Obama's Economics in Wide Public Dispute

"Capitalism is based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights..."

"There is no disagreement that we need action by our government, a recovery plan that will help to jumpstart the economy," said President (Elect) Barack Obama on January 9, 2009.

With no respect on my part for the ignorance of a President who embraces Marxism and ignores the Austrian economic school of free enterprise, I can tell you that 200 of our leading economists who are not Keynesians say the President is wrong. This includes William Poole, former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

They said so in full-page newpaper ads in The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal [see below] against the trillion dollar spending binge proposed by democrats.

"The ad, sponsored by the Cato Institute, blasts the massive boondoggle that funds liberal projects under the guise of "stimulating" the economy."

"Keynes distilled a fantastically wrong theory of capitalism and of a socialist paradise erected out of paper money. Moreover, Keynes offered no theory of stagnation at all." Ludwig von Mises Institute

"Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned...

"The moral justification of capitalism does not lie in the altruist claim that it represents the best way to achieve the common good. It is true that capitalism does—if that catch-phrase has any meaning—but this is merely a secondary consequence." Ayn Rand

Keynesian politics embraced by President Obama and the Democrats deny the justice attendant with capitalism, of allowing the people to prevent, let alone clean up, the mess made by the government. Instead, Keynesianism adds layers of government on the layers of the mess.

Republicans also believe in Keynesian economics, to the extent that at present they are decrying those parts of the "stimulus plan" which are not "stimulating." They like certain parts of the plan. They don't want the parts that appear to be only pork.

However, if some of those pork projects were proposed outside of the stimulus plan, they would vote for it. So would I. Example: no one disagrees that the National Mall is falling apart and needs repair. But resodding it should not be called "stimulus" and be expected to help the economy, nor should any "stimulus" be called "government partnership" with capitalism. Government interference in the economy should always be voted down.

When the government becomes a "partner" with capitalism, capitalism no longer exists. Then, the system becomes what is called a "mixed economy." To the extent that the economy is "mixed" in this way is the extent to which that economy is socialist--or worst.

We are in a world of hurt right now, because of government actions in the wrong places, and government inaction in the wrong places.

The rallying cry of the laissez-faire capitalist is, "Get out of my way!" Our government is doing everything it can to stand in the way of economic recovery, which can only come from consumer interest in goods produces. When the government dictates where capital is to be spent, the consumer is likely to be uninterested in the product, because it is a politically-motivated product, like wind farms and goat milk instead of cow milk.

Let the market do its job. The job of the government is to keep a watchful eye on the ethics in the market place, so the Birney Madoff's of the world, and the Enrons, and the sub-prime markets don't ruin us in the future.

You can put my signature on that, too.

Read this important report:

majicJack rips off consumers; leaves behind spywar...

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PAC Criticized by Cato

NRP Trust Pac Criticized by Cato

Wants to "Drive the Left-Wing Media Nuts"

"An email being circulated by the National Republican Trust PAC is despicable and wrong," reads a posting of "The blog of the Cato Institute." “Obama’s Plan: Mohamed Atta Gets His Driver’s License,” it blares. [I've been able to find no online version to link to.] The email reads:

"Did you know that Mohamed Atta, the 9/11 ring leader, had a valid Florida driver’s license?
"Did you know 13 of the 19 hijackers had obtained valid driver’s licenses? Armed with these licenses, eight of the hijackers even registered to vote!

"Here is the shocking fact: Obama strongly supports giving illegal aliens in America driver’s licenses.
"He said as much during two Democratic debates earlier this year. http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2008/10/10/the-national-republican-trust-pac-is-wrong/ This is terror-pandering of the highest order. By all appearances, this message looks like it is designed as much to raise money for the National Republican Trust PAC as to discredit Obama."

So what are the facts? "In the aftermath of 9/11, we learned that five of the 19 hijackers had violated federal immigration laws while they were in the United States. In other words, they were illegal aliens. Amazingly, in the months before the attack, four of those five terrorists were stopped by local police for speeding. All four could have been arrested—if the police officers had realized that they were illegal aliens..." 24Ahead.com http://24ahead.com/blog/archives/005283.html

And this: "Obama defended his stance on driver's licenses for illegal immigrants on the same day that La Opinion, the nation's largest Spanish language newspaper, cited his support for licenses -- and Sen. Hillary Clinton's, D-N.Y., opposition -- in its endorsement of Obama." ABC News http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/02/obama-defends-d.html

The Cato blog's author said it could find no online version. But I found it. Posted at The Patriot Files Forums > General > Political Debate, it was written by darrels joy who does not seem to capitalize his name. He writes:

