Walking around on Resurrection ground
July 22, 2015 1 Comment
A Cost to Benefit Analysis of scientism’s Anthropogenic Global Warming theory (AGW) or “Stop being afraid and start thinking”:
See also my recent post “Climate Scientism is Made of Green Cheese”.
July 21, 2015 Leave a comment
July 18, 2015 Leave a comment
Living in a Material World, Part Two
Atlas Shrugged and Went About his Own Business
Not long ago, while riding the commuter train home, I sat down on an upper row seat not far from a young Indian woman. Her head was covered so I believed her to be a devoutly religious person. On her lap was Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged”. I wondered what interested her in Rand’s lengthy novel.
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As you know there has been much in the media-the politically biased-media-about corporate greed, fairness and income inequality. The “social justice “rhetoric is ubiquitous, whether here in the U.S. or in re-salvaged unrepentant Greece.
In op-eds and news commentaries we are lectured to with the by-products of the liberal elites (e.g., Paul Krugman (see my previous post about economist Krugman’s $225K payday in return for his thoughts on Income Inequality!), by Progressive politicians (e.g., Hillary Clinton and Liz Warren) and by their media puppets (e.g., MSNBC), all of whom feign a disdain for money, that “filthy lucre”, while quietly reaping enormous capital gains of their own (See also Vanity Fair’s glossy wealth-guilt sympathy card dated August 2015, the article “The Charlie War”, regarding the French satirical weekly magazine Charlie Hebdo coming into mega-Euros.) Looking out for number one has never been so savoir faire.
Then not long ago we were accosted by the “commoners” – the OWS protesters. Though largely unfocused and self-trivializing we were told by our ‘betters’ that these poor folk just wanted to generate a discussion about what is ethically the “right thing to do” in the world of money and specifically money as a power or a force to use for “good” and not for selfish materialistic pleasure (ahem, Vanity Fair). The Wall Street bulls and bears became the effigies they wanted to burn or, rather, smoke to get their solvency high.
The OWS’ trashy 60’s bohemian style protest became a mixed message diatribe against a ‘rigged” system, a system that didn’t appear (in their cloud computing at least) to offer them a break into the big leagues of the adult material world. Apparently, the OWS protestors ‘just’ wanted to “survive” materially, debt-free, well-off and on their own terms-no pain, all gain, Greek style.
OWS! May Day!
It was noted though by those standing head and shoulders (a stock chart term) above the “Leaning Forward” genuflectors that the protestors was certainly compromised in their messaging. Their signage/texting revealed the protesters demands.
Their demands included gaining “justly” (a word replacement for “freely”) the same materialistic “well-being” that someone else had achieved under the rubrics “income equality” and “free tuition” and “social justice”. Their socialist mantras were remarkably self-centered, covetous and Marxist.
Is the OWS’ ‘just’ quest for materialism-looking out for number one-any different from the Wall Street gang “running with the bulls” down Wall Street in hopes of not being gored by unleashed regulators? And, rigged or not rigged, Materialism, in the light of day, wears the same “envy green” scrubs.
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Unions are all about looking out for Number One.
The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) a federal union, is fighting against reforms of the badly run VA administration. You won’t see AFGE publicly decrying a measure that would mean that their union members may be held responsible and they may be fired or their bonus withheld. AFGE is currently working in Congress to stop VA reform. From a Daily Caller Article:
A union representing government employees on Tuesday condemned a bill meant to reform how bonuses are awarded at the Department of Veterans Affairs.
“It’s time to turn the page on morale-busting measures like Rep. Miller’s proposal and focus on the mission of delivering top-quality care to America’s veterans,” AFGE President J. David Cox Sr. declared in a statement.
Yeah, it’s about time to focus on others…
Here is why AFGE’s is against VA reform:
A Koch Brothers-funded front group called the Concerned Veterans for America (CVA) has been making waves on Capitol Hill lately, promoting a long list of anti-VA, anti-worker proposals that would break this sacred promise and leave veterans out to dry. Led by former Wall Street bank employee and failed Senate candidate Pete Hegseth, CVA has been the driving force behind efforts to dismantle the VA health care system and trim service members’ hard-earned disability and other benefits.
