The barrel of a gun

The United States has a massive nuclear arsenal and the best-equipped, best-trained military the world has ever seen. It is an awesome, fearsome machine that can rain down inexorable death from the heavens.

But that's not why I drive on the right side of the road.

I drive on the right side of the road for a whole host of reasons -- practical, prudential, even moral I suppose. (Prudential and moral often overlap where safety is concerned. Plus Not Being an Asshole is a kind of moral reason.) All of those reasons precede the merely legal reasons for doing so. I'm certainly aware of those legal reasons as well. And in some vague sense I suppose I'm aware that there could be legal consequences for driving on the wrong side of the road and that those legal consequences, if it came to it and if I somehow survived to face them, would ultimately be enforced by armed agents of the government.

But it has never occurred to me that the possibility of violent coercion on the part of the state was among the most important, relevant or meaningful reasons for driving on the right side of the road. Nor has it ever occurred to me that such basic traffic laws are an undue restriction on my personal liberty -- or even worse, a kind of "taking." (If I can only drive on half the road, then my car is only worth half as much -- it's theft I tell you, theft of my car's full potential value!)

This is something I just don't understand about my libertarian friends here in cyberspace. For them, the menacing threat of armed government tyranny seems to be the only reason they can conceive of for complying with any law, rule, regulation or -- heaven forfend! -- tax.

And that's just, well, odd.

The good news is that I'm fairly sure they don't really mean it. The trajectory of their slogans forces them to argue some odd things, but most of them don't really seem to live that way. "Taxation is theft," they'll shout, and thus they wind up arguing that the only reason they pay their taxes is because the jackbooted thugs from the IRS have pried it from their hands at gunpoint. But that's not really the case any more than it's true that the only reason they send their kids to school is because the jackbooted truant officers have forced them to do that at gunpoint. Or that the only reason they do not embezzle, default on loans, defraud their neighbors or prey on the weak is fear of legal reprisal. If the state and the police and every coercive mechanism for law enforcement were to evaporate overnight, they would not take to the streets in a lawless rampage of rioting and pillaging.

Not most of them, at least.

They're not really the Nietzschean little sociopaths their arguments are always trapping them into claiming to be. If they met such a person, in fact, they'd probably do just what you or I would do -- call the police.

Participating in civilization -- particularly in a democratic civilization, a civil society -- requires accepting certain rules, regulations, mores, laws, and, yes, taxes in your own best interest and the best interests of others, i.e., for the common good. It also requires that we constantly and vigilantly question every rule, regulation, more, law or tax to evaluate whether it is necessary, fair, wise, efficient, effective, useful, proportionate, etc. But once we accept that as our task -- evaluating each on its merits and demerits in accord with the common good rather than dismissing them all, categorically, as by definition illegitimate -- then we become liberals and not libertarians.

And one of the nice things about being a liberal is that you never need to pretend that you're actually a barbaric hoodlum who only behaves civilly due to fear of punishment from the 101st Airborne.

Comments

[Doctor Science]

Not Being an Asshole is a kind of moral reason.

Not Being an Asshole is the *only* moral reason.

IMHO, the definition of a "libertarian" is someone who doesn't believe humans are social animals. So for instance, libertarians don't believe that being around happy people makes people happier.

[Praline]

True, Yuubi - but the labour market I'm imagining is much like today's society, which doesn't have a sufficient dearth of workers to make high wages a likelihood. After the Black Death ravaged Europe, killing huge swathes of the population and leaving too few people to work the fields, that was a good time to demand higher wages and quit if you didn't get them, but there's too many of us around for that to really work nowadays.

[jamoche]

one columnist in said paper regularly grumbles that absolute privatization would be much superior to having public ANYTHING because private owners can lay down absolute rules on what can be done and there's none of that nasty debate and negotiation and compromise that comes when democracy gets involved.

Carry that to its logical extreme, and you have one person owning the whole country (because what's to stop him getting richer and richer and buying up more and more of it), making decisions without all that pesky debate - hmm, where have I seen that before?

a barbaric hoodlum who only behaves civilly due to fear of punishment from the 101st Airborne.

