I shall return.

Friday, April 25, 2008

I fly out tomorrow morning at the crack of dawn to attend the scientific conference that has been eating up so much of my time lately.

I'll be back in Houston late next week, and look forward to the comparatively relaxed pace of my normal life -- and a return to regular blogging.

This is, incidentally, the first blog post to be composed on my brand spanking new ASUS Eee PC! Shortly after the demise of my desktop, I went to Micro Center to look at desktops and, while there, recalled that a commenter had mentioned that the chain carries them. I played around with the display model enough to see that even at half the size of a normal laptop, these are still big enough to be useful.

I was undecided about getting one of these then, but have since learned that I will be travelling enough during the next six months that having something of a convenient size would be worthwhile. This thing is the size of a paperback with larger-than-normal pages.

So far, I am very impressed, most of all with the screen, which is very sharp. (I'm writing this on the couch with it resting on my lap.) The keyboard does lead to more than my usual rate of typographical errors, but for a quick email or some web browsing, it's fine, and I'm packing a keyboard for this trip.

One last note.... It's white. I prefer black for my computers, but Micro Center was sold out of that color -- and most of the other choices are ghastly. (You can see what I mean by going here and scrolling down to the mice. They mostly make me want to say, "I am not a fourteen-year-old girl!") But I was leaving town, and had carried around the regular laptop enough lately to know for a fact that I didn't want to lug that thing around for most of every day for a week.

I was desperate yesterday, and the salesman had already confirmed that today''s shipment would not include any black machines. So I had him show me the only color I could imagine being palatable: white.

On opening the box, I noticed that it was a little silvery. Pleasantly surprised, I bought it and I'm just now getting to put it through its paces.

I won't rule out a post or two next week, but I'm not completely sure whether I'll have that much access to wireless, and I'll be short of time and privacy, so this will probably be it for about a week.....

-- CAV

Updates

5-2-08
: Corrected "Microcenter" to Micro Center".
5-8-08: Corrected a hyperlink.


My Shortest Post Ever

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

I've said this a few times here before, but a conversation I was having with my wife -- who is a scientist as well as a physician -- last night reminded me of a saying I came up with a long time ago:

Real scientists don't have pet theories.
I'm probably not the first to say this, but once in a while some heated scientific controversy will remind me of it -- and of the kind of pointless argument Diana discusses here.

Unfortunately, that will be all for now. I'm definitely feeling like a real scientist today.

No only haven't I a pet theory, I haven't any time!

-- CAV


Three Good Products

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

As with last week, this one is extremely busy and may see me miss a post or two. This is because I am getting ready for a scientific conference which starts around the same time as the deadline for another major project I have undertaken.

On that note, my first two recommendations are for inexpensive things that have really made my life easier lately, and my last (and best) is free.

Belkin USB-to-PS/2 Adapter

I began this busy period with quite a bang: One evening as I was tapping away on the keyboard of my frankenputer, it suddenly died! The next day, I learned that my notion of quick repair wasn't possible. On top of that, my time window for doing such an upgrade -- or even shopping for a new machine -- passed quickly. I've been making do with our laptop since.

The single best way to make life on a laptop bearable is to plug in a mouse -- but the small USB mouse I bought for that purpose last year went belly-up, too. On a later trip to Wal-Mart, I looked around for a replacement, only to find all the cheap mice had sold out. I was about to leave empty-handed -- "I refuse to pay forty bucks for a mouse!" -- when I noticed this little device hanging in the rack nearby.

Beautiful! For fifteen bucks, I got to use my old PS/2 mouse with the laptop -- and the old PS/2 keyboard. I hadn't even thought about also using separate keyboard, but my back and shoulders certainly appreciate having the keyboard in my lap again! And the added bonus is that the two peripherals use only one of the two USB slots.

Cepacol Maximum Numbing Throat Lozenges

As if my computer turning into a pumpkin wasn't enough, I came down with a really nasty cold a week or so later. That knocked me out of commission for the better part of two days. Bad enough, but what I really dread about colds is that for the next several weeks, I get this horrendous residual cough, and often chest or back pains from the resulting muscle strain.

This was going on one day when I was at the barber, so she offered me one of these. I took one just to be polite, but boy! Knocked that cough out! I picked up a pack on the way home, and one in the morning over the next few days all but eliminated the cough. (In my case, I think the forcefulness of the coughs irritates my throat, leading to more coughing. By breaking this vicious circle, the lozenges brought more than just immediate relief.)

There is one caveat: These contain benzocaine, so eating them like candy is a bad idea. In fact, the package has directions for use. Nevertheless, I know what I will be buying the next time I get a cold!

First Life

Okay. This is not really a product recommendation, but after I read this article in the Houston Chronicle about an incredibly time and money-intensive social networking site, my reaction was quite a bit along these lines. Heh, heh!

And yes, best of all, it's free!

-- CAV


Quick Roundup 322

Monday, April 21, 2008

Social Engineering through Tax Law

Yaron Brook discusses an aspect of tax law that has always made my eyes glaze over: How it manages to slip the government's priorities into every decision an individual wants to make.

Tax policy works by attaching financial incentives to a long list of values deemed morally worthy. If you want to maximize your wealth come tax time--and who doesn't?--you must look at the world through tax-colored glasses, "voluntarily" adjusting your behavior to suit social norms and thereby qualifying for tax breaks. In this way, the social engineers of tax policy preserve the impression that you're exercising free choice, while they're actually dispensing with your reason and your judgment. [bold added]
This is, of course, on top of all the wasted time and effort this obscene ritual costs Americans every year. (HT: Paul Hsieh)

Beginnings and Ends

I hadn't particularly planned on posting about taxation today, but I did unearth a couple of interesting tax-related items this weekend.

First, there is a PDF of the very first Form 1040, which is more straightforward, but might confuse graduates of today's public schools. One actually had to use arithmetic to calculate one's taxes!

And then there's this interesting map from the Tax Foundation of "Tax Freedom Day by State, 2008". You will also find a table ranking the states in terms of when Tax Freedom Day occurs as well as one that lists when Tax Freedom Day has occurred historically at the Tax Foundation web site. (There is one minor oddity with this map: The rankings are backwards. The higher the number, the faster your state reaches Tax Freedom Day.)

A Common Admission

SB does an excellent job analyzing the common Christian "argument" that reason is just another form of faith:
There is an implicit confession in this attack, which astonished me when I first noticed it. It reveals that some faithful apparently know that they are on shaky ground. They go to great lengths to evade it, but at least on some level they know that reason is valid and faith is not. This is indicated by the logic of their argument.
Burgess Laughlin also draws an interesting analogy in the comments. (HT: Kendall J)

Gear Up for Exploit the Earth Day!

