Francisco Ayala, Distinguished Scientist, on Science and Religion

Francisco Ayala is a distinguished scientist and thinker, who left religious life to pursue science. His views on science and religion are worth hearing.

Kudos to Reason.TV for venturing beyond pure political philosophy and policy.

I can't help but take this opportunity to contrast the rather gentle Ayala with someone like Richard Dawkins, whose intellect I greatly respect, but not his manners. Ayala and Dawkins agree on some things in fact.

But one of Dawkins' greatest failings is toward his own stated objectives. He tries to accomplish several things with only one shotgun approach.

While he rightly challenges superstition and persecution of atheists with vigor, his own acid intolerance of religion and religious people undercuts the objective of his foundation, which is to "[s]upport the scientific education, critical thinking and evidence-based understanding of the natural world in the quest to overcome religious fundamentalism, superstition, intolerance and human suffering."

(Philosophical note: Dawkins goes beyond "methodological naturalism" which many scientists practice, including Ayala -- meaning not injecting God into a scientific inquiry ("creation science") so as to poison it -- to assert the non-existence of God. This is known as "metaphysical naturalism," and is not a scientific position, but a metaphysical one.)

Why should one embrace a life of science and reason if it means acting like Richard Dawkins all the time? He is not a model of reason himself. At least not in anything other than the classroom or laboratory practice of science. Where is the element of "humanity" and "meaning" in his approach? Is that part of reason? Scientific or otherwise? Perhaps, as Ayala notes, these are the purview of religion? Perish the thought . . .

Borrowing from Venezuela: One, Two, Three Strikes, You're Out!

In Venezuela, opposition students have come up with a clever saying to express their disdain for the megalomaniac Hugo Chavez: "Electricity, Water, Crime, Tas Ponachao," which, borrowing from the Venezuelan love of baseball, is roughly saying "one, two, three strikes, Chavez, you're out!"

The now-viral slogan appears on banners, signs, t-shirts and at baseball games everywhere in Venezuela, protesting the blustering and incompetence of Chavez's "reforms" against the evil bourgeoisie. (Well, maybe not appearing at the home of a businessman on the run, where Chavez's client-looters are happily eating in the kitchen or taking a dip in the swimming pool.)

I think a similar slogan should be applied to Mr. Obama and his party.

As Kimberly Strassel notes in yesterday's Wall Street Journal, after the so-called mainstream media touted Mr. Obama's third major legislative "victory": "There's no longer any question whether this White House can close a sale. Its problem is the country doesn't like what it's selling."

The most recent "finance reform" is an example of looting, exploiting a crisis to make it easier for unions and activists, for example, to crash corporate boards. Which has what to do, exactly, with reforming banking and Wall Street?

The state-supportive media no doubt will tout the historic victories. But the public is not buying it.

I think it's time we in the public coin a similar slogan for our friends in the Democrat Party ("Dem Bums"?), and Mr. Obama in particular, perhaps soon to appear on a t-shirt or at a local baseball game near you: "Stimulus, Healthcare, Banks, You're Out!"

Policy Group and Obama Administration to "Reform" the Media on the Model of Venezuela?

The Obama administration has many policy pots on the stove. Perhaps too many to be effective. However, bubbling up are some truly radical notions, such as involving government heavily in the "management" of the media, threatening the First Amendment. This, modeled on the "policies" of Hugo Chavez, if you can believe it!

Apparently Sean Penn, Woody Allen and Oliver Stone are not alone in their admiration of the Venezuelan buffoon/strongman.

The Technology Liberation Front's Adam Thierer provides the details. 

It's truly disturbing, and maddening how leftist policy "experts" relentlessly attempt to impose their visions on the rest of us, ignoring the wisdom of our Constitution, and the evidence of reality.

Stone's Film is a Sign of a Deep-Seated Tyrannical Temperament

Oliver Stone has a new film out praising Latin dictators. It tells us something about how virulent the seeds of tyranny are, not just among the would-be dictators, but the clients that would support them.

In "The Republic," Plato provides some wonderful insight into the origins of tyranny. He distrusted "the mob" or mass of humanity because, he argued, they will seek to organize society around base needs, and not important philosophical principles such as justice and truth. When the so-called champion of the people demands unlimited power to protect his holy mission on behalf of the mob, the nation's fate is sealed.

This lesson plays out again and again in nation after nation. We see it today in dramatic fashion in places such as Russia and Venezuela, where buffoons and thugs, running the country in the name of "the people," do quite nicely for themselves while oppressing their enemies. This is the very essence of the false notion of "justice" offered by the Sophists in the first books of "The Republic."

Yet, time and again, people ignore this lesson. Lured by personal insecurity and pessimism, and emergencies real and manufactured, people sacrifice their own freedom and protection, under a republican system of laws, in favor a "strong man" with alleged insight into the "real nature" of the emergency, and the force of will to do something about it.

