Titanic Deck Chairs

Human Ingenuity: The Real Renewable Resource

2009-11-09T21:51:00.005-05:00

A recent advertising campaign by the natural gas industry lobby, America's Natural Gas Alliance, states (paraphrasing), "we have a 100 year supply of natural gas and it's growing all the time," and that "we can't revitalize our economy by buying overseas oil," and that "natural gas is twice as clean as coal," and is thus much "greener."

As different sectors of the energy industry try to compete in today's hyper-regulated non-market, this pandering to both environmentalism and mercantilism ("energy independence" is the new "buy American!") is becoming a common strategy. It's an unfortunate, pragmatic, but also understandable reaction to a market that gets less free with every session of Congress and every presidential term.

The crushing weight of governmental regulation isn't the only thing industry is reacting against. As the government dedicates millions of redistributed dollars to "renewable" energy and "green jobs", thus denying legitimate, voluntary investment in the best available opportunities, it's not surprising to see real businesses respond to the distorted market by trying to offer options that try to take advantage of the situation. Producers still need to respond to demand in order to survive and profit, even if government distorts the demand beyond all reason.

An industry that raised the standard of living in not just the United States but in the whole world by a nearly immeasurable margin -- the petroleum industry -- has been demonized by the environmental lobby for decades, and attacked on all sides by government regulation and "reinvestment." And instead of developing a vibrant "green economy," such interference has only inflated energy prices, stifled real innovation, and wasted billions of dollars. Recall that Jimmy Carter tried to birth the solar power industry and its continued failure even during supportive later administrations cannot be dismissed as a partisan issue, or one which simply needs more taxpayer money thrown at it. Decades of government support for renewable energy has gotten us nowhere. [As a side note, if you happen to disagree and think that the oil industry is only an exploiter of the poor and of the environment, may I suggest some required reading?]

Assuming for the moment that we really do need "energy independence" and "green energy," and considering that government involvement has not solved these "problems," what are the alternatives? There just so happens to be a socio-economic system that has been proven throughout history to be perfect for handling just such quandaries.

Capitalism unleashes the political and economic possibilities of the best within humanity. All of the creative, positive, progressive aspects of human activity are fostered -- not oppressed -- by the socio-political framework of capitalism, which means the system that fully and consistently protects individual rights in all areas of human interaction, leaving men free to produce, to solve problems, and to make enormous sums of money in the process. Nearly every modern convenience and life-sustaining technology that we take for granted today is ultimately the product of men who were free, at least in part, to use their minds, to innovate, and to produce.

On the other hand, nearly every seemingly unsolvable socio-economic problem we face today can be traced to government interference. In the energy sphere, government distorts the market by restricting free inquiry and pushing an environmentalist agenda. Using redistributed dollars, government actively promotes one type of solution while regulating others out of existence. Individual rights and the freedom of supply and demand are ignored as irrelevant, while government directs private industry toward supposed socially- and environmentally-friendly goals that continually fail to deliver real return on investment (even the pseudo-investment of "public" dollars). Solar cells, windmills, etc., are subsidized again and again, despite the fact that the market is never there, and the desired innovation never comes.

But it is certainly a fact that there is only so much petroleum on the Earth, and at some point, someday, it could run out. What this should say to a free people is that there is a potential market there for someone ingenious enough to capture it, when the time is right. Is so-called renewable energy the place to look? Who knows? But it certainly isn't the government who knows.

Let us look at renewable resources themselves for a minute. Admittedly, wind is wind, and sun is sun; these things are "renewable" in that they will continue to be available in essentially their current forms until the Earth ceases to exist. But nothing about this means that they will necessarily be economically useful right now, or will benefit human life in the same way that petroleum has. They certainly may, someday, but only on their own timeline, as determined by the individual efforts of creative men, the needs they face, and the values they want to gain.

Was sunlight a useful energy source a few million years ago in the same way we think of energy now? Obviously not. What about wind? This is even more absurd. Wind was more of an enemy -- feeding wildfires while killing cooking fires, chilling bodies, blowing away seeds and arrows -- than it was a useful resource, though it was as plentiful then as it is now. The sun and the wind thus share something fundamental with any other resource. Imagine early Homo sapiens stumbling into a pit filled with a black, viscous, smelly liquid. What good was it to him?

Oil, just like sun and wind, is simply an obstacle until and unless the human mind reshapes it to its own purposes. Obviously, the human mind, reason, and ingenuity are the only things that can transform inanimate matter into life-sustaining values.

Human ingenuity, not wind, not sun, is the only truly renewable resource. Without it, nothing in nature would be transformed to further human life. Your car, your clothes, your food -- none of these things are naturally occurring. If all we can do is take what we get, then we are but hunter-gatherers without tools or any remnants of cognition to help us along. But because humans are rational animals, we can identify the materials in our environment and mold them to suit us.

Be it stones or soft metals or iron or oil or electricity or fusion -- or the sun -- the human mind is the inexhaustible resource that makes all others possible. It is time for the government to recognize this alternative energy source, and to unleash it fully upon the world by getting the hell out of our way.

Charting Socialism

2009-11-09T08:59:00.004-05:00

Via Not-PC, I bring you a fascinating chart of the evolution of socialist strategies from Marx to the postmoderns. This image comes from the book Explaining Postmodernism by Stephen Hicks (note: I have not read the book yet, though it looks quite interesting.)

(click to enlarge)

If this topic was not so deadly serious, and the failures listed above not coincident with (or responsible for) the deaths of millions of people and the enslavement of many more, it would almost be humorous. I'm reminded of Bart Simpson standing in front of a hot stove, repeatedly touching it and saying "Ouch!" Just when you think it can't go on any longer and that the nature of reality will finally dawn on him, he does it again. And again.

Although there are question marks after environmentalism, multiculturalism, and postmodernism, as we're right in the middle of the world-wide application of these strategies by the politicians and academics, both the historical progression of the socialist ideology and the anti-life nature of the philosophy itself make it obvious that it's only a matter of time before we'll be able to stamp "FAILURE" on each one. The crucial question of our time, however, is whether we can get to that point without the millions of deaths that have come with all the other "noble experiments," and whether we can keep the future offshoots of these deadly ideas from putting down roots.

The Negation of Freedom

2009-11-09T07:53:00.003-05:00

We do not have two political parties in this country, America. We have one party; called the Big Government Party. The Republican wing likes deficits, war, and assaults on civil liberties. The Democratic wing likes wealth transfer, taxes, and assaults on commercial liberties. Both parties like power; and neither is interested in your freedoms. Think about it. Government is the negation of freedom. Freedom is your power and ability to follow your own free will and your own conscience. The government wants you to follow the will of some faceless bureaucrat.

. . . Congress recognizes no limits on its power. It doesn't care about the Constitution, it doesn't care about your inalienable rights, it doesn't care about the liberties protected by the Bill of Rights, it doesn't even read the laws it writes.

America, this is not an academic issue. If this health care bill becomes law, life as you have known it, freedom as you have exercised it, privacy as you have enjoyed it, will cease to be.