Yeah, those evil Koch Brothers trying to help veterans by removing bad employees-not Number One on AFGE’s list.
Why make the VA better for our wounded veterans when union members are more G_d-Damn important?
Looking out for Number One leaves the robbed and wounded man left for dead alongside the road…until the Good Samaritan comes along to care for him.
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Going Number One Onto Others:
The recent abominable SCOTUS decision made it possible for homosexual couples to look out for their Number One mission-use their new-found legal licentiousness to bash Christians and to seek material gain via law suits against Christian wedding cake bakers who refuse their demands. All done under the guise of ‘true love’ and “equality” (actually, unabated unnatural desires).
Looking out for number one has never been so “User friendly” for lawyers and bullies.
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A well-known looking out for Number One persona:
Objectivism is my Game.
Ayn Rand’s (1905-1982) novels portray the philosophy of Objectivism. The (paper) weighty “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead” clearly identify the key tenets of Objectivism: objective reality, reason, individualism over group-think, self-interest and ego-ism.
Ayn Rand’s Objectivism:
There are four pillars to Rand’s objectivism: objective reality, reason, self-interest and capitalism.
Reason: direct stimuli from nature; there is no God, no soul, no intuition, nothing beyond what we determine though reason.
For Rand Man is all there is. There is no spiritual reality of angels, demons and God. The heroism of man was to be worshipped, as did the Greek stoic philosophers and the food-and-wine-friendly Epicureans who avoided God and enjoyed the ‘heroics’ of pleasure.
Early Greek philosophers taught that man was mortal, corporal, and that sensory inputs were the only reality available to mankind. God was described as elsewhere and angry so therefore the true God was not of any material benefit to mankind. Avoid pain, seek pleasure. Be your own hero. Be Number One.
Rand’s Self-interest: your own self-interest and happiness is what life is all about. You take care of Number One.
Capitalism for the Objectivist is all about individual rights and private property; self-reliance, free trade, entrepreneurship and initiative all operate freely and without coercion within capitalism and the free market system. I have no issues with Rand’s objective definition of capitalism. As a Christian in the Kingdom of God I do have a problem with Rand’s use of capitalism as a means to flee from God and from responsibility towards others and to use it as self-promotion, as a prosperity gospel.
Ayn Rand’s described herself as a romantic-realist. Her Objectivism is atheistic, rejecting faith and religion. It believes only in reason and what the self can determine. For her it was every man for himself, the survival of the fittest. This viewpoint is born out of a godless Darwinian materialist view of life, the Enlightenment era and philosophical naturalism. Objectivism is blind faith in Number One-Yourself.
Rugged individualism, for Rand, was a force like other forces of nature and something to be reckoned with. As you might imagine this type of thinking would certainly feed the ego and especially if the person who embraces Objectivism is successful in life. For these people pride of place means you’ve made it to the top of the heap. Your self-esteem is rewarded. You are recognized by your peers as having objectively “made it.”
Ayn Rand’s extreme philosophy is most likely a reaction to her early life in Russia during the Communist Revolution. As a child she learned to despise coercion, government intrusion and totalitarianism. She came to oppose statism and collectivism while she promoted social systems which protected individual rights and personal initiatives. As a romantic realist she hated the dystopian effects created by those seeking to create a man-made utopia. Though a polemic, Rand never insisted that others be made to accept her philosophy. She was “laissez faire” with respect to others.
A Christian Perspective:
The Kingdom of God’s answer to Looking Out for Number One: kenosis- a ‘self-emptying’ of one’s own will and becoming entirely receptive to God’s divine will.
“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.” The Apostle Paul’s second letter to the church at Corinth, II Corinthians 8:9
A Christian’s response to Ayn Rand
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The call of “Number One”
Before Ayn Rand another voice of philosophical naturalism had chosen the similar atheistic force with which to respond to “the law of life”: Jack London (1876 – 1916).
Remember Buck and the rugged ‘individual’s’ response to “The Call of the Wild”? It’s a tale of primitive and bestial survival, of self-interest, of the strong seeking to overcome nature. It’s a tale of reversion to innate instincts and characteristics of our evolutionary heritage-a looking out for Number One and a dog eat dog meal ticket.
