Month: October 2018

From a work in progress.

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Sheshak sat in his quarters on the Jin Long, sipping at the human beverage known as tea.  Biochemists had pronounced tea safe to drink. And while the tea did nothing, not even provide taste, to Eres, the lemon that humans sometimes added acted as a mild stimulant to Eres physiology.

On his screen he read from the book of Jekat.

“The Art of Politics is the art of the hunt,” Shekha had written. “It is a hunt played out with words and ideas rather than fang and claw.  When Eres play the game of politics, their drive to hunt is satisfied. It is hunt, but it is also challenge. And so, in its form of challenge, it is the only hunt where it is lawful for Eres to hunt Eres.  As hunt and as challenge, it is no less deadly for no blood being spilled.”

Sheshak closed the file and leaned back in his seat.  In his position as Lesser Stalker, he read much human writing, not just their news and histories but their stories and legends.  Humans responded to politics with all the savagery of their response to the Great Hunts. But better to stalk them, to pounce and be pounced upon, in that field, than among the stars in ships of blood.

Humans did not hunt Eres.  They simply killed. Shekha understood.  So many others had not, still did not.

Even without those others, to continue the Great Hunts would,at the last, have meant the end of the Eres.

Sheshek placed his claw on the computer, contemplating the Book of Jekat held within.  The Way of Jekat was right. He knew that now. He would bind his pack to that sect and to alliance with the humans and their other allies.

As he was making his silent vow the door to his compartment opened.

Surprised, but not startled, Sheshek looked toward the door.  The small human female, Coll was her name, stood in the doorway.  Her right hand tucked behind her back.

“I thought I secured that door.”

Coll simply looked at him.  Of course, Sheshak thought, she was their chief engineer.  The whole ship would be open to her. “Is there a problem, Ms. Coll?” He asked.

“Oh,yes,” Coll said.  Her voice carried agitation and excitement, fear and…was that mania? “A big problem.  But that’s okay.” She removed her right hand from behind her back. In it she held a large pulse pistol.  She pointed it at him. “It won’t be a problem much longer.”

Sheshak studied Coll.  He could cross the room before she could fire.  Probably. Maybe. He had just sworn Jekat so humans were not lawful to hunt.  Did her pointing the gun constitute challenge? Sheshak did not believe the humans would think so.  What did his inner being, the Heart of Eres, tell him?

Yes, Challenge, but, was it a lawful challenge?  He was a Great Pack Leader, one who bested the Greater Thisok Hunt.  And she? She was not. He clung to that thought and let it guide him.  Challenge was not lawful, but she did not know.

“May I know the reason you threaten me?” He modulated his vocoder to produce soft, calming tones.

“Reason?  You’re a monster.  That’s reason enough.”

“I have done you no harm.”

The gun shook. “No?  In the war my ship…my ship was captured.  I was taken to one of your prison camps, your…hunting preserves.  Every day I waited, waited for my turn, my turn to be dragged out and made to run.  Would I take a spear through my guts? Would I be driven over a cliff? Would I feel your fangs on my throat before you ripped it out?  I waited. Eventually I started praying you would take me just so it would be over. And still I waited. I almost went mad.”

“We did no honor hunts.” Again, Sheshak kept the sounds from his vocoder soft. “Our hunt was in the stars, ship to ship.  Taking your people was the coup, not hunting them after. Honor was in the number we held, not the number we killed.”

“You lie!  Tell me you do not.  Are you going to tell me your honor forbids you to lie.”

“No,” Sheshak said. “I am a thinking being.  All thinking beings lie when it suits them. But there is no need now.  We knew. Two other Great Hunts had taught us. If we continued the honor hunts, your people would extract a price too terrible to contemplate.  We…dared…not.”

“Then what happened to those they took out of my pen?  They’d take people out and I’d never see them again.”

Good, Sheshak thought.  She was arguing, thinking.  He opened his mouth to respond.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I can kill you.” She raised the gun and pointed it at the base of his throat, where the control center for his autonomous functions resided in its armored box. “I can kill you.”

Her finger tightened on the trigger.

