Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm said the governmental firing of the CEO of General Motors turned him into a "sacrificial lamb". The White House asked Rick Wagoner to step down as a precondition for government aid.
Get used to it. Wagoner was no sacrificial lamb; he was merely the first to fall in the huge government take over of the entire American economic system. It is no longer capitalistic, but it hasn't been for decades. Now it is no longer even the "pretend capitalism", called the "mixed economy", that we have had for decades. Now it is communist.
Communist? Why not socialist? Socialism is when the government controls industry. Communism is when it also owns it. Now the government owns it, and the government is not listening to We, the People.
Why should government listen to We, the People? It has no reason to. It can now do what it wants. But first it had to ignore We, the People, pleading with Congress not to pass the bail out; then pleading not to give money to Detroit; then pleading not to pass the stimulus package; then pleading not to pass the budget that was filled with over 8000 earmarks. We couldn't plead with them not to monetize the deficit by printing $1 trillion out of nothing, because we were not told about it until the last minute.
No, Rick Wagoner was the first, but he will not be the last. The Obama administration now controls the entire American manufacturing and marketing machine, and it intends to set the agenda for the post-capitalist world by determining what products We, the People wish to buy, ought to buy, and can buy.
Do you think this opinion goes too far, that it can't or isn't true? Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said "the market will not solve this", meaning the country's economic mess cannot be fixed the old fashioned way, by the very mechanisms that have worked for the last 400 years.
Geithner said the US needed to target reckless risk-taking with "better, smarter, tougher" regulation. (March 27, before Congress) At that same time he also said, "To address this will require comprehensive reform, not modest repairs at the margin, but new rules of the game."
However, we now have the same administration who actually forced bail out money on banks who didn't need it and said no, and who now find they cannot easily return it, firing the CEO of a major manufacturer.
"The centrepiece of the reform package -- and the only element presented in any great detail -- is a proposal for a new 'super' regulator to provide enhanced oversight of all systemically important firms -- be they banks, brokerage houses, other financial services firms, hedge funds or insurance companies." http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,25252187-36418,00.html
But many critics say it won't end there, that in the future any business sector that gets itself into trouble in such a way that would create financial difficulties for other sectors, would come under the "super" regulators clutches.
I have no doubt that is what will happen, because that is the historical story of communism.
Q: Can a "being" be harmed who may or may not exist?
A: Philosophy is concerned with words, with grammar and syntax. Your question as written says this; "There is a being who may or may not exist," then goes on to ask if that being can be harmed. To be answered at all, you, the questioner, must decide whether or not the being exists. You leave it hanging in limbo.
The only answer becomes this: If it exists, it can be harmed; if it does not exist the question of harm becomes irrelevant.
Q: Does determinism rid people of responsibility?
A: Naturalism.Org and the CenterForNaturalism.Org, both operated by philosopher Tom Clark http://www.pointofinquiry.org/tom_clark_... , are the most prominent web-based organizations promoting determinism.
Clark argues this:"Seeing that we are fully caused creatures - not self-caused - we can no longer take or assign ultimate credit or blame for what we do."
Never does he say we cannot take "any" responsibility; but in what manner one is to mitigate one's responsibility is never really addressed, as far as I can see. I have debated with Tom via email and I've used some of what he says in this blog. [Use the Search box above for "determinism", "free will", "Tom Clark", "fully caused", "contra-causal", etc.]
Q: Is existence caused by random chemical accidents and biological mutations or is there order and purpose?
A: Both. Nature acts randomly with the material that falls into its clutches. Gravity, for example, doesn't care what solid materials it holds to the surface of a globe.
On the other hand, the fact that there are rules in nature, which nature itself cannot change, means that the "order" and "purpose" of a thing is to fulfill the laws of nature that have been set upon it. But that is much different from the "rational order" we often see, and which we look for. "Rational order" is only what we make of it, and serves no purpose but that which we give it. Only a few hundred years ago there was no "purpose" for aluminum. There was natural "order" in it. But it took men to give purpose to the natural order found in the existence of that metal.
Q: Does language limit our ability to think? In other words, are the limitations of language a barrier to "deeper" understandings?
Language ENABLES us to attain "higher and deeper" thoughts. Actually, without language, we could have no thoughts.
