December 2006 Archives

The Golden Rule is great for a personal guide in some cases, but sucks as a universal rule which is not coincidentally why it is actually of relatively minor importance in Christian scripture. The reason is that it just cannot answer the moral of question "why is X wrong" in a way that is satisfactory. If you say "I don't murder because I don't want to be murdered," you are not saying why murder is wrong. You cannot come to a point where this becomes a moral attack on murder unless you think your opinion carries the weight of a deity's. All you have done is said why you choose to not become a murderer, which is hardly a way of declaring why murder itself is inherently wrong.

Morality is not a matter of what choices we do make, and why we make them, it is a matter of saying what actions are good or bad to take. It does not concern itself with why you don't choose to hurt others, but rather why the very idea of hurting others should be considered wrong.

Perhaps this level of abstraction is beyond the ability of a lot of people to grasp, but it is an important philosophical one.

I've gotten started working on that key drive encryption utility that I was talking about earlier, but now I have run into an interesting design problem. One of the things that I wanted to do was to create a way for someone to "register" their computer so that they could make the encryption work without manually entering the password. What I was thinking about doing for that is creating a scheme wherein the full path to the user's home folder on their personal PC is turned into a password for an encryption key, then that is used to encrypt a file in the same folder as the utility that contains a plaintext copy of their password.

Other than the usual exploits against someone's personal PC, I can't really see much at risk with this right now. Maybe I'm missing something, which is why I am a little paranoid about it right now. Part of work description is the security angle, and I am just a little antsy for some reason, I guess.

On a different note, I got a XBox 360 last night along with a few games. I got Kameo, Call of Duty 2 and 99 Nights. The latter is by far my favorite so far. In fact, I'd love to have the opportunity to take some of the fiction I've been writing and turn that into a game similar to that.

I might also download the XNA toolkit and play around with that. It's a C# toolkit for writing Windows and XBox 360 games. Sounds interesting, and it's supposed to make game development a lot easier.

Tony Blair once again gives me cause to regard him as Bill Clinton with a bad accent:

The roots of the current wave of global terrorism and extremism are deep. They reach down through decades of alienation, victimhood, and political oppression in the Arab and Muslim world. Yet such terrorism is not and never has been inevitable.

To me, the most remarkable thing about the Koran is how progressive it is. I write with great humility as a member of another faith. As an outsider, the Koran strikes me as a reforming book, trying to return Judaism and Christianity to their origins, much as reformers attempted to do with the Christian church centuries later. The Koran is inclusive. It extols science and knowledge and abhors superstition. It is practical and far ahead of its time in attitudes toward marriage, women, and governance.

Under its guidance, the spread of Islam and its dominance over previously Christian or pagan lands were breathtaking. Over centuries, Islam founded an empire and led the world in discovery, art, and culture. The standard-bearers of tolerance in the early Middle Ages were far more likely to be found in Muslim lands than in Christian ones.

Much of this reveals a stunning lack of knowledge or a deceiptful heart toward history and religion. Islam is in many respects a pure bastardization of Judaism with an Arabic flavor, and it is most certainly not a "reforming work" when one actually juxtaposes the New Testament and the Koran. From nearly the beginning, Islam expanded by the sword and had a terribly violent relationship with those around it, one that cannot be attributed to human failings as can be attributed to other religions in the region such as Judaism, Christianity, Manicheanism and Zoroastrianism. Consider the fate of the Banu Quraiza tribe, a Jewish tribe that suffered (and I say this with no hyperbole) a fate that was literally as violently intolerant as anything a Jew would face in pre-Holocaust Nazi Germany--all ordered directly by Mohammed himself!

From the perspective of an outsider to all of the Abrahamic faiths, it is easy to see how Islam could provide a prima facie look of intellectualism, tolerance and reformation. However, to an "insider," this is not so. The largest failing that Judaism has always had, its tendency to be rigidly legalistic, was only amplified at least one order of magnitude by Islam. Christianity introduced the reforming concept of divine grace and mercy, which scripturally ended the arguments for legalism. The very language of the tolerance fantatics such as Tony Blair finds its origins not in the Old Testament/Tanach or the Koran, but rather in the Christian New Testament.

Here's a little experiment for those of you with a little bit of historical knowledge. The next time someone sheepishly repeats the propaganda about Islam maintaining all of the old knowledge while Europe rotted, ask them in a few sentences to tell you what they know about the Byzantine Empire. If they barely know the name or don't even know what you're talking about, politely inform them that the Roman Empire's eastern half didn't collapse until its capitol was conquered by the Muslims not long before the Renaissance. Ahh... and do be a good sport and remind them that by around the 11th-12th century, Baghdad, one of the great Islamic learning centers, had already been all but burned to the ground by the Mongols, a pretty clear sign that Islam's glory years were already spent well before the Renaissance.

Few cases illustrate so succinctly the double standard that exists between law enforcement and the general public as this one. Here's the basic summary. Police dog (German Shepherd) gets loose and wanders into a residential area, then traps a guy and his son in their car. Guy manages to get out and run into the house when the dog is focused on another part of the car. Comes back out with a loaded gun, and after the dog won't respond to his commands, shoot him once in the chest, killing him. Self-defense, and defense of a child to any normal human being and cops get away all the time with firing at dogs who are running away from them, let alone marching toward them. So, he gets convicted of animal cruelty and knowingly killing a police dog because he didn't take the chance that the dog was just confused or something.

Then you have on top of it the typical local government goons who show no sensitivity or tact in their handling of the situation:

City law director Dave Hackenberg said shortly after Flip was killed, he sent a bill to Mr. Whitman for more than $11,000 that the city paid for the dog. He said that under Ohio law, a person who shoots and kills a dog is responsible to pay for it.

"It's the statute," Mr. Hackenberg said. "I'm not saying, 'You shot our dog. You owe us.' The statute says if you shoot a dog you have to pay the value, pure and simple. We paid $11,000-plus for that dog trained. If we wanted to be real stinky about it, he's worth more than that now."

That this man, and apparently a number of people that work around him, is a jackass is self-evident. This is why I am so harsh on bureaucrats. There's no humanity here, nor any higher thought than "it's the law." So if it were the statute to condemn him to life in prison, would that be fair too, I wonder? It's nearly impossible to respect an institution that is thoroughly legalistic, so unappreciative of unpredictable, unfortunate circumstances and so merciless toward basic notions of justice. The man is facing a few years in prison. And you know what the best part is?

A pro football player donated a replacement police dog to help the local police department out.

This might be just about the only positive news out there for Ford at this point:

There are media reports in Japan that executives of Ford and Toyota have been meeting there.

Could be simply some discussion of co-marketing. Or perhaps working together on a new hybrid car to replace the Prius, which I think of as a very big video game.

Of course, Wall Street is taking it as a sign there could be a merger. Ford's stock price is about half what it was two years ago.

No word yet on other areas that matter like whether or not this will increase the quality of Ford's products from "two grades about $hi7" to "worth buying if you have money to blow." Sometimes it just blows my mind that American car makers haven't figured out yet that if they can't match the Japanese in engine design, they're gonners. You can only leech off of American patriotism for so long by relying on "buy American" sentiments to keep you afloat.

I mean, seriously, some of us drive Japanese vehicles because we like to drive our cars rather than look at them while hoisted up on a lift at the mechanic's shop.

