Identity Politics

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Identity Politics:

If being American means anything, it means respecting a common ideal that, notwithstanding endemic instances of favoritism, with hard work, self reliance, enterprising application, and enlightened empathetic grounding, every citizen has a reasonable chance to fulfill and contribute to a worthwhile life.

To be American, however, is not to entitle every possibly contrived minority to be supported by fellow citizens in lifestyles of adolescent sloth, decadence, or familial irresponsibility. And, to be American does not mean that any American, on account of color or origin, is owed, or “owes," reparations or legislatively detailed fairness to any other on account of experiences or interpretations of wrongs of bygone generations.

No doubt, there are philosophies, societies, nations, and cultures that espouse contrariwise. However, those who share such beliefs would do well to emigrate, because such beliefs are antithetical to what is most fundamental to American culture.

While the “dominant culture” of America often shows favoritism, it does not exclude from success those who take American ideals to heart. All things being relatively equal, it could be appropriate to take needs of diversity into affirmative account. But simply because there are “different ways of perceiving the world” is hardly reason for Americans to “change” an essential element of what has facilitated America's greatness.

No logic, science, or philosophy “proves” that “different ways of perceiving the world” should be allowed to shove aside or replace the American way. Rather, to imply the contrary is insulting to Americans, who are insulted by notions of reparations based on no reasonable limit to all manner of identity politics.

Note to identity panderers, victim mongers, and race baiters: You have a choice: Learn self reliance, or remain mired in ridiculous, adolescent, self pity.

No responsible American I know feels the least obligation to support wallowing in self pity. And few among liberals seem willing to actually part directly with their own time or money just to mollify individual grievance mongers.

ENOUGH! IT IS LONG PAST TIME FOR GRIEVANCE MONGERS TO GROW UP!

***********

For “DIS-EDUCATION,” not education, see http://academic.udayton.edu/race/02rights/repara.htm :
“Opponents of reparations have been intolerant and even insulting to reparationists, evidencing an overt disrespect for their position. That intolerance was created in an Ethnocentricity Laboratory, which recognizes "one way" which is by popular acceptance "the right way." Opponents of reparations should understand that there are different ways of perceiving the world, and that those different perceptions, in this case the African-American consciousness, can have a profound impact on the analysis of the issue of reparations.”

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Comment: Well, now, everyone gets their own cross to bear, do they not? Onions, anyone?
See:
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/08/a_history_lesson_from_cuba.html;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sawN7uJ8s8s;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoIjjPzTyJY;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pO1dIKgfPw;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2zx3-0zOPs.

Waltzing Matilda

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Waltzing Matilda (lugging loneliness on your back, or, as I conceive it, dancing without vision or purpose):

Modern society has become wired for conditioning us to be unable to get enough of indebting and enslaving ourselves in various cycles to politicians, con artists, extortionists, exhibitionists, prostitutes, pimps, sadists, pushers, thrill providers, parade pretenders, fashion mavens, status purveyors, and values dictators.

It is not just oil oligarchs and corporate taskmasters grown accustomed to loathing the lifestyles of the rest of us to whom we have cheaply sold out ourselves and our nation. Rather, we have also sold ourselves out to the relativists, rationalizers, educators, artists, abusers, adulterers, homosexuals (“love” whomever you want, but you have no “right” to assault public bounds of accepted decency), polygamists, fops, druggies, and “responsibility-cowards” who run Hollywood and other political, entertainment, and religious scams, all the while loathing those who hold traditional values.

For example: If you expect to respect yourself the morning after you were to vote for Obama, first ask who is running him and what is their agenda? Will not the agenda of those providing the most important financing for Obama also become the agenda of his administration? What is that agenda, and is that what you want America to become?

If Democrats take both the White House and Senate, and hold the House, then what principles (name even one worthwhile principle they do not, in practice, annihilate with effeminate counter sympathies!) will they respect in order to check their unquenchable thirst to undermine family values, public decency, the military, national defense, national competitiveness, limited governmental regulation, free enterprise, work ethic, meritorious advancement, self reliance, freedom of speech, national borders, and the U.S. Constitution?

It is not just traditional notions about God or sacred, figurative stories that our modern controllers hate, but all values beyond immediate gratification, control, and market pricing. That is, they hate all values that could lead individuals to freedom or dignity (living with purpose beyond the cheap childish drug being offered du jour)!

Now, we perceive that the gap in wealth and power between “haves” and “have nots” has grown to a chasm, that most political power has passed to the haves, and that non-access to money among the have-nots renders them impotent --- politically and socially --- except to give thanks for whatever is allowed by the “have-mosts” to trickle down.

What does it matter to everyone else whether their strings are pulled by bosses of democrats, republicans, ruling families, ruling priests, ruling mullahs, corporations, labor unions, syndicates, or exhibitionistic entertainers? For buying out our birthrights cheaply, what real difference is there among our controllers?

Regardless, will not our controllers pull our strings so that we throw unceasing blame among ourselves, baiting race against race, tribe against tribe, state against state, as if we, the little people, so victimized and owed each other that we should never stop fighting each other --- all for the entertainment and service of our immoderate controllers?

May there yet be cause to hope that McCain, at least, has independence enough to be receptive to reasoned pressure from moderates not to further sell out America’s defense, borders, dignity, and freedom?

In selling out cheaply, should we expect Obama's financiers, rather than cashing in on our birthrights as Americans, to give them back --- as if “owed,” entitled, or “fair”?

So long as we remain addicted and conditioned to immediate gratifications, how shall we expect to reclaim potency, freedom, or dignity?

Modern political parties are a farce of Waltzing Matilda. Red Ass Moderates must rudely wake and begin blowing the whistle long, hard, and continuously! Enough! Time to direct "gimme-toddlers" back to their rooms! Do not swallow the pill of any modern party!

Moderating Empathies

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Moderating Empathies:

The founders of America were guided by empathetic genius for checking and reconciling competitions among interests and powers.

The founders appreciated that empathy does not consist unambiguously or only in love. Rather, empathy also alternates and twists in currents of existential despair, rage, and deceit. Often, wisdom delayed is mistaken for youthful or innocent love. And, often, love is skillfully feigned. Not all sheep wear their own wool. And not all patricians unambiguously wish well for their posterity.

Often, those habits that rise to success depend upon Machiavellian deceit and evil ruthlessness. And, often, those habits that fail give rise to warring gangs and aggrieved cultures for rationalizing victimhood and entitlement.

Liberals may feign to feel our pain, Libertarians may feign to respect our gratification, and Conservatives may feign to afford us opportunity. However, the beginnings of Wisdom and Virtue arise only as we come to will, as Moderates, to reconcile inherent ambiguities in our common, existentially cracked, predicament.

In capacity to crack, compartmentalize, synchronize, and delay illusions and resonances of sets within sets, out of mere math, the Will that each of our perspectives represents has no limits. Such Will respects no real differences in time, but only differences in associated perspectives of time.

