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The Ten Commandments Rationally Examined

Jan 6, 2014 | Culture

by Edward Cline

One of the most infuriating things about conservatives who claim that the U.S. was founded on Biblical morality and the Ten Commandments is that, like Muslims, their minds are closed to any arguments to the contrary. They slam shut so hard you can feel the draft.  So, let’s examine the Ten Commandments and see if any one of them has anything to do with our vanishing freedoms. I have used the Commandments as published by the ultra religious conservative group, Politichicks, in Lydia Goodman’s December 18th column, “How Many Laws Does One Country Need? God Says Ten.”  Their exact wording is not as I remember them, my having been exposed to them in the Catholic Church in the 1950′s, but that is a minor point.The 10 Commandments1 –  And God spoke all these words, saying: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me.No problem. There are no other gods before him. Not even God. There’s no queue outside my door.So,  Moses parted the Red Sea and talked to a burning bush, and suddenly hefted a pair of very heavy stone tablets on which were chiseled the Ten Commandments and which he had to lug back down the mountain. These are apocryphal fairy tales akin to Mohammad riding a winged horse to have a personal huddle with Allah and having an angel whisper into his ear Allah’s own fifty dozen commandments.  There really isn’t any reason why any rational person should take this Commandment literally. Especially if he doesn’t subscribe to the notion of the existence of a supernatural entity that knows all and can do all, and knew what you would do billions of years before you were even born, but still imbues you with the “freedom” of choice. Which doctrine should believers believe in: Predestination, or volition? I’ve never heard an argument that made any sense, because, among their other faults, fast-talking preachers and priests all try to reconcile man the hapless pawn of God, with man the being of volitional consciousness.But, theologians and believers will retort: God is above human understanding, beyond reason, except in his heart, and in his faith. To know God, one must suspend one’s mind, because an inquiring mind is an obstacle to belief. And that retort is largely a legacy of Prussian philosopher Immanuel Kant, who wrote reams and reams of paragraphs in an attempt to save religion from the Enlightenment. (Kant wasn’t the only one, just the best known.) Trying to defend religion from reason, he invented a “pure” reason that would explain and justify the unreasonableness of religion, or why it was so reason-proof and rebuffed the evidence of our senses in his Critique of Pure Reason, by which we have an a priori grasp of God that has nothing to do with mere, mundane reason. Here it is from the horse’s mouth:

HUMAN reason has this peculiar fate that in one species of its knowledge it is burdened by questions which, as prescribed by the very nature of reason itself, it is not able to ignore, but which, as transcending all its powers, it is also not able to answer.That’s just in Kant’s 1781 preface. It more or less encapsulates his theme and subject. He could be brief when he wanted to. Read the balance at your own risk, but be sure to have a bottle of Tylenol handy. His oft-interminable sentences are sure to give you a throbbing headache.2-  You shall not make for yourself any carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.First off, this sounds too much like the Islamic prohibition on representations of Mohammad. However, artists of the Judeo-Christian creeds have played fast and loose with representations of God. Witness Michelangelo’s rendering of God. It’s an old fellow with an untrimmed beard and garbed in a nightgown.Secondly, I’m guessing that God exempted himself from his own Commandments, because jealousy is a venial sin, a minor misdemeanor, and forgivable. Very big of him. “Do as I say, not as I do”? This Commandment is particularly extortionate, because reads like a Mafia curse. His iniquity will be visited on the guilty, and on the guilty’s descendents. The notion fits right in with the doctrine of Original Sin, in which one is burdened with sin before one is even born. Adam originated the sin, and we’re his heirs. Spiffing.When I was a young, ignorant kid, I thought that a sin manifested itself as a black spot on one’s belly. I was continually looking for one, or what resembled an ink stain, because I was constantly sinning. One never appeared. I have a mole there, but it’s brown. It’s just a collection of chemicals.Now, was God “born” old, or did he “age”? Has anyone ever attempted an image of God as a Young Man? But, how could he “age” before he invented time? According to the Big Bang theory, it was just him and that dimensionless ball of glop that he caused to explode. Was that the beginning of eternity, or the end of infinity? Go figure. Picture a consciousness, form and gender unknown – or was there a gender? – floating in a void in immeasurable time, with only the ball of glop for company. It’s a prospect and a premise that puts all the recent CGI-rich science fiction films to shame.And whoever said God was male? The feminists have had problems with that presumption. They have been busy subjecting the Bible to Critical Theory analysis, trying either to find a semantic or linguistic loophole in Genesis which claims that God made man in his own image and likeness, or to deconstruct it to shreds in a revolt against patriarchic sexism and producing some very vitriolic screeds.Finally, to return to Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel, what has God got against art, that is, against making likenesses of things on earth and in the sea? Some of the greatest art was created in his glory. Surely he couldn’t object to that? (Off-hand remarks here about Michelangelo, or “Big Mike,” are not meant to be deprecatory of his greatness as an artist.)3 - You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.Well, why not? It’s just about the only time an atheist or even a steadfast Christian will remember God, by taking his name in vain, or in anger, or in frustration, and curse like a sailor. Further, unlike God, I wouldn’t be offended if people began taking my name in vain. If anything, I’d be flattered. Please, take my name in vain, as often as you wish.4 - Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.I remember the Sabbath only because my bank and favorite restaurants are closed.5 - Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.I can’t honor my parents. They always voted the straight Democratic ticket, and for Obama, twice. Further, it’s a confusingly worded Commandment. What exactly had God given me? Democratic parents, or the land and the long days? Will honoring my parents add years to my life?6 – You shall not murder.Well, why not? Give me a reason. Is it because another person’s life isn’t another’s to take – that is, the person owns his own life – or is it because it’s assumed he’s God’s property, and taking his life would amount to really serious larceny and put the kibosh on God’s own plans for the person?  God notoriously does not tolerate interference with his divine plans. He can be very, very wrathful.7 – You shall not commit adultery.Again, why not? If your spouse has turned into a prune-faced anchorite utterly hostile to divorce and about as romantically exciting as Norman Bates’ mummified mother or Lon Chaney’s Phantom of the Opera, where else is there to turn?8 – You shall not steal.And not steal what? The limelight? The scene? The ball? Someone else’s real property? Commit plagiarism? Please, someone give me a reason other than God’s officious, persnickety say-so. This and the other Commandments come out of literal nowhere, from the void of faith and belief. Has the Federal government heard of this Commandment?9 -You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.I guess this is God’s dictat against lying. But why limit it to neighbors? How about unneighborly tax collectors, criminals, and feminists? I say bear as much false witness against them as the traffic will carry. Has Barack Obama heard of this Commandment? There are forms of this Commandment in the Koran, but maybe he just skipped over them in Indonesia.10 – You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s. Envy doesn’t necessarily lead to covetousness, or even to theft or illegal appropriation or pilferage or shoplifting. Some dyed-in-the-wool Christians argue that this particular Commandment is the sole foundation of capitalism. No wonder Karl Marx was dead set against it. He was wrong, too. The foundations of capitalism – indeed, of freedom of speech and of thought and of property – can hardly be the arbitrary assertion of a ghost or even of a genuine mortal.Of course, Christians won’t give up trying to wed freedom and religion. A case in point is a column, “Ayn Rand and Jesus: Do they teach opposing viewpoints about economy?” on BeliefNet, in which, incredibly, the writer asserts that there can be a moral “overlap between an atheist and a Christian.”

Among other things, there can be overlap between an atheist and a Christ follower in discovering truth.  Jesus would disagree with Ayn Rand that there is any morality outside of God. He might tell her that she hasn’t traced her absolutes back far enough to an objective reality.I would like to have seen Jesus say that to Rand’s face and leave the room in one piece. On the other hand, she was such a formidable and persuasive debater that perhaps Jesus might have wound up an atheist.Religion, she noted, was (and remains) a primitive form of philosophy. In her March 1964 Playboy interview, she said:

Faith, as such, is extremely detrimental to human life: it is the negation of reason. But you must remember that religion is an early form of philosophy, that the first attempts to explain the universe, to give a coherent frame of reference to man’s life and a code of moral values, were made by religion, before men graduated or developed enough to have philosophy. And, as philosophies, some religions have very valuable moral points. They may have a good influence or proper principles to inculcate, but in a very contradictory context and, on a very—how should I say it?—dangerous or malevolent base: on the ground of faith.By way of illustration, religion can be compared with the stick men children first learn to draw; a fully rational philosophy, absent any form of mysticism and reliance on unsupportable assertions, should then lead them to create the likes of Michelangelo’s “David.” But modern philosophy has so failed men in their search for a “coherent frame of reference to man’s life and a code of moral values,” that they are doubling back to the primitive form of it because it seems to make more sense than, say, Existentialism or Nihilism or Marxism. One can’t really blame them. Look at what Existentialism has produced in the way of a representation of man: there’s Rodin’s “Walking Man,” and Giacometti’s. Not much of a choice. One can sympathize with them, but not ally oneself with them, except on an ad hoc basis.Faith in the existence of the supernatural, and even in the “extra-rational,” has been a stumbling block all throughout man’s history. And it has proven dangerous. Faith in a supernatural giver of laws has become faith in a statist and totalitarian system that promises paradise on earth. But it can only attempt to deliver that paradise by employing faith’s necessary partner: force. And, as Rand so well put it:

I have said that faith and force are corollaries, and that mysticism will always lead to the rule of brutality. The cause of it is contained in the very nature of mysticism. Reason is the only objective means of communication and of understanding among men; when men deal with one another by means of reason, reality is their objective standard and frame of reference. But when men claim to possess supernatural means of knowledge, no persuasion, communication or understanding are possible….And more: no man or mystical elite can hold a whole society subjugated to their arbitrary assertions, edicts and whims, without the use of force. Anyone who resorts to the formula: “It’s so, because I say so,” will have to reach for a gun, sooner or later.

No, there is no “overlapping” possible between reason and faith. Any attempt at it will result in the triumph of faith, as exemplified in the porous, virtually tongue-in-cheek rationalizations one can read on BeliefNet, which is no defense of freedom at all. Faith can give one the illusory comfort of a comprehensible universe – or, more often than not, lead to the horrors in history and those taking place in our own time.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is Not a Scientific Organization But a Political Lobbying Group

Jan 5, 2014 | Sci-Tech

John McLean, author of three peer-reviewed papers on climate and an expert reviewer for the latest IPCC report elaborates on how a Lack of accountability clouding the climate change debate.He explains how the "world's so-called authority on climate change engages in exaggerated science and has become a political tool." 

The [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's] charter from the outset has been ''to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation''.The IPCC's focus is therefore very specific - any human influence on climate. It has no mandate to examine other causes of climate change. IPCC assessment reports claim that the human influence is significant but look closely and we find the claims are based on the output of climate models that the IPCC admits are seriously flawed, that the IPCC often asserts a level of certainty that the data cannot sustain and that as ''Climategate'' showed us, a clique of scientists has in the past sought to control the material cited by these reports.What starts out being a scientific report becomes a political instrument because after a hard-core group of IPCC supporters draft the Summary for Policymakers, government representatives discuss, negotiate and eventually agree on the wording of each sentence. The scientific component of the report is then modified to better align it with the thinking of government representatives.If the IPCC reports were accepted for exactly what they are - exaggerated science with a large dollop of politics - this would be the end of the matter. Unfortunately, various bodies actively encourage us to believe the reports are entirely scientific, accurate and completely authoritative on all climate matters, this despite the IPCC's charter and the political interference.Foremost among those who imply that the IPCC has a wider remit than it does is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). At its inaugural meeting in 1992 the UNFCCC declared that anthropogenic emissions of CO2 were causing significant and dangerous climate change. This statement had no factual basis. [...]The UNFCCC's deceit continues via its annual conferences that try to pressure countries into reducing carbon dioxide emissions despite the absence of any clear evidence that warrants such action.

He then goes on how various government bodies (i.e., Department of Climate Change the now-privatised Climate Commission), environmental "green" organisations (Greenpeace and WWF), sustainable energy industry, and scientists  (whose "income and reputation rest on the IPCC's position") have vested interests to endorse and "push the IPCC view, implying it's the ultimate authority on climate matters."