Yes, I did this last year.  Doing it again this year because this is an important date for Western Civilization:

On this date, in AD732, Charles Martel led the Franks against Muslim invaders near the city of Tours and turned back the tide of Islamic advance at the Battle of Tours (sometimes called the Battle of Poitiers).

In the preceding 110 years, Islam, thanks to the diligent efforts of polite young men in white shirts and neckties on bicycles going out two-by-two, had spread from its origins in the Arabian peninsula through south-central Asia and across the north of Africa, and up into the Iberian peninsula.

Did I say polite young men in white shirts and ties on bicycles going out two-by-two?  Just kidding.  That’s Mormons.  The Muslims did it by going out conquering and to conquer, slaughtering everyone who would not submit, in a tide of blood across all their conquered lands.

It seemed that Muhammed and his successors did not understand that “Jihad” meant internal struggle over oneself and that “Islam” meant “peace” and the meaning of “submission” was ones own submission to Allah.  They apparently thought “Jihad” meant real war against unbelievers, using real swords and spears, leaving real dead and mutilated bodies in its wake and the “submission” was forcing those not in Islam to submit to it.  But what did they know?  They only founded the religion or followed in the footsteps of the founder.

Muslims of the Umayyad dynasty, chiefly Berbers, invaded the Iberian peninsula (really, it was a military invasion, not a lot of missionaries on bicycles.  Besides, the bicycle hadn’t been invented yet).  With an decade they had essentially conquered the Iberian peninsula and were expanding across the Pyrenees into what would eventually be part of southern France.

In the spring of 732, these Umayyad Muslims defeated Duke Odo at the Battle of the River Garonne, thus setting the stage for what was to come.

Odo, surviving the battle, asked the Franks for help.  Charles Martel, “Mayor of the Palace” (Ruler in all but name but it would wait for his son, Pepin the Short, for his line to officially claim the throne) would only promise aid in return for Odo submitting to Frankish authority.

While this was going on, the Umayyads, in apparent unconcern about possible Frankish might, advanced toward the Loire river.  Lax in scouting and unconcerned, they did not note the power massing to oppose them.

The Umayyads were mostly cavalry.  Charles, according to accounts, was mostly infantry, but heavily armed and armored infantry.  One of the Frank’s main weapons was the Francisca, a heavy-headed, short-handled throwing axe.  The Byzantine historian Procopius (c. 500–565) described the axes and their use thus:

…each man carried a sword and shield and an axe. Now the iron head of this weapon was thick and exceedingly sharp on both sides while the wooden handle was very short. And they are accustomed always to throw these axes at one signal in the first charge and thus shatter the shields of the enemy and kill the men.

And at the time of Charles Martel, the axes were still in common use.  It would be some time yet before the Frankish forces converted to being primarily cavalry under the successors to Charles Martel.

When the Umayyad’s reached the Franks and their allies, they faced off with skirmishes while waiting for their full force to arrive.

Finally, the forces were all ready and the day of battle arrived.  Abd-al-Raḥmân, the leader of the Umayyad forces, trusted to the strength of his cavalry and had them charge repeatedly at the Frankish infantry lines.  The incredibly disciplined infantry stood its ground staunchly despite (according to Arab sources) Umayyad cavalry breaking into their formation several times.

A charge of Umayyad broke through, attempting to reach Charles reasoning, probably correctly, that if they could kill Charles the Frankish army would break.  However Charles’ liege men surrounded him and held off the attack.

While the battle still raged, rumors went through the Umayyad forces that Frankish scouts were threatening the Umayyad baggage train and threatening to carry off the loot they’d already gathered in their march northward.  Arab reports indeed claim that this was the case (in a second day of battle where Frankish reports say it only lasted one day).

This, apparently was too much for many of the Umayyads.  Fight them on the field of battle.  Throw axes at them.  Stab at them with spears and slash at them with swords.  All good.  But threaten their loot?  No way.

However, they didn’t appear to make clear to their compatriots what exactly they were doing and why.  The others saw them heading back the way they’d come and thought they were in retreat.  And “if he’s retreating, maybe I should be too” is a thought soldiers have shared many a time throughout history.  The result was the Umayyad’s went into full-fledged retreat.  Abd-al-Raḥmân tried to stop the retreat and, as a result, was surrounded and killed.

