Honzo May 22nd, 2005

I make no bones about it, I am not fair and balanced. I believe in
certain things and I therefore am biased towards them. I am rational
though. I don’t just take things for granted or ignore the issues.
Personal Responsibility and Choice are the two most important things to
me. People must have those two elements in their lives. One half is the
person’s part, the other is the government’s.

Where do I get my news?
Internet

Mostly Google News, and Drudge for news. When I want to find out about something, I use Wikipedia.

I know what people say about Drudge, they say he is biased (he is),
they say some of his flashes are gossip (they are), some even say he is
gay (what does that matter?), but the fact remains that he is very
to-the-second on his stories and has a lot of good finds. Google News
is the only non-biased (or perhaps the most biased) news site on the
planet. Everyone else can pretend to be, but Google News just returns
what is the most read news stories on the web. It is done be the
computer, not people with an agenda.

Wikipedia is just about the best site on the Internet for information.

Besides those two, I read the BBC, Fox News, and CNN.

That is where I get my news. For my column choices I mainly read
Town Hall and Boortz. For my daily does of anti-left medicine I read
Allah is in the House and LFG. Cartoons? Excellent, excellent is Cox
and Forkum. Also good is the Canadian Filibuster Cartoons.
Radio

I hate 95.6% of the music on the Radio waves, I I mostly try to
listen to talk. I mainly listen to the Eagle 93.9. Here is their lineup:

# 12 AM - 5 AM: Coast to Coast AM - Never really get a chance to
listen, but when I do, it is kooky, wired and entertaining (which is
it’s purpose)

# 5 AM - 8 AM:Griffin and Company - I like him a lot. Very libertarian, sometimes bumbling, but good local show.

# 8 AM - 11 AM: Glenn Beck Show - The best radio show ever.

# 11 AM - 1 PM: “The Radio Factor” w/ Bill O’Reilly - You may hate
him, but he makes the points. You always think when you listen to him,
whether you agree with him or not.

# 1 PM - 2 PM: Neal Boortz Show - Very libertarian, very
entertaining, very good show. Listen for a week before you complain
about his one.

# 2 PM - 5 PM: Sean Hannity - I will count my life well lived if I
don’t listen to this man ever again. Shrill and blind he is.

# 5 PM - 7 PM: Amy Miller - Voice is very, very annoying the first
few times you listen to her, but it does grow on you. Excellent new
comer to the talk radio game.

# 7 PM - 9 PM: Michael Savage - Hmm how to describe - Like O’Reilly
on crack… Porn for your ears… Train Wreck… hhmmm…. What is
known is that he makes outrageous statements, sometimes has good
points, but it is like fishing meat out of soup you don’t like. He is
entertaining - keeps your attention. Also has the absolute worst
website out there for talk radio. Heck it is hosted on Homestead for
crying out loud.

# 9 PM - 12 AM: Phil Hendrie - Funny guy, his is a fake talk show.
Most people don’t get it at first. Good stuff, sometimes get stupid,
like the time he pretended to go and shot of the chin’s knee caps.
Other times it is pure gold, like when he did Art Bell.

I would like to listen to NPR have a hard time finding stations, or
catching programs, a lot of the time they are playing classical music
(I think). I mostly listen to this when I am traveling a long ways.
They are like the anti-Reilly and anti-Savage. They act like they know
it all, sound quite condescending, etc… I do enjoy listening to them,
but as the cartoon above says, the are sometimes boring.

Update: I now know that you can listen online to shows. I am doing so now.
TV
I don’t have cable or satellite, so no TV for me. Just movies with Meredith.

Print

Don’t do a whole lot of print, but this is what I do read.
USA Today - Sometimes at work, on lunch
Wall Street Journal - Same as above
World Press Review - I subscribe to this magazine. I love it. Basically
it is a collection of articles from all over the world on certain
topics that the editor chooses. They have a great sampling of cartoons
the world over. They are Canadian, I think, and they try hard not to
let their anti-American bias spill over. For that I am very proud of
them.
Discover - Been getting this since I was a kid. I absolutely love it. Great sci. mag.
That is pretty much it.

• Personal
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Honzo May 22nd, 2005

An image has been haunting me the last few days. It’s not even an image. It’s a cartoon. A simple cartoon keeps reappearing in my mind the words of the story going over in my head.

I can’t believe it. I can’t imagine it. They hung the little girl. Only alive for sixteen years, and they murdered her.

What was her crime?

After her execution Rezai (the judge) said her punishment was not execution but he had her executed for her “sharp tongue”.

