Next step full prohibition… because “we all pay for your unhealthiness.”

http://afp.google.com/…

Pitching his message to Oregon’s environmentally-conscious voters, Obama called on the United States to “lead by example” on global warming, and develop new technologies at home which could be exported to developing countries.

“We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times … and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK,” Obama said.

“That’s not leadership. That’s not going to happen,” he added.

Sounds like more of this green globalization totalitarianism that the far eco-left has been pushing for years. I hear more and more Obama supporters comment that they like the guy but they really don’t know who he is or what he’s about and that worries them. Shouldn’t that be a prerequisite for supporting someone? You shouldn’t be second guessing your vote because you were too lazy to do research on the guy you’re helping put into power yet enthusiastically promoted before hand.

The more Obama opens his mouth the scarier he gets. It pains me to say this but given the reality of the situation… that we will likely have an even larger majority of Democrats in the House and Senate… I’m starting to hope that if one of the top 3 are to win… McCain wins in November just to provide some sort of conflict between the two branches. The two parties and in particular McCain and Hillary are very much alike… but they have to put on a show for those who believe they are in fact quite different. That show may be enough to help minimize the damage done. This in no way means I’d vote for that warmongering idiot. Just speculating.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/…

Rep. Ron Paul of Texas is proud of what he sees as his truly conservative credentials. He’s for smaller government, much smaller. He’s for foreign trade but not foreign military involvement. He wants to spend that money wasted on empire-building right back here in these United States of America. He’d also get rid of the Education Department and the Federal Reserve.

His followers, who reverently call him Dr. Paul, like the way he would strictly adhere to the Constitution as he sees it and return more freedoms to the little guy in the face of big government.

Paul fans — regularly called Paulites, Paultards or Paulunteers — also see a gentle humility in the weathered but wise hands of the 72-year-old ob-gyn, who reputedly has delivered some 4,000 infants into life in this wondrous world.

But there seems to be another side to Paul. A mean, vicious, cruel and uncaring side. A side that sees millions of humans — albeit Burmese who are not registered to vote in Texas — afflicted with an historic cyclone, countless thousands of lives lost, devastation everywhere.

And the doting grandfather could care less.

This week when a Congressional resolution came up for a vote merely offering “condolences and sympathy” to the people of Burma affected by the recent deadly cyclone, Ron Paul, the millionaire, was the only member of the entire House of Representatives to vote “No.”

The Myanmar resolution, like all those goofy pieces of symbolic legislation, would have done absolutely nothing for the stricken millions. Not even provided one paper towel. It’s a cheap publicity trick that elected legislators waste countless hours on each session.

Such worthless resolutions don”t even get much publicity anymore. And, to put it in blunt political terms, exactly how strong is the Burmese vote around here anyway?

So Paul’s symbolic stand against symbolic silliness looks good.

But then along come the sharp-eyed folks over at Radaronline.com, specifically Nick Curran, who finds out that Paul’s stand against symbolic silliness when it comes to Asians whose huts and hovels were erased by cyclone, is not quite so principled and a whole lot more enthused about dumb statements of sentiment when the silliness is closer to home.

Come to find out Paul has voted in favor of similar empty resolutions to congratulate the University of Kansas football team for a swell season and winning the 2008 FedEx Orange Bowl, to the Louisiana State football team for, golly, winning the 2007 Bowl Championship Series and to celebrate the New York Giants for their come-from-behind victory in Super Bowl XLII.

Seriously, what Texas congressman near Houston wouldn’t want to get on the official Congressional record wishing all the best to every one of the good folks up in New York City?

Wait til the Houston Texans find out about that one. Or, worse for Paul, some Dallas fans.

–Andrew Malcolm

As I posted to Andrew’s blog… Less then 30 seconds on Google News search would have rewarded you with: ‘Paul spokeswoman Rachel Mills said the congressman objected to a sentence in the resolution calling on Burma’s ruling generals to postpone a scheduled referendum in order to concentrate their resources on disaster assistance. “It interferes with the internal affairs of another country,” Mills said. “It’s just none of our business.”‘The pointlessness of the resolution itself was not the reason for the vote. It was the fact it tried to instruct the Burmese government on what it should do. As minor as it may appear it’s only a matter of degrees from other interventionist language we place in other resolutions which represent the actual interventionist actions we take. If you want to stop being to bully you ought to stop talking like one too.

