Could Ron Paul actually become more than the GOP fringe candidate he is so often portrayed as being? Recent news articles seem to think so. The Associated Press, Fox News, and The Washington Post, among others, have recently issued stories which are sympathetic to the Paul campaign. There has even been out forth by a DC blogger a theory that Paul could be a force at the Republican Convention by winning only California and Texas. It can be found here: http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-washington-dc/shhhhhh-ron-paul-could-win-california-and-therefore-the-nomination
But can he actually be a difference maker? He has shot himself in the foot often enough, such as making the American Civil War an issue during the 2008 campaign. That question has been decided, Ron, and, quite frankly, it serves little purpose discussing it except in academia. Still, his small government, pro civil rights attitude is one which echoes within somewhere around 10 percent of the population. It wouldn't be terribly surprising for a more durable candidacy to jump out from such numbers: one in ten is nothing to sneeze at.
Certainly, there are Republicans who wouldn't mind the party turning more libertarian. We could live with it ourselves, so long as the libertarianism was muted somewhat. It's all well and good to speak of individual rights, until and unless you begin speaking as though no moral judgments can be made about them. Same sex marriages are morally wrong and society should not condone them, for example. Then, too, it is silly to think that we have no true moral obligations beyond our own borders. A foreign policy driven by a certain altruism and real national and international concerns is not a terribly outlandish proposition. There's no need to wait until we face a direct and immediate threat to our nation before we take any action internationally.
We can't escape the feeling that the attraction of Ron Paul is yet rather shallow. A few extra political articles hardly make for real electoral success. But they are a step in the right direction, and the GOP could stand to learn a few lessons from the more libertarian minded among them. The fringes aren't always or of necessity wrong, and a strong Ron Paul campaign might actually lead the Republicans to offer real differences between themselves and the Democrats. Here's hoping that there is some truth to his candidacy gaining at least enough ground to actually affect the status quo.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Saturday Morning Musings
Stephen Hawking believes that the best hope for humanity is colonizing other worlds. We are likely heading for disaster in the next hundred years and need to plan ahead.
We're not saying that a disaster doesn't loom, but the physicist's prediction is hardly rocket science. The fact is that disaster is almost always just around the corner and has been during all of history. Simply because our capacity for destruction is worse now than ever (it seems a safe presumption that that is what Hawking fears) doesn't mean calamity is only possible these days. Besides, even with colonization we would still have to deal with the ages old human factor; we're as likely to destroy ourselves on Mars as here.
The real truth is that if human life is to continue we need to become moral people. Short of that, the future doesn't matter anyway.
Mitt Romney leads Michigan according to the polls and is considered to be the likely GOP nominee to run against President Barack Obama in November 2012. When we need an inspiring candidate, we get Mitt Romney. Where have you gone Ronald Reagan?
A Florida woman and three other families have camped out in front of a store nine days ahead of Black Friday. They, of course, wants to be sure she can get the goods she craves so badly. What is the, Occupy Best Buy? Pathetic.
It appears that Michigan will have added about 64,000 jobs in the state by the end of 2011. This would represent the first gain in jobs in more than ten years. But we're still way behind most of the country, and progress is projected to be slow here for at least the new couple of years. At least Snyder seems to have us headed in the right direction. Hopefully, anyway.
That's it, we got no more. Until tomorrow, that is.
We're not saying that a disaster doesn't loom, but the physicist's prediction is hardly rocket science. The fact is that disaster is almost always just around the corner and has been during all of history. Simply because our capacity for destruction is worse now than ever (it seems a safe presumption that that is what Hawking fears) doesn't mean calamity is only possible these days. Besides, even with colonization we would still have to deal with the ages old human factor; we're as likely to destroy ourselves on Mars as here.
The real truth is that if human life is to continue we need to become moral people. Short of that, the future doesn't matter anyway.
Mitt Romney leads Michigan according to the polls and is considered to be the likely GOP nominee to run against President Barack Obama in November 2012. When we need an inspiring candidate, we get Mitt Romney. Where have you gone Ronald Reagan?
A Florida woman and three other families have camped out in front of a store nine days ahead of Black Friday. They, of course, wants to be sure she can get the goods she craves so badly. What is the, Occupy Best Buy? Pathetic.
It appears that Michigan will have added about 64,000 jobs in the state by the end of 2011. This would represent the first gain in jobs in more than ten years. But we're still way behind most of the country, and progress is projected to be slow here for at least the new couple of years. At least Snyder seems to have us headed in the right direction. Hopefully, anyway.