Even when we were as primate as we could be, homo habilis had to have a language in order to say "danger" or "mine" or "damn you!" Every concept eventually has a word to represent it. Until the word has been created, it cannot be understood and used by anyone but him who has had the concept.
"In order to be used as a single unit, the enormous sum integrated by a concept has to be given the form of a single, specific, perceptual concrete, which will differentiate it from all other concretes and from all other concepts. This is the function performed by language." Ayn Rand
The "economic and social consequences" will primarily be against Annex I parties, of which the U.S. is the biggest
"A United Nations document on "climate change" that will be distributed to a major environmental conclave next week envisions a huge reordering of the world economy, likely involving trillions of dollars in wealth transfer, millions of job losses and gains, new taxes, industrial relocations, new tariffs and subsidies, and complicated payments for greenhouse gas abatement schemes and carbon taxes — all under the supervision of the world body." FOX
According to this document, which I am reading at http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/032709_informationnote.pdf , its effects are "to limit the scope" under the supervision of the world body as it "7.(a) Considers only those tools, policies and measures that might be taken by Annex I parties for the purpose of effectively addressing climate change;"
On the other hand, who are those "tools, policies and measures" intended to benefit? 7 (c) says they "Focus primarily, but not exclusively, on those consequences that affect non-Annex Parties."
What does this mean? It means what Fox says it mean in the first paragraph above, and that "that industrialized countries will likely have to [ ] implement the Copenhagen Accord, the successor to the Kyoto Treaty, after it is negotiated and signed by December 2009. The Obama administration has said it supports the treaty process if, in the words of a U.S. State Department spokesman, it can come up with an 'effective framework' for dealing with global warming."
In its evasive, double-speak/non-speak method of covering up what it really means, the document says in paragraph 13 that the plan "calls for enhanced national/international action on mitigation of climate change, including the consideration of economic and social consequences of response measures."
"Enhanced action" means what---that there is already action that is not satisfactory to the non-Annex I parties? And since the document already says it is focused primarily on those non-Annex I parties, the "consideration of economic and social consequences" will primarily be against Annex I parties.
This is in accord with President Obama's "cap and trade" efforts at controlling carbon emissions. The administration is ready to go into this European summit willing and able to sign an accord that by some accounts will hurt the U.S. worse than the Kyoto treaty would have.
More on this next week, after I have had time to read the document further, and read other reviews. The non-committalistic language could mean anything the U.N. negotiators want it to mean. That is why is so vague. But by the time of the signing in December, it won't be vague at all.
Or, quite possibly it will remain vague so that the "world body" can do as it pleases with the redistribution of the wealth of the world and the means of production. That is its ultimate goal.
"In the first five weeks of his presidency, Barack Obama has acted so rashly that at least 11 states have decided that his brand of 'hope' equates to an intolerable expansion of the federal government’s authority over the states," wrote A.W.R. Hawkins in HumanRights.Com
"When the Constitution was being ratified during the 1780s, the 10th Amendment was understood to be the linchpin that held the entire Bill of Rights together," Hawkins pointed out. This is one of the primary history lessons learned by all American elementary students when they are taught that each state was considered to be its own "country" before the ratification of the Constitution.
The amendment states: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
"Sometimes thought of as an afterthought, to 'sweep up' anything the Founders may have forgotten, the 10th Amendment today is taking on monumental importance as increasing federal intrusion into state affairs threatens to completely destroy the balance between state and federal power," says State Rep. Samuel E Rohrer, PA-128th District. 10th Amendment Center
The Founding Fathers "took pains to outline how the Constitutional structure of the government would prohibit the federal government from becoming big enough to overwhelm the powers of both the states and the democratic process," he said.
"Republicans and Democrats alike have been guilty of trampling states' rights for generations," said Constitution Party National Committee Chairman Jim Clymer. "Finally, elected officials in state legislatures across the country are pushing back."
The website MRStep makes the claim that thirty-three States can soon be counted as having similar resolutions about their Tenth Amendment rights.
As of this date, there seems to be little media attention paid to what the States are doing. I have seen no major online publications such as the Washington Post, the New York Times, etc., with articles on this movement; but there are dozens of independent online sites trying to keep it in front of the public.
At present, it seems the only purpose to which any State may be using their resolutions is to refuse to accept certain public funding that the Obama administration would like to force upon them, one case in point being the much publicized refusal of Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin refusing Federal funding for special needs education, despite the fact that she and her husband have a special needs chile themselves.
