House of Eratosthenes

Firstly, Robyn Blumner is a “hyperlib.” She shows evidence of motivation for being a liberal, that goes well beyond any desire to impress or ingratiate herself with others. She seems to genuinely believe private-sector endeavors are harmful to her. Interestingly, once again we have the spectacle of someone who labors under this delusion but is mostly unwilling to state exactly why. Her supporting arguments are anecdotal, and her anecdotes are cherry-picked and slanted. Naturally, she comes to the conclusion that the motives of government are pristine by nature, and the motives of business are rancid and rotten by nature. Better than fifty-fifty odds she came to that conclusion because she wanted to. Why did she want to?

Secondly, she has interesting hair. But her facial features are distorted and weird-looking. I strongly suspect that the hair is a compensatory agent for something else far uglier, and I further suspect that this is a metaphor for her liberalism.

Thirdly, I’ve never heard of an online article that accepts comments that, when submitted, must be no longer than two hundred fifty characters. In addition to that, the comments are moderated. And the moderator seems to be exceptionally lazy. I mean, you just knew what I was going to do when I ran into that, I submitted a comment that was exactly 250 characters, not 249 or 251…a little on the smarmy side…and I’m just waiting to see if they run it. They haven’t posted my comment, but they haven’t posted anything since yesterday morning either.

This woman is warped. Her arguments cry out not so much for philosophical dissection, as for therapy. Consider…

What I can’t get out of my head is the way we’ve been suckered again into believing the malarkey sold by Milton Friedman, Ronald Reagan, Alan Greenspan and a long list of conservative think tanks, that the market is our savior. It is so convenient to make government the bad guy, the one who interferes with everyone’s pot of gold, and make open markets the answer to what ails, as Reagan did so often. But the historical reality is that the free market has a dark side that causes social displacement and instability, and by its nature it is an uncaring thing.

“Savior.” “Uncaring thing.” From where, exactly, comes this breathless quest in search of saviors and caring things?

How do you get this way, exactly? Has this woman never in her life experienced some kind of conflict about life’s goals, ambitions, etc. against some nanny-savior that was so “caring” about her? Never had that “ooh, I just gotta be me” feeling? About anything? Ever? She must not have. Or else…maybe she faced down a disaster that was so dark and dire and threatening, that pleading for a savior was the only thought that went screaming through her blow-dried coifed little red head and all “gotta be me” thoughts are long gone. If so, how bad was it? What is the worst problem she, personally, ever had?

So after the government’s done rescuing Wall Street, the rest of us could use some kind attention too. But we’d need a different government for that — a very different government.

This is what makes her, in my mind, a “hyperlib.” Consider the ramifications involved if this woman is being completely honest…and you’ll see why I have to doubt that so strongly. Government, according to her words, is kinda like Superman. We get into these fixes that are absolutely, positively, without hope…just like Jimmy Olson or Lois Lane falling out of an airplane, or getting lost in a forest fire. No internal resource, no mortal man, can help us; we need our savior.

But with George W. Bush in charge, the savior is an evil, perverted thing. A “Bizarro Superman” type of thing. So we need a “very different government.” We need to get that red Kryptonite out of here so Superman turns good again. Then we can go back to trusting him absolutely, completely, in every way possible. To save our kittens from trees, save our asses from forest fires, catch us when we fall off bridges, etc., etc., etc….and to run our lives for us.

To trust him completely.

Just as soon as he stops being evil.

So I don’t believe this woman or people like her. What they’re talking about is placing complete, unfiltered, undiluted, uncompromised power — and therefore trust — in this leviathan that is government. But only when the right people are in charge. Never a single syllable uttered about limiting the power to be invested in that resource just in case, you know, one day, from one year to the next — sometimes the right people aren’t in charge.

Which is one of the founding principles of this nation. We aren’t supposed to put that much authority in government, because we’re supposed to presume a good portion of the time the right people aren’t going to be running things.

“Hyperlibs” are people who say we can trust government, unconditionally. Just as soon as we get rid of George W. Bush and his crew. Until then, it is the essence of evil, malevolence, and darkness. According to their own words, we should get ready to bare our jugulars toward the fangs of government, right now, before the evil has been driven from it, while those fangs are still sharp, sparkling, and lunging at us.

Such a twisted edict must arise from an underlying philosophy that is either dishonest or incoherent. And I don’t believe it is incoherent. So a puzzle arises: What exactly are they hiding?

Update: The pattern continues. Yet another “hyperlib,” salivating for us all to live according to the socialist/collectivist model, ostensibly in response to our current day-to-day discomforts and problems — but one gets the unmistakable sense that the discomforts/problems have little or nothing to do with the impulse — turns out to be…GUESS WHAT?

I’m an atheist – so what?
By Robyn E. Blumner
Published August 8, 2004

“What is it,” asked German philosopher Friedrich Neitzche, “is man only a blunder of God, or God only a blunder of man?”

I vote for the latter.

Though I was brought up in a religious faith, it was at a very young age – preteen – that I realized I had no belief in God and no amount of indoctrination was going to change that. This sense of nonbelief has been so strong and abiding throughout my life that I find it virtually impossible to understand the psyches of people who believe in anything supernatural.