The reality is that the IPCC is in effect little more than a UN-sponsored lobby group, created specifically to investigate and push the ''man-made warming'' line. With no similar organisations to examine other potential causes of climate change, it's only the IPCC voice that is heard. But the IPCC's voice isn't heard in context and with all the necessary caveats; it's distorted via the UNFCCC and others who imply that the IPCC is the sole scientific authority on climate matters.Of course those with vested interest support it, which include governments, politicians, government bodies, ''green'' groups and many scientists. Ultimately it's the unquestioning media, or perhaps a media unwilling to admit that the UN and its agencies might be dishonest or wrong, that misleads the public into believing the IPCC is something it's not.

Read the full article: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/comment/lack-of-accountability-clouding-the-climate-change-debate-20140102-307ja.html#ixzz2pZDoQ0f5

Don’t Throw Education Out With the School Wastewater

Jan 3, 2014 | Education

Writes Lisa Van Damme over at her blog Pygmalion of the Soul:

I am appalled by the state of American education. I am appalled not primarily by the crowded classrooms, decrepit buildings, unmotivated, unionized teachers, severed arts programs, drugs, violence, or many-children-left-behind, but by that which should be the central, fundamental, defining element of any school – the education. Even those schools with richly appointed, sprawling campuses, dedicated faculty with PhD’s, and reputations for academic excellence backed by test scores to prove them still suffer from the same basic pedagogical problem. Education, the actual “learning” that goes on within the walls of our schools, has come to consist primarily, almost exclusively, of mindlessmemorization.From the causes of WWI, to Newton’s laws of motion, to types of literary devices, to the formulas for area, etc., etc. etc., we are asked to memorize, and regurgitate, and study, and memorize, and regurgitate…and forget. Today’s schools are failing utterly to provide children with a real, functional, life-enhancing, lasting education. That is why I sympathize with the widely popular rallying cry well captured in this viral video, of people who “love education” but “hate school,” and the message, “We will not let exam results decide our fate.” They recognize that their education is bankrupt, and they refuse to define themselves by the schools’ standards of success.But sadly, this rallying cry and most of those like it are not a rejection of education in its current, empty, memorization-driven state – they reject education as such. The idea that school must “change with the times,” that education is fundamentally for “getting a job” or “satisfying society’s needs,” that our “different genes” mean we must be educated by “different means,” that Google, Twitter, and Facebook are as legitimate means of personal development and self expression as any schooling, betray a basic hostility to the very concept of education. This should not be surprising, given that those sounding the call are victims of the very educational system they decry. How could they know any better?What a real education actually looks like, what basic purpose it serves, what it does to enhance the life of an individual, why it is essential to life as a mature and thriving adult – these are enormously complex issues. But for my own peace of mind, I want at least to offer some food for thought, and a rallying cry of my own: Protest the “education” in today’s schools, but not education in and of itself.What does a real education provide?

Read the rest of Schools May Be Cesspools – But Don’t Throw Education Out With the Wastewater.

Teaching Math Conceptually –

Dec 24, 2013 | Politics

Ray Girn at LePort Schools reveals the secret to learning math:

The "secret" of our approach is teaching math conceptually, first starting with a sequential, targeted introduction to concrete manipulatives, then enabling mastery through deliberate, focused, motivated practice, and then allowing the experience of efficacy through the application of skills in increasingly complex, real-life problems.

This is accomplished via a three-step process:

  • We develop real understanding by using carefully structured manipulatives, and, more generally, by always progressing from concrete to abstract in a deliberate sequence.
  • We enable each child to attain mastery of math facts, at his or own pace,before we expect him or her to apply those skills to more complex problems.
  • Once a skill is learned, we explicitly teach mathematical problem solving, and advance, rapidly, to applying the skills learned to complex, real-life, meaningful math problems.

Read the full article Teaching Math Conceptually.

