Christianity and Evolution

I recently visited a Christian site called crossexamined.org which is involved in campus activism. There I addressed a blog posting on why college students are converted away from their faith with the following observation:

"One of the reasons why universities are so good at converting Christians away from the faith is because of the anti-science bias of too many Christians. I saw this firsthand when I went to Western Kentucky University to major in Recombinant Gene Technology. Most of the people who entered the biology department entered Christians and existed atheists. The reason for this was not that anyone directly tried to convert anyone from Christianity — in fact, probably half the staff were professed Christians, including the head of the department, who taught a Sunday school class. No, the reason for it was that students were presented with insurmountable evidence for evolution. They had been taught by their pastors that evolution was incompatible with Christianity, so faced with the evidence for evolution, students chose facts over faith.

I was not one of them. I chose both facts and faith. I was taught exactly the same thing. I was, after all, raised in a Baptist church. My best friend was the son of the pastor. I often spent the night at my pastor’s house. But I also knew that “a day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years is as a day.” Meaning, I understood that a story meant to help a wandering tribe of nomadic shepherds understand how God made the world may be true in a more metaphorical way than in a merely factual way. So when I encountered the incontrovertible facts of biology, I accepted it, without rejecting God.

I think it is important that our churches learn to not pre-undermine their young followers by preaching scientific falsehoods and being anti-science. God and science to not conflict or contradict. Evolution and the Big Bang theory do not deny the existence of God — no matter what many Christians may believe."

To which Frank Turek replied:

Troy,

Outstanding post! Thank you very much. As a credentialed biologist, would you mind briefly describing in lay terms what you see as the best evidence for macro-evolution?

Blessings,

Frank Turek"

So I did. The following is my complete response:

Before I begin my discussion of “macroevolution,” I really need to address a few other issues. One, I need to address the issue of theory. Two, I need to address the issues of creationism and intelligent design. Then I will address some issues of evolution, including evidence for “macroevolution” and the mechanisms of evolution – which include but are not confined to Darwin’s theory of natural selection, or “descent with modification.” Finally, I want to address the issue of materialist ontology (a fancy word for “how the world really is”). Keep in mind that I am going to address each of these issues as a church-going born-again Christian who is nonetheless convinced by the scientific facts supporting evolution, including biological and cosmological evolution.

What is a theory? When I talk about evolution to many Christians, evolution is dismissed as “merely a theory.” This comes from a misunderstanding – too often perpetuated by postmodernists in the humanities – of what a theory really is.

A scientific theory is developed in the following way: 1) data are collected, 2) the data collected show a structural pattern that must be explained, leading to 3) the development of a theory that explains the pattern(s) observed. From the theory one develops hypotheses, or predictions, which one should either be able to test directly, through experimentation, or indirectly, through observations. A hypothesis can go something like this: since we have X and Z, we should expect Y. If we find Y, that supports the hypothesis, which in turn supports the theory. If we somehow disprove a hypothesis (such as by proving Y is impossible), that can mean one of several things: 1) the hypothesis is wrong, but the theory is still good (there was an error made in the creation of the hypothesis), 2) the hypothesis is wrong because the theory is incomplete and needs modification in light of new data, or 3) the hypothesis is wrong because the theory is wrong. The latter is the hardest to prove, though theories can fall out of favor because they are incapable of creating enough good hypotheses, while another theory does so much better. Hypotheses raise questions answered by the scientific method and by observation and data collection, and those answers are fed back into the theory to modify it and make it more accurate – which simply means it is able to create more and better hypotheses. And so on, in a feedback loop. Darwin’s theory of natural selection has been so modified – first, through the modern synthesis (with genetics), then through neo-Darwinism, then through evolutionary developmental biology, and no in conjunction with systems theory, self-organization theory, game theory, information theory, catastrophe theory (emergence), chaos theory, bios theory, and complexity theory – that Darwin would barely recognize it.

We need to contrast scientific theory with the kind of theory found in the humanities, where someone comes up with an idea and then tries to fit everything into it, discarding (or ignoring) any facts inconvenient to that theory. I believe this is what most people think of when they think of “theory.” Such theories are indeed “mere theories,” based as they are on little to nothing much of the time. Marxism is such a “theory.” It is a shame these “theories” have the same name as scientific theories, as they are the complete opposite of one another, and have opposite results.

Perhaps many Christians make this mistake because the kinds of theories developed by the humanities are developed to help us to understand texts, and the truth-claims of Christians are text-based, while scientific truth-claims are materially based. This, of course, brings us to the question of “what is truth?” Scientific truth is different from religious truth. Science is based on mere facts – things provable by physical observation and experimentation. Religion is based on a different kind of truth – Jesus said that he is the “aletheia,” which has implications of an afterlife in the Greek. In ancient Greek mythology, the Lethe was the ridver souls drank from to forget the afterlife before they were born into a body. “Letheia” means “to forget,” and “aletheia” literally means “without forgetting” or to “unforget.” Christ was thus the physical demonstration of God and God’s world. This is the kind of truth Christianity as a religion is concerned with: this kind of experiential truth – not with mere facts. The facts of the world neither (directly) prove nor disprove God’s existence. Belief in God requires faith – “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 1:1) – not proof. To demand or expect scientific proof is to be disobedient to God and his commandment that we have faith. As Jesus chastised Thomas: “Thomas, because you have seen me, you have believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed” (John 20:29).

Next, let me address the issues of creationism, intelligent design, and evolution (in the larger sense, including cosmological evolution). For my money, creationists have a much more solid, dignified position that, though refuted by the scientific evidence, at least does not require that God be an incompetent boob like intelligent design theory does. It does have one serious problem, though, that I will address below. The claim of intelligent design boils down to this: periodically, God has to intervene to set things on the right path or to develop some complex entity or body part. What this really means is they do not think God was competent enough to create a universe with rules that would create everything as we now see it, that he couldn’t create a universe that didn’t need him to come in and continually tinker with it to get it right. I don’t know about you, but I don’t believe in a God who is incapable of creating a universe that could evolve without his continual interference. Doesn’t that go against the idea of God’s perfection?

The creationist is faced with a somewhat different problem, but one no less troubling – which is that it would appear that God created a world and a universe designed to fool us into believing falsehoods about it. I side with Descartes in rejecting the idea of God purposefully fooling us. Such a God would be evil, and that goes against the Christian belief in God being wholly good. The claims I have occasionally heard that Satan put the fossils in the ground is just plain silly – and doesn’t explain astronomical observations, unless you believe Satan moved the stars too. This would refute the statements made in Genesis that God’s creation is good. Yes, man fell from a state of grace when he ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, but that act affected the fate of man, not the nature of reality and the world God created.

There are many areas which need to be addressed regarding “macroevolution.” The silliest version of the objection to macroevolution is that “you don’t see a lion become a zebra,” which is something that no evolutionary biologist has ever claimed. Straw men do not help you make your case – they only make you look a fool. So let’s do away with such foolishness, as to accept such tactics is to accept that you don’t have the arguments or the facts to make your case. If we look at what evolutionary biologists do claim, it makes a great deal of sense. And the fossils, genetic evidence, etc. support the story very well.

I have heard many people say “I believe in microevolution but not in macroevolution,” meaning they believe one cat can become another cat, but they don’t believe “big leaps” occur. Well, what do we mean by “big leaps” that result in not just a new species, but in new genera, families, etc.? If we take the fossil record seriously, what we see are some very clear developments among many branches of animals. Take mammals, for example. The fossil evidence suggests the earliest mammals resembled shrews – they were small, with primitive features. Look at the paws of a shrew. They resemble the paws of mice and even of primates. Animals with different kinds of paws developed from common ancestors. Cats and dogs have paws similar to each other and to their common weasel-like ancestor, while hoofed mammals all share a common ancestor along a different evolutionary path. There are many fossils showing the evolution of hoofed feet in mammals, with splits leading to single-hoofed horses, hoof-toed camels, cloven-hoofed goats, sheep, and cows, etc. There are huge numbers of fossils, supported by genetic trees showing relatedness, to support this. Are there gaps? Of course. Fossilization requires rare conditions. But we do have a sufficient number of fossils to see trends. The expectation by some that we should have a “complete” fossil record that shows every single “transitional” species is unrealistic and, considering the reactions of many to the discovery of a transitional species in demanding transitions to and from the transitions, it seems to be beside the point for too many. They have a theory, and no amount of evidence is going to sway them, even if it were possible to find fossils from every generation from every species that ever existed – which it is not. Such people come across as irrational – and they are. Unfortunately, such people are also typically the most vociferous defenders of Christianity, making it appear that Christianity is itself irrational. This is why many students, when faced with the incredible amount of fossil evidence and genetic evidence, along with explanatory mechanisms, reject Christianity. That is a shame, since it does not have to be that way.

So we are not claiming cats turn to sheep in macroevolutionary theory, and the evidence in fact shows a common ancestor in a shrew-like animal that could easily give rise to the different mammal body shapes we see. We also increasingly have the evidence to support such evolutionary development. If we understand hairs and feathers as modified scales, the transitions from reptiles to birds and mammals are also fairly unremarkable. The argument that “if apes evolved from monkeys, then why do we still have monkeys” is resolved with the fact that apes in fact evolved from a common ancestor which is now extinct, but that led to them and to certain monkeys. Speciation comes about from reproductive isolation of groups, which can occur due to geographical, climatological, or genetic changes (or any combination of these). As genetic changes occur in these isolated populations, the two groups drift away from each other and become reproductively isolated. These genetic changes include not just point mutations, but also through genetic inversions in chromosomes, recombinations, jumping genes, foreign DNA, etc. Also, your genes are full of redundancies. A lot of changes to the DNA can be absorbed with no effects. In complex organisms, there is further redundancy built in with multiple copies of genes that can be used as backups if a gene gets a harmful mutation. Also, repair mechanisms fix many mutations, and backup genes can act as templates for repairing harmful changes. Many of these mechanisms are so incredibly complex they are only just now being discovered and understood.

