Tractatus

Un-American?

Where is a good old Un-American Activities Committee when you need it? Of course, Congress shouldn't be involved in inquisitions or hearing of private citizens in the first place, but there should be some kind of social animus against this monstrosity.

Yes, it is un-American for the government to tell private citizens how much money they deserve. It makes me angry and a little nauseous. Is there any way back from this path we are on, short of violent revolution?

Shoulda gone Galt

This poor fool let the parasites into his laboratory, showed them around, took suggestions on what to move, then was asked to leave the premises. Formerly his premises.

He should have gone Galt and left, refusing Obama and his thugocracy the satisfaction and denying them the sanction of his mind.

Report: Sky to Begin Falling Soon

I think we've just narrowly avoided catastrophic global-warming fallout this time around. What I mean by this is that a small sliver of rational men have held the panic-mongers at bay, forestalled a 'good crisis', and thus robbed various governments of their pretense for destructive overhauls and abrogations of liberty. It is not a complete victory, of course, as there is still some Kyoto nostalgia and Europe is learning how to slit its wrists down the road not across the street.

So the fake science folks are abated for now, though reportedly most of them are still alive. This is confusing to me, since the overwhelming consensus should have led to at least a healthy discussion of why the models seem to be failing. Ah, well, scientism is not science.

All of that is past. Herald the onslaught of the fake economists!

The Drudge Report is currently alarmingly red with an image of a falling stock graph above its main headline, which is really like the calm eye at the center of the storm. At the top, Europe is rejecting Gordon Brown's psychotic 'let's try more of the same thing that hasn't worked' approach; leftmost column is alarmingly 'White House in favor of Chinese currency proposal', and on the rest we are treated to reports of rising violence, broken tax promises, and political corruption.

Perhaps it's time to drag out some of the old global warming folks, the ones with actual science degrees who fueled such readable fiction as the IPCC reports and The Day After Tomorrow, the mockumentary spoof on Al Gore's slideshow. Perhaps they can consult with renowned cealologist Dr. Little and start a "Sky Falling Countdown Clock", keeping us all abreast of just when we should run for cover amid the oncoming carnage.

I think we're well past the bottom line level at this point. That government interference was the cause of the mess is obvious, and shouldn't be contentious. Socialists could at least face the facts and argue that it was the wrong kind of government regulation, or that it was too half-hearted and that wholesale control and central planning is what we really need. But they don't: they insist dogmatically that the thing that caused the problem didn't even exist, and that its opposite was in fact the culprit, when history seems to indicate that the areas of finance that were deregulated were, in fact, the more responsible and better-equipped to weather the current storm.

Perhaps it's just a mood I'm in at present - but I don't see us recovering from this one. Sure, we may see an uptick in prosperity at some point. But without some sort of upheaval, the memes perpetuated by this turbulence will have a lasting and destructive effect. People will take away from it that wealth-generators are really wealth-hoarders, that the middle-class deserves some of the upper-class's money, and that the lower-classes deserve to be treated to an all-inclusive resort called Life at the rest of our expense.

It will be scratched into our collective consciousness that businesses unregulated lead to massive financial meltdowns, and no one will pause to think that it is business unregulated that not only generate all wealth but actually create the financial system in the first place. It would be like arguing that the frame of your house was responsible for its collapse, when termites from every federal agency are busy gnawing away at your lumber.

The last 'good crisis' in the 1930s left us with this notion that we all need to be issued a federal number at birth, forfeit a portion of our earnings throughout our lives, and at some point stop working and become wards of the state. Somewhere along the line, maybe with Johnson's little Great Experiment, we started allowing this Marxist-Leninism creep in to our psyche with the notion that not only should we have compassion for the poor, we should compel compassion from everyone in the nation in the form of confiscatory taxation by armed force.

With every 'good crisis' we slide a little further down the slope, and the opponents of freedom know that the collective consciousness is susceptible to persuasion on these points, especially when national media and the education system are on board with the underlying ideology. After this one, what will we be?

We will be numbered subjects of the technocratic crown, standing for abuses many times worse than those perpetuated on our ancestors by an anointed sovereign, disdaining the very source of our prosperity, and, in the words of Samuel Adams, crouching down to lick the hands that feed us.

You can have it, Barry.

Who is John Galt?

The question is part of the lore and backstory of one of the greatest novels of the 20th century.

