A Churchillian Fortitude

 

Sir Winston Churchill by webcarve
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Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

Sir Winston Churchill, Speech in November 1942

William Rivers Pitt is having trouble finding a sense of measurable accomplishment after ten years of hard work in the front lines. I empathize and concur, to a degree. He starts out thus:

t r u t h o u t | Go:

"I've been writing about unbelievably bad news for more than a decade now, so when the New Year came around this time, I made up my mind to try and come up with something to write about that was optimistic, positive, more upbeat, or something."

But in the end he finally comes to this conclusion:

The Left has done some truly amazing things in the last ten years, things that took great effort, concentration, passion and will. The need for those qualities did not evaporate with the election of the "good guys." Indeed, those qualities are needed more than ever before.

In passing, he noted:

The Left has a reputation, partially deserved, for being a motley collection of scatterbrained, cause-of-the-week, ego junkies who never really get anything done. But I saw what the Left was able to do when confronted with the criminal ambitions of the Bush administration, and it didn't stop after the war got going. Groups sprung up in every corner of the country and kept the heat on until they made a difference. Whatever one may think about the Democratic Party today, there is no doubt the fortunes of that party were turned in 2006 and 2008 because of the tireless efforts of millions of people to push popular opinion and understanding away from the yawning precipice of national neoconservatism.

 Mr. Pitt, no movement of any sort has ever succeeded by internalizing the labels their enemies give them. I would say, further, that the spontanious, individually directed, cause-oriented and - yes - ego-driven activists, all loosely networked in spontainous communities, each understanding that such alliances are defined by the task at hand, and NOT definitive of some overarching "cause" they must ascribe to in order to be "permitted" the "privilidge" of joining a march, stuffing envelopes or writing a blog is precisely what has carried this day.

Sir, if you are a pessimist, I'm the greater one. And the fight has been longer and bloodier and more discouraging than you care to define. Personally, I mark the beginning of it with the election of Ronald Regan. And from that point, all that has happened has been pretty much what I expected, save not quite so immediately catastrophically as I had expected.

And this has been due to some very damn skillful guerrilla action, which would have certainly have been defeated had the counter-moves been expected.

Let us speak for a moment of the entire concept of asymmetrical warfare. The goal is not to "win" - it is to delay, to disrupt, to disaffect - to give the enemy time and space and conditions under which they will generate their own failure. It really is about "hearts and minds," folks. And the greatest part of the battle is getting the enemy to show their true selves, their genuine feelings and ultimate motivations.

It's been alleged that Ronald Regan was secretly a member of the John Birch Society. It's one of those easy allegations that is probably not in the least true - but it's also quite beside the point, because he certainly acted in ways and in collaboration with people who shared the core understandings and furthered the goals of the John Birch Society.

And we must also observe that there has been a concerted effort - from the eighties on - to place "stealth zealots" into public office, where they will vote and act in accordance to Dominionst Evangelical principles, without the slightest regard to the the goals they claim to be working toward. And we all know what this led to; the sort of preference for idiological purity over professional competence that gave us the Iraq war as it was and the aftermath of Katrina as it still is.

So, we have been fighting a guerrilla war against covert warriors - a covert mirror of the overt proxy wars fought in places such as Nicaragua and Columbia - where the real goal was not the liberation or freedom of the people, but who would control them in the name of what ideology. And gradually, one of the emergent prizes of the battle, a great and largely unrecognized victory, is that the "right" to control other people is not just something to be contensted, but is an idea that absolutely must be contested in it's own right. For when it's a fight between the left hand and the right hand, everyone in the middle gets screwed.

It's not just because the Right is wrong about having such a right - it's utterly wrong in asserting that it's even possible, and that the difference in outcome between what it's stated and sincerely held principles suggest and the outcomes that happen every time they are applied to a protesting population attests without exception - people do as they will, and at the very best, can be persuaded at great expense and pain to visibly conform in public, while quite likely doing something else in private that ultamately leads to far greater ills than those supposedly "cured" by whatever simplistic moralistic wild hair was induldged upon us.

I might easily cite Prohibition, a folly of the Left. Or arguably, the folly of The Great Society and the lunar landscapes and Stalinist Modern Projects left in it's wake. Oh, but their intentions were so noble!

Then there's the whole issue of Reproductive Choice, or the unanticipated fallout of "Abstinence Only" education, which has not affected teen pregnancy but has substantially contributed to the rise in sexually transmitted disease. 

But these bad outcomes are dismissed as being unimportant, the results of sins, an acceptable cost of upholding some nebulous and indefinable "principle."Apparently the Left in North America has learned it's lesson, that you can't force people to behave in ways they won't, even if it is for their own good - which it probably isn't.

The strength - or at least the great blessing - of the modern "Left" is that there IS no single defining ideology, and therefore the only thing that may unite "the left" is an agreement about particular circumstances, particular facts and particular problems that demand at the very least the cessation of old policies and perhaps some new, more pragmatic ones. The issue of Marajuana and the outcome of the whole Drug War is one conspicuous example illustrating some very strange bedfellows, from old and very Liberal hippies to Randian Libertarians to law enforcement professionals.

One thing is for sure, when you see old Communists putting aside their sectarian issues and marching together with Anarchists (their natural enemies) in concert with Liberal Christians, Union Activists, militant athiests, feminists, pro-choicers and environmental activists - people with extraordinarily divergent views and priorities - you can be reasonably certain that what they each see as being a problem from their various perspectives is INDEED a problem, and anyone who lumps them all together as "libtards" is not just ignorant of the issue, but is in fact likely some personification of the issue - or profiting from it.

Needless to say, the only way any large group of opposition to issues of the day can coelece and persist in the face of reality is by focusing on one particular commonality, while accepting as a given that some will be on the other side of the line on other issues, and that diversity is to be celebrated, rather than demonized.

And it's empowered by the Internet, which I think can be stated as being, arguably, on the front line of disorganized dissent and unlikely alliances since it's very inception and spread through Government and those bastions of Godless Liberalism - Universities.

