An Argument In Support Of Faith As A Limit On The State
My question is whether the criticism of faith are purely political: whether faith is a means of limiting political influence – coercion. As much as it WAS an instrument of coercion in the past. It’s content has changed since the darwinian revolution. Other than one remaining dogmatic super-cult, most are a personal religion now that…
WORD BUDGETS: Writing vs Speaking, and the Male vs Female myth.
I can’t quite tell if there is any data to support the commonly quoted difference between men and women’s speaking budgets. It’s one of those things that’s so commonly bandied about that you’d think you could easily find data on it. But you can’t. And what you can, is pretty specious. In fact, it looks…
Why Are Conservatives Happier?
Because the reality of imperfect human nature doesn’t trouble them. They don’t want to change the impossible. The universe is not something they struggle with. It’s something to appreciate. They celebrate present goods over future fantasies. They struggle to improve their their family and career, not the lives of others. They break the problem of…
Stratfor On Iran’s Strategy
Depending upon your concept of the world: universalist democratic socialist, or hierarchical tribalist, or utilitarian economist, you might see US policy toward Iran in a different light. One thing is for sure: we are accomplishing for militant islam, on behalf of Iran, precisely what the Persians and the radicals have always desired — a restoration…
A Heretical Question? Do Women Have Too Much Power?
GIVENS: Given that women control access to sex and access to reproduction. Given that women have a different mating strategy from men. Given that women determine the outcome of elections. Given that women prefer anti-liberty policies. Given that in the modern economy women are more easily employable than men. (Or rather, that the distribution of…
Libertarian Strategy
We can solve for freedom by attempting to gain sufficient converts in order to create a religion – a means of rebellion against institutions. Or we can solve for freedom by attempting to create formal institutions as a means of preventing others from taking our freedom. The first assumes that freedom and its corollary, responsibility,…
Criticizing Rothbard, Or Criticizing The Abuse Of Rothbard?
I criticize Rothbard all the time, but always for the same single reason: he did not solve the problem of formal institutions and effectively, he tried to advocate freedom be achieved through informal institutions alone — effectively via a religion. That’s what Confucius did as well. He could not invent politics so he directed the…
Analogies are the core of cognition: Hofstadter
(Thanks to Skye for pointer) RE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8m7lFQ3njk&feature=related The attempt to better understand the physical structure of our brains doesn’t seem to have produced anything more useful than the philosophical insight that precise definitions, deduction in its three forms, and the syllogism as a means of comparing those definitions, and the use of analogies in their multitude…
NASA Complains, and So Do I: My experience with the AGW movement.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/washington-secrets/2012/04/astronauts-condemn-nasa%E2%80%99s-global-warming-endorsement/469366 There is very little that is the product of the human mind that is incomprehensible to an individual who is determined to understand it. I’ve gone through the climate arguments for years now, and the data as presented is tentative if not counterfactual and contradictory. Especially troubling is the fact that the increase in…
RE: STRATFOR On Iran’s Strategy — Why I Support Action Against Iran
Depending upon your concept of the world: universalist democratic socialist, or hierarchical tribalist, or utilitarian economist, you might see US policy toward Iran in a different light. One thing is for sure: we are accomplishing for militant islam, on behalf of Iran, precisely what the Persians and the radicals have always desired — a restoration…
CNN Is Anti Christian On Easter. How Nice.
I really don’t care about the content of religious mythology. I don’t think it matters. It might be better for preachers to read from the Iliad and the Odyssey, The Carolingian Epic, La Morte De Arthur, and the Nibelungen than it is to read from the Bible. It might be better to read selections from…
Defending John Derbyshire: Dear Brits, Get Ready To Eat Crow On Race
(Updates at end of post.) The Guardian has a nice piece on the flap over John Derbyshire’s recommendation in Takimag that white and asian parents educated their children to avoid african americans on the streets. I found the comments typical of populist high minded British/Canadian public commentary and unrelated to the facts. Dirbyshire is a…
Gödel’s Theorem Needs Godel’s Law
Kurt Gödel’s incompleteness theorem came up in a debate the other night. I usually react by hanging my head and groaning in anticipation of the chaos that eventually ensues. But on an impulse made a statement about the narrowness of its applicability in a vain attempt to avoid the conversation. It was futile. Chaos ensued. The conversation really…
Caplan and Boettke On Wikipedia And The Economic Calculation Debate
I haven’t read the wiki article on economic calculation before. But this subject is one on which I have spent ten years of work, and Caplan’s quote in the wiki as it’s written bothers me because it’s too easy to misinterpret. 1) Caplan’s argument is reducible to this statement: “between price signals for planning and…
A Libertarian Reformation Is Possible: Restoring Libertarianism from Libertinism.