WSJ: Obama Repeals ObamaCare

Dec 21, 2013 | Politics

From WSJ.com:

Under pressure from Senate Democrats, the President partly suspends the individual mandate.It seems Nancy Pelosi was wrong when she said "we have to pass" ObamaCare to "find out what's in it." No one may ever know because the White House keeps treating the Affordable Care Act's text as a mere suggestion subject to day-to-day revision. Its latest political retrofit is the most brazen: President Obama is partly suspending the individual mandate.The White House argued at the Supreme Court that the insurance-purchase mandate was not only constitutional but essential to the law's success, while refusing Republican demands to delay or repeal it. But late on Thursday, with only four days to go before the December enrollment deadline, the Health and Human Services Department decreed that millions of Americans are suddenly exempt.

Individuals whose health plans were canceled will now automatically qualify for a "hardship exemption" from the mandate. If they can't or don't sign up for a new plan, they don't have to pay the tax. They can also get a special category of ObamaCare insurance designed for people under age 30.

Read the rest: Obama Repeals ObamaCare

Binswanger on Monetary Freedom

Dec 9, 2013 | Politics

Dr. Harry Binswanger makes a clear case for Monetary Freedom over at Forbes where he argues that "There is no justification for the Federal Reserve System or for any government intervention regarding money. The government should neither impose gold nor forbid it."In fact he goes on to say...

How far would I take this line of thought? All the way.A case in point. I agree with Jean Baptiste Say, the great 19th century economist, that we should not use national currencies, or even introduce words to canonize them. There is no rational need for the terms “dollar”–or “franc” or “peso” or “shekel.We call a bushel of wheat a bushel of wheat. We call a pound of butter a pound of butter. We can call an ounce of gold an ounce of gold. A car’s price could be 10.30 gold ounces. Or, because gold has such a high unit value, we could use the gold gram, and quote the price as 315 gold grams.A gold gram is a gold gram whether it’s used in America, France, Mexico, or Israel. Nor does an ounce of silver vary with lines drawn on the map. And when people are free to choose their money, gold and silver win the market competition. (If, in the future, something else wins, so be it.)So one reason why the government should not “define the dollar as a certain weight of gold” is that we should jettison the term “dollar.” It’s an obfuscatory term. “Dollar,” “franc” and the like inject into men’s thinking an intermediary between money and the money commodity. That paves the way for government debasement of money.Let Washington try to declare that an ounce is now four-fifths of an ounce.Monetary freedom is the only sure means of protecting the integrity of our medium of exchange and store of value. Freedom in general is the only sure means of protecting the integrity of our lives–our ability to act on our own best judgment.

Read the full article Free Money! Then Free The Rest Of The Economy - Forbes.

Three Ways Climate Scientologists Abuse Science

Nov 7, 2013 | Culture

Writes Alex Epstein at Forbes:

“Science” is perhaps the most abused word in the English language.The word used to name the method of Galileo, Newton, and Einstein has also been used to rationalize some of the most destructive political policies in human history, such as socialism and population control. The Nazis invoked the once-renowned “science” of eugenics to justify a Holocaust of “scientifically inferior” races.

How do we protect ourselves against such abuses of science? By knowing the one key difference between real scientists and science abusers. Science abusers treat science as an infallible authority to be blindly obeyed by the public. Real scientists treat science as a method to be carefully explained to the public.By this standard, today’s vaunted “climate science consensus”—that it’s been scientifically proven that we need to dismantle the fossil fuel industry, the economic engine of the world—is more Scientology than science.Here are three ways the Climate Scientologists abuse science.

1.They use manipulative languageIf you are ever asked the incoherent question “Do you deny climate change?” you have found yourself a Climate Scientologist.No one denies “climate change.” “Climate change” is a constant. The “climate,” which is an averaging of weather over long timespan, is an inherently changing phenomenon. There’s no “climate non-change.”Don’t tell me “Oh, we all know what we mean by climate change”–because I don’t, and neither do you.“Climate change” is a manipulative, rubber term used to mean anything from “the climate changes” (which everyone agrees with) to “we impact the climate at least a tiny amount” (which everyone agrees with) to “we impact the climate for the better” (yes, that’s possible) to “we are making the climate much more dangerous” (which much fewer people agree with) to “we are making the climate much more dangerous and the only response is to stop using fossil fuels but also incoherently oppose nuclear power and hydroelectric power while advocating the worst-performing energy technologies, solar and wind.”Climate Scientologists are usually advocates of the last, bizarre position. Since they can’t argue for that view honestly and directly, they dishonestly name their view “climate change.” That’s the equivalent of a eugenics advocate calling his view “evolution.” Which is, in fact, exactly what eugenics advocates did. And just as we needed more thinkers back then, so we need more Climate Thinkers today.

