How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something but to be someone.
Coco Chanel
Tweet of the Day
Maybe most Americans peaceful,but until they recognize and destroy their growing neocon cancer they must be held responsible.@rupertmurdoch
— Ronald Guillemette (@raguillem) January 12, 2015
[To understand the context of the tweet, see here.]
As a pro-liberty Catholic conservative: the real cause of "global warming" is the world going to hell under Pope Francis' "leadership".
— Ronald Guillemette (@raguillem) January 12, 2015
Image of the Day
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| Via the Libertarian Catholic |
Western Coalition Planes May Have Killed 50 Syrian Civilians in Late December
What can one blogger say? I have been arguing for months against Syrian intervention. Collateral damage is beyond an unconscionable tragedy; it sows the seeds of anti-Western blowback.
Entertainment Potpourri
Just a cautious thumbs up on the first 2 episodes this past week, although the ratings continued the declining trend year over year. Click here for a recap of episode 1, here for a recap of episode 2. (I believe the full episodes are also available at americanidol.com.) I was impressed with a number of the singers (including a male version of "Over the Rainbow"); it's somewhat arbitrary to choose one, but I have a gorgeous niece Emily who is about the same age as the young lady below; my Emily is, unlike her uncle, a talented singer-actress. I don't follow contemporary country (or in fact almost anything contemporary), but she may one of the most talented teens and country singers I've seen on the show in years.
Okay, whose heart doesn't melt at 3-year-old Hope's version of "Let It Go"? Give her a few years and she'll give Lea (below) a run for her money. I was also moved by her visible pride, sitting in JLo's lap, watching 23-year-old single mom Kelley Kime perform.
WOW! Thank you everyone so very much!!! I am overwhelmed, amazed, and most of all, humbled by the response I am getting. I will do my best to get back to everyone, please bear with me!
Thank you all who watched American Idol tonight. My heart melted more than anyone's watching my baby girl sing...I am one proud Mommy!
Last Friday I watched the final season's opening show, primarily because I heard a promo with a brief clip of the performance embedded below. The show's plots are somewhat contrived and little too predictably "progressive"/politically correct--I'm beginning to feel my age, because while the songs and performances often sparkle, the storyline bores, even annoys me. For example, an older gay alumnus is trying to get a current gay student to join the glee club and basically feels underappreciated because he helped break the way for gay student acceptance, and the younger guy is having none of it. In another scene, a group of "progressives" invades a meeting of a Tea Party students, where the lead fascist-in-training addresses her adversaries as "teabaggers" (a vulgar slang term describing a gay sex act); the Tea Party students are portrayed as intellectual dolts blinded by the brilliance of the fascist-in-training's "eloquent rant" into silent capitulation.
The below performance by actress Lea Michele is better than any of the previous versions of this song I've heard, and in fact, I think this is one of the best female pop performances I've ever heard, period. Her deft phrasing, inflections, pacing, flow, pitch--just absolutely stunning and perfect to these ears, wouldn't change a thing; I also love the sparking arrangement behind her virtuoso vocals. My only criticism is that I would like to hear more of a break heading into the chorus, like a thunderclap (I won't know until I hear it), something that symbolically breaks her chains as the lady celebrates the freedom from the internal constraints that bound her.
Facebook Corner
(Lawrence Reed). "In the ideal socialist state, power will not attract power freaks. People who make decisions will show no slightest bias towards their own interests. There will be no way for a clever man to bend the institutions to serve his own ends. And the rivers will run uphill" -- David Friedman (economist and son of Milton and Rose Friedman) in his 1973 book, "The Machinery of Freedom."
... And the dashing Progressives in shining armor will come riding on their unicorns...
