Good Quote to the Fringe?

This post comes from a Columbian Discussion Forum:

Just reading a book and was happy to see that my thoughts follow a person that was wiser than I will ever be.

Max Born - 1954 Nobel winner

"The belief that there is only one truth and that oneself is in possession of it seems to me the deepest root of all the evil that is in the world."

The poster then states:

"This statment was made about knowledge but I think it speaks truthfully to beliefs in general."

On the surface this sounds very wise. However, taken as posted, this comment is self-refuting. The claim of "the belief that there is only one truth and that oneself is in possession of it seems to me the deepest root of all the evil that is in the world" is itself a truth claim.

If it is true that there cannot be only one truth then Born's statement is false because he is claiming his belief as the only truth.

If there can be a single truth then Born's statement is also false because he claims that there cannot be only one truth.

Either way, Born's makes a false claim of truth which he himself is in possession of thereby committing the "deepest root of all the evil that is in the world."

UPDATED: 6/27/2006 to correct the spelling of Max Born's name.

Honoring the Wrong War in the Wrong Place at the Wrong Time

Comment read into the Congressional Record - Senate, June 21, 2006, S6261 by Senator John Kerry:

When I heard those two guys were captured, my heart sank because I immediately envisioned the worst. The worst happened. I thought about them throughout that time period, until they were found. I was not surprised that they were brutalized in the most horrific, disgraceful way, and may I add-and I know the Senator knows this-in ways that contravene every law of warfare. But I believe we have a better chance of honoring what they went there for and what all of our soldiers have died for, given something for, if we adopt a policy of reality.

"Honoring what they went there for"?!? Does the Senator want to honor them for going to "the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time", the label he applied to the war during the 2004 Presidential campaign? After all, Kerry wants to go back to a the time where terrorists were just a nuisance; the nuisance of flying planes into skyscrapers, the nuisance of the U.S.S. Cole, the nuisance of the Beslan massacres, the nuisance of innocents like Nicolas Berg being beheaded simply because they want to help the Iraqis, the nuisance of Iraqi school buses and elderly homes being blown up.

Senator Kerry's rhetoric reveals his lack of moral clarity, courage, and credibility on this issue.

A dozen boys and a soldier were chosen

John Laird had an very good article in the June 18 Columbian titled, "A dozen boys and a soldier were chosen"*. Laird contrasts his Little League coaching experience this year with that of Sgt. Brian Radke, a local soldier who was critcally injured on Oct 5 of 2005. The picture he paints provides a glimpse of what is important in life, courage, sacrifice, and the existence of that which is greater than ourselves.

Six 11-year-old rookies weren't sure what would happen at their first meeting of the Hazel Dell Cardinals ... "Look at me and listen carefully," I announced. "I want you to focus on just three words: You were chosen."

"You're here because the coaches chose you. At the tryouts, we watched the way you arrived, the way you talked to your parents, the way you stood in line and the way you acted around your friends.

"We chose you for more reasons than just baseball. So you can be sure that this is where you belong."

Laird explained of his team's struggles and his challenge to them:

"As long as you have BR-USA embroidered on the side of your baseball caps, I will never allow you to feel sorry for yourselves. Get your chins up. There's no pouting in baseball."

As the story unfolds, you realize that BR-USA on their caps and their baseball season was dedicated to Sgt. Brian Radke:

... for the first time in 15 years of coaching, I saw 12 boys play for someone other than just themselves. I saw a dozen clumsy knuckleheads rally around five initials that stood for one soldier.
Oct. 5 in Baghdad is why the boys of BR-USA stopped feeling sorry for themselves while playing a silly game.

Laird continued:

Most baseball caps have a fairly short shelf life. After a year or two, they're gone. But I know a dozen boys who'll keep their BR-USA caps for many years to come, maybe for the rest of their lives. They'll do this not because of baseball, but because they'll need a reminder whenever they start to feel sorry for themselves.

Sgt. Brian Radke came home, and he heard three words from Hazel Dell Little League folks about their 2006 season: You were chosen.

*Article is available on The Columbian web site for four weeks.

Being Wired Is All The (Road) Rage

It appears that those who engage in road rage should have society's sympathy rather than our judgement and punishment. The London Telegraph reported June 6 that "Road rage drivers are mentally ill, not thugs":

Road rage and other violent outbursts are caused by "intermittent explosive disorder", a condition which could affect up to 16 million Americans.

Dr Emil Coccaro, chairman of psychiatry at the University of Chicago's medical school and the report's co-author, said: "People think it's bad behaviour and that you just need an attitude adjustment, but what they don't know ... is that there's a biology and cognitive science to this."

So road rage isn't bad behavior after all. People cannot choose to control their anger. It's not their fault, they're just born that way. If that's the case, then what right does society have to judge that behavior? Isn't that discriminatory? Morality need now apply.

After all, it's only biology.

Nature, the Homophobe

How does same-sex marriage detract or threaten the institution of heterosexual marriage?

LR: We can also ask how does polygamy or plural marriages "detract or threaten the institution of same-sex marriage?" Yet, most same-sex marriage advocates have no problem banning those types of relationships. To be intellectually consistent, those relationships (and others) would need to be part of the institution, which would effectively eliminate any meaningful meaning to marriage. In other words, marriage would no longer exist.

