With the open display of antipathy toward democracy in recent days–so-called “Democrats” using various tactics to avoid the outcomes of democratically-decided elections, beginning with the “Democratic” State senators of Wisconsin fleeing the state to avoid providing a quorum–isn’t it time the party was formally renamed the Anti-Democratic Party?
Pay Attention: Our Society Has Already Failed The Test Once….
“What is so Special about the 30 Year Mortgage” by Peter Williams in today’s [Feb 1, 2011] Wall Street Journal dispels some myths and raises interesting questions. The United States has for a long time encouraged people to buy their homes. This is a good idea: rule by the middle class, ‘those who possess the goods of fortune in moderation’ (Aristotle) requires that there be a middle class, and that they have property. Alas, the implementation did not leave them much of a property stake. People who owe more than the property is worth not only do not own property, but have a strong motive to shed themselves of the very idea that they ever owned it. The long time mortgages with low down payments do not build property ownerships.
Now, our home is paid for. Was a fifteen year mortgage to begin with, and we had EVERY intention of making it wholly ours from the beginning. Paid it off early. And when we bought, we bought a home that was less than we could have gotten, deliberately. Indeed, we’ve mostly, for quite some time now, made it a practice, in general, to live under our means, providing a greater cushion for emergencies and potential income losses or other changes of circumstances.
Major purchases, other than this house–cars, appliances, electronics, whatever: saved for and paid for in cash or cash equivalent (check or debit card).
“[T]he goods of fortune in moderation” is key to a solid middle class, and a solid middle class is even key to long-term wealth for the putative upper class, for without such a middle class, the means to assure long-term wealth become shaky in a republic. Of course, our republic is trending toward an oligarchy (rule by an elite) with a veneer of democracy (rule by mob), and the oligarchs seem to have little interest in even their own grandchildren’s future, “planning” ahead only so far as their next short-term “killing”.
Well, as usual I’ve wandered off the reservation a bit. *heh* Pournelle’s original comment, and his recommended reading material (I fixed his link to point to a non-registration reproduction of the article) are worth reading.
What’s the Matter With Kids Today?
*heh*
Okay, so my topic’s not the same as the Bye Bye Birdie tune’s. Here’s a switcheroo. A recent (well, 2007) book on school reform and what can go dreadfully wrong with reform efforts had one comment that made me hoot til I almost cried. “Oh, what was it?” you ask. Praising the intent of the “New Math” era and how it breathed life into Math curriculum.
Yeh, right. If anything were deliberately designed to wreck budding students’ interest in or understanding of math, it was New Math. Either it was a conspiracy of evil persons to completely screw kids up or it was a conspiracy of dunces who were too stupid for words… completely screwing kids up. That is, if their “intent” was good, the people who designed and implemented “new math” were monumentally stupid people.
4th Grade: “new math” screwed me up so badly, it wasn’t until I had a high school geometry teacher who was teaching just for the joy of it (her family was in Big Bucks City) that my head started to come unscrewed from “new math” so the threads could be reworked and I could have the thing screwed on right (as to math). From there, calculus, stat, whatever, was fun.
What’s the matter with kids today? A lot of it is remote educrats having screwed up public education for decades (with the complicity of lazy, dumbed down by their own school years, parents and stupid, compliant pubschool administrators).
[great story excised to protect the innocent]
Asshats.
Politics vs. Science
Nope. Not what you think. In fact, in order to remove current political “science” from consideration this time, I’ll simply ask:
Tomato: fruit or vegetable?
True fruits are developed from the ovary at the base of the plant’s flower and contain the seeds of the plant. Botanically a tomato is a fruit.
However, in 1893, in what I view as a purely political decision contrary to fact, simply decreed the tomato to be a vegetable in order to satisfy the bureaucrappic “needs” (read that as “desires”) of tariff collectors, since fruits were exempt from a tariff on imported foods and vegetables were not.
Now, can anyone else name anything in current events that might fall into this unscientific denial of reality that is being pushed as public policy? Hmmm?
