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...
Summit II
Well folks, it’s looking more and more like I was right when I said things were cresting out and we were due for a downfall. People are definitely getting stupider. Eight propositions were up for voter approval in the special election yesterday, and all eight of them bit the mat hard.
We hate things the way they are, but we love them the way they are.
Meanwhile, some guy has posted a thesis about why libertarians are idiots. I know it’s just some random page on the vast innernets, but I know he represents a lot of people. His argument is this: First, he wants to single out the extremists who actually want a small government, “if you voted against Bush, we can probably get along just fine”. Okay, so if you’re a reasonable guy you should want a BIGGER government than George W. Bush wants. Wow.
And why should we want this? What’s wrong with the people who don’t? “It’s hard to read libertarians without concluding that they’ve never been out of the country — perhaps never out of the suburbs”.
They don’t know what Latin American rule by the elite looks like; they don’t know any way of running an industrial economy but that of the US; they don’t know what an actually oppressive government looks like; they’ve never experienced a depression; they’ve never lived in a slum or experienced racial discrimination. At the same time, they have a very American sense of entitlement: a gut feeling that they’ve earned the prosperity they were born into, that they owe the community nothing, that they deserve to have whatever they want, that no one should stand in their way.
In short, they’re spoiled, and they’ve evolved a philosophy that they should be spoiled.
Wow. Just wow, wow, double-wow.
I don’t mean to diminish this guy’s message. After the his-own-buttocks buffet Governor Schwarzenegger was handed this morning, it’s clear this hater of individuality is far more numerically significant, today, than I am, and his opinion is important. True, his argument is pure sophistry. There are people who passionately agree with him, who are disgracefully cloistered in by tiny neighborhoods they’ve never left, and there is a demonstrable link between the cloistering and the passion. True, there are enthusiastic libertarians who have lived under “rule by the elite” and this oppressive existence has fomented their libertarianism; Ayn Rand, herself, comes to mind. And true, those two examples by themselves devastate his blatant generalization intellectually. But as far as charting a course as to where California goes from here, as well as the nation, I think he’s far more important than I am.
The public is in the mood for a little bit of hammer-and-sickle redistributionism.
Note how well the article is written. This guy is no dummy, and I think he’s being sincere. So we have a social environment wherein a fairly sharp mind can be convinced that libertarians are spoiled and dull-witted, and redistributionists are sophisticated and by-and-large enjoy a broader world view.
These people think our society will end up more prosperous if, whenever individuals become prosperous, they are compelled by the law to separate themselves from that prosperity and give it to people who think work is for suckers, so that everyone can share. Then, we should expect, next year those prosperous people will work just as hard to be prosperous.
Yeah, that makes perfect sense to me. I know reading this kind of stuff just fills me with enthusiasm to fill out the job applications and get that better education so I can beef up that salary. All those people on welfare depending on me, as they say.
Sheesh.
Sorry, I’m just not in that cheerful of a mood this morning.
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