Last August, I took about ten days of leave and made my rounds across the United States. My family, you see, is old blue-collar Mid-Atlanticans. But due to a swirling convolution of circumstances and the hand of destiny, my parents and brothers moved to the Evergreen State about two years ago. The rest of my history and family are on the East Coast, mostly in Southern New Jersey (extended family, upbringing), the Trenton/Princeton area (college), or Greater Philadelphia (certain important acquaintances, my sister, some family).

That's the back drop. At the Portland airport, I was browsing the bookstore looking for some fiction to keep me occupied during my travels. I saw a book by Ayn Rand, and hazily remembered wanting to read Atlas Shrugged. I bought this book I saw, only to later discover that it was, in fact, The Fountainhead. While Ms. Rand's relationship with her Maker was clearly estranged, the book overwhelmed me (and not by its sheer volume).

My friend and erstwhile housemate Lieutenant John Law was reading Atlas Shrugged, so when we were both finished we swapped. And Ayn Rand's book was a 1100 page process of crystallization of so many ideas that had flitted across my mind for so long. (Law said the same thing, though he more emphatically embraced her anti-theism and leaned towards a more libertarian spin, probably more amenable to her sexual morality and pseudo-misanthropy.)

To extend Rand's title metaphor in Atlas Shrugged, the great giant is being stoned, spit on, and hamstringed, boiling oil dumped from the world on his back down his face, into his eyes. All the while the world tells him he is unworthy of his status, that he is culpable for its own deplorable state. They demand that he give more of himself in contrition for his exploitation of them.

Leaving the parables, AIG is basically a synecdoche for producers in the financial sector. AIG is like the firms in the early part of Atlas Shrugged who accept government grants and bonds for their own profitability, or the later-stage industries who accept bonds on the condition that they have a lengthy grace period for payback. These corporations eventually realize they have excavated their own graves, that they are no longer free to pursue their own interests, profit or otherwise, because they are at the mercy of the government.

In the novel, there is one man whose talents and conviction are profound enough that he effects a kind of secession of producers, refusing to live on the terms of the parasites. Is there such a clique today that can make the same statement? One sees some shimmers of hope through the clouds that is this Age of Obama. Barney Frank is Wesley Mouch: he is a Washington player who contributed greatly to this current state of affairs, and stands to be promoted if the new American Order comes to pass.

Is there a John Galt among us? Will any executive tell this administration that they do not have claim to his talent and industry simply because they can seize his property by armed force? Some politicians have stood for the rights of property, and they should be commended for it. Some intrepid journalist should compile a little digest of these men and women.

But where is Midas Mulligan to say: this is mine, which I have earned legitimately. If you wish to rob me by armed force, I would sooner destroy it all and close all accounts down to the very cent, before I consent to this confiscation. Or where is Fransisco D'Anconia to declare that his empire is not for the taking by any People's state, that nationalizing it will yield you nothing (he pulled that little trick twice, heh.)

Where is John Galt to tell the parasites that the engine of the world is free, and fettering it is impossible? In one of the most powerful examples of metaphorical imagery in her novel, the goons of Mr. Thompson and the state finally apprehend John Galt. They ask him what is behind a locked door, to which he replies "Private property." The heroine Dagny Taggart looks on, silently aghast, as they remove the locking mechanism - she has just seen the most remarkable laboratory, bearing the fruits of the mind of John Galt in advances far beyond the world's current technology.

They open the door to find an obliterated ruin of dust, described as looking as though it were very ancient. This is her image of a mind that is forced, of the engine that is fettered.

Who is John Galt? I hope dearly this question is not an empty reference.

All of this has happened before...

The saga has ended. The threads woven over the past several years have all been tied together in a racing staccato that is inadequately called the series finale. It was a literary end to a literary series.

The story has been told and the tale of the Battlestar Galactica is finished at last. Be warned: in some of what follows there are serious plot spoilers. Do not disservice this story by reading further if you have not seen the series in its entirety!

The series has been called a 're-imagining' of a science fiction concept by the same name. This must be an understatement. I have never seen the old BSG except by chance, and then only a few random snippets. From what I can gather, the old incarnation is much more straightforward: the machines of man's creation, encouraged by some unscrupulous humans, are at war with human civilization.