Note: I originally, and very uncreatively, typo-ed “1983” for the date of 1893 above. You would have thought I’d at least make some sort of interesting mistake, eh?Oh, well. 🙂
Looking Toward 2012…
I have a suggestion for transparency in campaigning for The Zero, adapted from a graphic I ran across on FB:
Of course, complete transparency would attach this to a certified copy of an actual birth certificate, adoption records, Indonesian citizenship records and a statement that “Barry Hussein Obama-Soetoro is running for the position of unconstitutional holder of the office of the presidency of the United States of America as the illegal alien communist candidate from Kenya-Indonesia”.
(Yes, I do think that, given the millions he’s spent to deny the public access to his past, Barry Hussein Obama-Soetoro is “a fraud of monstrous size” perpetrated on the citizens of the United States of America by a coalition of the corrupt, stupid, naive, and deliberately disinformed.)
Greed: A Dangerous Thing
Short Film ‘The Black Hole’ from PHOTOPLAY FILMS on Vimeo.
*heh*
Updating the Emperor
“The opinion of ten thousand men is of no value if none of them know anything about the subject.” —Marcus Aurelius
Nowadays, our electorate can more properly be described by,
“The opinion of ten thousand men is of no value if they are all willfully ignorant.”
There are adequate means now for ANY person in these (dys)United States to be adequately well-informed about the important issues of the day, but, sadly, few bother to take the time or make the effort to do anything but soak up–directly or indirectly–the viewpoints of the Ruling Elite mostly via the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind.
Keep in mind: your ignorant, self-enstupiated neighbor’s vote counts just as much as yours does.
Educate the stupid.
Offhand Thoughts
I am so very, very sick and tired of the Welfare State mentality. If the “feddle gummint” is going to steal income from productive citizens to give to those who are–forwhatever reason–not productive, then the recipientsof that largesse should be required to contribute to society in substantive, meaningful ways.
While my grandfather disparaged the 30s Roosevelt “feddle gummint” WPA as “We Piddle Along” quasi work, I do walk across a WPA bridge here in my lil home town regularly, and there are several enduring public works edifices that are in daily, constant use here in America’s Third World County. I say, let’s revive the WPA and put ALL adult (by age, since so few are adult by emotional/civic development) welfare recipients to work, as long as they’re on the dole in any way, shape, fashion or form. Sure, some of them are “disabled” in some (often indiscernible to common sense, manufactured by an institutionalized victimology) way, but even those can be compelled to work at some sort of clerical work, freeing those who can walk and see (or whatever) to do manual labor, building things for those who provide for their sustenance… and actually providing benefits for themselves and their often over-abundant progeny along the way.
In projects such as improving the (still) millions of miles of dirt roads in the many places like America’s Third World County where travel in wet or winter weather can be treacherous, perhaps using a nearly all-manual labor method based on Roman road construction techniques, such people could become net benefits to society instead of being, as now, simply leeches.
Side benefits: most would enjoy (though not in a necessarily pleasureful sense *heh*) better health as a result, and others would likely drop dead from performing the first real work in their lives. Win-win, IMO.
#2: This post, asking whether ISPs should block service to computers infected with botnet malware, brings this response from me:
Definitely. Block people who INFECT THEMSELVES with such a bot. It’s little difference to no tolerance for drunk drivers on the roads or shouting cell phone users in a restaurant. All are the result of stupid people who have no regard for others, and absent tarring and feathering, ostracizing and otherwise punishing them for their rude, willfully stupid behavior is the best tactic.
And no, users’ computers do not “get infected” with malware. Users infect themselves by poor, unsafe computing practices. Allowing them to inflict their bad behavior, causing network slowdowns and worse, on others is simply wrong. Ideally, tarring and feathering would be on the table… *heh*
#3. Speaking of drunk drivers above reminded me to once again plug for justice for drunk drivers who harm or kill others. Physical damage to property? Value of the property times seven to be assessed against the drunk and paid ONLY to the person harmed (the drunk CHOSE to get drunk and then drive, and any person with half the brain capacity of a boiled head of cabbage knows the dangers of driving drunk). Bodily damage to person(s)? Whatever assets the drunk has forfeited to those damaged and double the injuries assessed actually performed on the drunk’s body. While the drunk is sober and conscious. In public. Broadcast. Drunk driver kills someone? All assets forfeited to the victim’s family and drunk driver made into road paste by dropping his car on him until only a gooey smear is left to be hosed off the road. In public. Broadcast.