Alaska is not the only State to consider refusing "line item" funding. Some States have said they would refuse certain funding because to do so with the expectation that they would pay back the Federal Treasury means they would have to raise taxes to do it!
Europe does not like Obama's nationalistic economic policies either. "The United States' decision to pump ever-larger sums into its economy is the 'road to hell,'" Mirek Topolanek, the President of the European Union, said Wednesday, just a week before he was set to meet the US president in London.
If the States face down the Obama administration, there will be a Constitutional upheaval such as we have not seen since the secession of the southern States during the Civil War.
Let us hope so. It may be the only saving grace left for individual sovereignty in this nation. The Ninth Amendment states that "the enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, [meaning the 1st through the 8th Amendments] shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
And that means that just because some of our rights are guaranteed in writing does not mean we do not also retain "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States," because what is not delegated to Washington D.C. and not prohibited to the States "are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." [10th Amendment]
They are absolutely not reserved to the Federal government.
Q: How does everyone else around me know that this world is real? I don't have a clue, all I see is images. But everyone in the streets knows that this world is real. What makes them know more than me?
The existential angst demonstrated in this real question I answered in another forum is common and becoming more common every day. The belief that existence exists because our consciousness creates existence takes two forms:
A:Those "images" you see are called "cognoscendi." Those are objects of cognition, according to multiple dictionaries of philosophy.
If you have objects of cognition, you have cognition. Why do you think they are merely images? If you mean "images" as visual sensations of things which may not be what they appear to be, you are not alone in your estimation of them. But whether they are what they appear to be, the fact that they are images of something means that something exists that is more than just the image you perceive.
Kant had this problem, and solved it by inventing what he named "noumena." Noumena (plural of noumenon), Kant thought, are the "real" reality behind the images. But why should there be something behind the curtain?
You can't have cognition of things that don't exist unless you are mentally ill, and Kant knew this, so we are not discussing mental illness. We are discussing how people evaluate the things they perceive.
You may wrongly identify them once in a while. Someone who hears voices or "sees things" is identifying the objects of his cognition wrongly. You might also mistake one thing for another. We've all done this.
Otherwise, if you have cognition, it is cognition of real objects, meaning the objects exist, that the "image" is an image of "something". As to whether or not the images are the "real reality," that is a matter of metaphysics, and you are quite free to believe the metaphysic of your choice. You can believe the metaphysics that leave you feeling insecure and fearful, and as if you know nothing, as you have suggested that you feel.
Or you can accept the metaphysics that allow you to feel that you do indeed have the faculty of knowledge, that knowledge is knowable, and that you are a person of capability who is walking through a real world.
Why should the "images" of your perception be something other than what you identify it to be? Why do you fear that there is something "behind" what you perceive? Science will break down the physics of every object in existence if man has enough time in the universe to do so. Every time physics reveals something previously unknown about any object, it is like peeling the layers of an onion.
Will you be satisfied that things are what you perceive them to be when physics finally gets to the inside layer? No, because there is no "inside layer." The more we know about anything, the more there is to discover. Every answer creates more questions. That is the nature of man's mind.
It is the nature of man's mind and not the nature of the universe, because it is man's nature to discover. There ought to be nothing to fear in the discovery that the wizard behind the curtain is merely a man. That is the purpose in the doctrine of naturalism---to prove that all things are natural, and not as Kant would have us believe, unknowable. Noumena are absolutely unknowable, and your fear is that you cannot know what "everyone in the streets" seems to know.
You already know what "everyone in the streets" knows, and that is the world is something to be known, not something that is unknowable. But you must accept that the "images" are merely man's means of dealing with the world, and that what science ultimately shows us about the inside layers of the onion do not change the fact that a table is a table, and that a rose by any other name is still a rose.
We all, everyone of us, is constantly doing "cognitive surgery" on reality; in other words, each of us is constantly re-evaluation the things we think we know--when it is appropriate to re-evaluate them. But you cannot re-evaluate what you fail to accept in the first place because you will never accept any re-evaluation. You will still consider your perceptions and your thoughts about them to be about "images" instead of about the reality of acceptance.