And so this Battlestar Galactica opens - humanity's robot creations, the Cylons, have rebelled against their erstwhile masters. The ensuing war results in a stalemate, and an armistice is declared. Forty years later, the Cylons launch a surprise nuclear attack on all twelve colonies simultaneously. And so the story begins. I do not intend to recount the plot: indeed, my mind is still reeling from the series finale. Instead, I want to pay tribute to what is by far the best thing I have seen come out of television in my life.

Overstatement? I am no culture critic, and for that matter, I don't watch that much television. My other favorite shows are South Park for its incisive political humor and cultural invective, and House in equal parts for the puzzle drama and its title character's personality. Nothing comes close to BSG in its scope, its drama, its perfect melding of the science fiction genre with a mystical, historical epic that spans galaxies and ages.

Let me get this part out of the way: the sci-fi part of the show is really cool. The consistency in aesthetic and attention to detail in creating the social setting are matched with panoramic space battles between massive battlestars, dogfights between attack craft, nuclear bombardment of massive spacecraft and installations, and some awesome sets where one begins to feel at home. When Gaius Baltar returns to Galactica after his stay on the Cylon baseship, one empathizes with his feeling at home.

Atomic weaponry launches in fulfillment of prophecies recorded on ancient scrolls. A pseudo-historical lore lies behind the establishment of the Twelve Colonies, an established federation of planets that is an unbelievably convincing human civilization. The pinnacle of human technology, the sentient and intelligent machine, rebels, and is almost its demise, except for the heroics of a small contingent of the Colonial Fleet, led by Commander William Adama.

And Commander Adama, who for the better part of the series is known as Admiral Adama, is a true hero. His faults only contribute to his character - a model officer. A man of his word, one of his first acts as the leader of the remnant of humanity is to lie to them about his knowledge of the mythical Earth. Part of the lore of the Twelve Colonies is that thirteen originally set out from the original home of humanity, a planet called Kobol. The thirteenth tribe went its own way and the Twelve settled a particular solar system. The Thirteenth is said to have settled on a planet called Earth, though this is actually the line where the history bleeds into the lore.

It is sort of akin to the Garden of Eden. While we (as a people) refer to it commonly, many among us do not believe it ever actually existed. It is a convenient paradigm for us to use when referring to our common experience, but most are unconcerned with its veracity as a historical location. I believe it is real, and in fact probably is still where it was originally created. Whether the book of Genesis means it as narrative history or moral history is a discussion for another post. But imagine everyone on Earth dying except ten thousand people, and with them survives prophecy and lore about the Garden of Eden and its role as a sanctuary for life. Suddenly the question becomes a bit more pertinent.

The threads of prophecy and destiny are weaved skillfully throughout the tale. Cylons that look like humans - skinjobs, as the Colonials call them - are discovered. Seven models are eventually identified. But Cylon lore (yes, really) speaks of twelve models, and the so-called "Final Five" are an object of reverence and apprehension among the seven known models. This is perhaps the major plot device in the series, as the revelation of these final five and their role in the origin and destiny of the other Cylons stretches from at least two thousand years before the opening of the series and plays well through to their final disposition at its end.

The characters are deep, and they develop. Lee Adama, the admiral's son, is perhaps the finest officer in the fleet. The show moves him deftly from soldier to field grade leader to battlestar commander to civil defense attorney and finally to principled but capable politician. Laura Roslin, a schoolteacher and former Secretary of Education, evolves from a reluctant president at odds with Admiral Adama (he arrests her at one point!), to shrewd and undisputed political leader of the fleet whose best friend is Admiral Adama. Gaius Baltar and Kara Thrace are the show's enigmas - both obviously have destinies, but neither of their destinies is even remotely clear until the end of the series. Every character in the show has depth and appeal - Felix Gaeta, Karl Agathon, Caprica Six, Romo Lamkin, Tom Zarek, both of the named Eights Boomer and Athena, Anastasia "D" Dualla, Saul Tigh, and even minor characters like Roslin's first assistant Billy and Adama's brief foil Admiral Helena Cain.

And the romantic drama between these people! The characters in this show are so multidimensional, so compelling, that I find myself mourning that I can learn no more of their story. But, of course, there is no more.