Drat! On top of not having time to fire up my grill tomorrow, I'm going to be in Boston next year, where I probably won't have a yard -- or even, God forbid, space to store my own barbecue grill -- thanks to the low standard of living.

(And those damned Puritans have probably banned charcoal anyway. Bear with me. I'm still mentally adjusting to the looming move away from my natural habitat.)

So for me, the real celebration of what I like to call "Life on This Earth Day" will be delayed until some time in early May.

In the meantime, I commemorate the occasion by posting the image to the right, courtesy of Principles in Practice. Parent publication The Objective Standard is selling tee shirts and mugs for the occasion, by the way.

The Beauties of Exploitation

Via the OList, I learned of this must-see video tour of Earth's cities as seen from outer space at night:


Doug Peltz, curious as to whether a common image of Earth at night was realistic, eventually found this video.

Nine Eight years ago today, ...

... I officially started dating my movie buddy -- the woman you now know as Mrs. Van Horn!

Yes, using a personal calendar program has its advantages, but you still have to input the year correctly!

Luckily, I have a wife to correct me about such things.

-- CAV


Ben Stein's Exposed

Friday, April 18, 2008

In the course of some recent research, I kept running across ads for a "documentary" about Intelligent Design Creationism by Ben Stein called, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. This morning, via Arts and Letters Daily, I ran into an excellent article about the movie by Michael Shermer, Director of the Skeptics Society.

I like the article for two reasons. First, it does a good job of indicating that the "case" against the Theory of Evolution is smoke and mirrors, while Creationism is being propped up by one lie after another.

In 1974 I matriculated at Pepperdine University as a born-again Christian who rejected Darwinism and evolutionary theory, not because I knew anything about it (I didn't) but because I thought that in order to believe in God and accept the Bible as true that you had to be a creationist. What I knew about evolution came primarily from creationist literature, so when I finally took a course in evolutionary theory in graduate school I realized that I had been hoodwinked. What I discovered is a massive amount of evidence from multiple sciences -- geology, paleontology, biogeography, zoology, botany, comparative anatomy, molecular biology, genetics and embryology -- demonstrating that evolution happened.

It was with some irony for me, then, that I saw Ben Stein's anti-evolution documentary film, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, opens with the actor, game show host and speech writer for Richard Nixon addressing a packed audience of adoring students at Pepperdine University, apparently falling for the same trap I did.

Actually they didn't. The biology professors at Pepperdine assure me that their mostly Christian students fully accept the theory of evolution. So who were these people embracing Stein’s screed against science? Extras. According to Lee Kats, Associate Provost for Research and Chair of Natural Science at Pepperdine, "the production company paid for the use of the facility just as all other companies do that film on our campus" but that "the company was nervous that they would not have enough people in the audience so they brought in extras. Members of the audience had to sign in and the staff member reports that no more than two to three Pepperdine students were in attendance. Mr. Stein's lecture on that topic was not an event sponsored by the university." And this is one of the least dishonest parts of the film. [bold added]
And this thread just gets better.

A second strong point about the article is that it explains the big fuss that fundamentalists make about evolution. This is, as it turns out, more subtle than just the fact that evolution does contradict the Bible. Shermer offers some further insight on this score.
Even more disturbing than these distortions is the film's other thesis that Darwinism inexorably leads to atheism, Communism, Fascism and the Holocaust. Despite the fact that hundreds of millions of religious believers fully accept the theory of evolution, Stein claims that we are in an ideological war between a scientific natural worldview that leads to the gulag archipelago and Nazi gas chambers, and a religious supernatural worldview that leads to freedom, justice and the American way. The film's visual motifs leave no doubt in the viewer's emotional brain that Darwinism is leading America into an immoral quagmire. We're going to hell in a Darwinian hand basket. Cleverly edited interview excerpts from scientists are interspersed with various black-and-white clips for guilt by association with: bullies beating up on a 98-pound weakling, Charlton Heston's character in Planet of the Apes being blasted by a water hose, Nikita Khrushchev pounding his fist on a United Nations desk, East Germans captured trying to scale the Berlin Wall, and Nazi crematoria remains and Holocaust victims being bulldozed into mass graves. This propaganda production would make Joseph Goebbels proud. [bold added]
In other words, evolutionary theory contradicts the Bible, yes, but this attack is against reason as such, and is based on (and justified by) the false premise that freedom has no rational basis.

I would have liked the article to have also noted that Intelligent Design is an inherently religious and unscientific doctrine, but Shermer has provided an invaluable glimpse into the mindset of the proponents of Intelligent Design Creationism.

They claim to be defending freedom and that freedom has no rational basis. They are wrong on both counts, but those premises make their willingness to lie through their teeth suddenly make a lot of sense.

-- CAV

PS: There's more on Expelled over at Ari Armstrong's blog. (HT: Monica, who notices that the religious right now calls real science "Big Science" and links to the trailer.)

Updates

Today
: (1) Corrected typos. (2) Added link to Ari Armstrong. (3) Linked to Monica's post.


Slow Roundup 4

Thursday, April 17, 2008

How fortuitous! My list of random oddities has accumulated enough material for a post at just about the right time!

Without further ado...

1. By coincidence, I kick off this list with a continuation of yesterday's beer theme. I keep a beer a day calendar in my office at work, and two entries from late last year warrant inclusion. First, from the "just because you can do it doesn't mean you should -- or would even want to" -- department came the following "beer fact" on December 9: "At the Somerset House bar in Stourbridge, England, [patrons] have a unique spot to 'rest' a pint. The walls' pastiche of wallpaper, grime, glue, and tobacco smoke is so gummy that a filled glass can stick to them for as long as two days." If your beer didn't get stolen first, it would go flat. Frightening!

2. Second, from the same calendar on December 17: "In 2005, Connecticut officials briefly banned [Ridgeway's Seriously] Bad Elf, claiming the label, which had a tiny image of Santa, might entice children to drink. The elf firing at Santa's sleigh was created by Massachusetts artist Gary A. Lippincott."

3. I sometimes muse to my short, plump wife that I've married a hobbit. She likes that. Not surprisingly, she's also remarkably elusive in public, often vanishing even in mid-conversation from right under my nose -- especially in stores. I refer to myself as having been hobbited in such instances.

4. A running joke I have with some of my friends is that if I hear someone exclaim, "Jesus Christ!" I'll answer. I'm hoping that by some miracle of comic timing and presence of mind that one day, I'll enter the room right after someone in on the joke says, "Jesus Christ" -- and that someone else, upon seeing me, will deadpan, "Speak of the Devil...." It's a long shot, but I can always hope!

5. A pet peeve of mine is to get stuck at an ATM behind someone who apparently leads his entire financial life at the ATM. "Oh boy, I'm behind Donald Trump again!"