The next day, Charles, fearing the possibility of an ambush, kept his troops in formation in their relatively secure position.  He did, however, send out extensive reconnaissance which discovered that the Umayyad’s had abandoned not only the field of battle but their own camp so fast that they’d left their tents behind, heading back to Iberia as fast as their horses and wagons could carry them taking what loot they could carry with them.

Had to protect that loot.

The Umayyad’s retreated south back over the Pyrenees and that remained the end of Muslim advance into Europe.  Further attempts into the European heartland were made but they came to naught in the end.  Charles Martel and his forces had broken the back of the Muslim conquest of Europe for many centuries to come.

How Charles Martel would weep to see Europe inviting in a new generation of invaders with open arms.

Sometimes I’ll mention that I’m a veteran and someone will say “Thank you for your service.” I always feel inclined to look over my shoulder to see who they’re talking to because it can’t possibly be me.

I joined the Air Force in the spring of 1981.  My original plan was to go in with a “guaranteed career field” in electronics, take the specific job that has the longest school (translating into the most electronics training), and parley that into a good job after my tour in the Air Force.

For various reasons stemming from my childhood, I have always had self-confidence issues.  Because of that, when I got to the facility in Columbus where they did the physical and whatnot to get me signed up the recruiter there was all, “Hey, I know you asked about electronics, but here’s this field, would you consider…” “And if you sign up for six years rather than four, it comes with a promotion to E-3 on graduation from Basic and a $2500 bonus on completion of technical training.” (That sounded like a lot back then.) And I let myself get talked into a different field.  At the time it was called “Voice Processing Specialist.” Later the name was changed to “Cryptologic Linguist.”

Worst.  Mistake.  I.  Ever.  Made.  And that’s saying something.

I completed basic training OK.  I was a bit annoyed at “wet fire” that I came four point, just four points, shy of shooting “expert” and earning my Expert Marksman ribbon. (I was supposed to have a second chance at the end of technical training, but the range was down at the requisite time so I never got the chance.) And it wasn’t until well after I graduated that the coin dropped and I realized why I’d failed the “red line” inspection which prevented me from earning “Honors Graduate.” (I smoked the academic portion, can say with all due humility.)

“Voice Processing Specialist” called for training in a foreign language.  I ended up with Russian.  At that time, the Air Force preceded its foreign language training with a 6 week intensive English Grammar class.  It wasn’t intended to teach “how to speak gud” or the like, but rather to learn the language of describing grammar so that when I went to foreign language training no one would have to explain what a dative case or a subjunctive mood were.  This class was taught at Lackland AFB, the same base where I went to Basic.  I did well in that course.  Then we went to the Russian language course.  This was during a short period where the Air Force wasn’t doing it’s Russian Language at Monterey, CA, but instead…at Lackland Air Force Base.  47 weeks of Russian Language.  I started off really well, tapered off a bit, but still remained strong through the end.

And then…and then, technical training at Goodfellow AFB in…at least I got out of San Antonio…San Angelo, TX.

Another six…or was it eight…weeks then I finally get my first duty assignment.  RAF Chicksands between Bedford and Hitchin in England.  It is here that I start learning what a horrible mistake I made, not in joining the Air Force, but in getting involved in that particular career field.  It wasn’t so bad here.  This is where I first learned that I had a “perceptual problem.” Never mind the details but one of my tasks was to set two pieces of equipment to the same settings.  I’d call my superior to report that one of the pieces of equipment was not working and he’d point out that I’d transposed two digits on a setting.

About the third time this happened I realized that there was something wrong and a lot of the difficulties I’d had with math when younger suddenly made sense (note:  I overcame them and in college later accumulated enough credits for a math minor, then continued in graduate school–you don’t get a degree in physics being weak on math).

In retrospect, and looking back I think I had poor leadership at that station.  Had I had some good NCO leadership to get on my ass and kick me in the right direction things might… well, no use worrying about it now.

