Saturday, February 28, 2009
Pessimism Sets in on the Economy
Dreamland is not so much fun--it is very socialistic!
I have plugged along all this while, hoping that there would be sanity in this administration and the liberal Congress, despite all that history, my mind and my intuition told me about Obama and the left. No more.
We supposedly have a GNP of some 13 trillion dollars per year. Obama is proposing to commit that much in one year to his stimulating pork projects and dissembling directions towards the leveling effects of socialism and communism. It is to be spent over some time, of course, but there is no doubt that we cannot sustain that level of expenditures year in and year out, nor can we spend like madmen for a year or three, and then cut back by, 60 %or 80%.
Nor will the economy recover and forge ahead that far in the time allotted. Rosy projections of what the economy will do simply won't cut it in today's business environment. So we end up with the government owning much of the industry and banking in order to find some income to service the national debt. That is socialism, pure and simple.
We are being conned into allowing socialism to take over, I believe, and the means for stopping it are not obvious to me. I fear for the way of life of my grandchildren. I have too few years left to worry much about myself; I have had a long life. But my worry is that America will not be what she has been for my offspring, and that I resent. I resent my family's future being gambled with by a smooth talking socialist bent on changing America radically, and I resent very heavily those who voted this paragon into office.
I will master my pessimism somehow, and I will find a way to fight for what I believe is the right direction for the nation with all of my remaining breath.
Obama lied, the economy died!
Labels: Socialism
Friday, February 27, 2009
Do Hats Explain Moonbats?
Lack of hats, that is!
Since the early 60's, men's dress hats have gone out of style, and it is still true that baseball caps are considered redneck in polite circles. So men have gone bareheaded, following the whimsical dictates of fashion. The recent use of pictures of men waiting in line for work during the last big depression triggered this comment. The men in line are all wearing hats of the fedora type.
I wonder if all of those exposed softheads on the left today, victims of wind and water and cold waves, have had an uncommon effect on our Moonbat class? I hate to think it has had the same effect on the conservative class!
But we are known for our hard heads, hat or no hat.
Labels: Hats
Monday, February 23, 2009
Rightwords Birthday
Rightwords continues undeterred into year five!
The birthday of my blog scuttled by with nary a peep of recognition from me. The very first post was on February 7, 2005. If nothing else, I have been very consistent in my views since then, after I read some of them over again. You can see where the blog has not attracted many commentors at all, and only about six or seven thousand readers over the four years of its existence. I had little ambition for the blog to become a hotspot, since I can post less frequently than would be usual to maintain wide interest, I do have a somewhat restricted set of interests, and I did not elect to post on current news feeds at all.
The one thing I do miss, however, are commentors that take the time to challenge my thinking, and to engage me in debate on the issues, or to amplify on what I propose. The other day, I recorded what was perhaps the largest single day's visit count ever, which was 65, with not one comment. This paucity of responders is what leads me to seek other places to post my own comments, and then sometimes to backfill the posts here as well. Still, I did think that many of my opinions were of sufficient interest that they would draw intelligent fire from the opposition! Alas, that has not happened!
Labels: Blogging, Comments on the day
Friday, February 20, 2009
Intelligent Design (Rev II)
A Very Brief Sketch of the Current State of Affairs
A number of critics of Intelligent Design (ID) have rejected this effort as interfering with their thrust to discredit Darwinian evolution. These critics believe that injecting what they see as yet another theory of evolution that is incomplete and certainly not as comprehensive as Darwinian Evolution Theory, or DT, to be simply off target and a waste of intellectual energy. Other critics have a different view, that of welcoming any attacks on DT, especially if they are as scientifically valid, as ID proponents believe, and that make a serious contribution to the understanding of macro and micro evolutionary biology, or biology per se.