Though those people do exist. I was researching some websites on war crimes recently and a recurring theme was speculation on how certain war criminals seemed to be perfectly normal people but did horrific things. For some reason one article concluded one person in particular was "simply evil" and seemed to imply that we could therefore dismiss him as a total anomaly, but it occurred to me that part of the reason was that there was nothing to stop him - there are probably other people not that different from him leading perfectly ordinary lives who would do similar things if they also lived in a place where they could get away with it. After all, how many times have you seen a news report where the neighbors of someone who did something horrific said "but he seemed like such a nice guy"?

[Pepper]

Mr. Clark, you're so cruel. Is poor Scott's tale of woe not woeful enough already?

Oh, sorry. Scott's tale of woe. I'm new at this.

[yuubi]

Froborr:

If you snatched the pie off the sill, you'd probably get the whole thing quickly to where it was needed, rather than eating half of it and holding onto it a few days. However, knocking on the door and asking would still work better in most cases.

[jamoche]

Hit "post" before I got to my point - a government system needs to understand that both kinds of people exist: the ones that will behave without threat of law, and the ones that won't. People on the far ends of the spectrum seem to make proposals that assume only one kind or another, and that won't work.

[Geds]

Is poor Scott's tale of woe not woeful enough already?

Y'know, every once in a while I think that maybe my little joke has gotten out of control and I should do something about it. Then I start laughing. Then I get thirsty. Then I see bright, shiny objects...

I'm sorry, what was I talking about?

[Tonio]

a government system needs to understand that both kinds of people exist: the ones that will behave without threat of law, and the ones that won't

In my view, the concept of treating others with respect without the threat of law is an example of human progress. Other examples include the concept of inalienable rights and the concepts of anti-sexism and anti-racism. But I don't expect racism and sexism and authoritarianism to ever disappear completely.

[JohnR]

Josh:I agree, and most libertarians have come to the conclusion that many governmental regulations do more harm than good, and so think that, as a general rule, the system of government is inefficient with respect to the type of overarching programs liberals want to put into place (universal health care mandates, for example).

...see, I look at this and I wonder what planet you're living on, because you can't possibly be looking at the Earth to examine actual facts and come to the conclusion that universal health care is less efficient. Claiming it is either makes you monumentally ignorant, or deliberately lying.

When your fairy stories are flatly contradicted by all the facts, your fairy stories are wrong. This applies to libertarians just as much as it does to creationists, email-hoax-forwarders, people who fall for 419 scams, and all other mental defectives.

[Froborr]

jamoche: Capitalism is actually a form of feudalism -- rather, both are forms of the same fundamental human social pattern. Think about how your typical corporation is structured, and what the role of the cubicle dweller or factory worker at the bottom is. Any human organization above a certain very small size tends to drift into the same hierarchical pattern, in the absence of strong forces to the contrary. Liberalism is the only major current political philosophy which provides such a force, namely government regulation.

yuubi: If Mamie is one of the most powerful people in the world, I'm going to need help snatching the pie. Not to mention that, if I get caught, I'll have to justify taking it. There'd be a strong incentive for regular old thieves to pretend they were taking the pie for starving kids. Better to have a large, organized third party do it, and keep copious, publically available records on how much of the pie they give out.

Oh, and why don't you ask a homeless person how well knocking and asking works? I doubt you'll have much trouble finding one.

[yuubi]

Doctor Science:

A libertarian believes in separation of society and state; most of society can run voluntarily rather than under threat of force.

Praline:

Fast food pays better than minimum (at least around here). I would expect everyone to pay minimum for that sort of work by your argument.

[Froborr]

JohnR: You have to understand, libertarians and conservatives use their own, very special measure of "efficiency" when discussing health care. See, we sane people measure the efficiency of a healthcare system by what percentage of sick people get the care they need. Libertarians and conservatives measure it by what percentage of the upper classes get the care they need. Remember, the U.S. is the best country in the world to be an insanely rich sick person. It's just the worst First World country to be any other kind of sick person.

To a libertarian or conservative, the value of a human being is the same as their net worth, so the one billionaire who can't buy a kidney from a healthy kid (because his parents didn't bankrupt themselves caring for the kid's sick brother) counts for more than all the millions of sick and dying poor people put together.

[Tonio]

I'll throw out this health care idea - low-interest loans from the government so groups can set up non-profit cooperatives for health insurance. There are a few such cooperatives in the US already. The bureaucracy to administer those loans would probably be much smaller than that needed to oversee health care for everyone.