A person who understands this has no difficulty with the ACLU or the Annenburg Foundation's Factcheck.org - but on the neoconservative/Dominionist Right - all must agree about everything, or they are apostates, while none within the tent may be criticised at all (save when they are cast into the Outer Darkeness.)

Now, one thing Mr. Pitt may or may not have noticed, but the opposition to a centrist consensus about certain "litmus test" issues held dear by the Right has become increasingly unhinged, it's arguments increasingly paranoid, it's reliance on conspiracy theory and outright lies becoming it's primary mode, it's online and print proponents becoming less and less capable of coherent argument. This is also a victory. You see, it is, as I said above, a war for the hearts and minds of people - in the United States, of course, but indeed within the Americas and the world as a whole.

And in the United States, we are now beginning to see the contents of the hearts and the quality of the minds shrieking that we must all comply with their paranoid and infintile dribblings.

Please Don't Call Me "Liberal" T-Shirt by webcarve
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There's yet much to be done - but one by one by one, we must take back the organizations and structures that they have polluted, the school boards, the charities, the political organizations, the precincts - and I don't just mean "along partisan lines." They need to be taken away from the crazy people, by sane people of all political and religious persuasions.

From what I see out there, from the near absence of intelligable voices from the Right - when it used to be the core of political intellect, councelling against emotionalism and populism as the greatest enemies of democratic representative republics - there are a whole lot of utterly disgusted Conservatives trying to pretend it will all go away.

Well, it won't. Not without your help, ladies and gentlemen. And if you fear being called a Liberal or a "RINO" for your stances - remember, you are being called that by people capable of calling Obama a Communist and a Nazi in the same paragraph. What they really mean is "poopy-head," and all it shows is that they are simply not capable of behaving as functional, responsible adults in public places.

Sir Winston Churchill by webcarve

Creepiest Search Engine Hit so far.

Apr 6

06:42:53 PM

www.google.com

downloadable purity ball invitations

2006_04_16_archive.html

EWWW! Have I not made my position known? I hope they got an eyeful.

Open question for the putative peanut gallery: I can make one on Zazzle. Should I? A really, really creepy one, with a picture of Jonbenet Ramsey?

Graphictruth makes the front page of Forbes.com

There it is, at the bottom, with it's Graphictruth style titling, my post about the significance of The Pickens Plan and the economic foolishness of staying wedded to a petroleum economy.

This isn't actually the first time Forbe's scrapers have found one of my stories, it's merely the first time it struck me how significant it is. Consider the odds, under ordinary circumstances, of anyone who would read Forbes magazine stumbling across anything I'd ever write.

Now, it's still up to me to "make the sale," to have a story that is significant and worth reading that's actually relevant to the keywords that Forbes seeks out. As it happens, the piece I wrote is relevant - and written from a perspective that I hope appeals to a broad spectrum of people that are genuinely Conservative in their approach to life and economics.

And it points out that the world wide web is a broad net that is the ultimate antitude to "common wisdoms" that can exist only when we religiously avoid exposure to ideas of unapproved origins. I assure you, no social conservative nor Neoconservative would approve of me in any sense I have the slightest ability to change.

It's the ETHICS, Stupid! by webcarve

There are many principles of genuine Conservatism that I strongly adhere to; prudence, fiscal conservatism and a well-developed sense that stench and smoke points to waste that is polluting the commons - waste which could be transformed into wealth by someone with the wit to do so, instead of corrupting some pliable elected idiot to permit the waste to continue.

Don't tell me it's "the smell of money" or that it's ok because it's "always been that way." It ain't, neither one.

Real conservatives are not wedded to the status quo when it's a mere historical hiccup, dating as it does from the acendency of Thatcherism and Reaganomics or even the Industrial Revolution; real conservatism is about the conservation of real wealth, things, ideals and structures of provable and enduring value on all levels, from the entirely personal to the global, by means of robust, traditional wisdom that has been proven over long stretches of history with wide variations of circumstance.

Furthermore, ever time new understandings evolve from application of wisdom to reality, the practical Conservative adds to the body of wisdom, while the ideologue contrives elaborate excuses for failure in practice.

Why? Well, Society and culture is built upon ideas and ideals that once were seen to be astonishing, radical, offensive - things that very much argued against the common wisdom of the day and have yet come to be understood to be expressing some aspect of fundamental, practical truth. John Donne was speaking such a visceral truth to entrenched powers when he wrote this immortal poem, capturing in very few words the importance of a wider vision of wealth in context.

For Whom The Bell Tolls

John Donne

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own
Or of thine friend’s were.
Each man’s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

The true Conservative does not oppose liberalism, or even radicalism. The true Conservative applauds them - from a prudent distance. The difference was summed up for me today on Mythbusters, when Adam observed to Jaime: "You know the difference between us and 14 year old pyromaniacs?" To answer that, he raps upon the acrylic blast shield, one which was probably over engineered by a factor of ten.

It is important to realize that the Neoconservatives and Social Conservatives are not new, not at all conservative and have very little faith in society. Worst of all, they prefer faith in their theories to the degree that they try them out without any sensible precautions in place.

Well, to quote a practical conservative rhetorical axiom - "And How's That Workin' Out For You?"

Let's look at that.

A culture that has a large number of very rich people may yet be steeped in intellectual, spiritual and even literal poverty, and in that context, money does not actually translate into genuine wealth.

That is to say, the sort of place where the most visible form of status is the ability to expend resources in service to the end of keeping other ring-tailed sonsofbitches like yourself taking it away from you is not wealthy or much of a society, not if you cannot translate cash into comfort and personal security at a reasonable rate of exchange.

