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Saturday, January 26, 2013

‘The Democrat Race Lie’

A righteous take-down of a "liberal" partisan (*) -- Bob Parks: An Academic Response To ‘The Democrat Race Lie'

(*) which is to say, an intellectually dishonest person who will lie about anything, including asserting both 'A' and 'not-A' simultaneously.

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What difference does it make?

Mark Steyn: Hillary lip-synced more than Beyoncé



No matter what the venue or subject matter, when someone begins to pose to himself "rhetorical questions", as Clinton does at the beginning of this clip, you can be sure, with a high degree of confidence, that that person is about to deliver himself up a steaming load of bullshit.

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Sunday, January 20, 2013

The Abolition of Man

C.S. Lewis: The Abolition of Man

(h/t Jim S.)

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Saturday, January 19, 2013

And yet . . . the couch

Douglas Wilson: Wendell Berry's Halcyon Bean Patch
Second, let me briefly respond to Berry's observation that the Bible has a "lot more to say" about other sins, like fornication and adultery. This is quite true, and almost entirely beside the point. Say that a mother came home from grocery shopping to find out that her twelve-year-old son had set fire to the couch. When she was remonstrating with him, suppose further that she was met with the argument that he had been listening carefully to her for years, and that she had always had a "lot more to say" about table manners than this. This may be perfectly true . . . and yet . . . the couch.

For believing Christians, the issue is what the Bible teaches, not how much it teaches on one thing compared to other issues. There are matters of first importance compared to other matters, but this is determined by wisdom, and not by word counts. We should not tally up citations of the Ten Commandments throughout Scripture in order to manage our disobedience by triage. ...

edit:
J.V. dropped me an email note saying that she appreciated this, and that the last (quoted) sentence was "BAM!" I hadn't thought of it in those terms ;), but that last sentence is precisely why I wanted to share Wilson's piece.

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Sentimentalizing Serial Murder

Theodore Dalrymple: Sentimentalizing Serial Murder

(h/t: Denyse O'Leary)

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Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Now, That's Security

The Absurdity of 'Gun Free Zones' (a YouTube video)

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Tuesday, January 15, 2013

The Million Normal Human March

Lawrence Auster: The Million Normal Human March -- Hatrz!

I guess people -- even French people -- just don't like going where "liberalism" and socialism dictates they must. Now, if only they would allow themselves to see all the way through the cynical marketing and pious mythology of leftism at its core.

Auster:
... In short, the Great Silent [French] Majority has suddenly shown—which it has never done before—that it opposes the ongoing destruction of Western society in the name of equality, and it has done so in the most decisive manner. What if the Great Silent Majority, in all the Western countries, expressed itself similarly on mass immigration, on Islamization, on mandated diversity, on sexual libertarianism, on feminism, on the unearned elevation of blacks and the unearned demonization of whites, on massive transfers of wealth to aliens, illegal aliens, and professional dependents, on the Soviet-like media, on the transgressive and nihilist mass culture? The suicide of the West could be reversed.
Yes, as a matter of logic and possibilities, even now, the on-going suicide of the West could be halted. But, don't count on that to happen.

The problem has never really been the "liberals" and other leftists, but rather the problem is that those who thnk themselves conservative or traditionalist just don't give a damn (*) about the leftist's gnawing away at all the foundations of society and polity.


(*) I intend to post a bit about a small example of this recently encountered.

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Sunday, January 13, 2013

The Hipster Facade

Victor Davis Hanson: The Hipster Facade

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Saturday, January 12, 2013

'Good intentions' are never good enough

Wintery Knight: Pregnant South African women binge drinking in order to get more welfare
A horrible article from the UK Daily Mail.

Excerpt:
Pregnant South African women are deliberately drinking large quantities of alcohol to harm their unborn babies in a bid to earn more welfare money, it has been claimed.

Expectant mothers living in the Eastern Cape, one of the poorest areas in South Africa, are bingeing on a ‘moonshine’ type drink which contains battery acid – with some drinking up to five and six bottles a day.

It has been reported they do it to claim a disability benefit from the government – using their disabled children as a source of income.

Video taken by Sky News shows a mother drinking a homemade brew called ‘kah-kah’ while heavily pregnant.

