Health Rations And You!

Is There Still A Question About Islam?

Tonight, or tomorrow if you're living over the dateline, two hotels were blown up in Indonesia.

Reports that these attacks were carried out by Catholics, Protestants, Hindis and Buddhists were immediately on the wire.

Catholic, Protestant, Hindu and Buddhist extremists had been targeting Western influences in Indonesia for weeks, years, decades. Mennonites, Jehovah's Witnesses and Seventh Day Adventists have recently come under suspicion. It has become obvious that the values of "America" are to blame for these most recent attacks.

Known as the Great Satan to Iranians, Palestinians and Syrians, the United States must be held accountable for these attacks. If not the Great Satan, then the Little Satan, Israel. If these attacks turn out to be not the object of Catholics, Protestants, Hindis and/or Buddhists, then it is obvious that it was the Jews. (Israel is a Jewish state.)

There is no question that our President, President Barrack Nasser Obama will be correct in condemning our actions in this latest affair. Reminiscent of an old Peter Sellers's movie, our contrition can only be sold to the poor, downtrodden Muslims if we surrender. They have no money, no wealth, only poverty.

We, on the other hand, are the richest nation on the face of God's planet, and are obviously the culprit. We have education, culture and liberty. And we all know that liberty is just one step away from embracing the Devil.

We need to quickly repudiate this outdated Western notion of liberty. We need to be contained in an effort to more correctly reflect the cultural views of the Muslim world.

Thank God that we have a President like Barrack Nasser Obama. (PBUH.)
.

Change! (Christmas The Whole Year!)

Everyone loves Christmas. Especially the kids. So, why not have Christmas the whole year?

Imagine, an economy that runs on nothing. No pollution, no mining, no power plants. How do we get there? Ask Santa Claus.

Imagine, a health care system that is free for everyone. No bills, no limits. Gotta hangnail? Why trim it yourself? You may get infected. It's reasonable to see a doctor first, to avoid that infection. That's called "preventative care." Got a cold? Instead of suffering through the two weeks needed to clear it up, why not see a doctor, so he can tell you it's going to take two weeks to clear it up? After all, bad colds can become worse, right? So seeing a doctor is "preventative care." And that's good. Isn't it? Isn't that where--we are told--we are going to be able to see the greatest advantage in controlling costs? By increasing the amount of preventative care, rather than relying upon therapeutic care? Why, the cost savings are going to be enormous.

Critics of Democrats tend to focus on the apparent disregard they have for market forces. That the prices of things tend to determine what is consumed, and how much of those things are consumed. Under the Santa Claus Plan of the Democrats it's apparent that this criticism is short-sighted. Uncle Sam? No. Santa Claus. We need to create an America that doesn't rely upon the short-sighted interests of the "special" interests. The corporate greedy guys that want to continue to pollute and exploit. The bad guys who want people to be responsible for their own choices; do I see a doctor for a cold, or do I attempt to wait it out? Well, if it's free, why not see the doctor, just to be on the safe side?

And if we're really, really, really good (and vote for Change!) we're going to get what we want. Free, preventative care and of course free therapeutic care, too. And free mental health care. And free dental care. And free liposuction. Because "lipo" is medicine, innit?

So, we're going to live, happily ever after, in a land of candy canes and unicorns. A Green Economy and Free Health Care. And nobody ever has to pay, since nobody ever pays when Santa Claus comes for his annual visit to our homes. Only bad people will receive their lump of coal. (Perhaps, only bad people will have the fuel to heat their homes. But under Cap and Trade, mebbe that lump will come with a too high price tag. Better be good.)

Good Unemployment News

Click on the pic, or click here for our nation's unemployment outlook. The good news is that Oregon is borrowing more money to pay for holding on to government employees. While jobs are being shed in the private sector, government workers need not fear for their futures. Government will survive this downturn, intact.

And that's good news. By holding on to these government workers, our state is able to retain these jobs rather than adding to the numbers of our state's unemployed. Which is currently about a quarter-million jobless.

That, my friends, is leadership. Leadership from our Governor and our Democrat friends in the Legislature. All attempts to reduce government spending were successfully rebuffed by our Democrat friends. Assuring increased debt and spending by our government. And these are the people who will be running our health care system, soon.

Good news. Have a nice day.

Why I Don't Talk To Teachers

This is, in a way, an apology for Sous.

We are living in a more, greatly increased, competitive environment, due to the realities that are being imposed externally by politicians who have absolutely no idea of what they are doing.