These critics look to ID as merely a tool of discovery of some new and important phenomena and relationships to add to the general knowledge, and not a new theory of biological everything. Their view is that if it is good science, it should be supported for where it leads, and if the stronghold of DT is breached, so much the better, since random genetic mutation over complex organisms as in DT is the main target. The ID community has been jumping into the conceptual breaches of DT almost from its inception, notably using what they call the Wedge Approach.
What is the Wedge Approach used by many Intelligent Design adherents today? As I understand the wedge approach, it is meant to divide strong Darwinian Evolution Theory adherents, on the one hand, from those who are beginning to doubt DT; and on the other hand, to divide those who believe ID is merely unscientific Creationism, from those who believe ID does not champion Creationism at all, and is actually quite scientific in nature and useful.
This approach, then, is meant to stress marginal DT advocates by showing the deficiencies of random genetic mutation and natural selection. It is also intended to establish a hard decoupling of ID Theory itself from the stigma of Biblical Creationism. Their honest approach thus says "We don't know who, what, when why or how the universe, man and life has been created and evolved, but we are chipping away at a few aspects of the question."
There has been no secret about this approach. It was well-documented by Phillip Johnson in several of his books years ago, so there should be no surprise to it for anyone that has kept up.
The attack on DT by ID adherents (and others as well) is being carried out on both the macro and micro levels of evolutionary biology. From the macro level, it has been demonstrated that virtually none of the proposed hierarchies of evolving species have any true, unfettered, fundamental organizing principles—not, morphology, not DNA, and not genomes, for instance. They are all in startup trouble beginning at the Cambrian Period, demonstrations of valid common descent chains notwithstanding.
A more telling factor is that the billions of years that DT evolution supposedly required for random mutations and natural selection to work has been severely reduced, to the point that it appears to be mathematically impossible for random mutation/natural selection to have worked at all beyond single trivial steps, let alone the millions and millions of steps between the cell and a human being. That is, except for trivial adaptations entirely within species.
It has been pointed out that mutation/natural selection cannot create new biological information. Just how speciation takes place without the generation of new biological information is an unknown. However, it is true that single mutations of lower cellular structures do occur, just not at the scale of eukarotes.
Further, one of the standard retorts of DT adherents is that DT predicts what will be discovered in the so-called gaps in the fossil records. So the current lack of fossil proof, which many important DT’ers now acknowledge, will be taken care of in due course. Thus, DT’ers have exercised faith in their theory of an "inverse" version of “The God of the Gaps”, just as the ID’ers have been accused of having in their theory.
The ID’ers, on the other hand, have firmly divorced themselves from the Creationist label by demonstrating that they looking for sure signs of design, but not trying to identify the designer at all. No longer are they in the position of supporting a God of the Gaps.
Their tests to detect design have evolved around common sense identification of unnatural material things, the Dembski mathematical elimination or Explanatory Filter test, and the Behe “irreducible complexity” test, among others. When applied to such systems as the bacterial flagellum the tests clearly leave us with the question: “If this is not an example of intelligent design, and it is mathematically impossible for it to have evolved by mutation/natural selection, then what could possibly be the answer?” The ID’ers of today do not inject God as the answer into this situation.
Many people in science are reluctant to accept the idea that it is actually intelligent design that is at work, for that might mean that the next step would be a religious or transcendental interpretation that is unacceptable to them. Unlike true scientists, they are not going where the data takes them, but are ignoring it, because one of the possible outcomes does not fit into their preconceived notions of how things should be for methodological naturalism to hold. Thus, they still attack ID Theory ferociously, using somewhat specious definitions of what science is, and is not, in order to exclude ID from consideration.
So, the attack on ID immediately revolves around the definition of science, which the methodological naturalists or materialists claim to be the study of natural phenomena, and that only. Philosophers of science, however, totally reject this definition, and as a matter of fact, reject the current attempts at defining science canonically at all as being woefully incomplete and exclusive of what they believe science to be. They cite the existence of immaterial entities such as numbers to extend the universe of possibilities beyond the material, thereby negating methodological naturalism.