Read the rest of The Church Of Climate Scientology: How Climate Science Became A Religion at Forbes.

Capitalism or decline. You choose.

Oct 7, 2013 | Politics

John Allison on the choice that faces us:

“The U.S. has a simple choice – return to the principles that made us great or face economic decay and social unrest. One of the reasons I wrote my book is because it seemed to make sense to have someone who had an inside and comprehensive understanding of the causes of our financial problems to comment on the issue. In the aftermath of the recent election, it’s even more important for the public and policy makers to understand what drove the financial crisis and what choices we must make to revitalize our economy. The media and other statists have created a myth that the financial crisis was caused by banking deregulation and greed on Wall Street. However, banks were not deregulated. In fact, three major new regulations were passes during the Bush Administration: The Privacy Act, The Patriot Act, and Sarbanes-Oxley. Banks were mis-regulated, not de-regulated. Also, there has always been plenty of greed (and fear) on Wall Street. However, there is not one shred of evidence there was a greed plague that swept the Street. The financial crisis and failed recovery were primarily caused by government policy. The two main culprits were errors made by the Federal Reserve and government housing policy, specifically as executed by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the giant government-sponsored enterprises that would never have existed in a free market. My book covers this and other economic myths and misunderstanding such as the ‘shadow’ banking system, fair value accounting, Pick-a-Payment mortgages, and the like. However, as interesting as the economic discussion is, the real solution for our financial problems is philosophical and the cure was espoused by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence: ‘Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.’ People on all sides of the political spectrum defend liberty, but few people understand why liberty is essential to human well-being. Government regulations put ‘balls and chains’ on innovators and entrepreneurs and thereby, slow and eventually stop progress. Given man’s nature, socialism and communism are doomed to failure. So, again, I say, the U.S. has a simple choice: The laws of mother nature and human nature are not subject to popularity or political whim. Capitalism or decline. You choose.”

Film: Unofficial Scene from Anthem

Oct 4, 2013 | Arts

Scene from Greg Bowyer's unofficial adaptation of Ayn Rand's novel Anthem. It is a future DarkAges, where everyone has accepted the collectivist ideal that society takes precedence over the individual. Yet two individuals, Equality 7-2521 and Liberty 5-3000, overcome their indoctrination and guilt to pursue a selfish relationship between themselves.

Fossil Fuels Make Us Safer From The Climate

Sep 16, 2013 | Politics, Sci-Tech

Another one from Alex Epstein in Forbes:

I explicitly acknowledged the phenomenon of global warming. And if you read the work of the rest of the “deniers,” you’ll find that most if not all of them do, too.The real point of contention is not whether there is some global warming and whether human beings have some climate impact, but a) whether warming is a problem and b) whether fossil fuel energy should be restricted. My answers are a) “No” and b) “No!” As I explained in the column Rolling Stone cited (but may not have read):

Our cultural discussion on “climate change” fixates on whether or not fossil fuels impact the climate. Of course they do—everything does—but the question that matters is whether it is becoming safer or more dangerous. Here, the data is unambiguous—in the last 80 years, as fossil fuels have increased the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere from .03% to all of .04%, we have become 50 times less likely to die because of climate-related causes. Give thanks to the proliferation of climate-protection technology (climate control, sturdy homes, weather satellites, drought-relief convoys, modern agriculture), which are made possible by fossil fuels.

And, as I also explained in the column, Rolling Stone cited, not only do fossil fuels make us safer from the climate, they dramatically improve human life across the board.