The paradox is that no one man can know enough about any political or economic problem to "solve" it. Often the dictator's solutions boil down to nothing more than the imposition of his personal whim in response to his own fantastical imaginings, buttressed by masterful demagoguery.

People may not like to hear this, but Barack Obama is a smaller version of such a creature. Observe his natural tendencies of demagoguery and his clueless imaginings about the roots of our economic problems. His answer to almost every problem is more of him and his fellow travelers, the economic illiterates Pelosi and Reid.

Paradoxically, the proper answer, is, of course, more of others. Not the Republican party, with the likes of dangerous attention-cravers such as Rove and Boehner and Gingrich.  The answer is more freedom. More unleashing of the genius of the people to solve their own problems.

Obama's demagogic bellowing (about banks and other corporations - whom he negotiates deals with in secret because no one man can solve all problems) is restrained somewhat by the bars of the Constitution. A constitution he has shown himself -- like presidents before him -- willing to ignore or circumvent when he can.

He will not get to take power the way he thinks he deserves. But with each assault on the restraints on power by the constitution, (in his case by seizure of auto company assets, by health care mandate, by presidential "compensation funds") the bars weaken a little more. Setting the stage for a little more tyranny until (dare we suggest it in polite society???) the bars break.

Blindness to subtle changes in the constitution of freedom are somewhat understandable. As economists in the "public choice" school have observed, we often are distracted by other activities and incentives when slow encroachments on liberty take place.

This is a serious problem, captured in the political imaginations of many diverse authors, from Thomas Jefferson to Ayn Rand. To which there is no answer but a proper kind of sacrifice of those who would not seek power for themselves.

But, returning to my original point, how do you explain apologists for tyrants, such as Oliver Stone? His latest film, lauding Latin American dictatorship, makes one wonder about the problem of hardened paradigms. Amidst the most basic evidence about Chavez's mendacity and stupidity it is amazing how tightly some can cling to the paradigm of the "strong man."

A projection of their own insecurity, perhaps, even as they occupy positions of some modest influence over society.

Perhaps Mr. Stone, with more respect for the genius of his own film-making community, should go back and watch Chaplin's classic "Great Dictator" and other such films to clear his head a little. (Wikipedia entry here.)

More eloquent treatises have been written about this secondary problem of tyranny than mine. My only point is to note that dictators do not thrive without their foolish supporters. And as we see from Stone's latest piece of propaganda, the tyrannical temperament remains deeply and powerfully rooted in many places, even in so-called "free societies."

The Expand My Horizons Reading List

My belief system has undergone dramatic shifts and challenges over the years. I find myself puzzling over certain questions, and have noted some areas where I feel the need to expand my knowledge.

1. Evolution. What is

One Man's Trial, and Gratitude for Life

Rich Brodsky is Atomic Skunk. He's a musician whom I met via social networking. He writes cool ambient music. He also had brain surgery earlier this week. Second time in ten years, to address a slowly growing tumor. His remarkable blog post, written quickly after his experience, "Mr. Skunk's Wild Ride," is surely worth reading.

I wish the Skunk well in his recovery.

A Week to Use in Weeks Ahead

A strange week, this one.

It seems the older I get the more life oscillates rapidly between light and darkness. I don't mean that it all happens to me, or that it all occurs in the same degree, but rather I simply observe, and hear about, and am provoked by so much more.

On my birthday,  friends leave kind wishes with charitable hopes, at the same time that I am of necessity doing some of the most backbreaking and psychologically challenging work I have ever done -- in intense heat.

A successful musician I admire and correspond with socially undergoes brain surgery, calling forth images of my own late mother's similar procedure, while the same day a good friend endorses me most generously to his former employer; veritable gold in a time of some scarcity of opportunity.

The week overall brings reports from friends of great successes, and also revelations of deep cynicism. At home my family receive regularly sequenced acts of generosity from siblings, aunts, uncles and in-laws, and serendipitous kindness from strangers. Sometimes these displace moments of self-doubt. Sometimes they evoke new ones.

My children bring joy, and contemplation of their development and their natural beauty.

But also there is weariness, and sadness. Weltschmertz even.

One day this week I sat on a dock in Lloyd Harbor, overlooking a magnificently beautiful vista of rippling waters and anchored sailboats. Based on all past experience I should have enjoyed it deeply. But, beaten down by fatigue, no matter which way I looked on that water, all I could feel was what I was missing. There was no consolation or contemplation. I simply hoped to cool off my body a bit before stumbling back up the hill to work for several more hours in the heat. Feeling more than my age and more than a little off course from the destiny that seemed so clearly plotted in my youth. "Where is that benevolent, guiding force?" I wondered. Is it more subtle and sublime than I can imagine? Was it ever there?