When Congress takes away our freedoms, they will be gone forever. What will you do to prevent this from happening? [bold added]

—Judge Andrew Napolitano, writing about the Congressional vote on Obamacare, and what such a massive usurpation of individual rights will mean.

Our government should be the protector of freedom and individual rights, but Napolitano is dead on with his call; it is now a predator instead.

[HT: Myrhaf at The New Clarion]

Pelosidactyl

2009-11-05T10:48:00.000-05:00

Continuing my walk down memory lane (see previous post), I was reminded of some Photoshoppery I made in November 2006, right before Nancy Pelosi was nominated as Speaker of the House.

A recent post by Billy Beck about Pelosi sparked my memory, and here is what he had to say about her, with which I concur completely:

The truth simply is not in the boundless and deep black of her soul and she cannot be approached with recourse to reality.

I once heard it put that if we could hear insects think, it would most likely sound relentlessly mechanical; something like an old-time mechanical cash-register cycling endlessly, without the occasional diversion of the bell. I cannot hear the noises in her head and wouldn't want to in any case, but she really is that inhuman.

She has always made me think of a screeching harpy, and something in a 2006 photo of her struck me as particularly reptilian (go figure). And so I present to you, dear reader, the results of the inspiration that hit me almost exactly three years ago: the dreaded Pelosidactyl!

The Months Seem Like Years

2009-11-05T07:58:00.004-05:00

Just 15 short months ago America was gearing up for a potentially watershed presidential election, and I was blogging furiously about the problems with both candidates. This morning I happened to check my site traffic and noticed that someone had Googled the phrase "iconic hipster t shirt" and clicked through to a post from that pre-election time, Obama's Cult of Personality... in Pictures.

In it, I wrote about the burgeoning trend of pseudo-vintage apparel and iconography that Obama supporters were starting to wear; a trend that would later reach its zenith in Shepard Fairey's "Hope."

I often forget what I've written and when I stumble upon it later, it's like reading it for the first time, which is an interesting disconnect. In this context, I reached the end of the post and was struck by my concluding paragraph:

I think that, assuming Obama wins, if America ever wakes up and looks back at his failed presidency and the mix of mass hysteria and corrupt philosophy that swept this demagogue into office, this photograph could be one of the iconic images of the times that helps to explain what went wrong.

It seems so very long ago that Obama's presidency was just a possibility. It's been a hell of a year, so far. The photo I was referring to was analyzed brilliantly by Ed Cline (quoted in the post) and looks shockingly like Raphael's "The Transfiguation."

Since I now have an excuse to post it again, here is my modification of the photo, "The Transfiguration of Obama."

The Wrong Questions

2009-11-04T16:50:00.003-05:00

Can bomb attacks and hit squads against real or presumed terrorists bring about progress in the Middle East? Is it true that Arabs and Israelis only understand the language of violence, as many in Tel Aviv are now saying? Did the operation against the Al Kibar complex, which violated international law, bring the Syrian president to his senses, or did it merely encourage him to harden his position?

When faced with brutal enemies on all sides who are all working together to build nuclear bombs for the purpose of wiping it from the earth, should Israel be concerned with "progress in the Middle East" and the self-sacrificial dictates of international law? Or does it have more important things to worry about?

Salon.com is running what appears to be a mostly objective account of a secret Israeli attack on the hidden Al Kibar nuclear facility in Syria in 2007. It reads like a spy novel or an episode of NCIS, and the details are fascinating. Long story short, Mossad did the intelligence work and was "more than convinced that the site posed an existential threat to Israel and that there was evidence of intense cooperation between Syria and North Korea." They sent jets over in the dead of night and blew the hell out of it.

As one would expect from even the best of today's journalists, this report is as interesting for its moral subtext as it is for the journalistic details. Note the quote above where the writers draw the wrong conclusions about the Israeli action. They're operating from the altruistic, UN, internationalist standpoint, and are dismissive of a rational, self-interested motivation for foreign policy and military action.

While describing the nighttime air raid on the nuclear facility, they say,

as is always the case with these strikes, the bombs were far more destructive than necessary. For the Israelis, it made little difference whether a few guards were killed or a larger number of people.

The snide judgment here is obvious, even though by their own account, the facility was in the middle of nowhere, and was a military installation. Of course they want to wipe the damn thing from the map, and take as many people associated with it as possible. "[T]he site posed an existential threat to Israel." Case closed.

Still, the report has a lot of amazing detail, much of it without the editorializing. It describes intelligence operations and successful, TV-show-like assassinations--likely carried out by Mossad--of dangerous terrorists and high-level military operatives. It also discusses the unfortunate situation of Iran, and how much more difficult it will be to destroy its bomb-making facilities.

It's definitely worth a read, so check it out.

War in Art

2009-11-03T14:57:00.005-05:00

The mention of "Soviet art" conjures striking communist propaganda, but as Billy Beck notes in reference to a gallery of Soviet-era paintings of WWII,

Russians--Not Soviets
That's what I see in this collection of "Soviet War Paintings". . . .

Without knowing some of the artists at work in that collection and accounting for their berths in the savage reality of Soviet politics, I see little obvious propaganda in these paintings. I'm no expert but I know what I like and some of the technique runs a bit more toward Impressionism than I ordinarily enjoy, although I must say that the themes are admirably exploited. [bold added]

I agree completely with that assessment, and I thank Billy for that identification. I hope I would have made the same one without his help. As he said, the style of many, if not most, of those paintings is too Impressionistic, and many of the themes are too naturalistic for me, but taken as a whole they are a gripping account of a terrible time. The scenes of soldiers returning home could easily have been American paintings.

One painting in particular struck me, and I stared at it for some time. It's the last in the 1943 group. Click here and scroll down slowly though the paintings depicting that year, until you get to "The Last Letter" by Nemenskiy. The mother and wife sits at the end of the bench, off-center in the painting as if to highlight her desolation, staring blankly, sadly, seeing nothing. The letter, obviously detailing some horrible news -- likely the death of her husband in battle -- is crumpled in her hand, forgotten. Her young son knows what the letter contains without her having to say a word, and he clutches her tightly from behind. Both mother and son are inside their sparse cottage, but are wearing heavy coats and boots against the chill, as heating fuel is scarce and expensive. This is the personal cost of war.

Some paintings evoked the battlefield paintings of earlier centuries. Note how this painting has similarities to so many of the historical paintings shown here.

Another striking thing I noticed in these paintings was how strange it seemed to see tanks and fighter planes in paintings that look so much like the historical paintings of cavalry battles in the Thirty Years War (stylistic differences notwithstanding). This made me question why seeing paintings of tanks should be any different, and of course, it isn't.

After looking at all of the paintings in the gallery, I went searching for a similar gallery of American WWII paintings, and found this. The gallery is a pain to navigate, and I wish it had thumbnails at least, but I highly recommend poking through it. It's from a PBS documentary of U.S. combat artists, described thusly:

During World War II more than 100 U.S. servicemen and civilians served as 'combat artists'. They depicted the war as they experienced it with their paintbrushes and pens. Their stories have never been told, and for fifty years their artwork, consisting of more than 12,000 pieces has been largely forgotten -- until now.