Two years in England and I rotated stateside.  There was where the full weight of my mistake came to roost.  In England, I was able to banter back and forth with some of the other operators and…it helped get the work done.  In the stateside assignment there was none of that.  Just sit and wait and… Did you know if you report suicidal thoughts they strip you of your security access?

For someone prone to depression that was a bad combo.  Poor APR’s (“Airman Performance Reports”) leading to a designation of “not eligible to reinlist” (don’t threaten me with a good time).  In the end I accumulated the “We don’t have any reason to court martial you” awards:  AF Training Ribbon, Longevity Service Award, Overseas Ribbon Long Tour, and Good Conduct Medal.  A truly undistinguished “career.”

And, as it happened, the military specialty proved to be of no particular value in the civilian sector.  My clearance might have been but see above about losing security access.

I look back at my military service and what I feel is largely regret and guilt.  Yes guilt.  Other folk who’ve served went in harms way.  I was always nicely safe.  Friends, other vets (only ones whose opinion really matters in this case.  That’s just the way it is and I’m not going to apologize) tell me that I signed on the dotted line, went where I was told, and was ready to go into danger if so ordered.  Maybe.  Doesn’t really change the way I feel.

I have been asked from time to time if I’d go back.  Well, first they wouldn’t have me.  Second, there’s my daughter which has to weigh pretty heavily in any considerations.  But if those two were resolved, I think I would.  I sometimes feel as if I have unfinished business there.  As it is, that will have to wait for another life if there is such a thing.  I would hope so, anyway.  If things have gotten to the point where putting me back into harness is a serious consideration then things have gotten very bad indeed.

But if it comes to that. “Here am I.”

Isaac Asimov had a great many short stories and a number of novels that involved humanoid robots.  A common feature of most of these (there were a few exceptions) involved his “Three Laws of Robotics.”

1. A robot may not harm, nor through inaction allow to come to harm, a human.
2. A robot must obey the orders of a human so long as those orders do not violate the first law.
3. A robot must act to preserve its own existence provided that action does not violate either of the first two laws.

Most of the stories involved unexpected consequences of those laws or, in some cases, what happens if the laws are modified a bit.  One story involved strengthening the third law a bit and weakening the second causing the robot to get caught in a loop requiring setting up a situation invoking the first to break it free.

The stories were basically upbeat.  The robots, limited by their laws, a net positive to humanity.

And most of this relies on the robots being, on the whole, rather dim and not carrying those three laws to their ultimate nature.  Yes, some robots were presented as quite intelligent–R. Daneel Olivaw of the original “Robot Novels” was a police detective fully equal to his human compatriots–they still were “dim” when it came to carrying out the laws to their fullest.

To show where those laws could lead consider Jack Williamson’s Humanoids as presented in the story “With Folded Hands.” The Humanoids’ Prime Directive was simple: “To serve and obey and guard men from harm.” Parse that and it’s basically the first two of Asimov’s laws of robotics.  And while “To serve and obey” is placed before “guard men from harm” it becomes rapidly clear that the latter takes priority over the former.

The Humanoids offer their services for free.  And they soon become very popular.  And because they are interested in guarding men from harm they get jobs directing traffic and many other ways.  But soon a darker side becomes apparent.  Oh, they’re not trying to take over humanity to enslave or exterminate us or anything like that.  No.  They want to “protect” us.

Drive?  Oh, no, it’s much too dangerous for a human to drive.  Let me do it for you.  No.  I insist.  I really insist.

The tools in your workshop?  Too dangerous.  You could lose a finger or put out an eye.  No, these are much safer.  You can play with this foam board.  If you need any real furniture or anything like that, we’ll make it for you.  That’s much safer.

Exploring?  Oh, good heavens no.  People get hurt, even killed exploring the unknown.  Just stay here where it’s safe.  I insist.

And so on, anything with the least component of risk, they are oh so sorry but you simply cannot be allowed to do that.  They need to protect you don’t you know.  The Humanoids didn’t want to enslave or exterminate humanity.  They wanted to turn us into pampered pets, not allowed the least little bit of challenge or risk.  And so the protagonist accepts his ride home “with folded hands” for there is nothing left to do.

Jack Williamson wrote this story in the aftermath of World War II.  In interviews he said that it was with atomic weapons in mind, showing how some inventions turn out to be far more dangerous than ever imagined.