Armed of underlying Will, each perspective chooses how to reconcile with its existential angst. Wisdom consists in appreciating how not all perspectives frankly show their intents. Some prefer to view everything through pan gloss’ian glasses; some prefer to gorge on gratification of glands; some relish achieving skills in deceit and ruthlessness; and some wish to come to independent, mature appreciation of all. Depending upon context and purpose, each, from time to time, will co-opt strategies of the others.

In my judgment, at this juncture, neither the World, nor America, should afford for America to surrender independence, lay aside borders, indulge false entitlements, or abet rising aristocrats.

Search the underlying sympathies, associations, intentions, desires, and habits of would-be leaders. But also search the same of their major sponsors.

Massaging Message

Berlin Victory Column
Originally uploaded by Wolfgang Staudt

(Click title above.)

How shall America dissolve sources of greed and depredation coagulating against her heart, in time to say, "Enough!"

How shall America learn hard lessons of moderation in time to avoid gagging on greed, whether of gold, mammon, or whoredom?

How shall America exemplify its "extreme moderate," Benjamin Franklin?

How shall America foreshadow the pivotal moment, tipping point, sudden slide, cultural drift, genetic load, critical mass, or apocalyptic event?

From http://www.nysun.com/opinion/obama-at-a-war-symbol/82529/ :
Even now, many Germans view the Victory Column with ambivalence or embarrassment. When, earlier this week, it became clear the Obama campaign had selected it as the site for the speech, the German weekly Die Zeit asked "wieso bloss?" — "but why?" Noting the above-mentioned camera advantage, the newspaper concluded nonetheless, "as background for a peace message to the peoples of the world, it doesn't exactly recommend itself."

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/07/berlins_sly_phallic_tribute_to.html
"When will they start laughing at him?" is still the biggest question about Obama in Europe. Berliners have a long tradition of laughing at pompous conquering heroes, including Hitler. Berliners immediately turned JFK's famous line, "Ich bin ein Berliner" into a joke, because a "Berliner" is a famous jelly doughnut. And today, we see the Victory Column, associated with Germany's big Gay magazine because it's, well, shaped like a different kind of victory column, surrounded by two perfectly symmetrical Obama balloon spheres. Just take a look at this picture, and tell me it ain't so.

Comment by Roy E:
I have thought that all the Euros need is a little bit of exposure to the greenbean messiah to see though his charade.
But sometimes I'm not so sure. It seems that a wave of collective stupidity has washed over the European people. How long they remain drunk on wishful utopian thinking is anybody's guess, but reality will come home one very rude and ugly day.

Of Solitariness And Isolation

King Midas
Originally uploaded by Nancy Flamingo

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Of Selflessness, Selfishness, and Silliness:

It is not good that the man should be alone ….” Genesis 2:15.

COMPARE: http://www.altruists.org/about/altruism/ :

"The most effective counter to the spread of altruism is the modern money system, since it is responsible for an unnatural transactional mentality. The inherent conflict in conventional money establishes zero-sum (competitive) relationships between people and organizations - so that those who help others necessarily disadvantage themselves."

COMMENT: Well, that is just silly!

WITH: http://atlassociety.org/cth-31-1351-About_Objectivism.aspx : "Objectivism celebrates the power of man's mind, defending reason and science against every form of irrationalism. It provides an intellectual foundation for objective standards of truth and value."

COMMENT: Well, that also is just silly!

PERSONAL COMMENTS:
ALONENESS: Each perspective or personhood, although "locked" within its own "physical" holography, grows beyond spiritual isolation only through empathy derived of experiencing and appreciating interactions with other perspectives.

HERENESS: A "placeholding of hereness" for availing separate definition of any mortal perspective of "I-ness" would not subsist, absent empathetic appreciation of other "placeholdings of perspectives."

RISK: I can hardly explore the power and reach of my own mind without putting myself to risk. Indeed, in an opportunity-cost world for consuming and recycling carbon based lifeforms, what worthwhile opportunity can be won, without substantial risk of self or sacrifice?

OBJECTIVITY: How, then, may I objectively know, in advance, whether any specific instance for seeking after only my personal advancement (by cooperating, competing, or interacting with others) may lead to physical risks which, had I foresight as hindsight, may or may not show to have been worthwhile?

FORETELLING: Absent a crystal ball, how should I know whether any chosen course, regardless of selfish or selfless intention, will in fact pan out as intended?

OBJECTIVISM: In other words, how can I objectively practice "Objectivism?"

ISOLATION: Insofar as one could hardly be human in isolation, then, without isolating oneself, how could one be entirely selfish (or objectivist)?

ENLIGHTENMENT:
"I" should be enlightened to appreciate that my existence (or existential effect) extends well beyond any imagined, frozen-in-time "physical" limits of my skin

This is because "I" encompass my changing experiences, perspectives, interests, and empathies.

It is not "objective" to pretend capacity to act either in pure selfishness or in pure selflessness.

Rather, I should aspire that both my selfishness and my selflessness be "enlightened."

That is, "enlightened altruism" is not unlike "enlightened selfishness."

In other words, enlightened intuition leads "subjective I-ness" in appreciating inability in EACH of us to avoid empathizing in at least some extent with connectedness of ALL of us.

For sense of moral purpose, our national motto is E Pluribus Unum --- out of many, one (or, from respect for one are derived many). For scientific purposes, an empiricist will proceed as if individual parts are amenable of being clearly distinguished within wholes. For political, social, and moral purposes, such unambiguous distinctions cannot very well be maintained irrespective of contextual development. To believe otherwise is simply to fail to apprehend our national motto. That is, conserving national purposefulness necessitates changing particular empathies in respect of holistically evolving traditions, beyond brute logic and empiricism ("unite or die").

Except as concepts for discussion, "pure selflessness" and "pure selfishness" simply do not exist.

"Objectivism," as philosophy, absent investment of empathy and intuition, is much ado about ridiculous pretense, supporting calculations only in respect of trivial wordplay, leading only to smoke and mirrors in our real world, subject to collapse at pinprick by merest insight.

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ABOUT SELF SACRIFICE AND LIBERTY:
From John Stuart Mill, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill :

"But war, in a good cause, is not the greatest evil which a nation can suffer. War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing is worth a war, is worse. When a people are used as mere human instruments for firing cannon or thrusting bayonets, in the service and for the selfish purposes of a master, such war degrades a people. A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice – a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their free choice – is often the means of their regeneration. A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. As long as justice and injustice have not terminated their ever-renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other."

