Which Alice In Wonderland Character Are You?

I can't resist posting my response to this internet quiz...

I don't need a quiz to tell me I am the Cheshire cat. Not only am I philosophical, but (as Wiki Answers reports) my avatar

"...is sly, mischevious and completely mad, but he is very rational about it..."

A Terrorist Is A Terrorist, For A' That

I thought that this response which I made an old friend's musings about where all these vigilantes are coming from was worth posting on my blog.

When the left went crazy in the 60s and 70s with bank bombings and attempted assassinations, Democratic officials condemned them. I can't recall a single elected official supporting any of the left-wing terror of the time. When the right wing nut cases started exploding, especially after the election of Pres. Obama, the right wing embraced them. Numerous elected officials, including congressmen, currently praise the crazies. That's why the left wing crazies died out pretty quickly and the right wing crazies just seem to keep on getting stronger and stronger.

Perhaps even more significant is the response of the media. The media uniformly and universally condemned left-wing terrorism back in those decades. Fox News and many other right-wing party organ, propaganda machines regularly praise and encourage this type of vigilante behavior. There is a causative relationship.

Our God and Evolution Given Rights

Hi, Susan!

As usual, I take a position that doesn't seem to fit what we usually hear. I know there are those who express utter contempt of the very idea that animals have rights, but on the other hand we have PETA actually bringing a lawsuit saying that pet animals are enslaved that need to be liberated. Which makes me wonder what they want. We should just turn all our dogs loose and let them roam the streets in packs?

PETA always makes me think of one of my favorite stories. A French philosopher, I'm pretty sure it was Voltaire, made the satirical comment that there really was nothing wrong with killing a man, the real horror was murdering a carrot!  After all, he pointed out, Christianity tells us that if we kill a man all we are doing is setting his soul free from the horrors of this world and sending him to his final reward. (Or punishment,if that's what he deserved.). But in any event, we were just liberating his soul, no problem.  But, since it has no soul, to kill a carrot is to kill it forever.

I'll have to take the evolutionary viewpoint. Everything we have and everything we are came through evolution. That's just scientific fact. Where you put religion into the equation depends entirely on your own personal beliefs, but the facts are clear.

If human rights are truly rights, not just something granted by governments or societies, then those rights evolved. And if they evolved, they came to us as an inheritance from our more primitive ancestors.  Human dignity evolved out of animal dignity. Human rights evolved out of animal rights. Human emotions evolved out of animal emotions.

So I have no doubt that animals have rights and that those rights should be respected as surely as human rights should be respected.  It is just that I believe that they don't have the same level of rights as humans. Just as animals can communicate, but not as well as we can. Just as animals can think, but not as well as we can.

Levels of cruelty in meat production are truly horrific and should not be tolerated. We should pass laws preventing these extremes. As you know, I will not stop eating meat. But I do advocate that we must produce that meat in as humane a manner as possible, which will of course raise its price. That might actually be good for our health!  More expensive meat means less consumption. Not that that's the purpose of this conviction. The purpose is to protect animals' rights.

Even more, I dream of the day, which I do believe will inevitably come, when we will grow our meats and our other animal products in tanks. There will be no living creature to suffer. There will be no nervous system. We will never raise another farm animal, just the desired animal product.

As I pointed out to you in an earlier Facebook post, lab grown skin will already begin to replace many of the animals used as test subjects. It's a beginning, and it will continue to grow, as will its impact on animal well being.  Think of lab grown leather!

I am well aware that my own positions are contradictory on the subject. I want animal suffering stop, yet I won't stop eating meat. It isn't hypocrisy, because I'm well aware of the contradiction and freely acknowledge it. However, it is my compromise made between many of my deeply held moral convictions and the way of life I have chosen to follow.

This is one area in which I believe advancing science will ultimately resolve the problems for us. We will one day look at the kind of casual cruelty practiced on animals, including even some of those which currently are against the law, but not felonious, and regard them as marks of the days when we were a society deeply infected with mental illness and all too tolerant of that fact.

On a personal note, it's nice to see you looking so happy in the pictures you've been posting lately. Also, I really miss you. You were always a joy to be with. You will always be my friend.

Do I Know You?

A long delayed response from Facebook to a friend who was concerned about a rather sharp remark I made. It was aimed at the person she was quoting, not at her, and I've made that clear. However,  the question still needs answering, just exactly where do I stand?

 Where to start? Well, as I have so so many times, I despise liberals and conservatives both. I refuse to consider myself a liberal. A progressive, yes, but not a liberal.  

