Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Nightfly gives it a good think:
[T]here are so many more approaches to right and wrong. You can be on the right track but not quite there, or wrong on principle, or hopelessly muddled, or etc. etc. You can reach the right conclusion stupidly. You can outsmart yourself and be completely wrong despite years of training and experience. And everyone else around you can be in similar states of approach or withdrawl, their voices can carry more or less weight in the discussion…None of those things is possible in “us vs. them.” There are only three categories, and the only one of them that’s RIGHT is US. If you’re not an us, you are either a them, or raw material. A THEM is always wrong because it’s not US, and the undecideds have to be gathered up into RIGHT/US, quickly, before they are “misled” by THEM.
:
It’s putting “us vs. them” and “right vs. wrong” in front of “good vs. evil” that tends to lead to outrageous abuses and tyrannies in the name of “progress.” That’s the process in use when freedoms are set aside in favor of “it’s for your own good.” It’s how people who forward a critique based on behavior or policy are told that they really only oppose or question things due to personal animosity, or mental impairment, or moral defect. Ultimately, it’s how people themselves become objects. By making all things personal, persons themselves are squeezed out, lose their personality. Mere things are the thing, and no thing is innocent or inoffensive, and no thought or behavior is private.
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Boo la boo laaaaa, boo la boo laaaa….
- CaptDMO | 05/18/2012 @ 10:19It’s putting “us vs. them” and “right vs. wrong” in front of “good vs. evil” that tends to lead to outrageous abuses and tyrannies in the name of “progress.”
Well said.
And that tendency then infects everything else we do and say. For instance, this weekend I became privy to the leftist hive-mind’s latest defense of ObamaCare (coming soon to a Daily Show near you): since it’s not single-payer, it’s guaranteeing the profits of private insurance companies; therefore, far from being socialistic, it’s a triumph of free-market capitalism.
I kid you not.
How does one even begin to debate a statement like that? Clearly none of those words are tethered to reality in any recognizable way — since it’s not outright nationalization, with a HealthCare Kommissar and a Five Year Plan, it’s therefore all about capitalism. I can barely type those words with a straight face, but this notion was advanced and “discussed” in that earnest, smug, everybody-gets-a-brownie way that makes liberals so charming in groups.
Clearly us-vs-them had laid out the conclusion far in advance, and the abstract form of an argument — tossing out the phrase “free market” the way superstitious people throw salt over their shoulders — was only there to make it seem as if gosh, we tried reasoning with these people, but they just refused to be rational about it.
- Severian | 05/19/2012 @ 18:01