"Barack Obama is not simply a risky choice as our next president — He is a dangerous one.This is why I have taken the helm here at the National Republican Trust Political Action Committee. Here at the National Republican Trust, we understand our mission. It’s simple. It will also drive the left-wing media nuts. Here’s the plan: We will tell the American people the truth about Barack Obama! Every time John McCain or Sarah Palin tries to tell the truth about Obama, they are painted as mean-spirited and negative. We here at the National Republican Trust can do the job McCain and Palin can’t." [Italics added] http://www.patriotfiles.com/forum/showthread.php?p=420811

Not being in the political arena enough to know if the "Trust" was part of the RNC, or whether it was a nut-job, I did some more searching and found this, filed with the Federal Election Commission:

"SCHEDULE E
INDEPENDENT EXPENDITURES
FILING FEC-365554

Committee: NATIONAL REPUBLICAN TRUST PAC; THE"

This PAC is made up of Eagle Publishing, Inc.One Massachusetts Ave., NW Washington, DC 20001; Newsmax Media, Inc. 560 Village Blvd., Suite 120West Palm Beach, Florida 33409; and Townhall.com 1901 N. Moore Street, Suite 701 Arlington, Virginia 22209.

The FEC has this on file: "Purpose of Expenditure: Email Communication Name of Federal Candidate supported or opposed by expenditure: BARACK OBAMA Candidate ID: P80003338 Office Sought: President Date Expended = 10/04/2008 Person Completing Form: Peter Leitner Date Signed = 10/06/2008"

Respectively, these three groups have spent $6000.00 Calendar YTD Per Election for Office Sought = $82500.00; Amount Expended = $20250.00 Calendar YTD Per Election for Office Sought = $102750.00; and $12600.00 Calendar YTD Per Election for Office Sought = $115350.00. [report] Generated Sat Oct 11 03:58:17 2008 http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/dcdev/forms/C00455378/365554/se

The same information Cato Reports is in this website by the PAC. Why couldn't Cato find this? They're the experts.

I also found this, dated Friday the 10th: "The Republican National Committee spent nearly $5 million on ads yesterday opposing Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama. The large, one-day expenditure could be a sign of what’s to come between now and the Nov. 4 election. The RNC has only disclosed four independent expenditures this year, it has reported having $76.5 million in the bank — more than four times the amount of the Democratic National Committee." CQ.com http://moneyline.cq.com/pml/home.do

Cato continues its outrage at the "pandering" done by the PAC by saying, "While it’s true that several 9/11 hijackers got driver’s licenses and other documents, this has the same relationship to the success of their attacks as the brand of shoes they wore. They could have used their Saudi passports to board flights that day, and the same people in the same circumstances could get on planes today."

No they could not, if they were here illegally, violating federal immigration laws. Clearly this PAC is not made up of "nut jobs."

joy goes on to write: "In the closing weeks of this election, Obama is trying to remake himself as a moderate to win over lower-income, white, Democratic and independent voters. He wants to hide the facts about his record. He is the most extreme liberal ever to be nominated by a major party. We all know his 100 percent liberal rating in Congress, his support for the TOTAL gun ban in Washington, D.C., his opposition to protecting babies born alive, and his support for tax increases. But there is one issue almost all Americans agree on: Illegal aliens should not be given driver’s licenses."

There is nothing "pandering" about this. It is simply political truth that most Americans don't want illegal aliens of any nationality to get driver's licenses. And if the PAC wants to spend that kind of money, alongside the huge amounts being spent by the RNC in these last 3 weeks, let them.

Note: I will be the featured speaker at the Center For Inquiry (CFI) meeting, October 16, 2008, in Portage, Michigan. The topic is "Atheism as a 'Religion' Protected by Courts According to the Establishment Clause" CEC

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CogSci's "Frame Problem"; Cato Releases Major Work; Revelations

"The Frame Problem."
Where is the tolerance, not to mention the "creator's" credentials?
December 18, 2007 "Over the past few months and for the foreseeable future, significant attention has and will continue to be focused on the Cult of Scientology." L. Ron Brown http://theframeproblem.wordpress.com/about/

Brown wrote this in reference to "The Frame Problem," (TPF) where the focus "is on the intersections of religion with politics, culture, science, ethics, and cognition." This does not explain, exactly or inexactly, its relationship to the "cult" of Scientology. But not calling it by its name of "Church" shows a distinct prejudice. How does Brown get to that "intersection" where Scientology is included in the scope of TPF?

"Major areas of interest," he writes, "include unsecularism, human rights, Intelligent Design/Creationism, evolution, religious apologetics, the secularist movement, religious cognition, secular approaches to ethics, meaning and wisdom, and Scientology."

