Henry Imler April 30th, 2006

As I have alluded to before, Iran is the last country on earth that should be allowed to have a nuclear bomb.

The frightening truth of why Iran wants a bomb.

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Henry Imler April 30th, 2006

I like a lot that the libertarians
have to say, but I don’t like their foreign policy. I would love to be
an isolationist, but I think following a strict Buchanan, Paleoconservatist foreign policy like the strict libertarians do is foolhardy and allows for terrible things to happen more often in the world.

Core Beliefs (from the Wikipedia Article)

1. The choice that maximizes personal liberty is the best choice.
2. The policy choice that offers the least amount of necessary government intervention or regulation is the best choice.
3. The policy choice that provides rational, market-based incentives is the best choice.
4. In foreign policy, libertarianism would be characterized by,
   • A policy of diplomacy that promotes consensual government and human rights and opposes dictatorship.
   • A
     policy of using US military force solely at the discretion of the US,
     but only in circumstances where American interests are directly
     affected.

The only think in there that I don’t like is the foreign policy
stance. I am still undecided about what I want from a foreign policy.
Only acting in our interests is attractive, but situations in the Sudan warrant our attention and action.

I also like the pragmatic nature of the Neolibertarians. The
recognize the situation they find themselves in and try to make it as
good as possible.

For a good introduction to Neolibertarians, see John Henke’s post on Neolibertarian

Side Note: Ever since the Neo-Nazi’s
is seems like the prefix “neo” denotes extremist or otherwise negative
adoption of a viewpoint. Examples, the media’s and liberals use of the
word “neo-con“. It is
ridiculous, as if the term Nazi was bad enough, adding neo to it hardly
adds anything more negative. I guess that is the power of guilt by
association. Don’t you hate it when people do that?

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Henry Imler April 28th, 2006

Indian Gaming: Long-Term Contribution Trends at Open Secrets via Capatin’s Quarters.

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Henry Imler April 28th, 2006

Today’s theme is the usefulness of diplomacy in all situations.

“The Iranian nation won’t give a damn about such useless
resolutions,” Ahmadinejad told thousands of people in Khorramdareh in
northwestern Iran.

From Yahoo News, via LGF.

• X of the Day
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Henry Imler April 27th, 2006

• Humor
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Henry Imler April 27th, 2006

• You looked for: “credibly write” “became a rap star”. You found Good list from McSweeney’s. I think that all you have to do is have a “pen and a pad” and retreat to your “lab”, at least that is what I hear.
• You looked for “abortion morally permissible if single woman.” You found “Objections to the Anti-Abortion Position”. I really don’t think the relationship status increases nor decreases the fetus’s right to life.
• You searched for “expedition poor mpg“. You found “40 MPG Ford Expedition“. Giant SUV/Bus has bad MPG? Might as well searched for A = A. You know, some people will deny that, interestingly enough.
• You came here looking for “was jesus a graded absolutism“. You found the Mass Theology blog. I honestly do not think that Jesus was an ethical theory or any “ism” for that matter.
• You came looking for “COMPUTER SETTINGS FOR FORD GAS MILEAGE“. Instead, you found “40 MPG Ford Expedition“. With a query like that you might as well as searched for “QUARTZ HELP CAP KEY LOCK“.
• Search of the day: “gay religious cartoons with female robots“. I don’t know what to say.

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Henry Imler April 27th, 2006

Michelle Singletary just hit me with a tangent.

“Spare the IPod, Unspoil the Child.”

My 10-year-old daughter can’t understand why I won’t buy
her an iPod. Really, what 10-year-old has lived long enough to have a
passion for hundreds of songs she just has to have in her hip pocket?

That also applies to myself.

First, it’s the initial outlay for the game system. But
then there’s the endless badgering to supply them with new games to
feed their habit. Sorry, I’d rather put that money into my son’s
college fund.

Again, it also applies to myself.

“It’s just not fair,” she whined. “All my friends are
going on trips or doing exciting things on their spring break.” To
which I said, “You want excitement? Read a book and you can live
vicariously through the characters and their exciting lives.”

She sulked. I saved.

Parents are spending so much to keep their children entertained that
these young folks don’t know how to entertain themselves with anything
that doesn’t cost money.

Crap, I am 0 for 3. Call me Juan Pierre.
All of this does not just apply to the parent/child relationship. It
also applies to the me/myself and that you/your self relationships. All
the video gaming is fun and all, but it is no where near that
satisfaction and growth that I get out of reading or spending time with
Meredith.