[josh]

JohnR: Well, your beautifully reasoned argument convinced me.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a plane to catch. I need to be in Roswell before the sun goes down.

[Geds]

When your fairy stories are flatly contradicted by all the facts, your fairy stories are wrong. This applies to libertarians just as much as it does to creationists, email-hoax-forwarders, people who fall for 419 scams, and all other mental defectives.

Whoa, hey there. This is a bit strong. Email hoax believers and 419 scam victims might fall under a "mental defective" category, but not all libertarians or creationists believe what they do simply because they're mentally incapacitated.

There are, as has been argued in this very thread, places where liberals and libertarians do agree. You have to ignore history to actually believe letting a free market run rampant is a good idea, but not all libertarians actually believe in a Randian self-determined free market system, they just believe in fewer regulations.

As for creationists, the Young Earth variety are a weird combination of shyster, people who don't really think too much about stuff, and people who have been deliberately misled by the lying jerk varieties. They're not necessarily mentally defective, in a lot of cases they just haven't been educated enough/taught to believe that they have to believe YEC propaganda or nothing else in the world makes sense/some combination of the two. Then there are the creationists who simply say, "Hey, we don't know how all this here got here, so maybe there was a god that created it." But they're not generally running around and building faux-scientific museums, so they tend to get ignored and/or generally accepted in to society.

By the way, I'm thinking of starting the Norse Creation museum. We'll have plenty of displays about the three flat-plain model of the universe, bits of bone from Ymir's skull that fell to earth and a whole branch taken from Yggdrasil, the World Tree. It'll be opening in Kentucky in June of '09, Odin willing.

[Praline]

Tonio: nope, you just need a national health service. Health insurance is simply a bad idea. It's in the interests of an insurance company to get out of paying you if it possibly can. That's the last thing a sick person needs.

You need universal health care, but bad. I've said this before, but coming from a country with a national health service, the lack of one seems to me as disastrously unjust as the absence of court-appointed lawyers for people who can't pay their own legal fees. Certain things shouldn't be dependent on wealth in any way at all. America's supposed to have the right to life; if you don't get the medical treatment you need, rather than the medical treatment you can persuade your insurance to cough up for, that right is being violated.

[Tonio]

They're not necessarily mentally defective, in a lot of cases they just haven't been educated enough/taught to believe that they have to believe YEC propaganda or nothing else in the world makes sense/some combination of the two.

Very good point. Sometimes when I argue for the intellectual freedom for evolution (as opposed to evolution itself), it sounds like I'm insulting creationists, and that is definitely not my intention. Any suggestions?

[JohnR]

not all libertarians or creationists believe what they do simply because they're mentally incapacitated.

The kind who say that all government is inherently less efficient than a free market, and use health care as an example of this, *are* plainly defective in some major cognitive function. Whether that's through ignorance of the facts they claim to be examining or through deliberate lies is not really my concern.

I think we've got a terminology failure when it comes to "creationist", though. You're including "all the history and science stuff really happened, but I think God had a hand in setting it all up" under "creationist", which doesn't mesh with the definition I was using. The definition I use for "creationist" is apparently the one you use Young Earth Creationist for - the anti-science professionally-illiterate screamers.

On the Norse creation museum: You have seen Tim Kreider's "The Pain - When Will It End?" on the matter, right?
http://www.thepaincomics.com/weekly041229.htm

[Majromax]

The right to take property has been enshrined in law for quite some time. Adverse possession is exactly that.

Property rights are not natural rights. They mean nothing in the absence of a civil society. To use Libertarian terminology, the government enshrines the rights by allowing the use of force against trespassers but not the rightful owners.

Since property is not an inalienable right, the granting of property by a benevolent government should be for the common good. Thus, property should be subject to some measure of control to preserve that common good. Given that capitalism works to a large degree and "regulations on property" are large and unwieldy tools, it seems likely that the "optimal level of control" is small, so property taxes are a reasonable middle ground.

[Praline]

And do we have to call people 'mentally defective' just for being gullible? I feel sorry for people who get taken in by scammers. Calling them mentally defective seems to insult both them and people with psychological problems. How about 'dupes'?