That's it, we got no more. Until tomorrow, that is.
Friday, November 18, 2011
Free Will Doesn't make Actions Right
One of the most pervasive while also one of the most ridiculous arguments in favor of certain presumed freedoms is the one about consenting adults. Simply put, it makes moral a given action on the grounds that the folks involved are in agreement as to their joint participation. It is ultimately a wholly untenable position.
To begin with, if all that is required to make something ethically acceptable is the agreement of the parties involved, then we really ought to allow duels. The (presumably) two participants agreed to take shots at each other. So no matter how barbaric, as they freely entered into the contract we would have to let them fire away.
Absurd. Yet when applied to other moral questions, and prostitution for example is one key area where the adage is often used, it is something accepted as axiomatic. The truth is that you would be on stronger ground simply to argue that paying for sexual favors is not in itself wrong rather than to say it's okay because there was no coercion.
The mere fact that people are willing to sell themselves that way while there are also folks willing to buy the, ahem, product, in fact reeks of coercive effects on its own standing. One person wants money, the other wants something which money can buy. A certain coercive effect is in fact at work. Still, even setting that point aside begs the question. The best answer is that nothing is good solely because those involved want to to do it. The act in question must be good on its own stead lest those involved be acting on mere impulse or selfishness. Or, indeed, actual immorality.
This is not to say that a free will act without pressure isn't a factor in moral decision making. It goes without saying that for most personal acts to be moral they must be entered into with a reasonable amount of freedom. In marriage, for example, both the man and the woman involved must do so of their own consent. Yet a hypothetical marriage between a man and a woman both of whom are free to marry is itself already moral. We are in fact beyond the issue of the morality of the potential nuptials by the time the question of will enters the fray.
In short, when considering the rightness of something there are two questions at hand. The first and most important query is whether the act is morally right, seen objectively, on its own. The second is whether those involved are the proper parties to it. Their consent is never a point until after the moral correctness of the action is assured.
To begin with, if all that is required to make something ethically acceptable is the agreement of the parties involved, then we really ought to allow duels. The (presumably) two participants agreed to take shots at each other. So no matter how barbaric, as they freely entered into the contract we would have to let them fire away.
Absurd. Yet when applied to other moral questions, and prostitution for example is one key area where the adage is often used, it is something accepted as axiomatic. The truth is that you would be on stronger ground simply to argue that paying for sexual favors is not in itself wrong rather than to say it's okay because there was no coercion.
The mere fact that people are willing to sell themselves that way while there are also folks willing to buy the, ahem, product, in fact reeks of coercive effects on its own standing. One person wants money, the other wants something which money can buy. A certain coercive effect is in fact at work. Still, even setting that point aside begs the question. The best answer is that nothing is good solely because those involved want to to do it. The act in question must be good on its own stead lest those involved be acting on mere impulse or selfishness. Or, indeed, actual immorality.
This is not to say that a free will act without pressure isn't a factor in moral decision making. It goes without saying that for most personal acts to be moral they must be entered into with a reasonable amount of freedom. In marriage, for example, both the man and the woman involved must do so of their own consent. Yet a hypothetical marriage between a man and a woman both of whom are free to marry is itself already moral. We are in fact beyond the issue of the morality of the potential nuptials by the time the question of will enters the fray.
In short, when considering the rightness of something there are two questions at hand. The first and most important query is whether the act is morally right, seen objectively, on its own. The second is whether those involved are the proper parties to it. Their consent is never a point until after the moral correctness of the action is assured.
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Spending in the Holiday Season
Consumerism, the great evil exemplified by the current madness rushing towards and known as Black Friday, is something generally associated with conservatism. Yet it is in fact a liberal trait.
To be sure, there's nothing wrong with buying things for others, or even for one's self as such. Clothes, food, even our recreation, are things which must be regularly purchased for various yet obvious reasons. The list is surely much longer, too, but again, you get the point.
It's when we begin to buy things simply to buy them that we start to slip into error, into the evil of pure selfishness. When we have to buy a new TV because the old one (still working well) is simply old, we have become consumerists. When we buy a Hummer when a van will do, we have become consumerists. When we make any purchase which is plainly conspicuous, we have become consumerists. It displays an excess of pampering, or worse, of egregious self indulgence.
That bigger, better, and newer isn't of itself wrong, true. Making purchases is something which, as with so much else, must be seen in context against the objective standards of right and wrong. There's nothing wrong with buying a tractor trailer rig if you're going into the shipping industry: a Chevy simply won't do the job. But if all you're doing is driving around to attend your daily needs, that Chevy should do just fine.