6. Our home phone number is one digit off from that of a nearby department store. We don't get that many calls for them, but when we do, most people dial the same wrong number seconds later -- even if we explain that the 0 on the printed receipt only *looks like* an 8. It's like they think we don't know our own phone number!

7. The last time I posted flotsam like this, item #10 was what I'd call a good typo. Now for a bad typo: "annoting". This error happens frequently, and the resulting "word" isn't clever like "givernment" was, or self-descriptive like " omplete". (But it certainly is annoying!)

8. Now we move into "Gus flirts with sleeping on the couch" territory.... My wife will sometimes start out saying one word or phrase and finish with another one similar in some way. She cheerfully admits that these [Insert her first name here.]isms can be quite funny.... But if I have too much fun with one, she retaliates by goosing me in the ribs, which is very draconian, if you ask me. My all-time favorite of these is, "satisfication". There are others, but I'm saving them for later.

9. Well, okay. One more: "That was a snap of cake!"

10. Why should we confine ourselves to playing word games with Barack Obama's name when his pastor, Jeremiah Wright could claim to have given the word "jeremiad" a whole new meaning?

And with that, I conclude the latest collection of random thoughts and an op-test of the post scheduling feature of Blogger in Draft. (For no apparent reason three hyperlinks in this post were replaced by underlines. I know that many people don't follow hyperlinks, but among other things, they do help your readers judge your credibility for themselves. This is probably some kind of anti-spam feature, but one of the links referred back to this blog! Verdict: Post scheduling is far from ready for prime-time.)

-- CAV

Updates

Today
: (1) Added three missing hyperlinks and comment on post-scheduling. (2) Added a parenthetical comment. (3) "Corrected" "misspelling" of "givernment". Oy.


Ten Beers to Try

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

A week or so ago, reader Doug Peltz, who had noticed my appreciation for good beer, emailed me to exchange beer recommendations.

I regard myself as still on the journey from beer snob to connoisseur, but I enjoyed thinking of this list, perhaps in no small part because I haven't had time to stop by any of my favorite pubs lately.

Since I haven't much time to blog either this week, I'll kill two birds with one stone by posting some slightly modified excerpts from my reply to Doug.

***

... I have to try [Pilsener Urquell] again. I keep hearing it's good, but the time I tried it I might have gotten a bottle that went bad. If I see it on tap and my mood is right, I'll give it another chance.

Ten Beer Recommendations (In No Particular Order)
  1. Lindemans Gueuze. If you've never tried a lambic before, this style may take some getting used to. I do not recommend drinking it after anything hoppy.
  2. Kostriker Schwartzbier. This is a black lager from the eastern part of Germany. Very tasty, but probably overwhelming to people who prefer or are used to lighter beers.
  3. Schneider Aventinus Weizenstarkbier. Very complex flavor. My wife likes it, too. The same brewer makes a good Eisbier.
  4. Avery Czar Russian Imperial Stout. As I once put it on my blog: "The iron fist of the alcohol is felt through the velvet glove of the mouthfeel." (If you held a gun to my head and asked me to name a favorite style of beer, I'd probably say, "Russian Imperial Stout.")
  5. Full Sail's Session. A very tasty lager. Only one person I have ever introduced this to has not liked it. Yes. There are good light lagers out there, even for people like me who prefer ales. Don't let Budmiller cause you to write off all lagers.
  6. St Arnold's Elissa IPA. You'll have to go to Houston to try this as St Arnold's is a small, local brewery. I regard this as their best non-seasonal ale.
  7. Sierra Nevada IPA. This is listed at their site as a "specialty draft", so that may be hard to come by. (My recollection is that it had a red label, unlike the dark green one at the link. Now I'm beginning to wonder just a little bit whether I had another one of their hoppier beers and am recalling the wrong name. Nothing at their site rings a bell for me.)
  8. Left Hand Brewing Company's Milk Stout. Called "milk stout" for the lactose, which sweetens it and makes for a creamier mouthfeel.
  9. Black-and-Blue. Not really a beer, but a nice variant of the "black and tan" serving style. Some bars may call it by a different name, but what you want to ask for is a "black and tan" made with Guinness and Blue Moon.
  10. Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale. They craft a different one each year during the holidays. Typically big beers, and never disappointing. Some of my friends have succeeded in storing these for two or more years. (Follow "specialty draft" link at #7 above.)
And, for one last bit of advice: If you haven't done so already, you should stop here to pay homage to the late, great Michael Jackson (No! Not that Michael Jackson!), and then buy his Great Beer Guide.

Cheers!

-- CAV

PS: And if you're in Southern California, you should stop by here some time. Yes, Doug. I am jealous. Very jealous!


Big Brother is watching your can!

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Usually, when businesses "go green", at least the particular assaults on freedom they're trying to "exploit" for good publicity damage themselves the most. But here's an example from Down Under of a business employing slick new technology to make itself look concerned for Mother Earth -- technology which could easily be turned around to demolish a nice chunk of the individual freedom now enjoyed by private citizens.

Tucked away under the rim of wheelie bins found in two Sydney councils are small radio frequency tracking devices collecting information on a household's waste habits.

Randwick Mayor Bruce Notley-Smith told The World Today they are the way of the future.

"We will be able to find out the weights of the various bins and collect the data, the entire amount, as opposed to the quantity that is recyclable," he said.

The garbage truck reads the data on the bin, weighs the bin, and the data is collated on a computer.

"We've aimed to increase or target problem areas in the city where there's a lower level of recycling," Mr Notley-Smith said.

"The fact is that 50 per cent of the city of Randwick is multi-unit dwellings and we have faced a number of challenges there with getting compliance with recycling."

The data collected will allow the council to confirm which areas are recycling and which are not. [format edits, bold added]
The data are, so far, being kept between council officials and their contractors, but the predictable whining of green busybodies who want this turned into a tool for the enforcement of nonobjective law has already begun.

(I am unclear whether the term "council" here is being used to denote a unit of local government or an apartment complex or, if the latter, whether it is privately-run. The answer to that question has more to say about the status of freedom in Australia than the impropriety of the government monitoring garbage cans for compliance with recycling laws.)

It is bad enough that we're reaching the point where we can't toss out an aluminum can without facing the prospect of a fine. The end for which we face this prospect is even worse, however.

Recycling makes economic sense only when it costs less to recover the materials from waste than to obtain them from raw materials. For the kinds of materials most municipalities try to force us to recycle, doing so is a waste of time and effort. (And even if it weren't, the government has no business dictating how we spend our own time or dispose of our own property, so long as we violate the rights of nobody else in the process.)

Time is irreplaceable. To the extent that the government holds a gun to our heads and makes us recycle, it is effectively forcing us to send irreplaceable moments from our lives to the landfill in lieu of the junk that properly belongs there.