Further, they state that there is no fine line that can be drawn between what is science and what is not science, because no definition can bridge the problems of necessity and sufficiency adequately, without leaving some number of activities on the wrong side of the line that otherwise measure up to being true science. Not the least of which are most of the scientific investigations of the past 100 years or more, which is rediculous. Of the ten or fifteen most revered scientists of the past century, at least nine of them are avowed theists, including Einstein, but that most certainly does not invalidate their work.
These philosophers of science are dismissive of other scientists in various disciplines who state that ID is not science, because they are way out of their area of specialty, and are pontificating on things for which they have no proper foundation in scientific philosophy.
J. P. Moreland states that; “There is no set of necessary and sufficient conditions by which to define science.” He does agree, however, that there are useful rules of thumb that can help to clarify what science is. He believes that the application of the methods and tools of science in ID Theory can be accepted, then, as being within the purview of science.
But what of the usual tests of good science practice? The utility of a theory can be demonstrated by its ability to explain phenomena, and by its ability to predict further aspects of phenomena. Does ID Theory demonstrate these capabilities? The answer is yes.
ID Theory provides an excellent explanation of some observed phenomena that other approaches have not equaled. It is a theory that generates not only explanations, but also testable results, either positive or negative, as has been shown in the cases of the bacterial flagellum and blood clotting mechanisms, among others. The attempts at refuting these two examples have all failed as of this writing.
The argument rages on, with each side--pro and contra ID Theory--taking hard hits and then recovering to throw their own punches back: a “How could you possibly believe in ID?” from the DT’ers, and a plea from the ID’ers to “Please look at the evidence objectively!”
It is a show with an ID David facing a DT Goliath !
References:
1. Intelligent Design 101, H. Wayne House, General Editor, Kregel Publications, 2008.
2. The Edge of Evolution, Michael Behe, Free Press, 2007.
3. Intelligent Design, William Dembski, InterVarsity Press, 1999.
4. Doubts About Darwin, Thomas Woodward, Baker Books, 2003.
5. Darwin on Trial, Phillip Johnson, InterVarsity Press, 1993.
6. Intelligent Design Report, http://www.arn.org/
Labels: Darwinism, Intelligent Design, Science
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Conservative Challenges
Our Changed Electorate May Oppose Conservatism
We appear to have fallen into the trap of ignoring the social and individual changes that have afflicted our society over the past 50 years that are terribly damaging to conservative prospects.
Rather than writing a book to support this thesis, I will cite just a few of the changes:
1) Education has stultified and narrowed its scope drastically at the direction of the Dewey liberals and radical professors. We have not prepared whole generations for effective citizenship in a Republic that is fundamentally conservative in its Constitutional origin.
2) Religion has become less and less influential in the lives of Americans, perhaps as the churches have changed their outlook radically in an effort to stay relevant to new generations of prospective parishioners that appear to be more hedonistic, more undisciplined, and more ignorant, or else, more activist and disruptive non-believers.
3) The electorate has been decidedly augmented with minorities that are gaining significant political power and influence, quite often without a redeemingly strong orientation toward American values, language and mores, but with a strong desire for American dollars.
4) Liberals have been singing their laissez faire, hedonistic and even anti-American song for the same 50 years, raising the ideas of the communist and socialist parties of the past with new verbiage, new financing, and new power. Progressives of today were spawned by those discredited ideologies, and are enchanted by the idea of a new international order. The attack on our moral fiber, the diminution of marriage, the sanctity of life, the explosion of porn, and the fact that 60% of our children are now born into a single-parent household, speaks to the, perhaps unintentional—perhaps not—, net effect of liberal consequences on the public. Look to the program of the ACLU for proof.
5) Our courts have become the legislators of last resort, and have collectively decided to be the writers of the new constitution, word and sentence at a time.
