It's about time that the Ubuntu team started merging in the latest kernel changes into their baseline for the new version (8.04, Hardy Heron). The second alpha release of the distribution has been officially available for a few days now, and one of the biggest changes is that it includes one of the recent kernel releases that, as far as I know, contains the new patches which should really help out desktop Linux users. I've set up my laptop for dual-boot and am going to be seeing how well it works. Here's hoping that it will make it that much harder to want to stay with Windows most of the time!
I've added a new category to my blog, Defending Minarchy. Part of the motivation for the category is arguments like this one where a candidate is hammered for not wanting an activist, interventionist foreign policy. I think foreign intervention is a natural way to start the category, anyone disagree? The other motivation is that I am not a libertarian, and there are a significant number of libertarians who are, in my opinion, every bit as much of an enemy to freedom and civil society as your average socialist or extreme social conservative. Minarchism is a broad category that ranges from those who have much more classical liberal values, to secular libertarians. We are all minarchists, but we are not all interchangeable because on some issues, we hold very different views that are almost irreconcilable. A good example is immigration and the borders; classical liberals want the borders controlled, libertarians in general do not.
Apparently the Dominionists are getting a little media time because Huckabee was stupid enough to do a little fundraising with them. This, though, is just priceless. You have to admire a liberal who can denounce someone as a fascist, for opposing legislation that would get the government into the business of punishing people for not just committing crimes, but having the wrong motivations for committing them (as if there is a right motivation in the first place):
Christian Right in the US are fighting hate-crime legislation in Congress. If this doesn't suggest they can be compared to fascists, nothing does.
If you are not smart enough to see the irony that you are whole-heartedly advocating a platform eerily similar to the very thing you passionately hate, then you are too stupid to participate in politics in any fashion. Stop. Don't pass go. Don't even waste the paper and ink needed to scribble your diseased rantings into an off brand notebook you dug out of a dumpster behind Office Depot. The notebook deserves better than to be defaced like that.
Anyone else think that America would be better off without most of the think tanks, political activist groups and other policy engines that we have? Even many "free market" ones that cannot tell the difference between an ideologically diverse group like open source developers, and Marxism?
**UPDATE**: Question about Dominionism for the Christians who come here. If the Dominionists ever reached a critical base of support where they could organize and attempt to fundamentally change or overthrow the constitutional system, what would you do? Join them? Fight them peacefully? Take up your sword and cross, and kill them in the streets if necessary? I admit that I am quite willing to kill those who claim to be my brothers and sisters in Christ if their goal is an armed overthrow of the constitutional system, but how do the rest of you feel about these theocrats (y'all know I don't throw that term out lightly)?
**UPDATE** 12/24/2007 1PM: My wife is restarting her blog and admitting to its existence. Her first post is about why it's not a good idea to continue the tradition of teaching little kids that Santa really exists.
Dominionists are misled. They seek political power over something that will not last. Jesus wasn't crucified for any particular political aim. Their belief says more about what they hold dear (this world, this life) than it does about any sort of abiding faith in eternity spent with God.
That might seem harsh but I believe I'm right.
If you were an American, would you fight back against them, with force if necessary, to prevent them from getting rid of the U.S. Constitution?
It is pretty neat having a Canadian to offer his thoughts. As a US citizen, though, I would offer this.
I would have to fight them, myself. As I would have to fight any group with such aims and with any real prospects of success. And, as to my political and religious affiliations, oddly or at least different from this group you discussed, I have noticed as my faith has grown my belief in any political works has failed. I am left with only a small sad nod to US governance, but more what that government is really supposed to be (how it really was initially developed and implemented more than what it is, and worse what it is becoming).
I don't want to fight, I hope it won't come to that with any group, but it is how it may go. Though, I do not think Dominionists are the real threat. The real threat is already in power, it just doesn't have enough of the key positions owned yet to fully materialize into it's "natural" form.
I've set up my laptop for dual-boot and am going to be seeing how well it works.
Let us know how it works. I've been considering giving Ubuntu a try, but haven't yet pulled the trigger.
A good example is immigration and the borders; classical liberals want the borders controlled, libertarians in general do not.
I think the open-borders "libertarians" haven't thought the issue all the way through. Illegal immigration is fundamentally no different than trespassing; it is a property rights violation.
If the Dominionists ever reached a critical base of support where they could organize and attempt to fundamentally change or overthrow the constitutional system, what would you do?
Probably not much of anything. That's not an endorsement of Dominionism, it just means I don't think the current political system is worth defending with life or limb.
(I'm only familiar with the Christian Reconstructionist variety, so that's what I'm referring to when I say "Dominionism".)
I admit that I am quite willing to kill those who claim to be my brothers and sisters in Christ if their goal is an armed overthrow of the constitutional system, but how do the rest of you feel about these theocrats (y'all know I don't throw that term out lightly)?
That's a bit of a loaded question, Mike. Your question presumes that the choice is either Dominionism or a constitutional system, when in fact we don't really have a constitutional system right now. Instead, you should ask if we prefer Dominionism to the current system, however one might describe it.
To make it overly simple, let's put it this way: if Gary North tried to kill George W. Bush in a contest that determined who got to rule, would you sacrifice your life to protect Dubya?
Though, I do not think Dominionists are the real threat.
Me neither, anonymous.
This group is tiny, yet the Left loves to use it as a sort of bogeyman which they portray as representative of all evangelical Christians. The Left is stupid that way.
To sum up, I don't think Dominionist rule would be any worse than what we have now, and might even be an improvement. But I think those guys taking over is exceedingly unlikely; I'd give better odds for the Yellowstone caldera erupting and burying us all under ash, thus making forms of government a moot issue anyway.
I tried the second alpha and didn't see any desktop performance improvements over the final release of 7.10.
I would not risk my life in a contest between Gary North and George Bush. However, I would be quite willing to fight to the death to defend the Constitution if the Dominionists ever were in a real position to formally throw it out and institute a theocracy, which is their stated goal.
Part of my problem with these people is that they haven't thought out the contradictions in their beliefs. It is impossible for there to be enough actual Christians in a society to make a Christian theocracy possible. The problem with the Mosaic Law was precisely that it was often enforced by men and women who were as degenerate in the eyes of God as the very people they were judging. In the hands of such people, God's law becomes an instrument of terror, not peace and order.
Yes, I would fight them. As they are now, they are no threat to me, but with the power of government behind them, they would be dangerous of me and my descendants. They would have to be fought.
That does not mean I would be fighting the police, army, or federal alphabet agencies, most of whom are just following orders and would be just as happy following benign orders.
I would go for the chiefs.
The easy way to do it is before they get power,but since that is not even a rational possibility in this universe, there is no need to do anything about them. If anything, it is a testament to our freedom that people like that can even walk the streets without decent Christians throwing rocks at them.
It is also a testament to the church and God's spirit which guides it, that these people have not been violently confronted by the devout. Even someone like Fred Phelps is free to behave in the most un-Christian ways imaginable, getting press that causes us no end of grief, and yet he is not facing the threat of violence from the church.