Ok, so now a lot of things are thrown into the "frame problem" basket, including ID/Creationism; but Scientology is the only "cult," let alone religion, of which there are none others included. Why is "significant attention" under the heading of TPF focused on Scientology?

Brown never does say, not on this webpage, but he does say, "The issue of framing is highly relevant to considerations of politics, prudence, ethics, rationality, and wisdom."

Am I detecting a super-bias against this "cult"? Does he consider Scientologists to be impolitic, imprudent, unethical, irrational, and unwise? Under the linked sub-title of "Who is the Frame Problem?", where I was expecting to see a perspicacious detailing of perhaps the leadership of the Church of Scientology, we see this:

"L. Ron Brown (Creator). I am a 25 year old graduate of the University of Toronto (Hon B.Sc in Psychology Research and Cognitive Science) living in the Toronto area." After which he goes on to illuminate his interests, and to tell us that the "L" in his name "stands for luscious." In other words, Luscious Ron Brown is the Frame Problem.

"Lucious" Brown gives us a very broad overview of "what" TPF is, in language that could be read one way or the other, such as, "'the frame problem' refers to a problem that cognitive agents like us [I guess he means we humans, because he doesn't ever say what he means] solve all the time. In a given instance we face an infinite supply of potentially relevant and irrelevant information. If one were to consider every possible contingency behind an act, they would never do a thing."

True enough. I cannot disagree. What does this have to do with this creation of his? "TFP gets its name from Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence." Hmmmm, I see no resemblance at all in those, so "Lucious" must mean that within the science of CSAI there is something called TPF.

The U. of Toronto "CogSci" website does not list him as "Core Faculty" or as "Cognitive Scientist." There is only one "staffer." And there are only five alumni. He isn't one of them. But getting an Honorary isn't easy.

"The number of credits required [ ] are as follows for CogSci-AI Specialist: 13 full course equivalents, 2.5 of these will be the core cognitive science courses. The rest are to be taken from the cognate deparments of Cognitive Science." There are five enrollment combinations that give the student plenty of options in the areas they wish to study." This was published by the CogSci department, not by Brown.

Well, I must admit, that "honorary" with those credentials is more of a degree than I have at this moment, but what does his knowledge-base actually entail? He tells us nothing. Which of the five enrollment combinations did he finish?

So I looked up " CogSci @ U of T," http://www.utoronto.ca/cognitivesci/ , where I discovered that, "CASA, or the U of T CogSci AI Students' Association, includes all students currently in the program as well as U of T undergraduate students who are on the CASA mailing list, " and "Joining CASA is as simple as subscribing to the CASA mailing list. " [italics added]

Well, that sounds like something I'd join myself, if I was a student at the U. of Toronto. I don't blame "Luscious" for joining. I think as an obvious subscriber to their mailing list he's building himself up with generalized descriptions of his "creation" such as, "The task for a functional and adaptive cognitive system is to process relevant information exclusively, intelligently ignoring the rest. The problem of zooming in on the relevant information while leaving everything else unconsidered is the frame problem."

Coming from a young person who grew up from the very beginning of what turned into The Information Age (127,000,000 references to it on Google,) and given that we now live in a time when statistics are everything--"Don't bring me your suggestion for improving performance without some numbers or studies to back it up!"--it's not surprising that anyone would want to turn such a "problem" into an exact science, which sounds like Brown's purpose.

But what ever happened to formal syllogistic logic, or symbolic logic if Brown has the background for it? In formal logic there are a limited number of methods to put a problem together in words--256 methods, to be exact, called "moods" and "figures." Out of the 256 only 15 are "valid," unless you use one of Aristotle's old categories, and then you get 24. And out of these 15 or 24, not all valid forms are even "sound." They are valid only because they fit the form without any contradictions. I can "validly" say that my Uncle Harry who married a girl named Maureen, is a raven. But it isn't "sound," and so we know it isn't true. "Soundness" indicates truthfulness of statements.

Everyone uses formal logic every day of his life. They may not know it. But it is the deductive method by which the mind works. The mind is limited to 256 ways of thinking about things deductively. "The problem of zooming in on the relevant information while leaving everything else unconsidered," is what we use logic for and we do it pretty accurately, especially the big winners in life. But studying formal logic formally would serve a person well. I mean, it served Aristotle well, because he discovered and gave us the 256 forms and they have not changed in all the millenia, in any language.

I hope Brown's efforts are not ivory tower. Perhaps they will be like the quality control principles of W. Edwards Deming, and change the face of man's methods of "zooming in on the relevant information while leaving everything else unconsidered."