All of the above, and other aspects that I have not included, such as the influence of militant pacifism, leads me to believe that our public is losing its way under the serious challenges we face, so that they easily fall under the progressive spell. This is because of the attraction of a forgiving government—forgiving of taxes, forgiving of sexual mistakes; forgiving of killing babies; forgiving of the need to work; forgiving of illegal entry, avoidance of war and death; and ever claiming to be the champion of the little man.
Into this environment comes the conservative, who believes in self-reliance, individual responsibility, right-sized and efficient government, maximizing of freedom and liberty, and all the rest of conservative ideology, especially the idea of sovereignty. It is apparent that a large percentage of the citizenry will not be enamored of this litany, no matter how it is promoted. Where is the payoff to them for becoming more civilized and more disciplined? Why should they?
For the conservative movement, does it have to run hard to catch up with this uncivilized, hedonistic crowd in order to lead it? What in the world does that mean? Should the movement throw its principles into the can in order to gain power? If so, the movement is becoming liberal-lite, and therefore irrelevant.
It is very possible that we conservatives are indeed irrelevant to the majority body politic of today, because it isn’t a majority body politic that is amenable to conservatism. Our principles are a very hard sell to them, and their principles are impossible for us to accept.
The question, then, is what must we do in such a situation?
Labels: Conservatism
Friday, February 13, 2009
I am Frightened--Socialism is on the March
Obama Leads Us toward Socialism
A very few days of Obama's Presidency, and we are beginning to see the man for what he is, and what he stands for: socialism, with a twist.
We have effectively one-party rule now, and it seems that no one can stop it from transforming the nation into a socialist nightmare--American style.
The so-called stimulus bill is a case in point. The bill was railroaded through Congress, not allowing time for its thousand pages to be read by any Legislator at all. We do not know what is in that bill, not fully, and I predict that it will contain provisions that Americans will chafe under, and rebel against. What we thought would be a reduced bill of about 790 billion dollars, seems to have exploded to 1.2 trillion dollars, as the markups turned out to be add-ons.
Clarification: The current bill authorizes 787 billion dollars, of which much is devoted to construction on highways, railroads, bridges, federal buildings, military building and the like. My point was that these expenses and others, will very likely overrun their planned budgets by at least 100% in the coming years, adding about 400 billion dollars to the total. One can examine the many building projects of the government during the past 20 years, where a 100% overrun is considered a success!
More then any other President, Obama is ruling by Executive Decree. He has already negated most of the orders of the Bush era by fiat, and without any transparency whatsoever. He has gone back on his campaign promises to conduct the business of the government in an open and transparent manner.
However, he has not reined in the presiding Nuts in Congress--Pelosi and Reid, or their corps of dishonest politicians. He didn't have real input into the stimulus bill! Instead, he allowed the Nuts to write it, and the Nuts turned the task over to their staffs. So it is the wild and woolly staffs that know in detail what is in the bill, not their fearless leader Moonbats.
Obama is angling to capture the Census Bureau, and put it directly under his thumb. Why is this important? The Census is the way we decide how many legislators we will have from each district. If you subvert the Bureau into a political pawn of the Democratic Party, guess who profits from this? Do you believe that the Democratic Administration will refrain from cooking the books to ensure more Democrats get into Congress? We will be faced with a Thousand Year Democratic Reich, if we can avoid the concentration camps.
Obama entered into correspondence with the Iranian Government before he was elected, telling them how he would be easier on them, so let's play nice. This is not how candidates should act behind the back of a sitting President.
His minions are about to introduce bills that disarm the citizenry, which is arguably the first step to ensure no uprising of an armed populace against his tyranny. All you have to do is watch each step to see where it is all heading: a socialist takeover of the government and industry.
Up front, he sounds good. He sounds like someone that cares for this nation. But his behind-the-scenes actions belie this. He has made a cock up of his appointments to senior staff, and his policies were just too much for Gregg.
Virtually all of the pre-election faults we found with Obama are coming true in spades. He is a little man with wrong ideas for the nation. He duped much of the nation into electing him with high-sounding rhetoric, but with little substance. Hope and Change indeed! For him. Fear and Resentment for us all. And, watch as the Constitution is altered beyond recognition.