In addition, we have become aware of many more processes in nature that help us understand evolutionary changes. Changes that affect development can have dramatic effects. A slight weakening of a site on a developmental protein can result in, say, neck bones growing a little longer than in a previous generation. Soon, you have giraffes. A trigger for physical maturation may be lost while sexual maturation is retained. This is a mechanism known as neoteny, which appears to have been the mechanism which turned a kind of sea squirt into the ancestor of fish. There is still a creature, called the lancelet, which strongly resembles the larvae of sea squirts – and which is closely genetically related to them. The fishes and the lancelet both share a common ancestor in the neotenous sea quirt larvae. This is an example of true “macroevolution” if we are thinking of it as a dramatic change. But even here, the dramatic change is only between adult forms. The mature lancelet looks just like an immature sea squirt.

In addition, we have mechanisms in nature explained by systems theory, like strange attractors which stabilize certain forms and allow transitions from one order through chaos to another order – as described by catastrophe theory. Bios theory explains creativity in systems, and chaos theory explains stability in systems. All of these, in combination with Darwin’s theory of descent with modification, explain how species evolved over time.

Many people are concerned that science is dependent upon a materialist ontology, and that materialism is itself atheistic. But science does not have to be dependent upon materialism. In fact, the evidence increasingly shows the world isn’t such much materialist as informational in nature. Thus, I subscribe to an informational ontology, which is highly compatible with Christianity. I do not ascribe to a materialist ontology nor an idealist one, but rather, an ontology of information. In other words, I take the following from John 1:1 seriously:



en arche hn o logos

"the foundation of all things is information"



Admittedly, this is a definition that comes about in light of information theory -- but if you truly understand both what information is, and all the meanings of logos, you can see that "information" is a good translation of "logos." Certainly a far, far, far, far, far better choice than "word," which is such a peripheral meaning of logos as to be almost completely inaccurate. When we "Logos," we communicate information one to another, process that information, and pass on that information. All things are information at different levels of complexity -- information processors, which all communicate different kinds of information at different levels. For biological organisms, the vehicle of communication tends to be chemical, though also photons and sound waves. Humans communicate using more complex information-carriers, particularly through grammatical, syntactical language. If we look at the ways to define information -- as a noun, it is that which is without form; as a verb, it is that which gives form to another. Thus, pure information is that which is without form, which gives form.

"The foundation of all things was information, and the information was 1) to the advantage of 2) at, near, by 3) to, towards, with, with regard to (the word translated as "with") God, and God was information."

That is the most literal translation of John 1:1 I can render. The story of the universe is one of foundation on information, and the increasing complexity of that information over time in the universe. Atoms have less complex forms of information than do chemicals and especially chemical cycles and systems. Biology is a set of highly complex chemical systems. The human brain is a highly complex neural system in complex interaction with other humans through complex social systems. That information is communicated through language, which itself must be highly complex in order to communicate most efficiently. God is the most complex of the universe, and thus has all the information. This is how God is both the Alpha (the inform information that gives form at the beginning of the universe) and the Omega (the most complex, most informed).

All the other theories I use in my philosophy -- evolutionary theory, game theory, chaos theory, complexity theory, emergence theory, etc. -- explain the ways in which information interacts to create more complex things and how those complex things engage in complex interactions. Information theory is the foundation of all these things. Information is the foundation of all things.

Behaviorism and Education

I've been asked to do a review of Judith Rich Harris' "The Nurture Assumption," and I when I finish the book I will certainly do so. I would like to make some comments not on the book per se, but on one of the areas of psychology she criticizes -- behaviorism -- and its continuing detrimental effect on U.S. education.

The American education system is fundamentally based on the following quote from John B. Watson, whom Harris quotes. He claims that all we have to do is

"Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I'll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select -- doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief, and yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors" (Harris, 6).

I suspect he might be able to accomplish the latter two, but, as Harris points out, he would have to somehow manage to raise IQ 20 points in most of his students in order to accomplish at least the first two.

As Harris points out, Watson was "expressing the basic belief of behaviorism: that children are malleable and that it is their environment, not innate qualities such as talent or temperament, that determines their destiny" (7). The basic theory most public schools work under is that of behaviorism -- which is really just one of the blank-slate theories of the human mind. Certainly Watson is right that what your parents do, etc. doesn't necessarily have anything to do with your abilities. My mother couldn't spell, and my father is almost illiterate due to (likely) severe dyslexia and is thus a coal miner, so one would not have expected them to create a professional writer, let alone a poet. On the other hand, one cannot discount genetics and the home environment, as my brother is dyslexic, like our father, and a visual artist, like our mother. Any myself? My mother read to me when I was young, which I have little doubt influenced my love of reading, especially as it resulted in my becoming literate at the age of 3 (this should give you some indication of what the future review of Harris' book will probably look like). Our father has a high IQ, which was sabotaged by his dyslexia.

The bottom line is this: no one can turn any child into anything they want. Each child has their own abilities, IQ, interests, etc. that have to be taken into consideration. Until the educational system understands this, they will continue to fail to educate our children.

Paul Krugman's Voodoo Healthcare Economics

One could make a living refuting the nonsense that comes from Paul Krugman's pen. Here's one of mine, at The Prometheus Instutite, on some nonsense he wrote about health care. It seems that his Nobel Prize went straight to his head, and now he thinks he's better than everyone else, so he should be the one in charge of the whole system.

"Common Genius" by Bill Greene -- A Review

The only thing more annoying to me than anti-intellectualism are intellectuals themselves.

Of course, this depends upon your definition of an intellectual. One of the things that always annoyed me about conservatives was their anti-intellectualism. For many, it typically makes conservatives appear anti-intelligence, anti-higher education, and even anti-art (thank you Greene for excluding us artists from the ranks of Intellectuals) -- and I have little doubt that for too many that is precisely what it means. However, Bill Greene gives us an anti-intellectualism I can (mostly) side with.If your definition of an intellectual is a really educated really smart person who thinks and writes a lot, then Bill Greene is not an anti-intellectual. For Greene, an intellectual is one whose ideas are divorced from any sort of empirical evidence. In other words, for Greene, an Idealist and an Intellectual are one and the same -- though I suppose the Intellectual has the added benefit (anchor?) of an advanced degree. An example may help to explain the way he differentiates an Intellectual from a scholar. Adam Smith based his ideas in The Wealth of Nations on observation; thus, he was a scholar. Rousseau based his ideas of the Noble Savage on no evidence at all, only his fanciful imagination; thus, he was an intellectual. Greene's anti-intellectualism is thus narrowly defined, and based on the results -- or the lack of results -- of those he defines as Intellectuals. Taking Greene's more narrow definition of Intellectual, I have been an anti-intellectual for a long time (though I suspect we may disagree about who should be in his newly defined category of Intellectual). I always considered myself an intellectual, but it seems I'm not one if we accept Greene's definition. I avoid the label precisely because I always try to derive "ought" from "is." In fact, that might be a good definition of an intellectual: anyone who attempts to divorce "ought" from "is."

Greene observes that societies are most prosperous when individuals are free to self-organize into more complex systems, while societies collapse -- or at least stagnate -- when intellectuals try to impose order in a top-down fashion. Indeed, intellecuals tend to try to simplify the world and impose a linear (rational) order on a nonlinear, complex world. If you "simplify" a cell, you turn it into its constituent chemicals -- but this is also known as killing it. The real irony is that the kind of top-down structuring intellectuals want to impose seems to destroy intellectualism too. Randall Collins says in The Sociology of Philosophies that:

"The closer the identification of Buddhism with the state, the more closely sectarian fortunes within Buddhism were tied to politics; this in turn restricted the playing field on which intellectual activity took place. Although there were flourishing centers of studies in Malaya and great temple complexes at the Burmese capital, state enforcement of orthodoxy kept philosophy in these countries largely traditionalist and uncreative. We see the same pattern at the very end of Buddhist patronage in India. The Pala kings of Bengal not only founded a new set of monastic universities but also kept them under close royal control; all posts in an elaborate hierarchy of teachers and administrators were held on commission, and all degrees were awarded by the king. Intellectual creativity did not flourish under this tight control. This situation is comparable to the stagnation in Confucian philosophy after it became adopted by the Han bureaucracy, and again during the enforcement of state orthodoxy during the Ming; by contrast, the creative period of Confucianism during the Sung occurred when both religious orthodoxy and the state ideological apparatus were in flux. In India the greatest intellectual creativity in Buddhism took place when states eclectically patronized not just Buddhism but non-Buddhist religions as well, leaving a breathing space in which Buddhist factions could take maximal advantage of their organizational base for intellectual life" (187).

He observes that this is the case worldwide. When the intellectuals get in charge of a country, intellectual creativity languishes with everything else. Indeed, Greene shows in his book that there is a strong positive correlation between intellectuals' influence and the demise of a culture and government.

I say positive correlation because I'm not sure I'm in complete agreement in regards to causation. Philosophy with Plato seems to have arisen in response to the collapse of Athens after demagogues pressed for war with Sparta -- and continue to push for that war's continuation even after it started to look bad. In Clouds, the poet Aristophanes makes Socrates out to be one of the sophists, and if we take Plato's arguments against the other sophists along with the fact that several of Socrates' students were members of the 13 Tyrants who took over after Athens' defeat, then there is certainly an argument to be made against sophists and demagogues. Plato in his political theories was perhaps reacting more to the collapse of Athens and looking toward the victor -- Sparta -- as a better political model precisely because of their victory. While the Intellectuals, as defined by Greene, did influence the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, and the Maoist Revolution, what we perhaps see here in the U.S. is less the influence of intellectuals as of sophists and demagogues. If that is the case, we should expect a birth of philosophy in the U.S. very soon, thus signaling our fall is in the making.

For Greene, Intellectuals aren't just Fundamentalists, but Fanatics. One could even equate them to cult leaders, desirous of power -- especially the power to impose their version of reality on not just people but the world. They have the arrogance to believe the world can and should bend to their wishes. The non-intellectual understand that to rule nature, you must first obey it. In other words, they live in the real world and submit to reality in order to prosper. In other words, the Intellectuals' "concentration on pure theory severed from practical experience will normally relegate their ideas to utopian exercises that do not work" (28). Remember that "utopia" means "nowhere."