I don't know how these official combat artists compare to the artists compiled in the Soviet gallery, but the American art seems more journalistic to me. Still, very interesting.

Thanks to Billy for sparking this historical, cultural, and artistic vista-widening.

Charity in a Free Society

2009-11-03T08:25:00.005-05:00

From an uncharacteristically consistent, fundamentally pro-individual rights standpoint, two authors discuss charity at the American Thinker. (I say uncharacteristically because the publication often succumbs to the classic conservative problem of ceding the premises of the left and then bickering about where the deck chairs should go.)

Andrew Foy and Brenton Stransky show their hand with their choice of title: Charity and Sacrifice in a Free Society. "Sacrifice" is the grain of salt we must take in their article, because it shows they still don't fully get that their entire argument rests on rational egoism and individualism, and that sacrifice is antithetical to that rather than being a virtue.

But if we get past that, they do an admirable job of nailing the key political issues and putting some vitally important ideas out there for their conservative brethren. After quoting Ayn Rand from "Collectivised Ethics" in The Virtue of Selfishness, they say:

The Founding Founders established a Republic under a written Constitution with the clear intent of protecting individual freedom. However, the role of our government has been grossly perverted over the last century to the point where politicians now violate individual rights routinely and without batting an eye. Most violations occur under the banner of providing for the public good, and they call upon the virtues of charity and sacrifice to garner support. Fortunately, charity and sacrifice in a free society are individual and personal undertakings. As a rule, they cannot be subject to coercion if liberty is to be maintained. The current President and various members of both political parties do not abide by this rule, and as such, they are positioning themselves as tyrants. Servitude will be the price we pay unless we stand up today and boldly defend our rights. It is time to educate the broader public on the proper role of charity and sacrifice in a free society.

Again, the confusion of including "sacrifice" in their formulation is unfortunate, but the overall point is good. And they're correct that "charity and sacrifice in a free society are individual and personal undertakings." It's just that they seem to equate charity and sacrifice, holding both as virtues, while not considering that charity can and should be a benevolently egoistic undertaking, and that sacrifice is the opposite of such benevolence.

The unfortunate confusion of their political argument is heightened when they later quote Rand again, from VoS, who of course grounds the political in the ethical:

If a man speculates on what "society" should do for the poor, he accepts thereby the collectivist premise that men's lives belong to society and that he, as a member of society, has the right to dispose of them...that psychological confession reveals the enormity of the extent to which altruism erodes men's capacity to grasp the concept of rights or the value of an individual life. [bold added]

Perhaps the authors have missed that the "charity=sacrifice=virtue" equation relies on the altruism Rand condemns, and that such concepts are antithetical to the individual rights they seem to hold so dear. (My guess is that this stems from the background of Christianity, but it's just a guess as I'm unfamiliar with the authors.)

Still, because they otherwise grasp the important points, it simply provides a good educational opportunity to point out the contradictions in their premises so they can work toward a more fully integrated and consistent philosophy of individual rights. They are making arguments on the political end of the ethics-rights-politics continuum, and they grant that charity/sacrifice can't be forced by government, so now we can ask them to follow the trail of logic back down the philosophical hierarchy and to question their ethics. They're so close. . . .

. . .Ayn Rand considered government the biggest threat to individual rights. "It holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed victims. When unlimited and unrestricted by individual rights, a government is men's deadliest enemy." It matters not whether its intentions are charitable.

If the authors and their readers can understand that much, one would hope they could see that it isn't just government-forced sacrifice that is wrong, but that altruism itself, in any form, is the mortal enemy of the individual rights they fight for.

[HT: HBL]

"This fire rates more than one alarm..."

2009-11-02T12:52:00.003-05:00

Gus Van Horn discusses government corruption scandals, and hits on the much more fundamental issue of it all -- one that people must keep in mind when parsing such stories from the media:

"I find that concerns about corruption too frequently and easily distract from the real problem, which is that too many Americans regard theft as legitimate when performed by government officials in the name of central planning."

That's the crux of it. The moral rot of altruism-fueled central planning just attracts the rotters. Yes, Rod Blagojevich is certainly a criminal, but don't waste your time on him. Direct your efforts at that which makes things like him possible: government thievery by welfare statism.

Go check out the whole post.

Venn Jesus

2009-11-02T08:59:00.004-05:00

I'm not sure to whom this should be attributed as I can't find the originator of the image, but this Venn diagram perfectly follows the theme of my last few days considering my last post, Halloween, and the baptism I went to yesterday (no kidding).

[HT: @JustinKetterer via Twitter]

The Essence of the Thing

2009-10-28T08:10:00.004-04:00

It's of no special import to hear another Catholic (or any Christian) decrying the unholiness and selfishness of homosexuality. The arguments against it and gay marriage are as common as they are wrong, and don't need to be recounted here. Most of those who spew these ideas are equally unremarkable in their unthinking, anti-life views, and most also lead lives of terribly mixed premises. They may live in a somewhat self-interested mode implicitly (at least most Americans of this stripe), but when confronted with obvious questions of morality, espouse the altruism that has been spoonfed them since birth. These are the people you see every day.

However, some of them have really thought about it and try to apply the principles of altruism consistently, intellectually, like Guam Archbishop Anthony Apuron. And occasionally, such a man will in the process expose the true heart of Christianity.

In what appears to be a position paper in response to a proposed domestic partnership law in Guam, Apuron said:

The culture of homosexuality is a culture of self-absorption because it does not value self-sacrifice. It is a glaring example of what John Paul II has called the culture of death. Islamic fundamentalists clearly understand the damage that homosexual behavior inflicts on a culture. That is why they repress such behavior by death. Their culture is anything but one of self-absorption. It may be brutal at times, but any culture that is able to produce wave after wave of suicide bombers (women as well as men) is a culture that at least knows how to value self-sacrifice.

Let that sink in for a bit. And note the universality of what he said. Take out the references to homosexuality and replace them with "rational self-interest" or "individualism," because he is smart enough to see that the core of his argument is altruism vs. selfishness, not vs. homosexuality.

When you do this, you see that he understands the good-against-evil nature of the battle, and consistent with Christian teachings and altruism itself, in the name of what he upholds as the good, he sides with evil. As a refresher, let's look at the objective meaning of evil, from Ayn Rand's Virtue of Selfishness:

The standard of value of the Objectivist ethics—the standard by which one judges what is good or evil—is man’s life, or: that which is required for man’s survival qua man.

Since reason is man’s basic means of survival, that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good; that which negates, opposes or destroys it is the evil.

As if to make sure we don't miss it, Apuron applauds the efforts of Islamists and suicide bombers in their fight against self-interested behaviors.

He then assures us that he doesn't support brutal repression per se, but that the self-interested actions of Americans really do make us deserving of the title "The Great Satan."

