Well, No

The Wichita Eagle: 'Swatting' led to fatal shooting of Andrew Finch, [bureaucrats-with-guns] say

Well, no. The hoax call to the "Swat Team" supplied the spark, but the tinder was already there ... in the form, and mindset, of *having* a "Swat Team".

Still, I must give the rest of the cops credit, in that the trigger-happy cop's fatal shot didn't set off the rest of them.

"What Happened"

OR: Too Clever By Half

One of the reasons that Trump is in the White House ... and, God willing, Hillary "What Happened" Clinton will be in the Big House ... is that multiple thousands, perhaps even millions, of Democrats helped put him there. I'm not talking about the ones who voted for him in the general election; I'm talking about the ones who cynically "crossed party lines" in the primaries to vote for Trump on the assurance of their Too Clever By Half leftist puppet-masters that getting Trump nominated as the Republican candidate would *help* Crooked Hillary win the general election.

Think about this for a minute -- these Democrat voters fully expected that the Republican establishment would honor their official rules ... even as it was a not-so-secret "open secret" that the Democrat establishment had rigged their primary, so that Democrat voters' votes were total shams.

The Second Coming ...

... of Reagan (*)

No matter what Trump says or does, the leftists are going to act as though he were The Second Coming of Ronald Reagan. So, while he's at it, he might as well out-Reagan Reagan.


(*) While I was not a "Never-Trumper", in the end I didn't vote for him (to be more precise, as I am passed tired of voting for "the lesser of two evils", I couldn't bring myself to vote for him). I voted for Darrell Castle of the Constitution Party. My second choice would have been the Conservative Party; but the Constitution Party's planks were more explicitly "socially conservative" and, indeed, unashamedly Christian, so I voted for them.

While I am still registered as a Republican, I have for many years despised the establishment GOP almost as much as I do the Dems, and for much the same reason -- they do not love America, and they do not see it as Job One to further the true, and long-term, interests of actual Americans over undocumented Democrats.

But, Trump, for all his faults, comes across as someone who really does love America and is working for the interests of Americans, rather than of foreigners.

And that, by the way, was Reagan's "secret" -- he loved America and Americans. He disagreed with the "big thinkers" in both parties that it was America's fate to be overrun by the Marxists (and, as far as most Dems were and still are concerned, that we *deserved* to be).

A Perfect Example

This post -- A Dishonest Church Disguised as a Nation -- is a perfect example of the America-hating "neo-reactionary" fools who populate "The Orthoshpere". And, because they hate America and its foundational principles, some of them even imagine they can ally with "the old left".

They won't allow me to post criticisms on their site of the foolish things they say --

Chesterton said that America was “a nation with the soul of a church” because it was not a natural, historical nation, formed over time by blood and custom, but was a theoretical nation formed around a creed.

This assertion is as false-to-reality as Vox Day's opposite assertion that America is *nothing but* a "natural, historical nation, formed over time by blood and custom".

In truth, America is *both* simultaneously.

The creed of this “nation with the soul of a church” is not the Nicene Creed, which means that this “nation with the soul of a church” is a rival church.

The State is not The Nation, however much a state ultimately reflects the society it rules: the American State has long (longer than any of us have been alive) been co-opted by anti-Christian secularists and leftists (*). But, even now, after more than a century, that is a different matter to what America *is*.

(*) And one of the main reasons they are able to do this is because most Americans just aren't that interested in running the lives of other people ... and so, those aberrant individuals who do have that interest face less competition in the public/political sphere than one could wish.

And it is not in any honest sense of the word a nation, since confessing the same creed is not at all the same thing as descending from the same forefathers. The phrase “creedal nation” is a blatant oxymoron, because to say that a nation is a church is as asinine as to say that a baby is a Bible.

So, is that very Bible to which J.M.Smith refers also blatantly oxymoronic in referring to the totality of Christians, confessing the same creed, as a "nation" and a "holy nation" on the basis of that common confession of allegiance to one Lord?

Compare and Contrast

The Telegraph: [Girl] Guides allows boys who identify as female to shower with girls

The Girl Guides will allow boys [aged up to 25] who identify as female to shower with girls, it has emerged.

The Girl Guides is the UK incarnation of the Girl Scouts.

Girl Scouts Reminder: She Doesn’t Owe Anyone a Hug. Not Even at the Holidays.

Think of it this way, telling your child that she owes someone a hug either just because she hasn’t seen this person in a while or because they gave her a gift can set the stage for her questioning whether she “owes” another person any type of physical affection when they’ve bought her dinner or done something else seemingly nice for her later in life.

If Gentle Reader really thinks that these two stances by these two lesbian-controlled organizations are really all that different -- or that the US Girl Scouts won't soon also be openly putting naked men into the same showers with little girls -- then he has not been paying attention to the world around him.

Eyelessness in Blind Cave Fish is Due to Epigenetics

Cornelius Hunter at Darwin's God: Blindness in Cave Fish is Due to Epigenetics

I have long wondered whether this were the case. Specifically, I phrased the wonderment as: "If Mexican Blind Cave Fish were to be bred for some generations in a lighted environment, would they "spontaneously" "evolve" functional eyes?" So far as I know, no one is even attempting such an experiment. But, if the eyelessness of Mexican Blind Cave Fish is indeed controlled by epigenetic factors, as the recent paper purports to show, then the answer to my question is "Yes".

Post-Modern Science: The Illusion of Consciousness Sees Through Itself

Denyse O'Leary: Post-Modern Science: The Illusion of Consciousness Sees Through Itself

...
Naturalist philosopher Patricia Churchland puts the proposition most starkly: Evolution selects for survival and “Truth, whatever that is, definitely takes the hindmost.”

“Truth, whatever that is”? One sees into the soul of post-modern science here.
...
Gobry [previously quoted concerning the self-evident absurdity of the Naturalists' "consciousness is an illusion" assertion] seems not to grasp that absurdity is no longer an issue. We are animals and animals are never absurd; they live and then they die.

Similarly, literary critic Leon Wieseltier [echoing Darwin (*), whether or not he realizes it] writes, “If reason is a product of natural selection, then how much confidence can we have in a rational argument for natural selection? … Evolutionary biology cannot invoke the power of reason even as it destroys it.” Yes, it can. The power invoked is not reason but the rhetoric of reason, a weapon for those who do not believe in the concept against those who do.

(*) This is referred to as "Darwin's Doubt"

“But then with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind? [To William Graham 3 July 1881]”

“But then arises the doubt, can the mind of man, which has, as I fully believe been developed from a mind as low as that possessed by the lowest animal, be trusted when it draws such grand conclusions?”

And -- just as his disciples today -- he didn't let the knowledge that his programme logically entails the denial that we even can reason truly/soundly and acquire real/true knowledge get in his way.

"I always think I am right, but I don’t think I am always right"

Exactly.

Douglas Wilson: "interviewing" himself --

Me: A critic might say that you always think you’re right. You leave no room for discussion, no room for the possibility that you might be wrong.

Me: It is true that I always think I’m right. But I don’t think I am always right.

Me: Come again?

Me: Thinking you are right is the same thing as thinking. Everyone does it. Stepping back and looking at the sum total of your thoughts, of course it would be folly not to see that you have been guilty of mistakes and errors. But while you are thinking at all, you are thinking you are right. So that is why I say I always think I am right, but I don’t think I am always right.

Me: But isn’t that arrogant?

Me: The curious thing is that out of all the people I have met who think so (and I have met a number of them), they think so. And they think they’re right. No one ever came to me in a spirit of rebuke, but with the prefatory proviso that they might be the arrogant one and I might be the innocent baaa lamb. Furthermore, I don’t ask them to. But I do find it curious that they ask me to. And so it is that I conclude, 9 times out of 10, that the goal is not to admonish and edify me, but rather to steer me.

The "arrogance" charge is almost always cynical intellectual dishonesty meant to play on the emotions of the easily-steered. It is an attempt to convince others (i.e. the easily-steered) that the view or conclusion the accuser detests is false, by the mere allegation that it is false, without making any *effort* to demonstrate *any* error.