The mid-term elections in 2010 are probably our last and best hope to derail this socialist train before it is too late.
We Want Sane Government
We Want Honest and Open Government
We Want Efficient and Cost-Effective Government
We Want Responsible, Strong on Defense Government
We Want Our Sovereign Borders to Remain Sovereign
We Want Conservative, Constitutional Government
We are not getting it now. The Moonbats are in control. You don't get out of debt by going into greater debt, which is the path we are on: the path of bankruptcy.
May God help us from our growing national misery!
Labels: Obamania, Socialism, Stimulus
Monday, February 09, 2009
Smaller-Government Ideas of Conservatism
One man, one government employee?
After reading “Outrage” by Dick Morris, one can surmise that fully a fifth of the national budget can be chalked up to fraud, graft, quasi-legal junketing, subsidies unnecessarily paid out to favorite big farmers, drug companies, the UN, Fannie Mae, for Illegal immigrants, and trade protection, among other extravaganzas.
If one increases the size of government, one could expect a similar increase in these practices, or even a further penetration and corruption of the political scene, not unlike the so-called stimulus pork project. A billion here, and a billion there, and you soon have a fully corrupted process.
Before letting government grow to its theoretical service-to-the-people limit, why not insist on cleaning up the fraud and corruption first, and the waste, mismanagement, and deadhead personnel that bloats payrolls and budgets throughout the Departments, Agencies, etc?
The concept that there just might eventually be one government employee for each civilian so as to cater to the citizen’s every wish is perhaps one theoretical limit to be avoided. Once over 50% of the population garners their wages from the US government, we are well on the way to restrictive socialism and who knows what excesses? This would put freedom and liberty for our citizens in great jeopardy.
Let us first concentrate on greater honesty and efficiency of government, legislators, lobbyists, and industry before allowing insatiable growth of government to satisfy every whim of the “Need and Right” groups.
Go to the LSU website to see just how many identifiable federal government organizations actually exist, have a staff, and budget. At last report it was 1,177 boards, committees, agencies, commissions, bureaus and the like. Many of these organizations have overlapping charters, separate rules and and a thirst for participation in the business of the day to justify their existence. We have become Russia, governed by 10,000 (or a lot more) clerks, not the leaders.
http://www.lib.lsu.edu/gov/index.html
It is all well and good to deep six the idea of smaller government, but we must have our government honest, minimally invasive of our freedoms and liberties, efficient, and cost-effective.
You don’t get there by opening the door to growth without reform.
Labels: Conservatism, Government, Government Handouts, Honesty, Stimulus
Thursday, February 05, 2009
Financial Survival Mode is Hard to Find
The Stimulus Package is Irrelevant
My concern now is that the so-called “stimulus” package will not be nearly enough to right our financial ship just now, and downstream, we are facing an even far greater financial disaster as many international derivative and 100 to 1 leverage instruments tank, which has already begun, and is gathering momentum. July will not be a nice month. Several financial gurus predicted this leverage tsunami over five years ago, but they were drowned out by naysayers that hadn’t the right information to predict such a failure of the largest economy in the world.
All of the energy devoted to the stimulus package as it stands is a complete waste of time, and it’s benefits will be inundated real soon now by a host of bank and financial firms going belly-up despite any attempts to save them. There isn’t enough money to do it, by far.
So much for change and hope. It is absolutely correct that we need imaginative new solutions to our soon to be fully devastated financial community and much of our industry. The scope of this crying need is just beginning to emerge, yet the average citizen is probably unaware of just how bad it is going to be in the next six months or so.
It seems that neither is the President or Congress really aware, or else they are in fact aware, but resigned to being able to build only little five foot brick walls against the mile high financial tsunami that is coming at us at warp speed.
Who knew? Shoot the b*****ds for ruining our nation!
Labels: Democrats, Money Matters, Obama, Stimulus
