Dedicated to the proposition that ideas, philosophies, goals, and habits make a person. Your race, color, age, sex and body type may be correlated with how you think; but it's a huge mistake to judge someone on those external, physical markers.
A classic blog comment by Grim still resonates. It starts to explain the apparent paradox of tranquil-yet-heavily-armed America:
The secret of social harmony is simple: Old men must be dangerous.
Very nearly all the violence that plagues, rather than protects, society is the work of young males between the ages of fourteen and thirty. A substantial amount of the violence that protects rather than plagues society is performed by other members of the same group. The reasons for this predisposition are generally rooted in biology, which is to say that they are not going anywhere, in spite of the current fashion that suggests doping half the young with Ritalin.
The question is how to move these young men from the first group (violent and predatory) into the second (violent, but protective). This is to ask: what is the difference between a street gang and the Marine Corps, or a thug and a policeman? In every case, we see that the good youths are guided and disciplined by old men.
The author of yesterday's BBC article reports rarely seeing public drunkenness in America. Having a bunch of dangerous old men around is an excellent deterrent to feral young male drunken behavior like that. It also provides the role models that young males desperately need.
Now comes the British Broadcasting Service, commemorating the 1-year anniversary of the Virginia Tech killings.
But this Beeb article has a unique spin. It highlights the tranquility and civility of American life--even though there are more than 200 million guns in America.
Wait till you get to London Texas, or Glasgow Montana, or Oxford Mississippi or Virgin Utah, for that matter, where every household is required by local ordinance to possess a gun.
Folks will have guns in all of these places and if you break into their homes they will probably kill you.
They will occasionally kill each other in anger or by mistake, but you never feel as unsafe as you can feel in south London.
It is a paradox. Along with the guns there is a tranquillity and civility about American life of which most British people can only dream.
Heinlein was right: an armed society is a polite society.
A few years ago someone asked me a question that I couldn't answer: how can you be both a Christian and a scientist? It turns out not to be too difficult.
The purpose of science is to understand the universe for the purpose of predicting and controlling it. Why do we make observations, form hypotheses, design and execute experiments, and go back to making observations? Because we want to be able make something happen. Having the will to do something isn't necessarily sufficient; we need to know how to exercise that will in the physical realm.
Arthur C. Clarke's third law states that "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." In other words, if I don't understand the underlying scientific or engineering principles behind someone's ability to make something happen, I can't tell whether they are using some supernatural power.
Christopher Columbus was able to exploit just this sort of ignorance. He claimed his Christian God would "all but obliterate" the moon, making it appear "inflamed with wrath". This would frighten the Jamaicans into supplying him and his expedition with food.
Occam's Razor is appropriate if your goal is to understand the universe well enough to predict and control it. The simplest explanation of something generally leads to the most efficient way of controlling or predicting it. It's easier to calculate what will happen to a rock when I drop it if I assume a standard gravity field, rather than trying to account for the goals, philosophy, intent, and relative strength of the rock gods.
In contrast with science, Christianity (or religion in general) explains the universe for the purpose of knowing what is good and righteous. The Creator has the natural right to determine the boundaries between good and evil, right and wrong. As a created being, I do not have the right to override the wishes or intent of the Creator, regardless of my desire or will to do so.
Occam's Razor is not an appropriate guide in the quest to understand good and evil. It doesn't tell me if a particular course of action is right or wrong. All it does is help me be successful in implementing whatever choices I make.
That's how I can be both a Christian and a scientist. I turn to my religion for questions of meaning and purpose, but rely on science and technology to execute those decisions.
I think a healthy society needs both God and guns: It benefits from a belief in some kind of higher purpose to life on Earth, and it requires a self-reliant citizenry.
Exactly right. That's my reading of the second amendment's prefatory clause "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State". We need to protect the rights of the self-reliant, and encourage more people to be that way.
Not all people are capable of self government. It's not because of their hardware--skin color and ancestry don't matter. What does matter is their software--the ideas and values they hold dear. Self-reliance is a very important part of that equation.
But Mark Steyn is also right that a healthy society needs God. Self-reliance is necessary--but not sufficient in and of itself--to guarantee a healthy society. These self-reliant individuals need to have optimism in the future, and a willingness to apply their God-given energies to their own betterment and that of their fellows.
While not a parent myself, I have great respect for people who are willing to knowingly take on the risks, challenges, and responsibility of bringing children into the world. Belief in God and His purposes encourages people to become parents, and helps them inculcate their children with values of right and wrong. A strong culture of self-reliance also helps parents expend the energy and do what is needed to give their children every chance to succeed.
