Monday, May 02, 2005
Fully Slouched
Sunday, May 01, 2005
American Papacy
Unsurprisingly, Bork pays significant attention to the Supreme Court becoming as he calls it “the American Papacy”. Liberals have long realized that there are many parts of their agenda; abortion on demand, and homosexual marriage for example that the American electorate would not vote into law. The term “liberal” is an excellent cover since it belies the fact that liberals are perfectly willing to be authoritarian in their methodology when the route of democracy doesn’t allow them to have their way. The use of the Supreme court is one of their favorite levers.
Bork argues persuasively that once the Court has removed itself from the retstraint of the constitution as it clearly did in Roe v Wade, and Planned Parenthood vs Casey. In Casey, they put forth “the mystery passage”. “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, and of the universe, and of the mystery of human life”. Essentially, you have a constitutional right to be God … as long as you are living your life by “your concept” of what life, meaning, the universe, etc are, then you should be “free” … to abort, which is murder, so you are free indeed. The “mystery passage” was invoked again in the
Modern liberals like to bray that “the framers could not envision our day, so they left it up to the court to find the law that is needed in the constitution”. The framers DID leave us a mechanism, it is called LEGISLATION. Both the state and Federal Legislatures have the power to make and UN-make laws on a great many subjects, abortion included. What the court has done is to decide that the populace should not be able to vote on a number of issues, so they have taken it on themselves to re-write the constitution to make the laws that THEY desire, rather than allow the people to govern themselves.
Bork has no faith that a majority can be attained to strike down even the most egregious of court legislation, as any potential nominee of enough conservative thought to be willing to take on the issue will nearly certainly be prevented by the conservative principle of precedent and be unwilling to overturn. He makes a case for a Constitutional amendment to allow legislatures to overrule the court. I didn’t find his proposal very likely to have any chance of happening. The unhappy case is that the court has crossed a line where future legislation by 9 is a virtual certainty.
Saturday, April 30, 2005
Slouching Towards Gomorrah, Robert Bjork
- Radical egalitarianism – meaning the forced equality of outcomes rather than the equality of opportunities. Since neither humans nor anything in nature are oriented to equality of outcome (a bell shaped curve would be a more natural distribution), the “liberal” is forced to bow to the authoritarian impulse to achieve this objective.
- Radical individualism – the removal of limits to personal gratification. From this comes the liberal moral code … “if it feels good do it”. Since this is no code, the liberal must destroy culture, as culture is largely a values exercise in some behavior having more value than other behavior.
At the time Mill wrote this little gem, he likely never really considered the idea of Godless man, seeking to be his own God of personal pleasure, but this is where we find ourselves today, “in the suburbs of
If the point of “far enough” is ever reached (and there is very scant evidence that it ever would be), then the enterprise of liberalism would be satiated. There is however, no reason to “be concerned” that would happen … homosexual marriage for example will not be the end. It has never been tried in any culture for thousands of years, but that makes no matter, the liberal elite is intent that it be tried in this country, and since their impulses are anti-democratic, the most likely route is through the courts.
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
I Report, You Decide
Monday, April 25, 2005
The Vikings Rule
As a fan of the Green Bay Packers that has lived in the enemy
Let’s look at the team history. We know they have trouble in the post-season. That goes without saying for an O for four Super Bowl team. Modern day fans will attest to great moments like the ’98 Atlanta NFC Championship game, or the 2001 41-0 destruction by the Giants to cement the fact that the Vikings are not a post-season team.
The Purple and Gold have had some great runs during the regular season, but it is also true that they historically find a way to close out the season in a negative fashion. Vikings fans have had so many disappointments that they have a hard time enjoying anything during the regular season as well. The Vikings fans are saddled with the historical certainty of not being able to make it to the winners circle in the Super Bowl, as well as the teams propensity to follow a great winning streak with a depressing losing streak. No, it is hard for a Viking fan to get true enjoyment out of the regular season.