Party Differences

It used to be said in the 1950s by snobbish "anti-snobs" that the Episcopalian Church was "the Republican Party at prayer".

In similar vein, the KKK was "the Democratic Party in conclave".

What it's about

Americans of Southern extraction are the single-most patriotic group in America. This is true whether their ancestors were Confederates, or, like mine, Unionists.

The leftist push to obliterate the Confederate past -- the American past -- is not about "fighting" slavery or "racism" or any of the other things the leftists claim; it is about asserting the leftist conquest of America. It is about marking America as conquered territory. It is about forcing the American people to acknowledge that they are a conquered people.

So far, our leaders and the public faces of conservatism have been quite OK with this, which rather calls into question whether they are *our* leaders and just how "conservative" they really are.

Ultimately, it will come down to this question: Do the American People agree that we are a conquered people?

=========
The target of these leftists is not the Confederacy, it is the USA.

This is your socialized medicine

I'm looking at *you* B.Prokop and Victor Reppert.

Wesley Smith at LifeNews.com: Netherlands and Belgium are Euthanizing Mentally Ill Patients and Harvesting Their Organs

There is *always* a "god of the system" ... and that god will be served. If the "god of the system" isn't the Living God, the God who created men, the God who sustains the lives of men, it will be a god created by men, a god which devours the lives of men.

Coming Soon to a Christian Music Festival Near You

Jihad Watch: UK: Christian festival to feature Islamic worship chants

How marvelously broad-minded! Pope Francis [along with the muckity-mucks of the Church of England] would be thrilled! But once again we see that this kind of gesture of good will is all one-way. When is the Islamic festival featuring Christian liturgical chant? Why, the very idea would be absurd, of course. ...

Christian worshippers at this year’s Greenbelt Festival will have the opportunity to learn Islamic worship chants – thanks to an organisation which says its primary aim is to ‘guide seekers of Allah’.

Compare and Contrast

William Vallicella (2017/08/03): Reliably Inconclusive

Such is philosophical argumentation. Philosophers arrive at conclusions, but the conclusions they arrive at are inconclusive.

If the "conclusions" at which "philosophers" arrive are (always-or-generally) inconclusive, then philosophy is worthless.

On the other hand, if what he really means -- and he does (in part) -- is that no matter how "conclusively" one establishes a conclusion, it is always possible for a free being to ignore-and-deny the logical necessity-given-the-premises of the conclusion; that is a free being may assert the premise(s) and yet deny the logical entailment(s) of the very premise(s) he has asserted; or, to use other words: to lie to himself.

As I've said before, Vallicella's problem is that (in almost all cases where it matters) he care more for the chin-wagging side of "philosophy" than he does of logical/rational task of determining/discovering what is true-and-may-be-known-to-be-true. This flaw is most obvious as regards "the God question" -- he's a "theist" who *hates* (and thus denies) the fact that we can know, without recourse to the Biblical Revelation (or any other alleged divine-revelation), using only the application of reason to experience, that there is a Creator-God (that is, that atheism is a false understanding of reality and the nature thereof).


William Vallicella (2017/08/04): A Neurosurgeon on the Immateriality of Thought

Michael Egnor, A Map of the Soul. Not philosophically sophisticated, but worth a look.

Given Vallicella's witticism of just one day prior, who gives a damn that he holds Mr Egnor's piece to be not "philosophically sophisticated"?

Rights or Commodities?

Steven Crowder: On Rights vs Commodities (from the 17:36 mark) -- This is a good demonstration and explanation of how leftists intentionally hijack and make meaningless the term 'rights' ... and seek thereby to secure your willful cooperation in the theft and destruction of your own rights.

Hitler was a Leftist

John Jay Ray: Hitler was a Leftist (this link is to the index page)


Homosexuality in the Nazi Party (this link discusses that favoréd canard of "gay" "rights" activists that if one disapproves of homosexual behavior, then one is Just Like Teh Nazis!)

Mohammedan, not “Muslim”

JMSmith at The Orthosphere: Mohammedan, not “Muslim”

My response (which will never see the light of day over there, because most of the "orthosphereans" are cowards who cannot stand up to *any* criticism ) --

I refuse to call them 'Muslims' because that's what the Kool Kids insist we must say (*). I grew up calling them 'Moslems', while being aware of and understanding 'Mohammedan'.

Moreover, it is *claimed* that 'Moslem', when prononced as we English-speakers pronounce the word, is an insult to the precious-and-delicate sensibilities of the Muzzies (albeit the truth).

For instance, according to this page on History News Network:

According to the Center for Nonproliferation Studies,"Moslem and Muslim are basically two different spellings for the same word." But the seemingly arbitrary choice of spellings is a sensitive subject for many followers of Islam. Whereas for most English speakers, the two words are synonymous in meaning, the Arabic roots of the two words are very different. A Muslim in Arabic means"one who gives himself to God," and is by definition, someone who adheres to Islam. By contrast, a Moslem in Arabic means"one who is evil and unjust" when the word is pronounced, as it is in English, Mozlem with a z.

So, I'm all for calling them either 'Moslems' or 'Mohammedans' (or, for that matter, 'Muzzies').


But, getting back to the argument of the OP; it sounds persuasive, but does it hold up in other situations? Does it even hold up internally?

Other situations --
Suppose there is some tribe which call themselves, as many peoples do, a term that in their language means "The Human Beings", implying that they *alone* are real human beings. And suppose that there is another tribe, historical mortal enemies to the former, who call the former a term that in *latter's* language means "Shit-Eating Snakes". And now suppose that we English-speakers make contact first with the second tribe and from them learn of the first tribe ... and learn-and-adapt the second tribe's name for the first. Now, further suppose that fifty years later, our leftist Special Juicebox Wankers are having continual snits because we always refer to the first tribe as "Shit-Eating Snakes" rather than as "The Human Beings". What is a sane and moral man to do? Nothing! We are speaking English, and in English the second tribe's name for the first tribe is just a noise with no inherent meaning; that is, we are *not* calling them "Shit-Eating Snakes". Moreover, *refusing* to bow to the demands of leftist Special Juicebox Wankers is a moral good in itself.

The point bring that in English 'Islam' does not mean "Submission to God", and 'Moslem/Muslim' does not mean "One who submits to God". In English, those sounds merely signify a particular social-political-religious ideology and its adherents.

So, the reason for us English speakers to refuse to call them 'Muslims', rather tham 'Moslems' or 'Mohammedans', is not because doing so implies that their religion is The One True Religion, but rather because they, and our internal enemies (i.e. the leftists), insist that me must.


Internally --
The OP's argument depends upon the premise that 'Allah' *is* God, and thus that 'Mohammedans' *are* "monotheists" (**). I reject the premise and its implication.


(*) In similar wise to how when they refer to a Mexican by name, they pretend suddenly to have morphed into a Castillian.

(**) For that matter, I object to being called a "monotheist", as though Christianity (and Judaism) were on the same continuum as classical Greco-Roman paganism or present-day Hindu paganism.

==========
Edit:
Here is another point in favor of calling them 'Mohammedans' -- Mohammad looms larger in the daily life of not-even-particularly-devout Moslems than Christ does in the daily life of even the most saintly-and-devout Christian.

Consider --

If a saintly-and-devout Christian announced that she (*) were going to make it her life's work to determine how Christ took his bowel movements, so that all saintly-and-devout Christians may do likewise, what would the rest of us say to her (*)? We'd say, "You aren't saintly-and-devout, you're insane!"

But, to the 'Mohammedans', it is a very important matter -- sometimes even a life-and-death question -- to know how Mohammad took his bowel movements, and to do likewise.

(*) I am, of course, mocking those fools who, vainly imagining it is even possible to appease the Kool Kids, deliberately use 'she' when English demands 'he'.

This might explain

... someone's famous touchiness about his status as a war hero -- Edward Szall / TruNews.com John McCain’s 1969 “Tokyo Rose” Propaganda Recording Released

McCain has been dining out for 40 years on his status as the iconic war hero -- "How *dare* criticize my constant abandonment of Republican Party principles (such as they are) and my continual dereliction of my duty to the interests of America and of Americans, both for the purposes of 'bipartisanship' with people who hate America and despise Americans! Don't you know that I'm Teh War Hero™ ?"