July 16, 2015 Leave a comment
UPDATE: It has come to my attention that some persons believe I ridiculed Dr. Geert Jan van Oldenborgh and Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. in this post. That was not my intent and, on rereading this post, is far from the truth. I have the utmost respect for both climate scientists. I simply used Dr. van Oldenborgh’s blog post as a springboard for this one. Geert Jan has since written a follow-up post about lower troposphere temperature data. See Is there a pause in the temperature of the lower troposphere? And I referred to Dr. Pielke in this post for two reasons. First, he is known to skeptics, and, second, he agrees with Dr. van Oldenborgh about the importance of ocean warming. I simply put ocean warming into terms that are more familiar with most readers…deg C, instead of 10^22 Joules.
My apologies to Geert Jan van Oldenborgh and Roger Pielke Sr…
View original post 1,639 more words
July 11, 2015 Leave a comment
It’s a mystery to me
We have a greed with which we have agreed
You think you have to want more than you need
Until you have it all you won’t be free
Society, you’re a crazy breed
I hope you’re not lonely without
Though the message of the above song resonates within me throughout and though I have seen others on the same road as Alexander Supertramp I do not recommend walking away…
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Two recent events reveal the impoverished thinking of populist economics and “society’s crazy breed”: A mandated minimum wage increase in Chicago (Chicago-Minimum-Wage-Notice) and Op-Ed columnist Paul Krugman’s macro-hypocrisy increase.
Let’s start with the subliminal wage increase.
It feels so “Oprah-kind” to know that the minimum pay for your effort will be set at a fixed rate by Big Brother. Big Brother, of course, is not paying for the increase but he is certainly gaining political capital and tax revenue from your increased paycheck.
The media abets the ravenous pols by constantly bombarding us with income deltas as if materialism is the bread of life. Karl Marx did care about how much someone else made, he dined out on it.
On a daily basis I find some financial webpages and articles written about comparative CEO salaries. OMG! Reporter, get the socialist’s dirty needle out of your arm! Are you reporting these numbers so as to invoke class-ic envy?
“There is some ill a-brewing towards my rest, For I did dream of money-bags to-night.” William Shakespeare
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Thomas Sowell, economist
“Minimum wage laws make it illegal to pay less than the government specified price for labor. By the simplest and most basic economics, a price artificially raised tends to cause more to be supplied and less to be demanded than when prices are left to be determined by supply and demand in a free market. The result is a surplus, whether the price that is set artificially high is that of farm produce and labor.
Making it illegal to pay less than a given amount does not make a worker’s productivity worth that amount….” Quote from Thomas Sowell, economist, “The Thomas Sowell Reader”.
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Nothing happens in isolation. Consider also that the Obamacare/health “coverage” is also mandated. So, a worker’s hours are restricted to ensure that a business remains profitable to ensure employee jobs. And, a worker who doesn’t fulfill the Obamacare mandated-Justice Ruth Ginsburg-and-Justice John Roberts-mandated requirements is fined or taxed-actually, both. Big Brother has the gun law of coercion to your back.
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Under the “People should and do trust me” department…
Hillary Clinton and Income Reality Inequality! Hillary Clinton Broke?
Why “income inequality”? Because good money is thrown after bad.
Paul Krugman, pop economist
Paul Krugman Sticks It To Poor People With $225,000 Salary To Study Income Inequality
By Eric Owens, Education Editor:
“This week, trustees of the cash-strapped, taxpayer-funded City University of New York (CUNY) system approved a hefty annual salary as well as the fancypants title of “distinguished professor” for Paul Krugman.
New York City’s public college system pays Krugman $225,000 each year to analyze the vexing problem of income inequality at the CUNY Graduate Center’s Luxembourg Income Study Center, Gawker notes.
Krugman’s $225,000 salary — which is $18,750 per month — does not include his undisclosed earnings from other ventures, the sum of which could be substantial.”
Why “income inequality”? (You don’t have to pay me!)
A Fool and his money are soon parted. Duh!
-Folly: A fool and his money are soon parted.” That’s what state lotteries and casinos count on.