[...]The addictive milky brown brew is made from yeast, water and battery acid.

[...]The World Health Organisation said there has been an increase in the number of babies born with Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) in the area since 2002.

The syndrome is also the most common birth defect in South Africa.

The irreversible symptoms mean children suffer from speech problems, physical deformities, learning difficulties and behavioural issues.

Families receive 250 South African rand ($29 US) per child, per month but a disabled child brings in around 1200 rand a month ($138 US).
It’s very important for Christians to understand that policies that sound compassion can actually provide incentives to people to do more bad things in order to get more money from the government. ...
It is not good enough to have intentions of doing good -- one most also have a reasonable expectation that one's efforts at Do-Goodery will actually result in good rather than harm.  But having that reasonable expectation requires taking into account human nature and the incentives and disincentives that one's "good deeds" create.

"Liberals", whether Chriatian or not, actively resist this necessary step, even to the point of viciously attacking anyone who raises the necessary questions. This is why their "good deeds" almost always result in a net increase of misery and/or wickedness. To put it another way, "liberals" really aren't so much concerned with actually doing good as with buffing up the little idol of their own self-evident goodness -- their worship it continuously, and so ought you!

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Sunday, January 6, 2013

I just don't have the energy

[the post is still in composition]

... to do more at the moment than roll my eyes --

Victor Reppert: Should God have to make everything clear?
One theme of atheists is that if God were to exist, he would make everything clear, and there would not be a multiplicity of religions. Why think a God, if God existed, would make everything clear. If everything were clear, we would have no real choices. There would be one choice, and all other choices would be punished, and everyone would know what that punishment was and do the right thing for selfish motives.
Addendum 2013/01/14:
So, what what is I was rolling my eyes over?

One might think me to be rolling my eyes over that particular "[o]ne theme of atheists[, which] is that if God were to exist, he would make everything clear, and there would not be a multiplicity of religions", but one would be mistaken.

Oh, don't get me wrong, that popular "theme" is bad enough, and it's frequently (perhaps even generally) offered not as an intellectually honest, albeit mistaken, objection to the claims and logic of Biblical religion, but as a red-herring, as a pointless rabbit-trail, as a distraction to avoid confronting the atheist's own illogic and irrationality. Yet, 'frequently', or even 'generally', does not equal 'always'.

No, I am rolling my eyes over Mr Reppert's response to that "theme" (which response seems to be very popular with "theists").

I see two main objections to such a response:

1) To the extent that the particular 'atheist' raised the original objection as an intellectually honest, albeit mistaken (and, in fact, illogical), argument against the claims and logic of Biblical religion, such a response is nothing more than a dodge.

2) To the extent that the particular 'atheist' raised the original objection as an intellectually dishonest argument against the claims and logic of Biblical religion, such a response is nothing more than a dodge.

Ah! But the dodges are quite different ... as I intend to explain with a later addendum to this post.

Addendum 2013/01/19:
1) To the extent that the particular 'atheist' raised the original objection as an intellectually honest, albeit mistaken (and, in fact, illogical), argument against the claims and logic of Biblical religion, such a response is nothing more than a dodge.

"One theme of atheists is that if God were to exist, he would make everything clear, and there would not be a multiplicity of religions. Why think a God, if God existed, would make everything clear. If everything were clear, we would have no real choices. There would be one choice, and all other choices would be punished, and everyone would know what that punishment was and do the right thing for selfish motives."

Assuming that the 'atheist' intends to be offering a logical and rational objection to "religion" (and one ought to operate by that assumption, so long as one can), if one sets out to answer his objection, then one has the obligation to take him, and his objection, seriously. But, since this objection is illogical, taking the 'atheist' seriously means trying to help him see (*) that his objection doesn't even apply, seeing as it is illogical. And, moreover, even if it weren't illogical, it doesn't even begin to touch the truth known via reason that atheism is false, can be shown and know to be false, and cannot be true (as see here, for example)