You can remain in existential angst, unaccepting of the metaphysics that says your mind is capable and reliable; or you breath a sigh of relief in the knowledge that the only difference between you and the average Joe is that Joe knows the world changes, that he can accept change, and that for now, the images he sees are the images that make the world go 'round.
If God does not exist, then where do the "rights of man" come from? Glenn Beck, a good man with good intentions, said that without God man's rights would not exist because God gave them to us.
But the American Founders believed in something called "individual sovereignty" and that concept has as much validity with or without God. Natural rights are those said to belong to every human being by virtue of his rationality. This is because no man can have the right to decide another man's use of his will, and it is free will that is always at the center of the concept of "individualism".
It was Aristotle who termed man "the rational animal." Reason was a natural virtue, given by nature to every man and woman of normal mental capacity. Some people have better than normal, some people have less than normal and must be cared for. But virtues came in two varieties, according to Aristotle: mental, such as perception, abstraction, analytics, conceptualization, etc.
The second kind of virtue he termed "habitualized." This is virtue of character. This virtue is habitualized because only by acting on one's moral beliefs and practicing the principles in all our affairs can we gain what we call our "character" and our "integrity."
"Character" is the specific manner in which we practice the principles of our virtues, which by the way, is the practice of morals. Practicing principles of virtues is the practice of morality.
"Integrity" is the virtue itself of being consistent in the practice of one's morals. If we are seen to be relativists, doing one thing this time, another thing another time, and we cannot be counted on to be the same person each and every time, if we cannot be counted on for consistency in our means and objectives, if we cannot be predictible in the sense that our character can be known, then we have no integrity.
The life of habitualized virtues as the "central issue for Aristotle is the question of character or personality — what does it take for an individual human being to be a good person?" Character and integrity "must essentially involve the entire proper function of human life." Britannica
"One leading commentator says you could easily think of Aristotle as a supercilious prig. Aristotle purports to set out for us how we should live. I suppose this is consistent with his being a prig. But it is also what a lot of people think philosophy should be providing. Not logic chopping, not playing with bizarre ideas which bear very little relation to the world we have to live in, but offering wisdom, serious, considered, guidance on what life is all about and how we should deal with it." Aristotle's Ethics
How does this correspond with "natural rights" as "sovereignty" which pertains to what the law can and ought to guarantee, when the proposition is made that God did not provide us with these rights?
Let me reverse the question and ask: Why are natural rights with the attendent sovereignty of the individual only possible when given by God?
These two questions can be reconciled with the premise that "rights from God" and "natural rights" come from the same place; and, that one camp says if we don't accept rights as a gift from God we have nothing to be responsible toward, while the other camp says it is individual men to whom we must be responsible because if one wishes one's own sovereignty to be respected one must then respect the same sovereignty as it applies to another and all individuals.
Ayn Rand Predicted Today's World
Atlas Shrugged Tops Amazon's Bestseller List --Earlier this year Ayn Rand'sprophetic novel Atlas Shrugged was selling at triple the rate it soldat in the beginning of 2008. Now the novel is soaring to even greaterheights, and its trade paperback edition is currently in first place in the Classics category on Amazon.com's best-seller list forsales in the United States. The 50th anniversary mass-market paperback edition of Atlas Shrugged ranks as #2 and the trade paperback Centennial edition ranks as #3. For several weeks Atlas Shrugged has been holding steady in the top 10 best-sellers in the broader United States Literature and Fiction category, and as of the writing of this release, different editions of the novel stand at #3, #5 and #6 in Amazon'sranking. http://www.aynrand.org/site/R?i=JlsV9sK8abvp7QWvpCXtNg..http://www.aynrand.org/site/R?i=dqrrXDpVYiPsqpgXhwAlCg..
I answered a question for someone who asked about Ayn Rand's use of the word "altruism" and her vehement objection to it.
"I've heard people ranting and raving about Rand's ethics, and I must admit that I find it disappointing. She goes on about how "most philosophers" and the "history of philosophy" have favored altruism, but she provides no examples of who might fit these descriptions. I honestly can't think of a single philosopher who fits her idea of altruism, and it appears to me that her whole argument is rooted in a strawman argument: she is attacking an opponent who doesn't exist. How can a Rand fan defend her?"
