Bill Whittle Visits Maureen Dowd And Captain Kirk

If you are fan of the original Star Trek with Wm. Shattner you absolutely have to watch this video. Don't argue. Just watch it. You will be glad you did.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Direct Democracy

The CHANGElings are out in force and full of HOPE. Finally the politicians are going to listen. Our Politician In Chief says so.

"I will open the doors of government and ask you to be involved in our own democracy again.

Well Mr. President Present (or absent as the case may be) we live in a Republic and in a republic the politicians don't have to pay any attention to the voters until election time. This has its good points and its bad points.

Of course the words of the Smartest President Ever™ have gotten the HOPERS all excited.

Hey, Changemakers. Welcome to the second half of the Ideas for Change in America project, where we aim to turn each of the 10 winning ideas from our competition into real legislative change.

First, some context. We began this initiative in response to President Obama’s call for greater citizen participation in government, and the outpouring of support has been overwhelming – including more than 675,000 votes on 7750 idea submissions in less than two months.

The competition has also received nationwide attention and a welcome response from the Obama administration. At the event we held at the National Press Club just before the Inauguration to announce the 10 winners, Macon Phillips, Director of New Media for the White House, formally accepted the ideas and said that “I can speak with authority that a lot of people in the transition were paying attention to the competition.”

This process demonstrated the intense interest the American people have in directly engaging with their own government, and potential power of distributed social action.

Yes. Wonderful distributed social action. I think distributed economic action undertaken by individual initiative works better.

And remember all that blather about working closer with our allies. Well it is not working the way it was supposed to.

A rift between the EU and US over how to deal with global trafficking in illicit drugs is undermining international efforts to agree a new UN strategy. The confrontation has been heightened because of suggestions that the US negotiating team is pushing a hardline, Bush administration "war on drugs", in contrast to the EU position which supports "Harm Reduction" measures such as needle exchanges.

Talks are said to be at breaking point in Vienna where representatives have gathered to hammer out a new UN declaration in time for a signing ceremony at a drugs summit in mid-March. Negotiations, which have been going on for three months, are due to resume tomorrow with no indication of a breakthrough.

At the heart of the dispute is whether a commitment to "harm reduction" should be included in the UN declaration of intent, which is published every 10 years. In 1998 the declaration was "a drug-free world - we can do it".

EU countries, backed by Brazil and other Latin American countries, Australia and New Zealand, say even with the best of intentions the world will not be drug-free in 10 years and some commitment to tackling HIV and addiction through needle exchange programmes and methadone and other drugs should be included.

I guess "Harm Reduction" is a better slogan than "a drug-free world - we can't do it". Evidently Mr. Obama still believes that after over 90 years of trying and failing that "Yes we can" must still be operative in the face of massive evidence to the contrary.

H/T Colleen McCool and Jerry Epstein of DPF Texas

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Sanctification

I have always wondered why Christian social conservatives have trouble with gay marriage. Most Christian social conservatives have no problem with domestic partnerships. So it can't be legal rights.

So I'm guessing here that since they are always going on about the sacredness of marriage it must be something else. Holy matrimony. And what are the words of the ceremony? "What God has joined together let no man put asunder." "What God has joined together." So the unions are considered unholy by God's laws. OK. That makes sense. At least in their eyes. But look at the contradiction. It is no longer God who decides. It is not even the Church. After all there are many things holy in one church or religion that are unholy in others and yet those things do not seem to matter in a pluralistic America. For instance communion wafers if blessed by the Catholic Church are holy in that church and in other churches they are just crackers. There is no outcry about that. So I'm trying to see what it is. It can't be the sanctification by the Church or a church.

What seems to be the problem is the not the authority of the Church. The problem is the authority of the State to confer the status of marriage. So churches are no longer the arbiter between God and man. The state is the arbiter. So let me ask my Christian social conservative friends. Isn't making the state the arbiter between God and man a Christian heresy?

Which leads me to believe that it all went wrong with the Emperor Constantine who joined Christianity with the power of the State. It has been 1,700 years and despite that passage of time Christians still have not recovered. Jefferson with his "wall of separation" is derided by most Christian social conservatives. And yet in a way not recognized he was attempting to return Christians to their roots. And their roots were definitely not in the power of the state. In fact the state was originally considered the source of much wickedness. But now the State is considered the source of holiness. Well people can believe what they want to believe. I consider it passing strange though. Secular authorities confer holiness. That would make the State a religion. Well the worship of temporal power has always had quite a following. The The Egyptians had their god king or pharaoh. The later Romans were big on that sort of thing. The Middle Ages in Europe had it in a somewhat attenuated form. The Divine Right of Kings. So there is considerable historical precedent. Why not America? Why not the Church of America which confers holiness on a given marriage? Even stranger is that America has just elected The One. Well his divinity is tethered by a rather fragile thread. He will be Holy and Righteous only so long as he does what his followers want him to do. A complete inversion of what Modern religions believe. You are supposed to get holy by following religion not by religion following you. Some one is in for a rude awakening. Either That One or his followers.

The State is my shepherd. I shall not want. The cry of Socialists from the days of Karl Marx. "A Republic if you can keep it." Of course the State as a religion was the downfall of the Roman Republic. So it looks like we can't keep it. After a 1,700 year fight get get back to republican government it took only another 200 years or so to lose it. And why is that? Because the State as a religion is always tugging at humans. They like it. They have liked it for as long as there have been States. Well most of them like it. Me? Not so much. The Emperor is naked. He is also stark raving mad. But don't tell him that. It upsets the Emperor and enrages his followers.

So now maybe some of you can get a glimmer of why I have an antipathy to the State as arbiter of economics or culture. Those are both faces of the State as religion. Worship the one true god or face punishment. And with the state having the guns the punishment need not wait until the hereafter. Of course it is no longer a matter of the State just punishing the wicked which is probably a lawful job. Now a days the State can punish the merely sinful. That will keep folks on the straight and narrow. Or else cause a rebellion. Depending.

It is rather obvious that humans are more than passing strange. Interesting to watch though. Very interesting.

Naturally, not being well versed in Christian doctrine I'm sure my social conservative friends will show me the error of my ways. Have at it guys.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

A New Secular Religion

OK. Here is the deal. Communism is a secular religion. Now we could attack it by countering with religion which means attacking not only the economic understanding but in addition you have to make a non-believer a believer. That is a two factor problem.

Easier to reduce it to a one factor problem. Define a secular religion that makes a republic work. We could call it Educated Patriotism.

Let me start with the first precept:

Honesty is the best policy

Here is the second:

Doubt. Even the truth.