Author: VD

The Government’s Other Party

Jim Geraghty laments the growing libertarian distaste for the Republican Party:

Considering how there was little dispute that another four years of
Obama would mean another four years of government growing bigger and
taking a more active role in citizens’ lives, and how no one really
thought Johnson would win, it would appear that the 1.22 million
Libertarian voters were content to “send a message” with their votes… a
message that will now be almost entirely ignored in Washington.

It’s their right; every vote has to be earned, and surely a Romney
presidency would have offered its own disappointments to the Libertarian
worldview. But it may be a continuing liability for the GOP that
roughly one percent of the electorate believes strongly in limited
government, but votes in a way that does not empower the GOP to do
anything to limit that government.

Even more problematic was the larger number of libertarians like me and Karl Denninger, who didn’t even vote for Johnson because we knew that while he was the nominated Libertarian candidate, he was no libertarian.  After eight years of unmitigated government growth under George Bush, several of them with the Republicans holding the White House, House, and Senate, many libertarians are completely done with the Republican Party.  We simply will not support the party of not-quite-so-big government.

The fact of the matter is that it makes no sense for any advocate of small government to vote to empower the GOP to do anything to limit government because the Government’s Other Party has absolutely no intention of doing so.

Yeah, I don’t call myself one either

Mr. John Scalzi explains, in considerable detail, why he does not call himself a feminist.  Even though he is.  He just doesn’t deserve to call himself one.  But don’t think he cares what anyone thinks, because he doesn’t.  And if you don’t believe him, he’ll write another 12 posts about himself just to prove you’re wrong.

I am a feminist in the most general sense of believing that women
are entitled to the same rights and privileges as men, with everything
that implies in terms of access to education, economic opportunity and
personal liberty. However, as far as I know most people don’t use the
term “feminism” in this most broad of definitions, either positively or
negatively. This is another reason I don’t tend to use the term to apply
to myself.

A third reason I don’t apply the term feminist to
myself is that, again to be blunt about it, I don’t think I deserve to.
I know myself well enough to know where I fall down on the subject. On a
very superficial level, I’m wary of touting myself as a feminist and
then doing something that shows my ass on the subject in a very public
way. Best not to set myself up for such a fall.

On a slightly deeper level, I know the personal journey I’m taking in
terms of my relationships with women, individually and generally. I’ve
always tried to be a good person to women in my life, and to women in
general, but there have been times I’ve fallen short of those goals,
through ignorance or through being (for lack of a better term) a dick. I
work at these things. I keep working at them.

Ye cats.  This post was poorly titled.  It should have been “Quick Notes on My Personal Effeminacy” or perhaps “Delving Into the Depths of My Navel: the Self-Portrait of a Gamma Male”.  Anyhow, if John wants to call himself a feminist, he’s certainly got my permission.  I don’t happen to call myself a feminist because feminism is the only ideology that is more intellectually incoherent than communism and more societally suicidal than the Skoptsy.

This is the best part: “I am delighted to annoy this category of status-anxious, woman-fearing moron.”  The President of the SFWA calling anyone “status-anxious” and “woman-fearing” tends to strike one rather like Charles Manson saying that someone else is “a little out there”.

WND column

No column this week.  I’ve just been extremely busy with some projects coming to a head and couldn’t take the time to write one.  All is well.

Mandatory guinea pigs

The AMA contemplates “compulsory involvement in vaccine studies“.  From a paper entitled “Should Participation in Vaccine Clinical Trials be Mandated?”

“If progression of promising vaccines from the lab to the clinic is to remain unaffected and financial inducement is an ethically unacceptable solution to the recruitment shortage, other strategies need to be considered. Compulsory involvement in vaccine studies is one alternative solution that is not as outlandish as it might seem on first consideration. Many societies already mandate that citizens undertake activities for the good of society; in several European countries registration for organ-donation has switched from “opt-in” (the current U.S. system) to “opt out” systems (in which those who do not specifically register as non-donors are presumed to consent to donation, and most societies expect citizens to undertake jury service when called upon.”