ANSWER:
RAND: It is ideas that determine social trends, that create or destroy social systems. Therefore, the right ideas, the right philosophy, should be advocated and spread. The disasters of the modern world, including the destruction of capitalism, were caused by the altruist-collectivist philosophy. It is altruism that men should reject.
PLAYBOY: And how would you define altruism?
RAND: It is a moral system which holds that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the sole justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, value and virtue. This is the moral base of collectivism, of all dictatorships. In order to seek freedom and capitalism, men need a nonmystical, nonaltruistic, rational code of ethics -- a morality which holds that man is not a sacrificial animal, that he has the right to exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others, nor others to himself. In other words, what is desperately needed today is the ethics of Objectivism." http://www.ellensplace.net/ar_pboy.html
"Do not confuse altruism with kindness, good will or respect for the rights of others. These are not primaries, but consequences, which, in fact, altruism makes impossible. The irreducible primary of altruism, the basic absolute, is self-sacrifice—which means; self-immolation, self-abnegation, self-denial, self-destruction—which means: the self as a standard of evil, the selfless as a standard of the good.
"Do not hide behind such superficialities as whether you should or should not give a dime to a beggar. That is not the issue. The issue is whether you do or do not have the right to exist without giving him that dime.There are two moral questions which altruism lumps together into one “package-deal”: (1) What are values? (2) Who should be the beneficiary of values? Altruism substitutes the second for the first; it evades the task of defining a code of moral values, thus leaving man, in fact, without moral guidance.
"Altruism declares that any action taken for the benefit of others is good, and any action taken for one’s own benefit is evil. Thus the beneficiary of an action is the only criterion of moral value—and so long as that beneficiary is anybody other than oneself, anything goes." http://www.aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/al...
Altruism: (Alter: other) In general, the cult of benevolence; the opposite of Egoism (q.v.). Term coined by Comte and adopted in Britain by H. Spencer. 1. For Comte Altruism meant the discipline and eradication of self-centered desire, and a life devoted to the good of others; more particularly, selfless love and devotion to Society. In brief, it involved self-abnegating love...As thus understood, altruism involves a conscious opposition not only to egoism but also to the formal or theological pursuit of charity and to the atomic or individualistic social philosophy of 17th-18th century liberalism, of utilitarianism, and of French Ideology. Dictionary of Philosophy: Runes http://www.ditext.com/runes/a.html
Altruism is the opposite of egoism. The term “egoism” derives from “ego,” the Latin term for the English word “I”. “Egoism” should be distinguished from “egotism,” which means a psychological overvaluation of one’s own importance, or of one’s own activities. Rational egoism claims that the promotion of one’s own interests is always in accordance with reason. http://www.iep.utm.edu/e/egoism.htm#SH2a
THEN THERE WAS kant: By contrast, philosophers in the Kantian tradition conceive of altruism as a rational requirement on action. They claim there is no need to postulate a benevolent desire to explain altruism. Kant's initial argument appeals to his requirement that we may only act on principles that we can will as universal laws. Willing a world in which everyone has a policy of not helping others, while knowing that you will need help, would be inconsistent, so we must will to help those who are in need. Kant also argues for a duty of beneficence on the basis of the requirement of treating humanity as an end in itself. He argues that you must treat the ends of others as you treat your own ends. You take your own ends to be good and worth pursuing, so consistency requires that you treat the ends of others as good and worth pursuing. This suggests that we have reason to help not only those in need, but anyone we are in a position to help.http://www.bookrags.com/research/altruis...
The fallacy of altruism, or altruistic moralism (or moralistic altruism), is the sense that there is a general duty, or that morality as such requires us always, to act in the interest of others.http://www.friesian.com/moral-1.htm
OK, SO..............Because Rand was a rational egoist, and because altruism is defined as the opposite of egoism, anything not egoism is altruism. Collectivism of any sort, whether Marxism, Obama-ism (redistribution of wealth), communism, socialism, etc is thus altruistic, especially since Comte DEFINED it as being anti-egoistic, by making it "self abnegating love," whatever that is. An egoist would say you cannot love if you abnegate your personality.
BUT DO NOT SAY IT DOES NOT EXIST, as many people claim. The questioner says it is a "strawman" argument. Others say no such thing as altruism can actually exist because no one can live by its requirements.
There are plenty of people out there who are trying to make it work. This web site http://www.altruists.org/about/altruism/ even calls itself "Re-Establishing Altruism As A Viable Social Norm", as if it ever was the norm.