*****
Freedom is not free:

Troops did not mean to sacrifice for ingrates:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdPE_DpDBP4

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

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8bIuN6Vbh0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPU4p7UQOtU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIPBtP02yKc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oz5Eoa9kr3E

WWII site photos --- then and now:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mm60ZIVnXZw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FX2VTr-r2sc

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Free Mind:
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhagavad_Gita :

… one's life on earth must be lived in accordance with greater laws and truths, one must embrace one's temporal duties whilst remaining mindful of a more timeless reality, acting for the sake of action without consideration for the results thereof. Such a life would naturally lead towards stability, happiness and ultimately, enlightenment.

….

According to the Bhagavad Gita, the goal of life is to free the mind and intellect from their complexities and to focus them on the glory of the Self by dedicating one's actions to the divine.

....

“FASCISM” — ABOUT ISOLATION, INDIVIDUALISM, “BORG,” HERD-MIND, AND COLLECTIVISM:

See http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/12/opinion/12brooks.html?th&emc=th.
Some folks seem wired to want checks and balances for protecting individual freedom and privacy, while others seem wired to want collectivism and organized central control with clear lines of authority.

Individualists tend towards skills for jolting paradigms, by thinking creatively (outside the contextual box), while collectivists tend towards skills for harnessing group oriented creativity in respect of contexts. When they try to play nice together, each may see the other as “fascist.”

Civilizing Altruism

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Watching the HBO special about John Adams at work among The Founders, I was struck by how inspired they were towards sharing a civilizing purpose (founding a republic of free citizens), which they deemed important beyond their physical bodies. "In their bones," they were animated by more than mere desire to survive and reproduce. Rather, they wished to create and leave to posterity something of worth which led beyond themselves. In what way, then, should Darwinism be conceived to explain why such an altruistic cause so inspired them?



REGARDING Edward O. Wilson —
(Tainting Words, Rejecting Ayn Rand, and Driving Dawkins Bonkers?)

REGARDING Sociobiology and Multilevel Selection Theory (is there a clear conceptual definition — either of “gene” or of “evolution”?):


QUOTE SNIPPITS:

See http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/522809?cookieSet=1:
Current sociobiology is in theoretical disarray, with a diversity of frameworks that are poorly related to each other. Part of the problem is a reluctance to revisit the pivotal events that took place during the 1960s, including the rejection of group selection and the development of alternative theoretical frameworks to explain the evolution of cooperative and altruistic behaviors. In this article, we take a “back to basics” approach, explaining what group selection is, why its rejection was regarded as so important, and how it has been revived based on a more careful formulation and subsequent research.

.

Multilevel selection theory:
From http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/science/15wils.html?em&ex=1216267200&en=0c430acc141c196e&ei=5087%0A
Dr. Wilson, changing his mind because of new data about the genetics of ant colonies, now believes that natural selection operates at many levels, including at the level of a social group.



[COMMENT: There is a lag between the time consciousness of a decision is sensed and the time the brain-holography had actually already made the decision. So, (including group selection) provides an elegant theoretical foundation for sociobiology in the future, once its turbulent past is appropriately understood. What is IT that accounts for evolution in our habits and modes of thought, in respect of what occurs prior to consciousness of such thought? Is IT a same ineffable Quality/Aspect/Thing that accounts for evolution of emerging and social behaviors, patterns, and memes, beyond genes? Might IT "school minds like fish," in some sort of existentially shared mass-angst? ]

....


It is through multilevel or group-level selection — favoring the survival of one group of organisms over another — that evolution has in Dr. Wilson’s view brought into being the many essential genes that benefit the group at the individual’s expense. In humans, these may include genes that underlie generosity, moral constraints, even religious behavior. Such traits are difficult to account for, though not impossible, on the view that natural selection favors only behaviors that help the individual to survive and leave more children.


OF TAINTED WORDS:


From http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/522809?cookieSet=1 :

It is a natural human tendency to avoid associating oneself with people or ideas that have acquired a bad reputation in the past. Thus, there are evolutionists who study social behavior, but avoid the term “sociobiology,” or who study psychology, but avoid the term “evolutionary psychology,” because of particular ideas that were associated with these terms in the past, including their supposed political implications. At a broader scale, there are people who avoid the word “evolution” because of past negative associations, even though they are clearly talking about evolutionary processes. We think that this very understandable temptation needs to be resisted in the case of scientific terminology, because the short-term gain for the user (avoiding negative associations) results in long-term confusion for the field as a whole (a proliferation of terms that mean the same thing). The problem has been especially severe for multilevel selection theory because many evolutionists have felt that their very careers would be jeopardized if they invoked group selection. In some cases, their fears were well founded; we could provide numerous examples of colleagues whose articles and grant proposals were rejected when stated in terms of multilevel selection theory, and then accepted when restated using other terms.


[COMMENT: Shades of “Expelled”!]


The rejection of group selection in the 1960s was based on three arguments, like the legs of a stool: a) group selection as a significant evolutionary force is theoretically implausible; b) there is no solid empirical evidence for group selection as a distinctive, analytically separable process; and c) alternative theories can explain the evolution of apparent altruism without invoking group selection.


[COMMENT — Well, I suspect the primary reason may have been this: ASSUMING everything can be reduced to computation, there seems no way to test the compute-ability of group selection. (If so, and so long as non-group selection also remains inadequate in itself, what is the implication of that, regarding the original ASSUMPTION?) Until we plumb individual selection, to encourage shared conceptualizations of group selecton too quickly may lead us to overlook other avenues of scientific manipulation, even if while expediting appreciation of limits of conceptional applications.]
....

The closest that Williams came to a rigorous empirical test was for sex ratio, leading him to predict that female-biased sex ratios would provide evidence for group selection. The subsequent discovery of many examples of female-biased sex ratios, as well as evidence of group selection in the evolution of disease organisms, brought him back toward multilevel selection in the 1990s.
....

Field studies of social vertebrates are seldom as precise as laboratory experiments but nevertheless provide convincing evidence for group selection. The following description of territorial defense in lions (Packer and Heinsohn 1996:1216; see also Heinsohn and Packer 1995) is virtually identical to Darwin's passage about human morality that began this article: “Female lions share a common resource, the territory; but only a proportion of females pay the full costs of territorial defense. If too few females accept the responsibilities of leadership, the territory will be lost. If enough females cooperate to defend the range, their territory is maintained, but their collective effort is vulnerable to abuse by their companions. Leaders do not gain ‘additional benefits' from leading, but they do provide an opportunity for laggards to gain a free ride.” In this field study, extensive efforts to find a within-group advantage for territorial defense failed, leaving between-group selection as the most likely—and fully plausible—alternative.
....

“.... to offer the following one-foot summary of sociobiology's new theoretical foundation: “Selfishness beats altruism within groups. Altruistic groups beat selfish groups. Everything else is commentary.”” (COMMENT: Might this help explain the result of WWII?)