Yet as all the impressions of these moments drift into the past and settle down in the memory, with the passage of time, they are refined into the raw material of "experience." To fuel the soul through another day, or week, or year to follow.

With hope, those will be better ones. But hopes like these have been had before.

Reason Video Nails Problems of FCC Regulating Internet

When I grow up, I want to be as cool as Reason magazine's Nick Gillespie. In the video below he gives succinct summaries of the problems of this most recent and allegedly "light-touch" power grab by the Federal Communications Commission.

(By the way, all meaningless metaphors used by government officials such as the current FCC chairman are unenforceable for future generations of officials.)


Which is why Reason's third "reason" here, "Mission Creep" as a danger to FCC regulation of the Internet is a huge problem, and something the public rarely understands about government: its growth is almost inevitable.

I admire the pluckiness of libertarians in fighting the growth of the state, but in recent years I have become more dour about the prospects for our government and society to avoid decline. Despite even the empowering magic of things like the Internet.


Bureaucrats, however well intentioned, believe they can "help" with almost anything and relentlessly seek to insert themselves into private decisions. Those less well intentioned also see numerous opportunities to expand their power.

One reason the public doesn't understand this is because in essence the problem is highly philosophical. More specifically, epistemological. Government officials trying to help in a way allegedly free from self-interest (not true) concentrate more power in the hands of those with less knowledge than the entirety of the marketplace.

Freedom is a way of crowd-sourcing our problems; with more individuals handling smaller pieces of the logistics of delivering products and services.  In a bureaucrat's way of seeing things, that means they have a less "comprehensive" view of the market, which requires a handful of nobles to facilitate (to their own benefit) greater "global coordination" and other such nonsense.

Political Over-promising and Under-delivering?

Very good article today by the Washington Examiner on the continuation of the "blame game" campaign by President Obama regarding the Gulf Oil spill, and the backlash it's causing him politically. Basically, after years of "blaming Bush" the expectations of the executive have been raised so high, they are sure to disappoint when the increasingly human Barack Obama flails about.

Which raises a larger point. Remember the old adage: "Under-promise and over-deliver?" Doesn't that kind of sum up the entire political problem of modern liberalism (other than it's squishy "third-way" variant)? It's all over-promise and under-deliver.

Did we end the War on Poverty? Or create a Great Society? Did liberalism really bring about a New Deal where the so-called "little guy" was liberated from the corruption of government power by the very industries it claimed it would control? (Or, to put it in today's lingo "asses it would kick?")

The answer is No.  Today we see the Obama presidency is rife with corporatism (BP, Goldman Sachs, General Motors, etc.)

So much of modern liberalism is grandiose and utopian, so full of over-promising. How can it lead to anything but disappointment? And yet, the faith lives on . . .

Sex Ed Movie Has Me Thinking (About Thinking)

My ten-year-old son and I finally watched "the movie" this week at school about changes in the body. Fostering talks between us.

Since, as he learned this week, hormones play such a role in emotional and psychological changes, it seems that when he observes adult psychology at work and comments to me on it, we end up having similar discussions.

This week, for example, after discussing cigarette smoking, we have talked more than once about how adults deal with psychological and emotional stress, quite often resorting to some kind of drug or other addictive/compulsive behavior.

The curious thing for me is how much this little movie provoked my own thinking about adult problems. I find myself in many of these discussions feeling some pity for adults, whose minds seem both heightened and benighted by their hormones.

On the downside resulting not just in addictions, but sometimes even more serious pathologies.

Indeed, from what little I know about those suffering from mental illness, very bright minds that began at birth often face great challenges to their proper functioning when a mixture of traumatic childhood recollections meet with the earliest flood of procreational hormones.

(It makes me seriously wonder what Schopenhauer would say about his and others' adolescence. Is it the "Will's" nightmarish wake-up call?)

I don't have a remedy -- beyond the belief that warm embraces, kisses and saying "I love you" to children are forms of fighting mental illness. Only a certain melancholic puzzlement.

Article on The Higher Education Bubble

As an adjunct professor, I have long thought the educational system is seriously dysfunctional. Students have little incentive to perform because they are insulated by the true cost of their education by their parents, the government and the taxpayers.

I say as much to the students, a number of whom are doing "do-overs" of their failed (drunken) first try at college some years ago.

The unintended consequence of all this helping in cheap credit and "free financial aid" by the government is out of control tuition inflation. Yet another distortion of the market in the name of creating opportunity.

Glenn Reynolds makes the case more eloquently than I could hope to in this piece today about the effects of cheap credit and mounting educational debt.

Problems of Belief

1) The Problem of Evil

2) The Mushrooming of Belief Propositions (Or, the Zeno's Paradox of Belief) - To evangelize the faith means to take responsibility for a collection of propositions. But those are not a closed set, Through all of history. Leading to interminable debate for those who choose to participate.