But to the point: consumerism is a liberal trait because it ultimately puts the state ahead of the individual for no good purpose other than the state. Why else would FDR, that old liberal, want to change Thanksgiving, except to lengthen the buying season? And at that, for the sake of the state in general, and his Presidency and popularity in particular. He wasn't interested in the person, but in himself and his government.
When we become preoccupied with buying things solely for the sake of the purchase, we are putting the nation ahead of the person. And that is the worst kind of consumerism, for it begins to make getting and buying into a patriotic mantra. When we become bad people, we become a bad nation.
To be sure, there's nothing wrong with buying things for others, or even for one's self as such. Clothes, food, even our recreation, are things which must be regularly purchased for various yet obvious reasons. The list is surely much longer, too, but again, you get the point.
It's when we begin to buy things simply to buy them that we start to slip into error, into the evil of pure selfishness. When we have to buy a new TV because the old one (still working well) is simply old, we have become consumerists. When we buy a Hummer when a van will do, we have become consumerists. When we make any purchase which is plainly conspicuous, we have become consumerists. It displays an excess of pampering, or worse, of egregious self indulgence.
That bigger, better, and newer isn't of itself wrong, true. Making purchases is something which, as with so much else, must be seen in context against the objective standards of right and wrong. There's nothing wrong with buying a tractor trailer rig if you're going into the shipping industry: a Chevy simply won't do the job. But if all you're doing is driving around to attend your daily needs, that Chevy should do just fine.
But to the point: consumerism is a liberal trait because it ultimately puts the state ahead of the individual for no good purpose other than the state. Why else would FDR, that old liberal, want to change Thanksgiving, except to lengthen the buying season? And at that, for the sake of the state in general, and his Presidency and popularity in particular. He wasn't interested in the person, but in himself and his government.
When we become preoccupied with buying things solely for the sake of the purchase, we are putting the nation ahead of the person. And that is the worst kind of consumerism, for it begins to make getting and buying into a patriotic mantra. When we become bad people, we become a bad nation.
Monday, November 14, 2011
MEA: One Arrogant Bunch
The simple, unmitigated arrogance of public educators in Michigan these days has once more been put on display. While Lansing considers legislation which would pay college tuition for privately and home educated students to take college courses, those who thrive at the public trough are once again screaming about the presumed unfairness of it all.
Doug Pratt of the Michigan Education Association (a union), complains, "Now we're going to put in a program that takes money away from neighborhood schools and provides it to help fund the college tuition of private-school and home-school students? It doesn't make sense." The local private schools aren't neighborhood schools, sir? The home schooled are not part of the neighborhood, sir? Hubris on your part, my friend. Hubris.
There is no such thing as public money, Mr. Pratt. It is my money and your money pooled (or worse: taken from the unwilling because a few more people want it done than don't) for the general interest. If the public education of children is in the general interest, then so is the privately taught and the home schooled. Why should your kids qualify for what is unarguably my money too while ours can't? Merely because they don't attend the right schools (that is, the schools which pay your teachers, and your teachers only?).
That is effrontery, and nothing less. You don't have the right to our cash, Mr. Pratt, and also the universal and arbitrary right to decide how it's spent. Yet he continues as if he does anyway, whining that it's just leading to back door vouchers which public opinion (he says) does not support. So, might makes right, Mr. Pratt? If enough people vote for something, anything, mind you, then real and actual right and wrong are out the window? Is that it? Because it sure sounds like it.
Public schools, and public school workers, attendees, supporters, and employees, need to seriously examine their motives. Theirs is a special interest, and nothing more, if they and only they have a claim to government funds (or, more correctly, funds redistributed by government). We say it that way, as too many conservatives have lost sight of conservatism on this very real moral issue. Public education is not an inviolate right. Education is a personal and parental responsibility first and foremost. To deny the same things public school students may qualify for to private and home schooled pupils solely because they are not public is insulting to non public school parents and students. They pay taxes too. It's their money as much as yours.
Doug Pratt of the Michigan Education Association (a union), complains, "Now we're going to put in a program that takes money away from neighborhood schools and provides it to help fund the college tuition of private-school and home-school students? It doesn't make sense." The local private schools aren't neighborhood schools, sir? The home schooled are not part of the neighborhood, sir? Hubris on your part, my friend. Hubris.