[COMMENT: So, how should a viable civilization inspire altruism?
I think, not entirely or merely with Ayn Rand’s philosophy. For moral purposes, rather than choosing between "either-or" thinking (individual or collective, singular or plural), we must reconcile "I" with "we." Each must value his or her own integrity, even while appreciating derivation in respect of empathy beyond. That is, "Mind" is not entirely or only individual or collective. Rather, Mind/Will ("Elohim"), in moral sense, is not only individual (singularity), but also capable of infinity (plurality) of perspectives.

Empiricists, becoming stunted in indisposition to imagine beyond "either-or" scientific boxes, often become, for moral purposes, maddeningly myopic --- if not quite morally hollow.

Minds shoehorned into strict "either-or" habits of thought for empirical reasoning come easily to transfer similar habits of thought as if appropriate for moral reasoning, coming comfortably to deny that Ayn Rand's "moral philosophy" (being incomplete) can never suffice.

Note: Ironically enough, Gary Cooper starred not only in a film based on Rand's "The Fountainhead," but also in another film, showing another side of altruism, i.e., "Meet John Doe."]


From http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/science/15wils.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5087&em&en=0c430acc141c196e&ex=1216267200

Morality and religion, he suspects, are traits based on group selection. “Groups with men of quality — brave, strong, innovative, smart and altruistic — would tend to prevail, as Darwin said, over those groups that do not have those qualities so well developed,” Dr. Wilson said.
....

Looking back at the “heavy mortar fire” that rained down on him over “Sociobiology,” he said he had risked his academic career and feared for a time that he had made a fatal error. His admiration for the political courage of the Harvard faculty is not without limits; many colleagues told him they supported him, but all did so privately. Academic biologists are still so afraid of inciting similar attacks that they practice sociobiology under other names, like evolutionary psychology.

.... he says: “Stop quibbling — I’m willing to say ‘Under God’ and to hold my hand to my heart. That’s recognition of how this country evolved, and that we are using strong language to strong purpose, even if we may not agree on how the Earth was created.”
....

....it is back to the ants and the writing and the endless quest to understand how the hand of evolution has shaped every aspect of life.

....

[COMMENT: Theorists of “emergence” seem interested in reducing the apparent “evolution” of multilevels of patterns to mere epiphenomena, lacking “real” source substantiveness in themselves. But, are theorists of “multilevel selection” interested in expanding the concept of evolution to encompass synchronizing agents of cause?

I need to consider WHY Dawkins is so frothy against those he deems to be messing with his conceptual scheme.

May Dawkins be troubled that multilevel evolution is more readily conceptualized for implicating a Unitary Synchronizer?

What does Dawkins think about George C Williams's concern that, only by a theory of between-group selection could we achieve a scientific explanation of group-related adaptations”? Does the possibility of multilevel selection render any ultimate unifying theory of biology so “non-computational” as to drive Dawkins and Company bonkers?

Must Something-Noncomputable "exist," beyond science, which synchronizes, facilitates, and guides evolution across multi-levels, based on ITs appreciation of feedback on holographic scales, rather than merely scales relating to survival and replication of individuals?] :

******

OF MORAL INTUITION:

Moderates should think logically and experientially about what are limits of science and beginnings of moral judgment and intuition. Challenges multiply as hedonists assert there are no “oughts” beyond personal, bodily, physical gratification and as scientists jealously assert “intuition” is devoid of meaning (i.e., that there are no worthwhile or meaningful concerns beyond logic and empiricism.

For annihilating social traditions and mores, Scientists and Hedonists seem often to align against Moderates, like Nihilist Libertines against responsible society.

In empirical sense, “intuition” may subsequently be evidenced to have been or not to have been descriptive of the case. However, in moral sense, “intuition” (or judgment) may be meant to pertain to that which one applies in endeavoring to effect choices in managing among moral uncertainties.

“Objective” minded persons, when unaccustomed to moral responsibility for decisions outside parameters of safe calculation, may grow agitated when pressed to discuss moral terms or ideas not readily reducible to cold, replicable measure, statistics, control, or prediction. Of course, much that is not trivial challenges us concerning our futures, being not reducible to certain knowledge. Beyond rough parameters of measurable or predictable accuracy, little that is not trivial is rigorously reducible to certainty.

In hindsight, one may imagine what could have been deduced from what was knowable, had one known it. By what strategy, however, does or should one approach decision making responsibilities when data or knowledge is uncertain or seems insufficient? And, when one does somehow muddle through to make non-trivial decisions or choices, by what label or name should the process or moral choice making be referenced --- if not “Intuition?”

Surely, such process “exists.” How then, may or should it be termed? For such term, what does an Objectivist offer? Should such process be named only in respect of its result, as in: “stuff happens?” Depending upon context, does an Objectivist offer anything better for terming such process than: hunch, guess, judgment, will, choice, intuition, or insight?

If, in non-trivial situations, Objectivists do not exercise something like “intuition” (an oft disparaged word among them), what then are they doing? If they are not “doing,” is “Nature” (Gaia?) then making “random” choices? Or, “should” Objectivists presume all is predetermined by indifferent and irrelevant “Original Cause(s)?” Is Nature (or Science) practicing science (Meta-science)? Is everyone and everything mere manifestation of experiment of ever higher orders of experiments (or Experimenters)?

When any choice is intuited, decided, or embarked upon as may be thought “best,” by what “objective” test, then, may any mere “empiricist,” not having access to the universe of the alternative, assert gnosis in respect of evidence gathered either in support or to the contrary? And, the instant an Objectivist deigns to care enough to attempt to gather such “evidence,” does he not thereby show his “objective indifference” to be NOT THE CASE?

To empiricists of little practical, moral responsibility who presume to disdain either "altruism" or “intuition”: GROW UP!

MODERATING BETWEEN LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES

(Click title above.)

Tiny Tim and Patrick Mirucki
Originally uploaded by directorpat

MODERATING BETWEEN LIBERALS (Tiny Tim) AND CONSERVATIVES (Scrooge):

Regarding excerpts from http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/vital-center.html :

Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr. THE VITAL CENTER: THE POLITICS OF FREEDOM

The Soviet experience, on top of the rise of fascism, reminded my generation rather forcibly that man was, indeed, imperfect, and that the corruptions of power could unleash great evil in the world. We discovered a new dimension of experience - the dimension of anxiety, guilt and corruption. (Or it may well be, as Reinhold Niebuhr has brilliantly suggested, that we were simply rediscovering ancient truths which we should never have forgotten.)

….

The consequence of this historical re-education has been an unconditional rejection of totalitarianism and a reassertion of the ULTIMATE INTEGRITY OF THE INDIVIDUAL. [Caps added.]

[COMMENTS: I DISAGREE! To promote every individual above society would sanction boundless perversions --- pretending, corruptly, that each individual is equal or superior to “God” (or whatever label by which reference may be made to one’s highest standard of moral evaluation)!

