Monty Python: Philosophers World Cup

More Ominous Thoughts

The fact that God loves us does not spare us from tribulation, especially when tribulation is due.

There is a difference between "Change you can believe in" and change that I would prefer.

Alas, it's time for a reckoning. The bills say "In God We Trust," but not even God will float a fiat currency forever.

While Time Magazine worships its golden calf (i.e. Bernake), we will reap the whirlwind.

And when it comes, who will stand to account for it?

Not those responsible for it. It will be you and me. All of this Wall Street v. Main Street nonsense has to go. It's us v. Pennsylvania Avenue.

Forboding Thoughts

The republic becomes an empire when power is centralized and the concerns of the people are subordinate to the whims of an emperor or oligarchical ruling class.

Look at all that has been done in the name of "national security."

Look at the supposed health care "reform."

Everywhere, it's the same thing. You and your rights become smaller and ever less significant a player.

How's your goose step, folks? Because you'll need it unless you awake from your slumber, discard your soma, see the slogans for the propaganda that they are, and the demagogues for the tyrants they are. It is time to act!

A peaceful revolution at the ballot boxes would be my ideal scenario. However, civil disobedience ala Thoreau (think "counter-friction") isn't beyond my inclinations.

I cannot envision a scenario when a violent revolt will result in anything good. It may come to that, simply because we cannot accomplish any other option and cannot stand to remain idle. If it does, however, then I bow my head in regret.

Two Things: Bernake and Terrorists

First, Ben Bernake wins Time Magazine's Person of the Year Award.

From the article:

Time claims,

He knew how the passive Fed of the 1930s helped create the calamity — through its stubborn refusal to expand the money supply and its tragic lack of imagination and experimentation.

And later,

He wishes Americans understood that he helped save the irresponsible giants of Wall Street only to protect ordinary folks on Main Street.

Basically, Time claims that Bernake's Fed made sure that the inevitable recession was much less worse than it could have been. They site the current unemployment rate of10% to be better than 25%, which suggests that if Bernake had done something different then the unemployment rate would be two and a half times worse.

Really, Time? This is a bold and ironic claim since Fed policy actually created the recession in the first place, and its current policies will ensure future hardships. Please note that history does not confirm Time's assessment, nor is Time's assessment even possible to confirm.

Don't believe me? Read some history on it by an author whose goal is not to support an oligarchical political economy. Bob Murphy's Politically Incorrect Guide to the Great Depression and the New Deal. Of course, you might first want to look at the same author's Politically Incorrect Guide to Capitalism.

If you wonder why Dr. Murphy's research verifies claims that are not taught in public schools and universities, consider the fact that Murphy's research verifies claims that suggest reducing the power of the organization in charge of dictating what gets taught at public schools and universities.

If you like it, consider reading other economists of the "Austrian School": Menger, Mises, Hayek, Rothbard, etc. Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson is another very good start. If you don't want to pick it up from Amazon, then download it free in PDF form here.

Of course, Time hasn't always honored good men with this award. In 1938, they recognized Adolf Hitler as "Man of the Year." However, in fairness to Time, they did not honor Hitler by bestowing upon him the award. They simply recognized him as the most man with the most significant impact on world events,and they identify this impact as unsettling.

In light of this, perhaps Bernake deserves to be recognized as "Person of the Year," but not for the reasons cited by Time.

Second, a terrorist tried to ignite a fire on board a Delta plane en route to Detroit. However, he was foiled by passengers when he ignited his chemical concoction.

The man made it past the TSA inspectors even though he had contraband and the feds had been warned of this man's dangerous inclinations.

So, all of these new powers to the federal government to save us from terrorists, and its the guy in an adjacent seat who stops what could have been a devastating attack on Christmas.

Way to go, federal government! If it hadn't been for all of your powers, regulations, and copious funding...it would have turned out exactly the same way.

My Wee Ones

An Odyssey (not "The Odyssey," but an Odyssey Nonetheless)

On Tuesday morning, about 1 A.M., my two year old woke us up with a tapping on his door, as is his custom, though he does not usually rise until between 7:30 and 9 A.M.

I opened his door and found him in some kind of distress. I picked him up and patted his back, but I could not console him. I brought him into bed with me, where he proceeded to toss and turn so relentlessly that my wife elected to move onto the couch.

I couldn't get the little tyke to settle down, He kept thrashing about as if in extreme discomfort, so I pulled him to my chest and held him tight. Just as he seemed to be settling down, his head popped up, he said something unintelligible, and then abruptly vomited on my chest.

I'll spare you the gory details, but it should suffice to say that it wasn't a cute little spit-up. It had a great deal of mass and volume to it.

Oh, and it smelled of strawberries.

Rotten, putrid, stinking strawberries.

