Month: November 2005

I linked to some comments by Jerry Pournelle below, but for some reason, one portion of his comments I didn’t quote has been bring Harrison Bergeron back to haunt my thoughts all day…

“And there remains the ceaseless striving, with no peaceful end: is it any wonder that bureaucrats form feudal organizations and effectively end the striving and competition? Is it any wonder that the rise of the modern egalitarian state has produced the rise of bureaucracy and rule by bureaucracy?”

Any wonder at all? If bureaucrats had to demonstrate a genuine contribution to the good of society in order to keep their jobs, we could weed their ranks by 90% over night…

Oh, and DO pop on over and read Harrison Bergeron as well. It’s a very short story, and it’s also one of the few really good pieces by Kurt Vonnegut, IMO.

See Around and About Monday, Monday’s Featured Blog-and Open Post and Almost a “Guard the Borders” post (all below) for links to more good reading I’ve noticed.

This is a short roundup of recent ping-ins that may have slipped under the radar–worthwhile reads, all.

Peakah’s Pub mistook Teach Your Children Well for an Open Post and pinged in with “Front Page News“-and I’m glad he did cos there are some good reads listed in his link roundup.

TMH’s Bacon Bits only pinged me with Guard the Borders: What Is “Practical” Interior Enforcement, Anyway?, and that’s a shame, cos while it is a powerful post on an important topic, “Democrats Eat Their Own” Is Not News by new contributor, DL, is an equally good read.

The Florida Masochist brings the issue of Cindy Sheehan’s character-and those of her detractors-into focus with Tasteless. Indeed. 😉

And last but far from least is the collection of links posted at The Carnival of True Civil Liberties. Gribbit honors my submission with the label “important” and though I’d certainly agree (or I’d not have submitted it), I’d sooner lavish such a lable on some of the other submissions. Worthy reads, all.

Well, that covers early afternoon, here. Later.

Ditched my “Guard the borders” post for today, since The Tar Pit seems to have raided my hard drive for a draft and posted it as his own (Just kidding, dude: a good post on a topic I had planned to write on—not gonna duplicate the effort, though; just point folks to your post :-).
 
See this post at Diane’s Stuff for another border issue. “Homeland Security” my… *cough*
 
So… what? Here’s a (all too short, but very pointed) brief commentary on “The Drama of Atheist Humanism” and the impact of atheist humanism on the health (or lack thereof) of Western Civilization in general and the U.S. in particular. Pournelle commenting, of course. It’s hard to excerpt any portion of Pournelle’s all-too-brief (well, he added this during the holiday to last Wednesday’s post) exposition, but here’s a sample:

…when I was young there were no public ceremonies without an invocation and a benediction, usually both with one by a Roman Catholic and the other by a Protestant Minister. For sufficiently important events there would usually be a rabbi as well. We paid public attention and deference to “Divine Providence” and saw the Hand of God in our works.

“The courts in the name of liberalism have thrown all that out. Soon after of course goes most of civility: again I refer people to the Drama of Atheist Humanism, and where it has always led. Yes, there are highly ethical atheists. Some of them tend to militancy, at least among their friends. Marvin Minsky is a great example. But The Drama of Atheist Humanism still plays out in a different way because for every Minsky there will be two Trotsky’s and a Stalin.

“Today’s liberal establishment makes war on religion, which is odd, because the roots of liberalism are in religion. The assumption of human equality makes sense only in religious terms — surely few of you feel equal to the drooling idiot who camps on your doorstep and shakes the paper cup at you asking for change? Some see the Image of Christ, but that is not a rationalist or materialist position. Some see “But for the Grace of God there go I,” but again that is not a rationalist position…”

Just go read the rest. It’s germane to the topic “Why we do NOT guard our borders… or the rest of our civilization.”

A few of the interesting reads that cropped up over the weekend…

Pray for Kender. Seriously. Saw this at Cathouse Chat. Stop a moment and pray for the guy, would ya?