Consider what sort of practical, personal liberties even the richest person has in countries with greater divides between rich and poor in nations like, oh, Bangladesh or Pakistan. Consider the practical risks and rewards of being of the "privileged" class in Mexico and Central America, where some significant proportion of your assets must be diverted toward not being kidnapped or murdered. Consider the consequential issues of living in nations where every interaction with a government official - from the highest to the lowest - must be lubricated with a bribe. Consider the practical difficulties in getting anything done in nations where even building codes are regarded as optional, because all laws are seen by the average persons as existing primarily as a means of extortion, and not there to promote an inherent good - like not taking a sledge-hammer to a load-bearing wall.

It is certainly an indicator of status to be in a position to afford a combat-trained driver capable of taking you safely from A to B in your electrified armored and flame-thrower equipped SUV. It definitely is a "shiny thing" - until you realize the implications of being told by your insurance agent that you absolutely MUST have such a thing and use it faithfully in order for them to insure your life and safety at all. In this light, consider that gout was also once an indicator of social status.

Meditate upon that thought for a moment. If you don't come out with a prolonged mental expletive, I'll be stunned.

Now consider all the very smart and skilled people involved in various aspects of security and personal protection that could be doing something else that actually contributed to the economy in a positive sense, and you start realizing that not only is that tax on wealth very high indeed, it's also regressive as all hell. It manages to penalize poverty and poor people (after all, they are the most likely to want to steal your stuff) even more than it taxes wealth. We see a very high costs arising when large segments of society cannot afford to rationally trust one another.

When one factors in the consequential stress and limitations on liberty with the direct out of pocket costs, they amount to extraordinarily high taxes on wealth.

Frankly, one wonders how many people capable of generating large piles of wealth choose to use that skill to the end of relocating themselves and their families elsewhere. When even the dirt-poor are bailing on your society, trying to find some place, any place where they can have some hope of building real, generational wealth - clearly there is a need to address the real issues, for ordinarily, people will put up with adverse circumstances rather than rupture the bonds of family and place.

While these societies and governments are arguably much to blame for many of the structural and social problems that lead to these issues and unarguably responsible for the situation by definition, the Neoconservative movement, which has gained control of the banking and finance system for the world has acted in ways that have made the situation very much worse. They have done this as a matter of ideological policy that, in order to exist at all, must absolutely discount the significance of human suffering, or at least see it as a measure of some perverted success. Consider how much suffering has been inflicted in the name of this vision upon the world in just the last eight years.

I think of this as wrong - actually, I prefer the term "evil" when the attitude is expressed by one individual in regard to another. But that is an moral and ethical opinion - and we need not consider that when we have far too many stinking piles of effect that point straight back to that ideology as causative agent.

Neoconservatism has severely undermined the social structures that make it generally unacceptable to shoot people and take their stuff, and have done it with very little distance between cause and effect in a very short period of historical time. If it's acceptable to shoot people and take their stuff, the advantage of shooting rich people becomes obvious. They have better stuff and more of it. If they won't tell you where their stuff is - you can crush the testicles of their firstborn in order to change their minds. The precedent has been set. The example has been made and said to be good.

If it is acceptable in the name of an abstract good, such as patriotism or National Security, it's surely acceptable if you, personally, are hungry and unable to feed your own children.

History is littered with the remains of those who governed by such example. They do make interesting history, but as any historian will tell you, the less interesting history there is, the better off people were at the time.

The key to opening a new chapter of history is contained in the negative example of Mexico City, the positive and venerable advice of John Donne and the happy accident in which Forbes's algorithm stumbled across my own iconoclastic view of energy policy.

I'm not claiming any particularly original vision or revolutionary philosophy. On the contrary. I do tend to find things in diverse-seeming places and assemble them in unusual ways - an artifact of unusual brain wiring that, along with the fallout of somewhat-well-meaning abuse intended to turn me into a "productive citizen" would under ordinary circumstances make what I thought about anything irrelevant to anyone who matters.

And yet, through no fault or virtue of my own - there is what I wrote on Forbes.com. Not because of who I am, but because of what I know and what I said. Something that was considered to have a high probability of relevance to anyone interested in investing in petroleum infrastructure.

Now, here's the profit to me that someone takes those ideas and sees a path to a large personal fortune they can found a dynasty upon. If they do it in a way that advantages the other ideas in there, MY idea of wealth is advanced.

But that's beside the interesting point. The interesting point is that the conventional wisdom - as expressed by Neocons and Social Conservatives - is at variance with actual wisdom. I'm not claiming a great deal of personal wisdom, though I hope I'm doing a workmanlike job of expressing it. My only claim to fame in this regard is being widely read and having been exposed to the writing of people considered to be wise over a far wider span of time than is common.

You may attach significant blame for my contrian predilections to the Jesuits who endured me during Ninth Grade, where I infamously applied Occam's Razor to the doctrine of the Virgin birth, exactly as I was taught by the man who had taught me to use Occam's Razor - and who was trying to teach me the foundation of this great mystery of faith.

"Surely, Fr. Kieran," I said, "there must be a more plausible explanation?"

It is somewhat disturbing that I got an A in both courses. And a recruitment offer.

I was gifted during that year with a fine appreciation for the practical value of a faith that is unashamed of ruthless contact with reality and which celebrates many extremely practical outcomes over a long period of time - and which also is willing to embrace and record an equally long litany of error, so that those errors may inform both faith and reason.

We cannot afford to tolerate leaders who hold other people in contempt, that see humanity in general as irredeemably evil, in need of harsh punishments and severe restrictions upon their choices and liberties.

I state that not merely from a position grounded in ethics, but from a deeply practical point of view. Real wealth seems to explode when placed in the presence of practical and economic freedom. Wherever and whenever the heavy hand of social conservatives is lifted, by whatever means, civilizations grow, become more civilized, advance rapidly and make great piles of stuff worth having and remarkable public places people wish to be. Why is this true?

Well, at bottom, it's an extraordinary simple insight, one I would think would be far more obvious to far more people. Civilization and all the things that make it possible - government, the money supply, various churches, charities associations and groups - are all trust networks, and they all work in much the same way. What they do is make it more possible for people to engage in economic and social transactions by reducing the risk of having trusted unwisely.

