Thursday, December 18, 2008

The Curse of the Merry Men

This is an interesting take on the story of Robin Hood written by an associate of mine, I hope you find it as entertaining as I did:

The government has just issued Directive 10-289, a mandate to nationalize all business and establish “stability” by freezing the economy. No wages shall change. No one may leave their jobs nor find a new one. No competition is to be allowed whatsoever. All prices, all terms of employment, all terms of sale are to be set and administered by a centralized government. In the aftermath of this directive, Hank Rearden, one of the last great industrialists, teeters on the brink of total despair as he struggles to comprehend the ramifications of what this will mean for his life and his dreams. At this moment, Ragnar Danneskjold, a renegade and pirate, presents himself to Rearden with an offering of hope and a glimpse of the world that could still be. He reveals to Rearden his true aim in pursuing the life of a pirate. That aim is to destroy a man and wipe every last vestige of his memory from the minds of the human race. That man is none other than Robin Hood.


This pivotal scene from Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged (Part II Chapter VII) does not draw its significance from the action, but from Ragnar’s portrayal of Robin Hood and his reasons for fighting the very idea of the mythical bandit. To fully understand the significance of this we must first address this question: Who is Robin Hood? Ragnar describes him as the “foulest of creatures, the double-parasite who lives on the sores of the poor and the blood of the rich, whom men have come to regard as a moral ideal.” The actual historical origins of the Robin Hood mythos are vague at best, but Ragnar makes clear that he is not fighting a historical character, he is fighting the moral principles that the legend of Robin Hood has come to represent.


Traditionally, Robin Hood steals from the rich and gives to the poor. Variations on the tale abound. Some state that he is dispossessed royalty fighting to regain what has been pillaged wrongly by the ruling regime. In this sense, the character is reminiscent of what Ragnar Danneskjold represents in Atlas Shrugged. Ragnar states explicitly that he avoids confrontations with representatives of the legitimate functions of government. He does not attack military or policing vessels. He only attacks those ships which carry resources that have been appropriated from their owners without their consent and in spite of their protest. He then takes those resources and holds them in reserve, waiting for their rightful owners to come and claim them. The rightful owners are those who created the resource, who either made a natural resource able to be utilized, or who created that which had formerly not existed. The rights to the distribution of those ideas and the benefits of that distribution belong exclusively to the creators of those values.


Oil belongs to those who make it possible to be drilled, those who do the drilling, and who process it and make it ready to be used to meet the demands of their customers. Each in turn works according to the terms they set amongst themselves in order to exchange productive work for their own survival and the resources necessary to develop their own dreams and ambitions. But if that oil is seized by some group of people without the consent of the producers, then that group is morally indefensible regardless of their social position. Justice is only served by returning the merchandise to its rightful owners. This is Ragnar’s function. He is an agent of justice reclaiming stolen merchandise. He even makes the concession that Robin Hood may be interpreted in this way “It is said that he fought against the looting rulers and returned the loot to those who had been robbed…”However, as he continues, he qualifies this by emphasizing, “that is not the meaning of the legend which has survived.”


Despite potentially nobler interpretations of Robin Hood, the popular and by far most influential interpretation of the myth is simply that Robin Hood steals from the rich to give to the poor. What gives the character moral status is that his crimes are mitigated by his charity. A robber who steals simply for himself would have been dull and commonplace in an era when highwaymen abounded. What gave the story its uniqueness and longevity was the idea that this character was somehow doing evil for good and the moral complexity that this signified. The heart of this paradox is the assumption that Robin Hood was doing good by distributing wealth to those who lacked it. In common portrayals of the story it is usually sufficient only to portray his victims as rich to establish Hood as the hero. Further explanations of the circumstances of the victim’s wealth are rarely given, if at all. The core idea is simply that it is justifiable to take from those who have and give to those who do not, simply because of the need of the latter and for no other reason. This is the moral imperative of altruism. It is this idea which Ragnar hopes to destroy.


Ragnar stands opposed to the idea that rights are defined by a person’s needs. Those who adopt the altruist ethic make a claim that the more productive and the more successful a person is, the more they deserve to be sacrificed to the needs of others. They claim that the good of an action is determined by how much the benefactor lacked the benefit. Means and ends become inconsequential. Cause and effect become inconsequential. The only things that matter are who benefits and how much they need. The altruist feeds off of the need of the poor and disadvantaged. He uses them as a justification for imposing his needs on the rich, whose resources he covets. His need is justified altruistically because he lays no claim for his own use; he covets those resources for the good of others. According to this reasoning, any crime is justifiable if it is done in the service of others. Even murder is justifiable as long as it can be justified by placating some group’s need—the greater the need, the greater the moral status of the crime; the more helpless the benefactor, the more noble the deed. Morality becomes defined by a calculus of human suffering and nobility restricted to those who sacrifice that they most value to the desires of whoever may demand it.


Perhaps the most insidious aspect of this ethic is that the poor are condemned to suffer forever. They are guaranteed immunity from Robin Hood only as long as there is not anyone with more need than they. Only the neediest, the least able to provide for themselves—only these people are immune. Everyone else must wait for the time when they are chosen as the sacrificial victim to placate the need of the lowest common denominator. Everyone else must wait under the knife. The only way out is to compete for the bottom slot, to make a business out of begging for help and pleading one’s need to the arbitrary jury of those around you. The altruist ethic condemns the poor to maintain their poverty lest they be sacrificed for succeeding too much at the practice of survival. It forces them to compete for death.


This is why Ragnar describes Hood as a “double-parasite”. This is why Ragnar is Hood’s opposite. Ragnar defends justice where Hood destroys it. Ragnar defends human rights and the freedom of all human beings to choose their own path and reap the full consequences of their choices. Hood abrogates them all in the pursuit of his own ends. Hood is the embodiment of the collectivist ideal. Ragnar embodies the ideals of laissez-faire capitalism. Ragnar defends a moral code founded on the twin principles of “life and production.” Robin Hood represents cannibalism for cannibalism’s sake. The unstated price of joining Robin’s ‘band of merry men’ is a taste for human flesh. This is why the two characters stand in conflict. This is the true significance of Ragnar’s declaration that Robin Hood is the one man he must destroy.

It's been a while... お久しぶり

First off, I'd like to apologize for being away for so long. But real life takes a priority over my internet musings. Anyways, having taken care of business for now, I find myself with some time to comment on the events of the last 4 months. Probably most prominent in everybody's minds is the full-blown financial panic that is sweeping over the world. The dollar is trading for 88 yen, the Dow is down, way down, and the big auto companies are on the verge of collapse. In the midst of this we have Greenspan lamenting the free-market system and Fortune 500 executives running down to Washington to beg for money--your money.

So, it goes without saying that a lot of people are wondering what Obama is going to do with this mess when he gets into office. A lot of people, that is, except for me. That's because I know exactly what he's going to do. He's going to spend a lot of government money. He's going to give a lot of money to big business, of course not the same big business cronies that Bush has, he'll give it to his green frontier democratic buddies. They may very well let the car companies hang (as they really should) but I don't think they'll go through with it. The Democrats are too reliant on unionized labor. Although the only way they're going to be able to pay for all these bailouts and all the social programs they want to cram down our throats is to raise taxes. Or perhaps they'll just raise taxes on businesses and the rich. (As if that won't be even more of a reason for companies and rich people to put their money elsewhere). Or, like Bernanke and the incompetent quacks at the FED have already done, devalue the currency like there's no tomorrow.