Although it was against my typical instincts, I tried to keep it coming on me in order to spare the sheets and bedspread. As there was a great deal of splashing and squirming, I was not successful in this endeavor.

I called for my wife, but even her relatively quick response was nowhere near quick enough. I handed Robbie over to her and sat up. I nearly tossed my own cookies when I felt chunks of partially digested food fall from my chest to my lap, but I held fast and managed to get undressed so as not to drip anything on the floor.

I rushed to the shower and washed both me and the boy. I changed my clothes and stripped the bed, all the while my wife held and rocked Robbie--who, as it turned out, wasn't done puking.

I agreed to call in sick for work if my wife would stay up with Robbie. This turned out to be a pretty good deal, since she was up with him until 5 A.M., and I was able to catch a few winks before the older kids had to be roused for school. Even better, Robbie seemed to be in good health the next morning. He took an awfully long nap to boot.

But this is not the happy ending that you might have suspected.

Fast forward to Wednesday night, around 9 P.M. My wife and I are settling down to watch Criminal Minds, a show that irritates me because it involves FBI agents who work almost exclusively outside of their jurisdiction. Also, they're just supposed to be profilers, but the show has them executing search warrants, arresting and interrogating suspects. But I digress.

Mark (age 6) had gone to bed complaining of a stomach ailment, but he seemed to be doing all right. I also felt a bit off, but not remarkably so. I figured that I was just tired. I had no idea of what was coming. As proof of this, I had just made arrangements with BAR to drop him off at the office in the morning. Still, asCriminal Mindsworked up to its climax, so did my queasiness. Unfortunately, Mark had the "puke bowl," so I was left to lunge for the kitchen sink.

What transpired was a lesson in the communicability of viruses. Whatever had stricken Robbie had stricken me. I spent the next hour in the bathroom with (shall we simply say) duel stomach maladies. About half-way through my ordeal, from my porcelain vantage I heard a sudden ruckus in Mark's room. What sounded at first like a cough degenerated into an all too familiar sound.

Showers again, and an uncomfortable sleep followed. Mark and I shared my bed, and we were both plagued by alternating sweats and chills. We spent most of Thursday in bed, and only this morning felt anything resembling normal.

So why haven't I posted in nearly a week? Now you know.

And knowing is half the battle.

Just The Facts

Word of advice: when you don't consume fermented beverages for six months and then have several at a company party, it goes to your head.

That said, I have no post today.

The Onion Report: Most College Males Admit To Regularly Getting Stoked

Oh my goodness. I just laughed so loud that I woke my kids up.


Report: Most College Males Admit To Regularly Getting Stoked

WSJ Opinion on Climategate

The WSJ published this opinion on Climategate. Either I read it while driving down a bumpy road, or I really was just nodding that much.

The Daily Show Clip: Obama Sends 30,000 More Soldiers to Afghanistan

I found this clip at Free Advice, but since I don't think that any of my regular readers (other than BAR) ever read Bob's blog, I figured I'd re-post it here.

Jon Stewart on Obama's decision to send 30,000 more soldiers to Afghanistan. Didn't he just win the Nobel PEACE prize? Who says that you can't have your cake and eat it too?

Watch the whole thing.

Seriously.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
30,000
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Pro-Capitalism Article on MSN Money

I can't believe it. I actually found a decent article on MSN Money.

The best way for government to create jobs? Get out of the way. It's also dirt cheap. Actually, it would reduce the cost of government, thereby easing budget problems.

So why isn't it even going to be discussed at Obama's "Jobs Summit"?

I think that you know the answer to that. Anything that results in less power for the federal government is pretty much off the table. And judging by so many of the comments posted below the article, too many people are either grossly misinformed, utterly ignorant, or flat out evil--and Socialism consists of all three. Orwell demonstrates as much in Animal Farm.

Jews Defend Muslims (in Switzerland)

The Swiss recently voted to ban the construction of minarets (tower-esque spires) typical to mosques.

Jewish groups have stepped up to defend Muslims against what is clearly a form of religious and cultural discrimination. (As if the Jews have some kind of special knowledge about what happens when Europeans vent their fears and frustrations out on a distinctive religious minority).

Of course I found it ironic that Al Jazeera had the gall to ask that we

Imagine the furor that would certainly ensue should a country with an overwhelmingly Muslim population be asked to vote on whether its small Christian community should be allowed to build their churches according to a particular design or method, or whether they would rather do without the church bells sounding from time to time.

Yes, because predominantly Muslim countries are so renowned for their tolerance of other religions. And you're right, Al Jazeera. Muslim countries don't vote on that kind of thing because Muslim countries don't tend to vote. Way to point out that tyrannies would never have such a flawed electoral process. Fight the absurd with the absurd.