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Henry Imler April 26th, 2006

Simon Cushing argues against Speciesism in his paper “Against ‘Humanism’: Speciesism, Personhood, and Preference.” He uses Peter Singer’s definition of Speciesism :

Speciesism…is a prejudice or attitude of bias toward the interests of one’s own species and against those of members of another species.

Speciesism is often called “Humanism“, which of course is Speciesism by the human race. Cushing uses two formulations of Speciesism, a strong and a weak:

Strong Formulation :

All and only (innocent ) humans are moral persons

Weak Formulation :

The personhood of a being should hinge (wholly or in part) on its membership in a particular species or group of species.

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• Ethics , Notes
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Henry Imler April 26th, 2006

In an earlier post, I asserted that since humans are animals, they have a certain minimum level of responsibility to the environment:”The Unsound Argument(Humans and the Environment, Part I)”:http://unsoundargument.com/ethics/humans-and-the-environment-a-minimum-level-of-responsibility. If push comes to shove, humans must at least maintain their environment at survival levels. However, humans are not merely animals, they are also persons. Not only are they persons in the objective sense, but are persons in the subjective sense, i.e. moral agents.

I don’t have all of this worked out yet, but I want to posit that with increasing levels of personhood, there comes an increasing level of responsibility to the environment. At one level (animal) there is a responsibility to survive and that overrides all other responsibilities. At another there is moral agents and that they are responsible to how they treat other beings and their environment and at another level there is an awareness of nature and its beauty and that for its sake moral agents that are aware of it have the duty to protect that beauty.

I know how to build the bridge from self-survival to species-survival to all other species-survival, but I am not sure how to build towards the environment for its own sake. I think I am there but I am not sure how to put it into words. I will need to sketch out levels of personhood and match them with the levels of responsibility. So actually this paper will need a strong, developed view of personhood.

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Henry Imler April 26th, 2006

John Hardwig, in his paper, Is there a Duty to Die? suggests that sometimes people have an obligation to allow nature to take it’s course. I read the article a couple of years ago and made some rudementary notes from it:”The Unsound Argument(Is there a Duty to Die? by John Hardwig)”:http://unsoundargument.com/ethics/is-there-a-duty-to-die-john-hardwig. Here is his basic argument:

1. People’s needs and wants and goods are interconnected. (rejection of the indivualistic fantasy)
2. It is immoral to impose serious burdens on others to further one’s needs and wants
3. One is not relieved of their moral duties when they are sick and dying.
4. Sometimes continuing to live will place serious (and undue) burdens on loved ones.
5. ? Sometimes one has a duty to die

While it seems to fly in the face of all of our notions about old age and death, I think he has a point. We are all mortal creatures. We will all die at some point, why is the onus on everyone else to provide individuals constant healthcare? I am not arguing against universal healthcare, just artificially keeping people alive and draining the energy and resources of the community for something that is ultimately inevitable. The community can be one’s family, one’s town, one’s state, ect…

Since this topic is a very sensitive one, Hardwig goes out of his way to dance around specific instances of when a person has a duty to die. He does this to avoid stepping on anyone’s toes.

Is a good death better than a prolonged, miserable life? Can anyone make that determination for anyone? It is a good can of worms.

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Henry Imler April 26th, 2006

A while back Dave made a pretty good chart showing the pro-life stance of three parties. I agree with most of his assessments of what stance is pro-life, excepting a couple therefrom. They were euthanasia, war, and poverty.

I want to use two of these areas to highlight what I consider pro-life.

What do I consider the guiding principle behind being pro-life? I can tell you what it is not. Pro-life is not simply being against death in any form or context. People die. It is a natural aspect of the human condition. I do not look upon old age as an evil, even though it brings one close to death.

Instead, it is the freedom to choose that makes our lives valuable. It is why slavery is evil. It is why totalitarism is evil. Freedom is why we shudder when we place ourselves in Kira Argounova’s or Winston Smith’s shoes. When I apply this concept of freedom giving life its value to the common pro-life issues I am forced two conclusions; 1) abortion is morally impermissible and 2) euthanasia is morally permissible. The killing of an infant takes away all possible choices that person could every have. Euthanasia on the other hand is the supreme enactment of choice. It is the choice whether to continue to make choices. Surely to rob a person of that is morally impermissible.

So while an anti-abortion and a pro-euthanasia stance might seem morally inconsistent to some, it is still possible.