0% interest rates are not a good thing. Printing money on 0% interest rates to "increase cash flow" is not a good thing. It has one tangible result. Yes, money increases. But the downside is that money is worth less. Or worthless as the case may be. Japan is still stuck with interest rates next to nothing after 20 years of recession. It took Koizumi and his aggressive stance of let them fail and make them write off their bad debt, that cleansed the banking industry and let Japan recover, if only temporarily. For a brief span, the Japanese economy recovered. But it wasn't long before the looting bureaucrats, the ruling daimyo of the LDP decided to sink their teeth into the only freshly rejuvenated business sector. First off was a crack-down on foreign-sourced investments, increased government intervention in mergers and sales of businesses. A raise in taxes, the dismantling of Livedoor, and the ongoing stink of corruption in Japanese politics all combined to nudge things back over the edge. This was happening well-before the housing meltdown in the US, despite what the pundits say. I know. I've been watching the news, and I have a fairly decent long-term memory. Nonetheless, America wants to charge right after Japan and do exactly the same wrong things they did. Nobody, except perhaps Jim Rogers and perhaps the far too splintered assortment of objectivists and libertarians out there has a real understanding of what needs to be done...or perhaps nobody else who's speaking...

Dismantle the FED. Dismantle the government's centralized banking scheme. This disaster, and the long string of disasters that have been happening for the last hundred years are all the direct result of government intervention. Think about it this way, did they have such a thing as unemployment in early days after the American revolution, when business was relatively unrestricted? No.

Yes, there were poor people and there were rich people. There will always be poor people and rich people. But the difference is that the classical American system enabled people to become rich by their own effort, with the fruits of their will. And with this freedom came the condemnation to poverty for the lack of effort. This is the principle of social justice. That those who do not strive to improve their lives shall not be able to, and that those who do, will be. Whether they will achieve personal happiness or not, is something which no government can ever promise, no human being can ever promise another. But the freedom to pursue happiness, the freedom to strive for it, to grasp for it, to work for it, matched with the opportunity to seize it if it is in your grasp---this is the freedom which drives the mind and hearts of men and women to do great things and to pull themselves up from the sordid depravity of apathetic resignation to misery which so characterizes life in the collectivist nations throughout history.

But you, who would preach that social justice must be meted out by the government, those of you who preach that we should all be held hostage to one man's vision of the future, to one man's dreams, even if he is selected by all of our neighbors, you preach a different creed. For how many years must we pay off the future? For how many years must the children of today be sacrificed for the phantoms of tomorrow? Whose vision is worth the slavery of a single man? A single woman? A single child? The founders of this country said that freedom was the heart and soul of value, that without freedom, there is no value to be had in society. That without freedom, we are slaves. And so we are.

'How can we be slaves?' you may ask. After all, are we not surrounded by art and entertainment to suit any fantasy? Are we not free to elect whoever we want for office? (Although the efforts to keep third-party candidates from participating in elections may cast some doubt on that premise.) What else would you call it when all of us must work as hard as we can to gather what resources we can to survive, but people come with the threat of imprisonment or violence to take what you have worked to bring into creation by force? The presumption is that the fruits of your labor are not yours. The presumption is that they belong to your master and that it is your master's will which has the right to decide how they are dispersed. Whether that master is one man who seized power, or if that master is a group of men who your neighbors have chosen to lead you, even if that master was chosen by you yourself--that does not grant them the moral right to your labor. If you grant others the moral right to dictate the terms of your work and the use of its products, then you grant them the moral right to treat you as a slave. And so we are treated. Groups of men and women gather to decide how they can divvy up the pie of American wealth without any consideration that they did nothing to create it, and have no moral claim to it. They cite legal precedent as the foundation of their right, common law borrowed from Europe.

What they neglect to recognize is that America's break from Europe was an ideological break, a moral break. The morality of Europe had led to the servitude of its citizenry and generations of feudal wars, alliances, treachery, and corruption. The strengths of America were the strengths of an emergent American morality, one which died stillborn for want of a voice to express it in terms detached from the old traditions of altruism. And altrusim has slowly choked that system of strength until America will soon fade into the ranks of other statist, socialist nations, chomping at the bit for a taste of world power. What could have once been a shining model of the glory of human liberation, is slippy into the murky, soiled, and shabby frame of a beggar whining about destiny. A nation of men and women who forged their own destiny with their bare hands, is being whipped and shaped into a nation of equivicators and rationalizers. Let reality be the final judge and arbiter of this debate, of this age-long struggle. Open your eyes and see that the tragedies in the headlines today are the culmination of thousands of years of repeating the same mistakes over and over again. For how long can we repeat those very same mistakes without realizing that the answer is to try something different, something which has not been tried, something which would set us all free to pursue our dreams to the extent of our abilities and fly as high as we are able? Why not try freedom? Why not try capitalism? Real capitalism. Not the watered down, hypocritical vacillation characterized by base opportunists like Greenspan. Real capitalism, like that envisioned by Ayn Rand (whom Greenspan betrayed the moment he joined the FED). Instead, is it really better to emulate a socially stagnant Japan or the disastrous economic policies of Soviet Russia?

Who pays for it? Who pays for it all? We all do. We are all victims in this, and some are both victim and victimizer. But we will all pay the price. Our children will pay it and their children. By supposedly working for the future we are instead signing our children over into a life of slavery, where their dreams will always be ranked second to the demands of any organized group of their neighbors. What's the price? The price is paid for in deserted store fronts. The price is paid in unemployment. The price is paid in disease and crime. The price for your slave-owner's paradise, is that everyone is enslaved, noone and everyone is master, and we all descend into poverty together. Or is it that you imagine yourself in the 'privileged' elite that won't have to muck about with all that. Well, I suppose an altruist like Warren Buffett would probably be the last to feel the effects of the meltdown. But when need and apathy has strained their functional capacity and drained the motivation of it's creative minds--it won't be long before the institutional foundations of businesses around the world come tumbling down like a cascading array of dominoes.

If you are still not convinced, if instead you are more than ever insistent that the only way to cure our current ails is to whip us into better and better shape, to force us at the point of the gun and demand our cooperation through violence, then you deserve everything that's coming down the line. Why? Because it's your choice. The ideas you promote, the people you elect have a tangible effect on the world we live in. You can either choose to make it a better world, one where people are freer and happier. Or you can prolong the suffering, dispense misery and condone the execution of the human soul. You WILL reap that which you sow.

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

The War on Terror: Yaron Brook Hits the Nail on the Head

This is a really enlightening Q&A session featuring Yaron Brook, President of the Ayn Rand Institute. He has some comments here that go straight to the heart of many of the problems with the ongoing war on terror. Hope you enjoy it:



http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=83KIY3rZ1yw



http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=avUK9dCyW4Y

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Let Freedom Ring! Vote for Bob Barr!

I just have to say I saw this and I was moved. It has been so long since I have heard a presidential candidate say what needs to be said. It has been so long since I have heard a candidate praise what our nation was built on rather than apologize for those who made us great. Have the courage to fight the destruction of our freedom. Have the courage to vote for Bob Barr.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxPrULE6dUU

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Dr. Anne Wortham: Objectivism and the Black Community

I stumbled across this interview with Dr. Anne Wortham and I have to say I'm impressed. I remember vividly that when I was in college I would propose that people should be judged by their merits rather than by their race, creed, or religious beliefs. At such times, I would be labeled as racist or intolerant. I could never grasp the reason. How can the assertion that race simply just NOT be a factor in our decisions--how can that be racist?