The Tar Pit wrote my Monday “Guard the Borders” post (I just have to improve the security around here! 🙂 when he featured, “Fred Barnes pimps the Bush Amnesty”. Gee. Now do I go ahead and post, “Don’t Read His Lips” for my GTB post or just refer everyone to The Tar Pit? heh

And, how did I miss this important news embedded in Pirates! Man Your Women!’s Thanksgiving Day post???

“You know its [sic] Thanksgiving when the SciFi channel is showing Army of Darkness.”

*sigh*

Found via a link in a post featured in a linkfest that linked to another post that linked to (convoluted enough for ya?): The Neo Con Blogger(TM)’s: “Young Drinkers Thinner Than Non-Drinkers”. His conclusion” “Enter LSU when you’re 20 and drink your butt off for 18 years and you’ll end up skinny, drunk, and stupid!”

Just caught up with this one: Rich Casebolt liveblogging Thanksgiving Day. Okaaaayy… (But really, some good stuff.)

With the upcoming Christmas season, many folks’ll just be too busy to lay back with old favs. Lotsa people like  to catch “It’s a Wonderful Life” (for some reason that has yet to reveal itself to me). For those who like the flick but may run short on time, be sure to save this link to “Frank Cappra’s ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ in 30 Seconds (and re-enacted by bunnies)”. I can’t tell much difference between it and the original except that it’s shorter and doesn’t have Donna Reed. 😉

Sam’s begging for votes. Help out a tad, ‘K? Meanwhile, check out her post on an activity I could never quite get a handle on.

Diane comments on a “How-to” article written by a speech-impaired piscine. heh And her post on the Asian Bird Flu pretty well reflect my own views (apart from her musical selection :-).

S’all for now. Maybe more later. Time for more coffee.

N.B. The Maryhunter dropped me a note to say his trackback to Guard the Borders: What Is “Practical” Interior Enforcement, Anyway? hadn’t shown up. Hmmm, I’ve heard rumbles of not-talking-nice between Moveable Type(??? Or was it another??) and Haloscan, so that might be the culprit. Anyone else attempting to TB and having no success let me know in comments, ‘K?

Today’s featured blog, introduced to me via a linkfest/tb party, is Liberal Common Sense. More about that is a second, but first, let me point you to the Open Trackback Alliance and Open Trackback Provider blogrolls on my right sidebar. Hit up those blogs listed as Monday (or daily) Open Post bloggers for links to some fine reads you might otherwise miss, won’t you? It’s how I found Liberal Common Sense, and there may be others you’ll enjoy discovering either here, on this open post or elsewhere today. And do trackback posts to this one that you want to bring to others’ attention, eh?

On to Liberal Common Sense. Some folks who have read here for a while might think I dislike liberals, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s just that real liberals can’t be found among the Mass Media Podpeople and Loony Left Moonbats I so often deride for their faux liberal blather.

Lisa Renee, at Liberal Common Sense doesn’t talk “reality based fantasy” but reality based reality, apparently grounded in the kind of liberal thinking John Stuart Mill would recognize, you know, the real thing. Take “Ramsey Clark, Saddam Hussein and the Media”—a post where she sensibly and calmly argues that both the AP and Worldnet Daily twist or selectively report news according to apparent bias. (Granted, she does score the WND article more highly for quantity and quality of info—by a hair. 🙂 Good commentary. As is this, while this whimsical piece is typical of other posts.

So, now you know why Liberal Common Sense is in my blogroll.  It earned a place there.

Open Post. Trackback with a post linked to here, and I’ll work it into an “Around and About” later on today.

And do note open posts at OTA member sites, Committees of Correspondence, The Land of Ozz, Pirates! Man Your Women!, Don Surber, Bloggin’ Outloud, and others as I get around to it or they get their Monday Open Posts up.

For this Open Post, link here and trackback to this link.

