More on the militarization of the police

Michale Egnor: The militarization of law enforcement

I'll be jumping right on that

This is an email I received the other day --

NOTIFICATION OF YOUR FUNDS‏

FROM THE DESK OF LORD ADAIR TURNER
CHAIRMAN, FINANCIAL SERVICES AUTHORITY (FSA).

It has come to our notice via our central monitoring computer that your huge fund has been credited in your name for transfer with a London Bank.

Under the stipulated enabling Law of the Government of Great Britain and Wales and other Commonwealth States, any huge fund that has been found in our computer system waiting to be transferred without claims for a period of 6 months or less, shall be confiscated and forfeited to the Government of Great Britain and Wales.

We do hereby ask you to contact this office immediately with your personal data such
Your full name and address
Your Company's name and position if any
Your present occupation
You mobile phone number

For ratification, processing and re-validation of your payment file within the 5 working days of this notice or consider your fund confiscated.

We appreciate your urgent co-operation.

LORD ADAIR TURNER,
CHAIRMAN, FINANCIAL SERVICES AUTHORITY (FSA).
LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM

I certainly don't want "the Government of Great Britain and Wales" to confiscate my "huge fund"!

Damnit! I waited more than five days!

Progressive "reasoning" in action

Catherine Taibi, Huffington Post: Sean Hannity's Call To Obamacare Hotline Gets Employee Fired --

When Sean Hannity called the Obamacare hotline, not only did he not get the answer he wanted, but he also got a woman fired. Luckily for her, Hannity had the money to help her out.

The Fox News and radio host called the hotline on Monday and spoke on-air with employee Erling Davis about promised improvements to the Obamacare website. Hannity brought Davis back onto the show on Thursday, and she revealed that she had been let go after their conversation.

Davis said that when she returned to work the morning after the phone call, she was escorted up to HR and told that she would be released from the company. When Hannity asked her what the specific reason was, she told him that her employer said she was not permitted to have contact with the media. Davis claimed she was never told this and had no idea that this was company policy.

Hannity promised Davis a one year tax-free salary of $26,000, as well as help her to find a new job so that she can continue to support her two children.

No, you intentionally illogical and irratonal "liberal", Hannity did not "get her fired".

Sorcery Is The Only Reasonable Explanation

K T Cat: Sorcery Is The Only Reasonable Explanation

Star Trek Continues

on YouTube: (as I inderstand it, it's a fan-made edisode) Star Trek Continues E01 "Pilgrim of Eternity" -- it's no worse than the original professionally-written series.

Race-card of the Day

Wm.A.Jacobson (Legal Insurrection): Anatomy of how a racism lie spread half way around the world

Look, leftists lie -- that is a bedrock truth that you need to get set into your mind. One of their favorite lies is to accuse people (*) of “racism”. And it continues to work because *you* continue to cringe in fear that you’ll be falsely accused of “racism” if you step too far out of the bounds the leftists have currently decreed. Until *you* are willing to say, "[Bleep] that shit!", or any other way you want to phrase it that means the same thing, and mean it, and stand by it no matter how they howl for your blood, then you will continue to be a slave to the leftists. Well, you'll eventually be freed ... when they murder you.


(*) primarily, but not, exclusively "right-wingers" -- they'll accuse *anyone* of "racism" if the accusation will serve their purpose of fomenting racial resentment and hatred, as witness their shameful and intellectually dishonest treatment of, for example, George Zimmerman and Paula Deen, *both* of whom are "liberals" and Democrats.

There are *reasons* for stereotypes

There are *reasons* for stereotypes ... that main one being that they accord with what multitudes of people have experienced over time. One of the stereotypes about Gypsies is that they kidnap children. The leftist/post-modernist pious myth that stereotypes are ipso facto immoral, and the corollary command of non-judgmentalism, are themselves immoral assertions. "... Child abduction is certainly no longer common among Gypsies, but the economic logic was explained in Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire: mutilated children make better beggars because they excite more pity among passerbys [sic], but do you really want to mutilate your own child?"

Take it seriously. Because they do.