The Common Man + Security - Oppression = Economic Freedom --> Prosperity

Greene supplies example after example of how countries and peoples became prosperous throughout the ages. He then does what should be the true work of intellectuals and looks for patterns. What patterns does he see repeating over and over? "A free government system requires courts, deeds to property, coinage, patents, corporate entities, juries, and representative assemblies" (12). More simply still, what is needed is "simply the safety and incentive of secure private property, free of interference and regulation from above, so that the common man would be motivated to create prosperity" (18). Thus, Greene argues that "the market" or "the culture" are insufficient explanations for prosperity -- that the particular individuals were needed at the time to make the specific works they did. Indeed. But we mustn't forget that "the market" and "the culture" are in fact real entities which emerge from the work of the individuals and which feeds back to influence individuals. It's a nonlinear feedback loop. But we must remember that to have a productive economy or culture that we need good rules which will free the energy of the people to make what creates the great culture which inspires more people to greatness. Michaelangelo wasn't the first Renaissance painter -- but he was its greatest. Greene identifies those rules, as stated above, and he does recognize that "the market" and "the culture" is a bottom-up process. It is people who make markets and cultures. And people need the freedom to act to create strong markets and great cultures.

Since this is the case, what need is there for Intellectuals? If prosperity is created from the bottom up, then top-down solutions won't work. And if the culture is created from the bottom up, then top-down impositions will only work to destroy culture (consider how much great French literature has been written since the French Language Council came into existence to dictate what words were properly French). Greene observes that intellectuals are frustrated because the market shows they aren't needed for people to live their lives and have what they want. Not happy helping people understand the different things a poem means, theorists like Stanley Fish have to tell us how to live our lives as well. For a wonderful argument on how absurd this is, I recommend Plato's Ion, in which Socrates is asking an expert in Homer exactly what it is he is an expert at?

THis of course opens up the question of what it is intellectuals could be for. Intellectuals could be working to educate people into having less "vulgar" tastes in the arts, but how can they legitimately do so when they argue nothing has value or meaning? In the end, they can't even educate people to have better taste (having rejected notions of "better"), and so feel they have to force people to accept/watch/listen to what intellectuals think is good -- typically things that undermine value and meaning. So there needs to be some serious reform in the upper eschelons of education. Thus, I disagree with Greene that Intellectuals have "only a poor future" in a culture with a capitalist economy -- unless one is counting the social engineers, in which case, they do, and good riddance. They cold and should have a future -- if they want it -- teaching people to value more complex works of art and literature and, thus, to live fuller, more beautiful lives.

Greene asks: "Has the intellectuals' permanent role in history been simply to play catch-up with the actual doers of history . . .?" (41). The short answer is: yes. But is that necessarily a bad thing? Think about the example he gives of Locke, Hume, and Kant being 500 years behind the Icelandic founders of parliamentary government. Obviously they are behind the Icelandic people. But what did these thinkers do? They recognized this one small island of few people (even if they did not acknowledge that recognition) and their form of government, explained it, and brought the idea to many, many more people. The proper role of the intellectual is to recognize and explain the patterns in history, society, culture, works of art, music, or literature, etc. Their proper role is, again, as educator. Unfortunately, too many have divested themselves of their proper role, which underlies Greene's complaints against them. His complaint seems to actually be against Romantic or Idealist intellectuals, not against those who stay rooted in reality (many intellectuals would then ask "what is reality," at which Greene would undoubtedly roll his eyes and say, "You're exactly who I'm talking about").

One problem I find with Greene is his tendency to discount a person's work in one area just because the person shows himself a fool elsewhere. A case in point is Noam Chomsky, whose work on language is very important and which Greene should recognize as the kind of work he approves of. However, Chomsky commits the fallacy of all the people Plato's Socrates complains about and thinks that just because he's an expert in one field, he's an expert in everything. His non-linguistics work is all the worst example of intellectualism and shows him to be at best a complete fool and at worst a paranoid conspiracy nut. The fact that Chomsky is the latter doesn't negate his brilliant work in the former, as a linguist.

Along these lines, one could challenge many of those whom Greene includes in his list of Intellectuals. If we take his definition of Intellectuals as "that large group who fall in love with their abstract and utopian ideas, care not for actual results, and come to their tasks with no actual work experience" (43), then he would have a hard time including people like Aristotle, who did biology experiments and was very practical-minded, or Descartes, who was a mathematician of great note.

Still, Greene is right about most of the intellectuals he mentions, especially when it comes to their understanding of politics and economics. I have often argued with one the kinds of intellectuals Greene complains about -- those who look to natural resources as the reason for prosperity (the oil-rich countries would seem to be strong counter-examples of this thesis) -- arguing that we can and will find alternatives to whatever their pet resource is. They alway demand I explain how I know people will develop alternatives -- and the answer that history shows we always do is never a good enough explanation for them. Apparently historical precedence is not enough -- absolute certainty of the future (from people who otherwise argue against absolutes) is what they demand. Lord knows, if I knew what the actual alternatives would be, don't they think I would be out making them rather than taking with them?

All in all, though, Greene shows what systems science is beginning to show: that in order to have a healthy, complex system, you have to have bottom-up self-organization with good rules of interaction. With bottom-up processes we get complex entities like cells, which are able to adapt to their environment and grow and even go so far as to reduce entropy. All top-down processes are like engines -- which are simple and can only do one job, which they do inefficiently before they finally run down, overcome by entropy. This is what the intellectuals promise when they try to impose unnatural top-down processes on a natural system. They want to do so because they think they know better than anyone else what everyone else needs (though if we look at their lives, we typically see they don't even know how to run their own lives well). Their elitist attitudes --- meaning they think they are smarter than anyone else, not that they typically are -- make them think that it is they and they alone who know what is best for everyone. In the meantime, the average person is getting along just fine without them. And this, after all, is the overall -- and correct -- message of Greene's book. It is a book I wold recommend to anyone who is interested in learning the true source of prosperity in the world. Greene asks the right question, where intellectuals get it backwards. Intellectuals ask "what is the cause of poverty" -- as though wealth were what is normal. Greene asks "what is the cause of wealth" -- correctly recognizing that it is wealth which is unusual in world history, and needs to be explained. In the end, if you can't even ask the right questions, how do you expect to get the right answers?

"Common Genius" is a book everyone should read -- especially our political leaders, intellectuals, and demagogues. If anyone needs to learn how the world actually works, it is them. The rest of us already know.

One last thought: Greene observes that the differences between materially successful societies and materially unsuccessful societies boils down to having property rights protected, meaning people get the fruits of their labor, and that it has nothing to do with race, class, culture, society, or (certainly) presence or absence of intellectuals. There is only one way of knowing if this is true: we should test this by giving everyone the world over property rights protections and see what happens.

Fictional Healthcare Reform

One has to wonder exactly what the state of health care must really be in the U.S. when Hillary Clinton has to use fabricated stories to argue for health care reform. If you have to make up stories to argue for reform, then we probably don't need your reform. I'm generally against the use of anecdotes alone as evidence as it is -- but at the least, you shouldn't have to make up your anecdotes.

Perhaps Hillary needs to become a fiction writer. She has an obvious need to make up stories. I make up stories all the time -- but I at least have the decency to call them what they are: fiction.

Absolut Disgrace

Perhaps the French company Pernod Ricard, who just bought Absolut, should consider running a similar ad in Italy depicting the former outline of the Roman Empire -- France and all. I wonder how the French (or the Greeks, Turks, Syrians, Lebanese, Israelis, Palestinians, Egyptians, Spanish, British, etc.) would feel about that ad?

Of course, that might offend some Muslims, and everyone knows it is far, far, far safer to offend Americans than it is to offend certain Muslims. So I'm not going to hold my breath on that. The company's excuse that they didn't intend for Americans to see it is just as insulting as the ad itself.

RIP, Charlton Heston

My condolences go out to the family of Charlton Heston, a great actor and a great man. The world will miss him.

Leftism Is a Psychopathology II -- More Evidence

This "article" is further proof of my thesis that Leftism is a psychopathology. This person is so disconnected form reality it's downright bizarre. Seriously, "militarism" causes us to need soup kitchens and produces "dilapidated inner city schools"? Those inner city schools are caused by people like Dallas Darling being in charge of our cities and schools for the past half-decade. And to call a handful of people reacting with empty rhetoric against anti-military (er, anti-war) protesters the same thing as racial segregation is an outrage. Nobody who is anti-war is being discriminated against in this country. Nothing like being denied service or proper schooling. Nobody is being lynched for their beliefs. An expression of annoyance using the same kind of empty rhetoric as as the vast majority of people who in the heat of an argument (or jokingly) say "I'm going to kill you" is NOT the same as racial discrimination. He should be ashamed of himself for making the equation. It is an insult to those who fought for their civil rights.

Why is it that Leftists have to see everyone who disagrees with them as being evil? Why must villainy be ascribed to those who merely disagree with you? I suppose one could accuse me of doing the same thing is saying Leftists have a psychopathology -- but I at least gave some evidence to support my claim, and I didn't say that all Leftists necessarily have a psychopathology. Some may simply be delusional and denying of reality. Some have been misinformed and miseducated. Some are just plain wrong.

Also, people like this idiot don'thelp the anti-war cause at all. They just make anti-war protester look like idiots, jerks, and hatemongers. Someone needs to tell them that you do not fight the worst in humans by emulating the worst in humans.

Leftism Is a Psychopathology

"Is there someone in your life who takes credit for your successes? Is there someone who is constantly telling you how to do everything? Do you know someone who constantly invades your privacy?"

"it is only natural to want be in control of your own life, but when you feel you have to have control of everyone else's life, you have a problem."

Is the person I am quoting talking about politicians in general, and Leftists in particular? Perhaps. The author is writing about control freaks.