Who knew that high technology, low meddling, and widespread ignorance of the proper purpose of government could come together to make us discard time from our lives as if it were refuse?

-- CAV


Silly Quiz Time!

I saw this quiz over at Dithyramb this morning as I pored over the news feeds and decided to take it.

What military aircraft are you?
F-15 Eagle
You are an F-15. Your record in combat is spotless; you've never been defeated. You possess good looks, but are not flashy about it. You prefer to let your reputation do the talking. You are fast, agile, and loud, but reaching the end of your stardom.
Personality Test Results
Click Here to Take This Quiz
Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.
What's that malarkey at the end about "reaching the end of your stardom", though?

Pfffft! I'm just warming up!

-- CAV


Quick Roundup 321

Monday, April 14, 2008

Posting Irregularities Likely Ahead

Multiple deadlines loom and I'm behind. If I skip a day or two here this week, that would be why.

Seventeen 1041 Days, Nonstop, without Repeating a Song!

I base this on a guesstimate of three minutes of play time per song.

Mobile phones, iPods and other consumer devices may soon be able to hold a hundred times more information than they do at present thanks to a breakthrough in storage technology.

Scientists at IBM say they have developed a new type of digital storage which would enable a device such as an MP3 player to store about half a million songs - or 3,500 films - and cost far less to produce.
They're saying this technology will be available within a decade!

Monique Davis Apologizes to "Rightless" Rob Sherman

Monique Davis, who sounded like she was ready to string up some God-damned atheists last week has "apologized" for her disgraceful remarks.
[A]fter being on the receiving end of a week’s worth of public criticism, Davis called [Rob] Sherman yesterday to apologize.

Sherman says Davis told him she "took out her frustrations and emotions on me and that she shouldn't have done that." Sherman says Davis' explanation was "reasonable" and that he forgives her.

According to Sherman and State Rep. Jack Franks....Davis claims her outburst was triggered by learning shortly beforehand ... that there'd been another Chicago Public School student killed.

State Rep. Jack Franks was chairing the hearing that day and says Davis' outburst was uncharacteristic, adding "she was having a bad day." [bold added]
I have a hard time, erm, believing that Davis took an entire week to calm down enough to apologize to someone who plainly had nothing to do with the school killing. Maybe my social intuition isn't so hot, but this strikes me as the kind of thing you patch up within a day or so if you really mean it.

During her outburst, she was clearly upset about guns in schools, and she directly blamed Sherman's "philosophy" for that type of destruction generally.

"Sin Tax" on Beer in California

The idea sounds DOA, but the fact that this was brought up at all -- and why -- is a bad sign:
San Jose Democrat [Jim Beall] on Thursday proposed raising the beer tax by $1.80 per six-pack, or 30 cents per can or bottle. The current tax is 2 cents per can. That's an increase of about 1,500 percent.

Beall said the tax would generate $2 billion a year to fund health care services, crime prevention and programs to prevent underage drinking and addiction.

"The people who use alcohol should pay for part of the cost to society, just like we've accepted that concept with tobacco," Beall said. [bold added]
Notice how the unchallenged premise that "society" ought to be cleaning up after irresponsible individuals transitions so smoothly into all individuals owing "society" in advance for their personal decisions.

The fact is that the state should have never gotten into the business of subsidizing the medical care of people who ignored well-known risks and smoked themselves sick or permitted themselves to become addicted to alcohol.

-- CAV

Updates

Today
: Corrected number of days of music without repeating a song. (HT: Dismuke)


McCain Runs Unopposed

Friday, April 11, 2008

Steve Huntley of the Chicago Sun-Times issues a warning to the Democrats: Keep attacking McCain like this and you will lose the Presidency -- again -- to the Republicans.

The best indicator of Republican John McCain's surprisingly strong presidential prospects in what should be a slam-dunk Democratic year is not his solid general-election poll numbers but rather the increasingly shrill attacks from Democrats.

The latest was a grotesque slam from Barack Obama supporter Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia. In a newspaper interview in his home state, Rockefeller let loose this stinker: "McCain was a fighter pilot, who dropped laser-guided missiles from 35,000 feet. He was long gone when they hit. What happened when they get to the ground? He doesn't know. You have to care about the lives of people. McCain never gets into those issues."

Never mind that laser-guided missiles hadn't been invented during the Vietnam war. Bombing is a part of warfare, and McCain was serving his country as have legions of other bomber airmen. Rockefeller smeared them all. One further point: McCain was a prisoner of war in Hanoi when U.S. planes bombed the city, on the orders of McCain's admiral father.

So wrong was this that Rockefeller not only quickly apologized, but his office also later made a point of saying that McCain had accepted his apology. [bold added]
Huntley is correct that poorly-aimed smears which also play loose with easily-checked facts stand an excellent chance of killing the Democrats.

Unfortunately, the Democrats have precious little choice but to take this route. This is a shame, because this hawkish pro-capitalist can think of numerous reasons to vote against McCain. The executive summary is that he wants to continue pretending that a massive program to export welfare handouts to Iraq is a war, and that he wants to run our entire country like the military.

But as I said, the Democrats have basically no choice. They do not have anything to offer that differs in substance from what McCain offers, and this is because they agree with McCain on the following fundamental premise: The individual exists -- not to pursue his own happiness -- but to serve the state. All three of the major presidential candidates agree that the American citizen is a sacrificial animal.

The Democrats have held this premise for decades and have learned over time that running openly on it -- See George McGovern. -- or governing openly on it -- See Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. -- loses elections. So they smear Republicans and pretend to be in favor of a more humane version of capitalism (which is, in itself, a smear of capitalism).

On only one issue, whether we should fight in Iraq or withdraw, do the Democrats appear to differ from the Republicans, but this is just a case of the Democrats not openly advocating pacifism. And pacifism is just a different way than digging toilets in the desert to sacrifice American lives to foreign enemies. A loyal opposition opposing the current war would do so on the grounds that we should fight a war of self-defense or quit wasting our money (which we can, at least, replace) and the lives of our soldiers (which we can't).

For decades, the Democrats have -- often luckily for America -- painted themselves into the corner of having to run dishonest political campaigns. But now that the Republicans have gradually adopted their whole agenda under the guise of capitalism, our nation finds itself in need of an able opponent to McCain, but trapped in that same corner with these fools.

(And until most American voters stop looking at themselves as wards of the state, we will remain in this corner.)

I have not decided yet whether I will vote against McCain or abstain from the presidential election, but Huntley's warning to the Democrats shows me that it -- how I vote or whether the Democrats hear him -- probably won't matter.

I weep for my country and fear for liberty.

-- CAV


Quick Roundup 320

Thursday, April 10, 2008

What a rarity! My wife is awake and here while I'm composing a morning blog post!