[Tonio]

Praline,

I agree with most of your post. Health care is absolutely one of those things that shouldn't be dependent on wealth. My perception of the for-profit health insurance companies is that they're bloodsucking middlemen, leeching from both the patients and the health care providers. (The dairy industry has a similar problem - the price of milk continues to rise, but the amount the farmer receives per gallon continues to drop.)

The reason I suggested the cooperative approach is to quell the objections of the small-government crowd. While I support universal health care, I want it done in a way that addressed the problems it might face in America. After the imbroglio over Terri Schivao, I can easily imagine some politicians holding funding for the health care system hostage unless the system complies with a fundamentalist agenda. I'd like to know if any other countries have overcome such issues.

It's in the interests of an insurance company to get out of paying you if it possibly can.

My wife has dealt with those companies professionally. She explains the idiocy of managed care this way - just because a company has OKed a treatment doesn't mean they've agreed to pay for it.

[Froborr]

I second Praline's motion. The victims of the ID movement, in particular, are deserving of pity rather than scorn. The people responsible for YEC, at least, appear to sincerely believe their absurdity. ID is an out-and-out scam intended, by the public admission of its own creators, to serve as a wedge by which to begin the insertion of fundamentalist dogma into the secular schools.

[Tonio]

You're including "all the history and science stuff really happened, but I think God had a hand in setting it all up" under "creationist", which doesn't mesh with the definition I was using. The definition I use for "creationist" is apparently the one you use Young Earth Creationist for - the anti-science professionally-illiterate screamers.

That's my definition as well. The first group generally opposes attempts by Young Earth Creationists to hijack science classes in public schools.

[Blackadder]

(Don't get involved...)
(Don't get involved...)

[Jeff]

I feel that top-down organization very often is inferior to bottom-up

Depends. It's good to have local input into certain rules and regs; other times when it's completely impractical. If each community got to choose right or left side of the road, driving would be dangerous to the point of impracticaluty.

I like a bottom-up collection of funds (money is collected based on what a community can afford) and distributed top-down (so the poorer communities recieve more than the richer ones). "Wealth redisribution! Of Noes!!!one11!!!"

==================================

he kept making statements like "Well, if you don't like it, sue!"

And yet, they're right there with the Republiscum, bashing trial lawyers! You're supposed to sue, but not have any wherewithal with which to do so...

===================================

First, they generally favor shifting power from the federal government to the states.

Only until the state's have rights that equal the feds. The Libertarians here in Cali get all bent out of shape over any state regulation as much as over a federal one. "State's Rights" makes a nice motto (if you want to ally with traitors in defense of slavery -- heh), but they don't really mean it.

I agree, that's why government exists in the first place, and I think most libertarians would admit this.

You would be wrong. The purpose of government, according to most libertarians I've met (online or in Real Life) is to "protect our shores and guard our doors". Nothing more.

most libertarians have come to the conclusion that many governmental regulations do more harm than good

That's becaise, for the most part, they're the selfish jerks Fred described. Tell the families of coal miners, the parents of children who chewed lead-covered toys, the school districts around the country which had to pull their lunches, how we need LESS regulation.

It's once you recognize government as being generally inefficient

At what task, and compared to what? It's funny how libertarians who say "government is inefficient" don't call for private armies, police or firestations.

county government can be more responsive to the needs of its constituents than the federal government.

County governments are also more prone to the Tyranny of the Majority. A county may decide that "creationism must be taught as equal to evolution" or that gays should not have full equal rights. Should they be allowed to keep such laws?

==========================

Quotes or it didn't happen.

"I'd like to see government shrunk to the size so it can be drowned in a bathtub" -- Grover Norquist. Repeated by libertarians even after Katrina.

===========================

You all have a great day; I'd take it as a personal favour.

I wasn't going to, but since you ask so nicely, I will!

============================

you can find another country to live in, one with different tax laws.

Somalia has been suggested as a (theoretical) libertarian paradise. Don' see many of them moving to Mogadishu, though.

==============================

The only difference is that in a free market* a company, I'll use Southwest Airlines Anker West Virginia Mining as an example, can enter the market and undercut their competitors by better serving their customers risking their workers' lives.

Fixed!

In a relatively open market, businesses do need to satisfy their customers, or their market share will be reduced.

Market share forces a company to look no further than the next quarter (see Enron). Looking out for their customers, and especially their communities forces the companies to work on long-term solutions.