Personally, I think it speaks poignantly to the danger of government paternalism.   Rules and restrictions designed to keep people “safe” not just advice where reasoning adults can make an informed decision for themselves but a governmental pat on the head saying “now, now.  Daddy knows best.”  Daddy knows best what you should drive.  Daddy knows best what you should eat.  Daddy knows best what you should drink.  Daddy knows best what activities you can engage in.  Oh, it starts “reasonably” enough.  There are some things that are recklessly dangerous not just to the person doing them but to everyone around them.  But it never stops there.  There’s always some new “too dangerous to allow” activity.  And one after that and another after that.  And there’s no definitive stopping point, particularly once you go past “people will have to use resources to care for you” to “people will be sad” (had that one used against me about why drugs should remain illegal–people will be unhappy if you get harmed by drugs) as an excuse for further restrictions.

Jack Williamson gave us the Humanoids, insinuating themselves into society taking away all choice in the name of “safety.”

I give you the governments of the world.

A bit of a break from the politics and economics.

A friend of mine asked on another forum about people’s creepy/unexplainable experiences.

Mine wasn’t “creepy” per se but something I’ve never been able to explain.

Back in the mid 80’s I was in a martial arts class that was more fringe than most. (Never you mind what it was.) Weirdness and all, I got a lot of benefit out of it in a number of ways, but that’s neither here nor there.

One of the things they did was various “sensitivity drills” . There was a lot of mumbo jumbo to explain it which I won’t go into, particularly since I don’t particularly believe it. However the results of the drills could be interesting.  One of the drills had the people in the class form a loose circle about 15-20 ft across facing outward. The room was a rented school gym. The walls were painted concrete.  I mention that to emphasize that they weren’t something you can see a reflection in.  You’ll see why that’s important shortly.

One person stood in the center with a wooden training pistol. He was supposed to point it at people at random and focus “intention” on them. Whoever he was pointing at was supposed to feel the “intention” and pivot to face the guy with the fake gun.

So, there I was standing in that circle, feeling really silly. Then, without even realizing I’d move, I was facing the center and there was the guy with the gun pointing right at me.

To this day, I have no idea what prompted me to pivot at that particular moment. The usual stuff–seeing a reflection, feeling air movement from the center guy’s actions, catching the guy next to me turning out of the corner of my eye and simply being “next”–were all eliminated by the setup and situation. I just don’t know. Probably there was something “mundane” that explained it but…”there are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio…”

There have been other instances where I’ve made some instinctive sudden action that proved to be “right” for the situation where I had no idea what prompted the action.  Again, I suspect that the most likely reason is something I picked up on that just didn’t rise to the level of conscious awareness.

Whatever it was, it’s never been consistent, not something I could rely on.  Believe me, there have been times I could have used whatever early warning I sometimes got, especially that time a car pulled out while I… Yeah.  Could have used it but not there.

So, no real point here.  Just some musing on some interesting occurrences.

Brett Kavanaugh is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.  Despite the lies (Ford might believe her story–I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt on that–other people “supporting” her knew full well that not one word out of her mouth that could be verified turned out to match reality, so there’s no “benefit of the doubt” for them) the vote for confirmation was 50-48.

Some on the left have broached the idea of impeachment.  They are delusional.  While it’s possible the Democrats may take the House in November (although less likely given the bridges they’ve burned here–their opposition is energized like it has never been before) there is simply no way they’ll get the 2/3 majority required for conviction in the Senate.

The irony, however, is that I was really not in favor of Kavanaugh.  His roll in creating the so-called Patriot Act which ran roughshod over the 4th Amendment was repellent to me.  I’d much rather have someone on the Court for whom the Constitution means what it says according to the meaning of the time it was written as amended with, again, each Amendment understood according to the language at the time each was written.  And if you want to change what it says don’t just declare (le viola!) the meaning to be different but properly amend it using the procedure detailed in Article V of the Constitution.