Cathouse Chat’s Romeocat has long been a fav “voice” among bloggers for me. Ever since I first visited Cathouse Chat, I’ve known her “voice” was special, and as I grew to know the person behind that voice, I became aware of just how great was the honor to be called her friend.

Thanks for joining the voices, here, Romeocat.

My dear friend David has graciously given me posting privileges here at TWC, and I must say that it’s an honor.

David has watched over my blog from time to time, and is a regular commenter over at CatHouse Chat. His posts here are often edifying to me, frequently making me laugh or consider a new thought.

And so, I’ll be tossing the occasional post or crosspost up on TWC, and I hope all of David’s loyal readers will find them helpful and interesting.

Thanks again, David, and may many – MANY – post-Thanksgiving blessings be poured out over you and your family!

There are two central problems I see facing the preservation of true civil liberties in America today. No matter how committed to preservation of liberty or resolute in defense of liberty anyone might be, commitment and resolution fail in the face of these issues.

1. Most Americans are historically subliterate, if not illiterate and have no idea what the civil liberties the Founders and Framers wrought for us are. That being the case, these historically sub- or illiterate folk fall prey to every manipulation of the media, academia, politicians and such organizations as the ACLU use to poison the well of liberty.
2. The same historically sub- and illiterate folk can vote. *shudder* And do. (Though fortunately, not in as great a number as they could.)

And the problem is exacerbated by the simple fact that so many people grow up in these United States not only historically ignorant but unable to reason. Witness: just about any evening news program or major newspaper, where strings of fallacies are presented as “news” and sheeple eat it right up, completely unaware—as I do not doubt most of the media folks who perpetrate the crimes against reason are—that what they are hearing/seeing/reading is drivel.

Of course, sheeple are not born; they are made. Made by a process of government interference, parental stupidity and laziness, educrats’ “academia nut” theories used as child abuse in the classroom (e.g., “new math”, “look-say”) and increasingly lazy and indifferent students. Add to that an ever more removed-from-reality educational system, and it’s no wonder so many adult Americans are truly functional illiterates, and masses are culturally, historically and even literarily subliterate._1_, _2_, _3_ (Linked: three pdf files comprising the 1992 National Adult Literacy Survey, and folks, the news hasn’t improved since then.)

Yes, moral fibre is essential to preserving liberty. But absent the knowledge of true liberties, the enemies of liberty will win over even an “upright” and  fervent, but ignorant, populace.

So, what shall we do? Depending on public education is a recipe for disaster. Even good teachers are stifled, blocked, prevented from, well, teaching by stupid, entrenched bureaucracies and generations of mistaught students who are now… parents. And stupid, entrenched bureaucracies (and by at least one objective criterion—GRE scores—educrats/school administrators are the stupidest people working in the education sector) will NOT “go gently into that good night.”  

*sigh*

We must do it. It would be nice (“‘Nice,’ he says… ” heh) if the words of the song were more substantive, but at least one line rings truer all the time as we travel the road that leads to preservation of true liberty for our children… or not…

“Teach your children well.”

You who are on the road
Must have a code that you can live by
And so become yourself
Because the past is just a good bye.

Teach your children well,
Their father’s hell did slowly go by,
And feed them on your dreams
The one they pick’s, the one you’ll know by.

Don’t you ever ask them why, if they told you, you will cry,
So just look at them and sigh and know they love you.

And you, of tender years,
Can’t know the fears that your elders grew by,
And so please help them with your youth,
They seek the truth before they can die.

Teach your parents well,
Their children’s hell will slowly go by,
And feed them on your dreams
The one they pick’s, the one you’ll know by.

Don’t you ever ask them why, if they told you, you will cry,
So just look at them and sigh and know they love you.

Powered by Castpost“Teach your children well… ”

*sigh* (And as I learned when attempting to explain the Fair tax to an older voter recently, “Teach your parents well” also applies.)

They are NOT going to learn what they need to be good citizens of a democratic republic in school. Count on it.