The short answer to Orin Kerr's question is yes:

Over at BloggingHeads.tv, Ann Althouse and Jonah Goldberg have a very interesting video discussion of a question raised by a recent Liberty Fund conference about Frank Meyer: Can you detach constitutional doctrines and principles from the history of the political environment in which such doctrines and principles were used? They focus on federalism and states' rights, which 50 years ago often were used by racists in the South to defend Jim Crow. Does that history mean that federalism is now tainted? Should proponents of federalism atone for the past associations of their ideas? Or should ideas stand on their own merits, without regard for who has used them in the past?

The Swiss provide an excellent example of how federalism can work brilliantly in practice, that's the simplest counter-example to the "Jim Crow argument" against federalism. To suggest those who support the continuation of federalism need to somehow "atone" for the views of others begs the question of how far ideological cousins of evil-doers share the blame. Where is the outcry over the fact that the average member of the Democratic or Green parties today shares an extraordinary degree of ideological common ground with various totalitarian movements such as Communism? I'm not going to deny that blacks suffered grievously under Jim Crow laws, but to demonize federalism due to its tolerance of Jim Crow laws without demonizing "left-liberalism" for its similiarity to most totalitarian left-wing movements renders the whole issue a farce.

Quite frankly I think this whole thing is largely absurd if for no other reason than the fact that federalism is at the core of the US Constitution, even with all of the amendments considered, and that if it is invalid, so is our whole system of government. Considering the fact that every major democracy and republic practiced slavery, had some sort of deep class discrimination among other things, we might as well resign ourselves to descending into a feedback cycle of nihilism if we ponder this topic too long.

What else is there left to say except that utopia still means "nowhere" and Heaven is still beyond human reach? Government is frequently run by scoundrels and ruthless criminals; people are evil toward one another; injustice is more common than justice. There is nothing new under the sun and the human condition has not changed. Though America be more liberal in some respects today, one could easily argue that ironically, "free" men and women today enjoy far less autonomy than they did 100 years.

Today a black man may not legally face discrimination, but in many areas he may not legally carry a weapon to defend himself, his home may be violently invaded with military-level force over a small amount of marijuana, his children can be taken away from him easily on specious grounds ranging from his wife making half-baked claims of abuse to a number of things which may upset social services, half of his money may be claimed in taxes, his due process rights under many areas ranging from drug crimes to tax laws are a joke, he can be spied on in a myriad number of ways and many more. The wheel has shifted, and the centralized state that the fourteenth amendment gave us has simply taken one form of tyranny and replaced it with a more virulent, less obvious one. My, how things do change...

Stuff like this ought to be really outrageous to the public, but it barely gets a wink and a nod in most quarters. One thing that really gets me the more I think about it is... why should government employees be subjected to protections that wouldn't exist in the private sector? Don't give me that crap about people being fired for political reasons and how that would politicize the federal workforce. I think it's pretty obvious at this point that such protections have only helped to foster certain ideological tendencies in parts of the federal government such as the infamous Department of State. I can be fired if my management really doesn't like me because it's an at-will employment. I think that one of the best things the Republicans could do to really get themselves back on track would be to propose a bill to turn all non-military employment into at-will employment.

These "protections" are one of the biggest barriers to making the government more effective. It is high time that someone got around to fixing the obvious flaw in the system: if you can't easily fire employees, they will invariably have less incentive to work hard and ensure that they are very competent.

What an evening. I spent most of the day with Rachel's family in Warrenton. She's a Christmas baby so I doubled up her gift so she'd get one really big one rather than two smaller, lesser ones. I got her a 4GB iPod Nano, and we ended up watching Superman Returns. A good, relaxing Christmas Eve if I do say so myself. I'm glad that I went there even though it made it nigh impossible for me to go to church today. Some people might think that's a sign of taking the holiday less seriously, but then holidays carry a different meaning in the New Testament than they do in popular culture. We aren't required to do holidays one way or another. To paraphrase Paul, we can celebrate any godly holiday we want to, and no one is to judge us for which ones we do or don't do. If a gentile Christian wants to do Chanukah instead of Christmas, more power to them because it doesn't matter to God either way. If they want to celebrate Christmas near Passover to make it more historically accurate to Jesus' birth, again, it doesn't really matter.

I've taken up writing fiction again, this time I've gotten a decent bit of new content ready. I'll probably start allowing people who want access to start reading it. Right now I've taken a sort of detour to write a quick short story piece to illustrate some philosophical points in a way that I think a long-winded essay couldn't do justice. The point that is so hard to get across about morality, that it doesn't really exist without God, is what I really want to push through it. I think I've said clearly enough here that before I became a Christian I was an agnostic whose intellectual views on morality were generically based on a nietzschean worldview. Most people can't relate to this, which is why I'm trying to write a short story to make it more obvious how this mindset works.

After New Years, hopefully when I get my raise and all, I may actually end up getting a XBox 360. I'll probably still get most of my entertainment from the trusty old Playstation 2, which has by far the best RPGs out there right now. That and there are so many good games for it that are now down to $15-$25 that it'd be insane for me to ignore them, since by focusing on them, I delay having to buy a lot of XBox 360 games up front, which means that when I do go get them, they'll be cheaper.

And lastly it has come to my attention that a certain password-protected entry is no longer accessible. One ought to not attribute to a surreptitiousness and/or malice what can easily be attributed to a bad memory or technical errors. Might I suggest that I had forgotten that given the nature of the content protected, I endeavored to change the password and consequently forgot? It is the name of a certain furball that was adopted when I was a few years old.

Everytime I see a conservative disagree with legalizing drugs, one of the most commonly used rationales is that we will end up with more social problems. This is true, but not because of the drugs themselves but because of what our society has become. I think a lot of conservatives underestimate the libertarian/minarchist recognition that there will be an increase in stupidity and criminality, such as driving while intoxicated. This is a given, but it doesn't directly have anything to do with drug use.

The minarchist (minimal government) position is that society has become weak and refuses to accept responsibility, and this is in no small part manifest in the way that our laws protect criminals from their own violence toward others. Excessive force laws and other restrictions on force put law-abiding citizens in a terrible legal position. If they use a harsh degree of force against a violent drug user, some prosecutor may come along after the fact and say that it was not a justified level of force. Such laws are a good example of where the true corruption of society exists.

Conservatives generally find it distasteful to argue that a person who is being burgled, mugged or just generally set upon by a drug user should be legally allowed to simply pull out a handgun and shoot the drug user dead without warning. Liberals naturally find it to be quintessentially barbaric (which is a good deal of the appeal right there!), but let none of that deter the rational thinker here. As I have said before, most people are not psychotic--they can be trusted to use harsh degrees of force, including deadly force, when attacked. If you disagree, then vote to disarm your local police force because they too come from the public and will be no more mentally stable!

The public safety issue is at its heart an issue of conservatives ignorantly blaming drug use for a safety problem that bad public policy and law has created. In fact, the greatest argument, that drug users will break in and steal property to feed their habit is laughable on its face because under a drug legalization legal regime, most people could support their drug habit the way they support their alcohol habit. As has been pointed out by Jacob Sullum of Reason magazine, much of the cost in illegal drugs today is the "black market premium" which would not exist if drugs were legal for adults to possess and use in ways analogous to alcohol or tobacco products.

