"Take lessons from the examples that you can see"

Is Geert Wilder's film Fitna hate speech? The title of this blog entry comes from an uncredited audio voice over within that film. Based on context it was most likely yelled by a Muslim protestor during unrest around Theo van Gogh's murder. No explicit credit is given.

Obama has committed the same "error" as many Muslims. (I am *not* trying to connect the two, except to note a similar situation, and a common interpretation of the result)

Many people ask the question why Obama did not speak out against Rev. Wright, and note that Obama's silence raises the question of whether he holds the same viewpoints. Obama has stated that he rejects the messages of Rev. Wright without stating which messages he rejects. This gives empty deniability to Obama because if I agree with Wright, then Obama must also agree, and if I disagree with Wright, then Obama also disagrees, right? *sigh*

In parallel fashion, I will ask why Muslims do not speak out against the religiously based violence both between Islamic and non-Islamic religions, and also between Islamic factions? Failure to speak out against these actions leaves open the question of whether they are despised, somewhat accepted, condoned, or even encouraged.

What example do you wish to hold as the ideal? Hold it up and be known for it. Don't make Obama's mistake; be unambiguous about what you encourage and what you despise.

I hold dearly my freedom of speech. My words cannot cause harm -- all a rational person need do is to consider the source and act appropriately. They can ignore me or walk away if they do not agree and choose not to engage.

People do take lessons from the examples they can see.

rootie

Life's little lessons, number 4,177 and 4,178

I recently moved into a house that, amazingly enough, has mature trees. These very large trees don't drop all their leaves immediately, but instead hold some late into the fall, so raking isn't a "do-it-once-and-you're-done" affair.

I kept waiting for the "right" time to go rake the leaves. Having a few brief moments, I took my 3.5 year old son out with me to start the task.

As most thinking parents can imagine, a pre-schooler is more interested in spreading leaves than piling them. :-O lesson learned -- bring extra patience and humor when raking leaves with the generous help of a preschooler.

So the leaves fall in the cold, it snows and rains on them, and they sit there for 4 months of "winter". Even in cool weather, that seems to be sufficient opportunity to allow the bottom layer of leaves to turn into mulch. Earthworms, centipedes and mold will be at home in the piles, and the grass underneath doesn't really like being buried in all that. Lesson learned -- find some time to make sure to get the "last" pile of leaves raked up, even if it means a little bit of snow goes with them.

Raking leaves does count as exercise doesn't it?

(still not done yet -- more leaves to rake, maybe I'll get to it tomorrow :-)

rootie

Capitalism as cooperation, not competition

Here is a great description by Kyle of capitalism that I heard during a session of The Objectivism Seminar:

Capitalism isn't based in competition, but instead is based in
cooperation. Two parties trade freely to their mutual benefit. The
only competition is in the choice of with whom to trade freely.

That may not be an exact quote, but captures the idea.

When I want a cheap microwave, I pay a low price. When I want something more, I pay a different price.

That "something more" doesn't have to be a level of quality, it can be something else entirely. The point is that capitalism represents free choice on the basis of what the traders find to be mutually beneficial, without the need for government regulation.

rootie

beautiful song, ugly message...

For those of you who don't listen to country music, or pay attention to American Idol winners, Carrie Underwood has a beautiful song with a very nice rhythm pattern between verse and chorus, high winding vocals in her clear voice, and lyrics that would certainly not be among Ayn Rand's "tiddlywink music". (Dismuke link via noodlefood)

Taken literally as advice of what to do during a time when your car seems to be out of control, (yes, I know that isn't the point of the song -- bear with me here), simply "throwing your hands in the air" and relinquishing all control of the vehicle leaves you at the mercy of physics -- between a physiologist, physicist and mechanical and materials engineers you can find out quite precisely what will happen to the car and the occupants within based on the parameters of the car, velocities, angles, surfaces, weight distribution etc.

In the event of a loss of control, there is still frequently a window of opportunity to exercise free will and rational thought to improve the outcome. This might be something small like steering to gain a fraction of a foot of clearance between the car and a concrete bridge or culvert, or choosing whether to err in the direction of oncoming traffic or tangle with cars going the same direction. Perhaps a quick thinking mind may even steer to hold the car in a reverse facing direction simply to maintain a lengthwise orientation to the direction of travel to avoid a rollover at high velocity. These are small choices that don't regain control of the situation, but may greatly influence your chances to survive or to save your life or someone else's.

Not every out of control car can be recovered or steered -- as common example, some icy roads provide no options. By literally taking your hands from the wheel, there is no choice of making any correction or adjustment to improve the outcome of the accident. Instead of a 5 or 10% (or 50%) chance of improving the outcome, you have 0% chance.

More philosophically speaking, to metaphorically take your hands from the wheel, is to give up control of your life and the events within it. Just as with the out of control car, there are factors in our lives that we do not control, situations that will not proceed in any substantial direction toward our goals. A lack of complete control does not mean that we have nothing to gain in the attempt. We frequently have options, degrees of freedom, or other opportunities to affect the outcome of the situation; to improve the result.

Flourishing, does not mean wandering aimlessly the pasture of our life, grazing on whatever grass may grow, but instead requires a conscientiously applied rational mind. We grow much farther when we deliberately choose the direction and constantly work to steer ourselves towards our goals.

rootie

books are immoral?

In the land of subjectivists, collectivists, and the religiously motivated you get to wear many different hats, and ideas become very complex. In "the land of Rand" ideas often simplify to some basic concepts that frame the problem quite clearly, and occasionally very differently than you might have expected.

Let's start with this fun story:

The Nampa Public Library Board of Trustees made a decision to pull two sex books from the shelf, though they are not leaving the library.

Instead, the books will be kept in the library director's office, and patrons can specifically request to check them out.

