Category Archives: culture & value

Tasergate

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I’ve got a book coming out (I think) that goes into the details, so I won’t talk here about the so-called “TrooperGate” and the bizarre political theatre being acted out in Juneau.

I do wonder though if Alaska will be worse off for Palin’s absence.  It looks as if there was yet another “good old boy” network that needed to be cleaned out–the state troopers and their union who think ten days suspension of one of their own for a series of offenses including illegalities is too severe and get it cut in half.  It would be interesting to try to research what sort of behavior the Alaskans have been trained to expect from their state troopers.

We will tell you what the bill really meant and we will prosecute you for saying otherwise! We’re the Obama Goon Squad!

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More descent into Banana Republic.

Here is the legislation.  It is explicitly comprehensive sex education and it is explicitly aimed at kindergartners as well as older children.  Obama voted for comprehensive sex education for kindergartners.  If it was only due to the predator issue, that’s fine.  But the legislation is not limited to that at all.

See you in court, speech police.

For Further Reading

This post is a folow-up to this one.

Not the the Ministry of Truth (MiniTru) but the OBAMA Ministry of Truth (ObaMinTru)

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I live in an aspiring banana republic. They actually call themselves the Barack Obama Truth Squad, just in case you thought this was a non-partisan threat.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/XIenDGSAdPA" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

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But hey. I hear Sarah Palin once asked about removing some offensive books from a public library. So she’s dangerous.

UPDATE: Maybe I was too hard on my state. But I never realized how important it is to have a good governor!  My thanks to Matt Blunt for his statement.

Obama as Daniel’s 3 friends/”conservatives” as idolatrous Nebuchadnezzar and proud of it

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I won’t vote for Obama, but this makes me want to:

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/121kclEcEKU" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

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Do you find this video shocking? I do. I am shocked to learn there is still a statute that requires ruitual obeisance to the American flag. Didn’t the Supreme Court settle this in the flag burning controversy some years ago? Is this really the law of the land?

In any case, Obama so obviously looks like the hero in this morality show, that I can only hope this was posted by secret supporters rather than by anyone laying claim to the right wing. Ugh. How on earth can Protestants, who refuse to genuflect before the Lord’s Supper or any other object, promote this sort of civil idolatry? Arguably, this is less perverse than kissing a cross or bowing before a picture of Jesus since at least that is only a second commandment violation. But demanding ritual toward the flag is not only that, but is aimed toward something other than the true God. It is a first commandment violation. Did all those Christians in antiquity die for nothing when they refused to ritually honor Caesar’s shrine.

I can’t even begin to describe how alienated I feel from the populist opposition to liberalism. Freedom and liberty and localism have all been traded in for fevered nationalism. It is frightening.

Not kidding about “the virtue of selfishness”

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I guess if the Nazis had allowed the killing of the unfit individually, without coercive taxation and government mandates, then it would have been defensible according to the arbitrary bloodlust articulated by the alleged “Center for the Advancement of Capitalism”:

So in the anti-abortion advocate’s eyes, a parent’s desire to raise healthy children by squelching unhealthy fetuses while the are still in the womb is little more than a pernicious quest, but it is not considered a pernicious quest to knowingly bring severely disabled children into this world. On the contrary, such a choice is held out as an great example of upstanding morality. For example, consider this recent press release from a conservative anti-abortion advocacy group which celebrated Plain’s birth announcement:

The Palin family is a wonderful example of a family who made the right choice to embrace their child and his future. Wendy Wright, President of Concerned Women for America (CWA), commends Governor Palin, saying, “She is even more beautiful inside than out. Her proud and warm announcement of the birth of their special child revealed the depth of love and faith of this extraordinary woman. May God give America more women and statesmen like her.

“Special needs children can bring out the best in people. They draw out compassion, patience, a joy for the simple things in life in people around them,” says Wright. “In some ways, we need special needs people more than they need us.”

That is, we need the mentally retarded to teach us how to better sacrifice our lives and divest ourselves of our self-interested ways more than they need us to care for them. At Noodlefood, Diana Hsieh condemns such a stand as “the worship of retardation.” Given that Palin had complete foreknowledge of her child’s severe disability yet nevertheless chose to have it, it is hard not to see her choice as anything less.

Get that? Palin is actually guilty for not aborting her child.

I’ll say this much. Reading this cainite apologetic does open my mind up to the possibility that there are indeed certain classes of people that the world would be better off without. But just in case we start prejuding all Randians, I offer counter-evidence.

Honestly, do Randians ever offer any objective limits to their selfishness? If it is wrong to be or feel obligated not to kill a child, then why wouldn’t it also be wrong to feel obligated to pay any other debt. Wouldn’t “rationality” demand that one simply do whatever one can get away with?

I remember reading Atlas Shrugged and thinking of it as heroic. That impression has not survived. Objectivism seems to have become a rationalization for pretentious cowardice.

When Did Fear Take the Driver’s Seat in Amerika?

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I have Chris’s feed in my google reader, so I was led to this story in Boing Boing expecting a horror story about a school suspension.  No.  It was worse.  The police were called and a case was opened.  Because of an evil fourth grade super-villian with a broken pencil sharpener.

But then, at the bottom of that Boing Boing entry was another post that led to this interview with a man and his family terrorized and gunpoint by intruders who shot and killed their family pets.  Of course, they were police.

In America, we enjoy incredible health and prosperity (even in the middle of an economic slowdown).  Does anyone really think that this use of police power contributes an iota to this?  Why is paranoia about worst case scenarios (school violence/ drugs) allowed to justify such insane and dangerous terror tactics? (Yes, putting a fourth grader in front of an officer of the law counts.)

The quest for absolute safety means no one is.

Palin as a new Eve (mini-rant)

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I’m pretty sick of questions about whether Palin should be a ruler or whether she is compromising her motherhood by running for office and “neglecting” her children.

First thing.  Nothing in Genesis 1 or 2 dictates that every man must or should marry and have children.  In fact, it is perfectly compatible with Genesis 1 and 2 that some men should never marry or have kids.  And the same with women, not every woman is supposed to be a domestic.  That is not what Genesis 1 or 2 establishes.

Second thing, there are a thousand ways to raise kids, and the modern nuclear family with the stay at home Mom is only one of them.  Women have worked outside on the homestead for thousands of years.  For most of human history “cooking” for a household meant raising and slaughtering animals as well as growing food.  I like the bourgeois way of life and think it is a gift, but it is not one that all families are granted either in higher or lower classes.  So the idea that Sarah is obligated to stay home and while her husband is sole economic provider is simply garbage.  You may know a couple that would be better off if they split the household needs in bourgeois fashion, but you have no business putting that on strangers from Alaska.

(Oh, and the fact that one daughter fell into the sin of fornication means exactly nothing as some sort of proof against Sarah’s responsibilities.  It will prove nothing against Obama’s character either if it happens to him at some point.)

What we do have in Genesis is a man and a woman both given dominion over the whole earth.  This represents humanity as a whole, but it usually isn’t experienced by other individuals.  Most of us have a pretty small piece of it.  But here is someone raised up like Esther (but for much better reasons and without the gross harem issues) to be at the right hand of the President who already is the queen of one of the world’s last wildernesses.  It is an awesomely primal story we see playing out.

I can see lots of ways it could end in tragedy.  But I also see lots or reasons for hope.  And for once there is a chance for change, which until Palin was selected was something this election was entirely missing.