But what is up with the bias--sound or not, which Brown never proves--against Scientology, ID, and Creationism? Yes, I have problems with those subjects. I have my own arguments against them. But I state the argument, where appropriate. Brown never does, not on his own website.

It seems these days that no faction can leave any other faction alone without picking it out for scrutiny. If Brown is not a Scientologist--and I must assume he is not a member of that "cult,"--then where is his problem? Where is his intolerance coming from? I wish he would state it for the record.

[Disclaimer: I am not, nor have I ever been, a member of the Church of Scientology. But what ever happened to religious tolerance?]


Major Reference Work on Libertarianism Released
"The Cato Institute is pleased to announce the release of The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism, a compilation of and introduction to libertarian scholarship. This comprehensive book, years in the making, includes more than 300 succinct, original articles on libertarian ideas, institutions, and thinkers. The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism belongs on every libertarian's bookshelf." Cato Institute news release


On Revelations: Thomas Paine [Republished from 8.18.08]
I PUT the following work under your protection. It contains my opinions upon Religion. You will do me the justice to remember, that I have always strenuously supported the Right of every Man to his own opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies to another this right, makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it.

But, lest it should be supposed that I believe in many other things in addition to these, I shall, in the progress of this work, declare the things I do not believe, and my reasons for not believing them.

I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.

All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.

I do not mean by this declaration to condemn those who believe otherwise; they have the same right to their belief as I have to mine. But it is necessary to the happiness of man, that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe.

Every national church or religion has established itself by pretending some special mission from God, communicated to certain individuals. The Jews have their Moses; the Christians their JesusChrist, their apostles and saints; and the Turks their Mahomet, as if the way to God was not open to every man alike.

Each of those churches show certain books, which they call revelation, or the word of God. The Jews say, that their word of God was given by God to Moses, face to face; the Christians say, that their word of God came by divine inspiration: and the Turks say, that their word of God (the Koran) was brought by an angel from Heaven. Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all.

No one will deny or dispute the power of the Almighty to make such a communication, if he pleases. But admitting, for the sake of a case, that something has been revealed to a certain person, and not revealed to any other person, it is revelation to that person only. When he tells it to a second person, a second to a third, a third to a fourth, and so on, it ceases to be a revelation to all those persons. It is revelation to the first person only, and hearsay to every other, andconsequently they are not obliged to believe it.

It is a contradiction in terms and ideas, to call anything a revelation that comes to us at second-hand, either verbally or in writing. Revelation is necessarily limited to the first communication- after this, it is only an account of something which that person says was a revelation made to him; and though he may find himself obliged to believe it, it cannot be incumbent on me tobelieve it in the same manner; for it was not a revelation made to me, and I have only his word for it that it was made to him.

When I am told that the Koran was written in Heaven and brought to Mahomet by an angel, the account comes too near the same kind of hearsay evidence and second-hand authority as the former. I did not see the angel myself, and, therefore, I have a right not to believe it.
When also I am told that a woman called the Virgin Mary, said, or gave out, that she was with child without any cohabitation with a man, and that her betrothed husband, Joseph, said that an angel told him so, I have a right to believe them or not; such a circumstance required a much stronger evidence than their bare word for it; but we have not even this- for neither Joseph nor Mary wrote any such matter themselves; it is only reported by others that they said so- it is hearsay upon hearsay, and I do not choose to rest my belief upon such evidence.
Thomas Paine; "The Age of Reason"; 1794 http://www.deism.com/deism_defined.htm

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Saturday's Musing, CutN'Pastes, and Quotes

CATO Concerned with "Who" Gets to Implement Income Taxes; not Concerned that Income Taxes are Wrong
"Poor Charlie Rangel. The chairman of the House Ways & Means Committee got some bad press in July when the sweetheart deal giving him four rent-controlled apartments became public knowledge. Now he’s getting another dose of bad publicity because he somehow forgot to report $75,000 on rental income for his luxury villa at the Punta Cana resort in the Dominican Republic.

"New York State law classifies filing a false city or state tax return a felony punishable by up to four years in prison..."

"In a good tax system, governments only tax income earned inside national borders – the common-sense practice of “territorial” taxation. As such, the only government that should be concerned about Rangel’s Domincan Republic income is the Dominican Republic. The Ways & Means chairman is only in trouble with American tax authorities because the United States has a very imperialistic system of “worldwide” taxation. [italics added]


"It’s worth noting that the chairman has not tried to fix this policy. Indeed, he wants the make the IRS bigger and the tax code more onerous."

