honor, to those who have distinguished themselves by exceptional action in combat. So, to say that everyone who has died in service to their country, or even just served their country, is a “hero” in the Greek/Roman sense of the word is perhaps a bit of an exaggeration. That is not, by any means, to denigrate the service and the sacrifice of anyone who has served. However, the word “hero” definitely used to mean something special and it has kind of been watered down over the years. After all, is the guy who scores the winning touchdown in the last minute of the Big Game really as much of a “hero”as the firefighter who just saved a child from a burning building? Perhaps we need new words to describe these things, but that’s a question for linguists.

And I think that, really, at the heart of it, this is really what Hayes is getting at. And I think rational people from across the ideological spectrum can agree that just putting on a uniform doesn’t make you a hero; it makes you a soldier, it makes you a vet (well, when you retire), but you must still earn the appellation “hero.”

Let’s think about it. Were the soldiers at My Lai “heroes?” Were they “defending their country”? What about the soldiers at Abu Gharib? And while we’re at it, how is the Iraqi War defending our freedoms and liberties, and not just rapacious, callous imperialism? I’m not sure how you can say the soldiers in Iraq are dying to protect our freedoms when Iraq was never a threat to said freedoms, and in fact, having our troops there is becoming more of a threat to said freedoms, both because it inflames sentiment against us, which leads to more terror threats, and which then translates into more things such as the Department of Homeland Security, the TSA, the NDAA, and so on and so forth.

Any life lost in these conflicts–these irrelevant, stupid wars that don’t do anything to protect the citizens back home–is a wasted life. Yet we continue to use language that effectively shuts down debate and lets these wasteful conflicts continue.

If we want to be truly respectful towards the dead, then we’d stop the wars and bring all our troops home, and stop using the troops as a political statement for more violence. We’d stop using them as a rhetorical technique to remain in denial over our actions. But no: we continue sending them off to their deaths in senseless conflicts, completely disrespectful to their individuality and humanity, seeing them only as units to be manuevered on a board. And if anyone tries to step up and say something, well, then, you’re not patriotic, and you’re not being respectful to the troops. Debate is shut down. You’re a horrible person. And the wars go on.

That’s why I agree with Chris Hayes.

(It should be noted that, at no point, I am denigrating veterans or intend to denigrate any veterans. They definitely deserve respect for putting the uniform; however, they are not superhumans, and do not need to be worshipped, as so many on the right are wont to do. That’s my argument.)

PS: You should really read the comments in the OTB post, particularly the one from Radley Balko and this other one from “Nick.” I think they’re both quite insightful, and actually do a better job of summing up my views than I do myself. (But then, if I just cited them, I wouldn’t have an opportunity to blog…now would I?)

Very belated update: Chris Hayes has apologized for his comments. Of course, there are a boat-load of individuals on the right who don’t accept his apology and call him a prick for saying the following (in my bolded emphasis):

On Sunday, in discussing the uses of the word “hero” to describe those members of the armed forces who have given their lives, I don’t think I lived up to the standards of rigor, respect and empathy for those affected by the issues we discuss that I’ve set for myself. I am deeply sorry for that.

As many have rightly pointed out, it’s very easy for me, a TV host, to opine about the people who fight our wars, having never dodged a bullet or guarded a post or walked a mile in their boots. Of course, that is true of the overwhelming majority of our nation’s citizens as a whole. One of the points made during Sunday’s show was just how removed most Americans are from the wars we fight, how small a percentage of our population is asked to shoulder the entire burden and how easy it becomes to never read the names of those who are wounded and fight and die, to not ask questions about the direction of our strategy in Afghanistan, and to assuage our own collective guilt about this disconnect with a pro-forma ritual that we observe briefly before returning to our barbecues.

But in seeking to discuss the civilian-military divide and the social distance between those who fight and those who don’t, I ended up reinforcing it, conforming to a stereotype of a removed pundit whose views are not anchored in the very real and very wrenching experience of this long decade of war. And for that I am truly sorry.

Somehow, that makes him a prick. I can’t see why; in fact, I think it makes him more human. But that just goes to show you how far irrationality permeates our modern culture.