The one public safety issue that is not mentioned in conservative opposition to this, is the corruption of police forces from their original mission as peace officers. The War on Drugs has created a myriad number of problems ranging from easy asset forfeiture rules to a significant militarization of local and state police forces. Mere possession of and use of drugs does not itself constitute a public safety issue, anymore than the use of alcohol in one's home does. To summarize the problem, we have a category of crimes that entices police forces to play rambo in order to secure large, lucrative convicions and seizures. This is manpower that is not getting spent on taking down intoxicated drives, burglars, murderers, etc. These are the real public safety issues, and there is ultimately no difference that should legally matter between a criminal who is stone cold sober, drunk on alcohol or high as a kite on drugs.

As a minarchist, that is my beef with conservatives. They tend to have a two-year old's attention span toward issues that surround the War on Drugs such as the liberty-destroying effects of having heavily-armed, militarized police forces and a liberal's ability to blame inanimate objects for the moral failings and crimes of others. Don't blame the gun, don't blame the alcohol or drug. Blame the person who committed the crime. That is the libertarian/minarchist position.

There are some cliches in politics that really just bug the hell out of me, like the angry Muslim who waves at his fingers screaming in broken English about how much we infidels are going to be taught a painful lesson about being infidels. It never fails. Whenever you see a picture of some angry Islamist or Imam, he's almost always either pointing his finger up in the air or waving his fist around. Or some variation of that. Anyway, I put this together because it's finally gotten to the farcical point for me and I want to unleash a bit of snarkiness in their direction.

I would do one for "think of the children," but there are no pictures that I could use for that one.

Sometimes it is amazing to me the depts that atheists and agnostics will go to in order to make asses out of themselves in front of theists. Richard Dawkins is now apparently trying to get people to blaspheme the Holy Spirit. I wonder if he even knows how to really get it done right. The long and short of it is that they would have to credit the works of Jesus or some bonafide miracle to a demonic entity. Simply saying "I deny the Holy Spirit" is not going to cut it for a non-Christian since by definition they don't believe in Jesus or the God of Israel.

It's amazing how many people have already responded by uploading videos of themselves trying to blaspheme the Holy Spirit. Such pathetic, weak-minded, feel good crap for the militant secular mind. It's actually quite hilarious to see some of them defend this on the basis that they are trying to prove that blasphemy should not be criminalized. Huh? Who is calling for that except maybe some fringe group that wouldn't have the support of any conservative denomination?

Dawkins doesn't have the guts to attack Islam or even Judaism or Hinduism. Christianity is a soft target because he knows that its scripture is at heart meek and gentle, whereas many other religions would not be so kind. The single-minded fixation on Christianity is something that I never really understood in my days as an amoral agnostic. There are religions that are far worse than Christianity can be accused of being, and as I have said, Islam is actually the one modern religion that embodies every militant secularist's worst nightmares.

Ilya Somin makes a great point about federalism:

Hitler and the Nazis rightly saw German federalism as an obstacle to the realization of their aims - which required a highly centralized state. And it is not surprising that they quickly stripped the German states of most of their authority after taking power in 1933. Other things equal, a totalitarian government is more difficult to establish in a federalist state than in a unitary one, because in the former state and/or local governments will retain greater ability to resist a totalitarian movement that comes to power at the center. If the totalitarians are unable to stifle the autonomy of state governments, then their vision cannot be fully implemented, even if they remain in power at the center. In Hitler's words, federalism makes it harder for a totalitarian movement to "impose its principles on the whole . . . nation." Furthermore, relatively autonomous state and local governments might make it more difficult for the totalitarians to seize power at the center in the first place.

There's more to it than that, but first things first. This comment on the page provides a prima facie counter to Somin's argument that actually ends up falling apart upon closer inspection:

Fair enough, but let's remember that federalism also makes it easier for smaller regions of a country to impose authoritarian restrictions on their people. A strong central government may be the only way to deal with that.

The commenter was referring to Jim Crow laws that were ultimately ended by Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Kansas. The fault in this argument is the fact that a smaller authoritarian state is much more easily brought down than a large one. The end of segregation was largely possible because two cultures could exist within the same nation and compete through non-state means since the federal government left them to be at least somewhat autonomous. The civil rights movement was helped in no small part by the fact that blacks could leave the Jim Crow states without leaving America, and thus add to the political power of non-Jim Crow states over the ones they left. Such could have lead to a second civil war if all of these decisions had to be decided for all parts of America by a single government because every decision would have been more contentious.

The great genius of federalism is that it is at heart an engineer's solution to political problems. It works in practice because it creates areas of specialization, and it's been widely established that most things, ranging from mechanical products, to software to bureaucracies work best when they have small, discretely areas of responsibility. Imagine how bad the FBI's bureaucratic problems would be if it were in charge of managing the 700,000+ local and state police officers currently in uniform in America. The smaller the jurisdiction, the narrower the mission, the more likely the government agency will be to stay focused and execute its responsibilities well. This is clearly the antithesis of the totalitarian state which is only concerned with power, efficiency and total control.

One last thing to consider is the Electoral College. It is one of the last pure vestiges of federalism left in America. Its purpose is quite important to the territorial integrity of the United States. While it serves as a check on the democratic process on the one hand, it decreases the risk that smaller states might decide that their interests are being steamrolled by larger states and thus leave. Considering the fact that most of these states are between the large population centers on both coasts, getting rid of the Electoral College could end up fomenting secessionist ideas in "flyover country," splitting America into several countries in a moment of crisis. Not to mention the fact that some states, such as Louisiana, which are fairly small have some key strategic assets such as ports that are invaluable to the larger states.

Oooh boy. Now you know where the problem really comes from! This is from the guy who used to be Bush's speech writer:

As antigovernment conservatives seek to purify the Republican Party, it is reasonable to ask if the purest among them are conservatives at all. The combination of disdain for government, a reflexive preference for markets and an unbalanced emphasis on individual choice is usually called libertarianism. The old conservatives had some concerns about that creed, which Russell Kirk called "an ideology of universal selfishness." Conservatives have generally taught that the health of society is determined by the health of institutions: families, neighborhoods, schools, congregations. Unfettered individualism can loosen those bonds, while government can act to strengthen them. By this standard, good public policies-from incentives to charitable giving, to imposing minimal standards on inner-city schools-are not apostasy; they are a thoroughly orthodox, conservative commitment to the common good.

What we have today is not in fact a streak of radical individualism, but rather radical libertine behavior. Not since the Great Depression has there been such a conspicuous lack of principled individualism present in the average American. The number of people who would today accept government handouts rather than work at a "degrading job" would be unfathomable to the average proud working American a hundred years ago. The essence of that rugged individualism is that there was a pride and principle to it, that even if not eloquently laid out, was present in all classes of society.

America is now learning first hand that "the wages of sin is death." Today Americans readily accept up to fifty percent of their income being taxed, the very possession of large assets like houses and cars being taxable, mountains of regulations, violent intrusions into their homes over intoxicating substances by paramilitary forces and a government that has all but legally rendered itself untouchable to mere mortals in most cases of malfeasance. Generally people who accept such onerous restrictions, but seek hedonistic freedom are, as I said, called libertines.

If you cannot tell the difference between libertarian and libertine, Google it before you open your mouth and make yourself look stupid.

Interestingly enough, as the government has grown more "caring and compassionate," the other pillars of authority have withered away. By any reasonable standard, men like Gerson are traitors to the cause of conserving these traditional pillars of authority that form the foundation of American society because they advocate sustaining or even elevating the doses of one of the poisons that makes our nation so sick. In fact, one might simply call a man like Gerson nothing more than a moralizing, tradition-minded left-liberal.