Today in many school districts it is so horrible a violation of school rules for a boy to make a gun shape out of his finger that the child is likely to be  suspended or even expelled. In some cases it is apparently against the law because police have been called into the "incident".  This attitude is a direct gift from the liberals to all of America. Criminalizing little boys for acting like normal healthy little boys is the product of diseased minds.  America's war on children is a liberal war on children.  I have no doubt of that.

On the other hand, the conservatives have declared war on just about everyone and everything except the narrow, tiny minority who completely agree with them.

In the 60s and 70s I put most of my effort into condemning the liberal extremists. The Students for a Democratic Society, the protesters who  burned American flags and praised Ho Chi Minh, and all their supporters. I was disgusted by every symbol of Che Guevara I ever saw. Back before my prodigal daughter decided to shun me, I was driving with her and saw Che's face painted on the building. I expressed my disgust. Her response was, "Who?"  That pleased me. This once ubiquitous symbol of left-wing insanity wasn't even recognized by the next generation. That was years ago. His popularity has continued its resurgent rise. That's sad. The only bad thing about Che's death is that it came years too late to save many of his victims.

If you are interested, my political attitude is well expressed by my blog post: http://el-naranjal-del-desierto.blogspot.com/2014/03/heil-stalin-aka-vodka-vs-bourbon.html.

As far as Obamacare or the ACA, it's just about the worst imaginable law possible. It has only one good thing going for it -- It is a big improvement over the way things were before it was passed. That is not to say is a good law. Is a rotten, bad law. But again, it's better than what we had before it passed.  This nation can do much better. We can join every other industrialized, every other wealthy, every other civilized nation, in the world and pass a proper single-payer system. We are the only wealthy, powerful, industrialized, nation that has not done so.

I think of the ACA in terms like this: if a starving man is granted access to all the garbage cans in town, his condition has improved very much. It is certainly better that he has access to all that fresh, not yet rotten garbage, than if he died of starvation. On the other hand, it really could be a lot better than that. Couldn't it?

And  my reference?  Let's just say that while I considerate it harsh, but accurate, I am certain that there are probably millions who, if they heard it, would say it was inflammatory.  To put it another way, this particular man is one of what ever brassy Ann Coulter refers to as "our blacks".

He is a brilliant and gifted neurosurgeon...well, here's a link that expresses my feelings: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/03/16/ben-carson-was-a-role-model-for-black-teens-until-he-sold-out-to-the-right.html

For anyone who happens to read this and has encountered my ideas before you will find a lot of repetition contained in this statement. But that's because while I may have said it to you, I haven't said them to everyone.

Anyone interested my positions can take a look at:  http://el-naranjal-del-desierto.blogspot.com.  Just use the taglines philosophy and politics to get my views in those areas.

So I'm accustomed to liberals considering me a conservative and conservatives considering me a liberal. But I am neither. And I never will be. Both are ideologies. Both require you to have certain shared convictions. If I share convictions with you, is because we happen to agree, not because I know what I'm supposed to believe.  I work very hard to look at the facts. I believe that reality is real. I believe that only a fool refuses to face the facts.  Over the years I've had to give up many a cherished position; positions that were emotionally deeply satisfying to me, but which conflicted with reality. It hurt. But I was true to my beliefs and my philosophy. That was more than adequate compensation for what I lost.

People think I'm crazy when I say that you can be a progressive and be a liberal, or be a progressive and be a moderate, or even be a progressive and be a conservative.  A conservative progressive is someone who believes we should continue moving forward not go back into the past. They just want to go carefully and thoughtfully forward and make sure that what we are doing is the right thing. One example of a person I would regard as a conservative progressive is Pres. Eisenhower.

The reason people are shocked by this concept is that ever since the days of Ronald Reagan, the Republican Party has been driving everyone out of the party who did not agree with their rigid doctrinal declarations. To be a conservative was not sufficient. You had to be a particular kind of extremist conservative, otherwise you were declared a RINO and expelled from the party.  This is made Republican Party more and more a religious organization and less and less a purely political one.

This from the party that considers the left to be "politically correct"!

So that's a summation of who I am. You can't assume anything about where I stand on a position unless you have a good grip on the facts. You can be fairly certain that wherever they lead, I will be there. Other than that? I can only repeat that when I navigate I navigate with the stars which are actually there in the sky. I consider one of the most awful statements the entire history of philosophy to be the comment made by Plato, "If we are to discuss the cosmos we must not look at the stars."