Did you get that? Whatever she was originally on trial for (I don’t
know what it was) did not merit execution. What did merit execution was
her “Sharp Tongue.” She talked back… and was hung in public for it!

Who does that? (Iranian Judge Haji Rezaii). What department of government does that? (Justice Department of Neka, Iran) What court upholds such a decision? (The mullahs’ Supreme Court) What government allows that? (The Islamic Republic of Iran)

It is very hard not to fill this section up with obsenites directed towards the Islamic Republic of Iran. I won’t though.

Update: She was on trial (sorry, that is
the word they use for it over there) for “acts incompatible with
chastity” - I don’t know what that means - could have been any thing
from showing too much of the face, talking to a male, not looking down,
to being a prostitute. I don’t know. In a bitterly funny side bit, she
reportedly started taking off her clothes to frustrate the judge at her
“trial”

More Talk about this

Oh man, the more I dig into this the upset I am getting.

Her name was:

Ateqeh Sahaleh

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Honzo May 22nd, 2005

Freedom is a hard thing to understand. The most basic principal is
quite simplistic and historically, novel. The outworking of the
principal of freedom is not nearly as simplistic.

Most simply put, freedom is choice. The “choice to do X” is the “Freedom of X.”

Enter government:
If the government makes choices for you, then it limits one’s choice
and therefore one is not free. If it leaves more and more choices to
the person, then it is freer, it has a higher standard of liberty. Now
here is where it gets tricky.

It is easy to live within a structure. I am darn good at it. Take me
out of that structure, then I can revert to laziness, lack focus, shift
priorities; as a result, I screw up. Sometimes I long for that
structure, those walls that allow me to have security and advance my
goals. Choice for me would be limited. Sometimes I would give up my
choice for security.

I am less free. Am I less of a person? If one voluntarily gives up
their choice, are they limiting themselves? Does choice create part of
a person? Does it flesh out aspects of their personality? I am quite
sure that it does in their mind. If I am a blindly believing Christian
(Jew, Muslim, Hindu, atheist, etcetera) and I never question or think
about why I believe and act the way I do, I am less developed,
mentally, emotionally, and personality-wise, than a person who has.

Now, clearly a self governing person is more “fit” than a person
governed by outside forces - religion, political structures, and
etcetera. Therein lies the hard part: Becoming a self governing person.
Many don’t want to be. I friend of mine at work is from Ireland and
tells me that many in Europe want to go back to the structure of the
Soviet Union. They have that same wish that I have from time to time of
living in monkey bars.

I am terrible at self governing. I know people that have exceptional
abilities and when they are given complete freedom they are just like
me - they revert to laziness, lack focus, shifting priorities and seem
to flounder - and yet these people have more ability than the people
around them.

What separates the people who make it in a free society from those
who don’t? - It seems to be discipline. What is discipline? It appears
to be the ability to establish goals, set a method of accomplishing
them, and then sticking to the methods through the easy and the hard
times.

How does one obtain this discipline? None are born with it. Few -
mostly those that are forced to (by poor circumstance) - learn it by
themselves. Usually it is grafted onto a person by structures. These
structures can be parents, school, government, or even military. Most
importantly, it is taught by a structure that limits choice and alters
the persons so that they can be given the power to govern their own
lives.

So, the only way for a society to be a largely self-governing one,
the members of that society must, at an early age, be given structure
by a structure so that they might be able live through the choices they
will be able to make in the future.

This seems to be a contradiction in principals: In order to have a
free society, the ideal of liberty must be momentarily suspended
involuntarily so that a good citizen can be created, one that can
effectively govern itself. Yet, if this ability to govern one’s self is
not given to a person, then the society will inevitably descend into
chaos and ultimately succumb to a ridged structure, either by a
demagogic dictator or by outside force. The void of discipline is a
vacuum - it seeks to be filled, it is a negative pressure.
I guess I want an educated, free society.

• Philosophy
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Honzo May 22nd, 2005

The site The UN is Evil is an
interesting one. It brings up several good points about the United
Nation’s draw-backs. It is a bit harsh and non-objective at times.
However it does address key issues that one should think about before
giving automatic moral clearance to everything the UN touches.

Key Issues

1. Sovereignty of Free Nations
2. Individual Rights
3. Middle East Conflict (is it biased? Refer to LGF for info)
4. The New Racism?
5. Appeasement of Dictators
6. Rule of Law (The World Court Issue)
7. Global Taxation

I will end this post with a quote from Ayn Rand

There is no margin for error about a monstrosity that was created for
the alleged purpose of preventing wars by uniting the world against any
aggressor, but proceeded to unite it against any victim of aggression.
The expulsion of a charter member, the Republic of China [Taiwan]-an
action forbidden by the U.N.’s own Charter-was a ‘moment of truth,’ a
naked display of the United Nations’ soul.

