Sunday, August 25, 2013

"An Endless Series of Hobgoblins"

The boy cried Redcoats.
The boy cried Mexicans.
The boy cried Rebels.
The boy cried Indians.
The boy cried Huns.
The boy cried Japs.
The boy cried Nazis.
The boy cried Commies.
The boy cried drug lords.
The boy cried terrorists.

Go back to wolf already.

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Christian Anarchists

It was shared by my FB friend Peter Kozma, and originally posted by someone using the name Libertarian Christian. The latter accompanied it with this: "But Peter and the apostles answered, 'We must obey God rather than men.'" Acts 5:29.

Those anarchist friends of yours are ignorant. And you're right: Their apparent premises do seem to suggest some very good questions.

I suppose some materialist anarchists might argue that religious habits of mind -- submission to a deity -- may lead believers to submit to authority in this world as well. I occasionally played that game myself, in both my orthodox Objectivist and cultural Bolshevik incarnations. But it seems unlikely to happen if one grasps the distinction between the City of Man and the City of God. Moreover, have we not learned by now that atheists in control of the City of Man are capable of crimes and atrocities undreamed of in the Christian Age?

WTM

On Aug 22, 2013, at 10:45 AM, Tony Pivetta wrote:

You found it on Facebook? You travel in more Christian-friendly circles than I. 

My anarchist FB friends inform me it's a logical contradiction for a professed anarchist to embrace the Christian faith. Apparently, the Church qualifies as a monopolist of violence. Odd. I don't recall Swiss guards or Jesuits appearing at my door for failure, e.g., to drop my Sunday offering in the collection basket.

I suppose it raises an interesting philosophical question. May I consent to my own enslavement? If hewing to a third party's moral code negates the very possibility of consent, what do these aggressive secularists propose to do about it? Shutter the churches to force me to be free?

I seem to recall the former rulers of Russia conducting an experiment along those lines. Things didn't work out too well--for either Christians or secularists. 

Tony


Sunday, August 11, 2013

Deep Darwinist "Faith"

"[T]he institution of science makes skepticism a virtue"? Robert King Merton never met today's Darwinists! The agnostic Fred Reed (http://www.lewrockwell.com/reed/reed59) has a hilarious take on these freethinkers' "unqualified faith": 

"My favorite example, which does not reach the level of plausibility, is such artifacts as the tail of a peacock, which obviously make the bird easier to see and eat. So help me, I have several times seen the assertion that females figure that any male who can survive such a horrendous disadvantage must really be tough, and therefore good mating material. The tail increases fitness by decreasing fitness. A Boy Named Sue."

The Darwinists caricature opponents as religious fanatics, even as they shoehorn empirical data to fit their preconceived theory. Let's hear it for the Age of Science!

Tony Pivetta
Royal Oak, Michigan 


-----Original Message-----
From: Wordsmith <wsmith@wordsmith.org>
To: ******************
Sent: Thu, Aug 8, 2013 12:17 am
Subject: A.Word.A.Day--Potemkin village

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Aug 8, 2013
This week's theme
Words coined after baddies

This week's words
Ponzi scheme
quisling
burke
Potemkin village

Prince Potemkin
Prince Potemkin
Image: Wikimedia

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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

Potemkin village

PRONUNCIATION:
(po-TEM-kin VIL-ij) 

MEANING:
noun: An impressive showy facade designed to mask undesirable facts.

ETYMOLOGY:
After Prince Grigory Potemkin, who erected cardboard villages to fool Empress Catherine II during her visit to Ukraine and Crimea in 1787. Earliest documented use: 1904.

USAGE:
"In Berlin, Lindbergh's wife, Anne, was blinded by the glittering façade of a Potemkin village."
Susan Dunn; The Debate Behind U.S. Intervention in World War II; The Atlantic (Boston); Jul 8, 2013.

Explore "Potemkin village" in the Visual Thesaurus. 

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Most institutions demand unqualified faith; but the institution of science makes skepticism a virtue. -Robert King Merton, sociologist (1910-2003) 

Sunday, August 04, 2013

The Atomic Bombings "Worked." They're OK.

Every terrorist targets civilians and excuses his actions by invoking the Greater Good. Yes, the "conventional" bombings of, e.g., Dresden, Hamburg and Tokyo, were terrorist acts. As were al-Qaeda's attacks on 9/11. Whereas the homicidal humanitarians insist there's something different about the Benevolent Hegemon's brand of terrorism, the rest of us view universality as the hallmark of morality. The apologists' excuses strike us as just that.