People that live in the climate of
Year after year I’m regaled by their fans informing me that they have yet again smoked
It all makes sense now. Failure to reach the play-offs, or an early exit gives the dedicated fan more chance to enjoy a successful off-season. The NFL season is only 5 months at best, a Vikings fan has a full 7 months to be on top of the league. One can only count on this kind of genius in a state where all of the children are above average.
Sunday, April 24, 2005
Boiled Frog in Clock Frame Sauce
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Measuring Man
The ultimate computer is now playing Half Life 2 and other games on the 50” Sony attached with DVI. While the text is disappointing, the games are quite impressive. So far, it seems to be very smooth. Mysteries remain … slow boot, some difficulties in getting some games to run, but the bag of parts has become a computer. It is always rewarding to see that happen.
In looking back at my “initial 3”, I realize that rather than produce an extended list of characteristics, I’m going to consider a set of things as derivative to those and discuss them in more depth to see if other distinctions are really required, or if the wily liberal can be defined in only three characteristics. There is some significant chance of less characteristics being required, because many branches of liberal would declare themselves to be “soulless” in the sense that they have no belief in higher power of life after death, so it would seem that there would be less complexity in a creature with no soul.
The whole “consistency issue” tends to go back to that “belief in a higher power”. While some liberals will attend a church, most will fall back on the idea that “whatever you believe is OK as long as it is sincere” (I assume that conservatism is excluded from that marvelous freedom). It is often said that a liberal doesn’t care if you believe in God, as long as it is clear that he doesn’t make any difference. He didn’t create anything, he isn’t going to pass any judgments on right and wrong, and he pretty much just loves everyone with no expectations or consequence of failing to even recognize his existence, let alone seek him.
The bottom line of this way of thought is pretty much summed up by the Greek philosopher Protagoras in the statement “Man is the measure of all things”. There may be some strict materialist scientific truth that may be “out there” even if no human is around to measure it, but on the key issues … the “life, love, death, purpose, good, evil, etc” … the kind of issues that science clearly can’t help with, since it must be “value free”, Man is the measure.
If man is the measure, then the question comes down to “which man”? Since most liberals feel there is nobody more qualified to make moral distinctions than themselves (often times their wives disagree with them), then THEY are the “moral measure”, or “individual God”. On the economic front, they are almost universally agreed that the universe has failed to be just by failing to provide each individual liberal with unlimited wealth. The ones that have unlimited wealth realize that their other fellow liberals would want to remove that wealth from that if they didn’t immediately make themselves hugely valuable by suggesting that they are “champions of the poor” and prove it by suggesting that OTHERS, with much less money, improve the situation by doing the “fair thing” and providing the funding to some vast re-distribution scheme.
Meanwhile of course, the Kennedy’s, Soro’s, Kerry’s, Gates,
Sunday, April 17, 2005
Computers and Art
The saga of the sort of ultimate game computer continues this weekend. It began on Friday evening when the adapter for ATX to EATX was the wrong gender. Liberals are constantly telling us the gender doesn’t matter, but apparently they have been unable to legislate agreement from the engineers as of yet. After the initial shock and dismay, some more time was spent perusing the installation, because according to many net posts, “it ought to work with standard ATX unless dual processors or graphics cards are being used”. It isn’t clear exactly what the problem was, either I somehow had a MB short, OR (and this is more likely) I just did a bonehead thing and plugged the power switch into the wrong pins. I seem to have a pernicious brain problem that if I’m fixated on something like ATX vs EATX and then something doesn’t work as expected, I jump to the conclusion “that must be it”. I suspect that I’m the only person alive that does that.
While it was a bit difficult to string a lot of quality computer time together since I made another round-trip to
Speaking of prayers, this our Church brought in “The Jesus Painter” http://www.jesuspainter.com/index.html Mike Lewis. Garrett had seen him at the LCMS national youth gathering in
Meanwhile, the ultimate computer continued on during spare moments. The Sound Blaster Audiology II card refused all attempts at install, so return attempts will need to be made there. Fortunately the built-in sound on the MB came to life fairly easily. The connection to the 50” Sony LCD has so far been on the disappointing side. It puts S-Video to shame, but at least for text it isn’t that exciting, and there seems to a good deal of difficulty matching settings to formats that will fit on the screen. Lots of progress made though, it is always nice to see it all work together. I’m still hunting down why I’m getting two beeps on boot, and why both the BIOS and Windows XP boots are SLOW (like 5min).