You think a few of those would cause some folks to reconsider getting drunk, strapping on their homicide and mayhem weapon and driving off into the night? I do. Just make sure there are NO exceptions. None. Zilch. Zero-with-the-rim-kicked-off none.
Sure, I’d go for it on a basis limited by whatever State might choose to enact such a draconian measure. Let the feds say it’s a violation of the 8th Amendment, claiming some sort of 14th Amendment extension of the 8th Amendment (as has been improperly done with others). ANd let that State grow a pair and tell the “feddle gummint” to “Stick it up your nose, blow it out your ears and rub it in your hair. Now, go away or we shall taunt you a second time-a.”
It’s about time for some justice for victims and for the States to tell the “feddle gummint” to take a long walk off a short pier.
BTW, re:#2 above, from the intro to a recent white paper:
“…a substantial amount of malware is spread simply by sending a link to the malware, together with some social engineering to try and induce the recipient into clicking on the link. This trend has presented traditional anti-virus and anti-spam engines with a problem. Since the malware itself is not present in the e-mail, conventional scanners are unable to detect even simple and well known threats.”
Quite true. “…a substantial amount of malware is spread simply by sending a link to the malware…” and only careless or lazy idiots click on such links. Doesn’t EVERYONE know to screen any html emails for such things, or, better yet, accept/read ONLY plain text emails? *sheesh* Asking for trouble… If checking the links in emails is too much trouble, a user should at least have someone who’s bothered to become a technically competent computer user set their system up to open links in emails in a sandboxed browser, so that any links to malware-infested sites (or direct links to malware installations) can’t actually infect the user’s computer. OR, use something like AVG’s Linkscanner andonly check mail in a web browser, OR use a modern web browser that warns about unsafe pages–and pay attention to the warnings! Any of these less-effective methods are better than simply letting oneself be gulled into CLICKing on a link to malware out of laziness and stupidity.
The Problem With Democracy
…especially in our ever more enstupiated society:
“The opinion of ten thousand men is of no value if none of them know anything about the subject.” —Marcus Aurelius
And you know, it doesn’t matter if it’s 50 million or 100 million ignorant sheeple. The principle (and its truth) is the same. Compound that by an ever more enstupiated sheeple, and democracy in these (dys)United States becomes a perilous proposition.
Also,
“You may have have no interest in politics, but that emphatically does not insure that politics has no interest in you; you ignore it at your peril.” —Jerry Pournelle
Quick Comment on Argument
Just saw it again in a forum where I have come to expect such things (which is why I don’t frequent the place but just drop by maybe once a month or so): some idiot making a false accusation of “ad hominem attack”. *sigh* I commented there and am cutting/pasting here, with redactions to obscure the original comments.
Saying, “You are a monster, therefore you believe such and so” is an ad hominem attack, because it falsely argues that the cause of a line of argument lies in the character of the arguer. While that may be the case, argument must be made against what a person asserts and not who the person is.
OTOH, saying, “You have done monstrous things, therefore you are a monster” is an arguable assertion and not an ad hominem attack.
And again, simply stating an opinion, based on observation of what someone has said and done that someone–based on the evidence in hand–is a dumbass, idiot, cretin, politician *spit* or some other derogatory appellation, is name-calling that does not fall under the rubric of “ad hominem fallacy” UNLESS it is presented as an argument attempting to refute another’s assertion. Such name-calling may be simply accurate labeling.
Since Mohamed, for example, did monstrous things and commanded that his followers do likewise, we can accurately label him as a monster, but any argument against his teachings must be based on what he said. Now, it may be possible to make the “monster Mohamed” argument against Islam, because Muslims are enjoined to look to Mohamed as the perfect man and to emulate his life. That being the case, we could, I suppose, legitimately argue that Islam is a monstrous hate cult based simply on the life of its founder, since ALL Muslim
Accuracy in labeling doesn’t have to equal ad hominem attacks.