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Henry Imler April 26th, 2006

This is mainly a re-hash of part of a discussion over at the Mindful Mission about whether or not a man can be a feminist. A lady by the name of Pippin had objected (and here, and here, and here) to my belief that I agree with feminists on many issues, but reject the permissibility of all abortions.

When I talk about being feminist, I am speaking about holding males and females as equals and living that out. If anyone has questions about how I live that out, please refer them to my wife of three years. She will tell you if my practice in the issue meets my ideals. My wife and I use birth control. We have lost a child in the early stages of pregnancy. WE know what it is like.

Before I address her objections, I must note that when I said “the full and unrestricted right to have an abortion” I meant allowing for abortion in each and every single case. I left the my position open for some or no abortions being legal.

I want to denote the two positions on abortion as pro-abortion and anti-abortion. This minimizes the biases that the terms pro-life and pro-choice inherently contain. Who can say that they are the opposite of pro-life, that is, pro-death / anti-life? The very terms beg the question about the issue.

The objections that Pippin raised can be summarized as follows:

Objections:

1. Men cannot have an opinion on whether or not abortion is right or wrong because they do not experience pregnancy or birth.
2. I am not sure if Pippin is maintaining that a fetus has a prima facie right to life or not. That is a huge step in this process. I’ll try to establish that they do even if for argument’s sake.
3. Women should have the same sexual freedom men do. Allowing for unfettered abortions would restore this inequality.
4. Abortions are morally permissible because to have a woman be responsible pregnancies resulting from all willful sexual acts would be exercising control over the woman.

As I am still waiting for Pippin’s response, there is a chance that I am getting into a straw man here.

Response:

1. Because I cannot physically have a baby does not mean that I cannot determine if an action is wrong for “the other” to do. This is the classic mistake of postmodernism. It might make one unaware of certain points that make the determination hazier, but does not invalidate the determination… That is, unless one is a relativist. If the reasoning is the sound and valid, the conclusion stands no matter who makes the argument. If otherwise, then we would be guilty of a hasty generalization.

   Also, what about the anti-abortion women? There are plenty of anti-abortion women running around. The argument falls flat against objections from women who have the same experiences as you, the ones that the lack of supposedly invalidate my objections.

2. If the fetus has no right to life, as Marry Ann Warren believes, then of course Pippin is correct. The rights of the mother would then outweigh the rights of the fetus. If, however, the fetus has a right to life and the mother has a right to life, then that changes the whole shape of the argument. Judith Jarvis Thompson has argued that even if we assume for the moment that the fetus has a right to life, a pro-abortion position can still be maintained (My notes on her article are not completely entered into that post, please bear with me).

   She argues that when the mother has taken reasonable precaution against the pregnancy, i.e. cases of rape, incest or failed birth control, she is not morally responsible for the life of the fetus, i.e. an abortion would be morally permissible. Whiles Judith Jarvis Thompson just assumes that the fetus is a person for the sake of the argument, I would argue that a fetus is a person in the objective sense, even though it is not a person in the subjective sense.
   I do want to note that even a strong pro-abortion proponent like JJT maintains that abortions solely out of convenience are still morally wrong. (given that a fetus has some sort of a right of existence)

3. I agree that there is an inequality in the view that women are unduly responsible for the consequences of their willful sexual acts compared to men. However, I do not think the solution is to kill the fetus. Instead, we should raise the sexual responsibility of the men to the woman. Make men as responsible for the child as the woman is. Don’t punish the baby for the man’s actions. I think that there is a false dilemma in the reasoning of objection 3) because there is another option, besides a) allowing for abortion or b) having the unjust inequality persist, that is not considered in your argument. I might be wrong on the false dilemma though; perhaps Pippin has considered it and is only listing her conclusions.
4. I think I covered this in objection 3), that it is not a case of exercising control or one party and not another if all parties involved are treated the same. Case in point: If I say to you, don’t steal, and I hold myself to that maxim, I avoid the problem all together. The issue is not controlling behavior, it is about finding a universal ethical maxim.

With all of this being said I have not begun to argue about if and when abortions are morally permissible, I have only tried to deal with the objections that Pippin brought up.