Thursdays, I typically have to rush to get in earlier than usual, so when she asked me whether I was going to post about how much I love her, I said, "Oh, I don't know! I'm probably just going to throw some stuff out there and get out of here."

I love Mrs. Van Horn!

So there! I never said what I was going to "throw out there", did I?

New Blogger Feature

It's in Beta, but Blogger is in the process of making it possible to compose a blog post in advance and have it automatically show up at a pre-set date and time.

Once I move to Boston, I will likely have to make major changes to the way I blog if I wish to continue doing so and further my non-blogging writing career.

And I wish to do both.

All Atlas Can Do...

A reader pointed me to this column in the student newspaper of Columbia University by a student who had recently read Atlas Shrugged and decided to make the case for its inclusion in his school's core curriculum. He does a pretty good job:

[T]he most important thing that Rand does is make one question one's beliefs. I always wondered how capitalism could be morally justifiable, whether or not the rich should be shunned as most of society does, why the welfare state is inherently bad, how selfishness could be perceived as anything but appalling. In a word, where in my heart I was scared to be an egoist, Rand showed me that I should not hate this impulse, but I should embrace it, and that if all were to embrace it, the bounds of human progress would be limitless. I learned that striving to achieve and putting thought to action was the highest goal that I could seek, and that this would lead to my ultimate happiness. [bold added]
Ben Weingarten earlier indicates the growing intellectual influence that Ayn Rand has had over the past few decades.

Whether or not Atlas Shrugged lives up to Weingarten's claims -- and I think it does -- that it stimulates critical thought about philosophical beliefs, there is no excuse for not including it as part of a collegiate core curriculum. Either Weingarten is right, and students are missing out on an enjoyable and profitable learning experience, or he isn't, and students are being deprived of the chance to learn what's wrong with it first-hand.

I doubt Weingarten will succeed in shaming Columbia into changing its curriculum. Shame is, after all, one of the few emotions modern intellectuals refuse to indulge. But I think that in raising this issue, he and those who read his column will learn just how small the modern intellectual is.

All knowledge has value.

Two Roundups

Bo posted another submarine-blogger roundup last week and Rational Jenn's hosting the weekly Objectivist roundup today.

Who Watches the Watchers?

Amit Ghate's been on fire lately. Tuesday, he notes a key unspoken assumption about government regulation and points to a relevant news story:
One of the key assumptions underlying arguments for government regulation is that when people switch over from the private sector to the public sector, they're somehow transformed from devils to angels. I've never understood any part of this -- most people I see in the private sector are more conscientious and harder working than those I see in the public sector; and more importantly, the market provides an incentive to do good, honest work lest a competitor unseat you -- no such mechanism is at work in the public sector.
And yet his preamble still doesn't prepare you for the orgy of theft by government officials covered in the article. Take a look.

Congratulations to Joseph Kellard!

And I also enjoyed what he wrote on the subject of his recent promotion. You will, too, if you haven't seen it already.

Oh, but that ribbon is different!

I must say that I fully support C. August's "blue ribbon campaign" for ethical sophistication!

And, on a serious note, I am very intrigued by that book trilogy review he posted recently:
Neal Stephenson's trilogy, The Baroque Cycle, is a must read if you are interested in any of the following: history, The Enlightenment, science, philosophy, reason, how ideas shape world events, the birth of capitalism, pirates, battles, or love stories. Yes, this isn't so much a book review as a trilogy review, but the books can't really be separated. [link dropped]
That's as far as I've gotten so far. Or something like that.

-- CAV

Updates

Today
: Added link to OBlogger roundup.


A Charter Madrassa

Wednesday, April 09, 2008

Many people favor making our economy freer, but haven't thought that deeply about some of the difficulties of actually achieving that goal. And many of these same people innocently support such measures as charter schools or voucher programs, thinking of them as viable alternatives to public education, or even as steps towards privatizing education.

Unfortunately, decreased government regulation will not, yanked out of the greater context of the need to protect individual rights, necessarily lead to private education or even a freer economy. In fact, half-measures such as charter schools can backfire spectacularly, as we can see in Minnesota.

Recently, Amanda Gertz, a substitute teacher who filled in at Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy, volunteered some very interesting news to a reporter whose efforts to learn more about the charter school had been met with stonewalling:

Arriving on a Friday, the Muslim holy day, she says she was told that the day's schedule included a "school assembly" in the gym after lunch.

Before the assembly, she says she was told, her duties would include taking her fifth-grade students to the bathroom, four at a time, to perform "their ritual washing."

Afterward, Getz said, "teachers led the kids into the gym, where a man dressed in white with a white cap, who had been at the school all day," was preparing to lead prayer. Beside him, another man "was prostrating himself in prayer on a carpet as the students entered."

"The prayer I saw was not voluntary," Getz said. "The kids were corralled by adults and required to go to the assembly where prayer occurred."

Islamic Studies was also incorporated into the school day. "When I arrived, I was told 'after school we have Islamic Studies,' and I might have to stay for hall duty," Getz said. "The teachers had written assignments on the blackboard for classes like math and social studies. Islamic Studies was the last one -- the board said the kids were studying the Qu'ran. The students were told to copy it into their planner, along with everything else. That gave me the impression that Islamic Studies was a subject like any other."

... [B]uses leave only after Islamic Studies is over. [This is despite it being an "optional" activity. --ed]
Certainly, Moslem parents should be free to send their children to a Moslem school -- at their own expense. A private system of education would not prevent that. But it would prevent ordinary citizens who -- like myself -- would never voluntarily donate money towards the spread of Islam, from being forced to do so through taxation.

It could conceivably be that something like charter schools or voucher programs will one day serve as a transitional step from our current socialized system of education to a free market system. But such programs must avoid state funding of religious instruction. This is clearly difficult to do, which is why such programs would deserve support only if there is a definite plan to privatize the entire system on a definite timetable.

In a mixed economy, controls breed controls (and not just in the economic realm), making all arrangements inherently unstable. This is partly because of distortions in the economy created by the controls, and partly due to the fact that there are always people willing to take loot when it's being passed around. In other words, mixed economies foster bad decision-making and dishonesty.

The longer a provision, such as that which allows for charter schools, is on the books, the more likely it will be to invite widespread and spectacular abuses. (And as we have seen, the public system is already being subverted for such tax-funded indoctrination as religious instruction and leftist reeducation!) Without a clear movement towards capitalism, many such measures are better left on the cutting room floor.

-- CAV


Dangerous Nonsense in Illinois

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Via the OList, I have gotten wind of a recent display of anti-religious bigotry by a government official. Here is a transcript (via Qwertz), but do watch the video embedded below when you get a chance.