The assertion seemed to be that minorities deserve guarantees of jobs, guarantees of opportunities whereas those who aren't privileged enough to be a member of that group deserve no guarantees. What I felt then, and what I've come to know now, is that these guarantees must come from somewhere. Somebody must be sacrificed for the sake of them. If the job goes to somebody based on race, that means that somebody else is not getting the job, also based on race. This is pure racism. If somebody gets the job because they are the most qualified, then the reason why somebody else doesn't get the job is because they aren't qualified. This is only fair. The goal, I think is to remove race as a consideration in our evaluation of people rather than to emphasize it and thereby create unnecessary divisions among our human kin.

It is for this reason that I found Dr. Wortham's comments in this interview particularly refreshing. Only by replacing the culture of entitlement with the culture of self-empowerment can any minority hope to better its people. I hope you find her comments as enlightening as I did.


11/8/2008: I apologize but it's been brought to my attention that the video was removed from YouTube for a terms of use violation. The original interview was entitled "Another View of the Civil Rights Movement: Anne Wortham" and was part of a series called "A World of Ideas" featuring Bill Moyers. I couldn't find it at amazon, but a google search will bring up places where it can be purchased online. I highly recommend it.

12/5/2009: The video is back on YouTube! I don't know for how long, so check it out while you can!



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpWEM2Z9yn8



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JS1qhBxiIQY

Saturday, July 19, 2008

Pope a Hypocrite: Hoards Gold and Condemns Greed

Today's case study in what is wrong with the world is drawn from this article:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25754069/

The headline reads: "Pope urges young to spurn the 'spiritual desert' : He challenges crowd of 200,000 to help world turn away from materialism"

Aside from the many many philosophical problems I have with attacks on materialism, greed, and selfishness. And aside from the many many problems I have with those who promote altruism over rational egoism. Aside from these things, is there anything more hypocritical than the figurehead of the Catholic church berating people for enjoying personal comfort that they have at least done something to earn? Has anyone out there even seen the amount of gold that decks out the Vatican? If not, here's some pics:


If they're so earnest about sacrifice, why don't they lead by example and distribute church wealth to the needy rather than trying to make us feel guilty for spending the money that we earned with our labor? I mean, after all, who deserves their money more? Some guy who works his ass off every day of his life? Or some fat and indolent preacher-boy who's never done anything but sit in a high chair and rattle off how worthless people are? I'd bet on the worker over the preacher any day.

And, hell. While we're on the topic of greed and materialism anyway, why don't we look into this "spiritual desert" and see what's really going on there.

"In so many of our societies, side by side with material prosperity, a spiritual desert is spreading: an interior emptiness, an unnamed fear, a quiet sense of despair," the pope is quoted as saying. He blames this on greed and materialism and people turning away from faith. I would argue that this despair, this fear is spreading as a direct result of the faithful. And if not directly through religion than indirectly through secular altruism.

How can a person have self-esteem, if the more successful they are at their job (and therefore more successful monetarily)--How can they have self-esteem if the better they are, the more guilty they are supposed to feel? How come excellence and the demand of greater rewards for greater excellence is condemned as a sin? If someone is good, then, dammit, they deserve more. We NEED good teachers, we NEED good doctors, we NEED good engineers. But how do we expect to find people who can fulfill these needs? Should we expect them to appear magically and just perform these functions because that is their nature? Or do we have to assure that they have an equitable return on their efforts, so that they are self-motivated to perform these functions in society? Yet oddly enough, we turn around and condemn the people who are doing exactly what we are paying them to do, we condemn them for being TOO good.

Has anyone who has sat down and blindly condemned people for greed actually fully thought this through? As we progressively enact more laws, and the religious organizations gather more followers, and the secular humanists jump on the band wagon and berate rampant selfishness and the profit motive, has anyone noticed the corresponding erosion of the economy, rampant inflation and critical shortages of teachers, nurses, mathematicians, and engineers? Perhaps the faithful are hoping that they can merely pray and have God magically deliver the trained professionals who will keep the engine of global civilization running. Or perhaps they think that those who are capable of providing those services should do so simply for the sake of all those who can't, and should serve humbly, apologetically, and with head bowed in shame for the epic force of will and dedication of mind necessary to accomplish such feats of creation as has never been known to the leaders of the religious front.

What insights have popes or cardinals or imams given us as to the structure of the universe or the fate of humanity? None. Not a thing. All they have done is preached how near disaster we are, and how we should abandon reason, when reason is needed most. Can the pope build a railroad? Can he erect a building that will not fall? Can he conjure more food from the ground or purify our water? Can he answer the dual needs of protecting the environment while not stifling economic prosperity? Can he do any of these things? NO.

All the pope can do is pray, and berate and cajole and beg. And for what? Why is he doing all this needling? Is it for the good of humanity, as he would claim? Or is it so that he can take advantage of the poor, the ignorant, and the ashamed? He'll casually accept money from the poor, and claim that it is going to help those in need. As he wears gold crowns and lives in a gold bedecked palace. He'll gleefully accept the donations of the guilty rich who, ashamed of their own prowess, seek to assuage the moral conflict that rages inside them by hoping to buy their way into paradise. And the ignorant, the church will gratefully embrace the ignorant, because to embrace God requires no discipline of the mind, it requires no rigor of thought, no effort of will. All it takes is the effort of release, of everything.

If you release your mind, your body, your will, your judgment, your soul, your self-esteem, and your pride, then you will be beloved of god. If you destroy everything there is that makes you who you are, if you destroy anything and everything that makes life good and worth living, then you will be saved by god. God wants to destroy you. The religious want nothing less than the spiritual destruction of humanity. That is why the absolute sacrifice is the symbol of their faith. The absolute of death is sacrosanct in every major religion.

Death is the ideal. A noble death is a noble goal in every major religion. No religion abhors death and reveres life to the extent that they would say, "Live your life to the best of your ability and enjoy those fruits of that ability for they are the mark of your best nature." No, instead they claim that the very qualities that enable you to survive are the qualities that you must apologize for. They claim that the more able you are to live, the more guilty you should feel. That is because, in faith, we are all expected to want to die, but not being able to, should feel guilt for our life.

How perverted and despicable a promise to humankind! Such a miserable and filthy demand! To demand that all should die to fulfill the warped philosophy of the incompetent. To demand that the worthy apologize to the unworthy, that the able apologize endlessly to the inept.

Wouldn't it be a better world, if we all stood as equals--not in the sense of some guarantee--but in the sense of having equal rights to the fruits of our own labor? That we could stand shoulder to shoulder with giants and thank them for all that they have given us in the terms of an easier, safer, healthier life. We could thank them, and allow them the freedom to enjoy the fruits of that inestimable boon they have granted us. Without guilt. Without shame. Proud and radiant as human beings, all of us. Proud that we have done the work that we were best able to do, no matter what work that is. Proud of what we have attained, and created, and managed to preserve around us.

Would it matter if we all cannot be a Vanderbilt, or an Einstein, or even an Elvis? We do what we can. We build what we can. Does anyone have the right to begrudge another the results of their own work, whatever work that may be?