While I agree that totalitarianism must be rejected, I consider that a MODERATE approach is best: To inspire and reassert shared respect for an ideal of how best to lead civilizations towards free societies that are stable, sustainable, and inspiring towards fulfilling surpassage.]

….

I am persuaded that the restoration of business to political power in this country would have the calamitous results that have generally accompanied business control of the government; that this time we might be delivered through the incompetence of the right into the hands of the totalitarians of the left. But I am persuaded too that liberals have values in common with most members of the business community--in particular, a belief in free society--which they do not have in common with the totalitarians.

[COMMENTS: I agree that we must not drink political kool-aid, but I think such kool-aid is served up by all present formal political parties, including Democrats and Republicans alike. Instead of drinking political kool-aid, we need, in common, to develop beliefs for leading us towards free societies that are stable, sustainable, and inspiring towards fulfilling surpassage.

This will not be accomplished until pride in individual RIGHTS is moderated by humility in respect of worthwhile, higher, civilizing DUTIES.

Individual freedom must be respected, but such freedom must also be derivative of respect for civilizing law. Property and capital (Capitalism) must be respected and encouraged, yet regulated --- ONLY as necessary to redeem vital social (Socialism) interests.]

….

The corruptions of power--the desire to exercise it, the desire to increase it, the desire for prostration before it--had no place in the progressive calculations. As a result, progressivism became politically inadequate: it could neither persuade nor control the emotions of man. And it became intellectually inadequate: it could not anticipate nor explain the tragic movements of history in the twentieth century. Ideologies which exploited the darker passions captured men by appeals unknown to the armory of progressivism.

….

Problems are much simpler when viewed from the office of a liberal weekly than when viewed in terms of what will actually happen when certain ideologically attractive steps are taken.

….

Ask a progressive what he thinks of the Mexican War, or of our national policy toward the Indians, and he will probably say that these outbursts of American imperialism are black marks on our history. Ask him whether he then regrets that California, Texas and the West are today part of the United States. And was there perhaps some way of taking lands from the Indians or from Mexico without violating rights in the process? Pushed to it, the progressive probably thinks that there is some solution hidden in the back of his fantasy; but ordinarily he never has to push the question that far back, because he never dreams of facing a question in terms of responsibility for the decision.

….

Its appeal lies partly in the progressive intellectual's sense of guilt over living pleasantly by his skills instead of unpleasantly by his hands, partly in the intellectual's somewhat feminine fascination with the rude and muscular power of the proletariat, partly in the intellectual's desire to compensate for his own sense of alienation by immersing himself in the broad maternal expanse of the masses. Worship of the proletariat becomes a perfect fulfillment for the frustrations of the progressive.

….

But, contrary to Marx's prediction of increasing proletarian misery, capitalism, once it has had the chance, has vastly increased the wealth and freedom of the ordinary worker. It has reduced the size of the working class and deradicalized the worker.

….

Marx recognized that many workers were not Marxists and so invented a classification called the Lumpenproletariat in which were dumped those who did not live up to theory. Lenin recognized this too and so invented a disciplined party which announced itself as the only true representative of the proletariat, reducing non-Communist workers to political non-existence.

….

A working-class organization will soon stand, not for the working class, but for the working class plus the organization's own instincts for survival plus the special bureaucratic interests of the organization's top leadership. No loopholes have yet been discovered in the iron law of oligarchy.

….

Each success of the Soviet Union has conferred new delights on those possessed of the need for prostration and frightened of the responsibilities of decision. In a world which makes very little sense, these emotions are natural enough. But surrender to them destroys the capacity for clear intellectual leadership which ought to be the progressive s function in the world. In an exact sense, Soviet Russia has become the opiate of the progressives.

….

"The facts of life do not penetrate to the sphere in which our beliefs are cherished," writes Proust; "as it was not they that engendered those beliefs, so they are powerless to destroy them; they can aim at them continual blows of contradiction and disproof without weakening them; and an avalanche of miseries and maladies coming, one after another, without interruption into the bosom of a family, will not make it lose faith in either the clemency of its God or the capacity of its physician."

The Soviet Union can do very little any more to disenchant its believers; it has done about everything in the book already. I remember in the summer of 1939 asking a fellow traveler what the USSR could possibly do which would make him lose faith. He said, "Sign a pact with Hitler." But two months later he had absorbed the pact with Hitler; and so the hunger to believe, the anxiety and the guilt, continue to triumph over the evidence.

Conservatism in its crisis of despair turns to fascism: so progressivism in its crisis of despair turns to Communism. Each in a sober mood has a great contribution to make to free society: the conservative in his emphasis on law and liberty, the progressive in his emphasis on mass welfare. But neither is capable of saving free society. Both, faced by problems they cannot understand and fear to meet, tend to compound their own failure by delivering free society to its totalitarian foe. To avoid this fate, we must understand as clearly as possible the reasons for the appeal of totalitarianism.

*****

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_M._Schlesinger_Jr. : Schlesinger was a prolific contributor to liberal theory and was a passionate and articulate voice for Kennedy-style liberalism. He was admired for his wit, scholarship, and devotion to delineating the history and nature of liberalism. Since 1990 he had been a critic of multiculturalism.

*****

COMMENTS:

To resolve that nothing is more important than sustenance of one’s own bodily pleasures is to expose oneself to falling for everything, leading one towards a “less than zero” donkeyland, where residents mutually rationalize one another’s degradation.

Piping personal pleasure primus condemns pursuit of fulfillment to mirage. It is not natural physics that foreshadows fulfillment, but supernatural faith. To look for spiritual fulfillment in physical pleasure is to lose sight of it’s light.

Capacity to reach towards spiritual, civilizing aspirations beyond mere physical or pleasurable sustenance of body is the only thing that can lift us above base nature.

....

“FASCISM” — ABOUT ISOLATION, INDIVIDUALISM, “BORG,” HERD-MIND, AND COLLECTIVISM:

See http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/12/opinion/12brooks.html?th&emc=th.
Some folks seem wired to want checks and balances for protecting individual freedom and privacy, while others seem wired to want collectivism and organized central control with clear lines of authority.

Individualists tend towards skills for jolting paradigms, by thinking creatively (outside the contextual box), while collectivists tend towards skills for harnessing group oriented creativity in respect of contexts. When they try to play nice together, each may see the other as “fascist.”

HEALTH CARE AND TAXATION

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POLICY: HEALTH CARE AND TAXATION
SEE: Ben Stein's smack down of Cavuto: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWpC_D7jXyc

See also http://www.newsmax.com/morris/obama_healthcare/2008/07/21/114994.html.

REMEMBER -- Aristotle’s warning: Given that poorer citizens always outnumber the rich, political philosophers worried that government based on majority rule could lead to organized theft from the wealthy by the democratic masses. If the majority distributes among itself the things of a minority, it is evident that it will destroy the city.