To paraphrase President Trump: "I prefer my war-heros to not make enemy propaganda."

Collusion!

In the post Burn in Hell, commie pinko!, I had linked to an article from The Federalist discussing Ted Kennedy's courting of the Soviets to destabilize (sitting) President Reagan's foreign policy so as to help Kennedy's electoral challenge to Reagan in 1984 (*).

Turns out, Kennedy had *also* tried to pull the same trick against (sitting) President Carter in 1980 (**) -- DailyWire: 5 Times Democrats Tried To Work With The Russians [and Soviets] To Swing Elections

(*) As did (Democrat) Speaker of the House "Tip" O'Neill that same election cycle.

(**) Amusingly, that same year, President "Carter tried to work with the Soviets during the 1980 election to improve his chances against [challenger] Ronald Reagan."

What's a poor Soviet dictator to do when his "useful idiots" act like such useless idiots?

===========
There are *reasons* that the Partisans of the Ass are rightly called "the Party of Treason".

Atheism and Infanticide

Shadow to Light: Atheism and Infanticide

Shadow to Light: “As Coyne’s reasoning makes clear, the legalization and normalization of abortion has provided the slippery slope toward infanticide. I can’t be sure, but I bet if you look at the arguments of those opposed to legalizing abortion back in the 1960s and 70s, you’d find people warning about this exact development and you’d find such warnings being dismissed.”

Ilíon: I can be sure, I remember it. And it wasn’t just in the 60s and 70s. I wasn’t really aware of the abortion regime until about 1980 … and at least into the 1990s, if not into this century, the pro-abortionists were pooh-poohing the argument not only that that “the legalization and normalization of abortion has provided the slippery slope toward infanticide”, but that it *must* lead to infanticide.

At some point in the very recent past, the pro-abortionists totally switched it up — whereas previously they had pooh-poohed the argument that “the legalization and normalization of abortion has provided the slippery slope toward infanticide”, they began to actively argue that *since* there is no moral difference between a pre-birth human being and a born human infant and *since* the killing of a pre-birth human being is legal, that *therefore* the killing of a born human infant must also be legalized.

You know, exactly as we anti-abortionists had argued they eventually would and must.

Here is an exchange from Facebook occasioned by the post at Shadow to Light --

Ian Bibby: The "Slippery Slope Fallacy" - the one "fallacy" that somehow results in correct predictions 100% of the time.


Bradley Nartowt: Strictly speaking, the slippery slope States that A does not mandate B as a consequence.

Often, people will misuse this and think "because slippery slope, if A, then B is prohibited." Which, of course, is nonsense.


Ilíon: There is also a Slippery Slope which can be stated as "He who says 'A' must say 'B'", and that's the one that the people who want 'A' and don't really object to 'B' always pooh-pooh.

"He who says 'A' must say 'B'" -- that is, given that 'A' entails 'B', if someone asserts 'A', then ultimately he will assert 'B'.

Here, 'A" is abortion (because that is the moral outrage that our society accepted first), and 'B' can be either euthanasia or infanticide. Here, the Slippery Slope does indeed apply. As Ian said, "he "Slippery Slope Fallacy" - the one "fallacy" that somehow results in correct predictions 100% of the time." The Slippery Slope applies becasue the same *premise* that justifies any one of euthanasia or infanticide or abortion -- denial of the Imago Dei, and thus denial that all persons possess the inalienable right to life -- also justifies all of the others.

On Capital Punisment

Edward Feser and Joseph Bessette have new book on capital punishment. Edward Feser links to a review of it: Briggs on By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed

My comment --

All societies have the obligation to deliver justice to their members, and also to non-members who are presently within the ambit or jurisdiction of the society. No society has such an obligation toward persons who are not members of the society *and* who are outside its ambit or jurisdiction.

To *refuse* to execute the murderer -- to *refuse* to deliver justice to her (*) victim(s) -- is to give the murderer to power to declare, by the act of the murder, that justice for the victim(s) is not the responsibility of the society. That is, it is to declare that murdered persons were not *really* members of our society and were not really within the ambit or jurisdiction of our society.

Thus, blanket opposition to capital punishment is profoundly immoral. A society which refuses, as a matter of "principle", ever to execute anyone whom justice demands be executed, is a society that is profoundly unjust and immoral; such a society will inevitably *create* broad swathes of injustice.



(*) in case it's not clear, I used the grammatically incorrect "she" to mock the idiots who do it to promote "gender inclusive" leftist bullshit.

Posterity!

The breathtakingly intellectually dishonest 'Vox Day' -- who, by his own (ahem) reasoning, is not actually an American; and who thus, again by his own (ahem) reasoning, has no right to express any opinions about what American is or is not; ... and who, moreover, has abandoned America many years ago -- has recently been on a kick trying to assert that the "Posterity" to whom the Preamble (*) of the US Constitution refers can *only* be persons who are the direct, genetic, biological descendants of those persons who were US citizens at the time of adoption of the Constitution. (See here for a recent example.)

Oddly enough, that very document -- which, seemingly, no one ever reads -- makes explicit provision for foreigners to be incorporated into the body of "We the People of the United States". Apparently, the Framers of the Constitution, and the citizens who ratified it, were too ignorant, or too stupid, to understand that "our Posterity" cannot ever include anyone who is not a direct, genetic, biological descendant of themselves.


Being myself a direct, genetic, biological descendant of persons who were US citizens in 1787, and moreover whose white ancestors have been on this continent almost from the beginning of English settlement, I would like to propose that 'Vox Day' dry up and blow away.

(*) "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Coming Soon to a Street Near You

Jihad Watch: German court: Sharia police may patrol streets

=========
Edit 2017/07/22:

The following links are listed in chronological order --

Jihad Watch: Minneapolis: Muslim cop who shot woman in cold blood had three complaints against him --

We don’t have any indication at this point of why Mohamed Noor killed Justine Damond. There is no evidence now that he is a jihadi or that this was a jihad attack. But with three complaints against him in two years, he seems at very least to be dangerously reckless and/or incompetent. His presence on the force appears to be a manifestation of the general anxiety to avoid charges of “Islamophobia”: Minneapolis officials were so anxious to have a Somali Muslim police officer that they put Mohamed Noor on the force and kept him there when his obvious shortcomings would have had a non-Muslim officer fired or not hired in the first place.

Remember the fact of those three complaints in two years in light of a claim advanced below by the Chief-of-Police of Minneapolis (while also keeping in mind that bogus complaints against police officers are very common).

Also, think about this --

The police officer who shot and killed an unarmed Australian woman in mysterious circumstances after she called 911 to report a disturbance behind her upscale Minneapolis home has been identified.

Mohamed Noor, who joined the department in March 2015, reached over and shot Justine Damond, 40, multiple times from the passenger seat of his squad car while she spoke to his colleague on the drivers side in a back alley.

Both officer’s bodycams were off and the squad car camera not recording when Damond – who was in her pyjamas – was killed ...

Jihad Watch: Washington Post: After Muslim cop shoots unarmed woman, Muslims “brace for backlash”

Jihad Watch: Minneapolis: Muslim cop who shot unarmed woman refuses to be interviewed by investigators

Jihad Watch: Muslim cop tells friends, not investigators, he was “startled” by unarmed woman he killed

Jihad Watch: Neighbor of Muslim cop who killed unarmed woman says killer is “nervous…jumpy…has little respect for women”

Jihad Watch: After Muslim cop kills unarmed woman, Minneapolis mayor reassures Muslims, warns against “Islamophobia”

Jihad Watch: Muslim cop who shot unarmed woman says he was “startled” by loud noise, but no nearby residents heard it

I dare say he *was* "startled" by a loud noise ... his gun ... which, apparently, he already had drawn and pointed.

Jihad Watch: Minneapolis police chief: Muslim cop who killed unarmed woman “very suited to be on the street”

Jihad Watch: Lawyers for Muslim cop who killed unarmed woman call for autopsy to see if victim was on Ambien -- "Like so many Muslims before him, it looks as if Mohamed Noor has opted to defend himself by blaming the victim."