Wm.A.Jacobson (Legal Insurrection): Tyrants if left to their own devices

'The empirical counterpart to the Argument From Reason'

The Deuce:

Wow. WOW. I don't follow DI at all, but I have seen BDK around, and he did seem unusually civil for a materialist atheist.

The first thought that pops into my mind is that it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a full-fledged materialist atheist to have a genuine good-faith rational conversation. Even on that rare occasion that one seems polite and civil, it turns out to be an elaborate bait-n-switch ploy.

And the second thought that pops into my mind is that this sort of thing is basically the empirical counterpart to the Argument From Reason. To have a good-faith debate requires that all parties accept the premise that there is such a thing as truth, that truth is objective and independent of us, that truth is something that we can and should try to know better, and that there are laws of logic that can lead us from true premises to true conclusions and weed out falsehoods by exposing the contradictions that they lead to. This is the "common ground" between a Christian and a pagan, and anyone else capable of good-faith dialogue.

It's also precisely that premise that materialist atheism is incompatible with, according to the Argument From Reason. If that's true, we should expect to make certain empirical observations. We should expect to see materialists acting as if truth *isn't* something objective and knowable through employing inviolable laws of logic via human reason. We should expect them to approach debate in a purely mercenary fashion, seeing it all as a power play to push their narrative rather than a quest for truth. We should see them resort to ridicule, sophistry, censorship, dishonesty, and even violence wherever they think it can work.

Of course, we should expect them to deny that they think all this until the cows come home, because admitting that you're an anti-truth mercenary who doesn't believe in truth and cares only about winning the narrative is not a winning tactic for an anti-truth mercenary who doesn't believe in truth and cares only about winning the narrative.

And, on those rare occasions where a materialist atheist does seem to be engaging in civil good faith discussion, we shouldn't be surprised to find that it's all just part of some elaborate misdirection for winning the narrative after all. Sheesh.

News from home

Richland Source: Best-selling author Mark Steyn addresses audience at theatre -- The Ashbrook Center is located at Ashland University, in Ashland (city), Ahsland County, Ohio ... the county next door to where I live. I wasn't there, I was in Stark County.

'The tunnel led right to the kindergarten.'‏

Via Laura Rosen Cohen, The Jerusalem Post: IDF uncovers Palestinian terrorist tunnel leading from Gaza to kibbutz in Israel -- "Underground passageway - built with Israeli concrete slabs - took over a year to build, say army sources, was 3rd discovered this year."

As I commented --
Well, you know, it's all the fault of those perfidious Jooo... , er, Zionists, because the Zionist entity won't allow enough concrete into Gaza to build both tunnels and kindergartens.

'Think about this, Ilion. Perhaps you will learn a lesson'

It seems that a certain lying hyopcrite, whom I prefer to ignore whenever I can, *still* seeks my attention, and possibly approval, even after all this time and all the lies he has spread about me. Yesterday, he (or she) posted the following here

Hello, Ilion.

Yes, I know. You don't care what I have to say, so I'll keep this brief.

Remember how you and Zach on DI used to be rather 'buddy buddy'? You know - teaming up to attack and insult those nasty, "lying" theists (like myself, Ben and others) who you regarded negatively for one reason or another (aka 'for disagreeing with you on any topic')?

He was a sockpuppet of a materialist atheist. Specifically, BDK.

All I want to say right now is this: An atheist used a fake Christian identity, primarily to attack Christians and anti-materialists. Insofar as he encouraged you to attack as well, and defended your behavior, there's a very reasonable conclusion to draw: he regarded you as a kind of useful idiot. The Christian who he didn't need to fight or oppose, and in fact could stand to gain by encouraging.

Think about this, Ilion. Perhaps you will learn a lesson.

Feel free to make a post about yours truly, reacting with fury to this realization. Chances are, I will not notice it. On the off chance you realize you have, to some degree, been played by an atheist, you can contact me on my blog to discuss matters. I will not expect your arrival.

In the post to which he (or she) links, he says, among other nuggets:

I know I have some Dangerous Idea regulars around here. There's a variety of regular names there (aside from, of course, Victor Reppert himself.) In particular, we have Blue Devil Knight and Zach. BDK is an atheist and a materialist. Typically well-mannered, etc. Zach is a very angry non-materialist Christian who doesn't like 'Christians relying on obviously poor arguments instead of focusing on the good ones'. BDK is typically civil. Zach mocks, insults and generally attacks people he disagrees with - with a particular axe to grind against yours truly, though ingx24 and others have been on the receiving end. In fact, others have long noticed that Zach has a habit of going after theists negatively to quite the extreme, and not having much attention paid to atheists. Quite the gulf between them.