Now wait a minute--in a good tax system, a government would not attempt to tax the means of production, meaning it would not tax the efforts to produce, which means it would not tax the produced earnings of either individuals or of corportations. What would replace income tax is outside the scope of the discussion, namely that taxation of productive capacity reduces that capacity.
Cato-at-liberty http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/



CATO Gets This Wrong, Too
Cato-at-liberty reported that during his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, John McCain spoke about pledging federal support for alternative energy so the United States can reduce the amount of energy it imports from abroad. Cato-at-liberty then tied it to another project, quoting the Repulican candidate: “When I’m president,” McCain told cheering delegates, “we’re going to embark on the most ambitious national project in decades. We are going to stop sending $700 billion a year to countries that don’t like us very much. We will attack the problem on every front.”

Cato-at-liberty then asked: "Specifically, where did that $700 billion number come from?
That is far more than what we pay for imported energy. In 2007, Americans spent less than half that amount—$319 billion—for imported energy of all kinds, including oil and natural gas. Even with higher energy prices in 2008, our total bill for imported energy this year will be nowhere near $700 billion."

When I first heard McCain make that pledge, about a week ago, he didn't seem, then, to tie it only to the money we pay for oil. It seemed he was talking about the money we altruistically send to help nations in poverty, and to help feed them, and to help care for them medically, etc., when in the end all our altruism gets us is criticism on the political front from some of those nations--not to mention a bigger tax bill.

I think if he wins, one way he will lower our taxes is by vetoing money to those nations. McCain "vowed that he would halt aid to hostile countries [by saying] 'We are going to stop sending $700 billion a year to countries that don't like us very much..." [italics added]
Minneapolis Star Tribune, MN http://news.google.com/news?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGQD_enUS290US290&q=McCain+nations+that+don%27t+like+us+very+much

Atheists Who Don't Deny the Existence of Gods?
Austin Cline's blog in About.com states: "Many people insist that atheism is really the denial of the existence of God" but that this "pretends that atheism is exclusively about their god, the god common to Christians, Jews, and Muslims."

Why doesn't it apply to any god, like Diana or Zeus, or like Ngai, the Maasai name for God? Why doesn't it apply to the Xhosa name of Uthixo? to the Chinese God Shangdi? I'm certain there must be atheists in those cultures who deny the existence of any and all gods.

But Cline goes on, adding, "[That definition of atheism] focuses on a narrow sub-set of atheism and atheists to the exclusion of all others." What other atheists are there but those who deny the existence of gods?

"Standard dictionaries," he says, "list 'disbelief in god or Gods' as the first and primary definition of atheism."

Does this mean that an atheist can believe gods exist, but not believe in them? What nonsense is that?

Sarah Palin is "Nebulously Like Me"
"She's a gutsy gal with a lot of personal appeal. She’s a former Miss Alaska runner up, a big-game hunter and an NRA member, a basketball player and a sports fan. She’s tough in the motherhood arena, choosing to have kid #5 even knowing he would have down syndrome; she gave birth and was back to work in three days and still makes time to use a breast pump at night. It’s the intangibles that could make her a big help to McCain—the nebulous sense of “like me” and [she's got a] “good story” that comes from her humble origins, can-do, unpretentious demeanor, and her penchant for all-American stuff like hunting and sports."
Jean Kazez "Talking Philosophy" http://blog.talkingphilosophy.com/?p=374

Christ With a BIG Penis
"A statue by Terence Koh of a tumescent Christ in Gateshead has led to predictable howls of outrage, followed by the now familiar scratchy noise of lines being drawn in the sand. "Enough gratuitous offence to believers!" says one side; "enough kowtowing to religious sensitivities!" say the other.

"This case is actually clear-cut because the Christian suing the Baltic Centre is theologically confused. Every good Bible-believing Christian must know that Christ was all God and all-man (which is an impressive 200% being) and that he is "one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are" (Hebrews 4:15). That means it is orthodox belief that Christ had a penis, which was at least once erect. Even the evangelical minister who taught us RE knew that, and I remember him admitting how troubling he found the thought of his saviour suffering sexual temptation.

"But not all complaints about religious offence can be so easily dismissed as failing on their own terms. What are we to say of these?

"Saying that we have a right to offend skips over the question of whether we are right to offend."
Whether or not someone is "right" to offend is not yours to choose, Mr Baggini. No law could ever be structured on the "correctness" of one's free speech offences.

"Free speech is indeed precious, but that doesn't mean that we have to defend without qualification every moron who abuses it. [W]e should not always be in as much of a hurry to defend the offender, even when we allow their right to offend."

Defending the offender's right to free speech is not the same as "defending the offender" of his offences, Julian.
Julian Baggini http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/03/art.religion?gusrc=rss&feed=artanddesign

Are You Contradictory About Your Beliefs About God?
The Philosopher's Magazine Online asks, "Can your beliefs about religion make it across our intellectual battleground?"