3) Inability to find a "core" set of beliefs free from the centuries of accretions.

Mainstream Media Begin to Challenge Obama's "Reformer" Image in Wake of Sestak Job Offer Scandal

Finally, the mainstream media pipes up on the Sestak "job-gate" scandal.

Washington Post: Lack of Sunlight Over Mr. Sestak's Claims

"This response would hardly have satisfied those who were upset during the previous administration about the firing of U.S. attorneys. If there was nothing improper, why not all that sunlight Mr. Obama promised?"


NY Times: For Sestak Matter, a 'Trust Us' from the White House

"Even if the conversations were perfectly legal, as the White House claims, the situation challenges President Obama’s efforts to present himself as a reformer who will fix a town of dirty politics. And the refusal to even discuss what was discussed does not advance the White House’s well-worn claim to being “the most transparent” in history."

Now people other than conservatives can respectably discuss it at their cocktail parties. What I humbly call "Carolan's Law of Liberal Credence": "No liberal shall believe anything a conservative says until it is repeated six months later by their favorite liberal pundit or publication."

"Philosophers Shouldn't Run for Office," Except Obama

I can understand why people are upset with Rand Paul. I think they are misunderstanding his intentions, which are not racist. But I can understand how they could have that reaction.

From what I have read in the Twittersphere and in blogs, etc. people angry with Paul quite often show that they misunderstand the very nature of the crisis of southern segregation, which was not a spontaneous exercise in free dis-association, but a government mandated and enforced reality, under Jim Crow, etc. (Separate public facilities, anti-miscegenation laws, etc.) Laws which violated basic rights under the constitution, which were helping to integrate the races. Laws which were supported by a band of vigilantes in a secret society. So, why did this require laws, and "secret" enforcers?

I still think it is possible to have a reasonable discussion about what actually happened during that crisis and learn lessons from it. About lawmaking. The same way people still watch D.W. Griffith's "The Birth of a Nation" to understand the reality of political propaganda, and how the Klan flourished.

If a senatorial candidate can't "philosophize" on the job, what is he or she doing running for the United States Senate anyway, which is supposed to be an aristocratic, deliberative body?

Which is why I don't understand someone like Chris Matthews going on the Jay Leno show and saying "philosophers shouldn't run for office."

Matthews, it seems to me, thinks politics should be basically for the enjoyment of him and his beer-drinking buddies. Like sports; to watch the instant replays, talk about tactics and tell colorful stories about old Irish pols like his former boss, Thomas "Tip" O'Neill.

I used to enjoy Hardball, but I am finding Matthews' approach to politics growing shallower by the day. Perhaps he's been hanging around Keith Olbermann a little too long.

Anyway, who then was this guy (see below), who gave Matthews that thrill up his leg? You know, the guy who wants to "transform" America by eliminating the Founders' paradigm of negative rights?

I guess you can only "philosophize" about America if you're going in one direction -- which is away from the philosophy of the highly-philosophical Founders.

Tea Party, Libertarianism Do Not Equal "Old South"

If First Amendment advocates say we must tolerate the cartoonish reality of Nazi and Klan street marches in order to protect our freedom of speech, are these advocates all inherently, secretly Nazis and Klansmen?

The answer, of course, is "No."

So, why then are libertarian- or "classical liberal"-minded advocates of property rights and free association, such as Rand Paul, automatically deemed "racist?"

Freedom sometimes generates cartoonish side effects. It doesn't mean those who advocate freedom advocate on behalf of the cartoons.

You could say that in regard to property rights and free association all of these things are "settled" questions, because the racist past of America was a terrible time that we would rather not revisit.

I agree. I would rather not revisit it.

However, today, because the narrative is that the expansion of federal government power then was an unqualified success, the federal government is empowered to address and "fix" now pretty much any thing the public (as interpreted by our legislators) deems cartoonish and unfair, using the power to tax and regulate property.

So, where does the growth of government (including all costly post hoc attempts to fix previous attempts) stop? What will be the total cost, in dollars and in freedom, not only in property, but even in speech (the "fairness" doctrine, etc.?) Name a "social problem" or even annoyance and today the government is empowered to "fix" it. (From hate speech to -- in my home state senator Schumer's balliwick -- the cost of carry on luggage and annoying ATM fees.)

This is why the Tea Party exists. To challenge that old narrative, and challenge the growing progressive costs in dollars and freedom. And Rand Paul, to his credit and his discomfort, zeroed in on the hot spot problem. He is now paying a heavy price, personally and politically.

You can attempt to smear the Tea Party movement by comparing it to the Old South. But if you look around the world, you see hundreds of governments empowered to do the very same things: "fix" society's ills, with sometimes catastrophic results in terms of debt, economic decline and social unrest.