(Libertarian Catholic). Great article on the Charlie Hebdo incident from CatholicVote: http://www.catholicvote.org/charlie-hebdo-free-speech.../
I'm not sure I would argue it's a great article. I would agree that I don't think the self-serving State can be trusted with the power to restrict free expression. I would argue that norms of civility are best enforced by the private sector, where families, friends, school, and church reinforce respectful behavior. I have written elsewhere that you won't find me carrying an "I am Charlie" sign because I'm not an asshole. I think as Catholics we embrace the concept of free will and a Thomistic sense of tolerance. I think that what Charlie Hebdo did basically abused liberty. Does that mean that violence and depriving others of their unalienable right to live was justified? No.
But I think we must practice tolerance in deed as well as concept. And I don't think it's necessary to recount that the Church itself hasn't always respected relevant pro-liberty concepts, e.g., the Crusades, the Inquisition, the religious wars (including relatively recent sectarian strife in Northern Ireland).
He may have been an asshole, but he has the right to be an asshole without getting firebombed. I am Charlie in the respect that we all have a right to belief and the right to profess those beliefs however they may offend others.
I think that's where we've reached an impasse. I agree that Charlie has the free will to be an asshole, but I strongly believe that Charlie's disrespect for Muslim sensibilities is unjust and immoral. It goes back to the Golden Rule. Remember "Piss Christ" and "Black Madonna" (made with elephant dung)? Granted, none of us Catholics issued a type of fatwa targeting for death the "artists" (more like cheap heat juvenile provocateurs). The best tactic for dealing with this type of nonsense is to deprive it of the attention it so desperately craves, to let it go, don't sweat the small stuff.
As Aquinas notes, "those who are in authority, rightly tolerate certain evils, lest certain goods be lost, or certain greater evils be incurred: thus Augustine says (De Ordine ii.4): "If you do away with harlots, the world will be convulsed with lust."
I repeat: the garbage that Charlie publishes is offensive, even in my judgment, and I was not being targeted . There is no moral authority; Charlie is abusing its freedom of expression. What Charlie did was not intended to promote dialog.
In other forums, I've been accused of "blaming the victims". No, as pro-life, I'm unconditionally against the use of deadly force except for self-defense and imminent threat. I don't like criticizing people behind their back or after they've been murdered in cold blood. But if you had asked me about Charlie before the terror attack, I would have said that they were assholes, and I'm not going to be a hypocrite.
I think humor has to be done very carefully; I'm not a professional comedian but am an amateur of sorts--I like to do a lot of ad libs, I love plays on words, to poke fun at myself and to prick the egos of people who are a little too full of themselves. Insulting humor is something I just don't attempt and almost never strikes me as funny; maybe it works for Don Rickles. I think with freedom comes responsibility.
(Reason). Nothing can justify attacks on people whose only offense lay in their use of words and drawings to mock religion and politics.
I want to distance myself from Richmond's "case closed" absolutist perspective. Do I believe in codifying restrictions to free expression, as in the case of certain left-wing progressives, "hate speech", trigger warnings, etc.? No. Do I believe that the State or any group has the right to use deadly force or imprisonment against any person for exercising his freedom of expression, however obnoxious it may be? No.
But let's make it clear there can be abuses of liberty and free expression, e.g., libel or slander is a form of aggression that may impair the victim's economic security, making a false or misleading tip to the police about some neighbor's behavior can result in tragedy, not to mention inciting a riot at a public event (e.g., "fire"). Richmond specifically references fighting words. Let's be clear: the communication of implicit or explicit threats, the expression of certain intolerant concepts (e.g., ethnic cleansing) or disparagement of someone's family or identity, of their cherished (religious) institutions are abuses of liberty, often unprovoked aggressive hostile actions. Depending on context, the victim has a right to commensurate self-defense.
Satire can be unduly provocative and hostile in nature and borders on violating social norms, unwritten laws of civility. I personally don't like the Charlie Hebdo material I've seen; I might tolerate it as a libertarian, but you won't find me carrying an "I am Charlie" sign, because I'm not an asshole. Do Charlie Hebdo cartoonists have the right to live and to be assholes? Absolutely.