Campaigning on the size of government in 2008, while opponents talk about health care, education and poverty, will seem, and be, procedural, small-minded, cold and uninspired. The moral stakes are even higher. What does antigovernment conservatism offer to inner-city neighborhoods where violence is common and families are rare? Nothing. What achievement would it contribute to racial healing and the unity of our country? No achievement at all. Anti-government conservatism turns out to be a strange kind of idealism-an idealism that strangles mercy.

They offer several things, that schizophrenic ideologues like Gerson cannot offer. First, they offer freedom to control the education of their children. The more libertarian moves emphasize a more radical idea: that results are the only thing that matter. "Compassionate conservatives" will find every way to try to squeeze more performance out of the irredeemably flawed public schools that they can, often using private schools as big sticks to beat them with.

Second, the more liberty-minded conservatives offer an end to the War on Drugs, which has created a highly lucrative alternative to the tradition methods of making money, such as actually producing wealth or a service that is legal. Those who care about inner city poverty know that as long as vice carries a premium, and it always will in the black market, it'll provide an easy way for enterprising inner city kids to avoid getting educated and entering the "mainstream economy" as Gerson calls it.

Finally, these conservatives are going to oppose legal measures that penalize law-abiding citizens in favor of the criminal element. "Compassionate conservatives," like their liberal cousins, are going to be too busy tossing out free bread and organizing circuses to care that no one can legally carry a weapon downtown to defend themselves. Even if they do notice, and do claim to care, in practice, they won't do a thing about it.

But there is another Republican Party-what might be called the party of the governors. It is the party of Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida, who has improved the educational performance of minority students and responded effectively to natural disasters. It is the party of Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, who mandated basic health insurance while giving subsidies to low-income people. Neither of these men embrace big government; both show convincing outrage at wasteful spending. But they have also succeeded in making government work in essential government roles-not a small thing in a post-Katrina world.

Forcing people to buy basic health insurance is the epitome of big government. Forcing anyone to enter an economic relationship with something as unessential as an insurance provider is the very essence of cronyism and big government! Notice one last thing, for whatever reason, the two shining stars he lists here are not candidates that could win a national election.

The future of the Republican Party depends on which party it wants to be-the party of purity, or the party of the governors. In that decision, Republicans should consider: any political movement that elevates abstract antigovernment ideology above human needs is hardly conservative, and unlikely to win.

Considering the fact that Gerson's vision was thoroughly repudiated in the 2006 election, and stands to possibly be annihilated in 2008, perhaps he ought to avoid the swagger a little. What Americans have started to realize, that Gerson has not is that fraud, waste and abuse go hand-in-hand with "compassion" in government in practice.

What would win in 2008, but will not be allowed to contend as a Republican, is someone who is strong on defense and border security, gets the government out of social engineering, reforms the tax code and honestly wants to find a solution to Medicare/Social Security that helps those dependant on it, while not hurting those who will never see a benefit from it like *ahem* my generation.

"Compassionate conservatism" has failed so spectacularly because it is the most moralizing aspects of conservatism combined with the essence of left-liberal socialism. It is true cradle-to-grave nanny statism that would make even the average European cringe.

Others:

Cato@Liberty.

As a Java developer, sometimes I look at the toys that the .NET developers get to play with with a great lust in my heart. Especially at times like today. Java has terrible problems with resolving dependencies that .NET doesn't have, thanks to its Global Assembly Cache. Every so often you run into problems in large Java environments where you have two versions of the same library. One effectively kills the other because Java has no way to say "this is version 1.0," "that's version 2.0" and then intelligently assign them to each program as needed. Nope, it's all flat and even, meaning 1.0 or 2.0, but there is no coexistence without some hackery. This is the one thing that drives me up the wall with Java sometimes, and is why I now play around exclusively with .NET on my own time. Java really needs to have some changes like that made.

Someone should show John Hawkins a history textbook:

So, "Truth or Fiction? It's Hard to Tell?" Really? The idea that some sort of super militia backed by the Pentagon could take over the United States? You remember that old Jeff Foxworthy routine, "You might be a redneck if...." Well, you might be a conspiracy kook if you think it's plausible that the United States could be taken over in a coup. This isn't some Third World craphole, it's the United States, the world's oldest surviving democracy. We don't do coups in this country.

Coup d'etat: a sudden and decisive action in politics, esp. one resulting in a change of government illegally or by force.

You mean like when Abraham Lincoln sent the Army to shutdown the Maryland legislature so it couldn't even vote on whether or not to stay in the Union? Sounds like a dictionary definition of a coup d'etat to me.

While the odds are low that we will face a bonafide coup, we face a gradual crossing of the Rubicon. I suspect that like Rome we'll remain a republic on paper, but at heart an empire. And all along, people will get confused by the trappings of the old republic a lot like a cat with a shiny toy or ball of yarn.

Cases like the Durham Rape case illustrate how broken our system of government really can be at times. As La Shawn Barber has done an excellent job of showing, the prosecutor, Mike Nifong, is an out of control rogue who lusts after self-aggrandizement, not justice. The latest breaking news on the case, that the private lab that did some of the initial screening agreed with him to not release evidence that might help the Lacross players, is only a another example of this.

At times like this, I'm sympathetic to the idea of bringing back parts of the Mosaic Law that might provide clear benefits to our country, such as this section, which would provide a powerful incentive for people to be truthful and seek justice in felony cases:

16 If a malicious witness takes the stand to accuse a man of a crime, 17 the two men involved in the dispute must stand in the presence of the LORD before the priests and the judges who are in office at the time. 18 The judges must make a thorough investigation, and if the witness proves to be a liar, giving false testimony against his brother, 19 then do to him as he intended to do to his brother. You must purge the evil from among you. 20 The rest of the people will hear of this and be afraid, and never again will such an evil thing be done among you.

-Deuteronomy 19:16-20

This is not quite the same as eye-for-an-eye. The important difference is that the Mosaic Law, unlike American law, recognizes the fact that there are evil people who will try to use the courts of law as a weapon and provides a clear punishment for them. If you bring false murder charges, did you not intend to have your neighbor, who is innocent, put to death by the government? It's murder by proxy in a case like that, and in a case like this, the accuser, Nifong and the head of the private lab would now be behind bars under the Mosaic Law for the crime of denying justice to innocent people.

I think such a law could easily be adapted for our society, and that it should be adapted sooner rather than later. It should also, contain no loopholes for police or prosecutors and provide equivalent penalties for those government agents who show a willful disregard for the pursuit of justice if the accused turns out to be innocent. In either case, even if they turn out to be guilty, the government agents should by statute lose their job and forfeit all benefits as punishment for the perversion of justice.

I'm not particularly pissed off at someone or something right now, so that's not what this is about. It's just a pet peeve of mine about bloggers sometimes. You know who shouldn't have a blog? People who desperately need an echo chamber. If you need some mental mutual masturbation, go into your room and write the stuff down and then file it away or share it with your emo kid friends. The Internet is a public medium, and that means you might actually face opinions that get in the way of yours. God forbid that this happen and that you might have to engage people you think are "stupid" because they challenge your preconceived notions. You might actually have to argue a little, which might put you outside your comfort zone.

Such a pity...

Is no one really at fault here?

