I'm SICK of people misusing the terms "liberal" and "conservative" to suit their side of particular political disputes. Having stumbled upon this article, I remain disturbed and bewildered by the Church of Liberalism and its Inquisition.
As far as I am concerned, we should, for illustrative purposes, strip the terms of the political implications the masses of ignorant opinion-spewing dunderheads have tattooed onto them.
Conservative (from the Latin, conservare, meaning to keep together, to guard) means resistant to change, concerned with keeping tradition. Are there elements of civilization which have changed to a sufficient level and cannot improve with further progress and reform?
Answering yes to this question means you have a conservative opinion. You are NOT a conservative. Avoid defining yourself based on your opinions. They will be wrong most of the time, whether because you are ignorant (or have incomplete information), or because new information is discovered or developed and the issue changes.
Liberal (from the Latin, liber, meaning free) means favoring freedom. By a common leap in logic that everyone seems to now ignore, liberal now is used to mean following liberalism which extends the valuation of freedom to attempts to solve societal problems or disputes. You cannot be a liberal. If you think you are a liberal, you are a liberalist. Analogously, I am not a skeptical, I am a skeptic.
Is the pinnacle of human civilization to be achieved by allowing each person freedom to choose in any given situation? Let's assume that the pinnacle of human civilization is the ultimate realization of human potential and it is a good thing for everyone; it is per se the aggregate meaning of life. Then the question becomes: are humans good enough at choosing to achieve this goal of humanity if each individual is given free choice? Some trivialize this question by mistranslating it into a question of whether human nature is good or evil, embodied in countless creation myths, codices of religious dogma, jurisprudential treatises, and the like. As I see it, the question is whether people are capable of realizing their potential.
This question redefines the divide between those with a liberal value system and those who can be content with the status quo in certain realms, i.e. liberal and conservative thinkers.
As for those who identify themselves by an adjective that may or may not describe the majority of their opinions, watching these people villainize each other infuriates me, but I suppose it serves them right to be caught in such a futile debate. Instead of realizing and exploring the fundamental difference in their perspectives, they label and mudsling and muckrake. "Conservatives hate science. Liberals are dirty hippies. Blah blah yadda yadda."
3.03.2008
Concepts on how to make this page useful
My initial impulse was to make this a quarry (more like a strip-mine) for unsolicited advice on:
1. how to lessen the negative impact of being a human (being)
2. how to avoid the common pitfalls into which post-modern society threatens to toss us
3. contrarily, how to fully embrace and celebrate the hopelessly doomed world which we have created for ourselves
Certainly I do not imply that my advice is somehow better qualified or supported than the next person's. Rather this is meant as a mutually beneficial exercise. Once I have better formulated the purpose of this site, you will be given a pledge and I will launch on a mission. Weekly entries on finding meaning? Daily alerts on wasteful pursuits, or wasted energies? Monthly recaps on successful analrapy (analytic-therapy)?
For now, the central topic of Terrasitic Paraforms is: "HOW TO BE A BETTER TERRASITE"
There are those innate human traits we can combat, alter, even wholly transform, and there are those we cannot. I suspect that those we cannot are those we share with many non-human creatures, and those we can are those possessed by humans alone.
To be developed…
In the meantime:
Save the Internet!, especially if you love downloading things for free for which the copyright owners of such things would like you to pay for a limited, non-exclusive license. I want to get paid for things I don't deserve too. Maybe I should corrupt some form of art and mass market it to the, as yet, taste/opinion-challenged populace. How about large-screen LCD fine art screensaver subscriptions? I'll have football fans' wives gossiping about the latest Jeremy Blake movement in months.
Eat Whale Meat, Hippie! I love how perversely pervasive this discussion has become. If some whales are only as smart as sheep, is it okay to sustainably hunt those big dumb animals and eat them? We could selectively breed chimpanzees until they were as dumb as sheep and start eating them too. Or humans? Homo Stupidiens.
And it's not like we Americans are all that good at breeding anyway.
I'm scared of Dubai.
Brain trick of the day.