Those who believe in God and guns form the backbone of this culture and society. You can't force people to believe in those things--you can't force people like that into anything. That's the way it should be.
Doc Russia writes eloquently about the culture he believes in. After some prefatory remarks about his wife's experiences growing up in Soviet Russia, and her interpretation of a contemporary politician, he describes his culture and mine:
My culture judges a man by the content of his character not the color of his skin, which is why quotas are so hateful.
My culture believes that a man has a right to the fruits of his own labors, and he may feast or famine dependant upon how fat or hungry he wishes to be, which is why taxing the food out of my mouth and giving it to the lazy bum who cannot or will not take care of themselves pisses me off.
My culture believes that men should behave as gentlemen, and women should behave as ladies, which is why watching girls in Florida luring another girl into a beatdown while the men do not protect her is so offensive.
My culture believes that government is a necessary evil that should only do those things that the private citizens cannot, which is why our blood boils when the blue ribbon panel's solution to the staggering failure of FEMA in the wake of Katrina is to... wait for it... give them more power and a bigger budget.
My culture believes that a man's faith is between him and his God, and as long as it doesn't involve sacrificing puppies or molesting children, you can pretty much believe in whatever diety you like, but we also get pissed off when people try to enforce state supported atheism by obliterating any reference to any faith, and call believers backwards yokels.
My culture is being assaulted by multiculturalism, socialism, communism, islamic fundamentalism and a whole host of other "isms."
My culture believes that the individual is the first, last, and greatest defense against the "isms" of the world, and that he can, and should avail himself of every tool in the prosecution of this defense, from soap box, to ballot box, to ammunition box.
Now comes Jonah Golberg, commenting on a recent resolution by the Russian parliament. They want to make sure Russia isn't remembered for genocide.
Are they denying that the Russian government under Stalin deliberately starved millions of Ukranians? Well, no. They're insisting that "[t]here is no historical proof that the famine was organized along ethnic lines" and victims included "different peoples and nationalities living largely in agricultural areas of the country."
Mr. Goldberg goes on:
The United Nations defines genocide as the "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group." Left out of this definition are "modern" political labels for people: the poor, religious people, the middle class, etc.
The oversight was deliberate. The word "genocide" was coined by a Polish Jew, Raphael Lemkin, who was responding to Winston Churchill's 1941 lament that "we are in the presence of a crime without a name." Lemkin, a champion of human rights who lost 49 relatives in the Holocaust, gave it a name a few years later. But to get the U.N. to recognize genocide as a specific crime, he made compromises.
Pressured by the Soviets, Lemkin supported excluding efforts to murder "political" groups from the U.N.'s 1948 resolution on genocide. Under the more narrow official definition, it's genocide to try to wipe out Roma (formerly known as Gypsies), but it's not necessarily genocide to liquidate, say, people without permanent addresses. You can't slaughter "Catholics," but you can wipe out "religious people" and dodge the genocide charge.
So: it's genocide if you kill a bunch of people because of their ethnicity--in other words, you make decisions on who to kill based on their hardware. But if you kill a bunch of people because of their belief or behavior (their software), it's not genocide.
I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest it's not good to kill a bunch of people. Maybe these sorts of definitional exercises are why I don't care much for the so-called "moral authority" of multinational organizations like the United Nations.
On Tuesday I posted a list of substances I choose not to consume, while making the point that legality is not a major factor. The process of writing and posting a blog article usually gives me peace: I can let the topic go and move on to other concerns.
That didn't happen on Tuesday. I still need to articulate why I've made these choices, which necessarily means describing the sources of authority I believe in.
Fugu is an easy call. This fish produces a powerful toxin. Even when prepared for human consumption with great attention to detail and caution, there remains a non-trivial chance of death. People in Japan routinely die from improperly prepared Fugu.
Bacon and Ham are less obvious. I believe God gave the Leviticus 11 instructions to Israel for their health and prosperity. Yes, properly prepared pork products are free from trichinosis, but why take the chance? In my 40 years I've never found myself in a situation where I was in danger of starvation unless I ate something prepared from "unclean" sources.
Beer, cigarettes, cigars, cocaine, crystal meth, heroin, marijuana, whiskey and wine? With the exception of 9th grade I went to church schools for my entire academic career. I remember Winner Magazine from as early as 2nd grade. Listen Magazine was added shortly thereafter. My parents also emphasized the danger of these drugs.
I can still remember a Winner/Listen article about a mother in denial who expressed relief to learn her child was "only" smoking cigarettes instead of taking (illegal) speed. The person giving her the bad news (teacher? doctor?) explained that even legal substances are still harmful, and that she needed to intervene in her child's life. (How's that for a radical idea to plant in a 2nd or 3rd-grade mind: even legal substances can still be harmful!)