TAXING AS SOLUTION: Were virtuous and wise philosophers our governors, perhaps increasing the size and financing of government could lead to better civilizing policies. However, philosophers are as mortal as politicians, scammers, and gangsters. Government must always be carefully considered and watched, because increasing its financing is often counterproductive, sometimes ruinous, and always distorting. Power to tax is power to destroy.

GOLDEN GOOSE: To mix metaphors, unless stressed or tempted to “the lemming point,” it is unlikely politicians would fail to heed Aristotle’s warning (or tax a “golden goose” into extinction).

ASIDE: BENNIE AND THE JETS
“Say, Candy and Ronnie, have you seen them yet
But they're so spaced out, Bennie and the Jets
Oh but they're weird and they're wonderful
Oh Bennie she's really keen
She's got electric boots a mohair suit”

NEO BENNIE AND JETS:
BENNIE: See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bennie -- Recreational stimulant users often use benzodiazepines as a means of "coming down".
JETS: See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout_2 -- The game's overall theme matter is more R-rated, with drugs and prostitution becoming major elements of the setting and the drug "Jet" as one of the major subplots. Profanities are also encountered more often. During the course of the game, players can join the Mafia, become a porn star, and engage in adultery. Slavery also becomes an important subplot, and players can either side with the Slavers or join their opponents that try to stamp slavery out.

PANDERING POLS: Obama (as well as “Bennie and the other jets”) knows enough to demagogue and pander, but also that money talks and bullsh*t walks. Growing up immersed in Machiavelli, Politicians well know how to PRETEND to give the proletariat what they want (or at least how to entice them to believe that what they are getting is what they want).

WHO PAYS AND WHO RECEIVES: Some suggest the top 50% “pay” 97% of taxes. See http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2008/07/020953.php. (Someone once noted there are three kinds of liars: liars, damn liars, and statisticians. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies,_damned_lies,_and_statistics.)

Of course, much depends on how one defines “taxes.” After all, most of corporate taxes are simply passed on in higher prices charged to middle class consumers (which is another reason for replacing the income tax with a consumption tax). And, if those of the middle class "made" more money, they would pay more in income taxes.

In any event, is it not more appropriate to consider who is “taxed” to contribute labor and INNOVATION to the operation of our commonly shared governmental services? (After all, how many patents did stockholders invent for the corporations that hold them?)

Regardless, to say that those who are paid in the top 50% pay 97% of taxes is another way of saying that, for politicians for whom money talks and bullsh*t walks, the bottom 50% must be listened to mainly for lip service, not substance. To peddle such piffle is merely to add insult to injury --- any substance in such piffle would consist only in "faux substance," employed merely to lead the proletariat to want what their rulers want them to want.

IN MYOPIA, WE ALL LOSE: At one time, did not America lead in steel production, appliance and media technology, motor vehicle production, and research in robotics and artificial intelligence? Well, that was yesteryear. Faithless, moneyed pimps have enticed our politicians to sell out trade policies that could have preserved our lead.

NATIONAL VISION: Someone has probably said that the science of the 21st Century will be the science of consciousness. Well, who is the new world leader in robotics and AI? (Japan.) And, if low taxes and big corporate salaries are keys to innovation, why does most production and innovation seem to be transferring overseas? To lead in innovation, why do Japanese not need to pay corporate leaders 2400 times (sounds "Enron'ish) what is paid their average workers?

CONSUMPTION TAXES:
We should eliminate the income tax altogether. In its place, we should have (1) a national sales tax (rates to vary, depending upon desirability of encouraging production of particular products) and (2) a very progressive national consumption tax.
Then, for corporations to generate wealth, they would need to produce much more in respect of what middle class buyers could afford. Instead of conditioning entrepreneurs to yearn to be conspicuous consumers, they could be led to aspire in respect of more socially redeeming, civilizing purposes.
In wallowing in conspicuous consumption, golden parachutes that are counterproductive to the interests of anyone who does not hold them, and corrupt political sell outs, America’s corporate leaders only make themselves, and the rest of us, fat and easy targets --- quite unlike Japanese or Indians.

MARKET ARBITRATION OF FAIRNESS:
Who is given keys to “the market” for buying politicians and earmarking special regulations?
Who benefits most by imposing hidden environmental costs on everyone else?
Apart from regulation, does not even the Mafia leech out a sort of “fair market” niche?
To say whether what someone is paid is “fair,” I do not take it as enough merely to refer to “the market” ---- unless the market is regulated. After all, is what the mafia makes “fair,” merely because it is derived in respect of a market?

AYN RAND:
Those, like Ayn Rand, who believe only in markets for determining how a civilization should avail its produce, often pretend to make proof merely by restating assumptions.
But one hardly “proves” selfish self-interest is best among economic systems merely by stating one “believes” it so.
“Proof” justified only on belief hardly renders it superior to any faith based religion.
Libertarians, Republicans, and Democrats are fond of mining favorite facts, as springboards to unsupported conclusions, pretending to prove apples from oranges.
However, much of civility and politics necessitates more than cold, false syllogisms, pickled from picked facts.
We need to get beyond false syllogisms.
Syllogisms are necessarily false when they purport to “prove” superiority of any one system of economics over all others.
Using false syllogisms hardly clarifies reasoning.
When it comes to weighty non-trivialities, such as choices among policies and systems, we must bring more of experience to bear than picked facts and false logic.
We must also bring to bear taste, discretion, history, philosophy, intuition --- and Enlightened Empathy.
In philosophy, we would do well to consider: What would best serve the mental and physical health of an evolving civilization of sentient beings; what civilizing system would tend most to sustain us, be sustainable, and help lead us towards fulfilling surpassage?

BTW --- Does Leona Helmsley’s dog, Trouble, “deserve” gains on any investments of her inheritance? And where do Atheistic-Globalistic-Capitalists get off, pretending to justify anything, even markets, in terms of “should?”
Red Alert Moderates must call bullsh*t to account, whether of the brand of Libertarians, Republicans, or Democrats.

TIME TO TAX CONSUMPTION

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TIME TO TAX CONSUMPTION:

From http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/10/opinion/10brooks.html?_r=1&oref=slogin :

Sixty-two scholars have signed on to a report by the Institute for American Values and other think tanks called, “For a New Thrift: Confronting the Debt Culture,” examining the results of all this.
....
The agents of destruction are many. State governments have played a role. They aggressively hawk their lottery products, which some people call a tax on stupidity.
....
Credit card companies have played a role. Instead of targeting the financially astute, who pay off their debts, they’ve found that they can make money off the young and vulnerable. Fifty-six percent of students in their final year of college carry four or more credit cards.
....
Congress and the White House have played a role. The nation’s leaders have always had an incentive to shove costs for current promises onto the backs of future generations. It’s only now become respectable to do so.
....
The tax code should tax consumption, not income ....