Non-exhaustively, and in no particular order, here are some of the ways in which this popular objection is illogical:
1) The premise that "if God were to exist, he would make everything clear" is easliy deniable. It certainly isn't a self-evident truth; it's really just an unsupported, and unsupportable, assertion. Thus, from the very start, the argument certainly appears to be unsound. And do note, the burden of proof does not lie with the denier of this proposition, but with its asserter.
2) While it is never explicitly stated, a twin assertion/premise almost always being made with the assertion that "if God were to exist,he would make everything clear" is that God would have the moral obligation to "make everything clear." Again, this is easily deniable; it isn't a self-evident truth, and there is no valid reason ever offered for believing it true.
3) There is a triplet assertion/premise, never explicitly stated: "if God were to exist,he *could* make everything clear" Such an assertion denies human freedom; in this case, the freedom to ignore or deny what has been shown to be true. But, we all know -- including those who explicitly deny it -- that we *are* free, including that we are free to deny what we know to be true: we are free to lie, not only to others, but to ourselves.
4) The inference as stated is also easily deniable, and further, we all know from experience that it is false (and illogical, as the implication does not follow from the conditional): "[if God were to make everything clear,] there would not be a multiplicity of religions" For, to assert such a thing is to assert that we are not (nor could be) free to ignore or deny what is clearly true (as see #3 above). But, as I said, we all know that anyone is free to ignore or deny what is clearly true and what he knows to be true.

To lay out the argument contained in that "theme", it is something like this:
(Premise #1):___________"if God were to exist,he would make everything clear"
(Inference/Premise #2):___"if God were to exist,he could make everything clear"
(Inference/Premise #3):___"if God were to exist,he should make everything clear"
(Inference/Premise #4):___"if God were to make everything clear, there would not be a multiplicity of religions"
(Observation #1):________"There *is* a multiplicity of religions"
(Conclusion):___________"God does not exist."

Alternately -- and this is the version I think is far more commonly intended -- the 'atheist' may mean to argue something like this:
(Hidden Assumption #1):___"if God were to exist,he should make everything clear"
(Hidden Assumption #2):___"if God were to exist,he could make everything clear"
(Explicit Premise #3):___"if God were to exist,he would make everything clear"
(Inference/Premise #4):___"if God were to make everything clear, there would not be a multiplicity of religions"
(Observation #1):________"There *is* a multiplicity of religions"
(Conclusion):___________"God does not exist."

Or, to simplify both versions -- while still making exactly the same argument -- it can be stated thusly:
(Premise #1):___________"if God were to exist, there would not be a multiplicity of religions"
(Observation #1):________"There *is* a multiplicity of religions"
(Conclusion):___________"God does not exist."

As I've already explained, the inference contained in the first premise does not follow from anything. It's unsupported and unsupportable; it ignores human freedom and human susceptibility to error. The argument is not only unsound, it is invalid.

To look at this in a slightly different way, what the 'atheist' is *really* saying is: "IF God existed, THEN he woud not allow me to deny that he exists. SINCE I do deny that God exists, THEREFORE God does not exist."

This is not not just illogical, it's irrational.

And, to look at this in yet a slightly different way, and to state something I long ago noticed about 'atheists', they are demanding that God force himself upon them. Which is to say, 'atheists' demand that God must prove himself to them by being a cosmic rapist; whereas Christianity avows that God is a cosmic lover, that he does not force himself upon anyone but makes himself plain to anyone willing to know him.


Then, there is the fact, which should never be overlooked, that reason alone demonstrates to us that atheism is false. For, reason alone demonstrates to us that to assert atheism is also to assert that we cannot reason -- this absurd second assertion is a logically inescapable entailment of the first assertion. Therefore, since the second assertion is absurd and is a logical entailment of the first assertion, reason alone demonstrates to us that the first assertion is itself absurd. Do note, the argument to which I linked assumes atheistic presuppositions and then still shows -- on those very presuppositions -- that there is, after all, a Creator-God, who is personal and transcendant of time-and-space.



But, Mr Reppert's response, however popular it is with some Christians and Jews, does not take the 'atheist' and his objection seriously. It dodges the question the 'atheist' thinks he's asking, and it dodges the real task of attempting to help him see that he isn't reasoning correctly.