It is up to us. Our children and grandchildren (yes, and in some cases, parents) must learn somewhere if the friends of liberty are  to have the fundamental tools and knowledge—and numbers!—necessary to defeat the foes of liberty.

(Yeh, I expanded on this post in “Comments”. So? 🙂

Linked at: Otimaster, Peakah’s Pub, the rather racy, Where Are My Socks?, Choose life! and Don Surber After Hours… for now. 🙂

[Yes, that is the lyrics and an instrumental cover of the Crosby Stills & Nash piece. Recorded from a midi file collected years ago from… I don’t know where. If you know who created the midi file this mp3 is based on, let me know. Meanwhile, sing along if you have the hankerin’ to. 🙂 ]

I’ve finally, partly because of some recent comments and partly because, well, I guess about time, decided to post a “Commenting/Trackback Policy” CLICK the link if you’re interested. There’s also a “permapost” link in my right sidebar, if anyone cares (or if anyone doesn’t care–so? 🙂

Have fun, folks.

Tripping my blogroll this a.m., I naturally stopped off at my fav “coffee shop”—Morning Coffee and Afternoon Tea—for a lil eye-opener. (heh—I typoed “sys-opener” a sec ago. Actually took me a sec to realize it. Need. More. Coffee.) Christine actually hasn’t posted anything new in the past coupla days, but this time I followed a link she provided to…

Cubicle Coffee, but not to the neat Bodum French Press. No, I went straight for the philosophy cubicle.

Rick Lee shows what can be done with Thanksgiving Dinner leftovers. What an eye!

And, of course a stop at Kat’s for a lil weekend music is in order. How ’bout this one from John Prine and Iris Dement? Great Saturday morning fare! Not to your taste, try the Bill Morrissey she has posted.

Kris links to a near death experience at WallyWorld… heh. Oh, and a real nice after action report on her week, too. Don Surber links to a WallyWorld mayhem video. Funny, Don. “The Next Wal-Mart Millionaire” indeed. heh. And another “indeed” just for the heck of it. And,

I oppose the death penalty but it would be awful tempting to pass a law that would allow the people of the United States to elect each year a celebrity to be pelted to death with US magazines.

Droll, Don. But… just for good measure, (three is and even number, right? 🙂 let’s round out the “After hours” posts with, “Christmas 1, PC 0”. heh

Nothing new since Wednesday at Jerry Pournelle’s, but in a mail post that starts with a tomatoe bazooka and ranges through intellectual property rights, computer security, ID and the once (and future??) USSR, there’s plenty for everyone there. I thought about the “Scotch tape foils Sony copy protection” notice in his Current View section for my “Around and About” the other day, but didn’t carry it through… of course, I would never defeat copy protections schemes. No, not I! heh

Carol Platt Liebau rips into a grade school teacher for propagandizing his students. Justifiable ripitude. heh And her succint summation of the Boston “Holiday Tree” flap is bang on, too.

Dan Riehl has commentary on Sir Elton and “Lady David”. Feelin’ a tad snarky, Dan? 🙂 He also includes a link to another video of Wal-Mart Mayhem.

Bret Rogers over at Beat Canvas has already painted his Christmas card for this year. Next step, reproduction/printing… Good job, Brett!

I’m looking forward to The Conservative Cat’s exposés: “What makes John Murtha a better expert on Iraq than Michael Yon” and “The Truth about the Truth Laid Bear thing”, but until then, I can click through the wealth of links he offers on really important topics…

Grab a cuppa joe, sit back and dig into a recent history lesson with Cao’s October 1998: Military Analyst Goes Where Spies Fail to Go, but Her Efforts Are Rejected. Significant stuff, folks.

And check her post on the Padilla indictment (and how the ACLU is attempting to interfere) over at Stop the ACLU.

That’s about it for now. RW stuff needs doing.

Linked at Don Surber After Hours, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, and Stop the ACLU’s Weekend Open Trackbacks..