Tractatus

Koran Burning - Too Much and Not Enough

As a concept, I don't believe in "book burning". The eradication of evil or even merely dangerous ideas is not possible in this way. It is an infantile attempt by hubristic authoritarians to end the uncomfortable opposition of their own ideology. It is usually the equivalent of yelling STFU as loudly as possible, knowing that as long as you are louder and more persistent than your interlocutor, you won't actually be forced to confront their opposition. Attempts to burn, ban, or otherwise banish all existing expressions of a concept or scheme is offensive to my Anglo-American blood, steeped as it is in such things as the Common Law and the American Constitution.

So far, most commentators have been trading on the ambiguity in motivations for burning. A magisterium banning an idea and destroying all written expressions thereof is entirely different from an ecclesium rejecting contrary ideas. Compare, by way of example, the Roman church banning and prohibiting the printing of Luther's works, and Luther casting into the fire the Papal Bull declaring his ideas and himself anathema.

All this to dispel the confusion between book burning a la Fahrenheit 451 and symbolic burning.

As to the response, I wish someone would clearly articulate the "provocation" position so as to draw out the cultural suicide aspect. It is indeed provocative because it draws to light important features of Islamic society that are important. It is they who harbor the sort of ideological intolerance that results in the truly abhorrent form of book burning. (If I have to stop here to explain that I don't mean that all practicing Muslims are violent, just... no, just go read something else.) 

I will say what I have not heard from this pastor in Florida: Islam is a false religion that contradicts the revealed Word of God and denies the person and work of Christ. Therefore, I find whatever their prophet and holy writings teach to be absolute heresy, blasphemous, and indeed anathema. Islam is a cult that leads to destruction.

If an event were to feature Koran burning as part of a larger critique of the anti-Western and anti-Christian message of Islam, I would probably endorse the spectacle. As it stands, I see it as a spectacle qua spectacle that avoids serious criticism of the theological and doctrinal differences between these two major world religions.

As a final note, a small Florida church burning some Korans is probably less a provocation than building an Islamic worship center named after a provocative Muslim figure on the grounds of the greatest success of Islamist action against the West. When that was all abuzz, we were told it was a simply matter of constitutional rights and nothing more. Where is that insistence now?

The double standard is laughable, and it is promulgated in a self-destructive way by cultural lightweights that we elect to office and elevate to prominence on our national media platforms. Given the latest rumor in the news, Imam Rauf may have recognized that he was in "intellectual check", and has consequently appeared to moved his king out of this precarious position.

Mens Sana in Corpore Sano

This is perhaps the most complicated policy debate ever. Not having a mind for details or for finance, monetary and fiscal policy tend to bore me and often confuse me. Finance is incredibly complex, what with it being run by a conglomerate of shady right-wing Trotskyite Freemason Rosicrucian Merovingians, but I think healthcare actually beats it by a healthy (heh) margin in terms of complexity. There are a few key points I'd like to draw out from the get-go, and I have no question I will display my ignorance at at least half a dozen points of debate. Here goes.

Staying healthy is in large part a function of taking care of oneself. For millennia, individuals have seen to their own well-being, at times seeking the advice or care of specialists who were advanced in certain crafts. With medicine advanced to its current level, these crafts are highly specialized and the corpus (heh) of knowledge is mastered only by those rightly exalted for their mastery of it. Still, for all that, the vast majority of health is maintained on a personal level, and the most common ailments - tooth decay, the common cold, minor lacerations and contusions - are dealt with by pastes and salves and chicken soup, or rest and waiting. The next tier of problems are addressed in a way that doesn't exactly require 17 years of education and thousands of dollars to treat. Infections need antibiotics. Painful swelling needs anti-inflammatories. Sleeplessness calls for a sedative and perhaps some counseling. I begin to imagine a system far less complex than the one we have concocted for ourselves to address the vast majority of health concerns.

As for the current debate, let's see what we can do.