We don't get bang for our buck from the monstrosity we know as "the federal government". This is no one's fault in particular. It's not the fault of the federal employees who just want to do their jobs and live a quiet life until they collect their generous pensions. It's not the fault of members of Congress who just want to get re-elected so that they can keep their paid staff and their franking privileges. It's not even the fault of the average voter who votes his interests or votes by caprice, depending on how informed he is. None of them intended to create or maintain the behemoth.

Maybe Big Media are to blame, since they package and market the victim mentality to their audience, thus requiring the federal government to vacuum up an ever-increasing proportion of our wealth so that it can hand it out to ever-increasing numbers of official victims, keeping a little bit back to cover "administrative overhead".

Speaking from more of an engineering position myself, I think the part that is missed here is that we are responsible for what we don't do as what we do in fact do. In any engineering project, there are tradeoffs that have to be made, but there must be a purposeful effort to create the best possible design and implementation that the situation allows, and that's precisely what the elected officials and the average voter have avoided like the plague. Yes, we can blame the average politician and voter for the situation because it was they who created it. Especially the politicians because they are the ones who draft the laws that direct the growth and action of the government, but we cannot forget the role of the average voter who puts them there in the first place.

The problem began primarily in the so-called "progressive era" when pseudo-scientific, nanny state-loving posers began a series of flawed experiments with "social engineering" that haunt us to this very day. To a large degree, such people have come about as close to being legitimate engineers as a monkey randomly playing with nuts and bolts could be considered one. They tweak, they build without aim, they try to control and modify outcomes, not even planning and painstaking analyzing beforehand which is the root cause of their failure. The fact that they also have an enormous capacity to avoid introspection in their work only adds to the problem.

The behemoth we have today is in fact a kludge of the first degree. It is such a kludge that it is astounding that it even functions at all. The great problem that we are faced with today is how to make the "government work," but that is impossible with the current approach popular with most voting Americans, regardless of their beliefs. It would, realistically, take a Congress and President dedicated to fixing problems at least a decade to start sorting out the dead wood just in the United States Code while keeping an eye on judicial precedents that need legislative correction. Working through full sessions of Congress every year, with no new legislation except legislation to address problems that need genuine fixing, it would take at least a decade without radical change.

Our founding fathers gave us a constitution that would not be possible to have enacted today. It is simple, succinct, yet provides a consistent design to work with. It is fundamentally sound, whereas the work since then has been conducted by rank amateurs by comparison. These are people who would rather pile on "new features" rather than fix bugs, if you prefer the software analogy. You can't even compare them to Microsoft because even Microsoft's standards were never even remotely that low.

The mainstream media has only compounded the problem by essentially plaing the role of agent provocateur. They alternate between stirring up unrest and passionately defending the established order. They may ruthlessly attack the government in its foibles in one area, usually for ideological reasons, but be completely silent about social problems such as systematic corruption in a local government's leadership or police force. For example, where is this toothless watchdog in the aftermath of many botched drug raids that use wholly unacceptable levels of violence against simple crimes? Often silent, lest they be "irresponsible." Yet in the same breath, they may agitate the public on another issue that may have only minimal importance.

Links:
Outside the Beltway.

Blaming the victim is always acceptable when the perp happens to be a Muslim:

Two out of three charged with rape in Norway's capital are immigrants with a non-western background according to a police study. The number of rape cases is also rising steadily. Unni Wikan, a professor of social anthropology at the University of Oslo, in 2001 said that "Norwegian women must take their share of responsibility for these rapes" because Muslim men found their manner of dress provocative. The professor's conclusion was not that Muslim men living in the West needed to adjust to Western norms, but the exact opposite: "Norwegian women must realize that we live in a Multicultural society and adapt themselves to it."

Just so we are clear, the person who made that comment is your average liberal social anthropology professor. Once again, we see that women are being severely mistreated by adherents of Islam, and the sisterhood is completely silent. Where, oh where, are the feminist screeches of rage at the thought that Islamic men have increased the rate of bonafide rapes in Oslo, a city of 1.3M residents, to six times higher than New York City, a city of 8.2M residents.

The crickets will keep chirping in the meantime while we wait for feminists bloggers to start focusing their outrage on issues like this, not whether or not it is socially acceptable for frat boys to take advantage of drunk white women or the evils of the Western patriarchy. The best that one can expect from them is a tacit admission, "yes, what happens to Norwegian women there in Oslo really sucks, but America isn't perfect so let's focus exclusively on our minimal problems until we are!"

Back a little while ago, I wrote a blog post entitled In defense of extreme wording as a sort of paean to the use of extreme examples as a useful method of shocking people into seeing the logical conclusion of point of view. This sort of thing, however, was not what I was referring to:

Those of you who have been readers here since the beginning (way back in 2004) know who Vilmar is. He and I started this blog back then and we parted ways about two years ago. Nowadays, he blogs at Ranting Right Wing Howler. Don't bother to click the link. Vilmar's hosting company has suspended his account.

Why has he been silenced? He has been shut down by CAIR who was offended by something he said. Apparently, freedom of speech is a one-way street for the Muslims in our midst. Their Imams preach hate in mosques all over America (and around the world). They call for jihad and kill all infidels. They collect money to send to the Middle East to blow up innocent civilians.

It started over this comment:

The Tampa, Fla., office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Tampa) is calling on an Internet web hosting company in that state to drop a hate site that supports calls to "kill all Muslim kids."

Under the headline, "Love Your Kids? Fear For Their Future? Kill All Muslim Kids," the Web site's owner, who lives in the Tampa area, wrote: "Makes sense to me. After all, if Muslims are raising their little crumb- snatching, curtain climbing, ankle biting rug rats to strap on bombs in order to kill us, it is logically correct to assume that in order to stop that from happening we need to kill all Muslim kids. Starting now."

One of the first rules of warfare of any kind is to recognize that you can be your own worst enemy. When facing the jihad, it is important to realize that these people can and will use everything they can against you, including your own words, economy and legal system. That is precisely what Vilmar should have known would happen to him when he wrote a blog post like that. While he probably never meant it to be taken seriously as a policy proposal, it ended up giving CAIR the ammo it needed to attack him, and that's precisely what they did.

CAIR is not a civil rights organization like any other. It is an organization that has committed itself to the Islamification of the United States, and that naturally entails discrimination, violence and hate toward millions of people on a level never seen here in the past. Islam inherently brings with it second-class citizenship for non-Muslims, and regardless of what one may feel that one suffers in "Christian America," the reality is that in practice the process that CAIR aspires to bring about here carries with it a death sentence for literally tens of millions of people who live freely in America. This is not "ignorance," but an observable historical trend that continues today in countries like Sudan which are undergoing this process. Millions of people there have been systematically murdered by CAIR's ideological peers.

They are not nice people, and they will stop at nothing to achieve their goals. Regard them accordingly and do not give them such obvious ammo.

Previously, I had posted about the view that God does not really care how we run our lives with respect to sexuality. In this day and age, there are many people who find it bizarre that an omnipotent, perfect being should care about this little detail about our lives. My position on the matter is very simple, and that's "why wouldn't God care, if He in fact cares at all about humanity?" It's the position that the Bible takes, and it doesn't take it without cause if you look at the bigger picture.

