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| 'Twit 'Gins 'Blog October 16, 2009 ASSOCIATED PRESS To rationalists, In the final intellectual battle, religionists are so hateful because their viewpoint will not be controverted by obfuscation in the absence of hard facts. Rationalists have nothing if rationality isn't the tool that conquers all. When, say, the data in some area of endeavor is insufficient for their rationality to attain any but the filmiest traction, they expect people to patiently wait as the rationalists cling to THEIR sole religious belief which is that rationality will ultimately carry the day as it has already in very many pursuits. They will deny that it is a religious belief, saying that they have REASONED it as a logical extrapolation of their study of the history of these sorts of things. But it is a religious belief. There has been many a time in the human "experiment" when a leader |
| and a people have had to navigate with insufficient or imprecise data. The rationalists and their people are always the ones that have failed at this point because the rational thing to do is wait for more data so the FACTS become clear enough to make a clear case as to which way to jump. And then the bears come and eat 'em all up while everybody is waiting. Humans have conquered as much of this universe as they have with both experimental knowledge AND intuition. You can't learn to steer by turning the wheel to and fro in a motionless conveyance; you can't drive very far if you can't look through the windshield but only at the rearview mirrors (except on a planet that is nothing but a road). The human race MAKES its future, or in cultures where rationality is very strictly enforced, ceases to make its future and disappears. I guess this just means that, inherently, humans will worship SOMETHING. There's a choice between worshiping something dead vs. something alive; looking for answers in something material vs. something spiritual; looking for answers from the past vs. creating answers for the future; deciding there's enough wealth in the world so we don't have to try, just redistribute, vs. letting people make it by themselves which raises the general level and makes the future better; living in a culture where every last thing can and must be expressed in terms of money vs. living in a culture where some other rules may apply sometimes. All that glitters is not gold, also does gold always and uniformly glitter? And does that glitter always matter in an absolute sense? |
| 'Twit 'Gins 'Blog Jan 14, 2010 ASSOCIATED PRESS response to: Newsweek Article "The Conservative Case For Gay Marriage" http:// www.newsweek.com/id/229957/page/1 "all men are created equal", not "all groups are created equal" (or must be conceived to be equal, or must be subsidized into equality by the government). Even if the elusive gay gene is someday discovered, at least some component of gay behavior is just that: behavior. While a society may restrict its members and government officials from discriminating against an individual for his physical characteristics, it's absurd to say some behavior is exempt: imagine a lawyer defending a black skinned-individual who was sitting at a lunch counter. OK, now find a lawyer who would invoke the defendant's right to be there if the fellow had held up the joint at gunpoint. It's a society's right and duty to discriminate in favor of behaviors that help ensure its survival now and into the future. So it's a legitimate question whether samesex marriage has anything to contribute, let alone whether it's to be somehow immune to discrimination. As a "good American" I have no truck with those who would have police enter private citizens' domiciles to proscribe consenting adults' behavior, but "Padre turns to groom 'n' says 'Kiss!', he ought to mean a woom-an" is a maxim that shouldn't be excluded on some technical argument. It deserves full and open public debate! Thanks a lot, Hollywood couples, for the damage you've already done to marriage in devaluing it for everyone, including teens who are NOT married but in whose behavior the society must remain very interested, notwithstanding our surfeit of competent psychological professionals and "family planning science". Thanks a lot, samesex couples for insisting on being on the bandwagon. |
| 'Twit 'Gins 'Blog ASSOCIATED PRESS June 10, 2009 I wrote a letter to the LA Times this Sunday in response to an opinion article by Tim Rutten. I frequently agree with his viewpoints, and this article had much to recommend it. However, the question-begging (I decided that the best translation of 'beg the question' is 'ruin the question' [we think it means 'demand the question']) of his automatic use of the term 'marriage equality' indicates he's no longer a disinterested reporter. |
| 'Twit 'Gins 'Blog August 28, 2009 ASSOCIATED PRESS Why are you killing that baby when at other times you have let a bug go? It's because it's going to turn into a human being and (you think) give you trouble. Think how much easier the decision to go full term would be if you could just release it into the wild. So don't go into the tortuous arguments about subjects like 28-week myelin sheathing any more: the reason you give for saying it's OK to kill that fetus is that it's not human-- but the reason FOR killing that fetus is that it IS human. |
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| 'Twit 'Gins 'Blog Sept 26, 2010 ASSOCIATED PRESS The human mind has come up with more and more cogent representations of the planets, stars, meteorological phenomena, etc, over the millenia. Will the human mind ever come up with such a working description of the human mind as to enable a desirable result to be reliably reproduced-- like all psychiatric patients go in for one day and live the rest of their lives as productive or at least non-disruptive citizens? There is an area of human endeavor that is all about religion and rightly so. But behaviorial "scientists", far from bringing in scientific method and quantification, have simply managed to usurp the mantle of the shaman, haven't they. OK, but the problem is their materialistic bias against working with anything unquantifiable. Which means their default condition for the human spirit is non-existence. It there is a human spirit, it's got to be a miserable, raggedy-assed one under the "new management." * * * * * * * There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns out of such a trifling investment of fact. --Mark Twain |
| 'Twit 'Gins 'Blog Oct 19, 2011 ASSOCIATED PRESS The average human can drive faster, get fatter and witness more porn than ever before in history. Why, then, is there so much discontent? It's not because the rich are 1000 times as rich as you (instead of 100, which is apparently OK.) Maybe it's because none of the aforementioned, nor any other materialistic superlatives you can think up, address spiritual values. ************************* Recent Books That Hit The Spot: http://www.amazon.com/Overdiagnosed- Making-People-Pursuit-Health/dp/080702 2004 http://www.amazon.com/Creature-Jekyll- Island-Edward-Griffin/dp/091298645X The first one is subtitled: "Making People Sick in the Pursuit of Health" The other one is subtitled: "A Second Look at the Federal Reserve," and after reading, I now can remember the three ways the Fed Prints Up Money: a) lending to banks at the 'discount window' at absurd rates b) buying securities through 'open market operations' c) lowering the reserve requirements of the rest of the banks so they can create 'checkbook money'. |