I do believe that there was a time in the recent past where men and women of training, education and grace were leading this nation. This is obviously no longer the case. We have hard-line socialists running both our country and our state. Do they recognize that this is what they are? Could be they don't. There is such a paucity of fundamentals, that they are just creatures of themselves. They are what William Golding warned us about. They are the The Lord of the Flies.

Sous asked the question, "The document is the Declaration of Independence, and one of the self-evident truths listed therein is that all men are crated equal. But somehow I led myself to believe that you were trying to lead us into a discussion of the nature of 'Self-evident truth'. Again, my apologies for putting the cart before the horse?"(sic, but no hard-core. We're a'bloggin here. Not all spellin and writin rules are in place.)

The answer, Sous, is either yes, "all men are created equal" or no, no man is equal to another.

Since we end up in a synthetic reality, we can create a synthetic reality. And mebbe this is where the Left is taking advantage of us.

We've really never had an argument over Natural Law versus Synthetic Law. Maybe it's time we do. Synthetic Law would never gain an advantage over Natural Law because to do so would require us to accede to the logical demands of a post experience reality. Post experience realities are known in different ways; both as ad hoc and as ex post. If you have read any of the brilliant writers of humanity, and ZZMike (and I hope you critique this) there is a significant difference between a priori and ex post. (And I think it is in one of your fairly recent posts that we have become as attempting a moderation between these two systems of thought.)

Natural law isn't as clearly defined as one would wish it was. For those of us who follow philosophical threads from the earliest available commentors, to the latest commentors, Natural Law was at its apogee around the time of President Hoover. After President Hoover, there has been a relentless urge toward having us, as a society, accept a different bent than that of the adherence to Natural Law.

You may have already come to the conclusion that there is a significant difference between what is known as the "hard" sciences and the "soft" sciences. (If you still believe there is such a difference, I would refer to you the current debate over 'Climate Change".)

The hard sciences create such things as hydro-electric power. The soft sciences create such things as rehabilitation.

For those of you engaged in hydro-electric power I suggest that you have had greater success in your field than those of you engaged in rehabilitation.

There is a probable abuse of the concept of synthesis. With synthesis, derives synthetic. For a fan of the movies, it's "plastics."

What would an adherent to synthetic reality propose?

Doesn't it come down to the question of "thesis, antithesis and synthesis"? (In one of his notes, Sous asks about Kierkegaard. We are close to the question, but while I admire many of the notions of Kierkegaard, isn't it true that "knowing" has a greater value than "belief"?)

What questions of knowledge can survive the a priori restrictions of knowledge, as well as those imposed a posteriori, as conditions of truth? I cannot think of any answer to the question, "Can you state an unarguable truth?" that is more simply elegant than "I think, therefore, I am."

Imagine being able to deny ones own existence in the face of this inarguable truth.

Those of us who believe in the individual have an ally in this irreductibility. I will admit the weakness in my argument. This argument connotes that any individual is just as responsible for his thinking, and the outcome of that thinking, than anyone else.

The weakness of this argument is manifold. If we base a political system upon the basis that we are equal, it creates a certain inequality. Good people are good. Bad people are bad. If bad people make bad decisions, then they are responsible for their decisions. It's hard to win an acquittal based upon someones bad decisions. If someone makes a bad decision, and that decision finds them self at odds with the law, they're simply going to be convicted. Lawyers have found ways to make bad decision makers no longer the victim of their own faulty thinking. Bad lawyering has created a whole new industry of folks, from sociologists to therapists to lawyers to politicians whose mere existence is based upon finding ways of making the guilty not responsible for their actions.

"I think, therefore, I am" is one hellava tough task master.

I cannot think of an instance where this truth is falsifiable.

There are some important consequences to this unfalsifiable truth.

Whether or not I believe in God, I still think. This is not a denial of God's existence. I'd rather think a feature, rather than a bug. That is, if we are made in God's image, we have the ability to end up at the right place, logically, that at which God would arrive if asked the same question.

You may attempt to conjugate a question that falls outside these logical perimeters. That is, you may choose to attempt to classify certain thetas as falling outside of certain clearly defined set of thetas. This attempt to create ambiguity or uncertainty is simply a waste of time. A deliberate attempt to create ambiguity, attempts at amibiguation, are a fool's errand. Unfortunately, these fools errands are what is commonly known as popularly held beliefs. Most common at hand are those who are currently attempting to invalidate the role of "speculators" in the market.

What would a "speculator" be? How would you construct a speculator? How could, or would, you become a speculator?

You may ask, why are you such a fierce adherent to capitalism?

What other system recognizes the role of the individual?

What other system recognizes the invaluability of the individual to contribute to the welfare of the collective good other than that of the capitalist?

I can think of none.