However, in the wake of the baseless accusations and the politics of personal destruction and intimidation used in an attempt to prevent his confirmation, I have given that further thought.  Yes, his position on the 4th is bad.  However, he’s replacing Kennedy who also voted in favor of the Patriot Act.  For that matter, even Scalia gave the Patriot Act the nod.  Thus, Kavanaugh was not a loss for us on that aspect.  He wasn’t the win I would have liked, but he wasn’t a loss.  We didn’t gain ground, but we did not lose ground on that aspect at least.  Since Kennedy was rather famous as the “swing vote”–you would often be able to predict four on one side, four on the other, with the overall result depending on which way Kennedy would go–it looks like, on balance, Kavanaugh is a net gain for those of us who favor following the actual Constitution rather than the imaginary version so beloved of so many politicians.

But the absolute last thing I wanted to see was this kind of…tantrum…to actually be successful, because as anyone who has raised children should no, that would only encourage them to do more of the same whenever they don’t get their way.

So I’ll take this partial victory.  Things could, indeed, have been much, much worse.

 

People use many labels to describe various political groups throughout history:  Socialist, Communist, “Market Socialist” (yes, that was a thing), “Democratic Socialist” (an offshoot of Market Socialist long before Bernie Sanders’ supporters coined the term for their latest iteration on it), National Socialist, and many more.  People harp on the various little differences.  This one wears red, that one wears black.  This one talks about nationalism, that one talks about globalism (which one quickly learns is simply their own nationalism spread over the world).  This one has Sturmabteilung.  That one has Чёрная Гвардия (Chjornaya Gvardiya “Black Guards”.  This other one has Antifa.

One had a Holocaust, another had a  Голодомо́р (Holodomor), and another had a Cultural Revolution.

The differences are minor in contrast to what they have in common.  They are all collectivist in that they all believe that the “means of production” must be organized for the good of “society” as they define it rather than decided by individuals each pursuing their own interests.  Note here, I’m using the classic definition of socialism, not the more modern which includes “redistribution of wealth” of the nature of taking money via taxes from some people in order to give it to others, and certainly not the “anything government does is socialism” used by certain people in an attempt to claim “we are all socialists and therefore socialism is good”.

Minor differences.  Some may leave ownership, at least on paper, to private individuals so long as they take their orders from the central planning authority.  Outright ownership of the means of production may be seized by force.  I suppose it might even be possible that the means of production could be bought although I suspect that the outcry of such an action–use of money taken by taxes to actually pay those no-good one percenters for their ill gotten property?  I think not.

But one thing collectivization, of central planning, soon runs into is the inescapable logic that one of the primary means of production that must be controlled is people.  After all, if you’re going to dictate how much, say, steel is going to be made you need to have a certain number of people involved in the making of steel, neither more nor less.  Since steel making is a more dangerous and difficult job than, say, making flower arrangements, how do you get more people to make steel?  Do your central planners set a pay that draws people away from other tasks to steel making but not so much that you’re turning away more qualified workers than you’re hiring?  Your central planners might be able to do so for one such product but for each of the millions of goods and services that makes up modern society?  No individual or reasonable sized group can possibly do so.

In a market economy competition and the price system handle that almost automatically.  Pay for difficult jobs, dangerous jobs, or jobs which require a great deal of skill and training will tend to pay more because that’s what it takes to draw workers away from easier, less dangerous jobs.  And employers are able to adjust pay scales as they find that they are either unable to attract enough workers of sufficient capability or find themselves turning away numerous qualified people.  A complicated dynamic of hundreds of millions of people involved in myriad tasks that no central planning authority could possibly master not even with the aid of the world’s most powerful supercomputers.

But in a planned economy you don’t have that price structure.  So, instead of that dynamic to draw people to the tasks required they have to rely on simply dictating the rolls people will play.  You will work here.  You will work there.  And you will work over there.

This is the end game of any collectivization system, of any attempt to establish a “planned economy.” It is the reduction of the individual to hive insects, each with a roll defined in that hive with no regard that individuals desires.  Willing to accept the lifestyle of a “starving artist” to fulfill your dream of being a landscape painter?  Too bad.  We need you in the iron works.