"Phsycologists call this a personality disorder"

"Control freaks ultimate fear is that if they lose control of themselves, their relationships, or anything or anyone around them, that they will be vulnerable. They believe that they can protect themselves if they have this control. They feel the urge to control to new heights, and when they have finally caused the people they are trying to control the stress that they are feeling, they feel a sense of order. These people are riddled with fear, anxiety, insecurity, and anger to amounts at which they cannot control. Underneath that controlled attitude is a mountain of unhappiness and depression."

"They have a harder time than most normal people when it comes to negotiating or compromising, because it would mean they would have to give up some of their control, and it would also implicate that they are not perfect, and Control Freaks H-A-T-E imperfection."

I have been thinking about what it is in Leftists that make them want to control every aspect of our lives. Specifically, what it is about them that makes them want to control that which is inherently out of anyone's control. It has become increasingly clear that Leftism is pathological. It has become clear to me that 1) they are control freaks, as defined above, and 2) that they are deniers of reality -- something which actually feeds into #1.

On the second part, there are 3 kinds of people:

1) Those who have True Belief -- they believe in evidence
2) Those who have Faith -- they believe without evidence
3) Those who have ???? -- they believe despite evidence against what they believe

Can anyone tell me what #3 is called?

Religious-minded people have Faith. It is now clear, in light of the world politics of the 20th century, that the Left have whatever it is #3 is called.

Now, let's return to the quote above. I think it is pretty clear that the above quotes are traits of those on the Left.

Those on the Left want to:

1) take credit for the successes of others -- this is evident in Leftists taking credit for economic successes created by individuals outside of government working their butts off to overcome everything the government has placed in their paths to prevent them from succeeding

2) constantly tell you how to do everything -- this is the source of government regulations and political correctness

3) constantly invade your privacy -- okay, this is more of a trait of social conservatives (I did earlier suggest that being a control freak was a trait of most in government), but we see this on the Left as well, with them wanting to tell us how to raise our children, etc.

Being full of "fear, anxiety, insecurity, and anger," they use these and promote these feelings in order to gain control over others.

Also, control freaks believe in perfectibility. What else is Leftism but an attempt at perfection, to create heaven on earth? But perfection is utopia, and utopia is not an option. It is a fantasy world. Pathologically embarrassed at their own imperfections, they refuse to see them, and want to bring everyone else in line to be perfected themselves.

In other words, it seems to me that we are electing mostly people who have a severe psychopathology. It doesn't help that those with this psychopathology gravitate toward politics.

Making Up Rights, Part II

As if to balance out the universe, there's a report that a California teacher is now under fire for "anti-Christian remarks" after pointing out that the South has both the highest murder rates and rape rates, but also has the highest rate of church attendance, and suggesting that the two may be related. (He could have also pointed out that the South also has the highest illegitimacy rates as well.) So now a student and his parents want to sue the school and have the teacher fired. Why?

"Farnan’s family has filed a federal lawsuit against the Capistrano Unified School District, claiming Corbett's remarks violated the First Amendment, which prohibits laws "respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." "

Does Corbett's words in class make a law? No. Did they establish a state religion? No. Did his words prohibit the free exercise of religion? No. So, aside from the fact that Corbett is not even a government, making it impossible for him to violate anyone's 1st Amendment rights, this is a ridiculous accusation. However, in asking for the teacher to be fired, the parents are asking the government to violate Corbett's 1st Amendment right to freedom of speech.

Fundamentalism vs. Moderation

Over at EconLog, Bryan Caplan raises some interesting points about religious fundamentalists vs. moderates. I think he may be a little too black-and-white (fundamentalist?) on the issue of textual interpretation, which is why I left the comment there that I did.

Making Up Rights

There are so many things wrong with what the people are saying in this report on a student getting a zero for using religious imagery in an art class assignment.

"assistant principal Cale Jackson told the boy his religious expression infringed on other students' rights."

How on earth does non-coercive religious expression -- an image, in this case -- infringe upon anyone's rights? First, this shows these people have no earthly idea what a right is. They think that a right is something that not only prevents harm, but prevents offense. I have already talked about the problem of offense and how you do not have a right to not be offended precisely because it is you who is choosing to take offense, or not. I can harm you without your agreeing to participate -- but you can take offense at something I do even if what I do would not offend anyone else on earth. If I do something that would harm you, and I do that same thing to someone else, they will be harmed too. But if I do something that you take offense at, one could find many others -- perhaps a vast majority of people -- who would not take offense. Thus, it is you who are responsible for taking offense. You do not have a right to not be offended -- since offense is arbitrary, based upon your whim or your mood, and entirely subjective. Thus, it is not like murder, rape, or theft -- all of which actually do infringe on other students' rights. That idiot ass. principal is equating an image with murder, rape, or theft -- and that's ridiculous.

As it turns out, there is all sort of religious imagery throughout the school, including Buddhist and Hindu images. Further, there are religious images in the art and metals rooms: "Drawings of Medusa, the Grim Reaper with a scythe and a being with a horned head and protruding tongue hang in the art room and demonic masks are displayed in the metals room." Yes, Medusa is a religious image, being a character from ancient Greco-Roman paganism. And the Grim Reaper is a Christian image! This latter fact shows that the "rule" was being applied entirely at the whim (or with the inexcusable ignorance) of the teacher. Either a rule must be applied equally to everyone at all times, or it should not be a rule.

Why Darwin Is Right

My most succinct response to intelligent design yet (in response to the oft-sited statement by Darwin that "if it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications” his theory would “absolutely break down."):

Incremental changes result in a system moving toward greater chaos until it reaches a critical point where it leaps into a new level of complexity -- as demonstrated by catastrophe theory. Thus modified, Darwin's theory remains intact and so-called irreducible complexity is explained without having to resort to theorizing that God is so incompetent as to not be able to create a world that could evolve without him having to intervene periodically. As a Christian I tend to think my God to be more clever than that.

Hillary, Healthcare, and 250,000 Dead

Christopher Hitchenspoints out in an article on slate.com that HIllary Clinton sacrificed the lives of 250,000 people for a socialist policy that was never even realized. Perhaps one should not be surprised that socialism and mass murder are closely connected yet again -- but for a policy that wasn't even implemented? Stalin and Mao at least had the decency to murder people with their policies rather than letting them die so saving them wouldn't distract people from the possibility of a policy.

I haven't mentioned Hillary's fabulism before now -- but come on people! This is pure delusion. How could she not know it would be found out? Anyone this delusional has no business being in any kind of office. When you're hallucinating events, you're not mentally fit for office.

Free Trade in Ancient Greece

Over on EconLog, Arnold Kling repeatedly claims that there was no trading of produced goods in the ancient world (or before the Modern Era), but only of plundered goods. While there is little doubt that there were plundered goods as a part of economic activity in the ancient world, there is a great deal of evidence of actual market activity. Certainly the Silk Road, the famous trading route, was an important element of ancient trade.

I'm reading Bill Greene's book "Common Genius" and in it he talks about how late intellectuals are to recognizing what is happening in the world. The other thing intellectuals do is come up with theories that, no matter how much evidence to the contrary there is against it. will stick with that theory. I and many others have provided quite a bit of evidence for ancient trade practices, but no amount of evidence seems sufficient for Kling. Never mind the textual evidence I have supplied. Never mind the archeological evidence. Kling has a theory, and he's sticking to it! I guess free market intellectuals are no less prone to this than are Leftist ones. It was not uncommon until the Modern Era for writers to be concerned only with heroes and leaders and not with the common man (who would have been doing the trading). One of the benefits of comedians is that their material was often the common man. This is why I repeatedly recommended Aristophanes to Kling as a source, since Aristophanes repeatedly talks about the disruption of trade as a problem caused by the Athenian war with Sparta.

In the "Acharnians," Dicaeopolis is in Athens and complaining about the war and how he is "longing hopelessly for peace, loathing town and homesick for my village . . . where you don't hear cried of "Buy my charcoal," "Buy my vinegar," "Buy my oil." My village doesn't include the word "buy" in its vocabulary but simply produces all that's needed --- with not a "buy" person in the offing." (7, Paul Roche, tr.)

Dicaeopolis here is complaining about all the people in Athens trying to sell him things. Realistically, did these people who were trying to sell him charcoal, vinegar, and oil get those goods through plunder? Or did they grow and produce those things?

The translator himself supplies evidence of trade between towns in a footnote on pg. 10 that "Sardian dye was one of the many items of luxury from the city of Sardis, the capital of the kingdom of Lydia in western Asia Minor." Yes, that's right, "exported."

In the play, Dicaeopolis manages to get a private treaty with those Athens is at war with, and then announces "And I for my part announce free trade between me and all Spartans, Megarians, and Boeotians" (33). In other words, goods he has will be traded with goods from these three cities. Of course, one could argue that he will only be getting plundered goods. Well, fortunately, Aristophanes provides us with a list of goods from these cities. A Megarian comes to sell his two girls (a case for plunder, true, as these are to become slaves), but Dicaeopolis asks him if he has salt or garlic (40), so he's expecting something the Megarian has gathered, grown or bought from someone else. Later (42), he mentions "figs from Phibalis." Phibalis was "a district in Attica known for its early figs." They no doubt made good money shipping their early figs to the various cities before their fig crops came in.

Later a Boeotian comes to sell the following to Dicaeopolis: "oregano, chamomile, lamp wicks, doormats, daws, ducks, cormorants, coots, plovers, snipe, quail" (46) and "geese, hares, foxes, moles, hedgehogs, cats, badgers, weasels, Lake Copais eels" (47). Dicaeopolis decides to buy some eels, complaining that he had had to wait "six years for her" (47). It seems that Athens was lacking all of these things they had commonly received from Boeotia in trade, which had been disrupted due to the war with Boeotia.

There is even something as modern as a "market tariff" (47) Dicaeopolis charges.

And what does the Boeotian want? "Something Athens 'as and us Boeotians 'aven't" (47). Sounds like the very purpose of trade to me. In fact, when Dicaeopolis offers sardines or pottery, the Boeotian refuses them, saying they have plenty of them at home (48).