And the very feeble motion this response makes toward flagging the illogic of the objection is itself illogical. For, Reppert didn't actually point out that the dual proposition that "if God were to exist, he would make everything clear, and there would not be a multiplicity of religions" doesn't follow from anything and disregards human freedom to ignore any evidence at all; he rather offered a false, and illogical, proposition as argument against the former proposition: "If everything were clear, we would have no real choices" -- which false proposition *also* happens to be a common "theme of atheists".

(*) His reaction to *that* may well help one determine whether the assumption that he intended a logical and rational objection to "religion" is a valid, much less defensible, assumption, after all.


2) To the extent that the particular 'atheist' raised the original objection as an intellectually dishonest argument against the claims and logic of Biblical religion, such a response is nothing more than a dodge.

"One theme of atheists is that if God were to exist, he would make everything clear, and there would not be a multiplicity of religions. Why think a God, if God existed, would make everything clear. If everything were clear, we would have no real choices. There would be one choice, and all other choices would be punished, and everyone would know what that punishment was and do the right thing for selfish motives."

Look at the heart of Mr Reppert's response to this common "theme", as he put it, of 'atheists' -- "If everything were clear, we would have no real choices." This "answer" doesn't even approach being the truth of the matter -- choice isn't a function of, or result of, ignorance, but of freedom, of agency. Likewise, the number of potential choices available to an agent at any particular nexus is not a function of his knowledge or ignorance (that he may know of all the potential choices he might make is a different matter).

Consider: were someone to ask you, "What does one plus one make?" -- it is not the case that there is only one answer you could possibly choose to give as response to the question. There is only one correct answer to the question, and we all know what that correct answer is, but there are literally an infinity of infinities of responses you could freely choose to make. You know the one, single correct answer to the question; but, being an agent, being free to choose or not choose any available option, you are not constrained to give that one, single correct answer to the question.

To put it bluntly, just as you can choose to guess when you do not know the correct answer, you can choose to lie when you do know the correct anwer.

This is false: utterly false, and false on multiple levels.


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Cutest Little Things

This 'Facebook' thing mostly seems a total waste to me. But, every once in a while it's worthwhile.

I've never met them (and their mother was just a kid when I saw her), but I recently saw a picture of the granddaughter and grandson of one of my cousins. They're 1/4 Chinese (*), my cousin having married a Chinese woman. Anyway, they're just so cute.


My cousin is a Miller, and his daughter married a Smith. And I find that hillarious.


(*) We're a very diverse family.

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Saturday, January 5, 2013

Oh, the Humanity!

Oh, the irony!

Shadow to Light: Evolutionary Psychology Caught in the Cross-Fire-- "Along comes PZ Myers, making the argument that you don’t have to be an expert in evolutionary psychology to critique and dismiss evolutionary psychology. Yes, PZ Myers makes that very argument."

In case Gentle Reader does not immediately catch the irony -- and why should you, for what should you know or care who either PZ Myers or Rebecca Watson are -- in some other context, say, you or me criticizing either atheism or Darwinism and rejecting either on the grounds of their self-contradictions and other illogic, good ol' PZ would be singing out the other side of his mouth.

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Two months of arguing over 10 hours of savings

Mark Steyn: Two months of arguing over 10 hours of savings "If courage is the willingness to take a stand and vote for a bad deal because you've been painted into a corner and want Obama to fly back to Hawaii at the cost of another $3 million in public funds that could have gone to algae subsidies so he'll stop tormenting you for a week or two, then truly we are led by giants."

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When government 'asks' 'the rich' to 'contribute more'

I see in the paycheck I received yesterday that my taxes went up a good $90 or more per month; I expect that yours did similarly.

I wonder when people will ever realize that *they* are "the rich" whom the Democrats and leftists have targeted?


Edit 2013/01/13:
It's one thing for those of us who warned about what was coming down the pike (*) to complain because we now have notably less money left us per month with which to meet our expenses; it’s quite another thing for the fools who vote for Democrats to be bitching – “But, but, but! It was supposed to be someone else who is ‘asked’ to ‘contribute’ more, not me!”.

(*) and this is only the beginning.

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Friday, January 4, 2013

Petition Of The Day

Bob Parks: Petition Of The Day -- Gander, meet sauce.

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