When Ronald Reagan called America the "shining city on a hill" he didn't believe there weren't some ugly things going on inside that city.

Like it or not, at some point we will have to look back at what we did wrong in the middle of our success in the 1960s. Or else, the government's intrusion into the private sphere will just simply grow and grow, and America will begin to look like every other steadily declining socialist nation.

The Rand Paul Imbroglio Shows America Needs Less Deliberation

No doubt the Rand Paul debate of the past few days has produced a few "cringe-worthy" moments. Whenever a candidate raises arguments about previous law that allow his opponents to suggest he is in favor of segregation, or is racist, well, that can soften the backbone of even the strongest candidates, their political consultants and political fellow travelers.

Paul's backpedaling since has also been somewhat cringe-worthy, creating the impression that he, like Connecticut senate candidate Richard Blumenthal, is only willing to say things to friendly audiences who might not seriously think more about or investigate his utterances.

But better that than the alternative, some potential allies might say. Rich Lowry, for example -- along with other commentators at National Review -- derides Paul's original discussion with Rachel Maddow, et al as a politically foolish theoretical exercise. Says Lowry:

"It turns out that a Senate campaign does not offer the same friendly confines for the discussion of libertarian doctrine as a seminar at the Ayn Rand Institute."

Lowry goes on to call Paul a "problem" for the GOP.

The problem it seems, is not that Paul's a racist. He clearly is not.

It's his ability to be labeled a racist by the opposition.

If only Rand Paul hadn't come along with his theoretical discussion about property rights, the left would never have called conservatives and libertarians "racist."

Indeed, as I watched Rachel Maddow smile that smirky smile last night, and chirp that one day later Rand Paul looked like the usual flip-flopping politician (trying to hide his racism, no doubt!) the problem of our country occurred to me:

Too many theoretical discussions!

We all know that theoretical exercises are dragging our country (and the GOP) down. Too many long, ponderous discussions of federal power, and the fine points of law in the Senate until all hours. Too many television talk show debates, commercially uninterrupted, full of historical consciousness, that show how property rights can be eroded to dangerous levels, just like free speech rights, leading to massive and costly attempts by the federal government to right every wrong from 50,000 feet.

Forget all that "theoretical" nonsense and "libertarian doctrine!" I mean, we can't get anything done!

Why risk upsetting the public when there are elections to be won?

There have to be other ways to defeat massive expansion of the federal government than actually talking about how massive expansions of the federal government come about.

Sometimes It's Right to Debate the Past

Libertarians are often accused of spending too much time debating the past (a political rather than philosophical concern).

But, sometimes it makes sense to debate the past, particularly if there are salient facts that change the discussion significantly.

Reason magazine has an excellent blog post about the nascent controversy over Rand Paul's views on property rights and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, mentioned in my previous post.

Author Damon Root makes some important points about how property rights afforded African-Americans protection against discrimination by government. And when the government decided to simply ignore those.

From the post:

"It’s also important to acknowledge that economic rights are not in some inherent conflict with civil rights. In fact, we have significant historical evidence showing that legally enforced property rights (and other forms of economic liberty) actually undermined the Jim Crow regime. Most famously, the NAACP won its first Supreme Court victory in 1917 by arguing that a residential segregation law was a racist interference with property rights under the 14th Amendment.

"Finally, keep in mind that Plessy v. Ferguson, the notorious 1896 Supreme Court decision that enshrined “separate but equal” into law and become a symbol of the Jim Crow era, dealt with a Louisiana law that forbid railroad companies from selling first-class tickets to blacks. That’s not a market failure, it’s a racist government assault on economic liberty."

Rand Paul Bending or Breaking Under Charges of Racism, etc.?

Odd exchange last night on CNN between Rand Paul, the GOP senate nominee from Kentucky, and host John King.

King pressed Paul on a number of questions, particularly on whether or not he would dismantle the Department of Education, and Paul, it seems to me, danced around that question a little, and some others.

CNN went ahead anyway, after the question was asked, and attributed to Paul in the caption that he did seek to eliminate the DOE and the Dept. of Agriculture. A little odd journalistically, I think.

Anyway, I suspect to Paul's supporters this behavior is excusable, because they see him under attack by liberal media. Paul is libertarian, but as his profile has been raised he now appears to be feeling the sting of responses to his positions on federal legislation, articulated in front of the more critical audiences on NPR, CNN and MSNBC.

But after the similar constant beat down that occurs on the national stage, would this same habit endear him to anyone years from now? I don't know how his father, Texas congressman Ron Paul, has withstood the onslaught for so long.

Rand has to practice his responses a little more for the national media I think, particularly on the federal departments. "The correct answer is," to borrow a trope from TV commentator John McLaughlin, that while these departments seem to place decision making in the hands of trained experts, they often concentrate more decision making in the hands of those with less knowledge about the overall education situation. Does anyone really believe that Head Start or No Child Left Behind are effective?