It goes without saying that this is monstrous.  But the fascinating thing here should be the response of those vaccine advocates who have repeatedly argued that the only reason there are no serious double-blind studies of any approved vaccine series is that it would be unethical to use people in such scientific experiments because they would not know if they had received placebos or the actual vaccines.  I’m curious to see if they will suddenly pivot and start arguing that while giving placebos – which are by definition harmless in themselves – is unethical, forcibly giving test vaccines to unwitting human lab rats is perfectly acceptable.

We already know they’re morally and logically bankrupt, I’m mostly interested in learning how far down into the abyss they are willing to plunge.

He just wouldn’t stay down

As the Alabama sheriff said, “he was reaching for something….”  I’m not quite sure what amuses me more, the idea that I am the slightest bit concerned about being fair, the idea that I have any concern whatsoever for what Ackroyd thinks, or that he appears to believe he can dig his way out of looking like an ignoramus with a double-digit IQ if he only tries a little harder.

On second thought, I do have a question.  There are four “demotivational” posters featuring individual atheists.  The Hitchens, Harris and Dawkins posters feature words none of them actually said.  Given
that, was it fair of Vox to savage me as an “ignorant atheist” for not
realizing the Dennett poster features words he did say–paraphrased? I
think not.

Of course it was not only fair, but just, that I castigated poor little Ackroyd, accurately or not.  In the immortal words of Obadiah Hakeswill, “says so in the Scriptures”.  If you are going to come in here arrogantly asserting your opinion about the stupidity of this and the idiocy of that and generally acting like a big dog, don’t be surprised when you find yourself unexpectedly sad, wet, and stinking of urine.  I am the bigger dog.  I am an Award Winning Cruelty Artist.   I will cut a bitch with a smile on my face.  A minor character flaw, no doubt, but one concerning which everyone who comments here has been duly notified.

Furthermore, I was undeniably correct about the “ignorant” part.  Ackroyd was, by his own admission, completely ignorant of Dennett’s writings.  And now, thanks to his unwise attempt at ex post facto self-defense, we can safely conclude that he is stupid as well, because after drawing attention to the abject stupidity of the phrase on the poster, tried to defend Dennett’s incompetent argument advocating the intrinsic trustworthiness of science:

“In light of this, do the words on the poster convey Dennett’s point
accurately? Or would it be more fair to paraphrase him as saying
“Science can be trusted, because it yields amazingly accurate results”?
And isn’t this in fact true–as far as it goes?”

Yes, they most certainly do.  No.  And no, because it demonstrably isn’t true at all.  It repeats the very mistake Dennett made, which is the very reason the Dennett demotivator is both accurate and amusing.  Ackroyd still hasn’t understood that Dennett’s syllogism is faulty.  Not all sciences are created equal.  For example, physics yields amazingly accurate results.  Evolutionary biology, on the other hand, unquestionably does not and evolutionary biologists don’t claim that it does.  In his book, Dennett tries a classic New Atheist bait-and-switch, asserting that since both physics and not-physics are called science, if physics yields amazingly accurate results, then not-physics should be trusted… even though not-physics doesn’t produce any of the trust-inspiring results.  I could argue, every bit as reasonably as Dennett, that because theology is a science, “the queen of the sciences”, in fact, it should also be trusted on the basis of the amazingly accurate results of physics.

Petraeus starts talking

Two interesting bits of news to surface today:

1.  “Representative Peter King stated that former CIA Director David Petraeus
stated that he knew the Benghazi attack was terrorism and that the
talking points given to Ambassador Susan Rice were different from the
ones prepared by the CIA. Petraeus stated Rice’s talking points were
edited to demphasized the possibility of terrorism.”

2.  “Reports from those who listened to recordings of the pleas
for help coming from the Benghazi Consulate on September 11 that caused Marine
Ty Woods to disobey orders and fight to defend the consulate suggest that the
tapes are “damning” proof of the Obama Administration’s mishandling of the
attacks.”

I’d provide the links, but that’s all there was.  It looks like Obama could be a lame duck a lot sooner than his two-term predecessors were.   There are going to be a lot of people interested in discovering who edited the CIA notes and why.

