...Consider the possibility that man is to God as a dog is to a man, and a dog is to man as a flea is to a dog; i.e., the man, the dog, and the flea, who are merely tagging along for the ride, have neither the faintest idea as to why their masters do what they do nor the means to ever understand why.

The question then becomes: Is God indifferent to us, as the dog is to the flea, or does he allow us to suffer for reasons we do not understand? When someone takes his dog to the veterinarian, the dog has no idea why his master allows pain to be inflicted on him. In the same way, perhaps, God doesn't always give us what we want, but he knows what we need.

Robert Ringer

Hat Tip: Right Wing News via Conservative Grapevine

Civilization is not an evolution of mankind but the imposition of human good on human evil. It is not a historical inevitability. It is a battle that has to be fought every day, because evil doesn't recede willingly before the wheels of progress.

Andrew McCarthy

There's been much talk recently about the Somali pirates. It is heartening to hear that the pirates got what they deserved. But I am completely baffled that a handful of pirates in a lifeboat with one hostage managed to hold off three American warships for four days.

And not only that, but the hostage actually escaped, giving the Navy a window of opportunity to sink their little dinghy. Do destroyers not have cannons these days?!

What is it that has paralyzed our society in the face of danger? It's not just pirates off the coast of Africa. It's gangs in the inner city and drug lords in Mexico. Why do we tolerate crime and destruction and anarchy?

There are sections of the city not two miles from my house I would not venture through except in a group, and wouldn't enter at night even with an armed party. Is this normal?

Civilization is the restriction of human behavior. When we remove those restrictions, when we no longer restrain ourselves, no longer enforce restrictions on those who will not restrain themselves, civilization falls. A society that tolerates murder, ignores theft, and encourages sloth cannot be called civilized. Such brings decay. An inner city ghetto in America is better off, I think, than Somalia, but the lawlessness is the same. I wouldn't go into either.

We've let men like this take over whole neighborhoods. When really they ought to stuck on a pike in the village square. (Pirates should be hung from the yardarm. There are traditions for these things, after all.)

Hat Tip: Mark Steyn, via Conservative Grapevine

The topic we were discussing in men's Bible study the other day was moral law. One of the sticking points was whether moral law comes from an outside source, or whether it is made up by society. Obviously, Christians believe that moral law comes from an outside source; God. Whereas evolutionists and many other scholars believe that moral law is made up by society.

Where Calvinball comes in is with an analogy that was used to describe moral law. In almost all games, the rules are made up by an outside source. The players don't make up the rules as they go. Nor do they even agree on the rules before the game starts. The rules exist from beforehand, whether in basketball or Monopoly, and the players are expected to follow them. This is our outside source. The rules of play are created by some external entity and anyone who wants to play the game follows those rules.

In Calvinball, however, the players make up rules as they go. Rules are invented and disbanded at whim. This is the evolutionary theory, where people make up rules to progress themselves, and eventually eliminate them when they are no longer useful.

Both approaches to games are possible. You and your buddies can make up your own rules and have a great time. Or you can play an existing game and have a great time. But in real life, the question is whether moral law is absolute or relative. For it to be absolute, it must come from an outside source. And by outside, I mean outside of humanity. Any objective standard is external to the thing being measured.

With relative moral law, we can invent and modify right and wrong however it suits us. But in a dispute, whose right and wrong do we use? Whoever has the bigger stick. If right and wrong are social constructs, then whoever has the power to enforce the standard gets to set the standard. But if the standard changes, it's not really standard.

Which is shiny and all, but it doesn't really tell us which of these theories is correct. Either we're all playing basketball, even if we don't know the rules and are inclined to cheat, or we are playing Calvinball, and only use rules we like.

Maybe I should go read some more Calvin & Hobbes and see what other theology I can discover.

Hot chicks. With lightsabers. Need I say more?