Health vs. Health Insurance. All sorts of lefties are clamoring about all sorts of rights. Rights ethicists seem to make a business of declaring various things to be rights, and then making arguments for why they are super important, or why they are basic to the human condition. Much of the work they do is critical to improving the condition of the truly impoverished, so I don't knock them as a class of activists (the above-linked professor is one of my philosophical mentors, even if I do break with him in methodology, disposition, and conclusion). However, there is an important distinction between these two things.

So is 'health' a universal human right? Or perhaps we can all be positivists for the sake of argument and be willing to assert it as one. In that case, what defines health? Do we defer to the medical community and DSM-IV type publications and declare that health is the absence or, failing that, management of disease? You see the problems coming down the pike. In a public system, there isn't a potential for abuse, there is an open invitation for it. For some reason, full medical and prescription coverage is a statutory part of the compensation package for all military members. And believe me, in a universally funded community, everyone abuses the system. One time my eyes were puffy so I went to the emergency room, because I could, and because finding my actual primary care provider was an inconvenient process. Prescriptions are free to the , and so long as you can find a prescriber, you can get all the drugs you want. The only thing that keeps this program from being absurdly expensive is the fact that access to almost anything, including healthcare, is at least monitored by the chain of command, and soldiers can't just go at will for anything, and the fact that most of the providers are military, and none-too-sympathetic to outlandish claims (a curious exception exists for mental health claims). So if health is defined by statute and is an entitlement by statute, we are asking for abuse gone rampant.

Is health a right? That has to be a silly thing to say. I can't make that make sense. Health is a construct, or at best a concept, and as I discussed briefly above, consists largely in doing things for yourself. I imagine what people mean by this is that treatment of disease is a right? Perhaps one of my colleagues can straighten out what is meant by this.

Is healthcare a right? I doubt it, but it is certainly something a nation as wealthy as ours could figure a way to provide for even 'the least of these', to use the parlance of Our Savior.

Is health insurance a right? I don't see how. Apparently we've chosen it as the best way to provide ourselves with healthcare, or most of us have. I understand the very wealthy dispense with it altogether and just pay for things they need. Why is that the exception? Prices, of course, are astronomically high. And why is this? Current regulations have nothing to do with it? A topic for another post, to be sure, but worth giving it a mention here.

Rationing. As best I can tell, no one denies that rationing is a necessary part of any healthcare system, or really any economy. The question is one of who gets to do the rationing. My friend the Blackslug presents the view that it is better to have our friendly legally accountable government making these decisions for us rather than the profit-mongers at Aetna and Prudential and their ilk. My liberty argument was rather unpersuasive with the Blackslug, as the impression is that these companies are so incredibly powerful, with such a strong influence in Washington, that there is liberty only in name, and not in any way in fact. De jure liberty, but de facto oppression and tyranny. As the son of a primary care provider, I've heard the stories. I've heard the stories of my mother and her colleagues on the phone badgering insurance companies to pay for this additional test or this specific type of treatment. So the sentiment I get.

I don't necessarily think it's so straightforwardly oppressive, though. For one, if it weren't for current regulations that restricted individuals from choosing their own insurance, but rather mandating employee provision, there would be quite a bit more pressure on these companies to provide a better caliber of coverage. Also, it is unclear how to square the talk of the waste of the current system providing too many unnecessary procedures against the sympathy-mongering of the current system constantly denying claims. One or the other, please. (This is rhetoric the politicians play, I don't accuse serious policy debaters of this fallacy.)

In the end, there is a degree of freedom currently. As a last resort, an individual can resign from his job and find another to change plans. Or an individual can usually decline health insurance and purchase private insurance. Regardless of how it might often shake out, it is currently between an individual, his doctor, and a financier with whom he has a private contract as to whether his request will be financed. Enter the government, and we suddenly have an entity backed by the power of the sword deciding what healthcare I receive. And hence the fears of so many in the 'death panel' crowd.

Simply saying there are going to be death panels either way is not a very convincing counterpoint.