The average life expectancy of a human being without electricity–and there are 1.4 billion in this category–is 48 years old. In the last 30 years, thanks to a tripling or more of electricity production in countries throughout the developing world, mostly using coal, over 2.5 billion people have added 6 years to their life expectancy. Think about someone you love that you lost early, and think about what 6 more years would mean. Now multiply that by 2.5 billion people.Around the world, hundreds of millions of individuals have gotten their first light-bulb, their first refrigerator, their first year with clean drinking water or a full stomach, their first decent-paying job thanks to coal-based electricity. Without coal, none of that would have been possible. In the US, 30 years ago the average household had 3 electronic devices—today it has 25, overwhelmingly thanks to fossil fuels.

If Rolling Stone has a counter-argument to the economic and environmental case for fossil fuels, let it make it. But to pretend that case doesn’t exist, to pretend that its advocates deny basic scientific facts, is dishonest.

Read the rest of Rolling Stone Attacks Global Warming 'Deniers' As Anti-Science, Then Commits Big Scientific Blunder.

Event: Free Speech and Artistic Expression

Sep 5, 2013 | Education

A Free Speech Dialogue to take place this fall at The University of Texas. It will be held on Thursday, September 26, from 7-9 pm. Location: The College of Liberal Arts Building (CLA), Room 0.128. As always, the dialogues are open to the public.The topic is Free Speech and Artistic Expression. Panelists will consider questions such as: Should artistic expression be any less protected than political speech? What is* artistic expression? When is art obscene, or educational? Should artistic freedom depend on who's paying: public subsidies or private patrons?Speakers:
  • Greg Lukianoff, President of (FIRE) Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.
  • Daniel Jacobson, professor of Philosophy at The University of Michigan
  • Nora Gilbert , assistant professor of English at The University of North Texas
Event Format: The speakers will offer brief presentations (about 10 minutes each), followed by an hour or so of interview-style dialogue with the other panelists. The final half hour will be given to questions from the general audience. More information about the Free Speech Dialogues* can be found on our website: www.freespeechdialogues.org

Syria Situation: Obama Does Not Equal America

Sep 2, 2013 | Politics

From The Right Scoop:

John Bolton spoke last night to Greta about the Syrian situation and was asked about the New York Times saying that we would be ‘advertising our impotence’ if we just lobbed a few missiles and didn’t go for regime change by taking out Assad. But Bolton disagrees with the premise…sorta:

“Well we’re advertising the president’s impotence and I think this is important as well. People say the president has put the American credibility on the line, therefore he has to strike. He has damaged our credibility – I acknowledge that. But mostly he’s shredded his own. And it’s about time for the rest of the world to understand that Barack Obama and the United States are not the same thing. We’ve got 1200 days of this left and it’s going to be very costly. But the United States should not be put in a worse position just to help out Barack Obama’s credibility.”

When asked if we should do something militarily simply for humanitarian reasons, to end the conflict, Bolton says absolutely not:

“My answer to that is ‘no’ and here’s the hard reality. It is entirely possible that there are humanitarian tragedies all around the world that tug at our hearts. But that doesn’t mean there’s an American interest, one way the other, in resolving the conflict. We’ve got huge interests at stake in the region as a whole, in Syria because of Iran in particular. But there are conflicts where there are no white hats and no American interests. People say we’re not the world’s policeman. That’s not the issue here. The issue here is that we should not use military force in pursuit of abstractions. We are not the world’s nanny.”See a video of the full interview at Bolton: It’s time for the world to understand that Barack Obama and the United States are NOT the same thing.

I Have a Dream vs Affirmative Action

Aug 28, 2013 | Politics

Trying to reconcile MLK's "I have a dream speech" with racist affirmative action polices. Can't be done.Writes Edwin Locke:

What should we remember on Martin Luther King Day? In his “I Have a Dream” speech Dr. King said: “I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

This statement means that in judging other men, skin color should be ignored–that it should not be a factor in evaluating their competence or moral stature. It follows that skin color should not be a factor in taking actions toward other people, e.g., hiring and admitting to universities.

What has happened in the years following King’s murder is the opposite of the “I Have a Dream” quote above. Colorblindness now has been replaced with color preference in the form of affirmative action.