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Henry Imler April 24th, 2006

The Scottish philosopher Hume had presented philosophy with a grand problem. Hume had tilled the grounding of the current metaphysics of the day. He had taken the postulates of Descartes and questioned them. He found the evidence for causality in the specific lacking, rendering one unable to point to the exact cause behind any certain event. Like all Empiricists, Hume wanted all philosophical systems to be grounded in immediate experience. He defined the two types of mental concepts, impressions and thoughts and ideas. Thoughts and Ideas are the recalling the memory of situations, and the anticipating future ones. An example of this is thinking about being angry. Impressions on the other hand, are perceptions of the mind that are the most clear. They include our more lively perceptions: when we hear, feel, love, hate, desire and will. An example of this is being angry. The difference is that “impressions are distinguished from ideas when we reflect on any of our sensations or movement. ”

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Henry Imler April 22nd, 2006

(I meant to have this done by Friday afternoon, but got busy at work)

Now that I have seen how my preseason picks fared, it is time to give my predictions on how the current seedings will fare.

Eastern Conference:
Round 1
Pistons 4, Bucks 1
Look for Ford to outplay Billups (who is saving himself for the real
playoffs in the later rounds) in the first round coupled with a red-hot
Michael Redd and solid inside play from Bogut and Maglorie. While the
Pistons will easily win the series, the Buck should take game and give
the Pistons a scare in another.

Heat 4, Bulls 0
The chips are down, the playoff have begun. It is time to see if Shaq has really been saving himself for the post season.

Nets 4, Pacers 3
The Nets will bring their revitalized game. What game the Pacers bring
is another story. If they have chemistry issues, look for the series to
be short and in the Net’s flavor. If all of the cylinders are firing,
look for the series to be a push.

Cleveland 3, Washington 4
Kings James will be huge, but will have to carry his team. The Wizards
will counter his brilliance with a more balanced and powerful team
approach to the series. This is James’ first crack at the postseason.
The Wizards were here before and now know how to win a close series.
This is the hardest first round series to call, but I also expect it to
be most exciting.

Western Conference:
Spurs 4, Kings 2
Spurs are kings of the NBA.

Suns 4, Lakers 1
Kobe will get his and maybe one game, but the Suns will outlast his barrages and coast to the series victory.

Nuggets 2, Clippers 4
1)Playoff tested Cassell 2)Hungry Brand 3)Too much Mobley 4)Kaman’s
deal with the devil to be in the NBA with that balding hairwreck. 5)
Nuggets should be a 6 seed.

Mavs 4, Griz 0
Mavs will be too strong and too quick for the scrappy Griz.

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Henry Imler April 22nd, 2006

The Arrogant Empire
by Fareed Zakaria. Sure it is 3 years old, but a good read
never-the-less. Where we were, where we are, and where to go from here.
It is not enough to be on the correct side of the issues. We need to
gather and garner support along the way.

To Bomb, or Not to Bomb, That is the Iran question by Reuel Marc Gerecht. Why we should bomb Iran and Why we should not bomb Iran. Time is running out to decide what to do.

Would you Like to Bomb Iran? by Maddox. If you serve green eggs and ham.

Kiefer Sutherland: Heart of Darkness by Erik Hedegaard. Interesting article on my actor of the moment.

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Henry Imler April 21st, 2006

Before the 2005-2006 NBA season started, I made some predictions on who would make the playoffs. Now the field is set, lets see how I did:

1. Heat / Pistons
2. Cavs / Heat
3. Nets / Nets
4. Pistons / Cavs
5. Indiana / Washington
6. Washington / Indiana
7. Chicago / Chicago
8. New York / Milwaukee

Let’s see, I did a pretty decent job. Overall, I went 7/8 on the pool. Picked two of the division’s right,
just messed up on how good the Pistons were going to be and some minor
seeding issues. Well, this is if you leave out the New York debacle.
You figure, with that much talent and with Larry Brown at the helm,
that they would win more than 23 games. After all, they have the
[url=http://cbs.sportsline.com/nba/gamecenter/recap/NBA_20050101_NJ@NY]
best point guard in the NBA[/url]. What I should have seen coming was
the Bucks. With Ford, Magloire, Redd, and Bogut, I should have seen them in the postseason.

1. Spurs / Spurs
2. Denver / Suns
3. Suns / Denver
4. Houston / Dallas
5. T-Wolves / Memphis
6. Memphis / Clippers
7. Sacramento / LA
8. Jazz / Sacramento

There is one glaring problem here. Where did I put the Mavericks? I
don’t know what I was thinking when I left them out of the playoffs. My
only guess was that I wrote T-Wolves when I mean to write Mavericks.
Still, I got all of the division winners correct,
even though I vastly overestimated how good the Nuggets were going to
be. Plus, I think that everyone gets a pass on the Rockets. Who knew
that all of their starters were going to be injured for months at a
time? Both Dave and Brad had them winning their division or finishing
second.