-Government and Progressive Income tax: I made a few dollars as a store clerk at age thirteen. Now I make a whole lot more money closer to retirement. And this is because I have worked a lifetime to obtain skills that have been of value to my employers. Should I be taxed more because I make more money due to the manifest effort on my part to take care of my family and to pay my bills, just to satisfy the ‘social justice” gnosis?
–Time and experience: Over the course of decades I have had “income inequality” every year of my life. Should I demand equal pay because someone is making more at some point in time? No way! I need to make myself of more value to my employer and then ask for an increase in pay or find a better paying job. This brings me to my next point…
-Denial: Degreed Millennials, as an observation, think that their academic credentials buy them a ticket to ride without much effort on their part. Some even think that blue-collar labor is beneath them. This denial of reality of their situation and a lack of healthy self-awareness is the result, in part I believe, of the effects of psychotherapy’s delusional self-awareness pharmacopeia on our culture. Psychotherapy provides the illusion that you can live an existence free of any tension over time, through endless sessions of… therapy. An analysand’s every thought must be reviewed, be given equal doses of “hmmm” and then before the open-ended session’s time is done, be given equal value. “You are not to blame yourself. XYZ is responsible. Look, our time is up. See you next week. Pay up front.” And, psychotherapy’s moral deficit is not a cure for a person’s lack of awareness of the obvious-many a Millennial thinks he is entitled. And, of no value is the politician’s “Hope and Change” pharmacopeia. A Minimum wage is not a cure at all. It is a placebo that generates no economic health whatsoever. In fact it denies the existence of bad economic choices an individual has made. Yet, perverse politicians say “it’s not you. You didn’t build that problem. The institution of big business is the problem. It must take our ‘medicine’ for your cure.
-Misdirected Self-awareness: Millennials tend to think of only what they need and not what an employer needs. Naiveté.
Money Well Spent?!?
sodahead.com
-Some people have a spending problem: Some people reinvest their money and create jobs. Others will spend their money and ask “Why am I ‘poor’ when others are rich?” The makeshift poor will demand the doctors of politics to up their dosage of cornucopian wealth.
-Lack of wisdom: “He that wants money, means, and content, is without three good friends.” William Shakespeare
-Lack of wisdom: “It is senseless to pay tuition to educate a fool, since he has no heart for learning.” Proverbs 17:16
-Lack of wisdom: “Lazy people want much but get little, but those who work hard will prosper.” Proverbs 13:4
-Lack of wisdom: “Work brings profit, but mere talk leads to poverty!” Proverbs 14:23
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In a twist of a Thomas Sowell quote, ”It is amazing how many people seem to think that the government exists to turn their prejudices into law.” I say, ”It is amazing how many people seem to think that the government exists to insure them against their bad decisions.”
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Added 7-15-2015:
Thomas Sowell – Minimum Wage Exploitation (Economics 101)
July 5, 2015 2 Comments
Instead of the man-handled “AGW” data, the populist’s scientism data which has fueled a lot of politicized hot air about a coming apocalypse the world would be better served by science and a global credulity index…
Remember the Greek philosopher Plato’s symbolic illustration of a cave and the people chained inside? The cave captives were scared of their own fuel burning fire-generated shadows. Cave tour guide here.
Today we have the Climate Change doomsday cult who has chained themselves inside a dark and unventilated CO2 filled cave. This cult eats green cheese and they are very scared of their flickering carbon footprint on the wall. “Those bad humans! Bad!” they tell themselves.
Wafer thin Green Cheese for dessert?
The cave dwellers, using bits of charcoal, etched on the walls of their cave the words, “We are settled science, No Deniers Welcome!”
But wait! What is that light outside yonder cave? It is the east and hydrogen is the sun! In that light we see other light: there’s a living oxygen breathing CO2 expelling naturally occurring human who is standing outside the unventilated CO2 cave. He is calling to the cave people to come outside, out into the street light, to feel “summer’s ripening breath” on their necks.
If the cave people would just rub their smog filled eyes and stopped eating their green cheese, if they just came outside then they would see that flora is green because of CO2 and…that fossil fuels have helped mankind move around in the dark when the sun hides its helium/neon glare.