My fingers would dance across this keyboard all night in tribute to this most excellent of productions. What would have made for great entertainment were it simply a science fiction war-based series ascends to formidable heights by weaving in epic poetry, infusing the entire storyline with mysticism, and steering the series towards a literary and definable conclusion that leaves one feeling like Lee Adama, standing on the grass plains of Africa in wonder and excitement, realizing that all of these people have now gone away from you: just minutes after your father leaves for the last time, your old friend and beloved Kara Thrace leaves you for her higher destiny.

Alas, as the story was written with a conclusion, so too must this tribute of it. I doubt that all of this will happen again!

Marxist says what?

Huh?

Ayn Rand, call your office. According to the AP, a "busload" (three times the size of a buttload but about one fifth of a boatload) of normal folk were noisily admiring the accomplishments of executives at AIG. Of course, their tone is a little different. More like "exploited workers express righteous outrage at bourgeois monsters". Some highlights from the article for you:

"We think $165 million could be used in a more appropriate way to keep people in their homes, create more jobs and health care," said Emeline Bravo-Blackport, a gardener.

Well, Ms. Bravo-Blackport, I think that scarf your wearing could be used in a more appropriate way to sop up some water I just spilled. Why don't you go ahead and give it to me. No? What, it's yours? Okay, fine, I'll just extort it from you by force under the guise of government. This here gun ought to do the trick... don't worry, you have plenty of them. This one is going to a better use.

American International Group Inc. (AIG) has said it was contractually obligated to give the retention bonuses, payments designed to keep valued employees from quitting

I'm sorry we have to specify. I'm also sorry the AP can't be bothered to find out a simple matter of fact for their story. It isn't AIG's theory or claim that they were contractually obligated, it is a matter of - say, what? - contract! I'm sure this reporter could have found out as a matter of hard fact whether the contract actually so obliged the company, or whether it was a discretionary payment.

Finally, the sagely Mary Huguley gives us this pearl:

"You ought to share it, and God will bless you for doing it," she said.

True enough. But God blesses charity as a disposition of the heart. It is with those who give cheerfully and out of love that God is pleased! The anecdotal support is the woman that has little but gives all of it, compared to those who have much and give little, even if their little is more than the poor woman. The Lord left out (for good reason) the scenario where the Emperor extorts money from a wealthy landowner and gives it to some poor wretch under the guise of charity.

Mary is right, even while being chronically wrong in the sense of "Hey, Mary, are you right about anything?" But those of us blessed in life with industry, talent, intelligence, and, in some cases, financial inheritance, can help others. There are things we can and should do as private citizens, and you will see a number of conservative Christians doing that very thing. (Of course others do as well, but God's people are notoriously generous.)

What is unacceptable is expecting the state to seize by force the assets of others and dispense them to you, simply because you are threatened with a scenario of having less than you want! Marxist says what?

Here is the formula for what the Marxist says:

"We think/feel/believe that [insert property of someone else] should be [insert code phrase meaning 'expropriated by force'] and used for [insert project of choice]."

And we're off...

After the culmination of inspiration and industry that resulted in my last post, I had fatigued that particular faculty.

Then I was assigned to lead a patrol to Joint Base Balad, one of the biggest U.S. stations in this entire theater. Besides the very serious perimeter security, it is easy to forget you are in Iraq. The structures on most FOBs have a temporary feel to them - some of them are hastily constructed wooden structures, and some are even tent-like structures. On JBB, the buildings resemble those on any military installation in the U.S. I overheard someone speculate that are thirty thousand personnel on the base!

The patrol was eventful enough. And it was exciting to see more of Iraq besides this one little corner of the northwest. But it did mean over a week with no posting.

So here we are, my second post. And what is it about? It is about itself.

I'm metablogging!

A spark, then the fire

For the past year or so, I have been slowly developing the idea for a new web project. My initial inspiration was indeed an explosion, a massive news and opinion site with numerous contributors, departments with their own editors, and a custom site built from scratch by a hired developer. The noise and light of this explosion incited a chaos in my mind, and it took me months of pondering and filtering, a slow journey punctuated by the staccato of inspiration that usually took me when in the euphoria of a run, or in the early buzz of a few drinks.

That explosion resulted in my finally putting pen to paper (or, keyboard to post form), and setting the concept in writing. I immediately realized I was being far too ambitious. This project must grow from the ground up, and I must build it myself.