1. how to lessen the negative impact of being a human (being)
2. how to avoid the common pitfalls into which post-modern society threatens to toss us
3. contrarily, how to fully embrace and celebrate the hopelessly doomed world which we have created for ourselves
Certainly I do not imply that my advice is somehow better qualified or supported than the next person's. Rather this is meant as a mutually beneficial exercise. Once I have better formulated the purpose of this site, you will be given a pledge and I will launch on a mission. Weekly entries on finding meaning? Daily alerts on wasteful pursuits, or wasted energies? Monthly recaps on successful analrapy (analytic-therapy)?
For now, the central topic of Terrasitic Paraforms is: "HOW TO BE A BETTER TERRASITE"
There are those innate human traits we can combat, alter, even wholly transform, and there are those we cannot. I suspect that those we cannot are those we share with many non-human creatures, and those we can are those possessed by humans alone.
To be developed…
In the meantime:
Save the Internet!, especially if you love downloading things for free for which the copyright owners of such things would like you to pay for a limited, non-exclusive license. I want to get paid for things I don't deserve too. Maybe I should corrupt some form of art and mass market it to the, as yet, taste/opinion-challenged populace. How about large-screen LCD fine art screensaver subscriptions? I'll have football fans' wives gossiping about the latest Jeremy Blake movement in months.
Eat Whale Meat, Hippie! I love how perversely pervasive this discussion has become. If some whales are only as smart as sheep, is it okay to sustainably hunt those big dumb animals and eat them? We could selectively breed chimpanzees until they were as dumb as sheep and start eating them too. Or humans? Homo Stupidiens.
And it's not like we Americans are all that good at breeding anyway.
I'm scared of Dubai.
Brain trick of the day.
3.01.2008
Baseballs are hard.
madisonian.net, one of my very favorite law-related Web-logish internets-ites reported on this ridiculous issue: Should MLB Base Coaches be forced to wear helmets against their will? I believe that everyone should wear helmets all the time, so whichever genes cause hideous head-injury related deaths aren't selected-out just because someone happens to take a bus-grill to the skull while stepping into a street without watching where they are walking.
Ironically, my pitiful and pointless life has literally and seriously been saved twice by helmets: one baseball pitch to the noggin, and one bike accident leading to Supermanning a brick wall.
From a legal perspective, I suspect this matter could be resolved privately through contract with each coach much more easily and satisfactorily. MLB could conceivably cover its @$$ with dozens of creative swindler tactics involving mandatory waivers, assumption of risk clauses, etc. Instead we get a sudden public outcry about the dangers of baseball, and the MLB has to start rulemaking. Thanks mass-media for sensationalizing another isolated incident. God!
"A freak accident ended Mike Coolbaugh's life. "A one-in-bazillion chance," says the coroner of the fatal blow. "A half a hair either way and it wouldn't have killed him.'"Quote: S.L. Smith/si.com. Picture: Otto Greule Jr./Getty Images
On a moralistic side note, Mike Coolbaugh, R.I.P. Baseball is fun, baseballs are hard, at least you died doing the thing you loved. All the best to his survivors. I'm sure it was a tough loss for such a seemingly frivolous pursuit as baseball. But worse shit happens everyday to plenty of innocent people and that shouldn't stop us from enjoying our short terrasitic lives.
All the policy makers need are more idiotic, mass-media spoonfed citizens to compete with when trying to get purposeful, worthwhile legislation passed.
Enough ranting.
No, maybe not. I also suspect (without having researched this matter yet) that such a rule was formed in a classic American knee-jerk reactionary response to tragedy.
Tragedy: Kid hit by car at intersection.
Response: After the fact, install lots of flashy signs and lights about kids crossing, toss a traffic-crippling unnecessary stoplight with beeping crosswalks up and place some speed bumps on the street so going fast is more fun.
Result: Kids still run into the street here and elsewhere, cars get backed up in your neighborhood and your street and passing cars deteriorate faster from the speed bumps. LOSE LOSE LOSE.