No, don’t move

Karl Denninger inadvertantly recommends spreading the Blue virus:

[T]he people of California passed a ballot measure to tax themselves
and give the money not to a state program but rather to a bunch of
banksters.  There’s no solution to stupidity that is lawful; your only lawful option if you live in that craphole called California
where people vote to steal your money using the guns of the government
as a means to compel you to to turn it over and then give it to a bunch
of thieves on Wall Street — not even spending it on a program to
benefit you and your children — is to move.

While it is moderately amusing to think of the devout goodthinkers of California patting themselves on the bank as they  piously vote to raise taxes that use the California schools as a funnel to the banksters, it is a mistake to permit Californians to go anywhere but another proud blue state.  Because it’s only a matter of time before the ex-Californians start looking around and wondering if life wouldn’t be better for everyone if things were done the wonderful way they were back in California.

And aside from New Yorkers, I’ve never known any group of people more dedicated to informing you of their origins than Californians.  It was bad enough at my university that the one girl from Minnesota used to roll her eyes and sarcastically mutter “hey, Minnesota buddy!” in my direction if we both happened to be in the vicinity of two Californians congratulating each other on their mutual state of residence.  Granted, they’re not quite as obnoxious as Parisians, but it’s still ridiculous.

Locusts don’t vote ant party

The Right Wing News surveys the right wing blogs concerning the presidential election:

1) If you had to pick one reason why Mitt Romney lost, which of the following would it be?
D) He wasn’t aggressive enough in attacking Obama and/or his campaign
was too passive in defending against attacks. 48.5% (32 votes)
E) He didn’t inspire voters to turn out for him and/or his get-out-the-vote operation was poor 43.9% (29 votes)
B) He was too moderate overall. 7.6% (5 votes)
A) He was too conservative overall. 0.0% (0 votes)
C) His campaign was too socially conservative. 0.0% (0 votes)

2) Was Mitt Romney your first choice in the Republican primaries or was there another candidate you preferred?
B) There was another candidate that I preferred. 81.8% (54 votes)
A) He was my first choice. 18.2% (12 votes)

Even in the post-election analysis, the illusion remains strong within Republicans.  This is why they are in the process of rapidly going the way of the Whig Party.  Republicans still think that pandering to the Left will pull people to the Right rather than moving the party to the Left.  And they still fail to understand that people who prefer big government in their native lands are always going to prefer big government in the lands they’ve invaded.  This is as true of Californians moving to Texas and Massachusetts residents moving to New Hampshire as it is of Malaysians and Mexicans moving to the USA.  Very few people are abstract or long-term thinkers.  Most people want the wealth produced by a society with limited  government distributed to them more generously by bigger government.

The fact that this happens to be a contradiction when viewed from a long term perspective is totally irrelevant.  The locust doesn’t stop to think about the consequences of stripping the field bare, especially when all the other locusts are busily devouring everything in sight.  He’ll worry about next year when it arrives.  America always had its share of native locusts, but they were always outnumbered by the ants and they were not capable of rendering the fields barren.  Now, their numbers have been significantly boosted by immigration, but the Republican Party cannot hope to retain its viability by reaching out to the new locusts and attempting to convincing them that they are ants.

Romney lost for two reasons.  He was too moderate for his white traditional base and there are too many new big government voters in the electorate.  Republicans might complain that libertarians and conservatives staying home cost them a number of elections in 2012, including the presidential one, but then, that’s exactly what increasing numbers of libertarians and conservatives have warned they would do ever since George W. Bush revealed himself to be a fake conservative.

I, Ibrahimovic

This is a sweet goal.  No question about it.  But I would have been much more impressed by it were it not for the one I scored two weeks ago:

There were three differences.  First, I was farther away and in between the right side of the box and the sideline, so the angle was sharper.  Second, I didn’t do a bicycle in which I ended on my back, but more of a leap-and-twist, followed by a 540-degree spin.  Third, the goalie was in position and the ball went in the upper left corner of the goal.

Actually, there were four differences,  It’s a pity, but no one got mine on video.  Still, it’s fun to see this sort of thing and be able to say, “yeah, I can do that.”