Of course, it's also interesting that we have Jews defending Muslim rights as long as those Muslims do not live in the Jewish state of Israel. Muslims in Switzerland have rights. Muslims in Gaza--now that's a different story.

Climate Science, Irony, and the Root of All Evil

If you are not up to date on the row over unethical tactics and dishonest reporting of facts amongst the world's leading climate scientists, then you really won't get the context of this post. At Free Advice, Bob Murphy has done a splendid job of distilling the issue, so I suggest going there and checking out the "Climategate" posts of the last few weeks. You should, in fact, check Free Advice on a daily basis.

These climate scientists who blackmail editors, blacklist rivals, and fudge data must know now how the geocentrists felt in Galileo's wake.

The state was able to exert political pressure and force Galileo to retract his findings, for Galileo--by affirming Copernicus's proof of heliocentrism--had contradicted scientific and religious orthodoxy.

In exchange for his life, Galileo simply denied his "heretical" assertions--as if getting Galileo to take it back was the same as proving him wrong.

If the geocentrists had been so right in their view, shouldn't they have been able simply to contradict Galileo?

Of course they couldn't contradict him with anything resembling evidence, so they threatened him.

So the story goes. Now its the scientists who have the state's ear, and they're behaving as the Church did half a millenium ago.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

By the way, Christopher Hitchens asserts that "Religion poisons everything." I've been picking my way through his book God Is Not Great, and--while I'm not yet ready to make anything resembling a critique--I can say that Hitchens's examples prove not that religion poisons everything, but that the coercive powers of a supposedly legitimate state poison everything. Religion is often used as an excuse--or as a cover, as Hitchens describes Milsovic's grab for territory in the 1990's--but that doesn't mean that religion is the issue.

The same is true in Ireland, Lebanon, Israel, etc. It's the existence and involvement of the state that corrupts and leads to widespread suffering.

It's actually quite obvious, when you look at it. It links all forms of tyranny: from your run-of-the-mill theocratic dictatorship (e.g. the Taliban) to an atheistic dictatorship (e.g. Communism).

Remove their ability to inflict violence, and the Taliban becomes an oddity not unlike the Amish. Take away a communist's access to coercive powers, and he becomes a disgruntled academic or something slightly worse.

The state is the most violent organization on the planet. Only it enables men to be cruel and tyrannical on a noteworthy scale.

Back to Galileo. If the Church hadn't had the state to act as its goon, then the worst that it could have done was excommunicate Galileo. While this might have emotionally devastated Galileo, it would not have harmed him physically.

But now it's the climate scientists who have the state's ear, and what they're trying to do in Copenhagen and elsewhere should alarm you. Once the Church of Climate Change has real political power behind it, you'll see what I mean.

Then again, you can just read some history. It's all happened before.

Rated "M"

Mark (age 6) has a theory about game ratings. My new game, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, is rated "M" for "Mature."

Mark thinks that it must also mean rated "M" for "Man" because "There's lots of killing, and you've got to be a man to enjoy that kind of stuff."

Hmm. I'm thinking that I won't share this with his mother.

Thanksgiving

Let's cut to the meat of it. The Pilgrims did not host the first Thanksgiving in order to thank Squanto and his Wampanoag crew for helping them get through a hard season. The Pilgrims gave thanks to no one but God. They would not have given credit to a bunch of godless heathens. Even Squanto they called merely an instrument of God's will.

I would be remiss if I did not note that the two most important men in establishing Thanksgiving as a national holiday are Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt.

Politically, Lincoln needed people to think past the cold-blooded killing of anyone who would not submit to Federal power.

Similarly, Roosevelt needed people--in the midst of the Great Depression--to dwell on and be thankful for what little they had. However, he in no way at all intended them to consider what they were losing as his New Deal went into effect.

In this day and age, I am led to believe that I should be thankful for having anything at all, for the federal government stands poised to usurp all that it does not abolish.

Question: Was Brutas more Washington or Oswald?

I think that you know that answer to that, so what are the implications?

Thanks

The day after Thanksgiving is the day when millions flock to the stores in order to buy what they don't have because they aren't thankful enough for what they already do have.

That said, I'm going for a new TV because I am positively not thankful for the one that I have. Is it better than nothing? Sure it is. Just like having a dollar is better than having no dollar; but what are you going to get for a dollar once the Burger King is closed?

The Lost City: The Film and the Truth about Che

I recently watched The Lost City, an Andy Garcia film about family ties set against the backdrop of the communist revolution in Cuba.

There's plenty of nostalgia--even the title echoes Margaret Mitchell's portrayal of an idealized South being "Gone With the Wind"). However, as it tells its beautifully filmed story, The Lost City does not gloss over the abuses of Batista's government. It shows Batista's regime for what it was.