The name Tractatus is an obvious tribute to the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by Ludwig Wittgenstein, the earlier and far more mystical of his two primary works. The name captures my formal training in and love for Philosophy with a minor in the classics, my passion for language and special relationship with Latin, and aptly summarizes the essence of this place in its meaning, a "treatment" or "treatise".

Thus, this is the place of my dynamic treatise. Dynamic, in the obvious way that all such sites are in their ever relevant content, and also, I hope, in the sense of an evolving framework and site structure. Perhaps one day Tractatus will resemble that initial explosion of inspiration. Here you will see my musings on culture, my political polemic, my philosophical apologia, and the Evangelium, which unites it all.

I hope at least to join the ranks of men and women who stand on the front line of the army of our heritage, to add one stake angled outward towards the onslaught of well-dressed barbarians and their forked tongue rhetoric of destruction, mediocrity, and that insipid deception, "progress".

And, for all that, let's see if we can't enjoy ourselves in the process.

On Ann Coulter, a test post

My syndicated column this week...

Just kidding, of course. Maybe one day. For now, I am going to post the op-ed piece that ran in last week's Signal.

Liberals Prove Ann's Point
by S. L. Whitesell
published with modifications in The Signal
the student newspaper of The College of New Jersey
*******

About three years ago, my campaign was underway for Executive President of the Student Government Association at The College of New Jersey. About two years ago, I was looking forward to graduation as a “private citizen”. I had lost the election and finished my senior year with a slim public profile. During that year, I wrote two opinion pieces on the global warming debate, which movement was then at its peak. The consensus had been reached; the IPCC told the world in its annual reports that we were heading towards the point of no return; Al Gore released some mockumentary that was inconveniently misleading; and even my dear president R. Barbara Gittenstein announced a college-wide environmental initiative designed to minimize our carbon footprint. Or something. You can find my pieces on the Signal’s website: the content is not so important as the form.

The arrival of Ann Coulter, one of the right’s most talented and controversial writers, has taken me back like the smell of fresh cut grass on Quimby’s Prairie. Then, as now, the discussion cannot be about the substance of the debate. The discussion is forced into ancillary topics that preclude debate.

I am not going to act embarrassed about some of Coulter’s more controversial statements. I am tired of offering the obligatory disclaimer about her method of delivery.  I was in the room when she implied that John Edwards was gay. I immediately apprehended the deeper cultural point she was making about an actor who went to a rehabilitation facility for using a negative word about homosexuals. Rather than focus on her point, we – or you, rather – instead focused on her crude way of delivering it and her use of a slur against gays in a public setting. The embarrassing part was the uneasy applause afterwards: either you want to applaud her point about political correctness, or you will refuse to applaud someone who uses a politically incorrect word.

The same thing applies with her books, which tend to be bestsellers.  In Godless, she said liberals have their own religion which explicitly rejects the living God, sanctifies the state as the source of rights and provider of sustenance, teaches the creation myth known as evolutionary biology, invokes articles of faith and calls them science, et cetera, et cetera. During the course of her polemic, she criticized some widows of 9/11 victims for their political activism in the wake of the tragedy. No one seemed concerned that she had made a cogent argument about the religious nature of secular liberalism. Liberals were wholly unconcerned with being accused of pagan scientism. No, instead, the focus was entirely on this one issue of the 9/11 widows.

 In response to Coulter coming to TCNJ, the panoply of left wingers rolled out the old chestnuts of hate speech, fascism, and Nazi similarities, and victimology. One of the chief complaints against her is that she has made “offensive” statements towards variously defined subgroups. I am sure she appreciated them underscoring her point by making these groups victims of her alleged hate speech. Whereas Nazis and the Klan say that Aryans or whites or whatever are superior to other races, Coulter has suggested that young fundamentalist male adherents to Islam are more likely to commit acts of terrorism. And the response of liberals is to pull out the ‘offended victim’ card and lump her contention in with actual racism.

Now, I am not exactly sure what hate speech means, or why it would not be protected by the first amendment. The ideology of the left has led to hundreds of millions of deaths (spare me the weeping monologue about how the ideology has been abused and not perfectly executed), and yet we still allow that death-speech to be taught as credible theories in our classrooms. But how intellectually dishonest does one have to be in order to conflate outright racism with a controversial view expressed in an inflammatory manner?

My guess is the question is explored and in large part answered in the book Guilty: Liberal ‘Victims’ and Their Assault on America by bestselling author Ann Coulter.