I say NO! I say ENOUGH! The time has come to stay this madness. Reject religion. Reject the secular altruists who preach freedom on one side, and berate the use of it on the other. Reject all those who would offer you a collar in exchange for your self-esteem. Do not be seduced by the prospect of harvesting the wealth of those you envy--for all that road promises is that you will be sacrificed to those who envy yours.

Defend your freedom. And do it not for the good of others. Do it not for the good of generations to come, or for the protracted and unseeable future. Do it for yourself! Do it for the now! Reject all forms of statism, nationalism, religion--all forms of spiritual and physical sacrifice. Claim your birthright, claim that which is yours, not because I say so, but because you earned it. Reject the claims of all those who savor the unearned, who would make you a slave and expect you to be grateful for it. Fight them, do what you can. Speak, blog, vote, protest. We cannot afford to surrender. To surrender is to embrace death.

Friday, July 18, 2008

Religion: Laugh Your Ass Off

I've been thinking lately. Maybe the reason that religion gets to cling on to it's social respectability despite all the vicious, maniacal, and just plain ludicrous stuff it tries to get away with--maybe the reason is that we all take it so seriously. I mean what would happen, if we just laughed our asses off whenever somebody said they believed in God? What would happen if we just doubled over with tears streaming out of our eyes whenever somebody even mentioned heaven, hell, Satan, Jesus, Mohammad or Buddha? I guess it makes it harder to laugh at people who are really intent on enslaving and/or killing you (though not necessarily in that order). Anyways, a world were we could just laugh those silly freaks away and not have to worry about them anymore, is a world worth working for. Until then, here's a taste of what it might feel like to be able to laugh them all away:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ope-1Zb5t-k

Pope John Paul II was an Atheist! -- Breaking News of a Startling Analysis

Yes, here it is. A brilliant piece of deductive reasoning using the deceased Pope's very own words to expose what must have been the ideology driving them. After watching this, there should be no doubt that the Pope, the figurehead of Catholicism was, indeed, an atheist. It's so rare to actually catch out one of the religious figureheads in giving away the game. I highly recommend this:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P29YD5Yz6yk

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Ashcroft - Torture Bad Call but No Biggie

Today for your perusal I offer a selection of disingenuous moral shuffling. Enjoy reading this, it's not every day you get to see someone squirm their way through such an ethical sewer and still think of themselves as squeaky clean. It's rare to see it painted so clearly.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25723287/


Ashcroft quibbles that he "did not necessarily disagree" with the idea of state sponsored torture, but that the legal argument was flawed. So, rather than admit that he made a mistaken judgment call, he's simply asserting that torture is still an appropriate form of interrogation and that all that is really needed is a more properly worded argument for it. Take a second to let that soak in.

Ashcroft says that torture is good. We just need a better justification for it.

Ashcroft doesn't see the deep moral, philosophical, and political implications of the permissibility of torture. He ignores the same issues of which I have accused Sam Harris of dodging. Or perhaps he does.

Think about that too. What if Ashcroft DOES understand the ramifications of what he is supporting? What if Sam Harris DOES understand the ramifications of what he is supporting? Can you really be secure in granting them the benefit of the doubt on something like this? I mean, seriously, if we're going to give people the benefit of the doubt on something like advocating torture, where do we stop? I mean, once we've said, well maybe we're not clear on all the details, but you're the government so we trust that you won't do bad things, so go ahead and do what you please...once we've said THAT, what's to stop them from revoking the rest of the trappings of civilized society?

Oh, wait....they've started doing that too. Isn't this the same Ashcroft, the same establishment governance that thinks it's also a good idea to spy on American citizens at home, without notice, warning, or reasonable grounds for suspicion. To spy on us JUST IN CASE?

Suspending habeas corpus...oh, yes...of course we have that too. Violating the territorial rights of our allies and their respective domestic constitutions by violating their decisions on torture and due process? Well, there's a reason why "extraordinary rendition" is so extraordinary.

Surely we still have our right to property? Oh, wait a second. We have the IRS, property tax, and the FED to systematically redistribute the fruits of our labor, threaten our right to hold land which we have already purchased, AND to devalue the currency of whatever value remains.

And for what? For the greater good? Tell me, what good does it do when the people who are generating the wealth end up going hungry? The wealth which is being stolen hand over fist to feed those in need who are taking it hand over fist? The wealth that, for some reason that nobody wants to address, was somehow magicked into existence for this mythically privileged class. It doesn't seem to matter that people are automatically condemned for being wealthy EVEN IF they started out poor. As if, by producing that which people desperately wanted was enough to brand one a criminal. The sheer audacity, the reckless suicidal mendacity of such thinking frankly leaves me stunned whenever I encounter it.

So, in this amoral morass of sympathy and equivocation, the final crowning glory of the altruist's inner nature finally bares itself to the world. And what does it declare to the world? It declares that torture is good, but that we just haven't found a good enough way to get away with it.

Classic.

(for more articles on the ongoing torture debate please check out these blog entries:

Sam Harris and the Fallacies of Torture 4/25/2008

And this is what happens when thugs get moral license... 4/26/2008

Torture: The Madness that Wouldn't Die 5/13/2008

Supreme Court Puts Foot Down on Abrogation of Due Process 6/15/2008

Not Everything that Parades as a Democracy IS a Democracy 7/2/2008

Hitchens Takes One for Reason 7/13/2008 )

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Who Will Care for your Children?

In case you didn't catch my earlier post on the subject:

http://anamericananti-theistabroad.blogspot.com/2008/07/not-enough-teachers-not-enough-nurses.html


But here again we have another symptom of the ongoing problem:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25692127/

See the problems when lumbering bureaucratic institutions make arbitrary decisions without any awareness of what is needed to actually realize the demands they place on the system?

Let me put it another way. What good does it do to demand that all students have access to a nurse when the number of nurses, how much they are paid, etc. is decided by a public board which has to vote on any related executive decision from tax allocation to job allocation?

What good does it do to demand teachers in a system which makes it impossible to satisfy its own demands?

The only solution is to privatize education, expose the schools to market forces and force the bureaucrats to produce results. Allow parents 100% freedom in where they send their children and remove education from the tax burden so that they can afford to send them. The alternative is to simply place more demands on the nurses (which we already know are in short supply). Should they do even more work for less pay?

If you set those terms, where are you going to find people wiling to work at the schools? Or do you really want the lowest bidder responsible for your child's health?

The choice is yours.

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Hitchens Takes One for Reason

This blog entry is about an article by Christopher Hitchens here:

Believe Me, It’s Torture

I've talked at length in the past about my disdain for Sam Harris' cavalier advocacy of torture as some kind of intellectual common sense. So, I have to say that I have a lot of respect for someone who is willing to put themselves through something like this in order to make a point. I couldn't imagine Harris putting himself on the line for his ideas. And the point that Hitchens makes is a very important one. Namely, that if we surrender our dedication to human rights, and to our concept of humanity, then we are surrendering what makes us Americans. There are numerous strategic justifications for the use of torture, but the best argument against it is one of principle. Do we really wish to be a nation known for the use of torture? Do we really want our enemies to gain credence as the ones telling the truth? What exactly do we have to gain? And more terrifying....what do we have to lose?