There is no such thing as public money, Mr. Pratt. It is my money and your money pooled (or worse: taken from the unwilling because a few more people want it done than don't) for the general interest. If the public education of children is in the general interest, then so is the privately taught and the home schooled. Why should your kids qualify for what is unarguably my money too while ours can't? Merely because they don't attend the right schools (that is, the schools which pay your teachers, and your teachers only?).
That is effrontery, and nothing less. You don't have the right to our cash, Mr. Pratt, and also the universal and arbitrary right to decide how it's spent. Yet he continues as if he does anyway, whining that it's just leading to back door vouchers which public opinion (he says) does not support. So, might makes right, Mr. Pratt? If enough people vote for something, anything, mind you, then real and actual right and wrong are out the window? Is that it? Because it sure sounds like it.
Public schools, and public school workers, attendees, supporters, and employees, need to seriously examine their motives. Theirs is a special interest, and nothing more, if they and only they have a claim to government funds (or, more correctly, funds redistributed by government). We say it that way, as too many conservatives have lost sight of conservatism on this very real moral issue. Public education is not an inviolate right. Education is a personal and parental responsibility first and foremost. To deny the same things public school students may qualify for to private and home schooled pupils solely because they are not public is insulting to non public school parents and students. They pay taxes too. It's their money as much as yours.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
You Can't Have What You Don't Want
Captain Ryan Jean of the US Army wants recognition of himself as a humanist lay leader. He, along with a few other soldiers, want essentially the same status as religious leaders of Christianity, Judaism and Islam have in the military. He wants the same rank (please forgive the pun) as his religious brethren.
So, then, is atheism a religion? We asked that question months ago in this very space and were harangued by atheists who asserted that atheism is not a religion. If it's not, then it doesn't merit recognition by the military or anyone else as equal to religion. If it is, then the various commenters way back when owe us a deeper explanation of what exactly atheism pretends to be.
The fact is that the idea of a humanist lay leader is without merit on its very face. Indeed, Capt. Jean's own words work against his cause and display it as pointless. When asked whether life had a long lasting purpose, he answered no. Still, he wants to be able to see to the spiritual needs of atheist soldiers.
What spiritual need could he possibly be addressing? According to atheists, you're born, you live for a time, then you die. You come into then go out of existence. What is there to live for? What kind of counseling can have any real value in that light? Particularly when you are in the military, it is fair to ask what are you fighting for? So that you might die that others might live? Why are those other lives worth defending? Simply because they're life? But they are just like you, brother atheist: worthless people with no long term value. Protecting them or their ideals is little more than silliness coming from a true atheist viewpoint. Arguing that they or their ideals are worth protection, worth fighting and dying for, is meaningless if there is no eternal merit in those people or their beliefs.
Just as your own beliefs, atheist friends, are pointless and meaningless if you are right. How can you counsel a soldier, how can you inspire him or her to fight the good fight, Capt. Jean, when the first thing you must tell them if you're being true to your creed is that their efforts are without merit? That's more than simply lame counsel. It's self contradictory nonsense.
The Army once had a slogan, Be all that you can be. Applied to atheists, that's all they are. They are nothing more, and nothing less, than delusional if they believe their ideas worth fighting for.
So, then, is atheism a religion? We asked that question months ago in this very space and were harangued by atheists who asserted that atheism is not a religion. If it's not, then it doesn't merit recognition by the military or anyone else as equal to religion. If it is, then the various commenters way back when owe us a deeper explanation of what exactly atheism pretends to be.
The fact is that the idea of a humanist lay leader is without merit on its very face. Indeed, Capt. Jean's own words work against his cause and display it as pointless. When asked whether life had a long lasting purpose, he answered no. Still, he wants to be able to see to the spiritual needs of atheist soldiers.
What spiritual need could he possibly be addressing? According to atheists, you're born, you live for a time, then you die. You come into then go out of existence. What is there to live for? What kind of counseling can have any real value in that light? Particularly when you are in the military, it is fair to ask what are you fighting for? So that you might die that others might live? Why are those other lives worth defending? Simply because they're life? But they are just like you, brother atheist: worthless people with no long term value. Protecting them or their ideals is little more than silliness coming from a true atheist viewpoint. Arguing that they or their ideals are worth protection, worth fighting and dying for, is meaningless if there is no eternal merit in those people or their beliefs.
Just as your own beliefs, atheist friends, are pointless and meaningless if you are right. How can you counsel a soldier, how can you inspire him or her to fight the good fight, Capt. Jean, when the first thing you must tell them if you're being true to your creed is that their efforts are without merit? That's more than simply lame counsel. It's self contradictory nonsense.