As for the other votes on pointless resolutions… there is nothing you can do. Anyone in Congress can bring up any damn resolution they want or talk about whatever they want. If Paul is already in attendance he can vote NA, YAY or not vote. Nothing changes any which way and there is nothing unconstitutional about pointless resolutions. Voting no or not voting sends no message in those cases. In this case however it can. Only reason to vote against the pointless resolutions would be to save the ink given NA is shorter then the other options or to hold an absolute stance against wasting time. The congressmen get paid yearly anyway so I’d much rather them take up their time with pointless congrats resolutions than messing with things that actually effect the real world.

http://mises.org/story/2944

The close followers of the work of Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973), one of the leading thinkers of the Austrian School of Economics, maintain that economics is an a priori science, “a science whose propositions can be given a rigorous logical justification, which distinguishes Austrians, or more precisely Misesians, from all other current economic schools.”[1]

Indeed, such a view stands in very sharp contrast to today’s state-of-the-art mainstream economics, which has fallen victim to the spell of positivism: in an attempt to investigate the truth of hypotheses in the field of social sciences, the positivists declare that measuring peoples’ actions and their continual empirical testing (according to “if-then” statements) would be required, thereby allowing for scientific progress.[2]

However, the positivist-empiricist approach does not, and cannot, deliver on its promise. It promotes false economic doctrines, as it misconceives the logical status of the science of economics. Positivism-empiricism encourages, intellectually speaking, a drift away from the free-market order, paving the way towards collectivism, socialism, and even totalitarianism.

Positivism-empiricism encourages social relativism: it denies any a priori truth of the social reality of human action, adhering to the view that “anything goes.” As such, social relativism plays into the hands of the enemies of the free societal order: there is nothing that could, as a rule, prevent recommendations derived from the positivist-empiricist doctrine from violating individuals’ property rights.

In 1945, Friedrich August von Hayek (1899–1992) formulated the consequences of a social philosophy that ignores principles:

[T]he aversion to general principles, and the preference for proceeding from particular instance to particular instance, is the product of the movement which with the “inevitability of gradualness” leads us back from a social order resting on the general recognition of certain principles to a system in which order is created by direct command.[3]

In virtually all developed countries, government activity — as measured, for instance, in terms of state spending as a percentage of total income and the scope of authoritative regulation — has been expanding at the expense of individual freedom and the free-market order, acquiesced to — or even publicly advocated — by mainstream economists.

This is why Mises’s work on the logical status of the science of economics needs to be brought back to public attention: his work actually forms the intellectual bulwark against the degeneration of the free societal order. So in what follows, the methodological foundations of Austrian economics will be reviewed briefly.[4] Our starting point is, and necessarily so, the field of epistemology.

Read the rest here.

The most recent political book I’ve read is Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches: The Riddles of Culture on loan from Blog of Bile’s very own xyz.  It is a collection of short essays in the field of anthropology and sociology.  Each essay attempts to shatter preconceived notions and explain in greater detail human actions which the author has deemed befuddling.  Amongst the topics discussed are cows as sacred animals, pig lovers and haters, primitive warfare, the idea of an aggressive male, extreme consumption and extreme donation, cargo cults, a history of messiahs, the violent origins of Christianity, early witchcraft and witch trials, and the contemporary resurgence of disdain for objectivity.

The book is a relatively easy and quick read, only slowing down at the end where the author feels it necessary to defend himself from the hordes of sandal-wearing druggies that are going to attack him.  The author is selling his theories as to why certain anomalies in culture exist.  Unfortunately due to the imperfect nature of his science the results are quite subjective.  Despite Mr. Harris’ ardent pleas for objectivity at the end of the book I find some of his explanations to be lacking in sufficient evidence to support his claims of causation.

On a positive note, he does an excellent job of introducing the history surrounding these topics.  There is a lot of good information in the book, mostly revolving around things that are not easily disputed such as recorded history.  This book is an excellent catalyst for debate.

Rather than go through each topic, here are some of the highlights that stick in my mind:

• A good analysis of childbirth and war are used to attempt to explain why males are dominant in most of our societies.
• Some interesting history of egalitarianism, reciprocity and “the big man” in primitive societies.
• A decent early history of Christianity, including the movements leading up to it and Paul’s initial reformation of the church following the death of Jesus.
• A scathing essay on the futility of modern movements attempting to change society by changing individual consciousness.  Scathing is an understatement, perhaps scalding, blistering or even face-melting would be more appropriate.  I think this is the essay bile would enjoy most.