And here is video footage of his experience:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2y3raoKpfiM

Obama or McCain? Vote Bob Barr for President



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5-jKSRYdgc




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oe-ulwqnQ9k



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HttZXK8n3rY




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqFrbRw5R_g

Abolish the Federal Reserve

I couldn't've said it better myself...So I won't try. Check out the video:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QHKJWm9IsM

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Not Enough Teachers = Not Enough Nurses = Not Enough Teachers

There's a big question that I would have in response to this:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25626353/


And that big question is: WHY?

You see, as a student of finance, it seems highly unnatural that such a large distortion in the job market should appear. If there is such a high interest and so many students who want to learn nursing, then how can we possibly explain the lack of teachers? Simple. Government intervention in the economy.

Government subsidizes medical treatment and insurance thereby driving prices up. While at the same time a litigious culture and permissive judiciary drive the price of hospital insurance up. (Now of course, a doctor who causes harm through incompetence should be punished. But proper consideration of the patient's chances at survival if there had been no doctor at all should be weighed into the judgment.) These create a stress on the resources of hospitals. But, hospitals are, for the most part, private institutions so they have certain flexibility to raise wages, prices and respond to supply and demand.

But factor in things like minimum wage, taxes, insurance premiums etc. and we see a pressure on all businesses (not just hospitals) that keeps them from hiring the necessary personnel. Why? Because they are not free to respond to supply and demand in the labor market and that means that inequalities arise. The inequalities give rise to underemployment of the work force which means unemployment for the workers.

So why do we see too many applicants, not enough teachers, and a surplus of jobs? Well, because there are not enough teachers, there are not enough trained nurses. And if there are not enough trained nurses, then that almost certainly guarantees that there will not be enough trained teachers or nurses in the future as well. So, what is driving the teacher shortage? Well, it's simple. The rewards for entering the nursing profession are greater than the rewards entering the nurse training profession. The highly subsidized and legislated public higher education market has horribly skewed both the importance of teachers and the ability of universities to respond to market conditions. The obscenely high demand for nursing teachers should see a corresponding rise in benefits for those jobs. The free market would enable universities to respond to the demand for teachers by competing with the hospitals for those veterans that both need so desperately.

Unfortunately, for decades, our university system has been dedicated to antiquated systems based on seniority and wedded to sneering socialist dogma which scorns free-market ideals as base capitalism. They rush to suck up private funds, but sneer at the very systems which generate those funds. If their own systems were structured more efficiently, then there would be enough teachers. If you need more teachers, you need to make the terms more attractive. If you need better teachers, then you need to reward based on merit rather than on seniority or associations. You need to look at the work. And you need to pay people what they're worth. If any business tries to get away with anything less, it will inevitably either have a shortage of necessary labor, or it will be stifled with incompetent labor. So, because hospitals consistently offer better terms, the skilled nurses who could potentially become teachers go into the hospitals instead of the schools and only the few who choose to forsake those benefits go into education.

Government intervention kills. By creating market imbalances, by creating 'wormholes' in the fabric of the labor market, government creates unemployment, drives inflation and creates shortages of all kinds. If you want to know what is strangling the US economy it is the American people's mad quest for state-mandated security. Terrified to face the reality of shouldering responsibility for our own lives, our own careers, our own finances, choices, and the consequences of them. Terrified to face the facts of our existence, the fact that there can be no guarantees, the fact that we cannot avoid responsibility for our own actions, we can only defer the responsibility to others, and even then we are only deferring. We cannot run from the consequences of our folly forever. It comes back.

Reality cannot be fooled, schmoozed, or cajoled into letting you have your cake and eat it too. And the ultimate end of market imbalances is not a thing as sterile and intellectual as those words would make it seem. The cost of an economic imbalance is a human life. A dream thwarted unnecessarily by an arbitrary condition that never needed to have been. A life snuffed out, through poverty, exhaustion, despair or negligence. A life that never was. A child who will never have the opportunity to move up the social ladder because clutching and frantic paranoia has convinced so many that the only way to be secure is to hand over all choices to others, and those others (suffering from the same paranoia) have responded by securing their own supposed interests and locking the social ladder in place.

The foolishness that they refuse to recognize is that the more they lock that ladder in place, the more they undermine their own future prosperity and even survival. So whether you're a Republican clamoring for government subsidies for big business, or if you're a Democrat howling for universal health care you are in effect pleading for the same thing. You are pleading for the guarantee of your own interests at the expense of everybody else's. What you fail to see is that that it is also at the expense of your own interests to demand such things. That in the long run, it will come back to you.

When you are lying in the hospital with insufficient nurses taking advantage of your governmentally guaranteed health care, will it be a comfort to you to know that everybody will have the same quality of health care, regardless of how insufficient that health care will have become?

When you are baffled by the collapse of your stock prices despite the money you poured into government lobbies, when the real effect has been the collapse of an economy too top heavy with those very lobbies, will it comfort you to know that you were just doing what everybody else is doing?

When America runs blindly off of the cliff of mad devotion to equality and tolerance as a social absolute, a universal ideal, will it comfort you to know that all people will be guaranteed jobs even when no more jobs exist? When we lack the necessary teachers of math, science, and medicine today, what will you do when buildings collapse, planes fall from the sky, and you die from diseases for which there already are cures? Will you be comforted by the hollow ideal of sacrifice to God, nation, or society? Or will you scream and beg and plead for someone to come save you from the nightmare world of your own creation?

There is an alternative. Reverse the course we are going down. Do not overcorrect by doing more of the same thing which has created the various tragedies of our modern age. Change course. Do what has not even been tried. Set business free. Set yourselves free. Cut back the strangling tide of bureaucracy and neo-fascism which is threatening to tear our country apart into rival camps of those who would control our liberties through force and those who would control our liberties by finance, between Republicans and Democrats, between Big Brother and the last lingering relics of the idolaters of communism. Reject them both. Elect Bob Barr for President. And maybe we'll have a chance at putting this nation back together again.

Friday, July 11, 2008

Happy Science: Religious Cults in Supposedly Atheist Japan

It is not uncommon to hear Japan come up as an example of a predominantly atheistic nation which seems to do just fine by itself. Although as a long-time resident of Japan, one thing that has always disturbed me is the widespread proliferation of superstitions, lucky charms, and that which feeds on such things: cults.

The nefarious Aum Shinrikyo cult which was responsible for the sarin nerve gas attacks on the Tokyo subway system in 1995. It amazingly still had about 1500 to 2000 members as of 2004 and has regrouped itself under the name Aleph. At it's height, it had approximately 40,000 members worldwide. This is, of course, small by the standards of the great blood-thirsty world religions. But they ended up killing 12 and injuring an estimated 5000 commuters as a result of their madness.It just goes to show that small fanatical organizations can be just as dangerous as the big ones. It's all a matter of will and timing.

Well, what got me online today, was that my wife found a promotional pamphlet in our mailbox today, and we almost died laughing when we started looking through it. It's for a new brand of religious quackery called, get this, Happy Science. It was founded by Ryuho Okawa (大川隆法) a former student of law and finance who got it into his head to make a religion and call himself a god. He claims to be "El Cantare" the reincarnation of Buddha and that he can offer the road to eternal peace. They offer seminars in appreciating your role as a "Civil Servant of the Universe" (宇宙公務員) and even give you a badge stating such that you can wear with pride (embarassment?) for having attended. (And of course shelled out a nice lump of cash to boot.) Their literature has all the standard earmarks of religious cult propaganda ala The Jehovah's Witnesses, The Door Christian Fellowship, or any other average ordinary everyday bilking mill for loonies. If you're lucky enough to live in Japan then you can even take advantage of their "Satory Land" virtual fun park accessible by cell phone. For those who don't speak Japanese "satori" means "enlightenment", so calling the site "Satory Land" is a bit like calling it "Calvary Camp" or "Salvation Fun Park". My personal favorite translation would be "The Happy Buddha's Enlightenment Funland".