Here we have Illinois State Representative Monique Davis -- a government official -- "informing" a citizen, atheist activist Rob Sherman, that he hasn't the right to freedom of speech because of his beliefs concerning religion.

Davis: … What you have to spew and spread is extremely dangerous, it's dangerous--

Sherman: What's dangerous, ma'am?

Davis: It's dangerous to the progression of this state. And it's dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists! Now you will go to court to fight kids to have the opportunity to be quiet for a minute. But damn if you'll go to [court] to fight for them to keep guns out of their hands. I am fed up! Get out of that seat!

Sherman: Thank you for sharing your perspective with me, and I'm sure that if this matter does go to court--

Davis: You have no right to be here! We believe in something. You believe in destroying! You believe in destroying what this state was built upon. [bold added]
While Davis does have the right, as a private citizen, to "spew and spread" such dangerous nonsense, her doing so in the context of a government hearing constitutes a threat to Sherman's freedom of speech. As such, it is morally wrong, contrary to the proper purpose of a government (if not illegal), and completely unacceptable.

As you will notice from the video clip, she sounds like she's ready to round up a lynch mob.


Opinion polls regularly show that atheists are one of America's most distrusted and despised minorities. Having been born in 1936, well before Jim Crow ended, Davis should be able to remember something about what government persecution of individual members of minorities means. Her willingness to turn around and do the same thing in and of itself demonstrates that her faith is anything but a sound basis for understanding or protecting individual rights.

After I showed this video to my wife, she asked whether I would like to hear an atheist rebuttal. "No, sweetie," I said. "Most atheists have a such a poor command of the issues involved that they will do more harm than good."

I had forgotten, though, about an excellent series of discussions about "Reason vs. Faith" posted to YouTube by the Ayn Rand Institute. Fortunately, Davis reminded Amit Ghate of those. I recommend watching them and link to each at the end of this post.

I am an atheist and have been for more than twenty years. I disagree with Christianity and regard it as a moral and practical impediment to happiness at best and to life itself at worst, when it is practiced. And it is a threat to life and freedom any time it is incorporated into government. But I have never said and never will say that a Christian "has no right" to hold or state his opinion, or to practice it so long as he does not interfere with my rights.

All men have rights that inhere in our nature as rational beings, and the right to discuss facts and opinions -- which Davis refuses to recognize or protect -- is one of those rights. I recommend that anyone in Davis's district first complain about this display of bigotry and incipient tyranny, and then work to unseat her in the next election.

And then, for anyone who might wonder why I think rejecting religion would be to anyone's benefit as a rational being, I refer you -- as a start -- to the following "Reason vs. Faith" videos from ARI. Each raises a question and answers it, so click on a number and watch: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.

Rejecting religion alone will not lead to morality or happiness, but taking a rational approach to the kinds of questions religion attempts to answer eventually can, as Ayn Rand demonstrated.

Contrary to the approach of faith that countless Christians have advised over the ages, nothing worth doing -- like living a happy and fulfilling life -- is ever as easy as just taking someone's word wholesale on a host of life-and-death issues, or following orders.

Enjoy!

-- CAV


Quick Roundup 319

Monday, April 07, 2008

Maps and Maps

So many neat maps, and so little time!

En route to other things this weekend, I ran across a web site that hosts an atlas of presidential election results, which allows you to view the results of any presidential election in the history of the United States simply by selecting it from a drop-down menu.

In the meantime, Myrhaf comments on a tasteless, pandering, map-themed vodka ad in Mexico that I noticed over at The Drudge Report on Friday, but didn't have the time or inclination to discuss.

All I will say about that is that in an "Absolut World", that company's sales would be nowhere near what they are today since the American Southwest would have turned out much poorer under Mexican rule than it did.

And then Amit Ghate posts an interesting map of religious denominations by county for the United States. You will notice that all but two counties in Mississippi are Baptist. Until around the time I was in high school, their influence over state politics was strong enough that it was illegal to advertise alcohol (except, possibly, beer) on television, and we had some pretty ridiculous blue laws.

And yes, when I have more time, there are more maps where that came from!

Good Line for Pundits

I have quite a backlog of interesting reading in the hopper. Among the books is Always in Pursuit, by Stanley Crouch. In a random moment this weekend, I picked it up and looked inside. I enjoyed the opening two sentences from "King of Narcissism", a chapter about Michael Jackson:

It used to be that if one didn't hurry up and say something about an event, the op-ed scow was gone, leaving the slowpoke commentator at the dock. But now, with the oceanic marketing campaigns calculated to continually flop up sales, one can put two cents in and be right on time for months.
If you want to be a good writer, it pays to read good writers. Mr. Crouch just moved up in the queue.

But yeah. That's my two pennies you hear being rubbed together as I wait.

Range-of-the-Moment Social Metaphysics

I am probably being redundant on some level....

The hallmark of the criminal mind is a second-handedness so severe as to blind the criminal to other aspects of the world around him, sometimes to an astounding degree. (Instead of "second-handedness", was about to say, "the premise that one can act as a predator in human society", but even that borders on ascribing too much intelligence and power to the criminal.)

A criminal is a parasite. He refuses to trade with others and instead opts for a position of weakness. He needs to take from other people to meet the material requirements for his continued existence -- while he must escape their attention in order to avoid rightful retaliation.

But he also needs to prop himself up in the spiritual realm by extorting pseudo-respect from others at the same time, which can contradict his need to escape detection.
A killer who escaped from a Pennsylvania prison in a trash can was captured in California after boasting of an appearance on Fox's America's Most Wanted, state police said Sunday.

Malcolm Kysor, 54, was arrested Saturday in a Bakersfield, Calif., park after someone notified police about the claim, police said.

"Basically, it's a citizen's tip. He was in a park and he started bragging," Trooper Donald Claypoole of the Girard barracks said.

Kysor had been serving a life sentence since 1988 for an early 1980s slaying in Erie County. [bold added]
He knows he's a stupid chump, so he has to convince himself otherwise by eliciting awe from other people. So he tells the world what a genius at getting out of jail he is. Nice.

Kysor's all-out war against reality will continue soon in a prison near you.

-- CAV

Updates

Today
: (1) Minor edits. (2) Corrected number of non-Baptist counties in MS.


Of Ribbons and Wristbands

Friday, April 04, 2008

Over at Sp!ked is a book review of Ribbon Culture, in which British academic Sarah Moore takes a look at a cultural phenomenon I will doubtless become much more familiar with than I care to in a few months: the sanctimonious practice of wearing colored ribbons and rubber bands to display allegiance to various causes, most of them tainted to some extent by altruism and collectivism.