Just to be clear, it is not just God that I can’t fathom. I also reject the existence of Satan or any form of afterlife beyond the redistribution of the body’s matter. In my book there are no ghosts, golems, angels or spirits. I do not believe in psychic power, astrology or predestination – and forget about karma, kismet or crystals. My view is that the “soul” does not exist outside a functioning brain, nothing was “meant to be,” and things that seem inexplicable are not miracles or paranormal experiences, they are simply not yet explained.

If I was a foster parent to some being from another planet…if I had a genie living in my house…if I had thawed out a being frozen during the age of Atlantis…if it was, in any way, up to me to explain current events to some sentient being, capable of rational thought, but a stranger to recent history and our social customs — I would not be able to explain this.

Why are those who are so resistant to placing any faith in the “supernatural,” so eager to force everyone else to place faith in their socialist models of government?

If I were the thinking sentient being thawed out from the age of Atlantis, I would fully expect the faithful to be the socialists. Those who reject faith, I would expect to be rejecting socialism as well. That’s why you’re supposed to be turning your back on God, isn’t it? For the freedom? For the fatigue you have with “bigger” things “telling you what to do all the time”? And on the contrary, isn’t that supposed to be why a lot of the faithful are indeed faithful? The insecurity? They like to worship “together”? Like socialists? And so, I would expect my theory to make good sense…for it would…but it would be completely bass-ackwards wrong.

It is the godless who are socialists. Perhaps it can be explained because socialism doesn’t leave room for a god. But that doesn’t explain everything.

The consistency is just amazing. Oh sure, there are exceptions I know. But I could make a lot of money betting on the religious beliefs of those who want us to live like insects, surrendering our individual ambitions and desires for liberty, laying them at the altar of collectivism. I could bet they’re all atheists. Every single one of them. I could work my way through an endless Congo line of socialists, placing the wagers on one head after the next, without checking out a single thing about ’em. For the few times when I’m wrong, I could pay out ten-to-one odds and still end up a very wealthy man.

People who persist in this leftist, bug-like thinking, insisting everyone else do the same…are socialists. It is not a perfect pattern, but it is definitely a strong one.

Why is this such a consistent trend? The only explanation of which I can think, is that rejecting God leaves them hungry for a replacement, and so in socialism they have found the replacement.

I’m not so sure that it isn’t incoherent and only subconsciously dishonest.

What it is is willfully ignorant.

I subscribe to this publication, Imprimis — from Hillsdale College. It’s a college that refuses to take federal money so they can do as they like. Good model. This place is all about first principles.

They come I think once a month, and usually it’s basically a transcript of a speaker’s speech recently given at Hillsdale.

This article Limited Government: Are the Good Times Really Over? came yesterday. It’s a pretty good article overall. They usually are. I was a little shaky on some of it in the middle but all in all he’s on the right track. I think I would have made the agument a little differently and toned down the “why not” bits.

It’s like a personal defense course I took recently where gun safety was taught and emphasized. There were two things that seemed to contradict each other.

Rule #1 … guns are always loaded.

It conflicted with the “practice dry firing” directive. I emailed the instructor later and said that I was a bit concerned about getting too comfortable with my hand on the gun, too comfortable with my finger on the trigger … too comfortable not REALLY treating the gun as if it were loaded … when I practiced dry-firing.

His response was:

if you start on the conservative side of paranoid and work back slightly from there it is better than beginning at cocky and arrogant and having an “oh shit” like the ones I profiled force you toward more conservative measures. Your concern tells me you are probably doing it right.

One could apply that to the idea of limited government as well. The default position is to distrust larger government, but recognize that we do have government for a reason, and good government needs to allow for changes. But the basic overarching philosophy should be: keep it small. keep it limited. keep it simple.
- philmon | 04/02/2008 @ 10:33
Holy Klono’s Gadolinium Guts!

There are some of us that such thoroughgoing atheists that we do not buy “secular religion” [i.e all forms of Socialism] either.

Interestingly, the behavior of the die-hard neo-Marxist [i.e. anybody who is on the Left but tires to deny it] often resembles that of the die-hard Theist. Push reason upon them and they retreat into: ” NO! It cannot be! IT IS WRITTEN!!!” Whether it is written in the Koran, Das Capital, or Mein Kampf, the mindset is the same.

The central problem of the 20th Century is not a Lack of Gods but a Surfeit of Involuntary Utopias – Perfect Worlds that require ‘Just A Few Less People’ in them to ‘Finally Work Right’. Amazing how folks like me are usually among those that Have To Go. This explains my devotion to high-quality small arms.

I note that the positive, civilizing forces of religious faith [often wrongly igonored by atheists] operate best when they generate a low-key, tolerant cultural background [i.e Protestant Work Ethic, Catholic Individualism, Judaic Scholarship] rahter than an all-consuming narrative [Islam]. The same may be said for the notions like individual liberty, civic responsibility and free market economics when compared to the ruthless dictates of the various flavors of socialism, including the incoherent fanatisicm that woman demonstrated in your post.

“Reality is only a crutch for those that cannot face Science Fiction!”
- Old_Fan | 04/02/2008 @ 18:04
Why, I wonder… does he or she think that God or man is a blunder?
- philmon | 04/02/2008 @ 22:34
I love your writing but just a slight correction; that would be “conga” line.
Cheers – das
- das | 04/04/2008 @ 00:12

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