Terrorism as a way to oppose the degeneration of the culture is to be rejected completely since such violence is itself another form of degeneracy. One, however, does not have to agree with the gruesome ways that the fundamentalists use to curb the forces that undermine their culture to admit that the Islamic fundamentalist charge that Western Civilization in general and the U.S.A, in particular is the 'Great Satan' is not without an element of truth. It makes no sense for the U. S. Government to send our boys to fight Al Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan, while at the same time it embraces the social policies embodied in Bill 185 (as President Obama has done). Such policies only furnish further arguments for the fundamentalists in their efforts to gain more recruits for the war against the "Great Satan."

There is no room for compromise here. If you hold self-sacrifice as the good, it is you who are upholding a "culture of death." And like Apuron, if you wholly accept this view of man's life and morality, and apply it consistently, it won't be long before you're approving of violent deaths of those who disagree. "Crush the individual, for the good of God or the collective, but crush him nonetheless." There's your rallying cry.

Any proponent of altruism in whatever form -- be it social/collective or religious -- is this man's brother-in-spirit. Mr. Mixed Premises, when you meet him on the street, might recoil from the "extreme" views of our esteemed archibishop, but he would be wrong to do so. Apuron openly advocates the essence of the altruist ethics, and perhaps unwittingly makes the logical leap to the inevitable results of the code of self-sacrifice: death. His death eventually, but mine and any other proud, rational individual's death right now, violently, righteously. To not follow that reasoning is to willfully evade the true nature of altruism, which is all that is necessary for it to continue on its bloody course. As Ayn Rand said:

The truly and deliberately evil men are a very small minority; it is the appeaser who unleashes them on mankind; it is the appeaser’s intellectual abdication that invites them to take over. When a culture’s dominant trend is geared to irrationality, the thugs win over the appeasers. When intellectual leaders fail to foster the best in the mixed, unformed, vacillating character of people at large, the thugs are sure to bring out the worst. When the ablest men turn into cowards, the average men turn into brutes.

--The Objectivist “Altruism as Appeasement,” The Objectivist, Jan. 1966, 6.

Apuron may or may not be one of the small minority of "truly and deliberately evil men," but those who sit in his pews on Sunday and evade the horrific implications of his ideas form a cluture only a few baby steps away from a "culture that is able to produce wave after wave of suicide bombers."

Objectivist Roundup #118

2009-10-15T09:22:00.002-04:00

Welcome to the October 15, 2009 edition of the Objectivist Roundup, your weekly dose of intellectual fuel and ammunition.

This roundup features posts by blog authors who are students and advocates of Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand. She called it a "philosophy for living on earth" and further described it:

My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.

"About the Author," Atlas Shrugged, Appendix.

Considering the events of the day you may notice that most of the posts below deal with politics. But note that they all share a common philosophical grounding in Objectivism, and consistently promote individual rights and the socio-economic system of laissez-faire capitalism to protect those rights. Such is the value of this roundup—weekly commentary on crucial issues from a rational, individual rights perspective.

And with that, I am pleased to present Objectivist Roundup #118!

Roberto Sarrionandia presents On Peace posted at Tito's Blog, saying, "A post on the cause of peace - and its betrayal by modern politics."

Ifat Glassman presents Values without a valuer posted at Psychology of Selfishness.

Stella presents The good news and the bad news posted at ReasonPharm, saying, "Insurers finally speak out against healthcare "reform" -- but they need to make the moral argument, not the practical one."

Trey Givens presents Bones to Pick posted at Trey Givens, saying, "I was watching Bones and the writers did another one of their all-too-typical nods to mysticism. This is my rant."

Kelly Elmore presents Classical Education: An Optional Value posted at Reepicheep's Coracle, saying, "This post examines my reasons for believing that a classical education, though it might be really great, is not necessarily the best kind of education for every student. The focus is on college level work, but I think this has applications for children as well."

Paul Hsieh presents The Price of A Life in Massachusetts posted at We Stand FIRM, saying, "Massachusetts health care moves one step closer towards explicit rationing. Do we really want this for the rest of the country?"

Jason Stotts presents On Marijuana posted at Erosophia, saying, "Some thoughts on the the reasonableness of the prohibition on marijuana."

Stephen Bourque presents Dennis Prager: If There Is No God, Part 10 posted at One Reality, saying, "It is plainly not true that without God, there is 'little to inspire people to create inspiring art.'"

Doug Reich presents Blogs Under Attack By Our Choice Architect posted at The Rational Capitalist, saying, "Internet freedom and more broadly, freedom of speech, is under attack and the government's arguments bear the horrifying philosophical fingerprint of an old nemesis, Cass Sunstein a.k.a. the "choice architect"."

Brian Phillips presents Principles, Propositions, and Property Rights posted at Houston Property Rights, saying, "When an individual abandons principles he approaches each issue in isolation from other issues. He has no way to integrate or connect seemingly separate issues, and deals with each on a case-by-case basis. The resulting conclusions are often contradictory, as evidenced by two recent editorials in the Chronicle that take contradictory positions on property rights."

Edward Cline presents The Ignoble Nobel Peace Prize posted at The Rule of Reason, saying, "One searches in vain through the whole list of Nobel Peace Prize winners from 1901 to the present for a single laureate whose work measurably advanced the cause of peace. Why? The "peace" pined for is essentially a Kantian concept. It is disconnected from reality. Work for peace, urges the Committee, even if your efforts are spoiled by war and conflict. Peace is good for its own sake. Work for peace as though you wished it to become a maxim, a moral rule."

Grant Jones presents Genocide in Sudan: It's the Jihad posted at The Dougout, saying, "Simon Deng, guest speaker at Kansas State University, tells his story of being enslaved by Arabs and the ongoing genocide/Jihad in southern Sudan."

Ari Armstrong presents Media Panel: Discussion Continues posted at FreeColorado.com, saying, "I joined a media panel also attended by the Denver Post's Greg Moore and others."

Dan Edge presents Letter to Media Announcing Prelim posted at The Edge of Reason, saying, "My preliminary hearing is scheduled for Thursday, October 15 @ 3:00pm at the Greenville Municipal Court (426 N. Main St)."

Doug Reich presents Sacred Scriptures of the Human Race posted at The Rational Capitalist, saying, "The brilliant 19th century orator, Robert G. Ingersoll, provides an eloquent reminder of why religion is antithetical to liberty and human happiness."

Greg Perkins presents The Irony, It Burns posted at NoodleFood, saying, "A recent PJTV commentary registers outrage at the deification of Obama, at the sacrilege of any comparison of him to a Christlike Savior. And indeed it is dangerous to give up our independent understanding and follow authority as if we live in some sort of yes-we-can world where believing makes it so -- yet conservatives miss the painfully obvious application of their criticism to the religious outlook itself."

Myrhaf presents Secrets and Revelations posted at Myrhaf, saying, "This one is about fiction writing."