In the sense that anything which is NOT rational egoism is collectivism is altruism, that is how Rand meant it. You can listen to a half hour debate about it that Rand had on a radio show here http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?p...
It is in the DEFINITION of altruism as "a theory of conduct by which only actions having for their object the happiness of others possess a moral value", that Rand objected.
Yet, there are those who believe that in order to produce happiness in one's own being, one MUST take actions which have as their object the happiness of others.
This blog will be taking a spring break, from today, March 9, 2009 through March 21. It will resume publishing Monday, March 23. Happy St. Patrick's Day! CEC
The article below reports that a brother-in-law of Osama bin Laden’s bodyguard was arrested on terrorist-related charges after being fingered by an informant. How the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood (The Muslim Public Affairs Council, MPAC) and CAIR (the Council on American-Islamic Relations) reacted is a perfect illustration of “properly understanding the times,” as discussed in our Monday and Tuesday emails this week.
Did the MPAC and CAIR denounce the alleged activities of the man who was arrested? Of course not. Following their predictably worn-out script, these two organizations attacked the FBI and law enforcement authorities for “violating the trust” of Muslims by working with an informant who infiltrated a mosque. Here’s one sentence from MPAC’s response:
“Federal law enforcement cannot establish trust with American Muslim communities through meetings and townhall forums, while at the same time sending paid informants who instigate violent rhetoric in mosques.”Notice the insinuation, that the man arrested was “instigated” by a paid federal informant. The man arrested isn’t responsible — the “devil made him do it!” This is the same kind of response organizations like MPAC and CAIR make whenever a Muslim is arrested or suspected of terrorist-related activities. They attack law enforcement, or politicians, or groups and people they call “Islamophobic.”
They play the “offended victim” card, complaining that the latest action violates “trust” between Muslims and law enforcement. This is the same script Islamic militants and leaders have followed for years in Europe and Great Britain. Here’s what violates trust — Islamic organizations and spokespeople who refuse to acknowledge that there a lot of people in their community of faith who want to hurt America, kill Americans, and impose shariah law on America. Here’s what violates trust — Islamic organizations and spokespeople who claim perpetual victim status for Islamic radicals, and who claim that Americans are the aggressors, when in fact it is the radicals who are the aggressors and Americans are the victims.
We don’t see FBI informants and undercover criminal investigations inside churches and synagogues, and there’s an obvious reason why. If MPAC and CAIR are genuinely and sincerely concerned about “trust,” they would do well to stop attacking Americans and law enforcement and start denouncing the real violators of our trust – the radical Muslims in our midst who intend us harm.
But don’t hold your breath waiting for that to happen. And that gives us an advantage – because we can predict with a high degree of accuracy what the Islamists will do next. Their “script” isn’t hard to read. We just have to expose them and refuse to play the role they’re trying to foist on us.
President Obama will soon remove job protections for people who disagree with him. The plan is already in motion
The Obama administration, in its effort to reform health care, is bringing to the table the health care workers who, fifteen years ago during the Clinton administration, were opposed to universal health care.
Accordin to the words of a TV reporter, the current administration believes no one can "own the table," as Obama seems to think the opposition did fifteen years ago. They want to bring the opposition to the table to "play nicely this time," said the reporter.
Bringing them to the table to "play nicely" is something I covered in a question I answered in Yahoo Answers. I used the example of "getting along" with people of other ideas, specifically Islamofascists. There are, in fact, Westerners who wonder why we can't get along with them.
I said that if we "played nice" with Islamofascists, it would be compromising our principles, not just things here and there that could be otherwise in order to get along. Islamofascists are taking over the United Kingdom, preventing elected officials from other nations from entering England to talk to the very Parliament who invited that official, who was sent home from the London airport.
I made the point that Islamofascists don't play nice. They cut off the heads of people who disagree with them. I don't want you or anyone "playing nice" with Islamofascists in the United States if it means my mother's head could be cut off because you misjudged the manner in which they "play."
Now it seems the Obama administration is going to do some very heavy arm twisting. They are going to force health care workers opposed to abortion, contraception, and univeral health care to "play nice" and forget what they are opposed to. Obama removes job protections for pro-life doctors and nurses
Did you read that correctly? President Obama will soon remove job protections for people who disagree with him. The plan is already in motion. Already, some doctors and nurses are vowing to go to jail rather than compromise on their principles.