What surprised me was that it seems like they're making forays into the international arena as well, with temples in Hawaii, San Francisco, and Brazil. Their site is also available in English and Chinese. Here's the link:

http://www.happy-science.org/en/


I recommend checking it out for a good laugh. Or at least it would be, if it didn't seem to be so successful. It's absolutely amazing to me that enough people are willing to support as obvious a business ploy as this and to the extent that they can have 24 temples in Japan proper and ones internationally as well. This guy's books are supposedly best-sellers. Here is a guy practically claiming to be the reincarnation of god and people are giving him money hand over fist. Of course people have a soft spot for people like the Dhalai Lhama who claim that they're a reincarnation of some ancient whatchamacallit or whatnot. But seriously, how could someone spend money on this and look themselves in the mirror. Guess Ayn Rand was pretty close to the mark when she said that the choice to believe in God is like murdering your mind.

Perhaps the most disturbing thing about this nonsense is that they actively are recruiting parents to indoctrinate their children with it. If you take a look at the membership page, they explicitly state how they are recruiting "Angel Members", children from 0-6 years old who can be initiated via a special "Infant Entrance Ceremony". I wouldn't say that it's big enough to be too dangerous yet. But it's never good to be complacent about such organizations. The Nazis started out as a fringe organization that polarized an entire nation. And it wasn't so long ago that the entire nation of Japan worshipped their emperor as a divine sun-god for whom they would passionately lay down every last life in a nightmare of self-immolation. (And there are still plenty of those out there. If you don't believe me, look into the controversy over the film, Yasukuni)

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of rational, even-minded, concrete Japanese out there. But there are also a lot of collectivists, fanatics, and spiritualists as well. Especially, of late, the media seems saturated with tales of the paranormal, miracles, and the terrors of modern science. Then again, their economy is set to take the fall again amidst a lumbering and suicidal welfare system and an addiction to social programs. Will reason triumph in Japan? Or will it be quacks like Okawa who end up having the last laugh?

A Decisive Argument Against Religion

This is a video posted by YouTube objectivist Nelapidae. He presents a stunningly clear, precise and cutting argument against faith. Enjoy:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQefreiEQOA

Ayn Rand: Atheist and Advocate of Reason

Here's a nice little collage of clips of interviews where Ayn Rand expresses her views on religion. I wish there were more guests like her on talk shows today.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GS6vxb4H3M

Thursday, July 10, 2008

City of the Living

Here's a political art piece depicting the spiritual and concrete consequences of certain philosophical beliefs. I think I've been able to achieve a higher level of subtlety in this one as opposed to my earlier videos. I hope you like it.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WavGf6NYul0

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Not Everything that Parades as a Democracy IS a Democracy

I'm taking a little break from the American story right now just to point out that in some parts of the world, fascists have taken to calling their countries democracies when they are really anything but. All one has to do is look at Zimbabwe, where the fascist dictator Mugabe actually has the gall to claim that he is an elected official. How can a thug dare to call himself a president? Easily...his boys have the guns. Countries like this are a constant reminder of the necessity of checks and balances in government and the essential nature of human rights as absolute values. Freedom is not something that can be compromised and still retain any meaning. When you hand over your responsibility to make decisions to a big mob with guns, it may not be so easy to get your right to make them for yourself back again.

And take a hard, close look at the financial chaos in Zimbabwe. The nation is on the brink of collapse. Why? Is it because of greedy multi-national corporations? Or is it really because of a government laden with corruption and barbarity that scorns all the principles of capitalism and yet still cries mournfully for succor from the wealthy nations of the world. Why are the wealthy nations wealthy? Is it because they just happened to be that way? Not so. Many of the countries of Europe and Asia were financially wrecked just a mere 60 years ago, after the second world war came to an end. What made them able to rebound and outpace their collectivist neighbors was that they adopted certain values, values which mimicked those of the United States Constitution. Those values being freedom in society and freedom in business. The extent to which they embraced these values was to the extent to which they became affluent. Where there is no freedom, there can be no affluence, nor progress. If you don't believe me, don't take my word for it. Simply look at the broken and battered nations of Africa, where petty dictators lash their people into inhumane poverty and then beg for the developed nations to grant them succor...only to expand their armies and drive around in Mercedes and Cadillacs.

The next time liberals beg for you to placate the suffering in Africa, take a good hard look and imagine who it is that your money is going to really help. Will it be the starving poor? Or will it be bloated and evil fascists like Mugabe? Think about the architecture of poverty. Who is it that drives away industry, drives away the intelligent, skilled workers from a country? Who is it that murders the poor for obeying, or murders them because they don't? It is the system of oppression which creates poverty. It is freedom which ends that oppression. So before you turn our freedoms over for the sake of the unnamed poor, who you understandably wish to help--After all, to cast a blind eye to suffering would be inhumane--before you do that, first think of what would be the best way to help.

Can we really help the most by trading in our property rights, our right to our own moral consciences and then expect that other countries will in turn value those these even more greatly? Can we seriously expect that? Or should we instead make more of a stand for our own liberties and our own rights, so that we can go out into the world with moral certainty and the firmness of our convictions to serve as a powerful example of what ideals can actually accomplish when translated into reality.

It is always best to lead by example. If we surrender our rights at home, we cannot expect the rest of the world to 'do as I say, and not as I do.'

I'll end with these links to articles and video on the Zimbabwe situation:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25432146/


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25470052/

http://www.newsweek.com/id/144274

http://www.newsweek.com/id/143803?from=rss



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFJUOa_ABUg




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRS0n1inpWg

Obama's Hypocrisy: So Much for Secular Politics

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/02/us/politics/02campaigncnd.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cY0Gttc1a-Y

Yep, Obama is now advocating the expansion and empowerment of faith-based programs. Who really believes that provisions against proselytizing and discrimination are going to be enforceable? How can he seriously justify funding school improvement through churches? Doesn't that mean that secular/atheist children will be denied access to these programs unless they commit the hypocrisy of attending church? How can such a program NOT be called proselytizing if it IS held in a church? So much for his earlier speech about the separation of church and state. I guess he's just as much a hypocrite as McCain.

If anything, this should make it increasingly apparent that neither McCain nor Obama is fit to run this nation. Only Barr is not offering to sell our country to the highest religious bidder. Of course religions have control over large pools of voters. That's exactly what makes them dangerous. And it's exactly the reason why the founding fathers were smart enough not to let the wheedling hypocrisy of religion even get its foot in the door of politics.

Don't passively let them get away with this! Obama has surrended any moral advantage he may have had over McCain. Let's try to save America from becoming the Iran of the future, and all the economic and political ramifications that would entail. We can do it, if we all stand for reason and if we stand together.

Vote for Barr.

Vote Libertarian.

(You'll never see a libertarian campaigning for government money to go to religious programs.)