The Baby Must Die!

... so that Socialized/Nationalized Medicine may live! For, after all, it wouldn't be "fair" if The State were to get the hell out of the way and allow his parents try to save his life outside the auspices of the government bureaucrats.

THIS is the sort of situation and outcome that socialized medicine *must* generate. For, after all, tax monies and resources spent caring for this child is tax monies and resources that cannot be spent sexually mutilating some other little boy so as to gratify his mother's trendy Munchausen-by-proxy pretense that he is really a girl.

AT THE SAME TIME, once The State has swallowed "the healthcare system", it simply cannot allow anyone to use private means to escape its clutches.


Think about this.

If this case were an insurance company's bureaucrats refusing to pay for the experimental care these parents seek, advocates of socialized medicine (*) would be outraged ... or at least, would be pretending to be outraged ... at the "injustice" of it all. This would be, according to them, the "proof" that we need to empower government bureaucrats to decide what medical care we can and cannot receive -- and even what medical care we can and cannot seek independently of them.

BUT, when was the last time that an insurance company's bureaucrats used the threat of force and violence-unto-death to prevent anyone from using monies raised independently of the insurance company to seek a treatment that the insurance company's bureaucrats had decided to decline to pay for?




(*) And I *am* looking at you, B.Prokop and Victor Reppert.


===================
Here is Donald Sensing discussing this case, with further information on the continued barbarity of the NHS bureaucrats -- Single Payer Death Panels are Real


===================
Update 2017/07/07: Breitbart: ‘Charlie’s Army’ Call on Lawmakers to Save Charlie Gard Outside Westminster --

Charlie has a very rare mitochondrial disease called infantile onset encephalomyopathic mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome, or MDDS, with only a handful of sufferers worldwide.

Mitchondria are the machines inside cells that supply the energy for the cell to perform its functions. The Wickedpedia says that MDDS "is any of a group of autosomal recessive disorders that cause a significant drop in mitochondrial DNA in affected tissues." Thus, absent an effective treatment, Charlie Gard will surely die young.

Charlie’s parents, Chris Gard and Connie Yates, want to bring Charlie to the U.S., where a specialist is willing to offer him an experimental treatment called nucleoside bypass therapy. They have raised £1.3 million to pay for Charlie’s treatment and transportation themselves through an online appeal.

Doctors, however, are determined to block the trip and ensure that Charlie’s life support should be withdrawn. They have kept him in the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children for months whilst fighting Charlie’s parents in the High Court, Court of Appeal, Supreme Court, and even the European Court of Human Rights for permission to withdraw his life support without their consent.

The "doctors" have been fighting the efforts of Charlie Gard's parents for months!

The parents of the first child to receive the U.S. treatment, Arturito Estopinan, have expressed shock at the attitude of the British doctors.

“We feel very fortunate to be American and not British – because if we lived in the UK Arturito would surely be dead by now,” they said.

“We are beyond shocked that doctors in the UK are saying Charlie should ‘die with dignity’.

“How insensitive when there is a treatment which could save Charlie’s life and eminent doctors in the US who are willing to help him.”

Apparently, the experimental procedure may help Charlie Gard ... and the bureaucrats of the NHS have been engaging in a turf-war, with little Charlie Gard's death being the prize they seek, for months.

Appreciating the Dems

I think that we conservatives ought to work harder to appreciate the Partisans of the Ass ... and their leftist puppet-masters ... for they perform a vital function in this ever-changing modern world: they supply consistency. Oh, sure, what they say today may contradict what they said yesterday, and almost certainly will contradict what they said the day before yesterday. And, sure, the "crisis" over which they are hyperventilating may change, and almost daily (as what does not?); but, whatever the "crisis" -- even if they have to manufacture it themselves (*) -- we can rest assured, and indeed take comfort in the fact, that the "solution" will never change: give the leftists life-and-death power over our lives and then everything will be fine. And for that consistency, we should appreciate them; for, after all, what other human endeavor has been this rock-solid over two and a half centuries?

(*) economic humor of the day -- Leftists have (both absolute and) comparative advantage in the manufacture of two staple commodities: crises and corpses.

About the Dems' 'Trump is Caesar' Murder Porn

An amusing thing about the Democrats' "Trump is Caesar" murder porn is that Caesar was of the party of the 'Populares', rather than of the 'Optimates'. That is, according to the Democratic Party's own self-serving mythology about itself, Caesar was one of them!

Stupid Leftists Tricks II

Stupid Leftists Tricks II, Or ... so why is your fist still in my pocket?

One of the favorite stupid tricks of leftists is to assert the existence of imaginary "rights" ... which generally seem to cash-out as the assertion of ownership of other people's cash. Which is to say, the non-existent "rights" that leftists assert are really assertions of ownership of other people; for to claim ownership-by-right to the fruit of another man's labor just is to assert ownership of the man himself. In case you're still not getting it, this means *you* -- when leftists assert these non-existent "rights", they are generally asserting that they, as the self-designated spokesmen for some collective or other, own you, as an individual (*).

This is an easy way to tell that an assertion of some novel right is bullocks -- if the asserted novel right denigrates someone else's actually existing rights, then there is no such right. Consider, for example, the so-called "woman's right to choose", which is to say, the assertion that a woman has the right to procure an abortion for any reason or no reason at any point in her pregnancy. There are a number of actual rights denegrated by this non-right; the major one being, of course, the right of the pre-born child to not be murdered.


(*) Among other things, this claim of ownership of other people in the name of some collective is one way that you can tell that the so-called "alt-right" advocated by the remarkably dishonest 'Vox Day' is really just another flavor of leftism. His "alt-right" is an "alternative" to the right because it is not rightist.

===============================
So, let us consider Victor Reppert's recent leftism-based attempts to claim having a "right" to "free" health care and/or health insurance. See here for background, including why it is that he is no longer merely a "liberal", as we misuse that term in America, but has graduated to open support of leftism. Understand, I am not saying that he has graduated to the ranks of the puppet-masters; no, he is still as much (in Lenin's memorable phrase) the "useful idiot" as ever, dancing as the string-jerks dictate. But he has stopped objecting to the strings because ... "free" shit!

As I said before, as best I can tell, the following is his response to what I wrote at the above link --

Here is the problem. Not even conservatives want to say that people should be able to keep all they earn. Money for defense in necessary. It it taken from people in exactly the same way that money for Medicare or socialized medicine is taken, through taxation.

The military protects me from ISIS. Medicine protects me from cancer. No conservative ever complains about a socialized military. They all complain about socialized medicine. Why? Protection is protection.

Taking is Taking, Part I
First, note that the "problem" of the first two sentences doesn't even exist; it has been invented by conflating unlike things, namely, limited-and-specific taxation of everyone so as to fund a necessary common/public good, on the one hand, and unlimited-and-nonspecific taxation of *some* (politically disfavored) persons so as to redistribute the monies to other (politically favored) private parties, on the other hand.

Protecting is Protecting, Part I
I could *swear* that I had already dealt with this "protection from ISIS" ploy in my previous post ... along with noting that Mr Reppert's leftist puppet-masters work overtime to make that particular governmental duty, along with "protection from criminals", more difficult for the various appropriate levels of government to acheive.

Note, not only are "protection from ISIS" and "protection from criminals" governmental duties, and not only are these actions two instances or aspects of the same duty of government, but this duty is the primary duty of government. And the primary duty of government (*) -- the duty that legitimizes a government (**) -- is not some vague all-purpose "protection" of those it rules, but rather that it enact justice on their behalf, so that they don't have to enact vengence, which begets vendetta.

It is unjust for ISIS to maim or murder Mr Reppert. It is unjust for Joe Schmoe to rob or maim or murder Mr Reppert. AND, it is unjust for Mr Reppert to assert that *he* is owed any of the wealth already owned or newly-created by Joe Schmoe.

But, notice also, that "protection from ISIS" and "protection from criminals" are societal goods; they do not accrue to any particular individual, but to all of us, corporately. Even imprisoning the specific criminal who bopped Mr Reppert is not about "protecting" Mr Reppert specifically; it is about justice-in-society. If it "protects" Mr Reppert, well and fine, for he, too, is a member of the society ruled by this government.