Second, marriage throughout history has always been recognized as an opposite-sex relationship in recognition of our nature as human beings. Marriage brings together opposite genders into a complementary union. (See Designed for Sex).

Same-sex marriage advocates reject this appeal to nature but point to "loving, consenting adults" in same-sex relationships. Where do they get the notion of loving? Of consenting? Of adults? These concepts also go to our very nature as human beings.

We recognize love as filling a necessary human need for relationship. We do not violate the will (consent) of human beings. For example, it is wrong to own humans but not pets. And we recognize that adults will (generally speaking) have more wisdom to handle the powerful bonds (both emotionally and sexually) of the marital relationship. Animals instinctively mate when their bodies are ready but human maturity is more than just physical maturation.

So same-sex marriage advocates pick and choose which parts of nature to which they will appeal; accepting only the parts that will benefit their cause. Intellectual consistency demands that if appeals to nature are illegitimate and discriminatory than all appeals to nature should be dropped. Or explain why only parts of nature must be appealed to. Same-sex marriage advocates do neither.

In fact, marriage as a union between "two" people is equally discriminatory. Two finds its meaning in our nature as sexual beings. That is, two people coming together in a sexual union. That is the concept of couple (aka coupling). While multiple ways exist to engage in a sexual union, only one is the way nature made the sexual organs to function and that is through opposite-sex sexual unions. Sans appeals to nature, "two" becomes an arbitrary number to exclude relationships (like polygamy and polyamory) with which same-sex marriage advocates are uncomfortable.

Same-sex marriage doesn't just threaten marriage; it threatens the very way we view ourselves as human beings. If you have a problem with that then take it up with nature, the true homophobe.

FLAG DAY 2006

From the Federalist 06-24 Chronicle (6/14/2006):

On 14 June 1777, the Marine Committee of the Continental Congress adopted a resolution, which gave birth to our National Flag. The resolution read: "Resolved that the Flag of the United States be made of 13 stripes, alternate red and white, that the union be 13 stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation."

General George Washington explained: "We take the stars from heaven, the red from our mother country, separating it by white stripes, thus showing that we have separated from her, and the white stripes shall go down to posterity representing liberty."

Today, our Flag is a beacon for liberty, a symbol of hope for all people who "hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed—that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it..."

Our flag flies over a national government, which, at its foundation, was predicated on the premise that it be concerned with what can be done FOR its citizens, not on what can be done TO its citizens.

Is Forcing Your Views On Others Wrong?

A lesson in clear thinking from an exchange in an online thread between a friend of mine and a person identified as Tiggr:

Tiggr: I think everyone is missing the real point of all this. Forcing your opinions and beliefs on anyone else is wrong. That is the crux of it all. Everything else is just posturing and rhetoric.

DGG: I think that Tiggr is missing the point too. The statement that "everyone is missing the real point" is a self-defeating statement because, if true, then Tiggr is missing the point too.

Further, the statement that "forcing your opinions and beliefs on anyone else is wrong" is interesting because every statute or regulation enacted by a governmental entity is a means of forcing one's or society's beliefs on someone else. Forbidding murder is one method of forcing a belief against murder on everyone else in society. Thus, that can't be the point! The question cannot be whether or not we are forcing our beliefs on everyone else, but whether or not the belief is a legitmate one. What Tiggr must mean, then, is that only those beliefs held by Tiggr are appropriately forced on everyone else. Otherwise, the comment is nonsensical.

One should deal with the issues and not engage in personal attacks or self-defeating statements.

"It's Beautiful!"

Spoiler alert: for newly arrived interstellar aliens who have not yet picked up the DVD.
Towards the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Rene Belloq has captured the Ark of the Covenant (and Indiana Jones and Marion) and opens it to see what treasures therein lie. Magnificent spirits emerge swooping around the cave until one immensely beautiful spirit hovers before Belloq.

"It's beautiful!" he exclaims in sheer delight at the vision until a moment later it morphs into a unimaginable horrible creature which engulfs and destroys him as he screams in agony and excruciating pain.

I wonder if Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, upon passing from this life, saw a vision of 70 virgins, beautiful beyond description, welcoming him with open arms. "They're beautiful!" he exclaims in sheer delight at the magnificent vision only to be bewildered as they merge into one virgin and then aghast as the one virgin morphs into the Holy and Righteous God that judges in perfect justice.

I wonder if Zarqawi thinks all the evil he perpetuated during the wisp of his life is now worth his eternal screams of agony and the weeping and gnashing of teeth. Zarqawi now knows true terror.

Return to the Planet of the Blogs

Due to many of things such as work (no response from the Gates Foundation yet on my request for them to underwrite my living expenses), family, tasks and issues which required my attention, and - yes - sometimes just because, I have not blogged for awhile.

I know some in the blogosphere live and breathe this stuff. Good for them. But while I like to write and think that the last 11 months have reinforced there are many things much more important than whether or not I write. I may miss it (and I did) but, for me, this is not the be-all of my existence.

While I may or may not post each day, my hope is that when I do that I might, in some small meaningful way, be able to add something to the issues of our day.

I can just hear all those who don't like my views very much: "Damn you! Damn your views all to hell!"
(My apologies to Charleton Heston)