When it becomes obvious to everyone that Dicaeopolis is making a fortune engaging in free trade for goods produces inthe cities Athens is at war with, other come begging him for a piece of his peace treaty.

Dicaeopolis is a simple man, not a leader of Athens by any means, who simply wants some peace so he can engage in free trade and live the good life. You won't read about people like Dicaeopolis in the Histories or in the works of Plato or Aristotle, or in the tragedies, but this kind of common man is typical of comedies. The comedies can thus, if we know how to read them, give us some insight into the way the common man lived, and thus too how the economies of the time worked. Sure, there was a slave trade -- but this was found throughout the world at the time, in every culture. Naturally, slaves were originally created through capture in wars and raids. But many countries engaged in trade -- particularly the Greek city-states, where language, religion, and culture were shared. It seems quite clear to me from just this one play by Aristophanes that free trade of freely grown, gathered, hunted, and/or traded goods was common between the city-states during times of peace. If this were not the case, how could Aristophanes be lamenting its loss?

On Stages of Human Complexity . . . and Beyond

There seem to be five stages of human-level emergence: 1) tribalism, 2) heroic individualism (think Achilles), 3) authoritarianism (think Medieval Catholic church or contemporary Islam), 4) free market individualism (think Adam Smith), and then 5) egalitarianism (think Marx, Rousseau, and the postmodernists). Stage 1 is an illiterate stage. Stage 2 gives us Gilgamesh, The Iliad, and the Odyssey. The transition from stage 2 to 3 gives us ancient Greek tragedy. Jesus is a stage 3, showing the stage 2 Roman world the pathway to stage 3. Gautama was a stage 3, showing the stage 2 Indian world the way to stage 3. In fact, our great religious leaders: Confucius, Lao Tsu, Moses, and Mohammed are all stage 3's trying to get a stage 2 world to follow them into the next stage. The move from stage 3 to 4 was mostly a grass-roots effort, a bottom-up process, though there were some leaders, such as Martin Luther, Descartes, etc. Shakespeare's tragedies show the transition from stage 3 to 4. Stage 5 founders are Rousseau and Marx, but also Napoleon. Heidegger was a stage 5, as were all the existentialists and all the postmodernists.

Stage 5 is the last stage of the human level of complexity. Each stage is more complex than the previous and, when healthiest, includes the stages below them. Typically, higher stages look down at lower stages as more primitive and less ethical, while those at lower stages look up at higher stages and can't even understand what they are thinking and doing. (Keep in mind that higher and lower here do not mean better and worse, but are indicative of levels of complexity,)

After stage 5 of the human level of complexity, there is a new level, exponentially more complex than the human level. Claire Graves (who developed this psychosocial theory of emergence) identifies this as the Second Tier of human thinking. He doesn't seem comfortable with the idea that it is in fact a level of complexity above human thinking in the same way human thinking is a level of complexity above animal thinking. This level recognizes the world as emergent, complex, and time-embedded. It embraces all the levels of complexity that make it up (quantum physical, chemical, biological, and human) and all the stages within each of those levels.

Naturally, the one who first recognized this new level would have to be there himself to recognize it. I would also include the following people: Nietzsche (probably the first), Frederick Turner, and J. T. Fraser.

I've written on this before, but it's a model I think with and through, and I'm always trying to think it and see if it continues to fit the world well. So far, it certainly does.

High School Drop-Out Rate

The graduation numbers reported here are a disgrace. These teens are dropping out of school because the schools don't teach them anything of value. What schools need to teach our teens are life and work skills. None of the teens who dropped out of school were ever going to college. Ever! When will we get it through our heads that most students are not college-bound, and that our high schools need to teach those not bound for college just like they try to teach those bound for college? We need to fire everyone in and associated with education and just start all over. The first rule would b e: anyone with a degree in education is banned from teaching. They have proven over and over that they're not prepared to do the job. How about we make some trade high schools and fill them with retired tradesmen, engineers, etc.? Then we could make some college-bound high schools and fill them with teachers with Master's and Doctorates in the fields they teach in. Then we would have teachers who actually know the subjects they teach, and students would be going to schools teaching things they need to know.

Greed vs. Covetousness

When my wife was on spring break, we went to Kentucky to visit family. We went and had dinner with the pastor of my church growing up -- Maranatha Baptist Church -- and his wife more because I was close to them from having been a close friend with their son than the fact that he was my pastor. They were keen on seeing our 15 month old baby, Melina.

We had a lot of fun talking about how screwed up everything is, but then my pastor made a comment in regards to the problem of greed. I wish I could remember exactly what he said, but it triggered me to insist upon differentiating greed from coveting. I think too many people mistake the two, conflating coveting with greed. We typically think of greed as wanting more and more and more and more of something(s). Humans are, of course, naturally acquisitive. What matters is how we acquire. I gave my pastor the following scenario:

Suppose there was a man who came up to you and told you that they really loved your wife and that they hoped to marry someone just like her some day. How would you feel about that? Wouldn't you feel pleased with the compliment?

Suppose there was another man who came up to you and told you that they really loved your wife and that they hoped to marry her some day. How would you feel about that? Wouldn't you be insulted, angry?

The first person is greedy, the second person is covetous.

If someone wants the same kinds of things you have, they are being admiring and, yes, greedy.
If someone wants the same things you have, they are being envious and covetous.

The first scenario will set someone out to better themselves or work hard to try to get the same kinds of things.
The second scenario can only have success if you seduce the man's wife away from him, or murder him then marry his wife, or (in the case of material objects, including money) steal from him.

The first assumes the world is a positive sum game, where everyone can have what they value -- where value is indeed created.
The second assumes the world is a zero sum game, where if I'm to have mine, I must take from you -- for me to have more value, your value must be reduced.

The first scenario is ethical; the second scenario is unethical.

But too many think greed and covetousness are the same. When you profit at the expense of someone else, you are working in an envy-covetousness mindset (even if you are rich and the victim is poor). We mistakenly call such people greedy, when the proper term is covetous.

A Little Campaign Advice

I went to a Republican precinct convention today and got to hear several speeches. What struck me most was how effective one of the speakers was -- not because she was a good speaker per se, as her strong Chinese accent made that difficult at best for her, but because of her story. She had a fantastic story about why she was running and why she was a Republican. The story was so good that you didn't notice (except that I do notice such things, having taught rhetoric) that she never actually said anything about what she stands for and what she would do if elected.

Her opponent, on the other hand, made the stupid mistake of starting off his speech complaining. Now, he was right about his complaint -- but being right in an election isn't necessarily going to get you votes. But a good story will.

People need to understand that this is why Ronald Reagan was so effective -- he managed to combine being right with having a good story. Even if he did not always do right in office, he always said what was right and just and good. COmbined with a good story, that always wins. And it did.

If you want to run a bad campaign, combine being wrong with a bad story.
If you want to run a better campaign, combine being right with a bad story.
If you want to run a good campaign, combine being wrong with a good story.
If you want to run a great campaign, combine being right with a good story.

I'm still going to vote for Randy Dunning in the run-off election, because I like his idea of eliminating property taxes, but Angie Chen Button whooped him in her speech.

Literature as a Game

An update on an old paper: here's the new site of Literature as a Game.

On Macroeconomists

Well, I tried twice to post a comment at Freakonomics on the article they ran about macroeconomists, but neither one was allowed to be posted. Did I say anything offensive? I guess, if you're a macroeconomist, I did, as what I posted, to answer their question of where all the macroeconomists have gone, was the opinion that perhaps people have stopped listening to macroeconomists because they have proven time and again to be wrong about just about everything -- Krugman included (especially?). I would argue that microeconomist are generally right about how the economy works, but I have seen little evidence that macroeconomists understand a thing about the economy. They are typically concerned with how government affects things, and end up often siding with government and encouraging more government programs. Krugman's opinions have become increasing idiotic over the years, and another famous macroeconomist, John Maynard Keynes, is responsible for most of the economic ills of the 20th century, including thee stagflation of the 1970's in Europe and the U.S., and the inflation-driven collapse of economies throughout Central and South America and Africa. Keyne's suggestion to prevent a recession? Print more money! Putting the cart before the horse, he thought inflation caused economic booms (and not vice versa, as anyone with half a brain would know and understand). He also opined that deficit spending by government wasn't that big a deal and that it would help the economy as well. Never mind what happens when the bill comes due. With such stupidities coming out of the mouths of macroeconomists, is it any wonder nobody cares to hear what they have to say?

If macroeconomists were a kind of doctor, they would have been driven out of the medical field by now. The would have been driven out by lawsuits, and they would have likely not been allowed by law to practice anymore, having been identified as being, for the most part, quacks.

It Could Never Happen Here . . .

"First, the long-standing socialist thinking behind [the] welfare programs, which had in the prior century encouraged [people] to prefer safety to independence and freedom, and to venerate big government; second the demagogic line preaching victimization . . . ; third, the scapegoat of racism" (Bill Greene, "Common Genius," 245).

Who is Bill Greene talking about in this passage? Liberals? The Democratic Party? Obama's pastor Rev. Wright?

While all of those could easily be correct answers, if we replace [the] with "Bismarck's" and [people] with "the Germans", and it should become clearer that he was talking about the groundwork that was laid in Germany for the takeover of Hitler.

America's Greatest Enemy -- Congress

For those of us who do not like welfare programs at all, the good news is that there is literally no way we will be able to afford even Social Security and Medicare by 2019, as pointed out by Glenn Beck. The bad news is: that insolvency will likely result in a complete economic collapse.

al Qaida should just sit back and wait -- our government is doing all the work for them.

And nobody cares.

How Obama Wants to Kill the Economy

Obama's solution to the slowing economy is tax relief and more regulations. The first one make sense -- more money in the economy = stronger economy. The second idea is pure idiocy. What sane person looks at a faltering economy and thinks "what businesses need is for government to make it even harder for them to do business"? If you add on more regulations, to make it harder for businesses to do business, which slows economic activity, which slows the economy even more.