Devolution of political power to the local level outsources work on many more smaller decisions to MORE people. This is the paradox of large federal interventions. It places more power in the hands of fewer (self-interested) people, reducing the overall information and aggregate motivation available to solve social problems.

In a recent exchange, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow pressed Rand Paul on his views about federal civil rights legislation. Joan Walsh, the liberal editor of Salon magazine, makes great hay about Paul's "demolishment" at the hands of Maddow (video included). And today, the Twittersphere is full of comments about how Paul "opposed the Civil Rights Act," "supports segregation" and is "racist." Google Rand Paul and you see additional headlines asserting that Paul is defending discrimination.

Whereas, Paul explicitly said in the interview (!) that he would have voted for all but one part of the Civil Rights Act, he finds racism abhorrent and that segregation was actually a government policy and misuse of the law. I agree with him on all these points.

Paul acquitted himself reasonably well here in this one interview.

The problem for many liberals is that they will see in Paul what they want to see. Which is what they want to see in most people who want to protect property rights and limit government power, the core of Paul's philosophy: a closet racist and homophobe. All because he opposes a certain means of achieving a social objective. (A rather heavy-handed means with numerous unintended consequences.)

For many on the left, that the 1960s were a triumph of progressive legislation is a "settled question." The 1960s are never to be discussed with any critical eye again, because it was the age of Abraham, Martin and John. Unfortunately, libertarians keep cropping up.

But these libertarians often struggle to articulate the organic link between the expansion of federal power then -- however well intentioned it was -- and consequences being felt today in ever expanding, intrusive federal action over private initiative and all its related costs and debt, and little room left for local initiative.

All while feeling the sting of being called racist, because you oppose certain aspects of legislation touching on race - which is not the same thing.

Libertarians and conservatives have to repeat it until they are blue in the face, that supporting limited government and defense of private property does not mean they endorse repugnant social behavior. Wasn't it a great liberal with progressive attitudes about women, John Stuart Mill, who argued that social sanction rather than legislation should play an important role in behavior we find repugnant?

So, those of us who are libertarian should expect great moralizing on the part of the left this election season, and a sense of crisis that the KKK is back in town. Some don't know enough to know better. But some of those critics in the media clearly are educated enough to know better.

Rachel Maddow's parting comment to Rand Paul:

"Well, it was pretty practical to the people who had the life nearly beaten out of them trying to desegregate Walgreen's lunch counters despite these esoteric debates about what it means about ownership. This is not a hypothetical Dr. Paul."

No one says it's a hypothetical, and this is the usual posturing and playing to the left-wing audience by Maddow.

People who had the life beaten out them (and fire-hosed and attacked by dogs) had it done to them by the government. And those acts were disproportionate and already illegal and federal intervention was necessary to stop them. Paul AGREED on that much.

Maddow is smart enough to know that. But her comments were about demonizing, not actual, real discussion and journalism.

Not an exclusive province of MSNBC or left-wing media by the way. It's a pervasive risk of being a popular journalist, to play to an audience. You see the same kind of thing on FOX.

In response to certain external stimuli, journalists tend to bend and break as well.

Hugo Chavez is So Predictable

Nowhere is politics more personal than in the mind of the socialist dictator; for whom the well-being of the state equals the well-being of his own ego.

Hugo Chavez's Expropriation Binge

Serial Contradictions, or, Why President Obama Needs Press Conferences

I know a lot of people who admire and voted for President Obama. But, like Victor Davis Hanson, I assume these people also have a memory, and a sense for logical and ethical consistency.

Hanson compellingly chronicles once again in this piece the "serial contradictions" of President Obama, on everything from his own policies vs. Bush policies to the cost and impact of health care reform to how he differs from his political opposition today.

From his piece:

"The blatant hypocrisy and untruths are superimposed on a constant (it has not yet begun to let up in his second year) refrain of either “Bush did it” or “the opposition won’t let me be bipartisan.”


And all of this shows why President Obama can no longer be allowed to duck the real-time press conference, even with the likes of the White House press corps, an obsequious lot. His inconsistencies must be addressed, and reconciled, if that is possible. Otherwise, he, or we, might go mad.

Oft-Mentioned Resources for My Students

There is no doubt that I teach my mythology and philosophy classes with a heavy emphasis on personal meaning and relevance.

One of the reasons I enjoy being an adjunct rather than a full professor is because I am able to bring more "real world" experience to the classroom, hopefully to the benefit of the students, who must experience real challenges outside the shelter of the campus.

My own life experience, and the testimony of the many students whom I have had the honor to know and converse with about their own challenges, shows that life is sometimes a disorienting, difficult and dark journey. Many students, whether new to school, or returning, bring their own amazing, illuminating stories of struggle and personal growth.