Galileo Blogs presents Stealing the Commanding Heights posted at Galileo Blogs, saying, "The government's subsidies, guarantees against default, and promiscuously cheap credit created an atmosphere in which private bankers were rewarded for taking excessive risks, and made to look like suckers if they prudently restrained themselves. Yet the government blames the bankers for this mess and now wants to control their pay."

Jason Stotts presents My First Nude Beach posted at Erosophia, saying, "A short essay about my first experience at a nude beach."

Jim Woods presents Evaluating Teacher Proficiency posted at Words by Woods, saying, "Jump starting flat student math scores requires testing the teachers."

Doug Reich presents Iran Builds Bomb, America Bombs Moon, Obama Gets Prize posted at The Rational Capitalist, saying, "The real reason Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and why it will lead to war."

Finally, I present Stop Thinking You're So Great, a brief look at an op-ed that perfectly describes the views driving Obama's need to apologize for America.

That concludes Objectivist Roundup #118. Next week's host will be The Rule of Reason. Submit your blog article to the Objectivist Roundup using our carnival submission form.

Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Stop Thinking You're So Great

2009-10-14T08:43:00.003-04:00

If you've wondered what could have prompted Obama's worldwide apology tour, or gave the Nobel Committee impetus to award him the Prize, look no further than this Boston Globe op-ed: One nation, under illusion.

THE HOARIEST and most oft-repeated cliche in American politics may be that America is the greatest country in the world. Every politician, Democrat and Republican, seems duty bound to pander to this idea of American exceptionalism, and woe unto him who hints otherwise. ... As if this weren’t enough, Jimmy Carter upped the fawning ante 30 years ago by uttering arguably the most damning words in modern American politics. He called for a "government as good as the American people," thus taking national greatness and investing it in each and every one of us.

... The fact of the matter is that whenever anything really significant has been accomplished by our government, it is precisely because it was better than the American people.

The columnist, Neal Gabler, has laid it out pretty clearly right there. "Who the hell are we to think we're great?" he asks, and then says that the only "significant" accomplishments of the government have come in spite of the American people. To his credit, he seems to get that he's operating under a very specific value system and that he's using it to decide what "great" means. He asks, "By what standard is one nation any greater than any other nation?"

He displays his standard of value in the examples he lists. Gabler faults the US for income inequality, citing the egalitarian Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. He cites the UN's "Human Development Index" which lists the American standard of living 15th behind that of the welfare states of Europe. He refers to the WHO's "quality of care" rankings which listed US health care 37th. (To which Richard Ralston said, "When you hear this, always ask, 'Ranked by whom and how?' ")

Gabler's standard of value is quite obviously the same as that of UN and all the organizations he cites: altruism-fueled egalitarianism and cultural relativism. When he asks "By what standard is one nation any greater than any other nation?" he's not looking for an answer. He's implying that it is impossible for one nation to be any better than another. Well, except that the US is actually worse because its welfare programs aren't up to snuff, but let's not split hairs. Still, he assures us, he's not saying that America is bad, per se:

The point of all this isn’t that America doesn’t have a lot to be proud of. It does. The point is that just about every country has a lot to be proud of, and America has no more right to assume it is the greatest nation in the world than does France, Switzerland, China, or Russia. [bold added]

China? Russia? Really?

As I alluded to earlier, this view is exactly why Obama has the Nobel Peace Prize. This is why he felt compelled to take a Global Apology Tour. He and Gabler firmly believe that America has no right to think itself better than proto-dictatorial Russia, dictatorial China, or theocratic-totalitarian Iran.

I've said it before, and will keep repeating it because it's unassailably right: the only criteria by which to judge a government is the extent to which it protects individual rights. In this light, all of Gabler's conclusions are completely wrong. Despite the fact that people like him and Obama are trying their damnedest to drag the country into European welfare statism, America is still the freest, most moral, greatest country in existence. It is not "arrogance", "hubris", or "overweening pride," as Gabler called it, but a cold, rational statement of moral judgment.

But because of our hubris, Gabler is concerned that the Gods will visit their wrath on us:

A nation that brooks no criticism, a nation that feels it is always better than any other, a nation that has to be endlessly flattered and won’t face the truth, a nation whose people think they possess some special moral exemption and wisdom, a nation without humility is a nation spoiling for calamity.

He's right that we're headed in the wrong direction, spoiling for calamity. What he doesn't understand (or is evading) is that it is precisely the ideas he champions that are leading us there.

How Not to Defend Individual Rights

2009-09-24T13:37:00.007-04:00

I got my hopes up with this one. In Tibor Machan's column in the Yuma Sun, Foundation of rights continues to be questioned, he identifies a key problem. He covers some of the arguments on both sides of the philosophical debate about the metaphysical vs. social grounding of rights, and criticizes the common perception that "the idea of rights is no longer based on human nature but on governmental power."

But there are significant problems with his column, mostly in the realm of what he doesn't say. Machan gets agonizingly close to doing it right and he does have some good things to say, so I have a hard time fully criticizing him for it... but though he hints at the problems associated with denying the metaphysical foundation of individual rights, he does a poor job of clearly putting forth the answer I know he knows.

On top of that, he never enumerates the key individual rights to life, liberty, and property, even though he mentions Locke. He never even calls them individual rights, but shies away from such straightforward language in favor of the oddly redundant, "individual (human) rights."

And his bit at the end about Chinese dissidents having a better grasp on the issue than Americans is certainly pithy, but misguided.

And, ironically, it is now in countries across the globe that have had and still have governments that violate rights all over the place that the American Founders' and John Locke's views are dominant. For example, the Chinese Charter 08 group, under the leadership of Liu Xiaoba and 302 dissidents, has written as follows:

"Human rights are not bestowed by a state. Every person is born with inherent rights to dignity and freedom. The government exists for the protection of the human rights of its citizens. The exercise of state power must be authorized by the people. The succession of political disasters in China's recent history is a direct consequence of the ruling regime's disregard for human rights." [bold added]

Where are these ideas dominant? I admit that my knowledge of the Chinese dissident intelligentsia is less than it could be, but I'd be shocked if "life, liberty, and property," was a more widespread rallying cry in China than it is here in the US. Granted, it is vital that it gains greater acceptance here, and on the fundamental level which the study of Ayn Rand's ideas can give, but asserting that such ideas are dominant in China seems to need much more evidence behind it than Machan provides.

Also concerning is that the dissidents parrot the vague, undefinable language of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. More power to them as they fight a tyrannical regime, but they shouldn't use the UN as a source for political philosophy and arguments for individual rights and liberty. And I dare anyone to define "dignity" in this context as a "human right." Even Kantian philosophers have identified this problem.

As I have said before, "human rights" is an anti-concept that serves to demean and destroy the valid concept of individual rights, and "dignity" is purposefully vague so as to admit any definition -- especially those that assert "positive rights."