What was Red China’s qualification for membership in the U.N.? The
fact that her government seized power by force, and has maintained it
for twenty-two years by terror. What disqualified Nationalist China
[Taiwan]? The fact that she was a friend of the United States. It was
against the United States that all those beneficiaries of our foreign
aid were voting at the U.N. It was hatred of the United States and the
pleasure of spitting in our face that they were celebrating, as well as
their liberation from morality-with savages, appropriately, doing
jungle dances in the aisles.

- AYN RAND

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Honzo May 22nd, 2005

This is a response to an earlier post…

I am divided. On the one hand, I want to completely disassociate
ourselves with the region of the world and give my good riddance.

On the other hand, there is so much room for opportunity.
Opportunity for teaching, loving, growth, chance to heal great
injustices, such as the treatment of women in the majority of the
societies in the Middle East and Islamic societies.

The human ideas of freedom, responsibility, justice,
peace, understanding, can be taught to anyone. Any people, when given
the chance to develop their own view of the world can reach great
heights as a society.

Through my line of work, I have come into contact with many of the
people in my community from that region of the world (primarily people
from Jordan and Iraq). I must say that I have been very impressed. They
are intelligent, funny, good natured, hard working, loving to their
families, honest, ect…

No one can say that the people are innately bad. It is the people
and institutions in the cultures that breed fundamentalism, fanaticism,
extremism, hatred, ect…. It is that that must be rooted out. I firmly
believe that the societies need to take the responsibility for the
changing of their cultures. Therein lays the dilemma. If those that
breed all the bad things are in power, hold power by force and the
indoctrination of the masses of hatred, then how can the society
change? Certainly not thru the method Gandhi used; the protesters would
be destroyed, and their attackers would not feel remorse like the
British did. It is very messy overthrowing the existing government and
trying to help the people set up a new, free one (see the situation in
Iraq). What does that leave us? Supporting and fermenting revolutions
in said extremist countries? Should we do that in Iran and let the
people of Iran handle it themselves? Could we have done that in Iraq?
We could have probably not have done that.

There are no easy answers. To do nothing is equally bad in my
opinion. If we did nothing then we would need to take and extremely
defensive stance on everything. We would need big brother to be safe.
Who wants that?

Ultimately, the only solution to the problem of terrorism is to root
it out by a variety of methods by a variety of institutions. The Muslim
leaders must start to counter the extremist message. They must prove
they are a “Religion of Peace”. It is their responsibility to teach
peace, love, and understanding with those they disagree with. That is
on their backs, not ours. What is on our backs is to tackle the
problems of the extremist governments that are holding back the
progress of the cultures and religions contained in said countries.

What that suggests is scary. Does it give us license to conquer the
world and then give it back? I do not think that is the course of
action to take. The best path lies with a variety of solutions, from
what we did in Iraq, to supporting and inciting democratic revolutions,
to pressuring countries to change their ways, ect… If we truly want to
solve the problem of extremism, this is what it is going to take, a
world movement involving huge investments of time, manpower, patience,
pain, and money. It will involve the participation of the religions and
nations of the world working together to root out this evil.

Is our nation ready to accept that cost? Is
Christianity? Is Judaism? Is Islam? Is Hinduism? Is the United Nations?
Is the European Union? Is Buddhism? Are you?

Probably, no one is. People are too fickle. At least not until
something very devastating happens, such as nukes going off in cities,
deadly viruses devastating continental populations. If nothing is done,
something on the above scales will happen. It is not a question of
“if”, but one of “when”. Then, after the unthinkable happens, will the
world wake up and do something about this.

• Personal
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Honzo May 22nd, 2005

Hello my peeps how are you all doing? First off, I must tell you
that I love my wife and that she just made for me the most wonderful
batch of chocolate-peanut-butter-no-bake cookies

I am doing well. I do not have much time to blog, or even post in
the forums. My life is busy right now. I work from 8-5 and have class
7:45-10 each day. However, I am thinking about you all. What do you all
be doing with your time? Do you all use the correct form of be when you
write, type, & speak? I do sometimes, anyway, I am taking to
general courses this session, but I am really soaking them up. It is
psychology and western civ. I have not been very keen on the two
subjects but I have recently decided to add these subjects to my
knowledge base.

