Defense of Truth

The mainstream media is having a little fun affirming its own role as thought-police with a ridiculous statement made on the floor of the House by Tennessee Democrat Representative comparing the tactics Republicans have used to (properly!) criticize the Obamacare bill to those used by Nazi propaganda mastermind Paul Joseph Goebbels. Here are his words: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yG2hWFPLmZ4 Of course, even bringing up the Nazis has become so politically taboo that immediately Talk Radio condemned Rep. Cohen for comparing Republicans to Nazis. This he did NOT do. And in defending himself on CNN with Anderson Cooper, Cohen was quite right to insist that he wasn't comparing the morally repugnant Nazis with his political opponents the Republicans. Instead he attempted to be careful--and his logic is flawless in this--about re-affirming that it was the (in his mind) dishonest propaganda tactic he was condemning, not the politicians. Here's his interview on CNN: http://www.th...

Quote from Facebook friend: Although marriage has now become something based on romantic love and friendship, compatibility, etc., a legal criterion for valid marriage is still penis-vagina sex (e.g. you can annul a marriage if it's not consummated). If we really followed what we think marriage is now (friend, lover, companion, possible parenting partner) then it wouldn't matter at all what the sex/gender of the couple is. Duh. Duh? There's two movements of logical sleight-of-hand going on for this kind of statement to appear coherent as an argument. 1. We = state. Talk of legal criterion has to do with the state, but the "we" here is in reference to society at large. The two are not really equal. Society has a different stake in marriages and the relationship they solemnify than does the state. The state's interest is to define its tax-paying and benefits-receiving units, and to identify its citizens, who all derive from familial roots. Society's in...

The right has been mercilessly hammering home the evilness of this infamous Rahm Emanuel quote over the last few days, and with good reason. The essential meaning Emanuel, Barack Obama's former chief of staff and longtime Clinton iron-fist, was trying to convey, was that the masses are too stupid to understand the political system that's in their best interest. Therefore, it was up to leftist politicians to "capitalize", despite the irony of the term, on the emotional high only a crisis can provide--only a sustained media-hyped public event can provide--to shame principled opposition into permitting compromises on free-market, limited-government solutions. Now to be sure, stifling debate by choosing an unassailable victim as your voice is a preferred trick of the left, and is deplorable for what it is. Whether it's the ideology they're trying to advance, or their own personal political gain, a politician who trots out a victim can quickly chill his principl...

Italy has a new emerging Leftist superstar they're calling the Italian Obama. He's gay, he's Catholic, and he's the governor of the southern region of Puglia. Despite all this, Nichola Vendola only caught my attention because of a short quote the BBC captured to give a sense of the flavor of his popular appeal: "Today we have a globalisation of oligarchic and financial interests, but no globalisation of human rights and social rights. "We have to fight for a globalisation of the people." Of course, anyone with any sense of the history of human rights and social rights would find this statement completely ludicrous. Since the beginning of the American experiment of limited government where all are equal under the law, slavery has been abolished, almost all of the world's states have moved to democratic models for the selection of leaders, and the standard of living of even the poor in industrialized countries has been immeasurably advanced. Italy ...

So a friend of mine gave an example of something unrelated to my post at church the other day. It was the story of her attitude as she drives her school bus every day. She likes to take care to note if a student looks sad or upset or anything out of the ordinary positive she expects, then she makes an effort to get them to talk about it and deal with it before they arrive at school, if possible. In her description of her attitude, she mentioned that she had the power to potentially make or break a student's day. I turned back to her to make the compliment, then: I'm glad it's you with that power. She got flustered, embarrassed, and felt the need to corner me afterwards and clarify, backing down from the very word "power", as if it somehow automatically suggested its own abuse. Why can't people think of power as ability, as potential to do, as a neutral tool to be used, like any other tool, for good or ill? "Absolute power corrupts absolutely," objec...

Here's another Facebook conversation I shouldn't have stuck my nose into today. Please note what passes for objectivity. Also Liberal Friend B presents an interesting assumption. Apparently, conservatives have evil intentions and no other explanation for their actions is possible, or even really thinkable. It couldn't possibly be that they have an actual logical disagreement on the merits of the issue at hand... Liberal Friend A: So we don't want to pass a treaty with Russia because... the Republicans don't want to comply with international law? We'll hunt you down if you have nukes, but don't ask us to get rid of ours. Right? http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/17/world/europe/17start.html?pagewanted=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=a2 G.O.P. Opposition Dims Hope for Arms Treaty With Russia www.nytimes.com The chief Senate Republican negotiator dealt a setback to President Obama’s effort to pass a treaty with Russia. Me: Thanks for the read. It reminds me why I...

My family and heart have ties back to Saskatchewan where I grew up. Currently there is some discussion of privatizing some of the current provincial government monopolies (called "Crown corporations") of which one--Sasktel, the province's only phone carrier, wired and wireless--is the employer of one of my good friends. Here is our conversation: Me: I hate to sound callous, but we don't make buggy whips anymore for a reason: there's cars now. I hope I can make a contrary opinion without seeming harsh, but I really don't understand much of this thinking. It's sounding a lot to me like you guys have lived under a monopoly for so long you've forgotten how detrimental they can be. If a competitor comes in to SK it won't destroy anything Sasktel does well, it will just force it to demonstrate what that is, via competition. Its talent pool will come from the same industry, so full-time/part-time won't really be an issue (can't get the hours you w...