And here's Barr's forthright explanation of the notorious FISA bill which Obama approved:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUwERBdEDbE

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Vote Bob Barr in November. Vote Libertarian.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Im0Wqj3BSvU

Election 2008: Socialism or Capitalism, Which Shall it Be?

Okay, well, we KNOW that McCain can't be trusted any further than we could throw him, so for me he's not even a contender. Like I said, I admire Obama's stance on religious influence in government and his respect for rational discourse in the political process. Unfortunately, he's a rank socialist, who ignores basic economics in favor of generating a populist appeal. Of course, this has long been a staple of the "democratic" party. It's so accepted that he doesn't even try to sugar-coat it. Here it is:

SOCIALISM IN ACTION



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7A-yopgPHbw


So, what else is there to do? Is it really a choice between Socialism and Theocracy? NO. It isn't. Of course, the power-hungry influence peddlers would love for you to think that. They want you to choose between the mixed-values of economically conservative religious extremists and socially liberal communist ideologues. What they want you to ignore is that there is a third option. That option is economic conservatism and social freedom. The price is increased personal responsibility. The price is that we can no longer run crying to Big Daddy Government to save us from our own decisions whether they go awry from ignorance or accident. So what should we do this election? Vote Libertarian. Vote Bob Barr.

He won't hand us over to the Christian zealots. And he won't hand us over to the Collectivists either. Freedom is a principle worth fighting and dying for. Don't allow the Democrats and Republicans to convince you that some are more important than others and that they should be traded like some kind of commodity of influence. Rights are an absolute of human ethics. They cannot be compromised, or else they have no meaning and offer no assurance at all. To preserve our rights is to preserve freedom. And the government cannot force freedom. The bigger government is, the less freedom we have. The less freedom we have, the less able we are to turn our ideas into businesses, to do business with our fellow human beings and in the end, the harder it is to live. If you love freedom and life, vote against both those who would sacrifice us to religion and those who would sacrifice us to society. Vote for freedom. Vote Bob Barr.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWkPMJRDBuo

McCain: Hypocrisy in Action

And if there was any doubt about McCain's trustworthiness or moral integrity, well, this should settle it. Please watch the Before and After videos that follow:

BEFORE



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbNImNX8Xuw

AFTER



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8KZpsp04XM

Lara Logan: A Rare Integrity

I live abroad and so I must admit that I'm probably behind on a few things, but I ran across this video on YouTube and this reporter impressed me with her carriage. I rarely see reporters nowadays who express convictions or who seem to be dedicated to rational discourse in the way Lara Logan does. I'll be following up on her work from now on. Enjoy :)



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6I420_fPM2E

Election 2008: McCain and Obama on Religion

Well, what should I say? I dislike Obama because he's a socialist. I dislike McCain because he kisses up to the religious right. But after watching these two videos, there's no way I'm voting for McCain. I guess it depends on how the Libertarian candidate presents himself. But McCain is off my list. If the Libertarian doesn't impress me, then I'm voting for Obama.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9izhjnaLa3M



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jg8lCLumByw

Friday, June 27, 2008

Daniel Dennett: Hypocrite and Fool

First of all, and despite the inflammatory nature of the title, I would like to say that I came to Dennett's work with a relatively open mind. I had seen some of his lectures on YouTube and I had heard about his advocacy of atheism. He seemed to be a relatively rational thinker and a proponent of similar beliefs. I was wary of his advocacy of meme theory, but nothing in his mainstream presence suggested any hint of what I was to find when I started reading his latest book, my first and last Dennett work, Breaking the Spell.

I thought Dennett might be a safe bet because he comes highly recommended by Richard Dawkins. While I disagree with Dawkins' advocacy of socialist politics and his own claims to meme theory, it has always struck me that Dawkins' attachment to memes is more of a kin to humoring an interesting analogy as opposed to seriously proposing it as a foundation for rational debate. He introduced it in The Selfish Gene, a work otherwise highly commendable for its astute and forthright explanation of evolutionary theory. But after reading Dennett's work, I am forced to reevaluate my estimation of Dawkins' intellectual honesty as well. I will give him the benefit of doubt and withhold my judgement till I have further explored Dawkins' works. As for Dennett....he embodies everything that I feared would happen in the world of philosophy when I first encountered Dawkins' suggestion.

Dennett tries to sell his book as an attempt "to investigate religion in a scientific manner". Now, I am an anti-theist, which means that I not only do not believe in any god or supernatural presences, powers, or forces whatsoever, but it means that I think such beliefs are fundamentally harmful to humanity and destructive of science and progressive humanistic thought. In this sense, I mean "progressive" as in advancing in a beneficial manner and "humanistic" as in pertaining to the notion that the lives of human beings should be the standard and focal point of philosophic enquiry. I came across Dennett as one of the so-called "Four Horsemen" of modern atheism, the others being Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens. It is in fact the recent spate of media coverage in recent years that drew me to start investigating their works, and Dawkins' own sense of consciousness-raising that inspired me to start this blog as an expression of my own beliefs.

Harris, while his arguments against religion are indisputable, leaves much to be desired when he starts to argue for anything. He tends to convey the impression that his assertion is sufficient to justify any demand on our moral judgments and seems quite confident that the majority of his atheist peers are as hopelessly liberal as he is. While he rightfully condemns moral relativism, he unwittingly falls into the trap of being a moral relativist, as he argues in defense of torture. This is an issue which it is impossible to defend morally unless one assumes that one party is always in the right simply for the reason that it is one's own. He blatantly ignores that if one is to relinquish the moral high ground by engaging in the debased tactics of one's moral rivals, that one sacrifices the grounds from which such one-sided moralizing can be justified in the first place. Harris seeks to undermine the universality of human rights and his argument is half-based on assumptions of some vaguely stated moral solidarity with the American vox populi.

Dawkins, as I have already stated, is at his best when he is addressing his speciality of biology and evolutionary theory. Especially as the only pure scientist of the four, this is to be expected. However, as I have also argued elsewhere on this site, Dawkins is comitted to a form of socialist politic which ignores many of his own conclusions. But I see this contradiction stemming from only the slightest of moral misdirections, his lingering attachment to christian morality and his desire to force it into biology so as to rationalize his view of morality in a world that cannot logically accommodate it. But his attachments to Harris who favors torture and now Dennett who is much worse, seriously demand that Dawkins philosophical work be scrutinized more closely. That is a task which I must regrettably leave for later. I also have not yet had the opportunity to investigate Hitchens' work closely, but that, too, will be addressed in due time.

No, the topic at hand is Dennett and his book Breaking the Spell. What it should be called is Hail the Meme and Other Unsubstantiated Assertions. I could not get more than one third through this book before I became physically ill for trying to choke down the slew of outrageous propositions he tries to foist on the reader. A book, I might add, for which Dennett says, "a reader-friendly flow for a wider audience was more important than the convenience of scholars."

Certainly scholars should have nothing to do with this book whatsoever. Of course the first two chapters deal with relatively innocuous subjects like why we should investigate religion and whether or not scientific investigation is appropriate to or capable of the task. It is the third chapter, "Why Good Things Happen" that starts to rank of shoddy (or perhaps even consciously deceptive) reasoning. I was left wondering that if this is the best Tufts has to offer in the realm of philosophy, perhaps Tufts is not quite worthy of the respect it has been accorded.