Current Systems. Finally, there have been some comparisons of our current private insurers to two different alternatives. The first is Medicare, and the folks at Heritage have done a fair job of dispelling the alleged advantage of Medicare in terms of cost control. It is beyond me how someone can hear a claim that a government program is more efficient than a private one and not immediately sound all the bells and sirens blaring in their "No Conceivable Way" alert system. Worse, it seems like Medicare is engaging in just the sort of 'ever declining coverage' behavior that critics of the market system like to criticize.

The other comparison is to Canada or Britain. Britain seems to be worse off, as it is more often cited by critics and Canada is more often cited by supporters. But both systems are used by both sides to support their argument. In the end, from what I can tell, they have to be willing to say that providing healthcare to all citizens is worth the trade off in efficiency and cost. And for our side of the aisle, we have to be willing to say that the price of liberty is that some go without, and that their need does not automatically generate an obligation, legal or moral, on anyone else.

My Proposal (well, not mine, but the one I like). Congress needs to deregulate to a large extent, but other than that, I'd like for them to just stop doing whatever it is they are doing. I find the current proposal to be perverse. The federal government is out of hand at this point, and almost every newsworthy actions either administration undertook over the past 2 years has been a severe abrogation of the Constitutional limits. Despite the Supreme Court often having been flat out wrong about what the federal government can and cannot do, it seems that even it and the web it has woven disallows at least the mandate aspect of the current proposal.

It is a sad but easily discerned path that led us to the point here an A.D. 2009, just over 200 years since the miracle of the inception of the American Republic, where the Congress of the United States thinks it has the authority to regulate health, and not too many people in the opposition dare to question the limits of their own power. Much better to score points now without tying your own hands in the future, the better to enrich yourselves, no? Perhaps.

I try to draw this distinction often. There is a difference between policies with which you disagree (tariffs, for instance) and those that are actually illegitimate acts of a government (where to begin? Gun free schools act?). Healthcare falls into this category. I think these proposals are bad ideas, but they are also not supposed to the stomping grounds of the federal government.

What can states do? A lot more, having the general police power reserved to them. Two Heritage Foundation scholars support the universal plan administered in Mitt Romney's Massachusetts. Perhaps these 'laboratories of democracy' can come up with universal insurance plans that provide insurance to the underprivileged, retain liberty for the regularly-privileged, and drive down overall costs. Perhaps they can, and if one state wants to go insane socialist with their plan, so be it. The citizens of that state should fight it, but so long as they don't violate any individual liberties of the U.S. Constitution or their state constitution, then they can have fun with it. I won't live there, but it's a matter for their polity, not me or the federal government.

Best of all, if one system works, other states will adopt it. And leaders at the national level can leverage these other states to adopt it. Insurance companies are sure to benefit by roping all 15 billion uninsured Americans into the insurance system, so they will likely leverage any plan that is of a similar. Several of the Several States should get in to the act now if they are interested in their own sovereignty, a concern I am sure Massachusetts did not have in mind. And for those on the left who are actually driven by compassion (I suspect it is a very small number), this is a practical approach towards insuring more people that doesn't involve some scary gargantuan federal program.

Can all problems be solved by Federalism? Why yes, yes they can!

Liberty and Revolution

The evolutionary view of history, certainly inspired by Hegel's work, would have us believe that humanity is progressing toward a paradise of limitless possibilities. The rapid advances in technology during the time drove many into the open arms of this progressivism, leading simple peasants and great philosophers alike down this wide path with all its promise of Heaven here on Earth. This is so prima facie noble and so sinister on its inside that it can only be described as Luciferian. We owe our current troubles in good measure to the irrational 'rationalism' epitomized in the French Revolution, and the whirlwind of these progressive theories in the 19th century.

The men who stood against George III shared a different view of history, untainted by Marxist and Darwinian worldviews. They understood that tyranny was the natural state of affairs, and that all political orders tended towards them. They spoke of the blood of patriots and tyrants as the necessary sacrifice: the blood not only of the oppressors, but of the men who would set their children free. (We have a tendency to equate 'tyrant' and 'monarch', but the two are not coextensive.) They saw then what has happened since. In the name of all manner of goods, chief among them 'security' and 'equality', liberty will be trampled under foot.