Along with getting in workouts, Scouts, and a few other odds and ends, not a lot of time for reading, but I am very much enjoying “Slouching Towards Gomorrah” by Robert Bork. I owed myself something fun to read after Zinn, and this book has lifted my political spirits, so some serious reporting will soon begin.
Friday, April 15, 2005
Understanding Liberals Interlude
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
Understanding the Liberal Mind
- Consistency is not an issue. If you are a liberal, there is no ultimate truth, or higher power, so "truth" is always relative and situational. A liberal has no second thoughts when one day they defend Bill Clinton’s behavior with employees, and the next day they demand a corporate CEO that has a dalliance with an employee should lose their job. They like Bill Clinton, they don’t like CEOs. What is the problem?
The concept of equal treatment doesn’t even occur to them, because CONSISTENCY IS NOT AN ISSUE. A conservative will never really fully understand this principle, because while it is true that there isn’t such a thing as a fully consistent human, conservatives see it as a virtue to be attempted and liberals see it as meaningless. - They are totalitarians. What they see as "good" must be mandatory, what they see as "bad" must be criminal. Whatever the issue, if liberals like it, it must be forced upon you, if they don't like it, it must be criminal. Take guns -- conservatives that like them buy them if they have the money. Liberals don't like them (because they represent individual freedom), so they make every attempt to take them away from everyone. Campaign finance? Liberals know exactly the right amount to be spent, want it provided by the state, and want to put anyone who tries to spend more in jail! ... perhaps the perfect summary of liberal thought in a single issue!
- They are NOT RESPONSIBLE! They believe they are “driven” by forces beyond their control and there is really nothing that they can do that they can honestly be blamed for. There is always an excuse that must be considered; bad childhood, poverty, "tendencies", other people, big business, the rich, the Devil made them do it, … the list is endless. For liberals in power, anything bad is always due to SOME conservative -- some past administration, the congress, etc Even if the Democrats have both houses of congress and the presidency, there is always "the vast right wing conspiracy", "talk radio" or "big business". Nothing that has a less than positive result can be "their fault".
- Envy is a virtue; greed (in others) is a sin. A liberal can’t stand others doing better than them, and would rather have the offending “successful person” lowered to a level equivalent with the liberal, EVEN IF THE NET EFFECT OF DOING THAT REDUCED THE POSITION OF THE LIBERAL. Conservatives typically don’t even believe that people can think this way, and thus they stare in disbelief as a liberal starts down some line of class warfare reasoning. A conservative will care little how much success someone else has, in fact they often find the success of others to be wonderful, since it means it is more likely that they too can be successful!
- Government is their god. "The government is great, the government is good, we thank it for our daily bread." would be a good liberal prayer (if they prayed). Most conservatives recognize something beyond present humanity as "transcendent" -- usually the Christian God, but sometimes just "tradition" or "culture" or some other transcendent ideal.
Saturday, April 09, 2005
Lion Hunting in Socialist Computer Utopia
2). There is a simple “converter” that works just great, now on order for $10 and shipping
“The society’s levers of powers would have to be taken away from those whose drives have led to the present state – the giant corporations, the military, and their politician collaborators. We would need – by a coordinated effort of local groups all over the country – to reconstruct the economy for efficiency and justice, producing in a cooperative way what people need most.
We would start in our neighborhoods, our cities, our workplaces. Work of some kind would be needed by everyone, including people now kept out of the workforce – children, old people, “handicapped” people. Society would use the enormous energy now idle, the skills and talents now unused. Everyone would share the routine but necessary jobs for a few hours a day, and leave most of the time free for enjoyment, creativity, labors of love, and yet produce enough for an equal and ample distribution of goods. Certain basic things would be abundant enough to be taken out of our money system and be available – free – to everyone: food, housing, health care, education, and transportation.”