"In this activity you’ll be asked a series of 17 questions about God and religion. In each case, apart from Question 1, you need to answer True or False. The aim of the activity is not to judge whether these answers are correct or not. Our battleground is that of rational consistency. This means to get across without taking any hits, you’ll need to answer in a way which is rationally consistent. What this means is you need to avoid choosing answers which contradict each other. If you answer in a way which is rationally consistent but which has strange or unpalatable implications, you’ll be forced to bite a bullet."

It is going on midnight, and it's been a long day. I think I'll take TPM up on their game, but not until I've had enough sleep to use my critical thinking skills.http://www.philosophersnet.com/games/god.htm

Quotes For Your Weekend

If you can't describe what you are doing as a process, you don't know what you're doing.
W. Edwards Deming

Compromise, hell! ... If freedom is right and tyranny is wrong, why should those who believe in freedom treat it as if it were a roll of bologna to be bartered a slice at a time? Senator Jesse Helms

All my life I've wanted to be someone; I guess I should have been more specific. Lily Tomlin

In the true Literary Man there is thus ever, acknowledged or not by the world, a sacredness: he is the light of the world; the world's Priest; -- guiding it, like a sacred Pillar of Fire, in its dark pilgrimage through the waste of Time. Thomas Carlyle

There is only one success: to be able to spend your life in your own way, and not to give others absurd maddening claims upon it. Christopher Darlington Morley (1890-1957)

"The worst guilt is to accept an unearned guilt." Ayn Rand; "Atlas Shrugged"

It's kind of fun to do the impossible. Walt Disney

Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us. Jane Austen; "Pride and Prejudice"

The American businessmen, as a class, have demonstrated the greatest productive genius and the most spectacular achievements ever recorded in the economic history of mankind. What reward did they receive from our culture and its intellectuals? The position of a hated, persecuted minority. The position of a scapegoat for the evils of the bureaucrats. Ayn Rand

"The American Dream [is] one of the greatest ideas in the history of human achievement . . . It thrives today in an age when its core components of freedom and opportunity are open to more Americans than ever before. It holds a real, identifiable place in the American heart and mind, and it informs the aspirations of everyone from farmers to software developers, from detectives to bankers, from soldiers to social workers . . . It defines us as a people, even as we add to its meaning with each new chapter in our national experience and our individual actions."
Dan Rather

Life can be wildly tragic at times, and I've had my share. But whatever happens to you, you still have to keep a slightly comic attitude. In the final analyses, you have got not to forget to laugh.
Katharine Hepburn

Character contributes to beauty. It fortifies a woman as her youth fades. A mode of conduct, a standard of courage, discipline, fortitude and integrity can do a great deal to make a woman beautiful. Jacqueline Bisset

We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces. The first bomb, the first explosion, burst in our hearts. We are cut off from activity, from striving, from progress. We believe in such things no longer, we believe in the war.
Erich Maria Remarque; "All Quiet on the Western Front"

The soul is dyed the color of its thoughts. Think only on those things that are in line with your principles and can bear the light of day. The content of your character is your choice. Day by day, what you do is who you become. Your integrity is your destiny — it is the light that guides your way. Heraclitus

The four cornerstones of character on which the structure of this nation was built are: Initiative, Imagination, Individuality and Independence. Edward "Eddie" Rickenbacker

Anger is always concerned with individuals, ... whereas hatred is directed also against classes: we all hate any thief and any informer. Moreover, anger can be cured by time; but hatred cannot. The one aims at giving pain to its object, the other at doing him harm; the angry man wants his victim to feel; the hater does not mind whether they feel or not. Aristotle; "The Art of Rhetoric"

Please send all comments to

mailto:freeassemblage@gmail.com

http://freeassemblage.blogspot.com/

The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists is the sm of the Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism tm, the educational arm of the Assemblage. This publication © 2008 by Curtis Edward Clark and Naturalist Academy Publishing ®

Musings and Quotes for Saturday

Condensed from About.Com
"John McCain did the right thing and tapped Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential running-mate.
".Palin showed a commitment to her pro-life conservative principles by not bowing to the pressure to abort her mentally-challenged child.
".Palin will be keenly aware of how her military decisions and the decisions she influences as vice-president will affect the men and women serving in the armed forces. Her oldest son, Trig, (sic) is headed to Iraq next month.
".At 44, Palin nullifies any advantage Barack Obama might have with his youth...brings a refreshing female voice to the debates and the campaign... has a likeable style and toughness .
"...earned a staggering 90-percent approval rating from her Alaskan constituents, not the easiest people to please. Her commitment to her principles and her willingness to follow through on promises makes her the toast of Alaska, the darling of the GOP and, now, the apple of the nation's eye."
Justin Quinn http://usconservatives.about.com/b/2008/08/29/alaska-gov-sarah-palin-the-right-partner-the-right-running-mate.htm