Hat Tip: House of Eratosthenes

We traded beauty for ugliness, truth for lies, liberty for comfort, love for indifference, responsibility for frivolity, duty for entertainment, history for sound bites, and children for pleasure. We had gold, but we tossed it aside and replaced it with cleverly designed dross. We turned men into women and women into men and marveled at our new creative power. We stopped looking up to Heaven and began to keep our gaze firmly fixed on the ground. We abandoned the old God for a host of hip, cool and slick new ones.

The Return of Scipio

Everything that is wrong with society.

Hat Tip: House of Eratosthenes

I'm tired of being told how bad America is by left-wing millionaires like Michael Moore, George Soros, and Hollywood entertainers who live in luxury because of the opportunities America offers. In thirty years, if they got their way, the United States will have the religious freedom and women's rights of Saudi Arabia, the economy of Zimbabwe, the freedom of the press of China, the crime and violence of Mexico, the tolerance for gay people of Iran, and the freedom of speech of Venezuela. Won't multiculturalism be beautiful?

Robert A. Hall

Dead on. The flip side to that view is that in much less than thirty years, there will be a backlash against this kind of liberal idiocy, and the country will move back to the right. This kind of cycle has been going on for a while now; since the Renaissance for our own culture. But what I can't help but notice is that the cycle itself moves ever more leftward. So I don't expect the coming conservative swing to take as far to the right as Reagan, and the next swing left will take us past the Obama administration. My question is: when do we stop cycling far enough back to the right to be unable to fix things?

Hat Tip: Conservative Grapevine

Heh: "pathologically incapable of accepting responsibility"

Hat Tip: Cassy Fiano

One of the statist fallacies is that there exists people who are more intelligent and virtuous than everyone else; nobles who need to tell the uneducated masses what to do. The problem is that no such man has ever existed that is able to resist the temptation to abuse his powers. (Except for that one guy 2000 years ago.) So statism fails to help the people, as the leaders help themselves instead. Capitalism at least tries to work around this lack of virtue, as Friedman puts it.

Hat Tip: Big Hollywood

History repeats itself, first as a tragedy, second as a farce.

Karl Marx

Though I doubt he was talking about socialism or statism when he said it, it certainly applies to our continued attempts to try his ideas, despite the warnings that Nazism and Communism provide for us.

Hat Tip: Right Wing News

But I'm not the only one saying it.

This speech was given by Evan Sayet to the Heritage Foundation two years ago. He gave a followup speech this week.

My favorite line was this one:

Stupidity is a luxury and you will find time and time and time again that those who are overwhelmingly on the left are those who can afford to be. Those who do not suffer the consequences of their stupidity...

Hat Tip: Big Hollywood and Right Wing News

I went to the Orlando Tea Party yesterday. Some five to six thousand people showed up for the event. We got there around noon, and by then the amphitheater was full, so we got seats outside the bowl. We couldn't really hear the speakers, so I don't know the specific message at this rally, but I've been following the events on Instapundit and other blogs, so I don't think they said anything with which I disagree.

One of my friends made t-shirts for the event. (I left my camera at home, so I'll have to post some pictures later). He brought a bunch extra and sold all of them within an hour.

Most people at the tea party seemed to be in good spirits. Everyone was smiling and talking to each other. It really felt more like a day at the park than a political protest. Signs and t-shirts not withstanding. Nobody was ugly or calling for a revolt. And that makes me wonder whether or not these tea parties are having any affect. The government does not listen to conservatives. Liberalism is the sanctioned view from the universities and other experts. Congress could probably ignore us without suffering much. Though I rather expect them to give us minor sops to appease us while furthering the socialization of America.

On the other hand, many thousands of people have turned out for these tea parties across the country. How far can we be pushed, I wonder? Nobody likes what the federal government is doing, but few people seem outright angry about it. Most people seem to hope that we can vote out the liberals in the next election and vote in some actual conservatives who will follow the Constitution. And as long as people believe that, no revolution will happen. But I expect that a bunch of Republicans will be voted in the next election, and they will socialize America slower. But I don't think they will reverse what we are going through now.