The foundational assumption of Social Conservatism in Western culture, and it's intellectual fathers; Augustine, Calvin and the Apostle Paul, is that nobody can be trusted without the direct intervention of Authority operating with the direct and unquestionable mandate of God.

We have spent the last thirty years or so in which that view of human nature has become increasingly dominant, in no small part to the rise of the Evangelical and Reconstructionist brands of "Christianity."

It has reached the point where people are being educated in business and law with that as a foundational premise - that really, nobody cannot be trusted, that all persons are inherently corrupt without direct and ongoing spiritual intervention of the specific brand one is currently addicted to.

The ONLY way in which this assumption about the inherent corrupt nature of humanity could possibly work is if we could develop an infallible, objective test for the "baptism of the Holy Spirit" and some objective theory as to how that changes the human dynamic. In the absence of such a test, the advantage always goes to the best liar in the room. Consider how many people still consider George Bush to be a "good Christian," in the very teeth of the Blindingly Obvious.

Matthew 7:18-20 (New International Version)

¹⁸A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. ¹⁹Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. ²⁰Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.

It's difficult for me to understand how common sense that blatant has to be accorded divine inerrance to be taken seriously. It's even more astonishment that, when given that level of "pay attention, this is God talking" how little practical application we see it being given by so-called Christians.

It's not difficult to see how human nature works in this environment. Rather than advantaging the most honest person, it leverages the sociopath, for the absolutely most reliable path to power is the willingness to say, Trust Me, since I'm blessed by Authority to be an Exception to this flaw. Oh, and, since you are inherently corrupt, you must of course distrust your gut when it tells you to distrust me.

This circularity of unreasoning conformity to an authority that accepts it's own untrustworthy nature as inherent to it's own core ideology is best visualized by walking into the bathroom and flushing the toilet. If you like, you can empty your wallet into the bowl first to underline the profit you may expect from participating in that system without absolute control over it. You will be exploited to the exact degree that you rely on this counterfeit trust network. What point is there in participating in a trust network that cannot be trusted?

Any economic or social philosophy that would argue that paying higher taxes in exchange for smaller personal and social benefits is obvious lunacy. This is, nonetheless, exactly the effective outcome of NeoConservative economic philosopy. The proof is in the pudding, as it were.

There can only be a very few Pat Robinsons and Bernie Maddoffs, and the social conservatism of each relys far more upon the philosophy of P.T. Barnum than Jesus of Nazereth.

Like tax cuts? Let's eliminate the Morality Tax.

I once boggled my somewhat socially conservative doctor that a "tax" could be defined as any cost that you were forced to bear that was an unavoidable cost of doing business.

It didn't matter if you paid it to the government or not, or if it was the result of law, regulation, or simply "common practice." Anything that was the unavoidable predicate of doing business - such as overhead costs of recovering from ten or fifteen different insurance programs, which for one family doctor, require a staff of five clerks - was a tax upon your resources, your time and your liberty.

Of course, all human societies are based on exchanges of this nature. We can, however, calculate the cost/benefit ratios with the application of computers and common sense and come up with an assessment as to whether a tax is fair.

Fair and reasonable taxation brings you as much or more benefit than you could otherwise get - or brings you benefits you could not reasonably get at any price as an individual. For instance, while rich people may complain that they are taxed at a higher rate than poor people, they benefit disproportionately from social stability and low crime rates. When Willie Sutton was asked why he robbed banks, he famously replied, "That's where the money is." So high levels of crime can be seen as a regressive tax upon wealth, and they are extorted in terms of direct insurance costs, security systems, the requirement for personal security and gated communities and other fairly direct costs. This is aside from the direct human impacts of having one's liberty very severely restricted. Regressive taxes are unfair, and need to be rationally addressed.

A fair tax is one that is as low as possible in order to achieve the desired effect with as few consequential costs as possible. So one of the first principles is to not simply throw money away on things that bring no concrete, provable, positive benefit. To the extent that tax dollars go to such efforts, those taxes ARE manifestly unfair.

Unfair taxes impose costs that negatively impact your life or restrict otherwise legal choices without proof of overriding benefit. The latter sort of tax is the sort that breeds resentment and evasion, generates contempt for the law, creates black markets where none existed and spreads cynicism and corruption throughout structures that absolutely rely on high levels of personal integrity in order to function; the offices of the court and law enforcement.

The problem becomes more complex when a tax is not even seen to be a tax, compounded when the benefit - or supposed benefit - advantages one group while imposing costs diffusely, or worse yet, disproportionately imposes costs on an entirely different group of people.

I was talking about single-payer health care to my doctor, who reflexively resisted the idea until I pointed out just how much it would simplify his life and reduce his overhead. I pointed out that doctors in Canada maintaining roughly the same level of patient traffic might have one person on staff, or perhaps at most two, and someone starting out could establish a practice with one person on a part-time basis. In many ways, an inflexible adherence to an ideological viewpoint blinds us to costs that a more pragmatic vision might well sharply reduce, or even eliminate.

The idea applies to drug policy as well, and the more you hate the idea of paying money to support people who "don't deserve it," the more outraged you should be.

One of the more rational arguments against marijuana is that people that use it "will never amount to anything." Now, this is an opinion based on not much at all - I mean, I think we all would like to have the slacker record sported by that notorious pothead, Willie Nelson. But even if the presumption were actually true, the outcome of throwing casual users - and even growers - into prison for long stretches interrupts their lives and gives them a criminal record - pretty much ensuring the exact outcome promised by anti-drug crusaders, at a cost several orders of magnitude greater than doing absolutely nothing about the problems associated with recreational drug use, or even wide-spread addiction.

Indeed, the costs being what they are, and the punitive attitudes toward addicts being what they are, the current culture of prohibition prevents us from doing anything significantly positive about the real problems associated with drug use - and what small initiatives as do exist, such as needle exchanges, which do have very real and measurable impacts on disease and death are met with horror and often federal interference.