Perhaps we shouldn't be trying to put people who have the dangerous combination of thinking they are smarter than everyone else and who have the psychpathology of wanting to control everything and everyone in office.

I do like this idea, though: "Streamline regulatory agencies to end overlap and competition among regulators." This could actually result in fewer regulations and could make the one we have less burdensome by having fewer regulators trying to regulate.

Communist Death Squads -- A Redundancy

A response by a faithful reader to a posting about Correa I made raises some questions in my mind.

Lord knows, I'm about as nonviolent a person as one is going to come across. I love to talk ideas, especially with those with whom I disagree. But what are we to realistically do about any ideology that, when implemented, results in the deaths of literally millions of people? Here are some numbers for us to contemplate:

USSR (1917-1987) -- 61,911,000 people murdered
Communist China (1949-1987) -- 35,236,000 people murdered
Cambodia (1975-79) -- 2,035,000 people murdered (out of a population of 6 million -- making it far worse, percentage-wise, than any other Communist country)
Yugoslavia (1944-87) -- 1,072 million people murdered
Nazi Germany (1933-45) -- 20,946,000 million people murdered

The first four are all communist countries.

In the article from which I got these statistics, it is also noted that communism resulted in 55,000,000 people dying from famine caused by the implementation of communist ideas. In total, communist countries murdered over 100,000,000 of its own people. One can find another accounting of the murders of communists here that shows the number of murders by communist countries to be closer to 150 million.

We have instance upon instance of a communist government taking over a country, followed by mass murders and mass starvation. There is not a single instance of a successful communist country (from either an economic, or a justice POV).

So what should we do when faced with a group of communists either having taken over or trying to take over a government, knowing what we know about the results of communists taking over a country? Should we just stand by as millions more are murdered and starved to death? Considering the track record of communists around the world, it is insanity to believe that they will act any differently with each country they take over. Maybe I'm wrong to make such a cold calculation, but doesn't it make sense to kill a few hundred to save the lives of millions? I'm not talking about your university Marxist whose only sin (as dire a sin as it is) is to fill your child's head full of lies about how the world works. I'm not talking about people who merely believe in communism. I'm talking about those who fight to overthrow a government, or who have already seized a government. Do we not have the obligation to remove such people from power -- by any means necessary -- to ensure people not only can live lives of liberty, but are allowed to live at all?

Am I completely wrong about this?

Hugo Chavez's Anti-Endorsement

Good news for the Democrats: without outright supporting the Democratic party, communist-strongman-wannabe Hugo Chavez has suggested that relations with the U.S. may not improve if we elect John McCain. And we care what that thug's opinion is . . . why?

Just remember that Obama in his infinite naivete has suggested that we can and should talk with Chavez. I'm more of the opinion that we should just ignore the idiot. He's an embarrassment to not just Hispanics, but to human beings as a species.

The True Media Bias

With Dateline's "To Catch a Predator," reports of priests abusing everyone in sight, etc., one would think our children are just ripe for the pickings on any given day. Not so, according to to an article on eSkeptic that talks about the way we are manipulated by the news media.

According to the article, "in a given year there are about 88,000 documented cases of sexual abuse among juveniles. In the roughly 17,500 cases involving children between ages 6 and 11, strangers are the perpetrators just 5 percent of the time — and just 3 percentof the time when the victim is under age 6. (Further, more than a third of such molesters are themselves juveniles, who may not be true “predators” so much as confused or unruly teens.)"

5% of 17500 is 875, or 2.4 a day in the entire nation. Out of how many children?

The rest are molested by people in the home -- relatives, mostly. So if neither you nor your wife/husband are incestuous molester types, there is almost no chance your child will be molested.

Translation: it's okay to let your kids play outside.

A few other facts from the article:

"The current employment rate is 95.3 percent"

"Out of 300 million Americans, roughly 299.999954 million were not murdered today."

What would society be like of our news media reported the facts that way?

Moral Cowardice Online

There is a film titled Fitna that Moslem extremists don't want anyone to watch, and so are threatening everyone associated with it. YouTube too has removed the film from its site. You have perhaps noticed, by clicking on the above link, that www.networksolutions.com has taken down the site due to "complaints." In fact, they took it down because they are moral cowards, just as the people are YouTube.

If the average person doesn't stand up for his own right to speak and express him- or herself, then we shouldn't be surprised when government stop doing so. Certainly these two sites have the right to have anything they want on their sites, but to take this movie down just because it offends a few whiny crybags makes them cowards. If there was content offending Christians, it would still be up. Are Moslems so delicate that they can't stand criticism? Certainly the radicals seem to be, though the Moslems I know are all made of much stouter material than are the crybaby radicals.

Correa's Challenge

Dear President Bush,

You should call Ecuadorean President Correa on his bluff and offer to send troops to the Ecuador-Columbia border. If nothing else, we would get to kill Communists at the invitation of a Communist -- something all liberty-loving people should embrace wholeheartedly, and not just because of the wonderful irony of it.

Race and the Election

It looks like race is going to be a significant factor in the election in . . . Malaysia. What? Other countries have issues with race? Why, I thought only in the U.S. -- or at least the West in general -- there were race problems. At least, that's what all the anti-Western postmodernist postcolonial Leftists keep telling us. I wonder what other LIES they are telling us to forward their own self-serving agenda?

Intellectuals and Professionals

I'm currently reading "Common Genius" by Bill Greene, and will be doing a review of it here on this blog when I'm done. To a great extent it is a sustained, well-reasoned attack on intellectuals and intellectualism. I wonder what Greene would think of professionals in light of Radley Balko's piece. Certainly I (and I am sure, he would) think that we need professionals -- but if you have to use the power of government to enforce your professional status, what are you really providing anyone that's of value?

This raises the following personal questions: as a scholar/intellectual, am I a professional or an amateur? Does my Ph.D. make a difference there? Am I even an intellectual (I will get into Greene's definition of an intellectual when I do the review of his book)? How does the blogosphere challenge such classifications?

As to the last question, I think that there's both a lot of good and a lot of garbage online. It would be nice if there were some well-respected gatekeepers that might browse the net and rate blogs and provide links through their site. This would both let anyone write whatever they wanted, but also lend credibility to the work many of us do here online. One of the good things about professional gatekeepers is that they help you separate the wheat from the chaff. It's hard to find everything online that's wheat, you know.

Global Warming

It looks like global warming has reached a tipping point.

Happy Easter

Today is a day celebrating resurrection and rebirth after painful death. Those who have not undergone such a process can only live superficial lives at best. Those who attain resurrection are able to experience the kingdom of God.

Pope Benedict's Response to bin Laden?

On Thursday, Osama bin Laden accused Pope Benedict XVI of leading a new crusade against Islam. Bin Laden's implication: his followers should try to assassinate the Pope. Today, for Easter, Benedict XVI baptized a prominent Egyptian-born Italian Muslim, Magdi Allam, into the Catholic faith. Coincidence?

A Few Thoughts on the Morality of Markets

Free market economics is the only moral economic system ever developed by humans. Specifically, it is the only system which arose naturally, from the bottom-up, as all natural, self-organizing systems do. Top-down organization is unnatural and artificial and results in immoral behavior. Socialism treats human beings like they are parts of a machine. Free markets, arising naturally through the interactions of people voluntarily trading with each other, encourages people to act ethically and to act in the be interest of others even as they act in their own self-interest (this is, again, in opposition to socialism, where people act in their own self-interest as they claim to act in the interest of others).

Mamet's Political Conversion

Everyone should read David Mamet's piece on the transformation of his own political worldview at The Village Voice. After this, he will be one of the most reviled men in Hollywood or on Broadway.

Home Schooling Ruling II

A California appeals court had upheld the ridiculous ruling that California home-schoolers must be credentialed teachers. That means that for elementary school-aged kids, a year of college and a year of teacher training in a classroom (why would a home schooler need to know anything about classroom management?). For middle and high schoolers, the parents would have to be credentialed in each area they taught in. Now, if you want to understand the true range of stupidity of this, what this means is that if I lived in California, it would be illegal for me to home school my daughter (in a few years, when she's old enough) because I don't have credentials, even though I have a B.A., a M.A., and a Ph.D. More than that, I would not be allowed to teach her anything other than biology, chemistry, English, and the Humanities because those are the only areas in which I have a degree. But then, I wouldn't be allowed to teach her any of those things because I'm not credentialed. However, I could be hired at a university in California to teach composition, literature, creative writing, and/or literary theory. So somehow, I am qualified to teach adults, but not children. The knowledge I have is sufficient to teach adults, but not children.

One of the biggest issues opponents to home schooling raise is that of "socializing" children. But let's be honest -- the opponents are unhappy that they cannot indoctrinate these children with their own values, and find the values of most home schoolers to be abhorrent. They will object that they provide a "values-free" education, but that is impossible. The very selection of what should or should not be taught to a child implies that the thing being taught has value, and that not being taught doesn't (or at least is less valuable). If you want to know what the liberals who control our schools find to be of value, take a look at what they teach and don't teach our children.

On Obama's Speech on Race

I'm back! But it's late. I loved Obama's speech. I just hope he believes everything he said and acts on it. If he does, then he cannot support affirmative action or welfare. If not, we had a great speech by a typical politician. Either way, we had something we haven't seen in a long, long time, which is, to quote John Stewart, a politician who spoke to America about race as though we were adults. That alone made it a breath of fresh air.

Will Be Away a Few Days . . .

I'm going to be away from any computer for a few days. I should be back posting by Thursday. So please don't stray far my good readers! I shall return!

In the meantime, consider a few questions regarding poetics: could one do an analysis to determine which forms (including free verse) are most creative? What would you use? I would think we would give points for use of images, use of metaphors (and similes), but count of for uncreative uses of cliches, platitudes, etc., and also count off points for abstractions unconnected to images and metaphors. What other criteria would be use to determine creativity in a poem?