Which would put the current government in a precarious situation. What happens when other people recognize this? What happens if people realize that the game is rigged so that the liberals always win? That liberal policy always harms civilization and increases chaos? I don't even want to think about what would happen if conservatives realized that their government was their active enemy. But liberalism/progressivism leads to a collapsed third world country.

And so liberals hope conservatives don't know how high the stakes are. And conservatives hope that liberals will change their policy, but if they don't, we can vote them out. And unless there is a flash point, there things will stay.

I have finished my first XV8 Crisis Battlesuit. As the battlesuits are infantry, I have painted them much like my Fire Warriors. This particular suit is in a Fireknife configuration, equipped with a plasma rifle, missile pod, and multi-tracker.




I have modelled this one in flight, cruising in to the fire zone. This represents the Tau's jump-shoot-jump tactic, and makes for a more interesting model.


For comparison, I have placed a Fire Warrior next to the Crisis suit. The Crisis suit is quite a bit bigger than a Tau, though this one looks even larger since it is hovering off the ground. I'm really liking the way this army is turning out.

I went to the Winter Park Sidewalk Art Festival this morning. It wasn't quite as big as the Mt Dora Arts Festival, but they still had some neat things. What I got this time was a print of a photograph by John & Debora Scanlon.


Obviously this doesn't match my Chinese paintings I got last month, but I think it is a very beautiful piece, and it does go with the old world, somewhat exotic theme I am going for in my home. Plus I have a lot of wall downstairs, so I don't have to hang it near the Chinese stuff.

And now that I am starting to decorate, I dug this painting out of the closet. I got it in Jamaica while on a cruise about this time last year.


I'm not sure where I'll put this one. Perhaps I'll hang it in the downstairs bathroom. I could make it a Caribbean theme. I do like the ocean and the tropics, but I don't want to mix a bunch of disparate styles in one room. And it's a small painting, so I think the bathroom idea will work.

So Gtmunch just sent me a link about an Orlando Tea Party this weekend. I think it will be an interesting adventure. This will be my first foray into political activism. I wanted to write down a few thoughts before casting my lot.

Of great concern to me is the vast difference between my view of the world, and that of the liberals. It is only in the last two years that I have begun to discover the various, fundamental beliefs that make up a person's philosophy on life, the universe, and everything. I started this blog in part to write down what my beliefs are, how they compare to other philosophies, and how they all play out in the world.

And what I have found in my learning is that these different worldviews are not compatible. They contradict. Which means at least one of them has to be wrong. It's simple logic; the law of non-contradiction.

But it is more than just right and wrong. For I do not believe that liberal philosophy merely wrong, I believe that liberal philosophy is the most destructive force in society today. It's not something over which I can compromise. But this puts me in a very awkward position. My beliefs place me in direct opposition to my government. I consider what the Democrats are doing in Washington to be evil. They are systematically destroying American civilization.

That's one hell of a statement. But I can't come to any other conclusion. I believe that the best society is that which is built upon Biblical teachings. The humanist and naturalist philosophies that underpin liberalism are in direct opposition to Christianity. And they know it. That is why Christianity has been ever more marginalized for the last century by progressive policy makers.

The government wishes to mandate how we should live our lives; tell us what proper behavior is, and beliefs are taboo. Which is also what Christianity does (and Islam, and Judaism, and Buddhism, and so on).

So I think the best I can do is live my life according to the teachings of Christ to the best of my ability.

Which brings us back to the Tea Party protests. I really can't tell how much affect they are having. I don't think the powers that be in Washington care at all. So as far as policy goes, I think it's a complete wash. However, it does let people know that they are not alone in disagreeing with their government. But I really don't expect it to go as far as the original Boston Tea Party. Even though we are far more aggrieved than the Colonists. Nobody really wants an armed insurrection against the most powerful nation in the world. It might have worked 233 years ago, but the deck is considerably more stacked in government's favor today, and few people are willing to give up their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor, since life is still pretty damned good for most of us.

Christianity has not been tried and found false - it's been tried and found too difficult.

C. S. Lewis

Hat Tip: Michael McGruther at Big Hollywood