This is why attempts to paint Nazis as “Right Wing” while Communists were “Left Wing” is ridiculous.  The differences are trivial compared to this central reality of any collectivist planned economy.  They are not opposites simply because they happened to fight each other any more than the conflict between Stalin and Trotsky after the death of Lenin meant one of them must have been an ardent capitalist.  All of them were enemies of capitalism.  All of them were enemies of classical liberal ideas (and what a true shame that modern heirs of that enmity have managed to so successfully co-opt the term “liberal”).  None of them bear any resemblance to the conservative and  libertarian views often called “right wing” in the modern United States.

Collectivism is totalitarianism.  The only way to avoid the latter is by turning away from the former.

The shifting of meaning of language is one of the long time weapons of the political Left.  One of the most telling aspects is the co-opting of the word “liberal” from its original meaning of a philosophy dedicated to individual freedom to the collectivism and socialism (whether they use the term or not) that was very much an anti-liberal stance back in the Nineteenth century. But even before that the corruption of the word “Freedom” itself to mean not the the ability of individuals to make their own decisions absent the coercive power backed up by force to gainsay them but instead “freedom” from deprivation or want.  Worse yet, many use it to mean the “freedom” of unfettered Democracy wherein even the slimmest majority can enforce its desires on the minority without limit and whatever those desires might be.

In the first case, that “Freedom” is the freedom to require through force others to provide whatever is necessary to keep that other from “want” or “deprivation”.  In the other it’s the power to make any requirement they wish on the minority not voting with that majority, no matter how slim the majority might be (a single vote more than 50% is sufficient).  Both cases amount to the “Freedom” to enslave others to another’s wants backed up by the coercive power of the State.

And with “Freedom” redefined, it becomes simplicity itself to claim that crypto-socialists, by whatever name, are “the party of Freedom” and, therefore, “liberal.”

This has been going on for a long time.  In 1944, F. A. Hayak was able to use the term “Liberal” with only a passing reference to “in the 19th century sense” in his book “The Road to Serfdom”.  Eighteen years later, in 1962, Milton Freidman in “Capitalism and Freedom” required a more extensive explanation of his use of the term since the word had largely lost its original meaning.  He was apparently making an attempt that the history since has shown us has largely failed to return the term to its original meaning.

The root problem is that collectivist philosophies require that Truth be defined not by correspondence to the objective universe around us but instead in terms of what serves the goal of collectivism (whatever particular flavor one favors).  Words mean what they need to mean to advance collectivization.  If by changing the definition of a word you can get more people to sign on to the goal of collectivization and the central planning that goes with it, then that is justified.

About a year and a half ago, in a sardonic post, I noted the ongoing attempt to change the meaning of words like “rape”.

And so “Rape” has become the new “witch”.  If you want to destroy someone personally, occupationally, and politically, accuse them of rape.  Or not even of rape.  Lesser cases of sexual assault are good enough because you can be sure others will call it “rape” for you.  If the accused remains silent, well, that’s proof of guilt right there.  If they deny the accusation, particularly if they get angry at being accused, well, that means you must have struck a nerve or they wouldn’t get so upset in which case they are guilty. (That’s called a “Kafkatrap,” where any response, including no response, is considered proof of guilt.

And if anybody steps forward to point out that there is no evidence of the truth of the accusation or that the accuser’s story is inconsistent, has changed more than once, or worse, that every word the accuser has said that could be verified has turned out to be contrary to fact and so maybe we should be skeptical of the accusation and allow the accused the presumption of innocence?  Why, then you become a rape apologist.

Even if the accusation isn’t actually of rape.  Because words mean only what serves the purpose of collectivists.  Guilt.  Innocence.  Evidence.  Corroboration.  Rape.  They all mean what collectivists want them to mean and that meaning is subject to change as the needs of collectivism changes.

At least the Collectivists can answer Pilate’s famous question: “What is Truth?”

Truth is whatever they want it to be.  No more.  And no less.

My daughter’s dance schedule has changed, partly as she’s advanced in her classes.  She’s moving from “Beginner Ballet” and “Pre-Pointe” to “Advanced Ballet” and “Variations”.  She’s skipping over the “intermediate” because of scheduling.  Her instructor decided that, yes, she’d be behind the other dancers in that class but he had confidence she could catch up quickly.  “Variations” is a short class where they perform excerpts from classic ballets.