****

CONCERNS: Have energy, trade, deficit, and debt policies driven us to a point such that the world now coordinates an increasing price of oil with a declining value for the dollar?
Has lack of national health policy pushed the burden of financing health protection onto corporations, rendering them non-competitive with corporations of nations that do have national health policies?
QUOTE --- Henry Ford (during the Depression): “these really are good times, it’s just that few know it.”

COMMENTS:

BEGUILEMENT To Conspicuous Consumption has led us to various means and ends, as follows.

MEANS:
1) Undermining respect for traditional and family values;
2) Undermining of governmental legitimacy (by Marxist academia class and holdover hippies within professorial and journalist class);
3) Loss of faith and breach of trust from pyramid-scamming class (by Madison Avenue types, bent towards devaluing substance in trade for fluff);
4) Disloyalty to country and territory (by corporate class leaders' over-projecting of lines of influence, leading to thinness of military);
5) Sell outs (by greed-connivance class and corrupt politicians, selling out advantages of regulations and national resources and secrets);
6) Disloyalty from welfare and grievance class to common ideals (manifested in capitalism's enemies' grievance-mongering-extortion of other people’s money);
7) Impotency from addict and hedonistic class (resulting from surrender of integrity to instant gratification);
8) Undermining of society and posterity (by spendthrift class’s increasing proclivity for hawking children’s futures).

ENDS:
Imaginative justifications of treason; Energy dependency (oil); Porous borders; Over-extended military; Loss of American industries and jobs (steel, appliances, cars, robots); Inability and unwillingness to engage in common cause for long term planning; Overburdening of national debt; Borrowing against future; Stagnant economy; Increase in work hours, loss of vacation time; Loss of parent at home (two earner families); Loss of health care; Widening gaps in social and political influence (Gini index); Machiavellian pretenses of democracy; Failing adequately to address mounting concerns (relating to: environment, population, famine, rising religious radicalism and terrorism, rising nuclear thug powers); and tumbling loss of sense of spirituality and purpose.

RENEWAL:
We need to seek and inspire renewed empathy and faith in the spiritual value of pursuing civilizing purposes that are stable, sustainable, and worth the pursuing of surpassing fulfillment.
We need a modern Jimmy Stewart character, from “It’s A Wonderful Life!” We need to re-value and re-measure ourselves --- in relation to more than envy, wealth, and conspicuous consumption. We have had quite enough of modern Democrats, Libertarians, and Republicans!
.

*****
.

1) Consumption taxes could mitigate or lessen the gulf in political power and social resources between "haves" and "have nots."

2) National sales taxes could facilitate promotion of socially desireable products while discouraging production of harmful products.

3) Tarriffs could reset scales of fairness, to protect American industries from predatory foreign competition.
.
****
.

Mining revenue to fund any nation requires a dance, both delicate and rough, harmonious and conflicting, among various ideals and methods for taxing occupants.

To counter or reduce the undemocratic exercise of disproportionate wealth and political power, a progressive consumption tax is recommended. Businesses should be precluded from making political contributions. Political contributions made by individuals should be taxed to them as forms of consumption.

To counter the rise and establishment of stubborn, undemocratic aristocracies, progressive death taxes are recommended.

To facilitate governance of inducements and discouragements of various forms of production and consumption, various sales and transactions taxes are recommended, for imposition both on individuals and businesses.

To reduce temptations for black markets and tax evasion schemes, various forms of gift taxes may be recommended.

To preserve a viable, competitive nation, protect industry, reward allies, and discourage enemies, national taxes on various imports and exports may be recommended.

****
.

(Continued above, under "Managing Volatility with Sales Taxes and Tariffs.")

Disappearing Freedom Of Thought

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Given the ACLU wing of our Supreme Court, it is just a matter of time and torture before national speech codes first edit and then burn Bibles. Those who think free speech is not under assault are high beyond reality.
Witness: From http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/man_sues_bible_publishers/2008/07/10/111626.html?s=al&promo_code=65BF-1

Bible Publishers Sued for Anti-Gay References
Thursday, July 10, 2008 10:51 AM
By: Rick Pedraza



A Michigan man is :seeking $70 million from two Christian publishers for emotional distress and mental instability he received during the past 20 years from versions of the Bible that refer to homosexuality as a sin.
Bradley LaShawn Fowler, a gay man, claims his constitutional rights were infringed upon by Zondervan Publishing Co. and Thomas Nelson Publishing, both of which, he claims, deliberately caused homosexuals to suffer by misinterpretation of the Bible.
Fowler, 39, is seeking $60 million from Zondervan and another $10 million from Thomas Nelson.
According to a USA Today report, Fowler’s two separate suits against the publishers claim the intent of the Bible revisions that refer to homosexuals as sinners reflect an individual opinion or a group's conclusion.
Fowler says the deliberate changes made to first Corinthians, chapter six, verse nine caused him "or anyone who is a homosexual to endure verbal abuse, discrimination, episodes of hate, and physical violence ... including murder."
Fowler, who is representing himself in both lawsuits, claims the publishers are misinterpreting the Bible by specifically using the word homosexuals, which made him an outcast from his family and contributed to physical discomfort and periods of demoralization, chaos and bewilderment.
“These are opinions based on the publishers and they are being embedded in the religious structure as a way of life," he tells a local NBC TV station affiliate in Grand Rapids.
Fowler admits that every Bible printed is a translation that can be interpreted in many ways, but he says specifically using the word “homosexual” is not a translation but a change.
Fowler says Zondervan Bibles published in the ‘80s used the word homosexuals among a list of those who are “wicked' or unrighteous and won't inherit the kingdom of heaven.”
Zondervan, for its part, issued a statement to the Grand Rapids press stating it does not translate the Bible or own the copyright for any of the translations it publishes.
“We rely on the scholarly judgment of the highly respected and credible translation committees behind each translation and never alter the text of the translations we are licensed to publish,” the statement reads.
“We only publish credible translations produced by credible Biblical scholars.”
U.S. District Judge Julian Abele Cook Jr., who will hear Fowler’s case against Thomas Nelson, says the court “has some very genuine concerns about the nature and efficacy of [Fowler’s] claims."