And I have no doubt that under Obama, the Attorney General will go after any health care worker who lives by his own principles. The President is already reported playing dirty with Republicans, trying to split them from their base; it is being reported that the attacks on Rush Limbaugh that call him the "leader of the Republican party" come straight from Chief of Staff Rob Emmanuel, or at least have his blessing.
If the Democrats can push the liberal or centrist conservatives away from the outspoken Limbaugh and his listeners, then they have a better chance of getting those conservatives on their side. This is the way politics is played, but Obama has ulterior motives, namely to move those centrists further left, away from the Limbaughs, Shawn Hannities, Ann Coulters, and Glen Becks for the purposeof twisting their arms.
During the next four years we are going to discover how Mr. Obama does not "play nice." The misnamed " Employee Free Choice Act", or "check card," which Obama not only supports but who was taught his political tactics by ACORN who is now actively working with the unions for this legislation, is not "free choice" for two important reasons:
It is a "majority by one" democracy, which our Founders clearly had no intention of the U.S. becoming. The minority was to be protected from pure majority rule, which is why the Founders created this nation as a "republican" form of democracy. That means we elect people who then decide for us; we don't democratically vote on everything ourselves.
There is no "free choice" when everyone you work with and any union representative can see the ballot you have cast.
"Last year, the House voted for card check legislation, while the Senate defeated it. Price says members knew then that they could claim credit for voting for the bill without having it pass, since President Bush had vowed to veto it. With Barack Obama in the White House, the equation has changed. Obama was a co-sponsor of the bill last year and has said he would sign the law if enacted. In her first public appearance after being confirmed as labor secretary, Hilda Solis told 700 union members and community activists in Miami this week that she plans to work to help pass and then enforce card check legislation." Newsmax.com
As for Obama's end to doctors', nurses', and other health care professionals' right to conscience, "An unnamed official told the Washington Post that the HHS [Health and Human Services] is concerned the rule is written 'so vaguely that some have argued it could limit family planning counseling and even potentially blood transfusions and end-of-life care.'" [emphasis added Catholic News Agency]
As testament to the idea that Obama supports "pure democracy" rather than a "democratic republic," Obama took a cyber-step towards greater transparency and interactive government with a new feature called "Seat at the Table" on his official website.
"We look forward to benefiting from the many more voices that will now be a part of the decision-making process," said John Podesta, who was co-chairman of Mr. Obama’s transition team.
Approximately three-fifths of Americans are Democrats or left-leaning independents. In a pure Obamian democracy, I have no doubt the minority will be given little or not protection from the majority. Writing of an Obama presidency before the election, Free Republic wrote, "it is a prudent thing to expect and plan for the worst, and hope for otherwise."
After all, free Americans can either sit back and watch our newly minted "redistibution-of-wealth" President redistribute not only wealth but political power to the "majority-plus-one" constituancy; it Americans can do the only thing left to them and that is to take it to the streets.
Expect a European "Summer of Discontent" here in the States, even it if doesn't happen in the summer.
I originally published this blog Thursday, August 7, 2008. It has received popular reader support both here and at Scribd. I republish it today because of its popularity, but also because it answers a very common question with an unusual epitemological position: that the answer has nothing to do with the definition of either "sound" or of "noise."
If A Tree Falls In the Forest--the Primacy of Existence We have all heard the question "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it still make a sound or a noise?" We have heard it ten, hundreds, or thousands or more times.What does that question have to do with the description of Metaphysical Naturalism (MN) as "A belief concerning the supernatural, sacred, or divine, and the practices and institutions associated with such belief"? [See this blog dated 09.05.2008]
MN, concerned with defining such things, and with the denial of what is non-existent, and with replacing belief in the supernatural or the lack thereof with a certainty about the natural cosmology of the universe and existence itself, has an interest in addressing "The Tree in the Forest."
Every answer I have ever read misses the essential point, which is not about "sound or sound waves being heard or not heard," nor about whether sound is different from noise. Those are the excuses of metaphysicians who will not, or cannot, face the real question, or who have no idea that another question more real exists.