Anyone who has struggled with what the church calls "sexual brokenness" knows that it is not some sort of memetic poison that cuts deep into us. Memes are simply not that powerful. There is a feeling so deep, so hard to pinpoint, yet so real that it cannot be attributed to a bad cultural practice that preys on our consciences. When you do what you know is wrong, that which is against God's plan, you can feel the sickness, the shallowness and the unfulfillment deep inside you. It tears a little at your heart, making you feel numb inside.

Sexuality gone awry breaks and destroys many people. It is probably the worst, most insidious destructive force that moves against humanity that we can ever face. I think it goes without saying that there are many children and others who have come to appreciate how very real this phenomenon actually is. There is a marked difference between most of those who consciously and sincerely seek the sort of sex life that is claimed to be "God's plan" and many of those who do not. It can be like night and day.

If God, who can see these things, and who knows even better the extent that sexuality gone awry can hurt people, still cannot be bothered to create a sexual path that works, then God doesn't concern Himself with a deeply destructive thing poised against us. Let's not draw human boundaries around this such as God only concerning Himself with lifestyle choices that hurt others. One need only look at the fatalism and nihilism present in all "alternative lifestyles" to see that this is an arbitrary boundary.

Truth is that as much as we don't like to think about it, a God that cannot get involved in this area, probably isn't going care about us in general. I can think of no metaphysical idea colder than the idea of an all-powerful being who quite frankly doesn't give a damn about His creation. What are we then, but mere things?

I will try to remember to expand on this point tomorrow when I have had more sleep, but I remembered something that I read that was attributed to Sam Harris and I had to comment on it. He finds the idea that an all powerful deity would be "so provincial" as to be concerned with the sex lives of its creation, to be quite absurd. That quickly begs the question of just what aspect of our lives would this deity care about, since sexual issues are quite possibly the most deeply destructive ones that face humanity.

AIDS poses a more grave threat to human existence than any weapon out there. That's just the tip of the iceberg that ends up with the sort of mental, physical and spiritual brokenness that can be so deeply rooted in sexuality. If this all powerful being recognizes this obvious fact, and has no plan for how to live our sex lives, then this means that said deity really doesn't care about us in an area that profoundly influences our lives. I think that right there is sufficient grounds to question whether or not such a being really cares at all about humanity.

I have been off from work, and learning a lot about spiritual things and how they apply to relationships. Generational sin, salvation, many things. I have been afforded the opportunity to learn things that have given my girl and I better understandings of one another, our families and God. I've been away from the computer almost all day for both days, from about 7AM to about 6-7:30PM because we've been out receiving counseling from her family's pastor.

Days well spent, indeed.

So yeah, today I did something that I have not really done before. In front of two witnesses, my better half and her family's pastor I dedicated my life to Christ formally. As some may know, my involvement in the Christian faith has been to this point mostly an evolutionary process. It is something of a formality I suppose, but it is an important step and I plan to follow up with baptism if possible within the next year or so. Believe it or not, I am actually quite interested in trying out one of the schismatic evangelical Episcopal churches in Northern Virginia such as Truro, the Falls Church or All Saints.

I recently started playing God of War. It'd always looked cool when I saw it in stores, but never got around to buying it. Well, about a week ago, I bought a copy and started playing it, and Oh. My. God. This is so far what an action game for the PS2 should be! But... at the same time... it is so terribly R-rated that I think any parent that buys the game for their kid should be tagged with a giant greek letter on their forehead to identify them if they ever complain about the content. I knew it was going to be hardcore, but wow, not like that. It's an amazing game, but if there was ever a game that I have seen that successfully makes the argument that video games, like the movies, are no longer just for kids, it's God of War.

Anyone seen Apocalypto yet? I am thinking about going to see that next weekend, and was wondering what people thought of it. Help me out here because I love Mel Gibson's movies, but it looks very spiritually dark in the commercials and I am not sure if it'd be appropriate to take my better half to see.

Once again, we bring you to your government at work. Highlighting the abuse of reason and citizenry that is increasingly common place in this regimented, legalistic country. For starters, I bring you the case of a four year old boy who was suspended by his school for allegedly being a pervert. Now, keep in mind that this is a four year old, not an older child who would understand why this behavior is wrong:

The Nov. 13 letter from La Vega Independent School District stated his son, who was 4 years old at the time, was involved in "inappropriate physical behavior interpreted as sexual contact and/or sexual harassment" after the boy hugged a teacher's aide and "rubbed his face in the chest of (the) female employee" on Nov. 10.

Needless to say, the public school officials reacted with the way that is normally expected of public school bureaucrats. They treated the boy more like a criminal than a child not handled properly by his or her parents. While normal, rational people would say that the principle should have brought the parents in and had them talk with the teacher's aid to try to peacefully resolve it and teach the child a lesson, one must remember that many public school bureaucrats are not "normal, rational people."

Or how about how little kids are being turned into eco-snitches now?

FAYETTEVILLE -- Beware Fayetteville homeowners with trash or old tires in overgrown yards: Children might be watching.

An educational program to teach kids how to spot building and property code violations -- complete with colorful characters such as "Willie Weeds" and "Trashy Tina" -- will be in the hot little hands of local children soon, thanks to Fayetteville city officials.

Ahhhh the public indoctrination centers strike again! Instead of teaching kids actual subjects, they are getting taught how to be good citizen-informants to create a kinder, gentler surveillance state than the ones in the past that purely ruled through intimidation. After all, isn't it civically virtuous to make sure that your neighbor is doing his or her part to keep the community clean?

Of course some people will defend these programs saying that they are not all like the totalitarian programs that pitted children against their parents; neighbor against neighbor. Why because people aren't getting drug out of their homes in the middle of the night by ninja suited members of the secret police. Even though it's just a softer version of the same tactic, it's ok because the cause is just.

And perhaps this is the highlight for the day:

A 17-year-old Boulder High senior faces a $250 fine stiffer than a ticket for speeding through a school zone ? for playing Hacky Sac.

His offense: "releasing projectiles" on the Pearl Street Mall.

Back in the olden days of yore (sweet, sweet yore), a police officer, or rather a peace officer, would probably have ignored them or told them to quit doing that in a busy place. The teens would have acknowledged the warning and would have found a different place. Instead, the government treats a harmless game, that is at best an annoyance, as a soft criminal act.

Raise your hand if you can spot the controlling, nagging bitch in this scenario:

She: You're not bringing that thing into bed again are you, sweetie? I thought we talked about that.

He: It's not a big deal, babe. I just need to check the box scores/check my e-mail/download this sound file/update my stock portfolio.

She: That's fine, but do you have to do it in bed?

He: You're reading a book.

She: That's different.

He: How?

She: Books are organic. They're made to be read in bed. Computers are for working.

He: Well, maybe I like to work in bed. What's wrong with that? You like to read, I like to work.

She: I like to work, I just do it in during the day, in an office. Besides, you're not working. You're checking box scores/e-mailing/downloading sound files/updating your stock portfolio.

He: So what's the problem then? Why are you getting so upset?

She: I'm not upset. I just wish you'd be more considerate of my feelings.

He: Not this again.

Let's see. First off, she's clearly not paying attention to him, the way that she wants him to pay attention to her because she's reading. Second, she arbitrarily defines a computer as a device only associated with work, not leisure, activities. Third and finally, she tries to guilt trip him about not being sensitive to her feelings, which in this case are completely arbitrarily hurt.

