One of the features that distinguished Bolshevism from Tsarism was the insistence of Lenin and his followers on the need for a complete overhaul of society. Old-fashioned despots may modernize in piecemeal fashion if doing so seems necessary to maintain their power, but they do not aim at remaking society on a new model, still less at fashioning a new type of humanity. Communist regimes engaged in mass killing in order to achieve these transformations, and paradoxically it is this essentially totalitarian ambition that has appealed to liberals. Here as elsewhere, the commonplace distinction between utopianism and meliorism is less than fundamental. In its predominant forms, liberalism has been in recent times a version of the religion of humanity, and with rare exceptions – Russell is one of the few that come to mind – liberals have seen the Communist experiment as a hyperbolic expression of their own project of improvement; if the experiment failed, its casualties were incurred for the sake of a progressive cause. To think otherwise – to admit the possibility that the millions who were judged to be less than fully human suffered and died for nothing – would be to question the idea that history is a story of continuing human advance, which for liberals today is an article of faith. That is why, despite all evidence to the contrary, so many of them continue to deny Communism’s clear affinities with Fascism. Blindness to the true nature of Communism is an inability to accept that radical evil can come from the pursuit of progress.
And like “progressive,” “progress” is in the eye of the beholder.
This has implications for space transports. Even during the Shuttle program, we were always trying to figure out how to upgrade to electromechanical actuators, not only to save weight, but to eliminate the Auxiliary Power Unit that drove the hydraulics, whose hypergolic propellants made it a pain to service between flights. Modern vehicles will want to go this route, with the advances in battery and actuator technology, but there will probably be lessons learned from Boeing’s 787 travails.
The policy has been in effect for years in Utah, and there have never been any problems caused by armed teachers. Not a single one.
At Utah public colleges and universities, the same law has applied for years, so that school employees, and students who are least 21 years old, can carry lawfully. That has been the rule at Colorado State University since 2003, at almost all other Colorado public institutions of higher education since 2010, at the final hold-out (the University of Colorado) since early 2012, when CU lost 7-0 in the Colorado Supreme Court. Opponents have raised all sorts of hysterical scenarios (e.g., 18-year-olds bringing Kalashnikov rifles to a kegger; students pulling a gun during a heated debate in a literature class), but of course none of these scenarios have come to pass.
But hysterical and ignorant speculation is all they have.
The position of pro-Second Amendment Americans is that gun ownership is part of the fundamental human right to self-defense, explicitly stated in the Constitution by the Founding Fathers due to an overarching political philosophy regarding the balance of power between the individual and the state.
The position of the anti-gun activists in the Obama administration is “guns are icky.”
The media consider them the intellectuals in this debate.
…Most laughable (and this is no laughing matter, which makes the White House’s position even more angering) is the “stiffened penalties for carrying guns near schools.”
So Joe Biden’s telling me that Lanza, overcome by his mental condition to the point that he’s murdered his mother and is headed to an elementary school on a killing spree, is going to stop 1,000 yards from the playground and think, “Hey — I don’t want Obama to take away my student loan subsidy. I better keep these guns away from school!”
These are the thoughtful, well-reasoned ideas from the Obama brain trust?
The Obama brain trust has always been intellectually bankrupt. And yes, I know the post title is redundant.