And it turns out they're the same person.

Before I go on - kudos to ingx24, who had this to say at one point: I feel like Zach might be a materialist in disguise trying to make his criticisms of dualist arguments seem plausible by pretending he's a dualist. It seems like Zach spends more time criticizing anti-materialist arguments than he does criticizing materialism.

To which I can only say... sharp eye, ingx24. Ilion? If you're reading this, not nearly as sharp of an eye.
...
[Quoting himself] But I'm not going to pretend this was some meager one-time slipup. Ilion's gotta be tearing his hair out right about now if he sees this.
...
But there are lessons here. First? Just because someone is well-spoken and civil doesn't mean they're gracious. BDK apologized profusely, but then again, who doesn't apologize profusely when they think they're irrevocably caught? ...

My comments, non-exhaustively and in no particular order:
1) I? A "useful idiot" of the intellectually dishonest atheist/materialist Zach/BDK? Well! That thesis certainly explains many things quite nicely, don't you think, such as this post from 13 months ago?

Zach: "Ilion I am a Christian."

I actively doubt it.

Zach: "I just find the utter lack of charity in reading atheists, from people on this site, disgusting."

No, you are "disgusted" by clear, logically consistent, unemotional, non-sentimental, critical thinking.

Zach: "Ilion is the Babinsky of Christians."

You do know, do you not, that hypocrit[e]s are damned-of-God?

Does the reader not realize how rare it is of me to say to someone something so serious as, "I doubt that you are a Christian"?

2) Why, pray tell, would I be tearing out my hair over Blue Devil Knight's accidental self-de-soxing?

2a) Oh, that's right! because I am "buddy buddy" with 'Zack' and have now been exposed as having been made a useful idiot by BDK.

2b) Plus, the intellectually dishonest ingénue, 'ingx24', who won't call himself an atheist, even though he is (I mean, to the extent that *anyone* is a real atheist in this degenerate age), and who can't seem to admit even to himself that he really is a materialist, has been shown to have a sharper eye than I ... at any rate, in 13-month 20/20 hindsight.

3) As best I recall, there is only one person with whom I was ever "buddy buddy" on Mr Reppert's blog, and that person emphatically was not 'Zach'. Moreover, that person has chosen for the past year and a half and more to not only misrepresent me, but to actively lie about me.

4) Even now, even after having caught out Blue Devil Knight in such gross intellectual dishonesty (which term the lying hypocrite seems reluctant to use), the fool is still calling BDK "civil"? Whereas I *never* made that mistake ... and that is one of the reasons some of the regulars at Mr Reppert's blog hate me so.

Hell! even the ever-polite Victor Reppert was, at one point (at about the time I had lost most interest in his blog), commiserating with ... get this ... Blue Devil Knight about mean ol' me. I saw the posted conversation months later, quite by accident searching for something or other, and I have no idea how to find it again. Still, in observing how Mr Reppert's community-of-commenters has evolved over the past couple of years, it seems to me that he got just what he wanted. Or, at least, deserves (*).



Perhaps the lying hyopcrite might find it prudent to expend a bit more concern about his (or her) own lessons learned than with mine. Just a wild blue-sky thought on my part.

(*) Oh, my! Does that imply that I deserve a certain radical leftist bomb-thrower ;) who has been recently dabbling his toes in "the dark side"?

Obama as Bullshitter

William Vallicella: Obama as Bullshitter

While listening the other day to Barack Obama shuck and jive about fiscal responsiblity, shamelessly posturing as if he and not his Republican opponents is the fiscally responsible one, when he is in truth the apotheosis or, if you prefer, the Platonic Form of fiscal irresponsibility, I realized just how uncommonly good our POMO Prez is at bullshitting. He is indeed a consummate bullshitter. But what is it to bullshit, exactly? When is a statement bullshit?

