We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
The federal government today announced that it is changing its emblem from an American Eagle to an AMERICAN CONDOM because it more accurately reflects the government's political stance. A condom allows for inflation, halts production, destroys the next generation, protects a bunch of pricks, and gives you a sense of security while you're actually getting screwed!
I say that I was surprised at the size and the temperature of the comment on a brief piece that was critical of gun control. I shouldn’t have been. Doubtless gun owners, like everyone else, are motivated by many things. Ditto for those who would outlaw possession of guns. But behind the panoply of motivations there is, I suspect, this fundamental philosophical divide: On the one side are people who see that we live in a free society, understand that freedom is not free—that it can often be quite an expensive quality—and who understand further that preserve freedom requires that individuals stand up for themselves, physically as well as in other ways.
On the other side of the divide are people who see that we live in a free society, who may also understand that freedom is not free—they, too, might admit that it can often be quite an expensive quality—but who wish to cede important parts of that responsibility to the state. The former are likely to be small-government, low-tax supporters of the Second Amendment. The latter are likely to be big government, high-tax critics of the Second Amendment.
I oversimplify, of course, but I believe the distinction I’ve limned here is a real one and one, moreover, that is worth meditating on, not only with respect to the question of gun ownership but, more generally, with respect to what might be the biggest issue facing citizens in Western democratic countries: the increasing concentration of state power and its intrusion into the fabric of everyday life.
The guy like totally gets it, and he writes better than any of us chicken farmers.
Rubber room? Big tension in Hillaryland. As low-life scheming politicians go, I do like Obama - but none of his views. I think Hillary is a liar and a Commie and a closet Fabian.
Time Magazine has carried a torch for Russia since Stalin. Still does.
Vanderleun rates Van Morrison one of the great souls of our time. So do I. I have heard "Brown-Eyed Girl" more than enough times, but not "These are the Days." If you don't know that tune, find it. Read Vanderleun's piece, and listen, if you wish, to this YouTube long version of T.B. Sheets he posted:
Q: "How many feminists does it take to change a lightbulb?" A: "That's not funny."
We believe in good manners and respectful behavior except when it is undeserved, but we also believe in free speech and equal opportunity insults, especially for the purpose of humor, irony, and satire but occasionally to just smack some jerk around when feeling cranky. I am no different from anybody else in this.
From American Thinker, A Quiet Defeat for Political Correctness? It begins:
Maybe this is how political correctness ends; not with a bang, but with a whimper. Across the country, universities that had abandoned in loco parentis in the 1960s because it was too oppressive and intrusive have replaced it with in loco Big Brother programs of political and cultural re-education.
There’s a big fuss at the moment over a list of “no-no words” circulated by an office of the Army. Compiled by someone with expertise in equal opportunity matters, the list purports to be 76 examples of words that simply should not be used in the workplace, as they are hurtful. The email, in fact, has an accompanying PowerPoint titled “WORDS HURT!”
While the majority of the words are ones that would – and should – get your children’s mouths washed out with soap, some are puzzling.
“Colonial,” for instance, is on the list. Ditto “Canuck.” Many are chortling at the evident politically-correct overreach. The list evidently discourages workplace talk about Vancouver’s professional hockey team. Others are predictably angry.
As I said, genteel manners are fine, but "sticks and stones...". Heck, I have had acquaintances call me a Nazi - and I'm not even a Socialist... or of German ancestry. I'm mostly Libertarian. How they get Nazi out of Libertarian is beyond me.
I am periodically reminded that relative newcomers to the blogosphere - of which there happily seem to be many at Maggie's Farm - need to be advised to right-click links that you wish to see, without losing your page.
It's the best use of that right clicker on your mouse: it's certainly why God created mice with two ears.
Where your treasure is, there will also be your heart. Matthew 6:21
Americans are the most giving, generous people in the world. They may hate giving money at gunpoint (taxes), but they take great joy in giving by choice.
If you feel the desire to give either money or time this Christmas, I highly recommend The Salvation Army to you as a worthy recipient.