The reason is memes. Unlike Dawkins' scientifically cautious approach to the concept of memes, Dennett charges head-on taking all sorts of wild conjectures for granted. I quote:

"If boatbuilders or potters or singers are in the habit of copying old designs "religiously," they may preserve design features over hundreds or even thousands of years. Human copying is variable, so slight variations in the copies will often appear, and although most of these promptly disappear, since they are deemed defective or "seconds" or in any event not popular with the customers, every now and then a variation will engender a new lineage, in some sense an improvement or innovation for which there is a "market niche". And lo and behold, without anybody's realizing it, or intending it, this relatively mindless process over long periods of time can shape designs to an exquisite degree, optimizing them for local conditions."

...The italics are Dennett's....the confusion is mine.

First of all, as a linguist, I cannot help but notice that Dennett strategically uses the passive voice to avoid betraying who or what it is that is acting upon the design process of boats and pots and songs. He also strategically places these "customers" in the circumstance of the phrase. An approach that those familiar with Halliday's functional grammar will recognize as being extremely useful for hiding the impact of a participant or obfuscating their role almost entirely. The fact that Dennett is desperately trying to obscure is that boats do NOT design themselves. That the process of copying or innovation is something which is consciously decided by human minds, by active participants in their own existence, by active participants in the contents and products of their own minds.

But to state that humans actually DO something would be to give up the game and declare from the start that what he intends is ludicrous tripe. In fact, in order to substantiate even the possibility of his beloved memes, Dennett must beg the question by first assuming that there is no such thing as free will, as self-modification of one's mental structure, as the ability to choose which ideas one accepts and which ideas one rejects and which ones and how one modifies. Dennett must use the passive voice to obscure these facts because when they are placed directly next to the assertions he draws, it becomes obvious that what he is saying isn't worth the paper on which it is printed.

Again I quote: "Here we have the design of a human artifact-culturally, not genetically transmitted-without a human designer, without an author or inventor or even a knowing editor or critic."

THIS of boatbuilding. Where, one is forced to ask, would Dennett be if there was not some convenient boat to copy? Presumably he would be up the creek without a paddle, because he has already dismissed the possibility that somebody could conceive of a new idea and create a paddle much less a boat to carry him. Without a human designer? How could a boat come to be without a human designer? I am really forced to wonder if not only Dennett but his editor and publisher were not all smoking crack when they were going over this drivel.

If only because they permitted Dennett to start from this rather dramatic and unsubstantiated assumption and progress to "make a point that should be uncontroversial: cultural transmission can sometimes mimic genetic transmission, permitting competing variants to be copied at different rates, resulting in gradual revisions in features of those cultural items, and these revisions have no deliberate, foresighted authors."

No authors? Who is supposedly making these cultural artifacts if not human beings? Of course Dennett has already decided that humans have no free-will or control of their consciousness, so naturally they cannot be an active participant in the creation of anything. Dennett sees some undefined class of artisans who mindlessly copy designs passed down by some mysterious and undefined source and who copy even mistakes mindlessly without appraisal with no judgment whatsoever as to the content of that work. One is forced to question whether this isn't what Dennett truly hopes that humanity is and is desperately trying to substantiate it as opposed to truly scientifically investigating human nature at all.

He then moves on to try and appropriate linguistics to substantiate his 'meme-ological' musings. Language is well-understood to be a characteristically unique cognitive function. The interrelationship between language and thought is anything but a settled issue. And strong versions of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis have been almost thoroughly ruled out by rigorous scientific study. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis basically states that our cognitive functions are influenced by our language. The strong form of this theory would imply that a person's cognitive processes are defined by their language. Theoretically, this would mean that a person cannot conceive of ideas that are not encoded in the language. This is clearly not true, as new words are coined to accommodate new concepts and inventions as they are introduced into the environment. This is a major factor which drives the invention of words, something that Dennet ignores completely. By saying that language evolves itself without any conscious modification, he is ruling out the participation of the actors, the ones who actually voice and write language, us, the human beings.

"On even rarer occasions," he says, " individuals may set out to invent a word or a pronunciation and actually succeed in coining something that eventually enters the language, but in general, the changes that accumulate have no salient human authors, deliberate or inadvertent."

?!

How would Dennett then explain the invention of words like "computer", "robot", "bug", "virus" or the slew of technical computer-based terminology which inundates us today? The invention of these terms was not an outgrowth of already extant phrases that somehow "evolved" through the accumulation of minor changes via the reproduction process and limited by natural selection. These were terms and senses that sprang out of their functional necessity, out of the emergence of new objects which had previously not existed. Objects, machines, devices, which were created, not out of some natural process, but by the dedicated application of human thought to solve real problems in a real universe, not in some magic fantasy land of actorless dynamics like the foggy cloud of disembodied determinism gone mad that rattles around Dennet's echoing chamber of a cranium. Changes in the existential universe mandated changes in language. So, too, changes in modes of thought, changes in our understanding of things have always mandated changes in our language. Language and cognition are intricately intertwined.

However, even though the words we use, through the influence of things like accent, can produce an almost evolutionary shift in language so that German becomes English or Latin becomes Portuguese, the concepts expressed by language remain steadfastly connected to ultimately concrete descriptions of the world around us. As such, the word's meaning does not change as much as Dennett would like us to think. Perhaps words can be shifted to mean things that they were not originally intended to mean, like "gay" or Dennett's pet term "bright". But when they do so, the concepts (for as long as they remain valid concepts in human knowledge) will engender the birth of new phrases which are then needed to express potentially ancient concepts which have been left unheralded by the detachment from the word which had previously served that function.

"Cat" may be "gato" or " neko" or any number of words in any number of languages, but a cat is still a cat, no matter which language you're speaking. And it doesn't take a genius to see that a word is very different from a boat. So, one once again wonders why Dennett doesn't realize this.

After becoming physically ill at this point from trying to understand how someone could present such a mishmash of arbitrary assertions which contrast so starkly with physical reality, I decided to cut to the chase and read Dennett's proffered Appendix which is a reproduction of his article "The New Replicators" originally published in the Encyclopedia of Evolution from Oxford University Press. It was hoped that reading something a bit more technical could help dispell some of Dennett's own mumbo-jumbo.

Unfortunately, fully dissecting that would take another post almost as long as this one, and it would simply be a reiteration of the arguments I have already presented. To sum it up, while accepting that there is no basis in physical reality for the existence of memes, he claims that they are simply because they are possible. However, their very possibility once again assumes that people do not have free-will or active control over the contents of their own minds or the products of their labor. In short, it assumes that ideas are generated by the very processes that would need to be established to prove the existence of the process proposed. If this circle of logic makes you dizzy, then you can sympathize with the motion sickness I got while reading Dennett's book in my living room.

Perhaps Dennett is happy ruminating on his prophesied day "when a cleverly turned phrase in a book gets indexed by many search engines, and thereupon enters the language as a new cliche, without anybody to read it." But if nobody reads it, it is doubtful that it can be said to have entered the language at all. At the very least, it can only be hoped that both Dennett and his abuse of human reason are not long for this Earth. Although with the support and following of so many prominent intellectuals, it may be that he will instead be remembered as the messiah of a brand new breed of totalitarian rhetoric, yet one known to readers of Ayn Rand's philosophical work as the "Aristocracy of Pull." For once you have abdicated belief in you own mind, then you will be very easy to control.

And petty hacks like Dennett have long yearned to pull the trigger in the face of humanity.