I have a suggestion for a man in this scenario. Start yakking up a storm with your woman while she's trying to read. Everything from work, to football, to (as the author says one man did) throwing out interesting tidbits about Renaissance and post-Renaissance philosophers. But most of all, don't shut up, badger the hell out of her for telling you that you can't peacefully enjoy your toys while she enjoys her toys. "But honey, I was just trying to engage you on an intellectual level!"

Look, I'm sympathetic to women who have men who genuinely prefer the laptop to engaging them. However, what the author of this piece has described isn't a genuinely excluded woman, but a woman who wants to enjoy her personal, solo activities and then enjoy a veto right over her man's personal, solo activities. Both people have a right to reasonably enjoy themselves in solo activities, but clearly the author of this hit piece has issues with men exercising that right or she would have painted this scenario with a more sympathetic, less selfish woman.

And that is precisely what the woman in this sob story is. A selfish, egotistical, controlling bitch. She's every bit as bad as the stereotyped controlling, possessive boyfriend. She's just softer and gentler on the surface.

So I had been struggling a little to understand how .NET implements some of its cryptography APIs and today I finally figured out how to write a little encryption app that uses them. Here's the code with an explanation following it:

using System;

using System.IO;

using System.Security.Cryptography;

using System.Text;


public class Test

{

public static void Main(string[] args)

{

try

{

byte[] bytePhrase = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes("My encryption password!");

SHA384Managed sha384 = new SHA384Managed();

sha384.ComputeHash(bytePhrase);

byte[] result = sha384.Hash;

byte[] key = new byte[32];

byte[] iv = new byte[16];

for( int loop=0; loop<32; loop++ ) key[loop] = result[loop];

for( int loop=32; loop<48; loop++ ) iv[loop-32] = result[loop];



RijndaelManaged rijndael = new RijndaelManaged();

rijndael.Key = key;

rijndael.IV = iv;

ICryptoTransform rijndaelEncrypt = rijndael.CreateEncryptor();

MemoryStream memStream = new MemoryStream();



CryptoStream output = new CryptoStream(memStream, rijndaelEncrypt, CryptoStreamMode.Write);

StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(File.OpenRead("Test.cs"));



byte[] bytes = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(reader.ReadToEnd());

output.Write(bytes, 0, bytes.Length);

output.FlushFinalBlock();

reader.Close();



ICryptoTransform rijndaelDecrypt = rijndael.CreateDecryptor();

memStream.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.Begin);

CryptoStream input = new CryptoStream(memStream, rijndaelDecrypt, CryptoStreamMode.Read);



StreamReader r2 = new StreamReader(input);

string line = "";

while ( (line = r2.ReadLine()) != null)	Console.WriteLine(line);



} catch (Exception ex) { Console.WriteLine(ex.Message); }

}

}

byte[] bytePhrase = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes("My encryption password!");
SHA384Managed sha384 = new SHA384Managed();
sha384.ComputeHash(bytePhrase);
byte[] result = sha384.Hash;
byte[] key = new byte[32];
byte[] iv = new byte[16];
for( int loop=0; loop<32; loop++ ) key[loop] = result[loop];
for( int loop=32; loop<48; loop++ ) iv[loop-32] = result[loop];

This code generates both the key and the initialization vector. The algorithm that I used, AES or Rijndael takes keys that are 128bit, 192bit or 256bit in length. What this code does is it generates a hashed value of the encryption password, then sets aside two arrays, key and iv. The key has 32 bytes which is 256bit and the IV is 128bit in length. Once it's set aside those arrays, it copies values over into them. When I was starting out, generating the key was not obvious, but this article helped me get a start. The code there is modified slightly from the stuff on that Developer.com page to accomodate a larger key.

RijndaelManaged rijndael = new RijndaelManaged(); rijndael.Key = key; rijndael.IV = iv; ICryptoTransform rijndaelEncrypt = rijndael.CreateEncryptor(); MemoryStream memStream = new MemoryStream();

Create an instance of the AES algorithm, then set its Key and IV properties with the appropriate values. After that, instantiate an encryptor and a new memory stream that will be used to hold the encrypted data.

CryptoStream output = new CryptoStream(memStream, rijndaelEncrypt, CryptoStreamMode.Write); StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(File.OpenRead("Test.cs"));

byte[] bytes = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(reader.ReadToEnd());
output.Write(bytes, 0, bytes.Length);
output.FlushFinalBlock();
reader.Close();

Insantiate a new CryptoStream using the memory stream, the encryptor and set the mode to write. Then, instantiate a new StreamReader to provide data, and create an array of bytes from the contents by reading everything in at once. Write the bytes to the CryptoStream, flush the last bite of data and close the StreamReader. Note: you need to do an explicit flush at the end with a CryptoStream that is writing data or part of your data won't be written.

ICryptoTransform rijndaelDecrypt = rijndael.CreateDecryptor(); memStream.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.Begin); CryptoStream input = new CryptoStream(memStream, rijndaelDecrypt, CryptoStreamMode.Read);

StreamReader r2 = new StreamReader(input);
string line = "";
while ( (line = r2.ReadLine()) != null) Console.WriteLine(line);

Create a decryptor from the same AES algorithm instance. Then, seek the memStream back to the beginning, and wrap it around a CryptoStream that is set to decrypt data. Finally, wrap the CryptoStream around a new StreamReader and treat the encrypted data like any other data by reading it one line at a time.

I have long held that Socialism is the ultimate proof of the stupidity and short-sightedness of a significant amount of normal people, and the detachment of many intellectuals from reality. Most libertarians and other fellow minarchists would completely agree with this statement because by any objective standard, there is no way that one can defend Socialism on personal liberty or dignity grounds with any degree of intellectual honesty.

As this article from TCSDaily shows, there is no rational basis for Venezuelans to continue to support Chavez, nor was there much basis for the poor of Venezuela to every really support him in the first place, except for purely emotional reasons. One need only step outside of the here and now to objectively see that if tyranny is defined as strong control of one's life by the state without just cause, the man and his views are certifiably tyrannical.

By any historical measure, the degree of control that Socialists seek over economic and private life would cause violent revolutions in eras long since gone. Kings were murdered in the past for seeking far less control over their subjects than the Socialist (or any other "ist" based on Socialism) seeks over society. In practice, Socialists are far from liberal. Today they advocate everything from speech codes, to destroying the right to use force in self-defense to state subordination of all private property.

The true opiate of the masses within the Socialist state is the presence of "free goodies" that numbs people to the fact that they have been turned into serfs for each other and by extension, the state. Perhaps this is why the Fascist state, which is the Socialist state tuned to better fit human nature, is so odious to many people when they see it. The Fascist state cannot hide behind the welfare veneer because it's too spendthrift. It has enough of the elements of Socialism to be a totalitarian state, but not enough to trick the masses into thinking that they are in control, that they are wealthy and free.

It ultimately comes down to universal democracy, which enables the rise of Socialism. "The people" think they are in control, when in fact as the history of Communism has shown, it is biologically and sociologically impossible to create such a state of equality where there are not clear-cut divisions between leaders and followers. Men like Stalin prove that ideology cannot trump the natural tendency for would-be alpha males and females to rise to positions of power and domination over the weak.

Tragedy ensues when "the people," having entrusted their future to Dear Leader, finally realize that the emperor's throne has simply changed hands, and that this new emperor has far less scruples (and more practical power) than the old one. The Russian people demonstrated this lesson to the world the hard way when the state assumed a level of domination over all economic and personal activity that was unthinkable under even the Tsar, and the people soon found a new absolutism in power that they had hardly known before.