Here are some problems I had with the book:

• He starts with a good premise, “I hope to present probable and reasonable solutions, not certainties.”  But by the end of the book he is so wrapped up in defending himself he comes across like an early evangelical minister telling “God’s honest truth”.
• Don’t quote the King James translation of the bible when entering into debate over the origins of Christianity.  Sometimes Mr. Harris addresses the original Aramaic, but at other times he seems to disregard the translation process that led to the quotes he chooses to use.  This part of the book could use bolstering.

The catalyst of this response can be found on Gardner’s April 1st, 2008 show which can be heard here.

“I believe that if we are going to establish the state and the state is going to have laws that protect our lives against encroachment of others, then we have to apply those laws consistently.”

Let me prefix this all by saying that this argument is aimed at Gardner’s insistence that an embryo should be covered by murder law and that applying the law consistently to a biological human life is superior to applying it with a different measure of consistency.

“Where in the continuum of life, from conception to death, do you decide there is a line of demarcation where the laws don’t apply, where the woman’s so called choice applies.”

Speaking of a zygote: “Is it human? Is it being?”

What traits must something have to in order to be deserving of or having rights? Is being human the measure we do use or should use for protecting those rights?

This question will garner many responses. What will those responses have in common; especially if one can try to take a more comprehensive look at it all? I think likely it will be sentience (as vague as that may be). Abilities such as reasoning, self awareness and the freedom of will. Their source and uniqueness in man are in question, but I do not believe we will argue that those traits are the reason we separate humans from other entities. It’s not because of our genetic makeup, as that alone does not uniquely provide those traits (theoretically.) If we found that some terrestrial or extraterrestrial entity exhibited these abilities, we’d likely extend them the same rights (assuming they are peaceful) as we do our fellow man. This sentiment is portrayed obviously in our fiction and the inverse in our lives. Data, Hugh, Spock, and others are extended rights and those without apparent brain activity are allowed to die without prosecution.

“Where do we come down consistently at when it is acceptable to end the life of a human being and when it is not acceptable to end the life of a human being.”

Given above, it seems inconsistent to apply murder laws to something which very obviously does not possess those traits: a stone, bacterium, a tree, an earthworm, a human zygote, brainless or heavily brain damned human body. Life is inconsistent in ability and justifiably treated differently. What makes the metric “human” for consistency better than that of “consciousness” when “human” isn’t consistent itself and obviously so? I’m not claiming that determining consciousness is always cut and dry. We do, however, have methods to reasonably determine that in our legal system and using consciousness as a metric seems to me to be more consistent with the idea of legal egalitarianism usually advocated in the concept of rule of law. Not to cut laws vertically based on what you are biologically but horizontally as to who you are mentally.

Following the pro-life platform strictly I see a lot of legal problems:

• Brain dead individuals would be required to be kept on life support.
• Brainless human bodies and likely individually grown organs would not be possible.
• If technology allows for transfering human consciousness would the new vessel not have protection under the law?
• If true synthetic sentient beings are discovered or created they would not be implicitly protected.
• Any use of fertilized embryos are out of the question. Stem cell research, etc.
• If embryos fertilized by scientists are not allowed because their destruction is murder what about naturally fertilized embryos which do not implant? Obviously she could have taken drugs but there could have been other factors which were under her control (diet, exercise, etc.) Miscarriages could be viewed in such suspect ways too. Would the government be expected to monitor for such situations and investigate them?
• If destruction of a blastocyst is murder, the primary component of which are stem cells, would the changing of other cells into embryonic stem cells be restricted too? Or is it only because of the stem cell’s situated in an embryo and their viability in forming a human? Would that conflict with Gardner’s dismissal of viability as a variable for considering law?
• Rape and incest? Fetus’ found to be physically and/or mentally deformed? To be consistent we’d have to force the women to carry the fetus to full term regardless of its condition or the pregnancy’s cause.
• What about suicide? Assisted suicide?

Gardner doesn’t indicate which level of government he is referring to during the conversation. Which is responsible for protecting the individual’s right to life? Given the topic was brought up because of Obama I will assume the federal government. If we are keeping with the theme of being consistent then this entire conversation is pointless given the Constitution does not discuss this supposed crime. At the state level I believe the government can both exist to protect the individual’s life and liberty in a consistent manner without defining an individual by their genetic makeup and without “laws controlling woman in many facets of their lives while pregnant.” Law does not need to be so simplistic.