groundcontroltothomaspaine

Thomas Paine was an interesting and critical figure in the origins of America and the development of modern ideals of freedom and democracy.

Glenn Beck thinks he understands Paine really well. Count it among the man's many not-so-charming delusions. I do eventually mean to read this thing, taking advantage of the local municipal socialist book-sharing program (library), though probably not the same one Beck went to to learn all government services are wicked and wrong. Hopefully it will turn out better than my attempt to read Ann Coulter.

John Perkins has a considerably better grasp of Paine. Perkins is descended from Paine and has learned some hard moral lessons on the nature of power and control. He knows that authoritarian control structures in capitalist business are no less odious than authoritarian control structures in government, that the two are often deeply intertwined and that this is NOT a result of government corrupting honest capitalism but of the corruption inherent in all desire to control and exploit for profit and power. Glenn Beck by contrast only remembers to detest authoritarian government if it fails to make the appropriate "conservative values" nonsense noise, and like most pseudo-libertarians, is inexplicably more angered by things government does FOR people than by things government does TO people. (Often this takes the form of detesting those labelled as weak or dependent, veneration of metaphorical Strength being a characteristic fascist value.)

Susan Jacoby also understands Paine quite well. Her excellent book embraces Paine's contribution to America's true moral foundations, and continued influence on all movements to bring about a better, freer world.

But the best source on Paine is Thomas Paine himself, in Common Sense, Rights of Man, Age of Reason, and numerous other writings, pamphlets, and letters, he explains quite clearly what he stands for. Apologists like to pretend it was a different or changed Thomas Paine who wrote Age of Reason, but the same "spirit," the same principles of freedom of mind and body for all and the free pursuit of truth unfettered by orthodoxy, authority, or dogma underlies all his writings. It's all public domain, so you can find it on Project Gutenberg and numerous university course text pages, or in several printed editions if you like. Though far from the first freethinker, he is among the finest.

differenceofdegreenotkind

A man says, "I have a gun and I will shoot you unless you paint your house red."

A terrorist message declares, "we have bombs we will detonate in your city unless you paint all your homes red."

An interstellar invasion fleet announces, "we can manipulate matter to the subatomic level, and we will tear apart your Sun unless you comply by painting all domiciles red."

A Being walks the earth in shining robes, with secrets beyond time behind his eyes, the words come into your mind, "I can make and unmake universes, I will inflict eternal torment, pain, suffering, and fire on all who do not swear that red is the only Holy color for the homes of the faithful."

unknownpoliclimate

I don't think people should get to call themselves "skeptics" when their "skepticism" is rooted not in genuine doubt but in a devoted faith in Party position statements and Bernays/Hayek/Friedman's wilful misinterpretation of Adam Smith. Yes, that sentence is about climate change.

Genuine skepticism is deep epistemological questioning into whether we could really know what we think we know, and whether others can really know what they claim to know. One must question oneself most of all. Simply asserting others are wrong, skepticism is not.

goooobullshit!(omgtits)

I saw Penn and Teller's "Bullshit!" today; a series I don't catch often, not having cable.

Though their defining best episodes generally came early in the series (esp. profanity in season 2), this one was pretty good. It managed to stop me a couple times when I was standing up to turn off the TV and do something else, I'll give it that.

Cheer. The problem the show addresses is that cheerleaders suffer far more injuries of all types than other common school athletic programs combined, and there aren't enough safety measures, spotters, and proper health and safety training among cheer instructors. This is related to the fact that cheer is not counted among 'competitive sports' in the Title IX program.

Here, P&T spend some time railing against feminism and government programs being the problem (before they've got around to detailing the safety issues) and then they spend the entire rest of the episode showing that in fact much of the problem comes from the involvement of the Varsity corporation, which through a long list of company initializations (not acronyms, fellow citizens) is involved in just about every part of every cheer program in the country, and is raking in tons of money from that.

The early vitriol against "feminism" seems out of place, but seeing as the rest of the program is filled with refreshing anti-corporatism, they probably felt it necessary. Otherwise they'd have had to denounce themselves as bleeding Bolsheviks or something. Also in that early part, they talked to someone from the Cato Institute in order to... talk to the Cato Institute? Really, for all the guy actually contributed to the topic, the only reason for including him seems to be to name-drop Cato. (Underwriting involved?)

Anyway, girls and young women across the country are suffering serious, sometimes crippling, occasionally lethal injuries at a rate much higher than even in ice hockey and soccer, while engaged in acts of athleticism that are more or less a mix of gymnastics, track, and dance. Things Penn and Teller don't quite get around to asking or explaining include pretty much anything related to what to do about it.

Is the one "grandmother-(or-whatever)-to-Title-IX" they briefly talked to the biggest obstacle? Just what would it take to get cheer included in Title IX? How exactly would that improve safety? Although they show Varsity stands to gain from cutting corners around the safety issue, and they say Varsity is involved with the decision to keep cheer out of Title IX, they leave many details of that involvement vague. Just what can people do to get better safety training, safe practice, spotters, etc. in school cheer programs? Will it require people to write Congress? To contact Title IX? Can it be improved State by State? Through school boards? Could improved awareness, organization, and involvement by parents at the local level bring schools together to form rival cheer programs with real safety and sports health measures in place that are not beholden to the Varsity corporation?

On all these things Penn and Teller both remain silent.

breastcancervaccine

Been hearing this over the last hour on the BBC.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8714085.stm

seisdemayo

I don't think it makes sense to argue "It's the law" or "they broke the law" when some of the major points under contention are "is the law just?" and "what ought to be the law?". It's also odd, though more disappointing than surprising, that people who claim to dislike big government and the threat of government tyranny are just fine with that government being extra strict toward someone they don't like. No, this isn't just about Arizona, or even just about immigration.

aninescapablebias

The fundamental ideological bias is ideology itself --the notion that believing the correct principles will lead to the correct conclusions. It's not unlike the basic function of scientific thinking --that knowing the underlying workings of nature will make one better able to understand and predict the specifics of the natural world. Also, easy comfort is found in one's perceived ability to impugn other's ideas by appeal to their specific failures on other issues. If the other guy's value system leads him to conclude that orphans should be loaded into giant hamster-wheel generators or all bridges should be one-way roads like God intended, it's tempting to think his entire value system is discredited by that conclusion. Just as tempting, but even shakier as a useful judgement, is taking one's incomplete strawman idea of what the other guy's value system is or must be, and trying to construct a thoroughly horrid conclusion from it in order to accomplish the above.

The opposite to the fundamental bias of ideology would be that no social or political questions are connected at all, that no underlying principle could possibly lead to better conclusions across multiple issues. I'm not convinced humans can actually think like this. I suspect anyone who might claim to be guided by such pragmatism would be simply unaware of their underlying ideological framework.

onblogging

James Edward Raggi's blog has a particular geek focus that may or may not interest the half-dozen viewers I get, but he's explained well the nature of blogging in general and the position bloggers find themselves in whether they know it or not.

http://lotfp.blogspot.com/2010/03/little-perspective-on-internet-and.html

Think I'll have to do a bit of policing in the comments.

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