======================

most of society can run voluntarily rather than under threat of force.

Another fairy tale! There hasn't been a society yet that functions without the threat of force.

[Jeff]

(Don't get involved...)

You know you want to! (I recall you as being much more open to discussion than most libertarians. If you think we're wrong, here's a perfect place to show why.)

[Geds]

Any suggestions?

Um...

The short answer is, "No." I haven't figured out how to argue it myself.

The problem is that the people making the YEC arguments have a vested interest in keeping people ignorant about science and sounding as science-y as possible in the process. So you end up with Ken Ham's utterly preposterous dominant/recessive gene theory to explain how god created a single "dog" that then spontaneously became wolves, coyotes, and chihuahuas through a process that has nothing to do with evolution. You get Michael Behe's "irreducible complexity" nonsense that sounds really good unless you actually know a thing or two about biology.

It helps, from the perspective of the science-minded, to understand what the argument is. NOVA did a really good program on the Dover, PA trial that you can watch online for free. It also functions as a really good primer on how to explain complex science to the non science minded. There's also a phenomonal (but long) YouTube video of Ken Miller, the biologist whose book started the whole Dover dustup. Over the course of an hour and ten minutes or so he basically rips apart the entire Intelligent Design argument.

Ultimately, though, you have to realize that you're dealing with someone who isn't arguing on the same plane you are. You might be using the same words, but you're not using them the same way. For the YEC it all comes down to an issue of "faith,"* and what you are doing is attempting to undermine it. At best, this makes you misguided. At worst it makes you a tool of the Devil.

In this situation, the science person is attempting to create a crisis of faith for the believer. Those are never fun on the general principle of the whole thing. But (and this is from personal experience) the rationalization and attempt to not accept science is an issue of fear of damnation, the foundation upon which most fundamentalist thought is created. It's a gradual process of eye opening, but it won't work for everyone.

My own personal experience: I grew up in a fundie church but going to public school and learning of and believing in science. I believe I briefly went with biblical literalism, but from the first time I realized science and a literal interpretation of the creation account stood in conflict on some level. So I ended up with what's called the day-age theory, that the "days" of creation actually corresponded to much longer periods of time. For that I was branded a bad Christian by at least one person (who actually used the term "real true Christian" in his rebuttal). Then I moved to more of a, "What if god set everything in motion and let evolution happen, but at the right moment did the Adam and Eve thing and so the Bible totally works." Following that I went with the, "Gee, maybe Genesis is an allegory and they didn't have a freaking clue how we got here, just like every other ancient belief system."

I have a friend who has never taken a science course outside of a private Christian school environment. She actually believes the YEC B.S. and takes any attempt I make to point out real science as a personal attack against her. I just try my best not to bring it up because, really, it doesn't matter to me. I'm not about to define the relationship over the fact that she believes the universe snapped in to being 6000-odd years ago because, frankly, it's not worth the harm to the friendship that the argument will cause. I believe she's been tricked and her unwillingness to take an upen-minded approach to the subject (combined with some other stuff that's not germane to this story) actually indicates a strong discomfort with the belief system and an impending crisis of faith. But I don't want to force the crisis on her.

I have another friend who went to the same public school I did, then converted to basically fundamentalist Christianity when he was, um, 19. He wasn't overly academic to begin with and seems to have bought large chunks of the YEC argument. As we've diverged and I've ended up with a weird atheism/agnosticism hybrid (on some days I believe there's no god, on some days I believe there just might be a god, but I can't exactly tell the difference and I'll never know, anyway) while he's gotten engaged to a girl who I went to youth group with and is getting pre-marital counseling from my old youth pastor, we've ended up talking about the topic. At the moment we're on an amicable "agree to disagree" understanding and I think that's the best I can hope for (or, really, should worry about).

If I were to be able to distill anything from my rambling, it's this: be educated, both in the real science and the non-science. But also be educated in why the YECs believe what they do. And don't try or expect to make a rational, reasonable argument and have them say, "Oh, I get it now!"

That only works in Chick Tracts...

*In quotes because it's not actually faith. It's an artifically created certainty called faith.

[Praline]

There hasn't been a society yet that functions without the threat of force.

There's a difference in degrees of force, though. They might not seem important in terms of theoretical debate, but they become hella important when you're the one being forced.