As I matured I never came across any credible contrary evidence to the indoctrination I received as a youngster. Nobody I respected ever said that cigarettes were healthy. Instead, I lost a grandfather to lung cancer. I lost an aunt to a probably-intentional (prescription) drug overdose. The people in my family who drank alcohol were all alcoholics. So when I got peer pressure to consume these substances I was able to respond by saying my family was full of addicts and I was too afraid to start. I believed it then and I believe it now.
Family teachings. Faith. Experience of loved ones. Scientific studies. Personal philosophy and goals. Freely-entered commitments. These are my influences, the inputs to my decision making process. Please keep government confined to its role in protecting my rights, and let me choose other more appropriate sources of moral guidance.
...which includes an excellent array of Oleg Volk images.
One of the first comments, by Gwen, includes these words:
The idea that the only way we think we can make a safer, better society is for everyone to carry a gun is incredibly sad. It's also individualistic--the answer to racism, rape, and gay bashing is to carry a gun, not have any form of social organizing.
Fascism is a religion of the state. It assumes the organic unity of the body politic and longs for a national leader attuned to the will of the people. It is totalitarian in that it views everything as political and holds that any action by the state is justified to achieve the common good. It takes responsibility for all aspects of life, including our health and well-being, and seeks to impose uniformity of thought and action, whether by force or through regulation and social pressure. Everything, including the economy and religion, must be aligned with its objectives. Any rival identity is part of the "problem" and therefore defined as the enemy. ---Liberal Fascism, p. 23.
[G]uns, particularly handguns, are very empowering to the individual. A small hunk of Smith & Wesson-forged steel gives a 110 pound woman a fighting chance against an enraged 250 pound muscular man--or even a representative of the State. Guns in private hands empower the individual at the expense of the collective will.
[....]
A 110 pound woman rejects the unitary will of the collective by arming herself. This empowered individual becomes a "rival entity" and thus an enemy of the collective, even if she never uses the weapon.
Gwen is disappointed that individual action might be "the answer to racism, rape, and gay bashing". She goes on to write:
I grew up in rural Oklahoma, surrounded by guns. And I know what it's like to have one family member using guns as a way to control another. I don't think that my mom or us kids would have been "empowered"--or safer--if only she'd been willing to use a gun too.
The answer to the problem of abusive, domineering fathers is not to deny responsible, mature individuals the tools to enforce their inalienable rights to life and liberty.
I disagree with Gwen--Gwen's mother failed in her duty to protect the children. Mom is responsible for her choices, and one of those choices was to let Dad intimidate her with threats of violence. That's the truly sad part of this story.
Gwen is getting close; at least she assigns blame to the father for his evil use of guns to intimidate his family. But until Gwen accepts the lesson that Mom failed in her individual duty to her children, I'm afraid Gwen will be vulnerable to illusory promises of social engineers and professional hucksters.
I don't often find myself in agreement with a Democrat US Representative from Massachusetts, but I was pleased to hear Barney Frank's announcement that he would be sponsoring Federal legislation to decriminalize the possession and use of small amounts of marijuana.
I don't care about the legal status of anything on the above list. Why? Because I choose not to consume any of them. Even if they were all legal and free, I would still turn them down. I make these choices based on values instilled in me by my parents and the church schools they sent me to. I've seen friends and family suffer pain after consuming items on the above list. The official government position makes little or no difference to me.
Some might argue that legalization "sends the wrong message." Government is a very poor communications medium. (Government's role is to protect inalienable rights, not enforce morality.) If you want to discourage the consumption of something, you can always put up a website, buy ads in newspapers, yell at your kids, hire a skywriter, or whatever.
The unintended consequences of criminalizing possession and/or use of consumables do impact my life. I can't freely carry large sums of cash, because government agents can confiscate cash and will and then force me to prove the cash was not the proceeds from drug dealing.
Adam Smith will not be denied; so long as there is demand there will be supply. And if the buyers and sellers can't settle disputes in the legal arena, they will do so through physical violence.
My employer and I have an agreement that I will not consume certain substances. I entered into that agreement willingly, and that agreement includes a commitment on my part to periodically prove I'm holding up my end of the bargain. Again, the legality of those substances is irrelevant.
I believe that many of the items on the list will, in the long term, have a negative impact on my quality of life. By choosing to abstain I believe I will achieve better health and happiness. By the same token, pain is an excellent teacher--even when the pain happens to someone else!
Bottom line: let adult individuals make their own choices about what to consume, and let the individuals live with the inevitable results. Confine government to its role of protecting my inalienable rights, leaving moral advice to families, churches, and other voluntary organizations.