On Senecan Tragedy

I recently finished reading a collection of Seneca's tragedies. While these works have much to recommend, it was interesting to see to what extent Seneca had no idea what a chorus in a tragedy did or was for. He seemed to include them simply because Greek tragedies had them. Each tragedy had the chorus appear at the end of each act, sort of as an afterthought. So it seem that by the Roman times, the understanding of what a chorus in a tragedy did or was there for was already lost.

Newt Gingrich Q&A

There is a fantastic Q&A with Newt Gingrich on the Freakonomics blog.

Economic Ignorance Strikes Again

According to Foxnews.com, "The House passed its $3 trillion budget plan by a 212-207 vote. It would provide generous increases to domestic programs but bring the government's ledger back into the black, but only by letting all of Bush's tax cuts expire at the end of 2010 as scheduled." This is utter nonsense. This makes the patently false assumption that if taxes are increased, it won't affect people's behaviors. It ignores the fact that the tax cuts, by leaving more money in the economy, helped the economy to grow and, thus, increased revenues. (We ran in the red not because of reduced revenues, but because of increased spending.) It also ignores the fact that when you remove money from the economy, it slows the economy down. The welfare socialists always argue that the money taken in by the government is spent in the economy, so it shouldn't affect the economy. This only goes to show how incredibly ignorant fools they are when it comes to understanding the economy -- of course they are socialists, so that's already proof positive of their ignorance of economics. These are the same people who argue that more broken windows helps the economy because it causes people to spend money in the window sector of the economy. They don't understand that wealth and value are the same, that with broken windows, there is a decrease in value (the broken window) and that the money could have been spent elsewhere (on something that added, rather than replaced, value). Government doesn't add value. It takes away value, and replaces what was more valuable with something less valuable. Thus, wealth is destroyed. And that is what's going to happen when taxes go up. Of course, the Democrats know for a fact that tax revenues went up when the rates were cut -- they too are capable of viewing facts and understanding reality. Why, then, do they choose to ignore it? What else do they have up their sleeves?

The bottom line of the line quotes, though, is this: It's utter nonsense. You can't have an increase in spending with an action that will result in a decrease in revenues, and run in the black. Could someone with some sort of knowledge of the world please start writing for the media?

Some Thoughts on the Mind and Brain

I've recently been reading a few things on philosophical counseling and philosophical practice, and it has caused me to think about the brain and its functioning.

What affects brain function?

1. Nutrition
2. Physiological Health
3. Chemicals in the Brain
4. Neurogenesis
5. Brain Wiring
6. Mind Emergent from Brain Functioning -- in turn affecting brain structures

We could easily put neurogenesis in with physiological health, since aerobic exercise is what affects the amount of neurogenesis (creation and growth of new nerve cells in the brain) which occurs.

So what do we need if we want to be mentally healthy?

Certainly 1. requires a nutritionist.

2. requires exercise, and thus could require some sort of trainer and medical doctor which could recommend appropriate exercises for you

3. could require a psychpharmacists -- though personally I would wait until we saw if 1., 2., and 6. worked, and then turn to psychphrmacy as a last resort.

4. is affected by 2.

5. is affected by education -- constantly challenging the brain with new things, and training yourself to pay attention to more things.

Finally, we get to 6.

It seems to me that philosophical counseling would deal best with the emergent mind -- for precisely the reason that philosophical counseling necessarily assumes that there is a mind emergent from the brain's activity which can in turn act in a top-down fashion on the brain itself to change thought and behavior. Many psychological theories don't even believe in an emergent mind. At best they deal with the lowest-order emergent structures of mind: the emotions. Animals too have emotions. But what about higher order mental functions like reason, development of meaning, goals, etc.? Again, this is what philosophical counseling deals with. So it seems that if psychotherapy has any real role in the world, it is to deal with this primitive emergent structure -- emotions -- and to pretty much recommend that the patient go to someone who is more competent to deal with their real problems: a nutritionist, a trainer, a psychphrmacists, or a philosophical counselor.

My relegating psychotherapists to this minor role, it would also help us to get out of this mindset that everyone is mentally sick. Why shouldn't mental health be the rule? But we assume that everyone ha some sort of problem, and that we should medicate it away (indeed, therapists are increasingly handing over all their responsibilities to psychopharmacists, which is also not healthy).

Insofar as the actions of the brain result in an emergent mind which can in turn affect the functions of the brain, doesn't it make sense to first try to change the mind so that it can affect the brain and change such things as brain chemical balance? Proper education will help in this (meaning, not the way we educate nowadays), as will proper philosophical counseling. I suspect, though, that you won't find a lot of support from psychologists, who would find little to do if people were to become psychologically healthy from proper diet, exercise, education, and a balanced mind.

Support Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr.'s 1st Amendment Rights Against the IRS!

Especially considering the Founding Fathers had originally made it illegal for the federal government to tax either property or income when they wrote the Constitution (something tragically reversed with the 16th Amendment -- the only Amendment to take away one of Americans' rights), it is highly doubtful that they would approve of the tax code that violates the 1st Amendment twice by making it illegal for preachers to support a candidate from the pulpit. Thus, I hope that Barack Obama's preacher, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Jr., fights anything that comes his way from the IRS all the way to the Supreme Court. He has the Constitutional right of freedom of speech, which cannot be violated even by an illegal law in the IRS code.

And don't give me that nonsense about separation of church and state. That works in only one direction: the government cannot set up a state religion and support it and it only. The 1st Amendment restricts the government from doing anything in regards to speech, religion, or freedom of assembly -- it does not mean that it works in the other direction. Any religious group has the Constitutional right to advocate anything and anyone they want, and should not face any kind of penalty from any government entity for doing so. Anyone who cherishes our 1st Amendment will stand up and defend Rev. Wright's right to preach anything he wants from the pulpit, including his support for Obama or anyone else.

Jean Baudrillard, Richard Rorty, RIP

It just came to my attention that the French philosopher and sociologist Jean Baudrillard died last year at the age of 77. He represented almost everything that was wrong with contemporary continental philosophy -- and yet his work was the stimulus for one of my own short stories. Which only goes to show that even those who oppose the very idea of value have their value. Dennis Dutton has an old review of one of Baudrillard's works that gets at many of the problems I too have with Baudrillard.

Also, a year ago, we lost RIchard Rorty, who was as bad for American philosophy as Baudrillard was for continental philosophy. So why do I draw your attention to these two deaths? Because of the absurdity that I have read these two philosophers, and their ideas have affected our culture and society (mostly negatively, in my opinion), and I have only just now learned of their passing. But all I hear about on the news are things like the Eliot Spitzer scandal -- something about someone nobody will know a thing about in 100 years. It is likely that this won't be the case with Rorty and Baudillard.

Can't Fire Bad Teachers? Buy Them Off!

Now this is a great idea. People should not only donate names but donate money so they can continue this program to get bad teachers to quit. I just hope they make them sign something agreeing to pay the money back if they get another teaching job.

People as Voters vs. People as Private Citizens

It seems to me that people act far differently as private individuals than they do as voters. While they would never, ever go to their neighbor and steal anything from them, they will turn around and vote for a law that allows the government to do just that with taxes. While we would personally never threaten to lock someone in our basement for using drugs or visiting (or being) a prostitute, we will vote for a law allowing others to do it for us. I think people are quite wise when they act in their own and their own family's self-interest, but act quite unwisely when they vote. Why do we feel comfortable voting to have someone else do something we find distasteful and uncomfortable to do ourselves? Shouldn't we have laws that reflect what we would ourselves be comfortable doing and enforcing? We would step in to stop a rape or a murder or a robbery or to let someone know they are being lied to -- but we wouldn't step in to do most of the other things government does.

Autumn

When freedom is lost in the land of the free
Where will we all go who still wish to be free?
This was the last stop for the ships of the free
Who do not believe that their lunch should be free.

The wannabe rulers are taking this land –
They take all your money and take all your land
And hand it all over to cronies with land
To spare and whose money makes sure where they land.

They feed us the worst of ourselves back to us
And promise with lies that they’re really for us.
They fill us with envy and make all of us
To covet so they can then steal from all us.

Why won’t they all just let us be so that we
Can prosper and live in the world just as we
See fit? What is left in the world so that we
Who want to be free can embrace? Who are we?

Stand up! It is time that we fight the elite
Who don’t know a thing but believe an elite
Like them should control all our lives. This elite
Convince everyone just because they’re elite.

The farmer who plows, the inventor who makes
Our lives so much better with things that he makes,
And owners of stores whose prosperity makes
Us richer. We should just embrace he who makes.

This was the last stop for the ships of the free
Who do not believe that their lunch should be free.
When freedom is lost in the land of the free
Where will we all go who still wish to be free?

Eliot Spitzer, Go to Jail!

Precisely because he ran on a platform of cleaning up corruption, and precisely because he busted several prostitution rings, New York governor Eliot Spitzer should go to prison. I do believe prostitution should be legal -- but I'm also of the opinion that any politician who violates any law (s)he is responsible for upholding should go to prison. If they want to stay out of prison, they should either keep clean or get rid of the laws for everyone. (Which reminds me: all laws, no matter that they are, should apply to politicians first and foremost. Better: any law passed should have 10x the consequences on a politician as anyone else.)

I suppose he would tell me (as he essentially told everyone in his press conference) to mind my own business . . . but why should I? When he was breaking up prostitution rings, he wasn't minding his own business -- he was minding everyone else's. The law he applied so vigorously should be applied to him just as vigorously. He needs to get a taste of his own medicine.

Son of the UMWA, Husband of the AFT

Today's blog posting may be found at The Prometheus Institute blog.

This Is Your Brain On Jazz . . .

A fMRI study has shown that when jazz musicians improvise, the inhibition section of the brain shuts down. The researchers suggest that this is also the source of creativity, but I'm not so sure about that. The idea that a lack of inhibition is the same as creativity is a romantic notion that does not necessarily pan out. You can be creative with inhibitions, and you can be uninhibited and not be creative. I would suggest to the researchers (in case any of them happen across this blog) that they do fMRI studies of people writing poems in different styles. They should look at brains as people write in free verse, blank verse, and with more complex forms, like sonnets. I would be interested in seeing what happens.