Earlier in my life when I was less mature religiously, I considered
History irrelevant. What mattered was that Christ was going to come and
that previous history other than the history of the origins of
Christianity. And when it come to Psychology I took the stated
“Christian” approach… that it had a flawed view of the workings of
the mind and :. Should be regarded as fundamentally flawed and
considered of the backwards pagan worldview. I was a gung-ho Christian,
ready to fight to the death any and every idea that my “Superiors”
talked about. I read all of “their” explanations and did not use any of
my own (my wife just gave me the “Come to bed or I will be sad at you
look).

I was offered a full scholarship to Lindenwood for academics and of
course I went there. I was challenged at Lindenwood on all of my
religious ideas and I fought back with great fervor (I think I did a
good job) However my mind became increasingly closed. With every
challenge, I became more and more defensive. Also at this time, I
experienced several episodes of “religious” idiocy and stubbornness
with the various religious groups on campus. They had no foundation in
the real world, they were all about feelings, “rushes”, and
experiences, and I became alienated on one of the Gung-Ho religious
fronts.

Then I transferred to Central Christian College of the Bible
thinking I would seek ideological refuge and be close to my fiancé’.
However, I was met with a hard-line version of Christianity that
suppressed open thought and cultivated a culture that bred intolerance
to those with even subtle differences in faith… In trying to deal
with that I turned to a church that was opposed to the views that
Central held and was met with the same stubbornness and closed mind
that the fundamentalists at Central had. I felt like all of their
rhetoric was empty echoes of what they had been told. I was met with a
quandary; I felt like I could trust no one when it came to matters of
building a valid worldview. Not conservative Christians, not moderate
Christians, not liberal Christians, not the secular world. Without a
worldview one could trust, how can one function?

Within the last two years, I have really tried to develop my own
worldview using not “religious” authorities, but one based on what I
was able to deduct as facts and apply those facts logically to the
construction of my worldview. There were three main categories…

1. Ideas and concepts that could be explained and fit in with the other Ideas and concepts
2. Ideas and concepts that were clearly (in my understanding) either
   flawed logically and/or did not fit in with the rest of my budding
   worldview.
3. The “To Be Funded Bucket” (Sorry for the obscure banking reference)
   mainly ideas and concepts that kind of fit in, but the jury is still
   out on these things.

In the above endeavor, I really want to develop a wide knowledge
base where I can increase my understanding of the world that we live in
and how it was set up.

I don’t know why I want on the blog-termed “rant” but I feel good to
get it out and it will help you guys know where I am coming from a
little better.

At any rate… PEACE IN!

• Personal
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Honzo May 22nd, 2005

The following is a post from my old blog that I liked on an
alternative to the big bang theory. Since I did not backup or import my
blog when I moved hosts, it can only be found on the way back machine.

Hey bloggers.
I know I have done this sort of thing before, but it helps me deal with and discover some things…

The other day, my wife and I were helping my sister, Holly, and her husband, Brad,
move into their apartment, which happens to be in the same complex as
us, although we are moving out as of Aug 21st. After we got the main
stuff done we started talking about this and that. One of the subjects
that arose was that of alcohol. It all started with us talking about
one of the parents of their child drinking in front of their little son
Cooper. Anyway we were talking about what a policy on alcohol should be
for a child. We pretty much came to the same conclusion. That is, that
in moderation, the consumption of alcohol is not bad, however when not
in moderation it is bad. Also, breaking the law in anyway as it relates
to alcohol is bad as well.

This sparked my mind a bit. I was able to remember the straw that
broke the camel’s back so to speak. Growing up I was always a
Christian. I never doubted the fact of God and his Bible. I has off and
on cravings to speak the word of God to the unsaved. Starting in high
school and up through my stay at Central I became obsessed with
disproving anything and everything that went against anything that
people said the Bible said. Old universe, evolution, JEDP theory, The “Q” document,
ect… I read on how Christianity was true, but never paid attention to
the critics, except to show their flaws. Anyway Central changed my
attitude forever.

They gave me a dose of my own medicine. There I was able to see
fanaticism at work. There, at that college one is not taught, but
preached to. There is no evaluation, just indoctrination. Now if the
subject matter at hand is correct in it’s fullest, then that is not
that big of a problem, excepting of course that the whole point of
going to college is to be taught how to think and what the facts are
and how to distinguish fact from folly. However, at Central Christian College of the Bible
in Moberly, Missouri, the subject matter was in question. There was a
hard-line insistence on all matters of the Bible, there was no silence
where the scriptures are silent. This way of thinking wore on me and
several of my friends and other students. I thing the exact moment that
I lost all respect for the school was when we had a lesson in one of
the classes (it was a general ministry class I believe) about how the
alcohol of the Bible was not really alcohol at all.