“We Don’t Talk About College”

Aug 23, 2013 | Education

Writes Lisa Von Damme at Pygmalion of the Soul:

Years ago, I accompanied an 8th-grade student I had homeschooled as she visited prospective high schools. At one school, the director of admissions welcomed us and then proceeded to assault my student with the information that entry to college had become highly competitive, and she must therefore chart the right course through the right high school to stand even a chance of admission to the better colleges. She then proceeded to sell the school with the following: my student would need to take multiple AP courses—this school offered a wide variety; she would need to complete the IB program—they were honored to be a member school; she would need to be competitive in a sport and ambitious in an extra-curricular activity—they had many from which to choose. As the director mapped out all that my student must do (with the unquestioned assumption that admission to Harvard was her foremost educational goal), I looked over—and saw her wilt.This was a child of whom I had endless vivid, touching stories from the classroom—stories of her gasping out loud when she was irrepressibly moved by a passage from Victor Hugo’s Ninety-Three; stories of her eagerly recreating science lessons at home with her parents as students; stories of her writing with ferocious confidence (though she had previously loathed writing), because, she said, I taught her how. Now, before both our eyes, education was becoming nothing about the development of invaluable, life-long skills, nothing about the discovery of joy and utility in the acquisition of knowledge, nothing about the deepening of a capacity for emotional experience. Admission to high school was about… admission to college, which was about…The answer to that was nothing more than a vague, unstated apprehension of doom.Many years later, I am the owner and director of a private K-8 school of 140 children in Aliso Viejo, CA. And eternally conscious of that visit to the high school and all the educational principles it implied, I am proud to say that I have a refrain here at VanDamme Academy: “We don’t talk about college.” We talk about how...

Read the rest of “We Don’t Talk About College.

“We Don’t Talk About College”

Aug 23, 2013 | Education

Writes Lisa Von Damme at Pygmalion of the Soul:

Years ago, I accompanied an 8th-grade student I had homeschooled as she visited prospective high schools. At one school, the director of admissions welcomed us and then proceeded to assault my student with the information that entry to college had become highly competitive, and she must therefore chart the right course through the right high school to stand even a chance of admission to the better colleges. She then proceeded to sell the school with the following: my student would need to take multiple AP courses—this school offered a wide variety; she would need to complete the IB program—they were honored to be a member school; she would need to be competitive in a sport and ambitious in an extra-curricular activity—they had many from which to choose. As the director mapped out all that my student must do (with the unquestioned assumption that admission to Harvard was her foremost educational goal), I looked over—and saw her wilt.This was a child of whom I had endless vivid, touching stories from the classroom—stories of her gasping out loud when she was irrepressibly moved by a passage from Victor Hugo’s Ninety-Three; stories of her eagerly recreating science lessons at home with her parents as students; stories of her writing with ferocious confidence (though she had previously loathed writing), because, she said, I taught her how. Now, before both our eyes, education was becoming nothing about the development of invaluable, life-long skills, nothing about the discovery of joy and utility in the acquisition of knowledge, nothing about the deepening of a capacity for emotional experience. Admission to high school was about… admission to college, which was about…The answer to that was nothing more than a vague, unstated apprehension of doom.Many years later, I am the owner and director of a private K-8 school of 140 children in Aliso Viejo, CA. And eternally conscious of that visit to the high school and all the educational principles it implied, I am proud to say that I have a refrain here at VanDamme Academy: “We don’t talk about college.” We talk about how...

Read the rest of “We Don’t Talk About College.

More Guns, Less Crime?

Aug 23, 2013 | Business, Politics

More Guns, Less Crime? - Capitalism Magazine

One highly visible scholar in the media debate is economist and social scientist, John Lott, Jr., the John M. Olin Visiting Law and Economics Fellow at the University of Chicago. The title of his 1998 book, MORE GUNS, LESS CRIME, may at first strike the reader as provocatively counterintuitive. Lott argues that states’ issuance of permits allowing private citizens to carry concealed handguns has NOT caused crime to rise, but has in fact dramatically REDUCED violent crimes. That’s one fact you won’t here on Rosie O’Donell.

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