According to Harry Frankfurt, a statement is bullshit if it is

. . . grounded neither in a belief that it is true nor, as a lie must be, in a belief that it is not true. It is just this lack of connection to a concern with truth — this indifference to how things really are — that I regard as of the essence of bullshit." (emphasis added)

Professor Frankfurt has a fine nose for the essence of bullshit. The bullshitter is one who 'doesn't give a shit' about the truth value of what he is saying. He doesn't care how things stand with reality. The liar, by contrast, must care: he must know (or at least attempt to know) how things are if he is to have any chance of deceiving his audience. Think of it this way: the bullshitter doesn't care whether he gets things right or gets them wrong; the liar cares to get them right so he can deceive you about them.

'There's too much money in politics'

Michael Egnor: There's too much money in politics. Your tax money, specifically.

The real reason for the US Civil War -- Statism

James Padilioni Jr (posted by John Jay Ray): Lincoln: Separating the Man from the Mythos

'Let him be anathema'

'Let him be anathema' ... or, "methinks he doth protest too much".

'Vox Day' has a recent post, Mailvox: a creedal correction, wherein he insists, yet again, that that he is too a Christian. He still isn't, no matter how often he claims he is. Consider:

As it happens, my views are entirely Nicene in the proper sense, they simply do not happen to be in line with what should be technically considered Constantinoplene rather than Nicene. Consider the actual Nicene Creed of 325:

We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father;

By whom all things were made;

Who for us men, and for our salvation, came down and was incarnate and was made man;

He suffered, and the third day he rose again, ascended into heaven;

From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

And in the Holy Ghost.

I readily affirm all of that. Now, one can certainly quibble over the "one substance with the Father" aspect, as it can be interpreted in various ways and I do not accept it means that "the Father Almighty" and "the Son of God" are exactly equal and wholly interchangeable at all times because this is an explicitly anti-Biblical position; how can God the Father have abandoned Himself?

But, of course, he *doesn't* "readily affirm all of that" -- that's the whole point his statement that "one can certainly quibble over the "one substance with the Father" aspect" and the subsequent strawmanning -- for he explicitly and repeatedly denies that the Son is "begotten of the Father, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father"

Moreover, his "reasoning" contra his own strawmanning reflects either ignorance or dishonesty -- "... because this is an explicitly anti-Biblical position; how can God the Father have abandoned Himself?" He's making reference to Christ's words just before he died -- "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" -- by which Christ was reminding disciples of Psalm 22, telling them they were seeing it being fulfulled as a prophesy.

First century Jews didn't call "Psalm 22" that; that's our name for it. They called it "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?", that being its first line. Read the psalm -- read it in light of the Gospels' record of what was happening on Golgotha. Far from moping in self-pity, Christ was at that very moment proclaiming his victory!

While it's not a part of the Creed itself, the Creed of 325 has an attached anathema:

[But those who say: 'There was a time when he was not;' and 'He was not before he was made;' and 'He was made out of nothing,' or 'He is of another substance' or 'essence,' or 'The Son of God is created,' or 'changeable,' or 'alterable'-they are condemned by the holy catholic and apostolic Church.]

By his own words -- by his appeal to the Creed of 325, which he likes to pretend is substantively different from the Creed of 381 -- he condemns himself.

Edit 2013/10/06: Concerning the strawman in his post --

... Now, one can certainly quibble over the "one substance with the Father" aspect, as it can be interpreted in various ways and I do not accept it means that "the Father Almighty" and "the Son of God" are exactly equal and wholly interchangeable at all times because this is an explicitly anti-Biblical position; how can God the Father have abandoned Himself?

When one affirms the proposition that "Jesus Christ is God", there are three general categories of ways to understand the divinity of Christ that one has affirmed:
1) 'Modalism' (also called 'Sabellianism') -- this is the anti-trinitarian position that God only seems to be multiple distinct Persons. 'Modalism' affirms the unity of God, and affirms the divinity of Christ, but does so by means of denying that God is a multiplicity of Persons.
2) 'Trinitarianism' -- this is the orthodox Christian position that God really is multiple distinct persons (and specifically, three). 'Trinitarianism' affirms the unity of God, affirms the divinity of Christ, and affirms that Christ taught us that he is distinct from both the Father and the Holy Spirit.
3) Various flavors of "tri-godism" (of which 'Arianism' is a paradigm example) -- these are anti-trinitarian positions that affirm the divinity of Christ, and affirm the distinctivenes of the Divine Persons, but do so by means of denying the unity of God. Or, to put it more bluntly, these positions affirm the divinity of Christ by means of using the term 'God' incoherently.