There is much I disagree with in this book review, much of it arising from the moral premise of altruism, held by author, ribbon-wearer, and reviewer alike. For example, the understandable desire to integrate such adornments into a pleasing overall fashion aesthetic and "commercialism" are saddled with the blame for the fact that ribbon-wearing is, on some levels, basically, a mindless fad.

And how mindless is the fad?

As there are clearly more causes than there are colours, a particular coloured ribbon could denote a number of different things that the wearer could be seen to be raising awareness of. Not that this potential confusion matters all that much: as Moore remarks, a few of her ribbon-wearing interviewees had to be reminded which causes their ribbons represented, while one teenage collector of wristbands proudly described to her "a gold anti-poverty band, a particularly rare wristband that he had given to his girlfriend as a present":

"When I asked him whether he thought it a little contradictory that an anti-poverty wristband should be gold [What? This is the one thing I can think of that a ribbon campaign has gotten right! --ed], he was genuinely surprised at the observation; absorbed in the task of locating rare bands, choosing which to display and which to give as gifts, he hadn’t given consideration to the meaning of the objects he collected." [minor edits, bold added]
I guess after I move to Boston, I can take some solace in the comic relief the question, "What does that ribbon stand for?" can afford me from time to time.

But on a more serious note, one sees, without even having to read between the lines, that despite the many tangled errors in the piece, it makes a very good point.
In many respects, Ribbon Culture is an analysis of several apparently contradictory aspects of contemporary culture. The ribbon is, explains Moore, "both a kitsch fashion accessory, as well as an emblem that expresses empathy; it is a symbol that represents awareness, yet requires no knowledge of a cause; it appears to signal concern for others, but in fact prioritises self-expression". [minor edits]
Add to this the countercultural origins of this fad, and two trenchant observations by Ayn Rand do much to explain what is really going on here.

First, it is not "commercialization" that is to blame for the superficiality of countercultural fads, but the superficiality of the counterculture itself. Ayn Rand, commenting on the counterculture in 1970, observed that not only it did not actually oppose the altruistic ideas of the culture it purported to rebel against, one of the forms of its false rebellion demonstrated that it was hardly substantive:
Avowed non-materialists whose only manifestation of rebellion and of individualism takes the material form of the clothes they wear, are a pretty ridiculous spectacle. Of any type of nonconformity, this is the easiest to practice, and the safest. ("Apollo and Dionysus" in The Objectivist, Jan. 1970, p.775)
The fact that companies are trying to make money from this foolishness isn't new, either. The only thing, incidentally, that corporations can be blamed for here is aiding in their own self-destruction -- by helping leftists express their solidarity as they continue to attack capitalism.

Second, the fact that it is impossible to live a life of self-sacrifice consistently implies that altruism necessitates hypocrisy or death sooner or later. So life and moral rectitude are at loggerheads in altruism, and this sets up a sort of obscene type of "trade", whereby one's profession of support for giving the unearned to others in the material realm is exchanged for an unearned moral status in the spiritual realm. What these ribbons give their wearers is prestige:
The desire for the unearned has two aspects: the unearned in matter and the unearned in spirit. (By "spirit" I mean: man's consciousness.) These two aspects are necessarily interrelated, but a man's desire may be focused predominantly on one or the other. The desire for the unearned in spirit is the more destructive of the two and the more corrupt. It is a desire for unearned greatness; it is expressed (but not defined) by the foggy murk of the term "prestige." …

Unearned greatness is so unreal, so neurotic a concept that the wretch who seeks it cannot identify it even to himself: to identify it, is to make it impossible. He needs the irrational, undefinable slogans of altruism and collectivism to give a semiplausible form to his nameless urge and anchor it to reality -- to support his own self-deception more than to deceive his victims. ("The Monument Builders," The Virtue of Selfishness, 88.)
What could be more unearned than moral credit obtained for doing little and thinking less about something?

In an important sense, it makes no difference what ribbon someone chooses to wear when the culture is saturated enough with altruism that wearing a ribbon is commonly regarded as a sign of good moral character. The message to anyone who might beg to differ with the idea that he exists to serve others, is this: "You will have to fight everyone. Give up or be alone."

Slamming the ribbon-wearers for not immolating themselves enough is just icing on the cake for the more committed altruists who set the terms of the public debate for the less independent-minded.

-- CAV


Quick Roundup 318

Thursday, April 03, 2008

Reason Blamed for Terrorism

In yesterday's post, I neglected to mention yet another blog I have recently encountered, Applying Philosophy to Life, by KM.

He recently unearthed an article in The Times of India that basically blamed a "correlation between engineering and terrorism" on the fact that engineering is a rational discipline. The passage he quotes is italicized below.

Engineers consider themselves problem solvers, and when the world seems to present a problem, they look to engineering-type solutions to solve it. Engineering, Gambetta and Hertog suggest, predisposes its votaries to absolute and non-negotiable principles, and therefore to fundamentalism; it is a short step from appreciating the predictable laws of engineering to following an ideology or a creed that is infused with its own immutable laws. It is easy for engineers to become radicalised, the researchers argue, because they are attracted by the "intellectually clean, unambiguous, and all-encompassing" solutions that both the laws of engineering and radical Islam provide.

This is partly true and partly and viciously false. The method of engineering is the method of science. The principles and laws of science are indeed absolute and non-negotiable. But they are not just that. Unlike religious principles, they are objective, evidence-based, verifiable and demonstrably true. To the extent that an engineer is attracted to radical religion, he is denying the validity of the scientific method.
I would add only that the notion from modern philosophy that reason is incapable of providing certainty is doubtless what makes it so easy for these sociologists to regard engineering and religion as similar based on the fact that both claim to provide certainty -- despite their essential difference in method.

And yes, I did also remember to add a link to the right!

Objectivist Roundup

This week's edition is being hosted by Nick Provenzo over at Rule of Reason. Take a look!

Chance Favors the Prepared Mind

I got a kick out of this article on the technological applications of the fact that there is a range of sound frequencies that can be heard almost exclusively by teenagers and young adults.

First, someone, probably from my age bracket, realized that he could use the frequency for crowd control:
As the security device inventor contemplated the problem, he recalled from his teens the awful buzz of an ultrasound welding machine at his father's glue-plastics factory. He remembered that his complaints about the noise would be met with a quizzical look from workers: "What noise?"

From that impulse to help rid his local market of loiterers came his invention, "the Mosquito," an electronic contraption that emits a high-pitched pulsating sound that can mostly be heard only by teens and people in their early to mid-20s. It works because an age-related hearing loss called presbycusis reduces the ability to hear high-pitched sounds after the late 20s. The device is mostly inaudible to older adults, young children and pets. [bold added]
But kids can be pretty swift, too....
Young people, meanwhile, have turned the table on the technology. Many have downloaded the sound onto their cell phones, creating a ring tone that they can hear but older adults can't. Teen Buzz, a short Mosquito ring tone, has become among the most downloaded ring tones worldwide. Some use it to alert high school classmates of recently sent text messages. For others, it's come in handy when parents curtail use of their cell phones. [bold added]
Back in my Navy days, my hearing test results were quite impressive. Now, I'm going to have to look for that sound on the web somewhere to learn whether I am one of those rare adults who can actually hear this.