But let's not confound the right to hold and debate views of conscience with hostile, biting rhetoric or images specifically intended to provoke a reaction from target victims. I am NOT blaming the victims of violence here, the Charlie Hebdo editors and cartoonists; I am not saying that they had it coming, or anything like it. I would argue for a more civil tone, which I think is more conducive to debate and discussion. Even the best efforts of comedians often fail; look at the hard time late-night hosts have coming up with decent material on Obama (I don't, but they do); Jay Leno is the only one who ever did a decent job of it.
It's easy for us to say, just count to 10; cartoons are no big deal; don't sweat the small stuff; nobody reads Charlie Hebdo anyway--why give them the publicity they're seeking by publishing obnoxious cartoons? But instead of ludicrously declaring Charlie Hebdo is what freedom of expression is all about, let us note that in promoting a doctrine of tolerance of other points of view, we best serve that ideal by framing our own messages in a more respectful fashion.
Controlling and censoring speech is a big part of the left wing agenda.
[Discussant], one might argue that the "conservative" or "right-wing" movement is relatively less concerned with regulating speech because it is significantly more concerned with regulating action--like sexual cNothing can justify attacks on people whose only offense lay in their use of words and drawings to mock religion and politics.onduct or drug usage or other vicious activities, for example.
Bullshit, Johnny. Conservatives are NOT interested in regulating sexual conduct. Not surprising that an ignorant bumper sticker ideologue like you doesn't have a clue. I suggest you actually try cracking open a history book every once in a while.
HINT: Try doing a Google search on the Progressive Era, eugenics, sexual behavior, regulation, etc. E.g., "the article then focuses on the efforts of Progressive Era reformers to .... regulate private sexual behavior had eroded", " Progressive reformers sought to tackle a broad range of social problems that accompanied the rapid pace of industrialization and urbanization. As they focused on the very real problems faced by poor and working-class urban families, reformers found themselves increasingly distressed by the failure of these families to conform to middle-class domestic norms. Of particular concern was the sexual activity of young women (particularly those from poor immigrant families), which they saw as “fundamentally perverse and predictive of future promiscuity.”"
It is true that some Protestant denomination reformers, especially in New England, in the past had sought to impose certain religious practices and moral codes into state/local regulation, but to a large extent those were countered by the rationalist Founding Fathers like Jefferson, who emphasized free will and the separation of church and state.
One can argue there's an odd coalition between progressives and certain Protestant social conservatives, e.g., this Reason blog entry ("Progressive Liberals, Christian Conservatives Unite to Criminalize Sex on Campus"), but, speaking as a pro-liberty Catholic conservative with a Thomistic view on free will and tolerance, this attempt to smear conservatism in general (in America, conservatism is based on the classically liberal tradition) is intellectually vapid and disingenuous.
Not even a nice try though.
(FEE). The fight to take back the word "liberal" is not an argument over the definition of a word. It is an argument about the proper means to build a great society.
A summary about the meaning of the two words, I once wrote: http://thoughtery.blogspot.fi/.../liberalism-and...
Excellent piece. I had started to refer myself as a conservative in the early 1980's (I had not been been exposed to much of the classical liberal tradition, but started to migrate to such an approach organically as I took (non-ideological) graduate economics service courses working towards my MBA. The Southern Democrat conservative faction was starting to collapse being marginalized by the "Progressive" Statist faction; I found myself increasing skeptical of left-authoritarian centralization and starting to identify with the classical liberal tradition in the American conservative movement.)
So while Hayek and Friedman are repelled by any characterization of their view as conservative and Don Boudreaux constantly rants that there is nothing conservative about his perspective, I have to think they are seeing the term conservative in the context of the European tradition. I classify myself as pro-liberty conservative in the tradition of the Old Right/classical liberal movement (Sen. Robert Taft), in contrast to ring-wing authoritarianism or populism. I see Progressives more as left-wing Hamiltonians.
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists
Céline Dion, "Nothing Broken But My Heart"