We must remember that it was acts of parliament that robbed the colonists of their industry. It was only when the King, in acting as the executive of state, became an insufferable tyrant that the men of the day shrugged off their chains. Most of them would likely have died happy subjects of the British crown had it prosecuted its sacred duty. When Congress punishes your industry, it is the President who must exact this punishment against you. We must also not allow executive agencies such as the IRS be separated from the President! They are the King's sword arm, and where are their agents? They monitor every dollar you earn and every dollar you spend. They take to you to court, they come to your office, they come to your home.

We face in our day another battle in the same war. As the King asserts authority over an ever-larger aspect of the polity, he sets an ever smaller portion of producers against a mass of parasites that are created and maintained in their parasitic state by the agency of the government. This is a self-defeating proposition, but unfortunately there may be no one left at the end of it to enjoy the death of tyranny.

The zeal of the revolution caught the enemies of liberty aghast. They were few then, and our founders determined to entrench their victories by creating a government that simply lacked the requisite strength to oppress its people. At the end of this process, though, they saw that the parapets of the Constitution were only as good as the people they sheltered, that an uninformed, amoral population would use the chapel as a brothel and desecrate the temple with such trash as relativism and pragmatism.

The Civil War saw a defeat for liberty and an expansion of the King's host, declaring emphatically that Washington ruled the several states. The 1930s began a new chapter in this battle, one best described by dystopian writers like Orwell, Rand, and Hawkes. In this chapter, whose opening sshot was really President Wilson's abominable income tax, our own leaders openly sought the end of liberty under the guise of fairness, and under the expediency of crisis. By deceiving a complacent population with lazy minds, they were able to pervert the very idea of compassion into an excuse for pillage.

Our enemies have affected a brilliant victory by hijacking our formative years. We are all taught that 'bad government' is the kind in which the people have no voice, never mind if the people have no decent thoughts among the lot of them. They teach that 'rights' are ethereal and abstract things to be dispensed by laws, and that such things as property and wealth are not the proper object of political reverence, never mind that it was for the rights of these things that our ancestors risked and gave their lives. We have to take back our paradigms, fight back against the notion that human rights are somehow opposed to or different from property rights. By teaching us this nonsense, and inundating us with false history about 'right wing' fascism, outright lying about the ideologies that have led to oppression, murder, and war, and then confirming it by their control (now diminishing) of the national conversation, they have taken away many of our weapons. Our arsenal is depleted.

The world will naturally tend toward tyranny, and so far no political order has been able to forestall the necessary revolution to correct it. The enemies of tyranny realize that they need only a few more generations of victories, and the battle will be won until He comes again: George Orwell's boot on the throat is a very possible reality.Will the U.S. Constitution stand the strain of battle? I, for one, doubt it, as legal theories conspire to undermine it and Supreme Court justices refer to authorities outside of it, and the people dilute it for their own ends.

What is to be done? Of course, we must honor our ancestors and partake of this distasteful war.

The States must push back. The Several States must declare their sovereignty as States, surrendering only those particular powers as declared by the Constitution.

The courts must push back: every jurist and every judge must interpret laws within the scope of the Constitution. If the document does not allow the Federal government to act, it will be crucial for judges to denounce the legislation.

Business must push back. Instead of blindly placing a label on their product because some underpaid pseudo-scientist so orders, they should either refuse, or place another disclaimer above the government mandated label: "The federal government has violated the bounds of the U.S. Constitution and requires us to publish the following words. We do so against our will against the armed force of the U.S. government:" and then follow with the words. Businesses have to start refusing to produce under the terms of others.

The people, finally, must push back: we must brook no abrogation of our liberty, and we must call such abrogations what they are. Seizing one citizen's assets to distribute them to another citizen is an illegitimate abuse of power the likes of which has started wars, and this is as serious an insult!

Liberty is the only proper incitement of Revolution. If that is the call to arms, count me among the ranks of the Continental Army.

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.

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]."

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.