Also, the jazz musicians are not working in a rule-less fashion, so it might be interesting to do a followup where the musicians are making noise on their instruments and see how that differs from uninhibited-yet-rule-following jazz.

21st Century vs. 19th Century Science and Society

SOcialism was originally conceived of as a scientific approach to economy. In the 19th century, science was creating all sorts of technological advances. Nature was falling to man's powers with technology. Man was soon to rule all of nature. We could design precision clocks, engines, and factories -- why not design an economy, a society, a culture?

The science of the time was Newtonian physics (balls rolling down planes, explaining planetary orbits, making better telescopes and microscopes -- the kind pf physics many in the humanities, political science, and the soft sciences all still believe to be physics) and thermodynamics (engines, heat, and entropy -- which says that everything is going to die of heat death and that we should therefore abandon all hope). If this was science, then socialism made sense -- indeed, we have since learned that if we do try to plan/design an economy, it will succumb to entropy and run down like an engine. Marx said Communism would come after capitalism because the capitalists would provide the fuel for the engine of socialism. But he forgot one small thing: what will happen when you run out of fuel? It turns out that socialism really is scientific in the 19th century sense and understanding of science and the world -- it always succumbs to entropy.

In our arrogance, we tried to see the world as what we make. We made engines, so the universe was like an engine, running down. There's only one little problem with this, and that is it assumes the universe started off orderly and has become more disordered. It turns out that the opposite is true (but only if you believe in such things as the Big Bang and evolution). We thought the world was a simple, linear system, but it turns out it is a complex system with nonlinear feedback loops and emergent properties, where natural order arises from the bottom up, not the top down. In other words, the world is nothing like 19th century science says it is. Isn't it time that our ideas on economy, society, culture, and government caught up with what we know about the nature of the world, including human nature?

Slacker Homeboy Chimps

For those of you who have sons over 18 who have moved back in with you -- it turns out that the problem is deeper than you ever thought. According to the March 2008 Smithsonian Magazine, "When times are tough, male chimpanzees go home, according to a study of more than 30 years' worth of records from Tanzania's Gombe national Park. Males abandon social groups when food is scarce and return to territories where they were reared by their mothers" (12). Isn't it nice to know that your slacker son's behavior is explainable with evolutionary psychology? That still doesn't explain how to get him out of the house, though, now does it?

Home Schooling Ruling

A California court ruled that parents who home school their children have to have "credentials." Considering the kind of education our children get from those with credentials, this seems to me to be a completely arbitrary ruling by this court. One could just as rationally rule against schools for hiring people with credentials precisely because they don't teach students anything needed to survive in the 21st century.

In fact, we should go a step further. If a parent is home schooling their child (or sending their child to a private school), why should they have to pay property taxes? Property taxes are supposed to go to funding schools, and those who are teaching their own children at home or paying for private school are not using those facilities. In fact, they have to pay for their child's schooling twice -- the one the child is in fact getting, and the one the child is not getting. How is that fair?

Unfortunately, there haven't been any real consequences to the rotten education our children are receiving. The universities just lower standards and dumb down curricula. COmpanies have been providing extra training to cover what universities won't. The strong U.S. economy has benefitted us by attracting highly educated workers from other countries, but this isn't going to be true much longer as places like China and India liberalize their economies and become stronger. We will reap what we have sown -- and it's going to be very soon.

Learning and Regret

There's a very interesting article in the latest Science where the authors designed an artificial neural net with regret to make it more accurately emulate human learning in an economic setting. This itself raises an interesting issue: the role of regret in learning. We feel immediate regret when we discover that we did something wrong. We reflect back on our choices and look at what we could have done. This allows us to learn more rapidly. (In a much earlier posting, I talk about how letting go of regret is freeing and psychologically healthy -- but in that instance, I was talking about holding on to regret, not the immediate, transitory feeling we get in this instance.) This makes a lot of sense, if you think about it. Suppose you have two students. Both miss the same question on a test. Student A looks at the test and shrugs his shoulder and goes "oh well." Student B looks at the test and regrets making a wrong answer, causing him to look at the question and his answer and to check what the right answer is. Do I really have to ask you which one of these students is learning? This suggests that we need to foster feelings of regret (in the immediate sense) in students if we want them to learn. Of course, we only regret if we care -- which perhaps only brings us back to the issue of how to make students care about learning in general -- including things they may not really be interested in learning. All of this nonsense about making learning "fun" is just that -- nonsense. The more fun we have made education in this country, the less our students seem to learn. So how do we get students to regret, in this healthy sense of the term?

Community, Big Government, and Libertarianism

On his blog, Jonah Goldberg brings up the issue of libertarianism and community, something which I have written about in an article that will appear March 13th at The Prometheus Institute. In the meantime, I would like to add a few comments here on libertarian communitarianism vs. state communitarianism.

The species Homo sapiens (a.k.a., you) is a social mammal. Big-government supporters love this fact because they think that it is proof that all their welfare state ideas (which are really socialism light) are proven and that libertarianism is thus disproven. This requires that we all agree that government is the true source of all community and that libertarianism is a destroyer of community. Well, I would argue that the opposite is true.

The source of all community is rooted in the family. A tribe is an extended family, and ethics too is based on our extending how we treat our families to others. This is why religions use the language that we use for families – including “family” itself. And this is why we hear proponents of big government beginning now to use this same familiar language. How could we go on if we didn’t hear some Democrat lamenting every child’s plight, as though only government could possibly protect the children? “We must take all your money so the children of the poor won’t suffer any more.” But please don’t pay attention to the fact that almost every person now on welfare works the system so that they can get more money and not have to work at all, or that they use their daycare as a place to dump their children off so they can spend the day with boyfriends, home, or shopping. Hope they’re home or shopping, since the former choice will just get them more children for more money. Should we be surprised that when we pay a person every time they have a child that they keep on having them? And never mind that fact a thousand generations of people worldwide somehow managed to raise children just find without fascism/socialism/communism/welfare statism around to dictate how to do so.

My wife was once a Left-wing Democrat and former social worker. She saw homes of people getting welfare with wide-screen T.V.’s, brand-new cars outside, and far more things than my wife and I now have – and these were people she was trying at the time to get more services and money. She saw almost everyone misusing welfare, and she told me that she thought that maybe ten percent of all the people that she helped were actually needy. Her best friend, another social worker who remains a liberal, said he thought it was more like five percent. And, worse than that, he said that the corruption going on in social work is unbelievable, that no one doing social work could do their job without their falsifying most of the required paperwork. They quit, unable in the end to keep on working in such places that were so corrupt in what they did and who they served, encouraging unethical behaviors in the clients with the very “help” they gave. But what about the children? Well, their children learn that work is something to avoid, that you should have a lot of children (out of wedlock if you can), and that the system can be worked – and all because of liberal guilt. And this is for the children.

Welfare, then, destroys the family – but that is what big-government supporters really want, for if you’re loyal to a family or group, then you will not show all your loyalty to government (at least, not nearly what the big-government worshippers all think you should). It also helps explain the reason why the Left is so against religion – they hate competition, after all.

A libertarian community develops from the ground up. They are self-organizing, self-assembling entities. Social bonds form naturally among the members of such a community. People are able to join into voluntary associations, like families, groups of friends, churches, clubs, etc. Such groups may split or join together -- but that is natural and healthy. Complex systems are made bottom-up in nature, and those complex bonds are maintained at that level. Complexity emerges from simplicity. When something is designed form the top-down, the system is always simple and simplified. A steel i-beam or other object is chemically much simpler than is iron ore. This is fine for the creation of simple objects like cars and buildings, but human societies are complex and are natural products. They cannot be engineered without the elimination of complex bonds -- meaning, social engineering simplifies communities and thus weakens them considerably. Thus, the most natural, most complex communities would be those based on libertarian principles. A libertarian country would have strong local communities with leaders who emerged naturally from that community and, knowing everyone in the community, would have a better idea of what is needed by them and it than someone elsewhere. As a result, higher-order governments (city governments, county governments, and certainly state and federal governments) should have increasingly less power to be natural and efficient. The most natural form of government for a large group of interconnected people would be one that is locally communitarian, and globally libertarian, with many levels of increasing libertarianism in between.

I guess the only people who would not be happy in a country such as this would be the ones who hunger for the kind of power which results from ruling millions and from telling people what to do. I think that we should sacrifice the happiness of this minority for greater happiness. I think that this is something which is more than worth the sacrifice. Besides, these people will not be without some power in the end – there’s always people ready, willing, and desirous to join any cult that comes along. Those people can be ruled off on their compound, far away from all the rest of us who wish to rule ourselves.

Hillary's Racist Tactic

A poster just brought up the issue of HIllary Clinton's campaign darkening a picture of Obama for one of her ads, so let me address this issue. The Clinton campaign is using the same tactic that was used by Time Magazine on O.J. Simpson, which uses the fact that people are more comfortable with lighter-skinned people than with darker-skinned people. By making Obama appear blacker, the campaign was trying to psychologically nudge people away from voting for Obama. Certainly one could say this is a racial thing, but in fact this is something that occurs among Africans and those of African decent as well, where preference is given to those with lighter skin over those with darker skin. It is something which Claude McKay develops thematically in his novel Banana Bottom, in which he portrays the hierarchy that exists among people on Jamaica based on skin color -- the lighter the skin tone, the more political and social power one has. Both Time Magazine and the Clinton campaign cynically used this fact to influence people's opinions about an African American. In the case of O.J., he was "more guilty" if he was darker, and Obama is "less worthy" of being voted for if he's darker. In this sense it certainly is a racist tactic.





___________________
In light of the posting left by Matthew Tabor, let's look at a series of pictures of Obama and compare and see if the picture has been darkened (the Clinton Camp is saying it was accidental, but what would you expect them do do? Admit it?).

The first picture is the controversial comparison. The rest I just pulled off the net. There is some variation, probably due to makeup, but still, the Clinton Ad picture is still the darkest by far.