How many coaches and players have been killed by getting beaned? As a veteran little leaguer (IL State Champs 1992) and high school pitcher, I've been hit by dozens of pitches in inconceivably painful places. During the city championship game in 1994, I was drilled by two line drives from the bat of the same slugger in consecutive innings, while I was pitching (and I finished the game). Don't get me wrong, it hurts, a lot, but it's the danger that makes it a thrill.
Auto racing would be a hell of a lot safer if they would just slow down. Why do those NFLers have to tackle each other so hard, even if they do wear pads? Isn't that dangerous?
The folks over at the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research can tell you just how dangerous it is, especially to our younger athletes who idolize and parrot base coaches everywhere.
P.S. I wear a helmet whenever I'm out of the house. You never know when a fatal head injury could happen.
Ironically, my pitiful and pointless life has literally and seriously been saved twice by helmets: one baseball pitch to the noggin, and one bike accident leading to Supermanning a brick wall.
From a legal perspective, I suspect this matter could be resolved privately through contract with each coach much more easily and satisfactorily. MLB could conceivably cover its @$$ with dozens of creative swindler tactics involving mandatory waivers, assumption of risk clauses, etc. Instead we get a sudden public outcry about the dangers of baseball, and the MLB has to start rulemaking. Thanks mass-media for sensationalizing another isolated incident. God!
"A freak accident ended Mike Coolbaugh's life. "A one-in-bazillion chance," says the coroner of the fatal blow. "A half a hair either way and it wouldn't have killed him.'"Quote: S.L. Smith/si.com. Picture: Otto Greule Jr./Getty ImagesOn a moralistic side note, Mike Coolbaugh, R.I.P. Baseball is fun, baseballs are hard, at least you died doing the thing you loved. All the best to his survivors. I'm sure it was a tough loss for such a seemingly frivolous pursuit as baseball. But worse shit happens everyday to plenty of innocent people and that shouldn't stop us from enjoying our short terrasitic lives.
All the policy makers need are more idiotic, mass-media spoonfed citizens to compete with when trying to get purposeful, worthwhile legislation passed.
Enough ranting.
No, maybe not. I also suspect (without having researched this matter yet) that such a rule was formed in a classic American knee-jerk reactionary response to tragedy.
Tragedy: Kid hit by car at intersection.
Response: After the fact, install lots of flashy signs and lights about kids crossing, toss a traffic-crippling unnecessary stoplight with beeping crosswalks up and place some speed bumps on the street so going fast is more fun.
Result: Kids still run into the street here and elsewhere, cars get backed up in your neighborhood and your street and passing cars deteriorate faster from the speed bumps. LOSE LOSE LOSE.
How many coaches and players have been killed by getting beaned? As a veteran little leaguer (IL State Champs 1992) and high school pitcher, I've been hit by dozens of pitches in inconceivably painful places. During the city championship game in 1994, I was drilled by two line drives from the bat of the same slugger in consecutive innings, while I was pitching (and I finished the game). Don't get me wrong, it hurts, a lot, but it's the danger that makes it a thrill.
Auto racing would be a hell of a lot safer if they would just slow down. Why do those NFLers have to tackle each other so hard, even if they do wear pads? Isn't that dangerous?
The folks over at the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research can tell you just how dangerous it is, especially to our younger athletes who idolize and parrot base coaches everywhere.
P.S. I wear a helmet whenever I'm out of the house. You never know when a fatal head injury could happen.
Lynx
Not much to say today. I got up early (7:40 am, gasp!) and hit the LCD like a brain trainwreck. Here are my discoveries of the morn.
1. Spring Cleaning project considerations
2. Paintings of this
3. 100% Environmentally Friendly in 366 days
4. Liam Sullivan, Betch!
5. Shakerleg
Oy heah, and just for stopping by you get a free Wombat:
Photo: Dallas Kilponen
1. Spring Cleaning project considerations
2. Paintings of this
3. 100% Environmentally Friendly in 366 days
4. Liam Sullivan, Betch!
5. Shakerleg
Oy heah, and just for stopping by you get a free Wombat:
Photo: Dallas Kilponen
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