I'm surprised and disappointed at what Machan omitted -- a more thorough description of what individual rights are, where they come from, and why they're so crucial in a political context, as well as a specific reference to Ayn Rand and her key ideas which would have made all his points for him -- so much so that it seems to be an elephant in the room. Why dance around the points that would make his argument, and the thinkers to whom those ideas should be attributed? Assuming he was writing for a lay audience, such clarity would have helped to get his ideas across much more effectively.

It is always good to see a defense of individual rights because it's crucial to promote such ideas , but this particular op-ed was, on the whole, a missed opportunity.

Apologizer-in-Chief

2009-09-23T15:14:00.002-04:00

Nile Gardner explains why President Obama got such a nice reception at the UN:

It is not hard to see why a standing ovation awaits the president at Turtle Bay. Obama’s popularity at the UN boils down essentially to his willingness to downplay American global power. He is the first American president who has made an art form out of apologizing for the United States, which he has done on numerous occasions on foreign soil, from Strasbourg to Cairo.

The president scores highly at the UN for refusing to project American values and military might on the world stage... His appeasement of Iran, his bullying of Israel, his surrender to Moscow, his call for a nuclear free world, his siding with Marxists in Honduras, his talk of a climate change deal, have all won him plaudits in the large number of UN member states where US foreign policy has traditionally been viewed with contempt.

Simply put, Barack Obama is loved at the UN because he largely fails to advance real American leadership. This is a dangerous strategy of decline that will weaken US power and make her far more vulnerable to attack. [bold added]

The nations of the world recognize that Obama is one of them. Not only does he agree that America should feel guilty for its successes, but it should actively work to level the playing field by sacrificing itself. Publicly, other nations welcome Obama's cosmopolitan attitude, but privately they know they can exploit his weaknesses.

It was clear that, for all of his incredible faults, George Bush at least had contempt for the UN. He saw it as an anti-American institution, at fundamental odds with our country's national self-interest. Of course he also accepted the altruist/collectivist ethics promoted by that institution, so his contempt looked more reactionary and petulant than principled. Still, he saw it for what it was.

Obama sees it for what it is, too. And he likes it. He pleads for acceptance... really, we're not that bad! I promise! And he's ready to put our money where his mouth is.

Billy Beck sees this too, and asks a more fundamental and very important question:

How much longer will Americans put up with the United Nations?

It's really that simple, ladies and gentlemen. This was an abomination from the very beginning, and will now heartily endorse the contempt of a United States president for the people of his country.

I am ordinarily very careful about any suggestions of violence, but this is clear to me: the United Nations complex at Turtle Bay must be emptied, gutted, and razed to the ground. Nobody in the world would ever do it but Americans, and the world would be so astonished that it could all be gone before everyone else had one word to say to it. [bold added]

I don't have an answer to his question, but I know that the only way an American rejection of the UN would be possible is if they reject the altruistic foundation upon which it was built. And that's a much bigger, deeper fight.

Oh, and his final suggestion made me think of Cortlandt Homes.

Deval Patrick's Ideas: Wrong for Massachusetts, Wrong for America

2009-09-17T09:20:00.005-04:00

The Wall St. Journal gave a national platform to the governor of Massachusetts to shill his bad ideas in support of Obama's socialized medicine. The only grain of truth I found was in the first paragraph:

Our country now faces the best opportunity in decades to provide quality health care for all Americans while containing spiraling costs. My state, Massachusetts, can serve as a model for national reform. [bold added]

It is certainly true that Mass. can serve as a model, but precisely in the opposite way that Patrick intends. The healthcare debacle in Massachusetts is a perfect model for why a "mandatory insurance" plan will fail in particular, and more generally, why any government meddling in healthcare is a violation of individual rights and will only grow like a cancer if implemented.

Looking briefly to Patrick's article itself, he starts with an emotionalist argument (talking about hurting families), an altruistic argument ("everyone has a stake in health-care reform"), and then patronizingly says that we shouldn't be afraid.

From then on, he dances around, claiming that things are rosy without any facts to back it up, and comes off as a woefully naive (or insidiously manipulative) cheeleader, which is exactly what he is. The quality of his op-ed is so poor, in fact, that I'm surprised it passed the WSJ's standards. It makes me wonder if they allowed it just as an example of the vacuous nature of the arguments for socialized medicine.

Rather than waste too much time reading Patrick's pablum, instead I recommend that you read (or re-read) Dr. Paul Hsieh's excellent autopsy of Massachusetts' mandatory insurance debacle at The Objective Standard. The entire article is available for free.

Mandatory Health Insurance: Wrong for Massachusetts, Wrong for America

by Dr. Paul Hsieh
The Objective Standard -- Fall 2008

Objectivist Roundup #113

2009-09-10T10:29:00.002-04:00

Welcome to the September 10, 2009 edition of the Objectivist Roundup, your weekly dose of intellectual fuel and ammunition.

This roundup features posts by blog authors who are students and advocates of Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand. She called it a "philosophy for living on earth" and further described it:

Considering the events of the day you may notice that most of the posts below deal with politics. But note that they all share a common philosophical grounding in Objectivism, and consistently promote individual rights and the socio-economic system of laissez-faire capitalism to protect those rights. Such is the value of this roundup--weekly commentary on crucial issues from a rational, individual rights perspective.

And with that, I am pleased to present Objectivist Roundup #113!

John Drake presents Dewey's wrong approach to education posted at Try Reason!, saying, "While in general, I am not a big fan of analyzing quotations out of context, one quote of Dewey's, whose educational philosophy I am familiar with, is packed full of philosophic assumptions. I look at some of flawed ideas supporting his statement."

Rob Abiera presents What determines the size of government? posted at The Morality War, saying, "My comments regarding an editorial in my local paper which asserts that Americans are ready to debate the size of government."

Brian Phillips presents Plato's War on Houston: From Zoning to "SmartCode", Part 1 posted at Houston Property Rights, saying, "The Greek philosopher Plato died more than 2,300 years ago, yet he is waging war on Houston today. His ideas live on, made manifest in the myriad proposals to shape the city through government regulation and controls."

Miranda Barzey presents Dealing with Emotions posted at Ramen & Rand, saying, "The cure for overwhelming emotion? Reason."

Paul McKeever presents McKeever on McParland on Conservatives on Obama posted at Paul McKeever, saying, "if nothing else, perhaps you'll get a giggle out of the Jesus Obama image."

Stephen Bourque presents The Treachery of Unintegrated Facts posted at One Reality, saying, "The young professional today righteously places a “Question Authority” bumper sticker next to the “Obama/Biden” label on the trunk of his hybrid car, blissfully unaware that he accepts every government directive and politically-correct norm without question."

Trey Givens presents Caveman-Friendly Shepherd's Pie posted at Trey Givens, saying, "Autumn is coming to NYC and being tired of lighter fare, I decided it's time to find some comfort food for the winter. With that in mind, I made over a recipe for Shepherd's Pie to make it caveman friendly. It was delicious, cheap, and easy. Enjoy!"

Dan Edge presents Adventures in Activism: A True Story of Protest, Arrest, and Release posted at The Edge of Reason, saying, "From the introduction:

"The following is a chronicle of the events preceding, during, and after the downtown protest I organized against the “emergency” curfew ordinance – events which led to my arrest for "contributing to the delinquency of a minor.""