Notice also, that "protection from ISIS" and "protection from criminals" are directed against identifiable actors or agents, not against vague non-entities such as "terrorism" or "cancer".


(*) Leftists *hate* justice; this is why they work over-time to increase injustice in the world, whether by coddling criminals and encouraging crime, whether by crippling the military and encouraging foreign or terrorist attacks, or whether by teaching the people to assert ownership of their fellow subjects.

(**) A government that cannot -- or *will not* -- deliver justice for those it rules is illegitimate, and will not long endure.

Protecting is Protecting, Part II
As mentioned above, the primary duty of legitimate government is to enact justice on behalf of the people it rules; or, to put it another way, the primary duty of legitimate government is to exact vengence and retribution against those who unjustly use its subjects.

It is impossible for any government to "protect" is subjects, that is, to always prevent injustices against them before the injustice occurs. Even a police state cannot do that ... and none of us (except the lefties) want to live in a police state in any event. Hence, since direct "protection" of its subjects is impossible, we have no choice but to settle for after-the-fact indirect "protection" via the exacting of vengence and retribution against the evil-doers.

Taking is Taking, Part II
I trust Gentle Reader recalls the infamous and anti-Constitutional Kelo decision, in which the "liberal" members of the US supreme Court turned the Constitution's "takings clause" on its head, so as to justify governmental confiscation of one person's property for the purpose of giving it to another person.

The very same "principle" animates Mr Reppert's demand that monies be confiscated from you and me and given to him (whether directly or indirectly via subsidies).

It is a perennial sin of mankind to attempt to live off the sweat of another man's brow -- and it is a perennial sin of leftists to stand that statement on its head as they attempt to paint their covetous envy with the colors of righteousness, and thereby "justify" their own desire to live off the sweat of another man's brow.

Slavery is slavery ... even when you vote on it and call it "fairness".


Rights vs "Rights"

[to be continued]

So, why is your fist still in my pocket?

Grrr ... age!

So, several days ago I *finally* tried to park (*) my truck in the garage I've been working on for the past couple of summers (**) ... and the garage is too short. If I touch the back wall with the front bumper, there is still just a bit too much truck to allow the door to descend.

Here is how that came to be.

When I laid out the dimensions (20 years ago), I based it on the old double garage on the property. Also, I didn’t have a truck at the time. Then, the backhoe I’d hired to excavate broke down before the guy had finished digging the hole, so I ended up finishing it with a shovel … and I expect that at some too-early point I convinced myself that “that’ll do”.

I have decided to bump out the front of the garage by 4 feet. Once the construction is done, I’ll have to uninstall and reinstall the doors (***). Yesterday, I mixed and poured 1/2 the concrete I’ll need for this extension. Thank goodness I bought that cement mixer all those years ago (****)



(*) What with both stalls being used to store building materials and there being no driveway surface to the one side, I just hadn’t tried to put the truck inside.

(**) Or longer, if you take into account that I built the foundation about 20 years ago.

(***) Uggh! It took me a full day to install each one of them. Fortunately for me, when I framed the garage, I hadn't yet decided whether to use 7' tall doors or 8' tall doors, so I made the openings tall and then filled them in after I bought the 7' tall doors. So, I won't have to change any *structure* to allow the doors to lift into the space that is currently exterior wall.

(****) As I recall, I hauled it home on a Fiero.


=========
Edit (2017/05/11):

The photo shows my progress as of yesterday extending the garage (click the image to see a larger view).

The extended foundation is in (or course!) and the walls and ceiling are framed. A stringer to support extending that little porch has been attached to the foundation.

I plan to extend that porch over to the new corner of the garage, with the extended deck being a step down from the existing deck, and with a door in the corner of the garage opening onto the porch. This is the northwest corner; I may put another door at the northeast corner. I mean, it's only money, right?

Now, the tricky part will be tying the roof of the new construction into the existing porch roof to make it look as though I had planned it all that way.


=========
Edit (2017/05/16):
Keeping the Pioneer Spirit alive --

The stump of a sapling I'd cut last fall was right where the corner of the porch extension needed to be. So, in the spirit of my pioneer ancestors, I used it to support the deck as I framed it. I did later cut it out and put in something more permanent and rot-resistant.


=========
Edit (2017/05/25):
Kill it! Kill it with fire! --

A couple of nights ago, I noticed that I'd left a work-light on in the apartment addition. So, in my jammies and bare feet, I trudged -- the trip is about half a mile, I think -- down the stairs from my bedroom, through the front hall and foyer, through the "library" (the north side of the unfinished "great room" addition), through the passageway (between the "great room" addition and the garage/apartment), up the stairs to the apartment, and disconnected the light.

I *almost* didn't turn on the light before going up to the apartment. Thankfully, I did ... else I'd have met this charming fellow with my foot --

I don't mind telling you, I didn't much care for his attitude at all. He was all, "What you gon' do 'bout it?" But, since he was about the size of a dinner plate, or at least a half dollar piece, I skipped that step and prayed he wouldn't jump up to prey on me.

And, as I have the picture, you can see that he was so unconcerned by me that waited for me to go back and get the camera -- recall, it's about a half mile trek -- and return to take his portrait.

Amusing Contrast

Scott Adams (2017/04/20): Big Red Flag for Cognitive Dissonance

Scott Adams (2017/04/19): You Don’t Have Free Will – but You Might Get It Someday

There *is* no such thing as 'cognitive dissonance' were it really true that "You Don’t Have [as people say (*)] Free Will". Moreover, if "You Don’t Have Free Will" now, then you never will "get" it in the future.


(*) To say that we "have" free will is to use sloppy language, however common it is. The truth is that we *are* free wills; our "free will" is not something we can gain or lose, as though it were a cold or a foot.

A New Kind of New

Douglas Wilson: A New Kind of New

The Illusion Delusion

I'd like to share with Gentle Reader a comment/explanation from Kristor at The Orthosphere --

winstonscrooge - "Perhaps consciousness is the universal and the you of waking is an egoic illusion."

Kristor - "It’s an interesting notion. But all the phenomenal evidence we have – that, by definition, we can possibly have – contradicts it, so …"

winstonscrooge - "What specifically?"

Kristor - "All the evidence we have, without exception, is evidence we are aware of. By definition, we can’t have awareness of evidence that we are not aware of. So we can’t have evidence that the only sort of evidence we can have – the sort we are aware of – is illusory. All the evidence we can possibly have points to the suggestion that our conscious awareness is not illusory."

The "interesting notion" (as Kristor put it), popular amongst God-deniers, in particular, and those who wish to do what they know to be immoral, in general, that our consciousness of ourselves is an illusion is an incoherent notion; it is self-refuting.

IF it were true -- if it even could be true -- that our consciousness of ourselves is an illusion, THEN we could never know it to be true; and we could never truly know it to be even a logical possibility.

Stupid Leftist Tricks, I

I have posted two "Stupid 'Atheist' Tricks" posts. I had started to compose others but never completed them; considering how many hits the two I did complete and post still get, I probably ought to have posted more.

This is a similar post, but it's the inaugural "Stupid Leftist Tricks" post.

Recently, Victor Reppert posted this -- Islamophobia

This is a description of Islamophobia. As I see it, terms like this have a proper use, but people who like to use such terms this develop them into a blanket criticism (and even marginalization) of any critics of Islam or Muslims.

That's bad enough -- for it is utterly not true that "Islamophobia" or the other such terms that leftists like to toss at people who disagree with their plans for destroying the West and America "have a proper use" (*) -- but that's not yet the "Stupid Leftist Trick" this post is about.

'Legion of Logic' responded --

It's no different than any other label the progressive - sorry, regressive - left throws at people who disagree with them. Racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, "transphobic"...all have definitions and criteria, but the vast majority of accusations of such are baseless and therefore the terms are all but useless.