Furthermore, that federal interference seems at times to be driven by assumptions that have no foundation in science, nor respect for trained and certified medical opinion. The record of the DEA in regard to physicians who specialize in pain management is particularly troubling; it speaks to some dogmatic or religious presumption that anyone seeking relief for pain is probably lying, and that any doctor who believes such a story is no doubt a willing co-conspirator. That's an insulting and dysfunctional presumption that, aside from anything else, directly interferes with the responsible provision of health care up to the standards defined by the Hippocratic oath. Why? Well, in order to escape being shut down entirely, doctors are forced to manage pain with drugs that are both less effective and more toxic than opioid drugs.

Underlying this fairly obvious abuse of process is an assumption that, at it's roots, is of purely religious origin, that anyone trying to avoid pain - much less seeking pleasure - is acting against the direct will of God, who metes out suffering to the deserving in order to "teach them a lesson," and that - in it's most pure and insistent form, ANY attempt to relieve suffering is against the will of God.

There is a large plurality of people - including deeply religious, conservative Christians - who would name that attitude as being obviously malicious if not evil, for if anything is, the sanctification of suffering as anything other than an individual decision must obviously lead to the insult of conscience.

It requires the suppression of empathy for others - and leads, more or less directly, for people who see no problem with putting persons using drugs for the relief of pain in prison, claiming "A Greater Good" that somehow would justify individuals perishing in utter agony as an acceptable price.

This then leads us to question what possible benefit might justify that cost, assuming for the moment that it was at all defensible to impose such an obviously unfair tax. Hell, let's say that you reflexively resent the idea of being "forced to pay for welfare" on just the bare assumption that most people on welfare will not be capable or willing to "work hard" and "deserve" your charity. Well, if that is your presumption - and note that I'm not agreeing with it, but if it is what you assume, how can you possibly justify the presumption that you impose what may well amount to a literal "death tax" on a small proportion of the population who happen to need certain drugs in order to alleviate pain? They tend to have much shorter lives, may become suicidal, often become reliant on street drugs - because they cannot alleviate their pain legally - and that in turn leads in statistically certain ways down the social toilet. And you pay for that. Every penny. One way or another. Do you really think that's fair?

Untreated, or under-treated pain interferes with life up to the point of shortening it in a solidly statistical sense. The positive effects of reliable pain management are equally measurable, and they have equally measurable positive economic effects. Now, all of these measurable negative effects, personal, social and economic are supposed to be balanced by - what?

It is a superstitious presumption that people who use certain drugs are evil by definition, that their use is somehow "sinful" and that they deserve to be punished. Social theories are like any other - they should have some proof to be taken seriously; and certainly they should never be implemented as policy before there IS such proof. This particular theory has had the better part of a century to prove itself - but the data is overwhelmingly in favor of the Government getting out of the morality business.

Because that's exactly what it is. Moralism. A presumption that a personal choice to use certain drugs is inherently immoral to such a degree that it's reasonable to simply ignore both evidence, personal experience, science, social costs and consequences in the name of a false and failed moralistic assertion. And by "false and failed," I mean that it is a morality that is obvioiously and provably wrong, that believing and living according to it's stictures does NOT bring any inherent benefit.

But wait, it's even worse. Moralism is a religious presumption, quite alien to the rule of law, it must be rooted out. While there is no one particular church that benefits, it does indeed serve only to increase the social comfort zone and underline with state-imposed sanctions the moral teachings of a wide variety of churches and organizations with moralistic viewpoints. It has much the same effect, in practice, of having established a church.

The proof of the morality pudding should be self-evident. The moral course will tend to have a better outcome than the immoral course IF that morality is founded in an ethical substructure that has contact with reality and human nature, if it's correctly, intelligently and humanely explained.

But social conservatives are utterly terrified at the "chaos" that would ensue if that actually occurred, that if they had the reins of government wrested from their hands, if they were unable to send their fanatical agents of propriety out against the "freaks" and "outliers" that prove that their generational lifestyle choices are not superior by definition, that society would collapse.

Perhaps their social structures would - but as they are the most arrogant of all "Welfare Queens," and as the consequences, even to them is simply the cost of having to cope with being proven wrong, I think a chorus of "tough noogies" is in order.

I very much resent being forced to pay taxes to support the establishment of an effective state religion that claims the right to punish me for disproving their assumptions by example.

Of course, a change of this magnitude will have costs of its own; social and monetary. But everything I know, both from an ethical and pragmatically economic view suggests that those costs will be lower in an absolute sense, while bringing significant economic benefits, so we will actually have the funds to deal with the problems that do arise in a much more effective way.

Balance this against the impact of having to abandon a moralistic world-view that makes predictions about consequences that can only be made to come true by the perversion of law and society. I, personally, think it a small price to pay.

I am unapologetic when I assert that nearly any human action with merely individual consequences that is opposed by a social conservative on principle is worth doing, and the more clearly that opposition comes out of either direct religious belief or negative assumptions about human nature, the more absolutely I feel those assumptions should be gleefully contested. Quite frankly, no human progress, no advance in civilization has ever been accomplished save over the objections - and occasionally, over ramparts of dead bodies - of people wishing to impose a more narrow, more authoritarian and usually religiously justified vision that happens to be immensely satisfying and profitable to them.

That's what's actually so hopeful about our current economic crisis. We literally cannot afford to continue to pay the overhead costs incurred by indulging social conservatives. We cannot afford the prisons, we cannot afford to be the world's training ground for torture techniques that will be used to oppress, deprive and interfere with people who would, on balance, be likely to mind their own business and generate wealth were their views and life-choices viewed with indifference by their governments.

So by all means - let us cut taxes. Radically. Let us restrict government to doing things that are of proven worth and benefit to it's citizens. Let us reject all costly and impertinent efforts toward social engineering, let us eliminate all taxes designed to coerce people to behave in ways that please other people without regard to the harm done to those those direct or indirect impositions impose.

