I was at the rally at the federal building in Westwood today, where Bill Whittle gave a stemwinder of a rant against the administration, Democrats and collectivists in general. It will probably be up on Youtube tomorrow. Dennis Prager gave a very thoughtful address as well.
Category Archives: Philosophy
The Libertarian Candidate
Being Immortal
Five reasons that it would suck.
I think it misses the point a little, though. It assumes that only you would be immortal. If everyone was, some of the reasons would go away. But more importantly, the goal isn’t immortality, it’s the ability to live as long as one wants to. I think that when you phrase it that way, none of the objections apply.
That’s Why We’re Here
A casual profundity from Lileks:
The sidewalk due to be replaced had a semicircle cut in one side, because once upon a time there was a stout tree on the boulevard. For decades the semicircle was the only sign the tree had been there at all. Now it’ll be replaced. There’s about a hundred years of history reflected in that process, and as far as the universe is concerned it’s the flutter of a hummingbird’s ventricle. That’s why we’re here: the passing of time has no meaning unless experienced by conscious beings. Better if they have imaginations, too: look at the depth of the cut in the sidewalk. Stout trunk, tall tree. An elm, probably. Whoever lived in that house in ’41 parked under the tree in the afternoon in July so the steering wheel didn’t feel like gripping a steam iron. Dad rued the leaves. The kids loved the smell when he burned them in fall.
“That’s why we’re here.” That’s also why we should go into space, whose vastness similarly has no meaning unless someone is out there to experience it.
A New Kind Of Leftist
So what are we dealing with here? A radical leftist movement pretending to be liberal, growing out of the New Left of the 1960s, painfully aware of how the far left miserably failed in American history, and trying to create a twenty-first century stealth leftism. The first step was to gain hegemony in the key institutions that created ideas, rather than the factories that created material goods. They succeeded brilliantly.
The next step was to shape millions of Americans, especially young Americans, to accept their ideas that the United States was a force for evil in the world, a failed society, a place of terrible racism and hatred for women, and a country where the vast majority didn’t have a fair chance because the system was unfair. In fact, if you take away the varnish rhetoric, they argue that America is a virtual dictatorship of a small minority of wealthy people who just set everything up for their own convenience. Obviously this parallels both Marxist and non-Marxist historical leftism.
The fact that their description of America has so little to do with the actual country makes it all the more impressive that they’ve been able to sell this set of ideas. Having one of their indoctrinated products become president was a special bonus. That doesn’t mean Obama was backed by some conspiracy or singled out for highest office. There are thousands of such people who are in positions of power, including one-third of the Democrats in the House of Representatives. Obama just perfectly fit the needs of the moment.
Let’s hope the moment has changed.
Water On Mars
NASA has to hope that Curiosity doesn’t find any. This is part of a broader issue. People who want to settle Mars had better hope we don’t find life there, or the biologists and greens will be decrying the “genocide” we might cause by contaminating the planet.
How Long Do You Want To Live?
I think that this guy is asking the wrong question. “Forever” isn’t the option, it’s “indefinitely,” or “as long as I want to live.” No one is going to live forever, unless you think we’ll get around the heat death of the universe somehow, and there will always be accidents, regardless of how advanced biomedical technology becomes. But ignoring that issue, given my experience with cryonics, the numbers don’t surprise me at all. Of course, it’s one thing to say you only want to live to be eighty when it’s a theoretical issue, decades from now. A lot of those people change their minds when the time actually approaches.
The Road To Serfdom
The Readers Digest condensed version. No, really.
Maybe even the president could get through that version, though it would probably still make no sense to him.
Paul Ryan, Extremist
Thoughts from George Will on Romney’s pick:
When Ryan said in Norfolk, “We won’t replace our Founding principles, we will reapply them,” he effectively challenged Obama to say what Obama believes, which is: Madison was an extremist in enunciating the principles of limited government — the enumeration and separation of powers. And Jefferson was an extremist in asserting that government exists not to grant rights but to “secure” natural rights that pre-exist government.
Romney’s selection of a running mate was, in method and outcome, presidential. It underscores how little in the last four years merits that adjective.
With a bonus discussion of what Barry Goldwater and Martin Luther King had in common.
The False Dichotomy
Lileks, with some thoughts on evangelistic atheism:
Religion seeks the metaphysical truth to existence, and science explains the physical truth. The former is predicated on accepting the unprovable, and hence science is not its opposite. That’s the part I don’t get: the need to set up science as a contrapositive model. It’s like saying you shouldn’t want to see the Batman movie because the jetstream is dipping south and dragging cold moist Canadian air over the planes. Huh? I want to see Batman. But rain will be falling over most of the Dakotas. Why does that matter? It’s the Batman movie. The rain will be too late for the small grains, but may prepare the soil for next year. I think we’re talking about two different things.
I’ve never understood it, either. Of course, these are the same people who idiotically assume that because I’m skeptical about Warmageddon, that I must be a Christian creationist.