For instance, I've seen British police, who tend to be much less hair-trigger than American ones (I've been to the States a few times, and I've gotta tell you, your police are frighteningly like badly-trained Rottweilers), arrest people. I've also seen footage of more than one university student get tazered for, basically, getting fed up about being hustled out of a room. Now, the use of force can extend to four big men walking calmly up to such a boy and saying, 'Look, we have to move you out, so if you won't come quietly we'll have to take you with us,', then picking him up and carrying him. Or, you can, y'know, electrocute or pistol-whip him.

It's perfectly possible to use a degree of physical force without actually hurting someone, as long as the law enforcement team know not to panic the minute somebody gets cheeky. It's not the same as hurting somebody badly the minute they do anything other than cower. And frankly, I'm comfortable with a police force that will hold someone's arms if they're acting threatening; I think that reduces the overall number of bruises that will result from a situation - as long as they know there are firm limits to how much force they can use, and penalties attached to overstepping those limits.

Like I say, in an Internet debate, you could call arm-holding and tazering two different manifestations of the same theory in practice - but I know which one I'd rather have done to me.

[yuubi]

I don't want to open up another can of worms, but..

Health care in the US doesn't operate on a free-market basis and hasn't for quite a while. In a free market, a customer usually pays a supplier his own money for a product or service, and suppliers can enter the market without undue formalities[1] and make their own decisions what to offer and at what price. In the US system, some employers[2] pay for insurance, and the only way to change insurance companies is to change jobs.

I don't have terribly many other facts handy, but I have seen them; if people persist in confusing the US system with a free market, I'll dig some up when I get home tonight.

[1] If I wanted to start a restaurant, I'd have to get the health department to inspect my place, but that approval is limited to sanitation and doesn't include "proof of need".

[2] I heard this practice arose due to a loophole some wage control scheme many years ago. The employer has different desires from the patient.

[Geds]

http://www.thepaincomics.com/weekly041229.htm

I had not seen that. It's high-larious.

I find Norse myth fascinating in general and it's very useful in certain forms of discussion because it contains every mythological trope that the Christian apologists tend to claim is completely, 100% unique to Christianity/Judaism.

And do we have to call people 'mentally defective' just for being gullible?

Psychologically speaking, scams and conspiracy theories actually do rely on the "dupe's" brain shutting off logic circuits and believing something that's completely unbelievable in spite of all evidence to the contrary. In that I think it is possible to say that the con victim/genuine YEC/hyper libertarian is actually mentally defective. Of course this brings up any number of other questions, as that particular mental deficiency can (and probably has) manifest itself in anybody given the right set of conditions.

So "mental defective" might be unnecessarily harsh, as a dupe could very well be otherwise very intelligent, but scammers/cult leaders/Michael Behe do rely on a particular defective mental process to do their thing.

[Froborr]

I'm not sure I'd characterize anything in a Chick Tract as "rational" or "reasonable".

I have had a similar experience with my one acquaintance who believes in ID. I have (three times, at last count) explained to her that evolution is not random, yet she keeps coming back to the insistence that "random evolution can't have produced so much order."

Pet theory time! I think part of the problem is that most people don't understand selection. They are aware of only one means by which order can emerge, namely agency, and so regard anything not under the control of an agent as being necessarily chaotic randomness.

I suspect this is part of why creationism and ID tend to go hand-in-hand with authoritarianism and being pro-business. The business world, and authoritarian governments, are hierarchical in nature. Order is imposed from above by individual agents. Liberal democracy, on the other hand, is a process of selection. Order emerges from the complex interactions of many disparate elements, with no individual agent able to impose its will.

[Froborr]

...Huh. Just realized that brings us back full circle: Libertarians look at the government and, since they do not understand the complex process of selection which creates law and government action in a liberal democracy, they see an agent imposing its will from above.

[Praline]

Geds: yeah, but 'mentally defective' is also a technical, medical term, if (I think) and outdated one, denoting people with particular cognitive impairments. Let's be nice.

[Froborr]

Not to mention, Geds, that there is difference between "person engaged in a defective mental process" -- which everybody does at some time or another -- and "mentally defective person".

[Tonio]

Thanks, Geds.

And don't try or expect to make a rational, reasonable argument and have them say, "Oh, I get it now!"