It's time for grownups to behave like grownups and demand the sort of government grownups deserve. Those that cannot handle that degree of personal freedom - well, we have prisons and staff, armed forces and some obvious needs for regimented groups of people with shovels and backhoes. Regulated environments can be arranged for those persons that need them and it can be done in ways that truly does advantage everyone concerned - but only if it's done with the intent to benefit of those who really need it, and not because we think they "deserve" a restriction of their liberties due to dysfunctional behavior, faith, color or socio-economic status.

Sane people reject punitive authoritarianism. There's a good reason for this. It creates a large number of crazy people that sane people are forced to deal with, compensate for, care for, avoid or arm themselves against. And you need no better reason than the purely selfish to support this. The arguments are far more compelling for those who genuinely think human suffering, intolerance, institutional racism and the militarization of a society in service of a war against itself is an insupportable evil. It is. But it's not merely evil. It's also conspicuously stupid; and we cannot afford to pay for stupid.

Liveshirting the Election: No Fishy Whining....

I have been dying to put this shirt up. I should have a post to hang it on, but by this point .... well, if I have to, what hope is there? My hope is, this shirt says everything that needs to be said.

For at least two decades!

No Fishy Whining by webcarve Make Custom Tshirts At www.zazzle.com See more Virtues T-Shirts

Thanks for the Song, Mr. Cohen

It's not the size of your fish... T-Shirt by webcarve Create a Customized Tee Shirt At Zazzle Browse more Religion T-Shirts A brutally truthful reminder that a chrome fish is simply a void - and that void will be filled by something. What that something is depends on who you are and what you choose to do as informed by faith and conscience. Live the words and you won't need to prove anything - or the excuses provided (at a modest price) by the salesmen of chrome fish and glow in the dark Fatimas.

When it seems like trying to talk sense to people simply brings on yet another plague of trolls, when you can honestly say that we are in the midst of a disaster of Biblical proportions, when you open the newspaper and wonder why this is all familiar, only to recall that it's been seemingly badly cribbed from Ezekiel, Daniel, Exodus and Revelations, well, a Cohen has to do what a Cohen is named for doing.

Heck of a tradition to live up to, but there are at least two in this generation. The Former Linked Cohen, Richard Cohen Spake in the New York Times, and lo, it rocketh.

Behold, so it was in the seventh year, and it seemed that America was doubly smitten, from without and within.

And, lo, a strange thing did come to pass. For as surely as the seasons do alternate, so the ruler and party that have brought woe to a nation must give way to others who can lead their people to plenty. How can the weary, flogged ass bear honey and balm and almonds and myrrh?

Yet many Americans believed the exhausted beast could still provide bounty. They did hold that a people called the French was to blame. They did accuse a creation called the United Nations. They did curse the ungodly sophisticates of Gotham and Hollywood and sinful Chicago; and, lo, they proclaimed God was on their side, and carried a gun, and Darwin was bunk, and truth resided in Alaska.

Of course, you might wonder if there could be something pointing to the "or else," the smiting of the self rightious, etc.

Sadly, the problem is not finding examples. It's choosing examples. I finally settled on just this single one, because it exemplifies karma in action, as well as the entertaining idea that angels may indeed walk an undercover beat among us, on karma enforcement detail.

Please don't buy this shirt! (Buy the stickers instead!)

These are the people in your neighborhood T-Shirt
by

webcarve

Make personalized t shirts At Zazzle.com
Browse Satire T-Shirts

HT: Inspired by a post from the Vegas Gleaner, one of them rabble-rousing Lib-a-ruls. Of course he should be on zazzle himself. I mean, just the title alone:

"Billions of Nevadans make pilgrimage to glimpse Divine Prophet"

When I want to punch the stupid out of people, I don't get mad, I get creative. Really. That's why I do it. It really, really gets in the way of making commercial stuff.

Ya see, this shirt basically says that only idiots who like beating up people who disagree with them are actually still stupid enough vote for Palin and McCain.

Let me underline this with the fact that Ron Paul refused to endorse the ticket, and of all people, Paleocon Patrick J. Buchannon has actually endorsed Obama!

If Pat and Ron don't feel room in that big tent - and they are far from alone in that, well, we should look at what's left. Neocons, snake-oil artists and the sort of people that poisoned their own kids because Jim Jones said so.

So, given that these people are not just foolish, but dangerously and stupidly foolish, it doesn't seem like the smart money is on wearing one in public. But, I do have an idea. If a t-shirt is just too damn dangerous to wear in public, it's time to have a little fun with stickers.

The Corn Is Watching
by

webcarve

Design a cheap sticker on zazzle.com
View other Satire Stickers

Get out there and back-slap a few Republicans. You know, ones who don't know where you live.

"Is it so wrong to pray for rain?"

You've seen the video, asking "is it so wrong to pray for rain?"

Focus on the Family guy Stuart Shepard is asking people, in a video he made, to pray for rain on the day Barack Obama gives his speech in Denver during the Democratic National Convention. Shepard, a one-time TV meteorologist according to KOAA, wants it to start raining two minutes before Obama's speech starts, and he wants that rain to be so hard that it will block out network TV coverage so no one will be able to see or hear Obama's speech during the DNC.

Did you happen to pray for an answer to that question? Could be that's why you are here.

Should you be a person of faith who prayed about whether it would be "so wrong" and then, according to the various traditional teachings, turned to Google as a means to let God/ess provide you a clue to what the answer is, well, don't you just LOVE Her sense of humor?

Yeah, I'm messin' witcha. But then, that's pretty much what Prophets of the Lord do. Read your Bible.

Am I CLAIMING to be a prophet of The Lord? Heavens Forfend! I just suspect that from time to time, anything that anyone might say will contain the right nugget of truth, and the more practiced one is in extracting them and the ruder and more conspicuously one points it out, the more likely it is that the right nugget will bonk enough noggins for people to think that.

I disclaim all desire to be seen as a Prophet.