I spent 17 hours in a detainment cell drunk tank to make this article happen, so read it or I'll turn all your minors into delinquent miners. It's long (8 pages, single-spaced), so check this out when you have time and buckle up!"

Paul Hsieh presents Medical Alert: Women and Thigh Fractures posted at GeekPress, saying, "This is a change of pace from my usual blogging. Recent research shows that women taking certain commonly-prescribed medications for osteoporosis are apparently at increased risk for developing unusual femur (thigh bone) fractures. Click through for more information."

Diana Hsieh presents Atlas Shrugged Reading Groups posted at NoodleFood, saying, "Colorado's Front Range Objectivism is starting up Atlas Shrugged Reading Groups. Come see what they're all about!"

Jasmine presents I Protest posted at Rational Education, saying, "My protest is quite simply, because I am quite tired and fed up of making myself and my kids the guinea pigs of whatever new experiments the public schools can come up with, and force it on me. The latest President speech debate simply helped my resolve to speak out, that is all."

Kelly Elmore presents Rasselas and Happiness posted at Reepicheep's Coracle, saying, "This post is about Samuel Johnson's novel The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia, Dr. Johnson's ideas about happiness (as expressed in this novel), and what that means to Objectivists."

Rational Jenn presents Mythbusting: Ayn Rand, Mommies, and Children posted at Rational Jenn, saying, "I'm usually pretty amazed by those who attack Ayn Rand personally for somehow being against the Mommy profession and children in general. So I pulled together some of her own words that contradict that sentiment."

Stella presents Pharmacists and their consciences posted at ReasonPharm, saying, "Thoughts on a question answered in Dr. Peikoff's most recent Podcast."

Edward Cline presents Barack Obama: Seducer of the Young posted at The Rule of Reason, saying, "On September 8th, President Barack Obama addressed the nation's school children (from kindergarten up through high school), and, under the subterfuge of encouraging them study hard and become "the best they can be," slipped in the message that service to the country and sacrifice to others should be their primary motives."

Roderick Fitts presents Inductive Quest: The Justification for Induction--Or Lack of It posted at Inductive Quest, saying, "a essay which discusses my reasons for thinking that induction doesn't have a justification, and doesn't need one. Hopefully, it shows an important point about the notion of justification."

Gus Van Horn presents Well. He is from Hawaii... posted at Gus Van Horn, saying, "Barack Obama's Justice Department will be about as effective fighting against discriminatory law as the Republicans were in dismantling the welfare state."

Doug Reich presents Literally Experiencing the Broken Window Fallacy posted at The Rational Capitalist, saying, "Actually experiencing a broken window led me to the usual conclusion."

C. August presents Van Jones: Plucking the Leaves but Leaving the Roots posted at Titanic Deck Chairs, saying, "One czar is gone, but because the conservatives aren't challenging the roots of the problem with principled, individual rights positions, more weeds will keep sprouting up."

Doug Reich presents Inside a Bubble posted at The Rational Capitalist, saying, "Today's Chinese-US economic relationship is remarkably similar to the US-British relationship of the 1920's which gave rise to the Great Depression."

That concludes Objectivist Roundup #113. Next week's host is Stella at ReasonPharm. Submit your blog article to the Objectivist Roundup using our carnival submission form.

Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Technorati tags: Objectivist Roundup, blog carnival.

Van Jones: Plucking the Leaves but Leaving the Roots

2009-09-08T08:35:00.005-04:00

I recall reading well over a year go about a guy from California who was spearheading the "Green Collar Economy." It was a popular new catchphrase and I believe I heard about it first either on NPR or in the Boston Globe. I went to the website and read about someone named Van Jones who was organizing and trying to spread his terrible environmentalist and statist views on a national scale, with a book and a bunch of slick marketing and social media activities. Still, he was local from way across on the Left Coast, and I put it out of my mind.

Then Obama won. Eventually, I heard of a new "Green Jobs Czar" named... Van Jones. Yup, same guy. On top of all the other horrendous appointments he was making, it was hard to say he was any worse than the likes of Cass Sunstein or tax cheat Tim Geithner. Then recently, conservative commentators started digging into Jones' background, he became a liability, and over the weekend he resigned. (Expect a cacophony of claims that the Right was motivated by racism -- I'm betting on a Paul Krugman piece trumpeting that angle in the Times in the next day or two.)

Of course his resignation won't make a bit of difference. In fact, it may be a bad thing, because all that will happen is that Obama will search out a non-controversial person to hide in the background while he doles out billions of dollars of redistributed wealth, stolen from productive enterprises and tossed down the Green Hole of "sustainable" industry.

The Wall St. Journal appears to be cautioning Obama from its editorial page, but all it's doing is asking him to govern from the middle:

No President is responsible for all of the views of his appointees, but the rise and fall of Mr. Jones is one more warning that Mr. Obama can't succeed on his current course of governing from the left. He is running into political trouble not because his own message is unclear, or because his opposition is better organized. Mr. Obama is falling in the polls because last year he didn't tell the American people that the "change" they were asked to believe in included trillions of dollars in new spending, deferring to the most liberal Members of Congress, a government takeover of health care, and appointees with the views of Van Jones. [bold added]

The only item in that list that a Republican administration wouldn't be guilty of is appointing someone like Van Jones (though they'd likely go in the opposite direction and appoint a Christian Fundamentalist).

Still, the longer the radical leftists are sitting in positions of power in Washington, and the longer their explicit and implicit political philosophies are exposed to the harsh sunlight, it is more likely that the American people will start to wonder if there is a real, philosophical antidote more substantial than Reagan-era conservatism. They may, just may, start thinking about individual rights and questioning why both parties are so hellbent on violating them.

It's good to see someone like Jones get run out of town, but until the opposition starts fighting for individual rights and fully laissez-faire capitalism instead of complaining that one of Obama's czars said "Republicans are a-holes," there will be no alteration in the course of the country as it plunges into socialism. Because environmentalist and statist policies were not attacked at their rights-violating roots, one green czarist weed was pulled and we can expect another, stronger, harder-to-pull weed to spring up in its place.

First Day of School

2009-09-04T13:44:00.003-04:00

Wednesday was the first day of public school for my 5 1/2 year old daughter. Her mother and I drove her to the little elementary school just 3/4 mi. from our house, and walked into the kindergarten class with her. She sat at the desk with her name on it, and while she looked a bit nervous, she quickly warmed up. There were at least four other kids in the class she knew, either from our neighborhood or from dance school or what have you. Total number of kids in her class: 14.

Our district seems to be one of the few left that still have half-day kindergarten, and I'm glad for that. It leaves plenty of time for her to tackle her real job of playing, getting dirty, scraping her knees, and all of those other crucial things.