Would it be a more reasonable goal to put up enough of a fight so they'll leave the public schools alone?

[Lauren]

By the way, I'm thinking of starting the Norse Creation museum. We'll have plenty of displays about the three flat-plain model of the universe, bits of bone from Ymir's skull that fell to earth and a whole branch taken from Yggdrasil, the World Tree. It'll be opening in Kentucky in June of '09, Odin willing.

I'm totally with you on that.

Seattle has a Nordic Heritage museum, which actually has a diorama of Norse mythology built out of Legos. We should start there.

[Caravelle]

Yeah, you, Hypothetical CEO Guy, made those fifty million dollars yourself. But you used society to do it--try making fifty million if you're living on a desert island with no Internet--and you owe society something in return.

Right. There's a well-known French singer who periodically will make headlines because he's moving to Belgium, or Switzerland, or whatever country has the better tax benefits at the moment. I remember a headline that quoted him saying "I've payed enough in taxes to buy an aircraft carrier !" to which my reaction was 1) that's probably what your taxes did buy, 2) or maybe they payed for schools. Do you have a problem with paying for schools ? and 3) how do you think the government could pay for all that stuff anyway if you didn't give them enough money to pay for an aircraft carrier ???.

There was also the usual "my money ! mine ! bad government, don't touch !!!", to which my reaction was "how is that money yours ? Did you mint it yourself ? We gave that money to you (well, the people who listen to your songs did), because the laws and the market say we've got to pay for your discs. You know, those same laws that say you should give part of it back to the government.
Besides, how can you say on an objective scale that you earned millions ? More than, say, a single mother working three jobs to support her children ? Or a scientist diligently improving the knowledge of the human race ? Or the politicians that lead the country ? Or the thousands of other singers who are as hard-working and talented as you are but who got bad breaks ?"

Seriously.

[Geds]

I'm not sure I'd characterize anything in a Chick Tract as "rational" or "reasonable".

Bear in mind, my tongue was firmly in cheek...

that there is difference between "person engaged in a defective mental process" -- which everybody does at some time or another -- and "mentally defective person".

Fair enough. I was just thinking in terms of "defective thought process" at first. Having, as I do, a lot of acquaintances and friends of the creationist side of the spectrum, I tend to make an automatic differentiation between the two types of defectiveness. But that means I don't necessarily verbalize them.

Would it be a more reasonable goal to put up enough of a fight so they'll leave the public schools alone?

As far as court battle-type stuff goes, Dover, PA pretty much broke the back of ID and stuff that happened in Kansas and Ohio in 2006 (um, a school board was voted out in KS after it went anti-evolution and in Ohio it was decided to not teach ID or even "the controversy") went a long way to cementing that.

Unfortunately it's looking like anti-science types are now working from a textbook selection side to try to get ID in to schools. Certain fundagelical leaders are starting to realize that they have a lot of untapped political capital due to the Christian housewife who, at least in theory and seemingly in practice, seems to have a lot more time for PTA meetings, textbook selection committees and whatnot than anybody in the average dual income home.

So that's going to be an interesting one to see. Hopefully they'll just get Kitzmiller pt. 2 if they ever gain any traction.

diorama of Norse mythology built out of Legos.

You had me at "Legos."

[Caravelle]

Not that I have a problem with artists or athletes for that matter making millions, mind. I just think they should realize there's no deep moral reason why they should be that rich; they're just lucky to be talented in a field that the market rewards well.

[Caravelle]

Unfortunately it's looking like anti-science types are now working from a textbook selection side to try to get ID in to schools.

It also seems that court cases or not, in many places teachers and school boards are pressured to gloss on evolution. And many do because it's easier that way.

[Tonio]

So that's going to be an interesting one to see. Hopefully they'll just get Kitzmiller pt. 2 if they ever gain any traction.

I hope so, too. They keep coming at us like the Terminator.

[lonespark]

Lauren,
Really? I gotta make a trip to Seattle!

Geds,
I would suggest that some elements of surviving Norse myth were influenced by Classical mythology and Christianity. And that comic reminds me of the Al Franken show sketch about an American Indian creationist on a televangelist's show.

[Jeff]

Like I say, in an Internet debate, you could call arm-holding and tazering two different manifestations of the same theory in practice - but I know which one I'd rather have done to me.