PS,

I can't even begin to get into religion. It's enough to say that I am a deeply religious, but--surprise surprise -- a very independent thinker who prefers my God like I prefer my whiskey, straight.

The Times That Try Men's Souls

A Facebook post to my middle girl, whose husband is fighting cancer:

In your grief and struggles, remember, we are with you. 

 When the American Revolution was going badly and many were thinking of just giving up and going home, Thomas Paine wrote the following:

These are the times that try men's souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.

Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.

Take those words and realize that these are the times that try your soul and that cancer, like hell, is not easily conquered.

-

Hanoi Hannity versus George Washington

AKA: Sinners,  the time of judgement is upon you!

Now that Cliven Bundy has shown some of his true colors, many of the very Republicans were so eager to shove their noses up his butt suddenly are even more desperate to declare they have nothing to do with him. Reports indicate that many of the "militiamen" who came rushing to his defense came specifically because they heard about the situation from Sean Hannity of FOXNews. He and Fox and the rest of the seditious party organs of the GOP actively aided in recruiting these thugs who came charging in and rescue the poor "patriotic" Bundy.

Long ago Jane Fonda took a visit to North Vietnam, an incredibly stupid thing to do in the middle of a war, and then famously was shown sitting in an antiaircraft gun wishing that she could shoot down some American airman. From then on she was known as Hanoi Jane.  It took her years to finally apologize for it. To tell you the simple truth, I have never forgiven her. I hated the Vietnam war and was always a bitter opponent of it. But I never blamed the troops were doing their duty to their country. I blamed our feckless government and the dimwitted Americans who kept electing that government into office. Never the troops.

As far as I'm concerned, I must grudgingly accept Fonda's apology because it seems sincere, but I can never let it go completely. She will always be Hanoi Jane to me. From that time on I have never paid money to see one of her movies. It is a point of honor, and I still live by it.

Right wing extremist? Left wing extremist? I condemn you both! Conservative or liberal, you extremists are my political, intellectual, and philosophic enemies. I don't care which side you are coming from, you all look alike in my eyes.  Students for a Democratic Society, Militiamen Patriots, inner-city rappers and Crips and Bloods, all advocating armed resistance to the police in the name of liberty and freedom.  You are all the same to me.

So now we can add to the list. The word Hanoi may seem way out of date but it has emotional power for me and is perfectly applicable in my opinion. Hanoi Hannity has joined Hanoi Jane. Hanoi News formerly known as Fox News has joined her as well. So has Hanoi Rand Paul and the Tea Party, along with most of the GOP.

I will not forget this. And I don't think the rest of America should forget it either.

How bad did it get? Consider the following:

Kevin Williamson of the National Review Online stated that he believes that rancher Bundy is the equivalent of Gandhi and George Washington because they were British subjects who believed that the legal situation was "something deeper and more meaningful".   There are two problems with this, Mr. Williamson, both of which relate to the same issue -- you need to learn a few facts about history.

George Washington and his fellow patriots (the real ones) did everything they could to make peace with the king. Anyone who knows any early American history knows that at the beginning the revolutionaries weren't revolutionary. They respectfully, even obsequiously, requested that their beloved sovereign make peace with them. I haven't noticed Bundy or anyone on the right wing attempting that with our government.

And Gandhi… Gandhi!? The nonviolent, passive resistance leader who abhorred and utterly rejected violence is like Bundy in what way?  Bundy has said he will engage in armed resistance if law-enforcement or military personnel are deployed against it.  Armed resistance?  You mean fighting the U S Army and killing law enforcement officers and American soldiers if you fell the need in order to protect your "rights" to steal public land. Gandhi was a totally non-violent individual. There is no relationship between Gandhi and Mr. Bundy other than the fact they are both human.

And how does Williamson respond to the latest  disgusting behavior on his great hero's part? He continues to excuse it!  He wrote:  "I very strongly suspect that most of the men who died at the Alamo held a great many views that I would find repugnant; we remember them for other reasons."

And, "On April 15, Williamson wrote in defense of Bundy for National Review Online: "Of course the law is against Cliven Bundy. How could it be otherwise? The law was against Mohandas Gandhi, too, when he was tried for sedition."