(Full disclosure: Besides various local charities and my usual membership donations to orgs like the NRA, The Ruffed Grouse Society, and many others, this year I am giving larger checks to The Salvation Army, my prep school, The Nature Conservancy, my church, Ducks Unlimited, World Vision, Doctors Without Borders, and the Marine Corps Scholarship Fund)
Eco-Religion. It's usually not as dramatic as this one-minute video depicts, but I still think it's basically a religion.
K-Mart Shoppers!Holiday Trees? I still do not know why "Christmas" is so offensive to retailers. Is any shopper in the world outside of Saudi Arabia offended by Christmas?
IPC caught manipulating data on sea levels. IBD. Locally subsiding lands, like eroding places, are not examples of sea level rise - and how can sea level rise be local anyway? h/t, Tangled Web
Clear simple explanation of the sub-prime ripple effect. S&M. And how it happened on the ground, at Dino. Is there a grim hysteria in the financial world? Yes. I hear it everywhere I go.
Dems admit that "paygo" was a con game. No kidding!
Somebody told me that they thought Hillary Clinton was a Fabian. I think so. She looks like one.
The horserace. There is something to this at NY Magazine:
...Romney’s entire presidential bid has the feel of a PowerPoint presentation come to life: linear, analytical, bloodless. The game plan that he and his advisers devised was straightforward. First, raise a ton of dough. Second, play the inside game: Court the Beltway Republican Establishment, neutralize the most vocal sources of potential opposition, rack up gold-plated endorsements. On issues, cravenly disregard what Romney once stood for, tailoring his positions to make him minimally acceptable to the three legs of the GOP stool: social, economic, and national-security conservatives. Pour resources into Iowa, win there and in New Hampshire (where Romney retains a pronounced quasi-hometown edge), then roll to the nomination.
Romney would be a fine President, but he is not an inspiring candidate, and people - rightly or wrongly - want to feel inspired. He is like the CEO/Country Club candidate. That's what we need.
Another one from Nashville, on Blair Boulevard. Even though this house is one of the few on the rapidly gentrifying street (a 20s era streetcar suburb) that has not been repaired and renovated, its charm and authenticity are undeniable. For anyone who's thinking about moving to town, this place was just put on the market for $400,000, as is.
A teleology is a basic component of most religions. As I understand it, Darwinian evolution contains no teleology and is based on random variation which "leads" nowhere.
However, even our non-scientific use of the word "evolution" connotes a sense of "progress." Philosophical naturalism cannot speak of progress, or "success" or "need" or "purpose" - only of temporary adaptations and maladaptations to conditions based on accidental genetic events.
As the very lame Wikipedia entry says correctly:
Teleology would argue that a person has eyes because he has the need of eyesight, form follows function, while naturalism is the reverse of this position: it would say that a person has sight simply because he has eyes, or that function follows form (eyesight follows from having eyes).
Auster discusses this in a short piece on the subject (The Intellectual Fraud which is Darwinism). Fact is, people have a tendency to fallaciously (via the pathetic, or anthropomorphic fallacy -or more specifically, personification) apply human notions like intent or direction to a Darwinian world-view which entirely lacks intent or purpose - but which does contain design (as humans comprehend it - eg snowflakes). Thus they impose a religious-like teleology upon a theoretically meaningless, purposeless and indifferent nature. This has no source in Darwin or in modern evolutionary theory, which reject any meaning or purpose in nature.
In fact, the source of the teleology in science is the human desire to impose human notions of purpose on nature.
Now one might argue that the use of animating figures of speech is nothing more that a way of making something dead feel more vivid and compelling - and that may be the case - but I believe that the figures of speech we use reflect how we really think about things.
Tropes, with repetition, aquire a sort of pseudo-substance - a mental substantiality in the absense of reality. This is termed "reification." Reified tropes may be the origins of religious ideas.
In that way, our animation of an indifferent nature with delusions of purpose and direction permits us to extend the notion of evolution to history, society, human activity, and even to the notion of human perfectability - as if "things" were "leading" anywhere: that is closer to religion than to Darwinism.
But is it even possible to talk or think effectively without using figures of speech, without tropes (outside of math and formal logic, which may also be tropes of a different sort)? And is it possible for a human being to not reify some of their tropes, resulting in a religious-like belief or faith in them? ("My raspberries like full sun," "The earth has a fever," "Mankind and society are stumblingly evolving towards better, kinder realities," "Species seek adaptation," and so forth. Doesn't such language form a teleological foundation for a primitive religion? I say "primitive" because based on a "Ghost in the Machine" category error.)