Definitely. But to make an absolute statement about society not needing **any** threat of force was just patently ridiculous.

[Jon]

That only works in Chick Tracts...

Sometimes I almost - almost - wish that someone would approach me to proselytize, affording me the opportunity to respond using stock Chick proselytizee responses.
I think what I'd go with is, "Jesus? I don't know anything about that dude!"
Somehow that seems like it would lead to something more entertaining than, say, the over-the-top outrage at being approached by a "fanatic" that's fairly common in the tracts.

[Keith]

It struck me some time ago that the Libertarian's ideal government-- i.e., practically none with an absolute free market in its place-- does in fact exist on this planet.

It's called Afghanistan.

[Tonio]

Political pressure keeps evolution out of Arkansas classrooms

Libertarians look at the government and, since they do not understand the complex process of selection which creates law and government action in a liberal democracy, they see an agent imposing its will from above.

Ironic that libertarianism seems to embrace ethical authoritarianism.

[Geds]

I would suggest that some elements of surviving Norse myth were influenced by Classical mythology and Christianity. And that comic reminds me of the Al Franken show sketch about an American Indian creationist on a televangelist's show.

Very much, yes, but it depends on who your primary sources are.

I read all this a while ago, so you'll have to forgive the complete generality of it, but we basically have four sources for the Norse myth that has made it to modern times. All of those sources are within a century or two of Christianity's spread in to the Norse world (on either side). Of those sources, at least one is pre-Christianity (I *think* either the Elder Edda or the Poetic Edda), one is written by someone who seems to have seen his culture dying and rushed to record what he could for posterity, one was written by a Christian who tried to preserve the original and one was written by a Christian who obviously thought the whole thing was B.S. and intentionally tried to incorporate Christian propaganda and belittle the Norse system.

Kevin Crossley-Holland's The Norse Myths, which I recommend heartily both for its accessibility and extensive footnoting, is the book of Norse myth I read most recently. He stated categorically that he hates the uber-Christian version and refused to use that guy's work in his. But the similarity to Christian trope remains. It's entirely possible that in the original version it was less on the nose, though.

On a purely speculative level: Christian apologetics tend to take a different group's god and try to explain how the Biblical system works the same way in order to supplant the original god. It's far more logical that, say, Odin hanging himself off of Yggdrasil was used as a selling point for Christ and not suppressed. It seems far less likely (especially when you consider that the Norse did convert) that Christian missionaries showed up preaching Jesus and the Norse said, "Well, we've got this Odin guy. And, uh, he did something similar (hem, haw, scribble, scribble). See?"

[Caravelle]

Sometimes I almost - almost - wish that someone would approach me to proselytize, affording me the opportunity to respond using stock Chick proselytizee responses.
I think what I'd go with is, "Jesus? I don't know anything about that dude!"
Somehow that seems like it would lead to something more entertaining than, say, the over-the-top outrage at being approached by a "fanatic" that's fairly common in the tracts.

Oh.My.God /Janice
You've just reminded me of that npr interview of Tim LaHaye, who obviously believes he lives in a Chick tract. He tells of one time he was present during a visit by the Dalai Lama ("very religious, very pious man, and probably very sincere"). Guess what he did.

Yep you guessed it : he asked the Dalai Lama if anyone had ever explained to him who Jesus Christ really is.
*cringe*

[twig]

Besides, how can you say on an objective scale that you earned millions ?

Almost without exemption, the people working for min. wage work harder than those at the top ever do, not even counting things like say, ability to take lunch or even bathroom breaks on your own schedule, corporate free lunches, no time clocks, etc. Plus the satisfaction of security that the hours you put in will actually amount to something besides the ability to (maybe) make rent.

70+ hours as an exec may be grueling - 70+ hours washing dishes might as well be hell.

I remember communism being taught to me in high-school as everyone making the same wage, regardless of skills, which of course is ludicrous. But every job that exists should provide a living wage. Anything less is just obscene.

[Geds]

Political pressure keeps evolution out of Arkansas classrooms

Good. Freaking. Night.

That article was just bad on so many levels. Then, when I thought it couldn't get any worse, Mike Huckabee showed up.

Also, I'd be willing to bet that when that gets challenged (assuming it hasn't already), the fundies are going to claim that they're a repressed minority.