And, right on queue, here comes the "Stupid Leftist Trick". You can always count on the functionally illiterate, proudly ignorant, leftist anti-Christian Joe Hinman to shill today's leftist party line --

Do you know Muslims? Do you believe any given Muslim is secretly supporting the terrorists?tell me this if it is fair to call the kind of Terrorists we are afraid of frm middle east"Islamic radicals then why is not fair to call KKK "Christian radicals" Or speak of "radical Christian terrorism"?

Do you know how many lynchings of blacks for being black there were in the U.S.? Most of those people doing the lynching called themselves Christians and went to church.

will you make exceptions by saying"but they have doctrinal problems and aren't really christian." That what Muslims say about the Terrorists,.

Notice first that this shrill shilling has nothing whatsoever to do with what 'Legion of Logic' said ... well, other than precisely to illustrate his point. For, how does the lying leftist fool start out? He starts out by labeling 'Legion of Logic' an "Islamophobe"!

And while it *is* a "Stupid Leftist' Trick", and a very popular one with leftists at that (**), to "prove" that a person who speaks a truth which you (being a leftist) want to keep under wraps is "wrong" by personally illustrating that he is right, this is not yet the "Stupid Leftist Trick" to which I wish to direct Gentle Reader's attention.

Consider what 'radical' means --

adjective
1) (especially of change or action) relating to or affecting the fundamental nature of something; far-reaching or thorough.
2) advocating or based on thorough or complete political or social change; representing or supporting an extreme or progressive section of a political party.
3) relating to the root of something, in particular.
4) very good; excellent.

Definition #3 is *actually* the basic/root -- the 'radical' -- meaning of the word.

So, Billy Graham and Mother Teresa are/were contemporary 'radical' Christians. Martin Luther and even John Knox, wrong though he was on some key issues, were 'radical' Christians.

And, in the very same way, "radical Islamic extremists/terrorists" are 'radical' Moslems. They *are* the "Islamic Reformation" that willfully ignorant people hope will magically arise and tame Islam so as to enable Moslems to live in peace with the rest of humanity.

However, the paramilitary arm of the Democratic Party, aside from being now defunct, were not Christian in any sense. You know, just like the bloody-minded leftist shill, Joe Hinman, is not.


(*) Hmmmm ... well, other than to identify people who *use* those terms as being "the enemy".

(**) Similarly popular with leftists, as with 'atheists', is the Stupid Trick I initially mentioned in passing: "refuting" the heretic by spewing a word-salad which has nothing to do with what he said.

Doubling Down

As best I can tell, this is Victor Reppert's response to my previous eviseration of his "argument" for why it is that he is *owed* "free" health insurance --

Here is the problem. Not even conservatives want to say that people should be able to keep all they earn. Money for defense in necessary. It it taken from people in exactly the same way that money for Medicare or socialized medicine is taken, through taxation.

The military protects me from ISIS. Medicine protects me from cancer. No conservative ever complains about a socialized military. They all complain about socialized medicine. Why? Protection is protection.

I'll blow this out of the water later; in the meantime, do bask in the Deep Thinks.

'House of Dumb'

Periodically, I like to see where the people (or browsers) who happen to arrive at my blog came from. I just noticed a reference to a "House of Dumb" blog (the content indicates Britain, the URL indicates France). I gamely popped over (just to see what it is). I said "gamely" because I expected it to be one of the trolls, with whom I am all too familiar, who like to misrepresent, that is, lie about, the arguments I make. But, it wasn't, and I have added it to my blog-roll.

Coming soon to a BLT near you

Jihad Watch: Sweden: Man charged with assault for eating bacon too close to Muslim Moslem women

Sad little echo chamber, II

Dalrock: An eyewitness account of WACF (note: WACF stands for the Victorian/Edwardian romanticized-and-sentimental "women and children first" ideal)

Dalrock *can* make sense ... but, ultimately, he is as bad as the majority of his commentors. And, after all, they behave *just like leftists do* because he encourages such unthinking hive-mind behavior.

Someone calling himself 'SkylerWurden' had tried to inject a bit of sanity into the thread, with a predictable result. I leave it to your own level of interest and patience to read further in the thread to see how the attempt was received.

Here is a comment I attempted to post, and which I doubt will be allowed to see the light of day there --

The majority of you people are no less inimical to the continuation of civilization than the open leftists are. This is because, under examination, we see that (so many of) you are operating on leftist false premises. That is, you *are* leftists, whether or not you yet admit it to yourselves.

If men are not willing to sacrifice themselves for the sake of their society, then that society dies.

If the *young* men are not willing to sacrifice themselves for the sake of their society because the older men have ordered them to do so, then that society dies.

If the women are not willing to sacrifice their narrow immediate interests/desires for the sake of their society because the men have ordered them to do so, then that society dies.

It is mutual trust between its members that makes a society; all three of the above refusals follow from a lack of or spurning of such a trust.


Like 'SkylerWurden', I am neither defending nor condemning WACF; I am rubbing your noses in your own hypocrisy ... and stupidity.

Whether or not WACF was a good idea and policy, that is what the men of that time and society had decided upon. The biggest reason its implimentation during the Titanic sinking upped the death count is because the women refused to obey the men.

One would think that you set, of all people, would have seen that right off.

No man can serve two masters [modified]

For as long as I've known him, Victor Reppert has been a "soft" leftist (*). Recently, he has decided to climb down off the fence he had been stradling (working backward in time --
1) see here
2) and here
3) and here
4) and here
5) and here
6) and here
7) and here ).

In the comment I have numbered #6, VR said:

The following two positions are consistent with one another.

1) Abortion is murder.
2) The Constitution, properly interpreted, makes it unconstitutional to outlaw abortion.

The arguments for 1 are never identical to the arguments against 2. Arguments supporting 1 do not prove that 2 is false. So 1 and 2 are compatible.

I blew that "reasoning" out of the water --

VR, doubling down now that he's off the fence: "The following two positions are consistent with one another."

No, they aren't.

The Constitution says: "No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."

Murder can never be "constitutional"

And, of course (since he's off the fence), he totally ignored that I had shown his "reasoning" to be false, and instead made a new OP based on it.


(*) That is, as we in America misuse the term "liberal" since the "progressives" hijacked it some decades ago after calling themselves "progressive" had become a political liability, for as long as I've know him he has been a "liberal". As such, he could always be counted on to eventually toe the leftist party line, no matter the demand.

========
So, that brings up up-to-date for the subject of this post.

Recently, Mr Reppert quoted Chesterton:

“The free man owns himself. He can damage himself with either eating or drinking; he can ruin himself with gambling. If he does he is certainly a damn fool, and he might possibly be a damned soul; but if he may not, he is not a free man any more than a dog.” Chesterton (1935).

To which I replied:

Is a free man free to keep the wealth he produces and to use it as he sees fit, rather than to have it confiscated by vote-buying politicians?

To which, in that intellectually dishonest way we all cherish about leftists, he replied (in a new OP)

Ilion: Is a free man free to keep the wealth he produces and to use it as he sees fit, rather than to have it confiscated by vote-buying politicians?

VR: Sure! So, let us say that you can afford to defend yourself against ISIS terrorists and dangerous foreign governments. You earned the money to do so, after all. But the bleeding-heart vote-buying politicians who run the government want to confiscate your money so that they can defend not only you, but all those welfare queens in the middle and lower classes, who, after all, only want to be defended against terrorism using other people's money. And why, in the name of Ayn Rand, should they be allowed to do such a thing?

Now that he's off the fence, look for continued (and amped-up) leftist irrationality from Mr Reppert, and also more intellectual dishonesty as displayed in the above "response".

Non-exhaustively --

1) Defense of the people it rules against outside aggression is one of the (few) legitimate actions of *any* government; and, in fact, governments lose legitimacy when they refuse to do so (and, eventually, such governments cease to exist);

2) No one -- except leftists -- denies that it is a legitimate, and indeed necessary function of the US federal government to defend the people it rules against outside aggressors, such as ISIS;

3) And, in fact, Mr Reppert and his fellow leftists are working overtime to make it impossible for the US federal government to perform its few and explicitly enumnerated functions, such as defending the people it rules against outside aggressors, while piling on unsustainable demands that it perform functions what are wholly outside it perview;

4) Ayn Rand? Seriously?