Condensed from CATO Institute for Media
"She has been a crusader against pork-barrel spending and has taken on the corrupt Alaska Republican establishment. Certainly this pick carries a great deal of risk, but it has a high upside as well." Michael D. Tanner
"Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's selection as John McCain's running mate is a political masterstroke. Always an electorally attractive choice, Palin is an even stronger selection following Barack Obama's political punt on Joe Biden. Palin checks a lot of boxes for the McCain campaign: a maverick, anti-establishment profile; a youthful, telegenic, professional woman and devoted mother; and a non-Beltway politician popular among grassroots conservatives." Patrick Basham
http://www.cato.org/pressroom.php?display=ncomments&id=137
"Palin supported and signed into law a $1.5 billion tax increase on oil companies in the form of higher severance taxes. One rule of thumb is that higher taxes cause less investment. Sure enough, State Tax Notes reported (January 7): “After ACES was passed, ConocoPhillips, Alaska’s most active oil exploration company and one of the top three producers, announced it was canceling plans to build a diesel fuel refinery at the Kuparuk oil field. ConocoPhillips blamed the cancellation on passage of ACES [the new tax]. The refinery would have allowed the company to produce low-sulfur diesel fuel onsite for its vehicles and other uses on the North Slope, rather than haul the fuel there from existing refineries.” "Chris Edwards http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2008/08/29/palin-uninspiring-tax-policy-record/

Condensed from Fox News.Com
" Women are not fungible.
"I don’t know if anyone sitting around with John McCain in the last few days has explained that to him; frankly, I don’t know if there even were any women sitting around with John McCain in the last few days. But, I think I understand a few things about Hillary’s base in the Democratic party, and why so many women have been so loyal to her, and if John McCain thinks that simply picking another person with similar anatomy is going to win their votes, he’s about to learn a very important lesson in gender politics." Susan Estrich http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,413525,00.html

"I appointed both Democrats and independents to serve in my administration. And I championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. In fact, I told Congress — I told Congress, “Thanks, but no thanks,” on that bridge to nowhere.
If our state wanted a bridge, I said we’d build it ourselves. Well, it’s always, though, safer in politics to avoid risk, to just kind of go along with the status quo. But I didn’t get into government to do the safe and easy things. A ship in harbor is safe, but that’s not why the ship is built.
Politics isn’t just a game of competing interests and clashing parties. The people of America expect us to seek public office and to serve for the right reasons.
And the right reason is to challenge the status quo and to serve the common good. Now, no one expects us to agree on everything, whether in Juneau or in Washington. But we are expected to govern with integrity, and goodwill, and clear convictions, and a servant’s heart."
Sarah Palin http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/08/29/raw-data-sarah-palins-remarks-after-being-named-gop-vice-presidential-candidate/

Now, my own opinions are these:
I hate Obama's far left politics, and if elected he will cost this nation a lot, in terms of money, in terms of irreversible social policies such as came from the FDR's New Deal (like Social Security,) to LBJ's Great Society, whose "War on Poverty" still has young people asking by what means can we eliminate poverty, as if that is ever going to happen. You can't legislate equal pay to all persons; you can't take from the rich to give to the poor; and if you give a college education to everyone, there are still those who will make so much more than others, percentage-wise, that they will cause those who among the college educated will fail at life, to fall under the "poverty line."

But Obama is the person America needs to heal us from decades of wounds done to the self-esteem of black Americans, and to the esteem of white American's who were ashamed of what their neighbors had perpetrated on blacks. His election would give MLK's "Dream" a reality that others before Obama could never have brought. He acts like a politician, not like a black politician, such as Jesse Jackson. Oh, I admire Jackson for many things, including the teaching of
blacks in the 60's to stand up and shout, "Say it loud--I'm black and I'm proud!"

Jackson even has international foreign policy credentials which I admire: "In addition to Slobodan Milosevic, Jackson has also persuaded Hafez al-Assad, Fidel Castro, and Saddam Hussein to set American captives free." http://www.slate.com/id/1002723/

But Jackson's personality often appears to polarize America. It is an historic fact that most black American politicians are polarizing. After all, they came of age in the violent era of the Civil Rights Movement. Obama is not polarizing and doesn't come from that generation. He does not even have any American ancestors who were slaves. That has caused some of those polarizing black leaders to question Obama's "blackness."