**********************

Critical Thinking Is Forbidden, no longer just Politically Incorrect:

Re — Fahrenheit 451:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451:

The novel presents a future American society in which the masses are hedonistic, and critical thought through reading is outlawed. The central character, Guy Montag, is employed as a "fireman" (which, in this future, means "book burner"). The number "451" refers to the temperature (in Fahrenheit) at which a book or paper autoignites. A movie version of the novel was released in 1966, and it is anticipated that a second version will begin filming in 2008.
....
Bradbury has stated that the novel is not about censorship; he states that Fahrenheit 451 is a story about how television destroys interest in reading literature, which leads to a perception of knowledge as being comprised of "factoids", partial information devoid of context, e.g. Napoleon's birth date alone, without who he was.
....
Fahrenheit 451 takes place in an unspecified future time in a hedonistic and rabidly anti-intellectual America that has completely abandoned self-control, filled with lawlessness in the streets, from teenagers crashing cars into people to firemen at Montag's station who set their mechanical hound to hunt various animals for the simple and grotesque pleasure of watching them die. Anyone caught reading books is, at the minimum, confined to a mental hospital while the books are burned. Illegal books mainly include famous works of literature, such as Whitman and Faulkner, as well as The Bible, and all historical texts.
....
He said in a 2007 interview that the book explored the effects of television and mass media on the reading of literature.
....
On another occasion, Bradbury observed that the novel touches on the alienation of people by media:
“In writing the short novel Fahrenheit 451 I thought I was describing a world that might evolve in four or five decades. But only a few weeks ago, in Beverly Hills one night, a husband and wife passed me, walking their dog. I stood staring after them, absolutely stunned. The woman held in one hand a small cigarette-package-sized radio, its antenna quivering. From this sprang tiny copper wires which ended in a dainty cone plugged into her right ear. There she was, oblivious to man and dog, listening to far winds and whispers and soap-opera cries, sleep-walking, helped up and down curbs by a husband who might just as well not have been there. This was not fiction.”

*****
In surrendering freedom of expression, we pollute freedom of thought and access towards truth. Our interests turn to conflicting distortions and to distortions about distortions. Instead of light of truth, we come to choose sides in order to seek blind vindication. Examples: "McCarthism;" "Swiftboating."

*****
Red Alert Moderates must man the firehoses!

Of Slots and Sluts

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Of Slots and Sluts:

From http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/10/opinion/10lowenstein.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin
:

The immediate cause of G.M.’s distress, of course, is the surging price of oil, which has put a chill on the sale of gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles and trucks. The company’s failure to invest early enough in hybrids is another culprit.
....
But none of G.M.’s management miscues was so damaging to its long-term fate as the rich pensions and health care that robbed General Motors of its financial flexibility and, ultimately, of its cash.
....
But the automakers wanted no part of socialized care. They seemed not to notice, as a union expert wrote, that if Washington didn’t provide social insurance it would be “sought from employers across the collective bargaining table.”
....
General Motors got into the dubious habit of steadily increasing worker benefits. In 1961, G.M. was able to get away with a skimpy 2.5 percent increase in wages by also guaranteeing a 12 percent rise in pensions.
....
By the 1980s, it was clear that the Big Three automakers faced a serious threat from Japan.

****

COMMENT: America’s corporate managers have become just as myopic and corrupt as America's political managers. Americans are either at the slots or the sluts, where the American Dream has turned to easy wins and quick kills, rather than to nourishing a civilization that can be stable, sustainable, and allow us to pursue our surpassage. Red Alert Moderates may be our last best hope.

Juggling Governmental Intrusion

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Governmental Involvement:

Rationing Oil:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/05/moving_toward_rationing.html

Producing Oil:
From http://blogs.sun.com/jimgris/entry/taxing_oil :
“… we need a sane energy policy, but the emphasis should be on energy independence -- which absolutely includes oil -- not whacking people with more taxes to engineer behavior. Now, most people wouldn't mind paying a few cents more at the pump to promote conservation and research into alternative energy technologies. But that never seems to happen.”
Comment by Barry:
“I agree completely that more taxes won't work. What would work is tax-breaks. Create some lengthy and attractive breaks for *investing* in alternative enegry. Something like, no Federal Tax until 2016 on any company whos primary product is the creation or use of alternative energy for transportation. How quickly would GM, Ford, Toyota, et al.. create seperate entities and dump billions into development?”

Taxing Oil:
From http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/08/AR2006100800700.html
“How do you keep oil prices low so as to deflate petro-bullies but simultaneously high so as to stimulate alternative fuels? The answer is taxation, which could mean specific levies on gasoline and other products or a more general carbon tax. Taxation would prompt cuts in consumption, which would lower the pretax price at which petro-bullies sell crude oil. Taxation would simultaneously boost the incentive for carmakers and venture capitalists to pursue energy conservation and alternative fuels.
The chief objection to this policy is that a new tax would burden the economy. But any such burden could be offset by reducing some other tax. The secondary objection is that a carbon tax is politically unfeasible. But the defeat of President Bill Clinton's proposal for a BTU tax, commonly cited as proof that a carbon tax is unthinkable, took place more than a decade ago.”

:QUESTION:

By what means should America protect its access to oil?
Is America’s vital interest in availing energy resources being adequately met simply by relying upon private competitors to find, produce, refine, and bring to market various energy products --- such as oil?
In pursuit of sane energy policy, what sort of additional governmental involvement is called for?
Is the current level of private competition adequate to ensure reasonable development of sustainable energy sources?

BASIC BACKGROUND:

Government often deems it necessary to nationalize, socialize, or regulate appropriate concerns, both by non-monetary means and by monetary means.

Non-monetary means may consist in: directly competing; drafting and enlisting labor; regulating; standardizing; certifying; licensing; franchising; rationing; quarantining; sanctioning; fining; and outlawing.

Monetary (or taxing) means may consist in: Conferring special tax or regulatory holidays, tax rebates, credits, or deductions; encouraging appropriate privatization; and underwriting or nurturing a diversity of competitors.

Concerns often thought appropriate for Governmental Involvement include the following:
Protecting against undue infringements of habeas corpus, personal dignity, free thought, free speech, and freedom of religion; managing national money supply; encouraging or financing “big science”; providing natural disaster protection and relief; conservation and National Parks Regulation; negotiating treaties and trade agreements; empowering competitiveness of American industries; providing for national defense; ensuring border integrity and immigration management; providing police protection and law enforcement; adjudicating legal disputes; protecting citizens’ identities; protecting utilities and the public from stoppages or shortages in energy, electricity, and fossil fuels; providing infrastructure for trade, transportation, shipping, and commerce; establishing and enforcing National Standards for foodstuffs and medications; meeting basic concerns for Health, Education, Welfare, Social Security, and Protection of Children; providing public assistance and job training for mentally or physically challenged citizens; rehabilitating, warding, or imprisoning addicts and criminals; and deterring unfair discrimination or favoritism in commerce and in government jobs.

QUESTIONS:
Apart from our natural environment, are we reaching a tipping point in our political environment?

Are advocates of small-government, globalist-philosophy short-sightedly (treasonously?) undermining America’s national viability?

On the other hand, can we expect advocates of big government, merely by making it bigger, to reverse globalist sell outs and treacheries?

Presently, we have various species of fundamentalist believers warring to take the helm of American leadership: Social and Religious Traditionalists (Conservatives), Addict-Nihilists (Neo-Liberals); Grievance-Marxists (Neo-Democrats), and Greed-Globalists (Neo-Republicans).

By what means should such warring camps be moderated?

Red Alert Moderates must man the firehoses!