Solar nexus
Apparently, this outdoorsman humanist doesn’t eat the Climate Scientism green cheese even if it is labeled “Aged 2 days in science labs”! He is humanist philosopher Alex Epstein of the Center for Industrial Progress.
Why You Should Love Fossil Fuel
The greatest threat to mankind is NOT AGW! The greatest threat to mankind is mankind no longer caring for its neighbor. Remember! Climate cultists believe that humans are bad and Mother Earth is good.
The greatest threat to mankind is man seeking material gain, security and power at another’s cost.
Lest anyone think that I hate earth because I do not join the cult of climate change believers then think again. As a Follower of the Way I know that as part of the Kingdom of God I must care for the planet.
I care for the planet. I don’t care for the politicized religion of scientism. >>What is Scientism?<<
And you should know that God has enriched the planet with various sources of all-natural fuel sources including fossil, nuclear, wind, solar and gravity (dams).
Every living thing someday decomposes into fossil fuel. Why? So the cycle of life continues.
Fossil fuel is created from the decomposition of every living thing including you. You are renewable…in more ways than you think.
The body. It’s elementary Watson!
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Calif. Philosopher Making the ‘Moral Case for Fossil Fuels’ Says “This Is How Global Warming Should Be Discussed”:
“If you look at the assumptions behind all the arguments against fossil fuels, they turn out to just be incredibly irrational,”…
Epstein said you are “taught this narrative” that “fossil fuels are an addiction” and, while they are convenient in the short-term, in the long-term they are “destroying us.”
“You’re given three basic reasons: One, they’re causing depletion. Two, they’re causing pollution. And, three, they’re causing global warming or climate change,” Epstein explained. “This is used to say, ‘They’re an addiction. We need to get off them. We need to use renewable, moral, green energy instead.’”
But Epstein said every other positive technological development that has side effects is not considered a short-term, destructive fix, and it is certainly not considered “immoral.” (emphasis added)
Read the whole article (link above) to find out the benefits of fossil fuel before the lights go out.
And come to the Heartland.
Cindy Wity 
The Moral Arithmetic of Lawlessness
July 24, 2015 Leave a comment
“He that is not governed by the moral arithmetic of the case, or who acts from a disposition directly at war with that arithmetic, is unjust. In other words, morality requires that we should be attentive only to the tendency which belongs to any action by the necessary and universal laws of existence. ” William Godwin (emphasis added)
From the “unconstrained vision” of a product of the Enlightenment, a lapsed Presbyterian minister and an atheist…
“William Godwin (3 March 1756 – 7 April 1836) an English journalist, political philosopher and novelist. He is considered one of the first exponents of utilitarianism, and the first modern proponent of anarchism.” Wikipedia
The morally ad hoc and utilitarian William Godwin authored “Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and its Influence on Morals and Happiness.” One of the chapters is entitled “The Characters of Men Originate in their External Circumstances”.
In Godwin’s writing we are told that in-the-moment utilitarian license to act guided by proper institutions surrounding us provide happiness. Proper institutions and proper sanctuaries of reason supposedly improve mankind’s felicity. So for Godwin and his latter-day Progressives, man’s unhappiness is a problem that needs solving by any means necessary and calculated by using the ‘new math’ of each man’s ad hoc reason-based morality. In effect, man is to be a god unto himself within the constraints of man-made institutions.
Per Godwin, Utilitarian Man must act from reason alone, adding and subtracting internally the merits of his actions. And, the sum of his actions must never equate to an external ‘impractical’ divine absolute. And then, somehow, good will come out of nowhere aka Utopia. Godwin’s moral arithmetic is basically the arithmetic of lawlessness within a rule-of-reason.
Now to the lawless and flippant…
“House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said today that San Francisco’s sanctuary city policy had nothing to do with the murder of Kate Steinle.”
Really? Think before you talk, Nancy. What you are saying doesn’t add up to happiness for the family and friends of Kate Steinle.
Rep. Trey Gowdy’s Opening Statement at Sanctuary Cities Hearing, Judiciary Committee:
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Filed under Anarchy, Current Events 2015, Political Commentary, Politics, Rule of law Tagged with borders, Illegal Immigration, Kate Steinle, lawlessness, Rep. Trey Gowdy, rule of law, Sanctuary Cities, William Godwin