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...
Gagdad Bob, that is. He’s wondered about it before, I think we all have, and it keeps coming back to him, as it haunts us all.
Many on the left especially object to “labels,” but what is it that makes it so easy to divide the majority of people into two ideological camps, with so many seemingly unrelated issues falling into line?
What is the relationship, say, between global warming hysteria, belief in government imposed racial discrimination, and support of the judicial redefinition of marriage? What do these things have in common, if anything?
Or, on the other hand, what is the common thread between limited government, a strong military defense, and freedom of school choice? Why are people who want vouchers also less likely to favor state imposition of “homosexual marriage,” while the same folks who believe in catastrophic global warming don’t see global jihad as a big problem? Why is Obama much harder on Fox News than Iran? And what’s his real problem with the First Amendment?
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I might add that I really want to be fair to the left. Of course we like to kid, but it really is a curiosity. Why do so many issues hang together in the way they do? For most liberals, the answer is easy: it’s because conservatives are evil, greedy, racist-sexist-homophobes. And for most conservatives, it’s because liberals are wrong and misguided. But why are we evil or they wrong in such systematic ways? Why does one person imagine that Rush Limbaugh is a “hatemonger,” but not see that Keith Olbermann is the real deal? And why are right wing televangelists and left wing tenurevangelists both so tediously predictable?
Well, here’s how I solve the problem. You begin with the “hard” contradictions, reasoning that whatever force is at work polarizing us, it should be strongest and therefore most easily detected there. For me, this is a duality of other seemingly-unrelated issues: The death penalty and abortion. This right to life the “right wing” seems to think the unborn have, appears to be identical to the right to life the “left wing” thinks convicted murderers have. Both sides are selective about when & where people have an “absolute” right to life and both sides selectively relax this supposedly sacred right in certain situations.
The left, however, on closer inspection doesn’t really treat this as a “right” (pun not intended), but rather something the state is — we are — not allowed to do. If the convicted murderer is waiting for his execution date and then a fellow prisoner murders him in prison, you won’t find too many left-wingers inspired to talk about the murdered convict’s “rights” that were violated. So this isn’t really about human dignity, it’s about prohibition for prohibition’s sake — a subtly different thing. Are there any human rights we have, just because we’re human, that trump the things our government wants to do? Just a year or two ago that was an easy question to answer in lefty-land. With one of their own in charge, though, the well runs dry. We have the right to speak freely…seek redress of grievances…be secure in our homes, papers and personal effects…until such time as this would conflict with the passage of “good” legislation, then you can forget about it.
And this speaks to the issue of why a convicted murder who is proven to take the lives of others casually, even recreationally, enjoys a “right to life” that an inconvenient baby does not. It also explains why there is a zeal on the left side of things that is not present on the right — I should say, among those inclined toward conservatism. It is about human dignity or lack thereof. If Gagdad Bob makes an exhaustive list of these issues, in fact if any of us do, he/we will see this straight, consistent line cleanly divides those two concepts: People are glorious autonomous captains of their own vessels — versus — people are cattle to be managed.
And the leftist passion comes from a Faustian bargain. Once you’ve given something away that makes you, and everyone like you, less dignified…you want everyone else in earshot and line-of-sight to participate in the same exchange. It helps to preserve the fantasy that the thing you’ve given away was never really there to begin with.
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