The Success Of The Rothbardians Using The Strategy Of The Marxists: Community and Ideology The success of the Rothbardians under the leadership of Lew Rockwell in prosthelytizing anarcho-capitalism through education, community-building and information distribution has affected the American political debate — so successfully that they have caused much of the public to identify libertarianism almost exclusively…
Baiting? See Saul Alinsky, Strategist Of The Proletarian Left
I get a lot of heat from the left for adopting one of their tactics: baiting. But let’s see where those tactics comes from. Saul Alinsky. Our president’s hero. The western concept of political debate originated in the right of the enfranchised warrior to debate tactics in order to gain consensus on those tactics —…
Castes, Not Egalitarianism, Are The Natural Outcome Of The Failure To Break Tribal Bonds.
Lets compare the arab spring with the protestant reformation, and today’s USA and see if we can learn something. The protestant reformation was caused by: a) a rapid population increase in the germanic countries (just like the arab spring) b) the desire of the nobility to keep revenues in-country. c) the population’s rejection of endemic…
Defending Hans Hermann Hoppe On Immigration
I have to defend Hoppe a lot less frequently these days from passionate critics who don’t understand him, but here is another one. I don’t think I do a very good job really. But I get the discussion started. By Garry Ladouceur: THIS IS WHAT THIS ACADEMIC HAS TO SAY ABOUT IMMIGRATION-HE IS OF COURSE…
Do We Have Occasion To Verbally Criticize The Feckless?
Murray states: we must change the language that we use whenever the topic of feckless men comes up. Don’t call them "demoralized." Call them whatever derogatory word you prefer. Equally important: Start treating the men who aren’t feckless with respect. Recognize that the guy who works on your lawn every week is morally superior in…
Why Are Conservatives Missing The Point?
Because they, like liberals, operate under the assumptions that: a) A unanimity of agreement on means and ends is possible – when it’s questionable if it’s even remotely desirable. b) Our legislative process is an absolute ‘good’ instead of an demonstrably destructive bad. The evidence of the failure of our legislative process was visible as…
Why Do We Conduct Ideological Warfare? Democracy. That’s why.
Because, under Democratic Republicanism, and under Social Democracy, we conceive of government as majority right to establish laws under which we all must conform to a singular perception of the means and ends by which we create the common good, rather than a process by which we can negotiate contracts consisting of exchanges with one…
Notes on Fukuyama’s Origins Of Political Order
THE CHINESE INVENTED THE STATE FIRST No doubt. As an advocate of the hoppian concept of private governmnet, I don’t actually think that the ‘state’ is a ‘good’. I see it as a ‘bad’. Throughout the book, he assumes that the bureaucratic state is a ‘good’, when his analysis clearly shows that it’s a ‘bad’…
Is Political Legitimacy Possible?
Legitimacy would be ‘perfect’ if the actions of a representative (the government) were identical in both priority and content to the preferences of the individual. Legitimacy is neutral if the preferences and priorities are unobjectionable. Legitimacy is lost when the preferences and priorities are actively unwanted, despised or damaging. We can consider tyranny an absolute…
Does Mankind Flourish Under Conservatism?
QUESTION [Edited for Clarity – CD] I have a question. Curt stated that conservatism consists of true premises advanced by mythology and irrationalism. The theory that “conservatism = true premises advanced by mythology” is itself a descriptive theory that is part of conservatism, i.e., it is a self-description of conservatism. There are other descriptive theories…
My Very Own Private Wiki Entry
Finally, I had the courage to ask for a Wikipedia page. I actually dont like the attention, but it’s necessary marketing.