I like Obama. I really think he thinks that left-wing policies are moral, and good for people. But how he can square up those socialistic policies with the Constitution he has taught at the college level, can only be explained by the socialistic policies that our left wing courts have allowed to pass unchecked. He comes from a generation that believes because legislation and policies within the New Deal, the New Frontier, and the Great Society were not struck down as unConstitutional, that more of the same will be more than "ok," it will be cathartic for the younger generations who have demanded "social justice" and not gotten it.

With Obama they will get it, but they will push this nation further than it has ever gone, in the direction of Marx's proclamation that "From each [we shal steal] according to his ability [to be stolen from;] to each [we will give the stolen money] according to his needs [and according to how much we can afford to steal from those with ability.]"

That is not the kind of social justice that comes from the Constitutional dream of individual sovereignty. "Individual sovereignty was not a peculiar conceit of Thomas Jefferson: It was the common assumption of the day..." Joseph J. Ellis http://www.friesian.com/ellis.htm

On the other hand, the Republicans have gone along with much of it, and when they protested against leftist socialistic legislation, they protested too quietly and rarely about the socialism that such legislation represented. It was usually about the costs, or a side issue, or it was just partisan bickering.

For the cathartic effects, and because it would, in a John-Galt fashion, hasten the failures of socialistic leaders and thinkers in this country, I seriously considered voting for Obama. As I said, he's likable, and the fact that we would have elected a likable black man, rather than having this nation ripped apart more by seeing a contentious black man in the Oval Office, would heal many wounds.

But John McCain's pick of a young female who is as likable as Obama and who has the credentials of political integrity, if not of political background, changed the race. (She is a Republican who fought against corrupt Republicans in Alaskan government--and won.)

McCain will not be "four more years of Bush" because McCain pushed Bush to change much of the policy Bush was hell-bent on following. Those two have been political enemies far longer than they have appeared to be friendly. So he voted 90% with Bush? Well, sometimes voting against a bill is worse than voting for it. I suspect that if voting against Bush would not have given ammunition to the leftists in America, McCain would have voted far less than 90% with Bush.

And now, in one brilliant stroke, he has given us the same power of catharsis, for women if not for blacks; and since Obama is not a woman, we are forced to take "catharsis" one step at a time--either in the step toward black, or toward female.

See what I mean about voting against something? In this case voting against a likable woman V.P. along with a maverick Republican Presidential candidate would be worse than voting for a likable socialistic black male candidate with a contentious white male V.P.

Have a happy and safe Labor Day Weekend.

Quotes to Get You Through the Weekend

"Money won't buy happiness, but it will pay the salaries of a large research staff to study the problem." Bill Vaughan.

"If you want to be happy, be." Leo Tolstoy

"I am at two with nature." Woody Allen.

"Failure is not falling down but refusing to get up." Chinese Proverb

"The greatest reward in becoming a millionaire is not the amount of money that you earn. It is the kind of person that you have to become to become a millionaire in the first place." Jim Rohn

"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great." Mark Twain

"Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will not die, but long after we are gone be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistence." Daniel Hudson Burnham

"Operator! Give me the number for 911!" Homer J Simpson.

"First there are those who are winners, and know they are winners. Then there are the losers who know they are losers. Then there are those who are not winners, but don't know it. They're the ones for me. They never quit trying. They're the soul of our game." Paul William "Bear" Bryant

"When we got into office, the one thing that surprised me most was to find that things were just as bad as we’d been saying they were." John F. Kennedy

"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat." Theodore Roosevelt

"One of the things that distinguishes man from the other animals is that he wants to know things, wants to find out what reality is like, simply for the sake of knowing. When that desire is completely quenched in anyone, I think he has become something less than human.” – God in the Dock; C.S. Lewis

"Congratulations. I knew the record would stand until it was broken." Yogi Berra

"Only one man in a thousand is a leader of men — the other 999 follow women." Groucho Marx

"Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises."
Samuel Butler (1612-1680)

"I didn’t fail the test, I just found 100 ways to do it wrong."Benjamin Franklin

"The price of greatness is responsibility." Winston Churchill

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream." Mark Twain

"For two people in a marriage to live together day after day is unquestionably the one miracle the Vatican has overlooked." Bill Cosby

"If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing." Anatole France

"In any free society, the conflict between social conformity and individual liberty is permanent, unresolvable, and necessary."Kathleen Norris

"We can laugh at those who think spirituality the way of weakness. Paradoxically, it is the way of strength." Bill W. from the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous

"I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed." Michael Jordan

Please send all comments to mailto:freeassemblage@gmail.com

http://freeassemblage.blogspot.com/

The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists is the sm of the
Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism tm, the educational arm of the Assemblage.
This publication © 2008 by Curtis Edward Clark and Naturalist Academy Publishing ®