She’s also still taking “Lyrical” dance.

The good news is that this is the same total amount of class time each weak so the cost does not change.  The “just great” part of this is that all three classes are on Wednesday evenings.:

• Advanced Ballet:  Wednesday 6:00-7:00
• Variations:  Wednesday 7:00-7:30
• Lyrical:  Wednesday 8:00-9:00

That’s a pretty long, almost solid block.  And it starts today.

 

In 2008 after the Mumbai terrorist attacks, I wrote a letter to the editor of my local paper.  I also sent versions of the letter to State and Federal representatives.

After the Mumbai terrorist attacks, there has been talk about how to prepare for an attack here. One item that is frequently missed is that the choice of when and where to attack lies with the terrorists and, therefore, the police can do little to prevent them. The terrorists will simply attack where the police are not. If you put guards on Chase Tower, the terrorists will attack the Marriott. Put guards on the Marriott, and they will attack a shopping mall. Put armed guards on the malls and they’ll attack the next Pacers home game. There simply are not enough police to be everywhere so they’ll simply go where the police are not. And since these terrorists are willing to die for their cause, the thought that the police will eventually arrive and stop them will not deter them. And if India with its highly restrictive gun control could not stop the terrorists from getting the weapons they used to kill, no such gun control legislation in the US could stop similar attacks here.

Fortunately, however, Indiana has a second line of defense against these terrorists. According to a 2004 article in the Indianapolis Star, there were then 300,000 residents of Indiana who were licensed to carry handguns. That’s one in twenty people in Indiana, and the number has likely only gone up since then. In most large crowds there will be some who are licensed to carry. Not all will be carrying at any given time and not all will have the fortitude to stand up to the terrorists and stop them from killing the people around them, but some will. And so we are guarded even where the police are not–by our own citizens.

Unfortunately, there are areas where those guards, provided without charge to the State or to the people so guarded, cannot go. There remain soft targets where terrorists like those in Mumbai could find fertile killing fields. Those targets are our schools, our universities, and our day cares. The threat is to our children and youth who are the very future of our nation. The very one’s to whom we should be giving the greatest protection are instead the most vulnerable.

It is vitally important that our schools and universities be protected from terrorists such as those who struck Mumbai. One way would be to hire and train armed security personnel for every school and university in the country, enough to have several in every building whenever children are present. This would be a costly undertaking and would take considerable time to implement. The other solution is far less expensive and that is to allow individuals who have a clean criminal record and no serious mental health issues–people, in fact, who can successfully obtain an Indiana handgun license–to be armed in such places and to encourage teachers and staff in such places to do so. This will provide the same, free, armed security that the rest of our State enjoys.

I got one reply back, from Representative Andre Carson (hack, spit), dismissive of the entire concept but claiming he’ll “keep [my] thoughts in mind.  I wrote the following response to him:

Thank you very much for your thoughts concerning gun control. I will keep your thoughts in mind when I vote in 2010.

You see, a person in your position cannot be ignorant of the facts unless he is willfully so.

A person in your position cannot help but know that there is a strong positive correlation between “gun control” and violent crime–the more “gun control,” the more violent crime.

A person in your position cannot help but know that the foreign examples of low crime or low gun crime had their low crime even before they enacted gun control legislation, and the trend has been for crime to increase after gun control is enacted.

A person in your position cannot help but know that India’s severe gun control, amounting to an outright ban for all practical purposes, did not stop the terrorists from obtaining guns and killing large numbers of people with them. That “gun control” only ensured that the victims could not fight back.

A person in your position cannot help but know that every time easing the infringement on the right to keep and bear arms is proposed (as, for instance, when a State proposes “shall issue” on handgun licenses) the predictions of “blood in the streets” are made, but every time the easing actually happens, the predictions fail to come true.

A person in your position cannot help but know that, for stated purpose of reducing individual risk of violent crime, gun control does not work.

Since you cannot help but know these things, I have to presume that there are other reasons for your stated position in favor of “strong restrictions” on guns.

Aside from the date, I see nothing I need to change in any of that.