=================
Edit:
Now let's look at this in a bit more depth. First, look again at the Chesterton quote --

“The free man owns himself. He can damage himself with either eating or drinking; he can ruin himself with gambling. If he does he is certainly a damn fool, and he might possibly be a damned soul; but if he may not, he is not a free man any more than a dog.” Chesterton (1935).

What Chesterton is doing is illuminating the very Christian (and "conservative") principle that not all sins can safely be made crimes.

Next, let's pretend that we can't see the blatant intellectual dishonesty in Mr Reppert's pseudo-response to my question concerning how far he's willing to stand by the principle he seemed to approve when he first quoted Chesterton. That is, let's look at what he's *really* saying, which is, by the classic "reasoning" of leftist pseudo-Christianity, to accuse me and all conservatives of being "selfish" and "greedy".

AND, let's pretend that the accusation really is true (*).

SO, the question is: Part #1 Is "greed" or "selfishness" really a sin? Part #2: And if it is a sin, is it one that can with-safety to men's freedom be made a crime; or, is it one of the things best left to God?

Now, the answer to Part #1 is: "No". To be more precise, actual greed is sinful; but leftists aren't referring to actual greed when they accuse others of being "greedy".

And the answer to Part #2 is: again, "No". If we were talking about actual greed, it is a sin that cannot safely be made criminal, and so it must be left to God. MOREOVER, as we are talking about the letftist's false use of the word, that danger to others' freedom is precisely their object.


(*) At the same time, do keep in mind that Mr Reppert had publically bitched about the "unfairness" of *his* taxes increasing after he supported the policies and voted for the politicians that were supposedly going to "make the 'rich' pay their 'fair' share".

=================
Apparently, the price of Mr Reppert's soul was the (unsustainable) promise of "free", or at least subsidized, health insurance (not even "care", just "insurance") ... to be paid for by others under threat of death at the hands of agents of The State.

This is where those promises will lead (I said 'lead', not 'end'; the end will be even worse) (*). Let us pray, and I mean this in all Christian concern for his immortal soul, that when his "free" "health care" comes to put him down, he doesn't waste his breath protesting, "But I don't want to die", but rather that he repents of the sinful horror that he has willingly and wilfully helped to set up.

(*) Oddly enough, Mr Reppert seems to object to that totally predictable stage on the Road to Hell; at any rate, so long as it is "greedy" corporations making the calls.

It!

Have you ever notice that the leftist "social justice warriors" (*) with their made-up "non-gender-binary" pronouns (**) -- which they insist that *you* must use (***) upon pain of condemnation -- never opt to simply apply the perfectly standard English neuter third person singlar pronoun to themselves? Why is that, I wonder?


(*) aka, "special juicebox wankers"


(**) People don't come in "genders", they come in sexes; and there are precisely two sexes.

On the other hand, depending on the language in question words may have gender, for 'gender' is a linguistic term, not a biological term. In many major world languages, *every* noun (and/or pronoun) has a gender.

On the other hand, and unlike many, or even most, languages in the world, English is essentially non-gendered -- in English, *only* the third person singlar pronouns, of which there are three, are gendered. With case declensions, these three pronouns are: masculine (he, him, his), feminine (she, her, hers), and neuter (it, it, its).

There may be a language in the world in which one uses a different first person pronoun, referring to oneself, depending upon one's sex. Not in English.

There may be a language in the world in which one uses a different second person pronoun, referring to the person to whom one is speaking, depending upon his (****) sex. Not in English.

There may be a language in the world in which one uses the same third person pronoun, referring to some person of whom one is speaking, irrespective of his (****) sex. Not in English.

The point here is that one uses the third person singlar pronouns to refer to a third person, not to address that person. To address an individual person, one uses the second person singlar pronoun: 'you', which is not gendered.


(***) Reportedly, some leftist jurisdictions, such as NYC, are working on legislation to make it illegal to use the correct English pronouns when referring to a third person.

(****) *GASP* I used the correct English pronoun 'his' to refer to a person of undetermined or irrelevant sex. How "sexist" of me!

Iconic!

Sean L, commenting at the Gay Patriot blog -- "The picture of the Europeans standing over the victim and the African Muslim walking past had better become as iconic as the girl kneeling over the body of her fellow student at Kent State. No image better incapsulates the antipathy that the Muslim world feels towards the West."

Edit 2017/03/28:
See also


Edit 2017/03/26:
As 'Throbert McGee' said later in the comments, "... There’s no such thing as telepathy, and this photo — indeed, ANY photo — captures only a fraction of a second of information. (The photographer himself has attested that the woman in hijab seemed very shaken, despite seeming calm and aloof in that one particular image.)"

And of course it is true that a photo can be (and frequently is) misleading, sometimes intentionally. We have no idea what the woman captured in the photo was actually thinking -- but it's also utterly irrelevant what she was thinking, because this is not about *her*, it's about "the religion of pieces", of which she signals herself to be a member.

At the same time, does the photographer's impression that she, the individual, was "shaken" have any more to do with the truth of her mental state than my impression that while she may be annoyed at the momentary inconvenience of the result, she isn't morally outraged by the immorality of what her co-religionist(s) did? Especially now that the photo has been seen by millions -- the photographer is going to be under a lot of pressure from leftist virtue-signallers and "social justice warriors" ... and from agents of the British government ... to insist that the photo doesn't show what it appears to show. The answer is "No," because --
1) "There’s no such thing as telepathy";
2) and, once again, this is not about *her*, it's about "the religion of pieces", of which she signals herself to be a member.

'Comparative Advantage' Explained

David Friedman explains Comparative Advantage

Gentle Reader may recall that the notoriously dishonest 'Vox Day' likes to assert that 'comparative advantage' is a false theory (*), and that ergo 'free trade' is disadvantageous to one partner in the trade, namely the wealthier one (i.e. *us*), and that ergo, 'free trade' makes us less wealthy as a nation and as individuals, and that ergo protectionism -- that is, using the threat of government force and violence to compel most of us to subsidize a few of us (**) -- will make us wealthier as a nation and as individuals.

One of the things I wish Gentle Reader to notice about the above "logic" is the conflation, in tried-and-true leftist fashion, between the individual and the collective. This deliberate conflation is why I say that 'Vox Day' is a leftist, for all his claiming that his so-called "alt-right" is the *real* right. Given the direction of appeal to your passions, he is more a fascist than a communist; but fascism is just as much socialism and just as much "of the left" as communism is.

As I have explained before --

* If I buy a bottle of wine from my neighbor across the street, the conducted trade is between two actual individual human beings; surely even those who have never given such matters any thought can see that;

* If, however, I buy a bottle of wine from a producer in California, does the true situation change? Is the trade still between two actual individual human beings (albeit with some number of middle-men in between us for marketing and transport and so forth)? Or, has the trade somehow been elevated to some collective level, such that the trade is now actually between the State of Ohio and the State of California? Surely even those who have never given such matters any thought can see that nothing fundamental has changed about the trade itself, it is *still* one individual trading his money for another individual's goods; the difference is that now two (or more) government entities have become aware of the trade between the two individuals and consequently desire to tax it;

* But, suppose I decide instead to buy a bottle of wine from a producer in France. Has the true situation changed? Is the trade still between two actual individual human beings (albeit with some number of middle-men in between us for marketing and transport and so forth)? Or, has the trade somehow been elevated to some collective level, such that the trade is now actually between the United States of America and the Republic of France? Surely even those who have never given such matters any thought can see that nothing fundamental has changed about the trade itself, it is *still* one individual trading his money for another individual's goods; the difference is that now two (or more) government entities have become aware of the trade between the two individuals and consequently desire to tax it;

* ERGO: 'free trade' between nation-states is no more disadvantageous to anyone with a legitimate interest in the matter than 'free trade' between you and the guy across the street is. Whom 'free trade' is disadvantageous to are those individuals who are unwilling to offer to you some good or service you desire to buy at a price that you would freely choose to pay had you less expensive alternatives available. Thus, *those* individuals tend to demand 'protectionism'; that is, they demand that the state use the thread of force and violence-unto-death to prevent you from freely trading with the fellow who *is* unwilling to offer to you the good or service you desire to buy at a price that you would freely choose to pay given the available alternatives.