Things like this prove that most people are not rational beings, but rather rationalizing beings. People will find all manner of reasons to justify what they emotionally want, but rarely do people allow reason to trump emotion. That's why tyranny always follows when you open up the floodgates of popular participation in politics. The people who can soberly look at what works and doesn't, and who might not repeat the mistakes of the past are always drowned out by those who are too emotionally-driven to not make the same mistakes.

If you don't snitch, we'll be forced to bankrupt you:

Millions of commercial Web sites and personal blogs would be required to report illegal images or videos posted by their users or pay fines of up to $300,000, if a new proposal in the U.S. Senate came into law.

It's $150,000 for the first "offense," $300,000 for every subsequent offense. On top of that, the law draws no distinction between a small time blogger and a large corporation like MySpace which has a full legal team to take care of these things. I can say pretty confidently that most bloggers would be terrified of having someone post this sort of content in a blog comment, and few would welcome the scrutiny of law enforcement on their blog.

I am pretty convinced at this point that all this law really is is a way for McCain to really stick a knife into bloggers and online publishing in general. That's where the fiercest opposition to his so-called "campaign finance reform" has come from. I like the sentiment behind this comment on Techdirt. Just to be on the safe side, if this law is passed, bloggers should use plugins and other software to forward every comment automatically to law enforcement just so that nothing "falls through the cracks."

Also, you heard it here first. If this becomes law, some overzealous prosecutor will try to argue that you are still liable for spam comments that are not published. Their mere presence in your database will make you covered under this law, and a row similar to the one over browser caches will start all over again, this time over database flags.

***Update***: Well looky here! Looks like the Virginia state government wants to get in on the act too, though at least no one seems to be starry-eyed about this in our state:

"This is not a foolproof approach, as we all fully realize how easy it is to get new e-mail addresses," McDonnell, a longtime state legislator who was sworn in as attorney general in January 2006, said in a statement released Monday. "But by requiring registration, and by making the penalties for failure to register the same as those for failure to register physical and mailing addresses, we will take another positive step towards protecting children online."

Gotta give him credit. He's blunt about the fact that he just wants to pile yet another charge on them. Few politicians, especially ones like McCain, are like that.

Now that we're near the year 2007, it seems vaguely appropriate to bring up the fact that Islamic Pakistan is just now starting to meet the legal standards for protecting women against violent crime that Jewish law had over 3,000 years ago. Rape has actually become a serious criminal offense in Pakistan, rather than a "religious offense." To put it bluntly, rape is now actually a prosecutable offense by civil authorities rather than by some local religious court.

Stuff like this is why I say that Islam calls feminism's bluff. I'd love to see womyn like Amynda from Pandagon getting on their high horse about the evils of the patriarchy and shrilly asserting her rights in front of a typical man from Pakistan's tribal regions. It might actually be education for them, provided that they are not severely raped and beaten.

You just can't make this stuff up.

An atheist once again misses the point:

Allow us to assume, for the sake of argument, the premises that there is no hierarchy of sins and that a women who sins (as with having extramarital sex) is not an innocent victim when raped. Clearly it's not the case that only sexual sins prevents a woman from being an innocent victim after all, there is no hierarchy of sins, with sexual sins being worse than others. A woman who blasphemes, lies, shoplifts, or who commits any other transgression cannot be a “wholly innocent victim either.” Since it's a basic Christian doctrine that we are all sinners, this means that no woman is a wholly innocent victim.

In a spiritual sense, that would be partially correct. There is no one who is innocent of any particular sin on some level, but then God doesn't actually view sin and legality the way that this guy does. There are quite a few sinful behaviors such as envy, gossiping, lusting in private, coveting and general greed that are neither part of the American legal system nor are outlawed under biblical law (which was never intended to be the total guide for sinful behavior). In fact, biblical law does not treat all of the sinful behaviors it punishes as being the same, as there are sinful acts which do not result in the death penalty, which is the closest human analog to damnation. While all sins ultimately carry the same spiritual weight, the only people arguing that this has relevance to the legal system are people like this atheist.

The question of a woman's spiritual innocence has largely nothing to do with whether or not she is regarded as a victim. The Bible explicitly recognizes that a woman who resists rape is a victim, and the only reason that there was a requirement that the woman try to call for help was that the Bible actually has a higher burden of proof in many cases that our own legal system for the equivalent of felonies (Hint: circumstantial evidence doesn't amount to a bloody thing in biblical law in many important cases like murder). The American legal system for its part is also entirely unsympathetic to a rapist who cannot claim an extraordinary extenuating circumstance such as being drugged or the woman "withdrawing consent."

I think cases like this ultimately serve to prove that most vocal atheists have the same shallow understanding of scripture that they lambast "low church" Christians for having. The ultimate absurdity of the matter is that the Bible recognizes that sinfulness and legal punishment can go off in diametrically opposite directions, such as someone facing execution for murder in a human court and receiving divine forgiveness for the sin; the opposite spiritual situation being true as well.

Ultimately, there is little or no Christian basis for Vox Day's argument here. The fact that a person is guilty of one sin does not in any way mitigate the sin of someone else who commits a crime against the first person. The concept of "innocent victim" is legal, not Christian, and refers to the crime at issue previous and unrelated transgressions are simply irrelevant. Finally, it's debatable whether there is no hierarchy of sins in Christianity. The Catholic Church certainly recognizes such a hierarchy or does Vox Day deny that Catholics are "real" Christians?

What is ludicrous about this is that scripture directly contradicts the Roman Catholic position. James 2:10 says,

10For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.

If a denomination's position on a matter directly contradicts what accepted scripture says, who is right? The scripture, obviously, since that is the foundation of every denomination. The onus is on the Roman Catholic Church to reject its hierarchy of sins and embrace the position that James 2:10 takes. Logically it follows that if you accept that the Bible is the Word of God and the foundation of Christianity, then you reject part of it for a different belief, you are rejecting part of what it means to be a believing Christian. Since the Roman Catholic Church rejects part of the Word of God, it logically follows that the Roman Catholic Church may in fact be "less Christian" than other denominations.

My girlfriend is sitting here playing Kingdom Hearts on my PS2 while I surf the net. She's actually doing very well for someone who has never played a real RPG before. She does love playing video games, which is one of the many good things about her...

And no I am not saying this because I got put in the dog house or something ;)

How's that for a "slip of the tongue?"

"There's no such thing as a Jew for Jesus. It's like saying a black man is for the KKK," he said. "You can't be a table and a chair. You're either a Jew or a gentile." The KKK, or Ku Klux Klan, is a white supremacist group that became known for violent attacks on blacks opposing segregation.

Mason told reporters that he had respect for Christians but that did not make him a Christian, just as his respect for Eskimos did not make him an Eskimo.

If there were any justice in the world, Mason would get the same sort of treatment that Michael Richards received, albeit toned done a little to be proportional to the degree of vitriolic, bigoted rhetoric. He basically compared Christianity to the Ku Klux Klan there, then goes on to say that he has respect for Christians, which all leads me to wonder if he doesn't in fact harbor some sort of respect for some people who hate blacks a la the KKK.

Oh it's not looking good for you, is it, Jackie boy?

Show this to the next person who tells you that it's safer to just let someone commit a crime such as robbery against you than to try to be armed and defend yourself. Self-defense does work in real life.

Canada's government once again proves th