However, the film refuses to use Batista's tyranny as a justification for Castro's despotism. In many ways--and I am hardly the first to observe this--The Lost City is a breath of fresh air. Finally a film depicts Castro and his "revolutionaries" for what they were: goons.

Ernesto "Che" Guevera finally gets his. Under Garcia's direction, "Che" is portrayed as the arrogant, bloodthirsty, and overall loathsome piece of Marxist-Leninist filth that, for some odd reason, has resonated so romantically to college students (and professors) throughout the country.

In a nutshell, the dashing and daring "Che" can be summed up in his final moments: As Bolivian forces prepared to execute the captured agitator, he--he who had lined up so many to be shot--begged, "Don't shoot – I'm Che! I'm worth more to you alive than dead!"

Nathan Hale he wasn't.

I've never believe in the "Che" that Hollywood and Berkley have portrayed, mostly because I have good reason to doubt the source. However, I've read a few things. "Che" like all Marxist revolutionaries, was a thug. He wasn't even a successful thug as, say, Stalin. Che's success has come as a martyr for a cause that most of his fans only vaguely (if even that much) understand.

From viewers of The Lost City:

I was happy to finally see a movie about the Cuban revolution that highlighted another side of the story. The only reason I did not give this a 5 star rating is because I would have like to have seen the non-Castro revolutionary side featured more and of course given more substance than what was shown in the movie. I was happy to see that the Che was NOT idolized in this movie. It was about time he was shown for what he truly became years after the "idealistic" Che portrayed in Motorcycle Diaries. If you are of Cuban heritage, even if you are a first generation American (like me), you will feel this movie.

My family and I were still in Cuba when Castro rolled in to Havana and Batista fled the country. We were not part of the upper class, but we watched in dismay how the revolutionaries acted towards anyone who owned even a house. My brother was arrested for protesting the militia's tactics and was thrown in jail for 3 years without a trial; my father was threatened not to reopen his small store; my mother was kicked out of our home when the government found out my sister and I had left the country. Other members of our family suddenly found their home invaded by strangers moving in - simply because they had a 3-bedroom home and the revolution deemed it "too imperialistic" to have such vast space for one family only. Andy Garcia deserves more than an Oscar for directing such a powerful movie. Perhaps to those who did not go through the revolution, the movie may come across as too "sentimental". To those of us who lived it, it was a painful and sad reminder of a moment in time that changed our lives, and a country, forever.

and

Politically, its about time someone gave an accurate portrayal of what happened in Havana and Andy did just that. Yes, the movie received negative reviews from the media. Had the film glorified the revolution and idolized the Che, perhaps the reviews would have been positive. In any event, it was refreshing to see the truth. Many families were torn apart as in the movie. The scene where the revolutionary brother evicts the uncle is real. My own father went to his office one morning to find soldiers at the door telling him that the spring water company that he built and nurtured was no longer his. He was not allowed to even take his personal belongings. This happened to most of the Cuban middle class. Many scenes evoked childhood memories for me. I gave it a 5 not only for the beautiful rendition of the Havana I remember. It deserves it for telling a truth seldom heard of the Havana so many of us exiles love and cherish.

So go ahead and give The Lost City a shot. It's not the greatest film ever made, but it gives a good enough crash course in what happens when socialists control arsenals.


Oh, and screw Ernesto "Che" Guevera.

Get Your Hands Out of My Pockets

If you have the right to your property, then the government has no right to tax you.

To prove this, consider that, if the government does indeed have the right to tax you, your property "rights" would consist merely of what property the state allows you to keep, calling it "yours" until it wants more of it, under which circumstances it is theirs.

Under the above scenario, all property essentially belongs to the state. If you are loyal and work hard enough for the state, it will reward you with the privilege of property consignment.

Clearly this is absurd. You have the right to the fruits of your labor just as assuredly as you have the liberty to labor as you see fit. The government indeed has the power to tax you, but that is not the same as saying that it has the right to do so.

If you do not consider your property to be merely held in trust for when the state wants it, then you must agree that the government has no right to tax you.

Might makes right in only the nastiest of societies.

Funny Video

Man Made Morals (and other exercises in alliteration)

If morals are man-made, then they are merely preferences, not morals at all. While this assertion excites some, the truth is that this distinction carries with it consequences.

We're not just talking about sexual morality. We're talking about everything from the nasty extremes (e.g. murder and rape) through the mild "no big deals" (e.g. white lies and line cutting).

You cannot reasonably expect my preferences to match yours, and if you try to impose them upon me, then you are a tyrant who must resort to violence in order to achieve your ends. Without morality in the traditionally accepted and defined sense, there is no such thing as right or wrong, good or evil.

If you won't have morality as objective and trans-ego, then you cannot have morality at all. As T.S. Eliot observed, "If you will not have God you should pay your respects to Hitler or Stalin."