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...
It gratifies my heart to see a column like this called “incredible“. It is a simple and durable stone-by-stone, brick-by-brick, layer-by-layer perusal of sturdy, irrefutable logic. Perhaps I should go back to writing up blog posts the same way I write software, then I can do some incredible stuff too.
Regardless, this is pretty awesome:
The source of all rights is the right to life, and its sole implementation is the right to property, the right to use the products of your efforts to sustain your life. The rights to liberty and the pursuit of happiness are the rights to enjoy your life and use your property. Rights are an objectively necessary requirement of human life, principles which apply equally to all persons and at all times. In sum, rights are freedoms for rational beings to take the actions necessary to fulfill and enjoy their lives. Any alleged “right” which violates these rights is not a right, but an excuse for a crime.
The only way to violate individual rights is through the initiation of force. A person who initiates force against you is attempting to negate your means of survival by forcing you to act against your judgment as to what your life requires. The only moral use of force is in retaliation against those who initiate its use. The sole proper purpose of government is to protect its citizens’ rights by banning the initiation of force and placing its retaliatory use under objective control. The purpose of the U.S. Constitution was, and is, to establish and maintain the supremacy of individual rights over our society and our government.
:
There is no more time to evade this choice. Will we recognize the existence of individual rights and the full meaning of what they are and what they require, or will we accept the institutionalized slavery of enforced service of all to all, where ability is penalized and need is encouraged? [emphasis mine]
This kind of gets back to what I was talking about with regard to freedom. It is, when all’s said and done, an enforceable prohibition against some outsider interfering with your routine transactions, using some kind of genuine or made-up authority to coerce you into doing things his way.
You have it, or you don’t. There is no in-between. And if we’re all going to vote to manufacture for ourselves new “rights,” then that means we are surrendering the freedom of whatever poor dumb bastard is supposed to pay for it. And that means we’re surrendering the freedom of everybody; we’re making freedom into a non-significant, non-binding, non-give-a-fuck attribute of our humanity.
If you believe in any kind of a deity whose will was responsible for putting us where we are, then you have to believe we were designed and built for a more dignified existence.
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The horror and frightening events of Ruby Ridge seem to be echoing these words.
- Catmoves | 04/27/2010 @ 12:05Slowly, carefully, we seem to be being regimented into an acceptance of “whatever some faceless minion in a manufactured position of power tells us, we are required to do and agree it is the correct and right thing to do”.
The really scary part is that it does not seem to matter which of our two main political parties is in control.
Just sayin’.
That IS a thing of beauty. Clear and succinct.
- philmon | 04/27/2010 @ 18:32It was a great article, but I could have done without the comments from “greathornedlizard” or whatever he/she/it calls him/her/it self. It’s the same old left-wing garbage we see thrown at conservatives time and again:
Conservative: Here’s the problem, here’s the solution. Here’s the reason my solutions will work, and/or here is what is wrong with what’s been tried before.
Liberal in response: You’re stupid, everyone who agrees with you is stupid, and I hope all of you racist sexist imperialist bigots die.
And we wonder why they stoop to various forms of shut-uppery in lieu of mounting an argument.
- cylarz | 04/27/2010 @ 23:17