• Sports
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Henry Imler April 19th, 2006

To spare you all from unorganized pissing and moaning, the bulk of this post will be protected by the “read more” barrier.

=> Read more!

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Henry Imler April 18th, 2006

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Henry Imler April 17th, 2006

There has not been much to talk about. Every time I go to talk about
something, someone else has beaten me to it. Started to talk about the
Cartoon Jihad^{[1] [2] [3]}, Easter, new Saddam documents ^{[4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]}, ect… but there are a flood of posts on those subjects.

Been working on a few web projects. I set up Relevintage, a blog by Brad Andrews. He is a Pastor at Grace Church
in St. Louis, MO. His blog looks at how the Church can speak to those
in our current culture while still remaining true to God.^[11] (Brad, I hope I did not say that incorrectly.) It was my first Wordpress project.
It took a while to figure out how to modify everything. I am currently
torn between B2Evolution and Wordpress as a blogging engine. I think
that for people that only have one blog, WP is the way to go. If one is
looking for a multiblog engine, then B2E is the way to go.

I am currently playing around with what I am going to do with unsoundargument.com.
What I want is a site that integrates all of my classwork into one
site. My plan is to have a blog with my thoughts on the themes and
topics we disscuss in class, along with a wiki that I can place my un-assembled notes into. I have a test site in the works that I am liking. I still need to integrate the wiki into the site for my notes.

The only other project that I have had going is upgrading my
computer. The Athlon64 3400+ works like a charm. I now am dual booting Ubuntu 64 5.10
and Windows Professional. I want to run the 64-bit version of Windows
Professional, but I own the Windows Professional licence and just don’t
want to pony up more dough when Vista is knocking on the door.

Many thanks to Danny for a plugin he is having me test out. It is a
spellchecker for b2e. As many of you know, I am terrible at spelling.
For some reason God choose not to give me that ability. With Danny’s
help, I won’t have to worry about copying and pasting my entire post
into Word/OOWriter, spellcheck there, and then paste everything back
into my post. So, far so good.

Linknotes:

1. The Irish Trojan’s Blog - Terrorists 1, Comedy Central 0
2. MSNBC - ‘South Park’ takes on own network over ban
3. Staunch Moderate - Freedom Isn’t Free
4. Investors.com - More Damning Documents On Saddam
5. ABC News - Did Russian Ambassador Give Saddam the U.S. War Plan?
6. Captain’s Quarters - Saddam Targeted American Assets For Terrorism (Update)
7. Captain’s Quarters - IBD Decries ‘Amateur’ Effort On Saddam Translations
8. Captain’s Quarters - The Timing Of The Iraqi Air Force Memo
9. Captain’s Quarters - ‘The Iraqi Regime Has Transported The Chemical And Biological Weapons’
10. Captain’s Quarters - Saddam Targeted American Assets For Terrorism: Case Closed (Bumped)
11. Relevintage - About Relevintage

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Henry Imler April 17th, 2006

Transcript for April
16: Joan Chittister, Michael Lerner, Jon Meacham, Seyyed Hossein Nasr,
Richard Neuhaus, Joel Osteen on Meet the Press

RABBI MICHAEL LERNER: Absolutely, and I give a lot of credit to the political right, and particularly the religious right for recognizing that crisis.
There is a real spiritual crisis in the lives of most Americans, and in
the book “The Left Hand of God: Taking Back Our Country From the
Religious Right,” I interviewed 10,000 middle-income working families
and learned in detail about the way in which spending day after day in
a world of work in which the bottom line is to maximize money and power,
and in which people learned that the common sense of the world of work,
of our economy, is to look out for number one, nobody else is there to
protect you, and hence to see other people from the standpoint of what
they can do for you, how they can be of use, this utilitarian,
instrumental way of looking at the world comes home into personal life
where it undermines loving relationships and families.

Now, unfortunately, the political right has—and particularly the
religious right—has often blamed the selfishness and materialism that,
in fact, surrounds people and undermines loving connection, undermines
families, makes—undermines friendships, they’ve blamed that very often
on the demeaned others of the society. In Europe, the, the political
right used to blame that on the Jews. In the United States, it’s now
not only Native Americans and African-Americans that get blamed, but
gays and lesbians, feminists and most recently, all secular people and
all liberals are blamed as though we had introduced the selfishness and
materialism into the society when, in fact, the—that selfishness is deeply rooted in the ethos of capitalism.

That poor nail… it just got hit on the head.

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