And as far as Washington goes…I've already put it on record but I guess it bears repetition. During the whiskey rebellion when similar sorts of complaints were raised by citizens who called themselves a patriot militia, Pres. Washington became the first and only US president to personally lead the army into combat-- combat to crush the rebellion. If Washington were here today, Mr. Bundy would be facing George Washington's sword and the army behind it.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch:  Democratic Congressman Stephen Horsford, who represents the Nevada congressional district in which Bundy resides says, "...many people in...the surrounding area... feel terrorized by these armed militia groups. They are not from our community. They are not from Nevada. They're coming here and they actually have set up kind of a military police state where individuals who live in the community have to go to their checkpoint in order to get to their house. 

The militia groups have set up their own checkpoints and so the people who live there actually have to go to those checkpoints to get to their home.

We have people I met with yesterday who told me that their kids can't walk around the corner from their house to their school because there are armed militia in the hills. They tried to go to church on Sunday and there were armed militia in and around the church because Cliven Bundy was there. They want them to leave so that our community can go back to normal.

... What we need first is for these armed militia to leave our state! We need them to leave Nevada, so that we can solve our own land use issues ourselves!  He is a lawbreaker. He is not a hero!"

Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie said, "He knew very well from my position that I felt that the federal government was within their bounds to do what they were doing in regards to the grazing area.  As I explained to Mr. Bundy over two years ago: there's a federal court order. He lost in court…"

So all you people who think Bundy is such a great American patriot who is bravely resisting the federal government's evil actions, let me repeat a few things that have turned out to be happening back there at the wonderful patriotic Bundy Ranch.

Outside gunmen have  come into the town and established an armed military outpost.

Local residents are forced to pass through illegal checkpoints in the presence of armed gunmen in order to get to their own homes.

Parents are afraid to let their children walk to school or play outside because of their fears of the armed militiamen wandering the hills.

When people go to church they are met with armed patriots. That really makes for a wonderful religious experience, doesn't it?

The only thing that surprises me about all of this is that it is been allowed to go so far. Anyone who knows anything about these militiamen and these patriots knows exactly what these people stand for. It amazes me that Americans who say they support our troops also support these groups who actively arm themselves in order to kill our troops if they dare to perform their sworn duty.

So the next time you meet a Republican who says he supports our troops, ask him if he supports Bundy.  Because if a Republican supports Bundy and supports our troops, then he supports our troops, all the way to the bottom of their graves!

Professional Amateurs, Amateur Students

America's bizarre obsession with college and high school athletics continues to puzzle me.  I'm perfectly willing to go along with Aristotle's basic concept of the Golden Mean. You should be strong in body and strong in mind. But that isn't what high school and college athletics are all about.

A tiny percentage of the student body actually engages in these athletic events. It does nothing to increase the physical capacity of what is often as much as 99% of the student body.  One could even argue, quite convincingly, but it actually weakens the student body by encouraging them to become passive spectators of others' physical activities.

At least in the case of basketball and football, there is an explanation. The colleges make a huge amount of money by exploiting the activities of these "student" athletes. In a nation which continually attacks and is highly suspicious of higher education and which  consistently under funds this investment in our future, colleges and universities must seek funding sources where they can.

However, no one is fooled by this unconvincing façade.  We all know the scandals which regularly plague the system are not exceptions.  They are just the cases where the university or college was caught.  Let's just allow them to hire professional athletes and use them appropriately.

I doubt there is anyone who actually believes that student athletes are, for the most part, serious students. There are exceptions, and those young man should be greatly admired, but let's be honest, most of these students are students in name only.

Furthermore, our national habit of labeling athletes as great heroes is deeply disturbing on an entirely different level. As a professional, you are paid millions of dollars to play a game which you love to play. Wow!  How heroic can you get?

When I first heard about this publication, I was disturbed by the idea that another book come out about the Duke University Lacrosse team. I was angry, because I assumed that the matter was going to be raked over the journalistic coals  long after it was settled. The athletes in question were treated badly. They were innocent. The matter was ended.

It turns out that the book is taking a very different viewpoint. It brings up questions about the whole obsession with student athletics and the incredibly bad behavior of college authorities and, because of their permissive attitudes, the athletes in question.

A few facts from the NY Times book review:

One professor described '...some of the athletes as “openly hostile” to intellectual endeavor.'

The author "...reports the astonishing fact that while members of the team amounted to less than 1 percent of the total student body, in the year of the rape case they accounted for 25 percent of the university’s disorderly conduct cases, 50 percent of its noise ordinance violations and one-third of all open-container violations."

Need we say more? Tell a group of impressionable young men that they are great. Say repeatedly that they are above the law. Demonstrate through cover ups that they have the right to misbehave because they are so superior to everyone else. Guess what the results will be?

The answer is American higher education.