This is long enough, but these sophomoric musings could go on and on. (Mind you, this is written mainly from the standpoint of philosophical naturalism/materialism, as if that were the ground I stand on. It's not. When I hear the Messiah - or even listen to Alicia Keys, I cannot stand on that ground. And that's my point - no-one really can for very long unless they deaden their brain.)
...Hillary and Bill made it clear in 1993 that their goal was use health care to create a huge new middle-class entitlement, thereby positioning the Democratic Party as the purveyor and protector of these middle-class benefits in the same way that (back in the day) the Democratic Party wooed the elderly by being generous with Social Security.
Biofoolishness at Blue Crab. I was about to comment that Rufus will have something to say about this, but I see he has already engaged Gaius in the comments.
Another view on 9-11 and Afghanistan and Iraq at Overcoming Bias:
If the USA had completely ignored the 9/11 attack - just shrugged and rebuilt the building - it would have been better than the real course of history. But that wasn't a political option. Even if anyone privately guessed that the immune response would be more damaging than the disease, American politicians had no career-preserving choice but to walk straight into al Qaeda's trap. Whoever argues for a greater response is a patriot. Whoever dissects a patriotic claim is a traitor.
Initially, there were smarter responses to 9/11 than I had guessed. I saw a Congressperson - I forget who - say in front of the cameras, "We have forgotten that the first purpose of government is not the economy, it is not health care, it is defending the country from attack." That widened my eyes, not so much for agreement, as for that a politician could say something that wasn't an applause light. The emotional shock must have been very great for a Congressperson to say something that... real.
But within two days, the genuine shock faded, and concern-for-image regained total control of the political discourse. Then the spiral of escalation took over completely. Once restraint becomes unspeakable, no matter where the discourse starts out, the level of fury and folly can only rise with time.
Sometimes when I reflect back on all the wine I drink I feel shame. Then I look into the glass and think about the workers in the vineyards and all of their hopes and dreams. If I didn't drink this wine, they might be out of work and their dreams would be shattered. Then I say to myself, 'It is better that I drink this wine and let their dreams come true than be selfish and worry about my liver.
WARNING: The consumption of alcohol may leave you wondering what the hell happened to your bra and panties.
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‘I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they're going to feel all day. ' ~Frank Sinatra
WARNING: The consumption of alcohol may create the illusion that you are tougher, smarter, faster and better looking than most people.
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‘When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading.' ~Henny Youngman
WARNING: The consumption of alcohol may lead you to think people are laughing WITH you.
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‘24 hours in a day, 24 beers in a case. Coincidence? I think not.' ~Stephen Wright
WARNING: The consumption of alcohol may cause you to think you can sing.
Many thanks to Ed Driscoll for finding this highly enjoyable talk by Tom Wolfe at Duke last year, titled "What is Southern Today?" (It's about an hour, but well worth it.) Also, thanks to Ed Driscoll for introducing us to FORA.tv.
Best quote: Young writers are told "Write what you know." OK, but what do you know?
Baby-selling in Guatemala. Even worse, baby factories for the American market. But I ask this: If you're a middle class white suburban American family and adopt a Guatemalan baby, can that kid put "Hispanic" on his college application? And, if so, what does it mean?
The federal government today announced that it is changing its emblem from an American Eagle to an AMERICAN CONDOM because it more accurately reflects the government's political stance. A condom allows for inflation, halts production, destroys the next generation, protects a bunch of pricks, and gives you a sense of security while you're actually getting screwed!
I am periodically reminded that relative newcomers to the blogosphere - of which there happily seem to be many at Maggie's Farm - need to be advised to right-click links that you wish to see, without losing your page. 
Where your treasure is, there will also be your heart. Matthew 6:21
Eco-Religion. It's usually not as dramatic as this 
A teleology is a basic component of most religions. As I understand it, Darwinian evolution contains no teleology and is based on random variation which "leads" nowhere.
Phony: Gore takes train, his 
Heat in a saucepan, almost to boiling, a few cloves, a stick of cinnamon, a whole orange peel, and real, fresh cider.
Baby-selling in