Of course, if I don't get around to it and I can hear this, I imagine I'll find out soon enough!

Gold Certificates

Amit Ghate has been posting actively over at Thrutch lately, and I found his post on gold certificates interesting. Says his co-blogger Rob Tarr, "[I]t's hard to believe [the pictured bill] existed less than 100 years ago."

My grandfather lived to be nearly a hundred, so I use him as a sort of "century-stick" to help me put that time span in human terms. If we can go away from using gold as a currency to fiat money in that time span, we can certainly return to using gold in a comparable span.

Such a goal may sound daunting, but a century is not really that long a time, and similarly great political changes for the better have been made in a similar span. After all, our nation went from having slavery to abolishing it during a similar time span. Great changes can be wrought in decades by men of principle, as I learned in Telluride.

And, by the way, his orchids are in bloom!

-- CAV


New Links on the Side

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

I've been terribly swamped lately, so much so that I plowed right into my Monday morning post barely aware of the latest addition -- Earth Hour -- to the growing litany of Green rituals intended to hector the productive for the sin of making the world go round.

Not only had Nick Provenzo already noticed that North Korea is lighting the path, so to speak, back to the Dark Ages, but I liked his graphic better than mine!

And that was just the beginning. I had noticed Google's annoying screen-darkening stunt, but didn't do a screen capture. But C. August did, so now I can point you to his blog with the reaction I had when I saw that: "Nothing says, 'We drank the Kool-Aid' like turning out the lights."

Wouldn't just shutting down all their computer equipment have reduced their "carbon footprint" even more? This stand is immoral and inherently hypocritical coming from Google.

And that post leads directly to a post by Rational Jenn, who ends with a roundup of related posts.

On top of seeing that I missed out on last weekend's fun, I came across a few blogs I hadn't visited before. I've added them to the link list at the right and I'll quickly introduce each one....

While I was at Titanic Deck Chairs, the blog 3 Ring Binder caught my eye as something whose title looked vaguely GTD-ish -- except that it is in fact the blog of none other than LB, one of my soon-to-be neighbors in the Boston area. There's some interesting give-and-take over there on the issue of parenting and individual rights.

(And while we're on the subject, I really enjoyed the latest from Thomas Bowden of the Ayn Rand Institute. He does an excellent job of showing what is at stake in an unfortunate recent court ruling in California against home schooling. His title? "Your Child Is Not State Property".)

I have also noticed a few times recently a blog, One Reality by yet another initialed Boston blogger, SB. I'm pretty sure I spotted One Reality in the OBloggers feed, but if I'm wrong or you haven't yet seen his post on the notion of "footprints", it's worth a read.

And finally, I ran across Kindredist, by a Michigander named Amy as I was catching up on "Edison Hour" festivities. I wish only that I'd thought of the name first!

With that, it's back to the grindstone!

-- CAV


The Servant's Got Your Back?

Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Amit Ghate discusses the important issue of how the question of innocents in war pertains to self-defense.

[E]ven for the legitimately innocent such as children, hostages or POW's, as terrible as it is, one's self-defense cannot be tempered by considering the harm they may come to. The moral blame for their fate falls squarely on the aggressor who makes the war necessary, and indeed the potential consequences to such innocents is a fundamental reason why any citizen must take the responsibility of opposing and denouncing the evil elements within his society -- before they can rise to power and wreak their havoc. If citizens fail to do this, they can not blame their government's foreign victims for defending themselves with every possible means, including killing and even targeting civilians.
You will note that underlying this argument is the premise that the sole purpose of a government is the protection of individual rights. This is a crucial point, for a man who has taken to calling himself an "imperfect servant" as he seeks the highest office in the land -- and who makes much of his military background -- has obviously forgotten or chosen to ignore it:
A prisoner of war in Vietnam at a time his own father commanded all U.S. forces in the Pacific, McCain said, "He prayed on his knees every night for my safe return. ... Yet, when duty required it, he gave the order for B-52s to bomb Hanoi, in close proximity to my prison."
Let us set aside such questions as whether the war in Vietnam was a proper war of national self-defense, and let us assume that all options to save the POWs without sacrificing American self-defense had been exhausted.

Such painful decisions can and do present themselves to military leaders during times of war. In a war of self-defense, we need men like the elder McCain who are able to set aside all considerations other than national self-defense in order to make decisions like this.

Good will normally makes one reluctant to take issue with someone publicly offering respect to a parent or to a war hero. Unfortunately, the same motive invoked by John McCain, patriotism, demands that I do just that. I love America for the fact that it is the only nation on earth founded for the only proper purpose a government can have: the protection of the individual rights of her citizens.

The context in which John McCain raised his father's painful decision to bomb Hanoi indicates to me that he does not understand what it is about America that makes it great (and, for that matter, worth defending). As a result, I think that he will work to do it great harm if elected. Here is that context:
In remarks both personal and philosophical, McCain recalled ancestors buried at Arlington National Cemetery, and mused about "the honor we earn and the love we give when we work and sacrifice with others for a cause greater than our self-interest." [bold added]
For John McCain, his use of the word "duty" is not just colloquial or sloppy. He is not merely referring to the oath his father took to defend America -- or even his mission to defend the lives and rights of individual Americans -- as "duty". He is speaking of anything but, as can only be meant by the words "sacrifice ... for a cause greater than our self-interest" -- and as the body of his political thought and his public record further indicate.

John McCain not only might, as commander-in-chief, be called upon to make the same type of decision his father once had to make, he seems eager to do so. And on top of that, he has just told us that he will use exactly the opposite criterion that he should as a basis for making such decisions!

The government, which John McCain wants to head, is the only social institution that can legally wield force. This force is that which we all have the right to use, as individuals, for self-defense, and which we have delegated to the government for that purpose and that purpose alone. Any other use of force by the government violates individual rights and as such represents a danger to individual rights.

As a rational adult, I do not want a "servant". And I need a servant able to wield government force like I need another hole in my head. The only thing I need from the government is the assurance that I will be left alone to lead my life as I best see fit. John McCain is practically screaming that he will violate his oath of office for some unspecified ideal greater than himself from the moment he takes it. I neither want a President distracted from his job by some pet cause nor some crusader empowered to force me to assist him in his mission. McCain wants to be both of these.

I disagree with his conception that sacrifice is a moral ideal and I don't want the "service" that someone like him wants to provide.

-- CAV