We're also fortunate to live in this particular part of our town, near this particular elementary school. It may be rather old, but what it lacks in space-age furnishings and smoothie bars and a 3-D planetarium, it makes up for in being a traditional, tight-knit, neighborhood school. Not only does A. know many kids in her class, she knows kids in all other grades at the school because of our particular neighborhood. All the moms in the area know her too, and apparently everyone is discussing how all the neighborhood kids can walk home together, how moms can take shifts in picking everyone up, etc. Kids in our close-knit neighborhood go out to play with no direct parental supervision and everyone is fine with that. All the parents in the area keep an ear and occasional eye on what's going on and everyone looks out for the kids. In this day and age of helicopter parenting, it's an ideal place to give our kids more of a free-range upbringing like what we had growing up, while having some peace of mind too. [In the interest of full disclosure, at their age, we don't yet let our kids run around without us there. 5 and 3 is just too young to go up the street and play with the big kids. But in a couple of years...]

While that was somewhat off-topic concerning the first day of school, it provides some context for what our situation is like. If we're stuck sending our children to public school -- neither private nor home school are possible for us -- it's not a bad place to be. Of course, my biggest concern is the actual teaching that goes on, and I don't have enough information to make a judgment about that yet. On that Wednesday, one teacher took the kids outside to play while the parents sat in little chairs and listened to the teacher discuss what the kids would be learning, how parent-teacher communication would work, and all the little details that go into making a school year. I have since looked up the math and reading programs they teach from, and they generally look OK ("Everyday Math" and "Balanced Literacy" -- if anyone knows anything specific, good or bad, let me know). They'll have science and gym as well, but no recess. Considering their day is only 2.5 hrs, that makes sense to me.

I'm not sure what else to say about it. Was I floored by how amazing the school was? No. But I think it will be fine, and we're certainly going to be supplementing her education at home -- case in point, we need to figure out how to integrate the half-hour American History lectures by Scott Powell into our daily routine. I'm curious how she'll react to them.

Perhaps a good indicator of how things have gone so far was that on Thursday, she was frustrated that she wouldn't have school until the afternoon (after winter break, she'll switch to mornings). And she's annoyed that she has Monday off. I very much hope that school lives up to her expectations and that it can keep up with her, so that she'll always have this optimism and eagerness about it. And we'll be vigilant in our observations, and if that light seems to be dimming -- if the school teaches to the lowest common denominator and starts boring the hell out of her -- we'll quickly take measures to rectify it. But for now, things look good.

I wasn't emotional about this milestone except for feeling pride in who she is, and curiosity about how she'll approach the coming challenges. After the teacher finished our "orientation" and the kids came back in, we left together and A. asked if we could go to lunch, just the three of us. We went to a small Italian place with a deck that looks out over a lake, and A. ordered the broccoli and chicken pasta in a cream sauce. She was surprised at the salad that came with her order (not a normal thing for kid's meals) but dug into it. As we sat there talking about school supplies and what her impressions of the kids, school, and teacher were, I was struck at how grown up she suddenly was.

My strongest impression from her first day was that I was very proud of how my little girl handled it all. She's smart, strong-minded, confident, curious, friendly, and outgoing. She's also gorgeous and a head taller than anyone else in the class. She's a force to be reckoned with, and I hope the world is ready for her. If it isn't, I don't think she'll notice.

Then of course when I got home after work, it was all tickling and giggling and watching silly cartoons before bed, and she was 5 again. What a fun, funny age.

The Old Git Died While I Was Out

2009-09-01T12:55:00.007-04:00

I had plans to write during my vacation, but the pull of perfect weather, sandy beaches, the pool, and fun with family and friends was too much to resist. And while I was out of blogging action, that old bastard Ted Kennedy up and died. All I could muster in response was "well, it's about goddamned time!" I may have danced a small jig, too.

I did get to answer a million questions from my daughter about who Teddy was, "why are all those people dressed in black?", "did you like him, dad?", etc. For some reason, others in our beach house felt compelled to watch the coverage. And for the record, my answer to whether I liked him or not was, "I didn't know him personally, but I strongly disagreed with most everything he ever said or did." It's a similar answer I give when she asks whether I like the president or not; it's not about personality or likability, it's about ideas. That's as far as I'm willing to go with a 5-yr-old right now.

One comment I heard from others at the house was that even if they didn't agree with Kennedy, he was a good man, and acted in a principled fashion on his beliefs. My assertion that he was an unprincipled power luster was rejected as absurd. "He's already got all the power he could ever use!" was the argument against mine. To which I say: bullshit. An evil scumbag like that is motivated primarily by his thirst for power over others, and in Kennedy's case, by systematically attacking individual rights in every way he could. Just becoming a senior senator is not enough for someone like that, and they aren't happy unless they are doing something like, say, working on a bill like Obamacare which would enact perhaps the largest violation of individual rights in our nation's history. If Teddy really thought he was "doing the right thing" based upon his altruist morality -- an assertion I highly doubt, as he was much too jaded, cynical, and slippery to be a wide-eyed idealist -- then it is merely his professed morality which is evil, as well as all of the actions he took. This doesn't leave much room for him being good, in any way, shape, or form. In other words, a person can be judged to be a bad person even if he thought his "heart" was in the right place. Good intentions don't excuse bad actions or bad philosophy.

I was very happy to see Doug at The Rational Capitalist take aim at Kennedy and his legacy. In his post, "In Memoriam - an Anti-American," Doug takes both Kennedy and the media to task:

Ted Kennedy stood for everything that America is not - which is precisely why he is being posthumously lionized by the liberal media....

Kennedy's body of "work" in the Senate is a paean to the liberal values of statist control and wealth redistribution excepting, of course, his own. Apparently, he considered his "lifework" to be his efforts on behalf of socialized medicine, and, fittingly, Obama's statist monstrosity has now been renamed in his honor.

Indeed, Kennedy's second-handed prestige, derived from an aristocratic life of pull peddling and power lust, represents everything America is not.

Finally, I can't resist quoting Billy Beck on Kennedy, in an open letter to Mary Jo Kopechne:

Your killer's brain finally rotted out, today. It's something of a fitting end, given how the evil toad lived anti-conceptually all his rotten life.

The horrible thing is gone now. I hope it died choking like Josef Stalin.

To those who think this is too harsh, or unbecoming of the debate, keep in mind what Kennedy stood for and that his every official action was to increase both his and the government's power over your life. The man worked tirelessly to take your freedom. Should one mince words when describing him?

Driving into work this morning, I saw a Boston city bus with a special tribute on its scrolling sign. In between the standard items stating the route number and end stations of the bus, it said "Thank you Senator Kennedy!" I looked at other buses, and this message was the personal initiative of one little fool of a bus driver. Thank you, Mr. Bus Driver, for advertising your idiocy to the world.

Now that I'm back in Massachusetts, I fear that I'll be hearing about the old bastard for much longer than the rest of you, especially as all the scheming parasites angle for his job. The only possible bright side in this is that it's hard to imagine how someone worse than Teddy could be elected. But if any state could do it, it would be this one.

Ted Kennedy: Good riddance to bad rubbish.