I am deeply humbled by the bond I have formed with these students during the past 15 years as an adjunct. (I think after all these years that this is the only job I do anywhere near well.)

In the course of our discussions, I have often mentioned resources for them to consult. But not so often listed them. I thought I would capture a few of them here:

The Artist's Way - The official site of Julia Cameron and her important work about creativity and psychological growth. When I experience particularly dark emotions, the practice of her "morning pages" (at any hour) is very helpful in a way I cannot explain at a rational level.

Care of the Soul -- Official site of Thomas Moore, whose work I always find deeply reflective and meaningful.

In particular, I recommend his wonderful book, Dark Nights of the Soul. I have been listening to this book on audio again, and it is amazing how different sections of it are even more important to me now after teaching my mythology class. I have taught the mythology class unconsciously using Moore's expanded idea of the "liminal" experience and rites of passage; both he and I being heavily influenced by the work of anthropologist Victor Turner. All of life contains times of disorientation, sometimes at intense levels. This is not theoretical darkness. It is unique darkness for your own life, and it will hurt. From this idea and experience I have formulated my own humble notion of "generative darkness," into which we reach as we stand at its perimeter, to pull out as if from a grab bag, some great gift for the next phase of our life. (Moore's comments on sentimentality in religion have also given me new concepts with which to frame my own disorientation and unhappiness with the "sentimentality" practiced by those who chose to interpret my mother's tragic death for me, and who choose to avert their eyes from certain dark aspects of reality highlighted by the likes of Darwin and Schopenhauer.)

MichaelGelb.com -- website of author Michael Gelb, whose work had a profound influence on my during my darkest days at Computer Associates, a company where the delta between the teachings on management and the actual culture, at that time, was at least a light year.

In particular, Gelb's book "How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci" opened my mind to the notion that we swim in a vast sea of life variables, many of which we are free to take notice of and act upon if we simply choose to. (WWLD? -- What would Leonardo do?)

Speaking of Computer Associates' dysfunctional culture, Jeff Gee was a good-natured teacher there who helped me survive the place as long as I did. His book "Super Service" was just one of those works that again taught me to become aware of the control I had over so much of my life.

For the theoretically minded, who like to take a structured, abstract approach to their own actions, there is no greater work than "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People," by Stephen Covey. Again, in an unexplainable moment of serendipity, the worst boss I ever had sent me to a management class where this book was only casually mentioned. I sought it out, and it completely changed my life. Its first chapter on being "proactive" is now required reading for my philosophy students.

The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck -- the ancient lesson that life must be difficult if we are to grow, taught in a modern context.

Man's Search for Meaning - by Viktor Frankl. The great work about his survival in a Nazi concentration camp and the lessons he derived from it, which would form the basis for his theory of "logotherapy." (He has a great influence on Covey.)

Learned Optimism - an important work about cognitive therapy by Martin Seligman. His formulation of pessimism as based upon judgments we choose to make (or not make) that problems are "pervasive, permanent and personal" is, well, powerful.

The Soul's Code by James Hillman. A fascinating reflection on destiny and character, rooted in the ideas of Jung and Plato. (He was the mentor of Thomas Moore.) I intend to read more of his works.

Creativity and Madness Blog - a new resource I am exploring of late, which features thoughtful posts and links to additional resources and events.

The Supreme Court Nominee, and the Context, are Both Disturbing

If a Republican president . . .

• lashed out at television news networks, radio hosts and others for their coverage of and opinions about him
• questioned the legitimacy of the information on the Internet and the utility of the devices that provide it
• had his agencies seek to reclassify Internet Service Providers for the purposes of greater regulation and control
• and THEN nominated a friend and fellow law professor to the Supreme Court who said that the exercise of free speech is dependent on how the government calculates the social costs of that speech (!)
  

. . . would there not be great wailing, gnashing of teeth and hand-wringing across the land?

Would there not be ponderous statements from Senators about "deeply disturbing" revelations about the nominee that raise concerns about her qualification to serve on the court, and the president's overall intentions given a series of unseemly statements from the bully pulpit against political dissent?

(Let's leave aside for a moment the even larger context of the president's youthful associations with all sorts of "revolutionary" Marxist thinkers, his government taking more and more control of automakers, banks, insurance companies, etc., and his apparent disinterest in the tyranny of and crushing of political dissent by statists such as Hugo Chavez, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Castros, etc. Ex-communist James Burnham's maxim that for so-called liberals "there are no enemies on the left" seems more apropos than ever.)

Hypocrisy in politics is nothing new, nor is it restricted to the Democratic Party. However, when the people with "good intentions" are running the show apparently, tyranny, even in creeping soft forms is deemed impossible. Right up until, as the French Revolution showed, they're not running the show anymore, and their heads are in the guillotines.

But, civility and courtliness will prevail, because after all, they're all friends and colleagues in Washington.