The question is: Does existence exist independently of consciousness? When seen in this context, it does not matter if "sound" or "noise" is used as the definition of what happens when the tree falls; it matters whether you think things happen whether or not a consciousness is there to perceive that it happens.
The belief that reality requires a consciousness is gaining in prevalence. It has been a staple of some eastern philosophies for thousands of years. Some western philosophers have advanced the idea. Many young students facing philosophy for the first time have serious existential questions about their own existence. That makes a shameful indictment of how far our "intellectual" standards have plunged since Renaissance scholars brought Jefferson and America's other Founders to an understanding of men's unalienable individual sovereignty. Those modern men and women who doubt their own existence have fallen backward in time 500 years, and can have no conception about their unalienable sovereignty, except what they are lucky enough to glean from between the lines of their teachers words, teachers who tell them their "rights" include all those things which must be provided by other men when they themselves fail to provide it--like health care.
(Deregulation of the health-care industry and extended patent lengths on pharmacuticals would considerably alter the high cost of care and drugs. But that is better left for another blog or two or three.)
To believe that consciousness gives reality to reality, e.g., that "perception is reality," is fallacious logic called the Primacy of Consciousness. (The Primacy of Perception is also a fallacy. ["...perception [as] the causal product of atomic sensations," again e.g., "perception is reality." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Merleau-Ponty
Existence exists. Period. There can be no requirement for the conscious perception of a "thing" to make that "thing" real. In this case the thing is whether or not a noise or a sound is generated.
If a 13 year old girl goes to a Yahoo page that tells her women want big penises, will her father know that she saw the ad?
A few weeks ago I wrote Penises, Little Boys, and Internet Responsibility.... It was about how Yahoo and almost all the popular web sites including dictionaries, encyclopedias, search engines, online magazines and newspapers--in short, just about all websites--now have the advertising that screams, "Give Her A Bigger Penis!"
Well, not only am I tired of seeing the word, just as I got tired of hearing it 10,000 times when John and Lorena Bobbitt became famous for what Wikipedia calls an "incident", "in 1993 when Lorena severed John's penis with a knife."
She did it on purpose. Apparently women in Ecuador do it all to time to cheating husbands, so Lorena was deported back to her native country. John got it sewed back on, and became a porn film star.
But the press went crazy with the story, because for the first time in broadcast history they could say "penis" without worrying about why they were saying it and perhaps being fined, or fired, or condemned by right wingers. This was a legitimate news story--that was played out, and talked out, until the whole thing was just a joke so they could say "penis" on the air.
Then the broadcasters got tired of that story and found other reasons to say "penis." After all, it was now acceptable on-air. It was months before broadcasters got tired of using the word, and finally quit.
Now it's back in internet advertising. Once again I got tired of it, but this time I thought it was wrong that minors could see the advertising that told them--no matter how old they were--that they needed bigger penises.
If a 9 year old boy goes to the Mirriam-Webster Online Dictionary and sees this ad, does his mother know it?
If a 13 year old girl goes to a Yahoo news page and sees the ad that tells her women want big penises, will her father know that she saw the ad?
So I raised the issue in a question I posted on Yahoo Answers, a forum where people ask question in any of a hundred or so categories from anthropology to zoo-ology. Since I was the top-rated questioner in the Philosophy forum, I asked my question there.
My account was deleted by Yahoo.
I wrote to Yahoo, not to protest, but to ask about their hypocrisy. I did not expect an answer of any sort except for a form letter telling me they had made their decision and that it was final.
I didn't expect anything more because that is how Yahoo handles all their Yahoo Answers problems. Violators of their rules are never told which rule they broke. They never get a personal handling of their complaint, question, or protest. All they get is a form letter.
So I merely want the world to know that Yahoo takes money for advertising the word "penis" on their web pages and then won't let anyone talk about it. That's all; nothing more, nothing less.
I'm starting at the bottom of the pyramid of experts, again, because they deleted my Top Expert account, called Yaoi Shonen-ai.
Now I have an account called yaoishonenai. I figure in about 6 months I'll be back on top again. Why? Because 30% of the questioners and voters love my answers. Sometimes it's as as high as 35%. It's also because I answer a-lot of questions so 30% of a-lot adds up.
But I merely wanted to let the world know that Yahoo can take their "penis" ads and shove them up their "we-don't-care-about-justice-or-individual-users' " form-letter b*** holes and kiss mine.