'Protectionism' is not about protecting *you*, and it will never "Make America Great Again". 'Protectionism' is about protecting the income-stream of the organized and politically connected few at the expense of the unorganized many. And *you* are in "the many", always.



(*) He asserts that 'comparative advantage' has been logically and empirically shown to be contrary-to-reality ... apparently, some guy somewhere waved his arms, and Presto! So, Gentle Reader, if you are unsure of what the concept 'comparative advantage' signifies, please do read Mr Friedman's discussion and illustrations of it.

(**) How did that very same reasoning work out for "green energy" and "ObamaCare"?

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On a related side note --

Given (as shown above) that governments do not engage in trade, but rather that individuals do, the "trade deficit" is a boogeyman.

If Americans collectively buy more goods and services from Frenchmen than Frenchmen buy from Americans, that fact itself does not harm the United States of America. If this state of affairs persists for a hundred years, it still does not harm the United States of America. If, after the one hundred years, certain Americans are so indebted to certain Frenchmen that they can no longer find lenders willing to lend them even more money to continue in the lifestyle to which they have grown accustomed, that still does not harm the United States of America.

What *will* harm the United States of America is if the living-beyond-their-means of some individual Americans -- no matter if those persons *never* buy foreign goods -- is subsidized by the government of the United States of America taking on debt so as to give them the money to continue to live beyond their means.

And that is the situation in which we find ourselves.

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On a second and very related side note --

Another conflation that the notoriously dishonest 'Vox Day' likes to assert in his quest to convince you to agree to economically hobble yourself ... and to do it to me via threat of government violence-unto death ... is between an actual human being and the labor of that human being. This is what he is doing when he joins (some) libertarians and "liberals" (i.e. the "progressive" dupes of the leftists) in asserting that the logic of 'free trade' entails a commitment to 'open borders' ... and thus to the destruction of one's very nation via demographic and cultural replacement.

Let us consider this:

If I buy a bottle of wine, I am not buying *only* fermented grape juice. Hell! I could ferment some grape juice, but it would not be wine (*), and I would not risk my health to consume it. No, if I buy a bottle of wine, I am also (and I would say *primarily*) buying the knowledge and labor of the producer.

So, whether I buy that bottle of wine from a Californian or from a Frenchman, I am also buying the knowledge and labor of that person; but I am not buying the person himself.

What the notoriously dishonest 'Vox Day' is asserting with his dishonest conflation of the labor for the laborer is that IF you allow me to import the labor of a Frenchman, THEN you must also allow me to import the Frenchman himself.

That, as the saying goes, does not follow. ERGO, the conflation if 'free trade' with 'open borders' is a lie.


(*) My parents used to buy and can produce, including grapes. Now and again, a jar didn't seal properly, and we'd end up with a jar of fermented grapes.

Sad little echo chamber

... populated by sad, pathetic PW'd "brave" "men"

I read Dalrock's blog from time to time, but have rarely commented there. Yesterday,
I commented in this thread ... and because it's a sad little echo chamber, populated by sad, pathetic PW'd un-men, some of them started shrieking like harpies about this comment --

hooked on cant (*): “I’d also be curious to see a successful marriage where the husband doesn’t somehow acknowledge and cope with his wife’s hypergamous nature.”

You poor, poor, “gamers” and your invented cant.

‘Hypergamy’ does not refer to slutishness (of which you “gamers” approve … until it bites you in the ass).

‘Hypergamy’ does not refer to the state of living your life as though life itself, and marriage, were a meat-market singles bar.

‘Hypergamy’ does not refer to the mindset of treating your “commitments” as disposable.

——-
What ‘hypergamy’ *does* refer to is the near-universal desire-and-need of women who wish to rear children to marry men with more resources than they themselves have.

‘Hypergamy’ is a *good* thing.

(*) 'hooked on cant' is part of my comment on the post to which I was responding; the guy called himself 'God Is Laughing'

Someone calling himself 'feministhater' replied

‘Hypergamy’ is a *good* thing.

It is female nature. It is not good. As a man’s nature is to spread his seed. The contention is that once you make a vow, you are to control your base nature and keep those vows. It’s about control. The practice of hypergamy, that is monkey branching, is not good, it is not right to leave a husband because the wife thinks she found a better deal.

This is nonsense, part of it is made up words for what is usually called ‘greed and selfishness’. You made a vow, stick to it, through thick and thin. That is what makes something good. The time for a woman trying to pick the best possible husband is when she is young, fertile and not married. Once the choice is made, bar very strict criteria, the vow is to be kept.

Destroying a marriage and thus a family because of the hypergamous nature of women is not a good thing. It is bad and evil. Get it through your heads, call them out on their shit or don’t complain. Stop making evil things good, this is a curse handed out by God for the disobedience of Eve. They are evil traits that are to be controlled through marriage.

And, since doubled-down BS really torqes me, I replied

me: “‘Hypergamy’ is a *good* thing.”

feminismlover: “It is female nature. It is not good.”

So, it’s “female nature” to seek to secure the best available father for her future children *before* she has them …*and* somehow that’s not a good thing. Gotcha!

feminismlover: “As a man’s nature is to spread his seed.”

That isn’t actually true; that is a lie promulgated by the sexually perverse men who invented feminism in the forst place as a means to use other men’s daughters as consequence-free sexual play-things.

feminismlover: “The practice of hypergamy, that is monkey branching, is not good, it is not right to leave a husband because the wife thinks she found a better deal.”

That is not what the term actually means. That’s the twisted cant you “gammer” fools have invented.

You people don’t *hate* feminism nor the so-called sexual revolution; what you hate is that *you* (you, personally, yourself) turned out to be the “useful idiot”.

I see that one of the fools accused me of being someone who goes by the handle 'InsanityBytes', and the particular fool replied to that assertion with --

It is actually Insanity bytes. As soon as the words ‘That isn’t actually true; that is a lie promulgated by the sexually perverse men who invented feminism in the forst place as a means to use other men’s daughters as consequence-free sexual play-things.’ all was revealed.

Nice straw man, but you’re arguing against demons in your mind. Always have been. Sort out your own shit, don’t stay here. Go away.

It has always seemed to me that those who are so quick to accuse others of using sock-puppets do so because that's something they themselves would do.

my response to the above --

feminismlover: “… Go away.”

Translation: ‘Cause Heaven knows, the last thing this little echo chamber needs is someone able to speak truth.

the fool's response --

Oh yes, you are always here to speak the truth. You misrepresent, make up straw men and then pretend that you are telling the truth.

Fuck off, go away, no one wants or needs your bile here.

... and apparently Dalrock is afraid that I'll frighten the herd with some actual facts to counter their "game" cant.



So, here is what is I *would* say in response to the previous fool's foolish post --

me: "‘Hypergamy’ does not refer to [any of the various things for which you "gamer" fools use the word] ... What ‘hypergamy’ *does* refer to [is what is colloquially called "marrying up"] ... ‘Hypergamy’ is a *good* thing."

some pathetic PW'd fool: "It is female nature. It is not good."

The fool is insisting on misusing the term 'hypergamy' to refer to the tendency of modern "strong, independent" women -- to which they were trained up from birth in this sexually perverse society, perverted by the leftist variant called 'feminism' -- to never *commit* to one-and-only-one man.

One: even when the term 'hypergamy' is used correctly, it is not part of the nature of women to "marry up"; it's advantageous to do so, which is quite a different thing from being innate nature.

Two: if it were indeed a woman’s nature to never *commit* to one-and-only-one man, then why doesn't that really make women happy? How can it be that living/behaving according to what is asserted to be the nature of women does not make women happy in the long run, but in fact, generally makes them miserable?

some pathetic PW'd fool: "As a man’s nature is to spread his seed."

One: by "spread his seed", the fool does not mean fathering and rearing children; he means using women as sterile cum dumps.

Two: if it were indeed "a man’s nature is to spread his seed", then why doesn't that really make men happy? How can it be that living/behaving according to what is asserted to be the nature of men does not make men happy in the long run, but in fact, generally makes them miserable?