You see the school operated off the following premises:

1. Jesus never sinned.
2. Alcoholic consumption is a sin.
3. The Bible is an utterly accurate transcription of the history that it deals with.

add a few pieces of fact:

• The bible tells of Jesus turning water into wine.
• We hear of Jesus and the disciples drinking wine.
• We also hear of people getting drunk off wine.

And the only conclusion that can be reached is….

:. There must be vastly different types of
wine in the Bible, and the type that Jesus drank was the type that did
not contain alcohol.

The school began with the tradition that to imbibe alcohol was a
sin. Now it is no mistake that the bible says that drunkenness is a
sin, but nowhere does it say that casual or moderate drinking is a sin.
This is a classic example of a false dilemma.
They operated out of the tradition that Jesus could not have had real
alcohol. People from Israel that I have had that over there they serve
the best and most alcoholic wine first, and then later they serve the
watered down wine. They also said that if Jesus was following the
customs of his time, that the wine that he made out of water would have
been indeed quite alcoholic. It took that tradition and made more
tradition out of it. This is exactly what the early Catholic Church
did. It took well-meaning guidelines and codified them and added them
on top of the Bible. Last I checked God does not like the adding on of
scripture, even though every single one of us does it in some form or
another. Also, this is the first “The Greek for _____ really means…..” abuse that I noticed here.

I guess the above was when I opened my eyes and saw the school in a
new light. It was hard blow to my faith. I had been burned, well, not
personally, but lost all intellectual respect for, several other
streams of Christianity. Then in the institution that I identified with
the most, I lost the intellectual faith in that institution and along
with it, that branch of Christianity. The few that I still held on to
were under attack by people close to me. It was a hard time.

I never lost faith in God, Jesus, Holy Spirit, or the Bible, but
everyone that professed the faith hated each other and said everyone
else’s ideas were damnable. I am getting better though. I can listen to
some Christian music now with out being disgusted. I have also found a
church that is healthy and on line with my way of thinking. So I think
I am back on track. However I think all devotion books are a waste of
time and a emotional manipulation of people. Like the Prayer of Jabez. However, there are people who are looking out for the fast food Christianity that is polluting the thought. Check out “The Covering“. I think that this book sheds light on true spiritual warfare.

To sum up, the things that I find frustrating about the followers of Christianity…

• Closed Minds
• Emotional Manipulation
• Getting Emotional Highs, and having that be the focus
• Damning everyone that does not view the Bible the exact same way as you.
• Starting with conclusions

• Humor
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Henry Imler May 3rd, 2005

Article: A Defense of Abortion
Author: Judith Jarvis Thomson

Summary

Thomson argues that even if one grants the fetus a serious right to life it does not follow that aboriton is morally impermissable.

The main thrust of oposition to the immorality of abortion is the charge to draw a line on when a fetus becomes a person. It would seem that just before the line the fetus is not a person and just after the line it is a person. If the fetus is a person, then it has a right to life. If it has a right to life, then abortioin is immoral.

Thomsom challenges this conclusion, saying that even if one grants the fetus a right to life, then it does not follow that abortion is morally impermissable. She does this via thought experiments.

Situation

Imagine that you wake up next morning and discover that you are hooked up to a famous violinist. You have been kidnapped and while you were out, hooked up to the violinist by a society of music lovers. The violinist is sick and needs to be hooked up to your kidneys for nine months. To unplug him would be to kill him.

Question Do you have a duty to remain hooked up to the famous violinist?

Discussion
You may not unplug yourself from the violinist. His rights as a person override your right to do as you please.
This strikes many as absurd. The violinist can make no claim on you without your concent.

This case is analogous with rape. Persons have a right to life only if they did not come into being because of rape.
This view seems not only ad hoc, but it seems terrible arbiritraty to deney a person a right to life because of the mere circumstances that surrounded his birth. What if the baby is carried full term? Would it still not have a right to life? What about at 35?

What if the saving the violinist’s life meant your death? Would you still be required to keep him on life support?
Most would answer of course not. Keeping from above, the violinist cannot make a claim on you.

The counter-argument to Judith Jarvis Thomson maintains the following:

Situation:

Mother must have an abortion or she will die.

In order for the abortion to be immoral in this case, i.e. it be morally allowable for the mother to have an abortion to save the life of her child; the following reasoning must apply.

The mother has a right to life.
The fetus has a right to life.
Every right to life is equal.
Violating one’s right to life is killing.
Killing is always morally impermisble.

• Ethics
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