“The great problem would be to work out a way of accomplishing this without a centralized bureaucracy, using not the incentives of prison and punishment, but those incentives of cooperation which spring from natural human desires, which in the past have been used by the state in times of war, but also by social movements that gave hints of how people might behave in different conditions. Decisions would be made by small groups of people in their workplaces, their neighborhoods – a network of cooperatives, in communication with one another, a neighborly socialism avoiding the class hierarchies of capitalism and the harsh dictatorships that have taken the name socialist”.
In unvanquishable number!
Shake your chains to earth, like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you-
Ye are many; they are few!
Thursday, April 07, 2005
The Zinn of Oppression
I think I’ll refrain from more quotes from Zinn. One of the advantages of reading the blog ought to be that you can be spared such agonies. Suffice to say, the litany goes on … oppression of Indians, Blacks, Women, the poor, the young, in other words “the people”. All by evil private property owning, competitive, white men. So far Michael Jordan, Bill Cosby, Reggie Fowler (multi-millionaire black businessman trying to buy the Minnesota Vikings), Oprah, and even such folks are Theresa Heinz and Martha Stewart are spared mention. Apparently the net of oppression has a few holes.
I guess I have to put in one more quote:
“The Constitution, then, illustrates the complexity of the American system: that it serves the interests of the wealthy elite, but also does enough for small property owners, for middle-income mechanics and farmers, to build a broad base of support. The slightly prosperous people who make up this base of support are buffers against the blacks, the Indians, the very poor whites. They enable the elite to keep control with a minimum of coercion, a maximum of law – all made palatable by the fanfare of patriotism and unity.”
There is some liberal gene that just HATES "patriotism" ... one can see the sneer!
It seems that is what REALLY makes Howard sick. America works! If only he could have his way, we would ALL be dirt poor, except for the Politburo, and there would be no evil of “the wealthy”. Meanwhile, rather than squatting over a ditch or living in some concrete mausoleum of state housing and standing in bread lines, we “buffers” are being “exploited” by being fattened up on cruise ships, living in suburbs with SUVs, and watching big screen TVs. All so we can serve our drone-like function of keeping the even worse oppressed … the folks with only one cell phone, a 27” color TV, and a DVD player without progressive scan … away from Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. We have been duped!
If it wasn’t for America, many socialist paradises would seem, well, more like paradise, and less like 3rd world hell-holes. Howard is more up front about the basic fact that tends to bother a lot of liberals about America. It is so damned successful in spite of all the extreme flaws that they point out at any chance they get. To see such fair-minded people have such an unfair reality regularly rubbed in their faces is part of the sadness of this country. I’m sure Oprah would much rather go back to Africa, but it is likely hard to find suitable lodging for her Gulfstream in many areas, and thus she is forced to soldier on as an oppressed black woman in this unfair system.
I hope I can sleep with the guilt of our collective sins tonight.
Tuesday, April 05, 2005
Run Aground, Howard Zinn
“The historians distortion is more than technical, it is ideological; it is released into a world of contending interests, where any chosen emphasis supports (whether the historian means to or not) some kind of interest, whether economic, or political, or racial, or national, or sexual.”
“..even the privileged minority-must it not reconsider, with that practicality which even privilege cannot abolish, the value of it’s privileges, when they become threatened by the anger of the sacrificed, whether in organized rebellion, unorganized riot, or simply those brutal individual acts of desperation labeled crimes by law and the state?”
“Societies based on private property and competition, in which monogamous families became practical units for work and socialization, found it especially useful to establish this special status of women, something akin to a house slave in the matter of intimacy and oppression, and yet requiring, because of that intimacy, and long-term connection with children, a special patronization, which on occasion, especially in the face of a show of strength, could slip over into treatment as an equal. An oppression so private would turn out hard to uproot.”