So, Elena Kagan will be confirmed, and the creep of soft tyranny will continue.

Thoughts on Another Semester in Mythology

I'm completing my students' mythology final examination today, for them to take tomorrow.

It was an ambitious class, taught mostly from a psychological and spiritual point of view. It was all about our struggle with darkness, and its power to transform. I think I either frightened or bored the students sometimes with this talk. I dwell on this mystery all the time.

It helps to know every civilization shared the same struggles, even as it puzzles about the ultimate source of being. That is what I take away from this class, in brighter hues each time. Science goes its own way, to greater and greater reductionism. But for humanity, myth illustrates the absolute mystery of existence.

More Analysis of Presidential Rhetoric

Obama’s Good and Bad Words - Victor Davis Hanson - National Review Online

Columnist Notes Uptick in Presidential Negativity

I think Dan Henninger of the Wall Street Journal makes an excellent point. The contrast between Barack Obama the campaigner and President Obama the Manichean is dramatic. He has become, as noted below, his own Saul Alinsky, demonizing his opposition at every turn, from the State of the Union on.

Perhaps this is because VP Joe Biden, who would traditionally play this political role, is too much the happy gaffer. Or perhaps it is because this is the President's true nature; something he really enjoys, and reflects his true beliefs -- post "Hope and Change."

Such "internal demagoguery" as I call it, is surely the stock in trade of totalitarians such as Hugo Chavez and Vladimir Putin, who use it to justify their seizure of property and suspension of rights. But our country has its practitioners as well.

I stepped back from political journalism years ago because of my own tendency to take it, and make it, much too personal. It's a kind of radioactive madness that infects many in political life.

MI6 Guy on Torture and Terrorism

Can't say this argument is without merit. Some of us do not consider ourselves over-the-top, chest-thumping Nathan R. Jessup conservatives.

Heroes and Death, Post-Einstein

Thanks to Cablevision's recent PR war with WABC New York, I got to watch free on demand movies yesterday on Cablevision, and took a break from my routine to watch the latest installment of the Star Trek movies. "The Future Begins."

Time travel is central to the film. A hackneyed idea at this point, for sure. And the film features all the usual chronological confusion as a result. (A palatable parataxis for the sake of the story.)

Something about time travel in this film, however, in combination with another classic Star Trek idea, left me intrigued. The other idea is that of the unbeatable Kobayashi Maru test, which Kirk legendarily hacked at the academy.

The film features a conflict between Kirk and Spock, the designer of the test, over Kirk's cheating. Spock accepts death logically, and the test is meant to show all cadets what that experience is like. (Which is questionable given that everyone knows it's a simulation.)

However, the important point is that Kirk refuses as a matter of principle to ever accept defeat. To the point of "cheating death."

This got me thinking about science fiction heroes post-Einstein.

In the ancient Gilgamesh Epic, Gilgamesh also refuses to accept death. He goes on a quest to find the secret to eternal life, only to be told by Utnapishtim, the Mesopotamian version of Noah, that he can never achieve it. Later, shown the secret by the ferryman of the dead, Gilgamesh watches it slip through his hands; stolen by a snake. Presumably, the story reflects the wisdom of accepting death.

Kirk, as a hero and representative of the values of our culture, uses every trick available to him to cheat death. Which includes exploiting the power and paradoxes of relativistic physics.

Ironically, he is aided by an older and wiser version of Spock, himself a time traveler, who has somewhat "lightened up," from his old self. Spock has multiplied himself in fact, to live two lives, via time travel. Logically, it would seem, he could do that again. Which made me wonder if a science fiction story exists using multiple (more than two) versions of people created via time travel.

Maybe I am reading too much into the story. But it interesting to think about the evolution of the hero story in our time; an age in which mastery and possession of nature seems so much within our grasp.

This is not Indiana Jones, for example, who faces and accepts the dominance of forces beyond his comprehension. This hero, Kirk, aided by men of science Spock, McCoy and Scott (a brilliant relativistic physicist) takes heroism in a completely new direction. Still cleverly solving problems, like so many other heroes. But also, exploiting the most basic mysteries of the universe to escape mortality.

This movie series has already "cheated" its own death by introducing this plot. As I looked at Captain Christopher Pike in his wheelchair at the end of the film, not as hideously deformed as he was in the television series, I recalled the dialogue of the film that an alternative future had been created for all the characters.

Personally, I would look forward to more of these films, with these characters, taking old plots in new directions, or creating new plots.

But the more significant question for me is, what will a generation of heroes that looks like this young Kirk say about our expectations as a culture? This is not the wise, ironic Kirk of the television series or the earlier films. This is a young man of science, full of good intentions and a sense of justice, but also hubris against the most basic forces of the universe. Will more myths and heroes of this type follow? And what will the culture be like that favors these stories?