The Army once had a slogan, Be all that you can be. Applied to atheists, that's all they are. They are nothing more, and nothing less, than delusional if they believe their ideas worth fighting for.
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Examine Your Own Creed Before Judging Others
The issue of tolerance, or, perhaps, intolerance, has been brought to Detroit. At Ford Field, a prayer gathering has called for Detroit and indeed the entire United States to turn Jesus or else we're doomed.
That sentiment itself is of course quite true. But the manner in which it is often presented can and should be subject to question. As such, it explains the diverse peoples outside of Ford Field who protest the particular manner in which the group, the New Apostolic Reformation, and its leader Lou Engle, are representing the cause of Christ.
The NAR is accused of being racist, sexist, anti-gay rights, anti-Catholic, anti-Muslim, and intolerant. We see no need to go into the details of their harangues. You can probably imagine them well enough and they're likely as not all over the Internet anyway. However that may be, theirs is an organization which, other than on free speech grounds, it would be difficult to defend.
But the people against them must be aware of themselves and what they may stand for as well. One common lament against Mr. Engle and his followers is that they are not for 'inclusion' but hate. They do not promote tolerance, but hate.
Well, are the protesters really practicing inclusion and tolerance themselves? Do they, by simple argument, hate what was and is going on inside Ford Field? Otherwise, why not include and tolerate the New Apostolic Reformation? Ah, because the sign carriers are for inclusion and tolerance of the people and creeds they like. So they protest, many of them never questioning whether their heads are on straight either.
We are not defending Lou Engle or the NAR in any way, shape or form. Yet we cannot escape the feeling that many of those who speak against him speak with forked tongue themselves. They're for tolerance and inclusion...of what they like. But as for Engle and Company, they would not tolerate or include.
The point here is that we can and must judge the actions and intentions of people if we are to understand the world and really make it better. This must mean the tolerance and inclusion of certain ideas and ways as well as the intolerance and exclusion of ideas and attitudes contradictory to human good. Protests against bigots are all well and good when we are actually dealing with knee jerk and intellectually shallow bigots. But notice that that involves the judgment that such persons are wrong in their ways.
It also implies that we may judge your ways. And if you don't allow it, it you refuse to let others tend rational judgments about your ways and your means, then you are no different than those you refuse to tolerate. You may indeed be worse. You may be self centered and self aggrandizing bigots of the worst kind. You may be hypocrites.
That sentiment itself is of course quite true. But the manner in which it is often presented can and should be subject to question. As such, it explains the diverse peoples outside of Ford Field who protest the particular manner in which the group, the New Apostolic Reformation, and its leader Lou Engle, are representing the cause of Christ.
The NAR is accused of being racist, sexist, anti-gay rights, anti-Catholic, anti-Muslim, and intolerant. We see no need to go into the details of their harangues. You can probably imagine them well enough and they're likely as not all over the Internet anyway. However that may be, theirs is an organization which, other than on free speech grounds, it would be difficult to defend.
But the people against them must be aware of themselves and what they may stand for as well. One common lament against Mr. Engle and his followers is that they are not for 'inclusion' but hate. They do not promote tolerance, but hate.
Well, are the protesters really practicing inclusion and tolerance themselves? Do they, by simple argument, hate what was and is going on inside Ford Field? Otherwise, why not include and tolerate the New Apostolic Reformation? Ah, because the sign carriers are for inclusion and tolerance of the people and creeds they like. So they protest, many of them never questioning whether their heads are on straight either.
We are not defending Lou Engle or the NAR in any way, shape or form. Yet we cannot escape the feeling that many of those who speak against him speak with forked tongue themselves. They're for tolerance and inclusion...of what they like. But as for Engle and Company, they would not tolerate or include.
The point here is that we can and must judge the actions and intentions of people if we are to understand the world and really make it better. This must mean the tolerance and inclusion of certain ideas and ways as well as the intolerance and exclusion of ideas and attitudes contradictory to human good. Protests against bigots are all well and good when we are actually dealing with knee jerk and intellectually shallow bigots. But notice that that involves the judgment that such persons are wrong in their ways.
It also implies that we may judge your ways. And if you don't allow it, it you refuse to let others tend rational judgments about your ways and your means, then you are no different than those you refuse to tolerate. You may indeed be worse. You may be self centered and self aggrandizing bigots of the worst kind. You may be hypocrites.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