'Vox Day' explicitly and openly rejects the orthodox Christian doctrine of the 'Trinity' -- while trying to present himself as the *real* orthodox Christian vis-a-vis the Nicene Creed. But, he is not a 'Sabellian'; rather, he is a "tri-godist".

So, that background explained, 'Vox Day' is strawmanning by intentionally conflating (*) 'Modalism' with 'Trinitarianism'. He then presents a little seeming contradiction -- whether it's contradictory, or merely paradoxical, it might be so for 'Modalism', but not for 'Trinitarianism' -- the paradoxical (or contradictory) nature of which is based on cultural-and-literary ignorance, and then pretends to have knocked down 'Trinitarianism'. -- This "argument" of his is no more intellectually honest than the standard operating procedure of (most) 'atheists', whereby they knock down Zeus and then pretend to have knocked down Christ.


(*) He does this about other things he cares about. For instance, in this recent post (as he has done many other times), he intentioally conflates "open borders" with respect to immigration with "free trade".

... and no one noticed

The world ended yesterday ... and no one noticed! (*)

Kristor: The Wilderness of Liberty

(*) I wonder, what do the Democrats and other leftists think they're going to do once the taxpayers grasp that the world didn't end just because the federal government "shut down"?

At the same time, even "the end of the world" cannot keep the federales from doing the really important things, like erecting the 'Barry-cades'

Laura Rosen Cohen on the 'Barry-cades': "Remember folks, there have been more people assigned to upset and disrespect WWII vets than there were to [protect US personnel in] Benghazi."

When The Bleeding Heart Becomes The Iron Fist

Let's turn that around

The Telegraph: "Julia Gillard reveals her 'murderous rage' at sexist attacks" --

Ms Gillard also revealed her reasons for making her famous “misogyny” speech in parliament last year in which she stared down then opposition leader Tony Abbott, now the prime minister, telling him: “I will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man. I will not.” The speech made global headlines and is set to go down as one of the defining moments of her leadership. [sic]
...
Ms Gillard said she was disgusted that Mr Abbott and others responded to her misogyny speech by claiming she was playing the “gender card”.

“It just amazes me that we can be having this infantile conversation about gender wars,” she said.

“You just feel like saying: ‘Well, if it was your daughter and she was putting up with sexist abuse at work, what would you advise her to do?’… We have to be able to say strongly to women and girls that you have got a right to an environment that treats you with respect, treats you as an equal and that raising your voice about that isn’t starting a war, it isn’t playing the victim, it’s just asking for what simply is right”.

Let's turn that around -- "You just feel like saying: ‘Well, if it was your [son] and [he] was putting up with [allegedly] sexist [alleged] abuse at work, what would you advise [him] to do?’… We have to be able to say strongly to [men] and [boys] that you have got a right to an environment that treats you with respect, treats you as an equal and that raising your voice about that isn’t starting a war, it isn’t playing the victim, it’s just asking for what simply is right."

So, women's "equality" to men can't exist unless it is enforced by men -- by fathers and/or husbands -- acting on behalf of women. And, of course, this "equality" can't really exist unless most men -- those who aren't the elitist enforcers -- are made not equal.

Understand this: feminism is the (leftist) demand that we men forevermore acknowledge women as our superiors ... not superiors in the sense of actually being better at anything, except maybe whining, but superior in the sense have possessing special "rights" superior to ours.

Look, Toots, I *might* be pursuaded that you're my equal, but you will never by my superior.

'Liberalism' in action

The Telegraph: "Belgian killed by euthanasia after a botched sex change operation" -- So, rather than actually trying to help this poor confused and mentally-ill woman, the "liberal" answer was to surgically mutilate her sexually (probably at tax-payer expense) ... and then, since that didn't actually help her, as of course it could not, the "liberal" final solution is to put her down.