You see, I view being involved in legitimate prophecy as being an occupational hazard, not a spiritual reward or a particular blessing. And being seen as a Bringer Of Truth Worthy of Following would be, to me, a personal nightmare.

But this smug little Pharasee thinks that asking "would it be wrong to pray for rain" insulates him from the moral consequences of him suggesting a course of action that is prohibited to us in the Big Ten.

Whether or not I can be considered a Christian is a matter of some personal debate. But I do take the words of Christ very seriously indeed and I take the Ten Commandments even more seriously; to the point that understanding their essential meaning, the idea behind the prohibition has been a life-long quest.

Some of of them are difficult to figure out, but this one is not difficult at all. You just need a good translation of the Bible and concordance.

Here's the essence of it; "Thou shalt not take the Lord's Name in vain" is not a prohibition against cussin', its a prohibition of throwing curses at people you do not like and trying to give other people the impression that God is lending their aid and approval. He doesn't, She won't, it's in vain - and if you are giving other folks the impression that it is not, YOU are a liar and they are fools.

So the answer to the question, "would it be wrong to pray for rain" in this case, is real clear and real simple. Yes. And so was asking the question in such a way that it is highly likely that you misled others.

God is not mocked, nor does God parse contracts. What part of your own theology do you not comprehend? Omnipotent, omnipresent, knows the contents of your heart, and therefore your intent.

Do you think God is bound by the rules shown on "I Dream of Jeannie?"

No, fella me lad, all lore and tradition points to that sort of tricksy legalistic triangulation being an attribute of the Bad Guys.

So, which God did you say you were prayin' to, again? I don't recall you mentionin' that.

Regular readers may wonder why I'm not loudly mocking this. Well, first, because despite the question being asked in such a coy and deceptive way, it is a fundimantal issue of ethics, and it has an absolutely straightforward answer that can be put in bulletproof biblical terms.

And second, because Jesus's General did it first, better and shorter. (HT, Pam of Pam's House Blend.)

On The Frontlines Of The Culture War: James Hartline Reports Exclusively!!!

James Hartline T-Shirt
by webcarve

Lesbians Terrorize San Diego Community

During Obscene Political Event

As Parents Are Forced To Keep Their Kids

Off The Streets To Protect Them

During The 2008 San Diego Dyke March.

Public Obscenities By Radical Lesbian Group
Spells Doomsday For Family Values
If Same-Sex Marriages Are Not Banned In California.

Warning: This Article Includes Evidence That Contains Graphic Language

Don't we all? Boobies are friendly and warm, soft and cushy.
How could anyone NOT heart Boobies?

Be afwaid, be vewwy vewwy afraid!
Public displays of affection between women might lead to...

James, vhat is zis between you undt your Muzzer?

The James Hartline Report: "Friday, August 08, 2008
National Outrage Over Lesbian March in San Diego
Comments have come flooding in on the report of lesbians marching through a San Diego neighborhood with profanity-filled signs and public displays of immorality.
Here is one of many Comments regarding the Lesbian March Through A San Diego Suburb that has terrified many families with children:

I wanted to see the "comments flooding in" and, to be honest, I wondered if the "profanity filled signs" were funny enough to put on t-shirts. I steeled myself to wade through several pages of the sort of xenophobic crap I'm used to seeing on sites such as this - but I was glad to be disappointed. The comment cited was pretty much the sum total of "the flood" in support. There were a few taking exception, far more politely than he deserved. As the only real support was unsigned, it could easily have come from Hartline himself - and considering his page rank is actually lower than mine, I'd say that's kinda likely.

But nonetheless, I was led to believe that there was much more to this story by this "flood of comments" than there actually was.

"Some gays shoot themselves in the foot once again. In trying to be accepted like regular people wanting to live regular lives, they parade their freaks for all to see...proudly even. These freaks are an embarrassment to those in the homosexual community who just want to live and not bring down anything in order to bring themselves up. So, these freaks will never have my sympathy. They got their attention, now they can kiss the respect that they want goodbye."

Ok, I've seen freaks flying their freak flags in Pride Parades before. I like that sort of thing. Hell, I AM that sort of thing. So, of course, I had to look...

Me, I see a crowd of normal-looking people who happen to be lesbians. They clearly ARE regular people living regular lives - without benefit of clergy. Doesn't seem to have done them any-much harm, either.

Many are parents, and those kids look suspiciously normal, too.

It's about as terrifying, as shocking and as perverted as a puppy stampede.

Perhaps you could have found actual "evidence" of something you could argue to be perverse, but the fact that you THINK you found abundant evidence makes me concerned for you. Truly.

The last thing I think of when I look at the parade is *hot*lesbian*sex*. Frankly, it was more along the lines of "aww, aint' they cute holding hands like that?"

And one person allegedly has a sign that says "I Heart my C*nt". Couldn't find it myself; I am apparently not obsessive enough. But, well, shouldn't she?

I mean, which is better, That Word used in a positive sense, or the fact that you clearly see all these women in the exact way that men like you mean when using That Word and all other references - connoting nasty, evil, vicious, prick-teasing, smelly...

Me, I just see a lot of women. At least one thinks her {(o)} is lovely. I'm sure it is, too. Or at least, I'd never be rude enough to disagree.

But clearly, you see that shaming her her dangerous vice of self-approval (and self-sufficiency, for that matter) as a mandate imposed by your personal faith. I intuit even more about the doctrine of your "faith" when you market this "vile event" as pornography, well, you do it for the same reason that pornographers do. To get the clicks which brings the money.

But, ya know, real porn delivers the full frontal goods. From you, we get a same-sex Hallmark card.

WHERE'S my HOT LESBIAN SEX, James? YOU PROMISED ME HOT LESBIAN SEX that would make the Eyes of The Children Bleed and Change our Families Forever!

Not only were the horses not scared, the ponies didn't even NOTICE!

The families looked just like... ah, I begin to garner a glimmer of your concern!