This action was prompted by Randall Jackson, a man of "character"?:

Reportedly, Jackson once checked out the books and vowed never to return them, but the library eventually replaced the books.

Apparently Jackson isn't alone in his character:

Sometimes the books, Nampa Library Community Relations Coordinator Dan Black said, are checked out in protest and kept past their due dates. The books have also been checked out and not returned.

Further, Jackson is quoted from the meeting:

"They are images you would find in an adult book store - not in a publicly funded, library open to the public."

Pop Quiz!
Which offence would you start with?

• Censorship! Shouldn't libraries be independent providers of books their patrons want to read? If nobody wanted to read it, it wouldn't get checked out. If people want to know what is in the book whether because it may be entertaining or educational, that is their individual business, not the library's to control.
• One group forcing their particular form of "morality" on everyone. After all, the human body is an evil thing, not to be looked at, touched, used, or enjoyed in any way. :-O Well, ok, you can use your body for procreation in a monogamous heterosexual religiously sanctified relationship, but you aren't allowed to enjoy it, and we won't tell you how to do it.
• Theft! No, it isn't theft, after all, the library let Mr. Jackson remove the book by their policy of checking out books. The fact that he and others like him intentionally failed to return the books doesn't make it theft. NOT! Intent is everything -- it is the difference between murder and manslaughter, or in this case the difference between theft and being a careless patron.
• Denial of service attacks. By intentionally keeping the books past their date in "protest", these people are denying others the opportunity to check out the books and derive benefit from them.
• It was a Public Library. Yuppers, you read that right -- a public library as an offence. What aspect of providing large quantities of books, housing them, replacing them, staffing to manage the collection and facility, is a government protection of an individual's rights? Q. What percentage of a city's population have to use a library for it to be self-funding? A. A public library doesn't charge for access to the book collection. In this model, it cannot be self-funding! The library provides books out of the tax base, so everyone in a geographical area gets the county sheriff, deputies, and their guns (or more likely the state gov't to garnish wages by force) to ensure that you pay for your fair share of the books you don't read.

Did you expect to end up there? When I first was fuming about this, I didn't...

If you didn't have a public library, but instead had a self-funded private enterprise, then that enterprise would have no need to respond to the requests of "people with differing moral opinions". A book business could instead say "if you don't like our books, start your own store".

In the interest of full disclosure, I don't currently have a library card, but I have spent *many* hours in public libraries (city, county, state, university), wandering the stacks, reading anything and everything. My public school bus used to stop at the public library once a week so kids could go check out books, and I certainly indulged. I have recently provided support in the form of new equipment donations to public libraries, and I probably will do so again, but certainly not under the threat of force.

I even occasionally do wish I had a library card as I think of all the books I'd like to read that I have no time for...

rootie

Happy PI day!

What proof do we need that our will and our desires do not rule reality? How about a simple number, Pi = 3.141592535...

While it is frequently approximated as 22/7 = 3.1428..., people who are approximating it in that form usually know that they aren't using the actual value, but something "close enough".

Back in 1897, the state of Indiana almost passed an interesting bill to set the value of pi. This is interesting on several accounts:

1. Nobody who passed the bill could understand what they were passing. But the state House of Representatives passed it anyway!
2. It seems the person who originally wrote the bill may have intended to collect royalties from everyone except the state of Indiana for using it.
3. The value (depending on how you read the bill, you may get several different values) was wrong. It seems that one of the most common values interpreted from the bill is that pi was 3.2,

In a case of mind understanding matter, a mathemetician realized the insanity of the occasion and explained the situation to the State Senate.

The Senators made bad puns about it, ridiculed it, and laughed
over it. The fun lasted half an hour. [Then] Senator
Hubbell said that it was not meet for the Senate, which was costing
the State $250 a day [!], to waste its time in such frivolity
... He moved the indefinite postponement of the bill, and the
motion carried.

Do you have a favorite example of government passing a bill that nobody understands?

Happy pi day!
rootie

Why optional values?

For those of you looking for perl or xml, you're a victim of search engine glee.

ha, "victim," now there's a badly chosen word. Yes, whatever search engine brought you here must be out to get you...drat, there I go again, anthropomorphising technological algorithms.

So why "optional values"? Blogging isn't my life. I don't live to blog. That makes blogging "optional" -- it isn't core to my life's purpose.

So what about "values"? Google won't tell you much about "values" that applies in this context. Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism throws lots of people curveballs. Part of it is the fact that some words take on very specific meanings and very narrow relevant contexts. "Values" is definitely one of those words.

A thing of "value" is something you want, and when you have it, you want to keep it, not to lose it, have it stolen from you, or damaged or destroyed. "Values" is simply a reference to "things of value". Ok, so there is more to the definition than that, but I'll stop there for now.

Why am I here? There were two disasters reported on the front page of the local paper this week. Disaster #1: books are immoral. Disaster #2: science is sin. How long can good people remain silent while lunatics run amok in their society? (hopefully more on those topics later when I quit seething) At the very least, I feel the need to speak out against these ideas, to add my voice to those calling for rationality and an end to the intrusions of people whose idea of "morality" seems to originate in the twilight zone.

This then, as with most blogs is partly diary, political/philosophical commentary, and links to whatever else strikes my fancy. (no, I won't show you pictures of it)

What about me? Am I "an Objectivist"? That title would bestow on me an honor I do not as yet deserve. Call me "a student of objectivism." There is much to learn, and much change to make in myself.

It is my experience that I may choose the wrong word, twist a phrase until it breaks, or use metric measuring cups and a silicon spatula when mixing metaphors. (yes, I intended to write "silicon", not "silicone") Life is an educational experience, and this is definitely a learning opportunity for me, maybe for you. Feel free to join me on my journey...

Rootie