You'd be much less terrified if they were being conspicuously freaky. And as miserable as you are, you bitter old queen. Yes, I do mock. I do.

On the other hand, the fact that you can even MAKE your face do that while preachin' the Good News tells me that you ain't been mocked NEAR enough!

Nope, when you clearly loathe yourself to the very depths of your withered little soul, who am I to contest your self-assessment? All I do question is your ability to assess others. You know that proverb about "judge not, lest you be judged also?" Well, James, you are the poster boy for that proverb.

Clearly there is a God in Heaven - Because the Athiests Won

You know, I cannot think of a clearer example of the deliberate "establishment of religion" than the clear and obvious attempt to make public compliance with and participation in a Christian prayer a pre-condition of participation in school, school activities, or indeed, within the social matrix of the town itself, a small pimple on the panhandle of Oklahoma.

The behavior you clearly see in the video is of course, unconstitutional, prima facia, and I delight that the matter was taken to court - and on even better grounds than this rather old video clearly shows.

The Smalkowski case attracted national attention after Nicole Smalkowski was kicked off of the girls' basketball team after refusing to stand in a circle with her teammates on the gymnasium floor of the Hardesty public High School and recite the "Lord's Prayer." After school officials learned that she and her family were Atheists, lies were created about her as grounds to take her off of the team.

When her father Chuck discovered conclusively that public school and law enforcement officials had lied to him about his 15 year old daughter, he and Nicole and her mother Nadia went to the home of principal Lloyd Buckley to attempt to discuss the matter with him. Outside of his front fence, the principal struck Chuck, who blocked the blow. Both men fell to the ground and Buckley sustained minor injuries, the provable origins of which were strikingly contrary to his under oath trial testimony. Buckley then took out misdemeanor criminal assault charges against Chuck. After Smalkowski rejected the offer to drop the charges if he and his Atheist family left the state, the charges were raised to a felony. Chuck called American Atheists for help.

Chuck won his day in court - despite the room being packed by people literally praying for his conviction. I presume this is one case where the answer is "What part of 'I am a God of Justice' escaped you all these years?"

The school district will lose and I say that with the unstated but sincere underline - "if there is a God in heaven."

There is a specific reason I say that. And it is a reason that is absolutely critical to persons of all faiths - but most especially to Christians, inasmuch as these points were raised, exemplified and made to be conditions of faith by the example and words of Jesus. In other words, if you think as a Christian paster that what you see here is an example of what "good Christian kids do" than you are are in contention with the words in red and unqualified to lead a Christian church of ANY denomination.

You see, Christians may well dispute the positive meaning or the exact expression of those words in a positive sense - but when one is cheer-leading exactly the sort of thing that sent Jesus himself off on a snorting tirade of righteous indignation - that would be outside the bounds of sectarian variation, or even schism.

Indeed, in Christian theological definition that goes back to the earliest days of the church, one teaching in direct disputation of the direct words of Christ would be...

Oh, I'm sure you know this one. It's on the lips of every odious little thumper out there.

Yep. That's it: "ANTIChrist."

Now I state this, with absolute confidence that I can support it biblically, in depth - but all I really need to do is to point you to a decent concordance and council you to study the concepts of hospitality and to read what Jesus had to say about practitioners of public piety, such as the Pharisees.

But having said that, I'm going to further state that there is a much greater point at issue having nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not whether honest observers should quotes around the word Christian when referring to you.

The point is this - if you have to establish your religion by force and maintain it by indoctrination and immersion, if it cannot sustain itself in the face of one little teen-aged atheist who respects both her moral position and your own enough to not commit an act of dishonest piety for your town's comfort - you don't have a faith. Or rather more to the point, you clearly have no faith in your faith.

So, that would be a Vente Grande of What's the Point with whipped nonsense and bullshit, wouldn't it?

And since it is all that, and you are indeed using force to sustain it against utter collapse in the name of preserving social order and of course the social rank of it's most visibly pious practitioners, it really wouldn't actually be wrong for another church to come to town with a dutiful and militant congregation and practice exactly as you preach?

Would it?

Be careful how you argue against that, for that's pretty much exactly what has happened in many churches, due to leadership from various "Christian" organizations - the takeover of entire parishes by outsiders; takeovers that amount to theft on the order of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Now, an honest person and a good Christian wouldn't want to be seen arguing in favor of theft or covetous behavior. Those things are generally considered to be, what's the word again?

Oh, yes. Sins.

If practiced by the smugly unrepentant, it's rather conventional theology to assume that would be pretty much "go to hell, go directly to hell; do not pass through Purgatory."

But again, compelling as that argument is for both it's instructive and entertainment values, it does not stand particularly well in the public square. Especially when this is not a question of what Christian doctrine one may believe to be superior, or convenient or publicly acceptable, but a far more fundamental one; one critical, as I said, to all our freedoms; the right to hold opinions that many may disagree with.

Including the opinion that there is no god, and your religion is a crock.

I happen to agree with the young lady on the latter point, and tend to assume on the first that whatever God there may be (and I happen to believe there is Someone,) you wouldn't recognize Them if they set your personal bush burning - even though that would be entirely within the realm of the sense of humor associated with the Divine.

Look up "emroods."

But nonetheless, no matter how little regard I hold for the evident quality of your faith, o Citizens of Hardesty, you have the right to it. So long as and only to the extent that you do not use tactics like this to enforce and defend it.

Speaking purely for myself, though, and based on my understanding of ethics and of the Ten Commandments, if I were a Fundamentalist Christian, I would find the fact that Hardesty, Oklahoma has apparently not yet evaporated under a hail of fire and brimstone to be a challenge to my faith.

Fortunately, I am not, and I do not bother my God with such stray thoughts. Though, in all honesty - I must say that it would be far beyond my capacity for charity or tolerance to show much compassion at all should any disaster happen - and as I am an experienced believer in Karma, I 'spect it will. And as tempting as the idea of being able to own such a spread as the Smalkowski's did; I consider living downwind of that much bad juju to be unwise.