Make Men Free

No, it’s not.

The WSJ reported this week that suicides have risen 31% in the past decade.  More people commit suicide than die in car wrecks each year.  This is apocalyptic.

The CDC blames much of the increase on the economic downturn.  Men are a disproportionate share of the suicides, especially in the 35-64 age category, which saw the largest increases.

Apparently, there is a 3rd choice for men, other than ”work or go to jail.”

I consider this to be powerful evidence that the centrally planned economy we have today is an abject failure.  Sure the Fed may be reinflating housing prices.  But at what cost?  The people who commit suicide have taken with them an enormous capital resource.  Their knowledge and skills are lost to the economy forever.

In other words, despite the best efforts of all the king’s horses and all the king’s men, the economy will not be put back together again.

Too bad a lot of people have to die in the process.

Source:

canadian-resistance-army:

Mainly because they don’t need to exist.  But also because they do stupid things.

Like Canadian Tire having a charity to help poor kids play organised sports.  Derm?  Why not manufacture Mastercraft tools in Canada so more people can afford to put their kids in any program that interests the child?

It’s called “giving back.”  It’s all the rage down here in USA fantasyland.  Although what the corporations may have taken, resulting in a desire to “give back,” is never very clearly stated. 

The atheists I’ve talked to seem to know a lot about witch burnings that happened centuries ago.  At the same time they seem ignorant of the history of atheist beliefs in the very-recent 20th century.  Peter Hitchens’ post can help correct that imbalance:

http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2013/04/atheism-kills-persecutes-and-destroys-wicked-things-are-done-in-its-name.html

I’ve also noticed that they can quote at length on how the Nazis were Christian.  He puts a big dent in that myth as well.

I doubt it.

But try asking that question in a public forum and see how many rabid responses you get.  Your average American still believes in the mythical “Good War.”

You could argue that we needed to declare war on Japan.  At least they bombed Pearl Harbor.  But why did we have to invade Normandy and finish the Nazis BEFORE conquering Japan?

Seriously.  Germany was in no way a credible threat to the US in WWII.  They never provided any material aid to Japan.  Sure they had U-boats.  But apparently unlike most Americans I’ve been to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago and SEEN THE GERMAN SUB ON DISPLAY.  How the hell do you capture an entire sub and put it in a museum?  Only if you are kicking the living shit out of enemy subs, that’s how.

And yes, in school I read a “graphic novel” that claimed Germany planned to invade South America and then the US through Mexico.  Pure propaganda.  Can you believe they put lies like that in kids’ books? 

I’m reading Adam Tooze’s “The Wages of Destruction.”  Hitler was obsessed with cars and was ashamed that while Germany had 1/2 the population of the US they had only 1/50th as many cars.

That’s 1/50th.

No country so dependent on horses and mules was a credible threat to invade a country ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE PLANET.

A country that can’t supply it’s military with winter uniforms for AN INVASION OF RUSSIA could possibly have invaded a country on the other side of one of the biggest oceans on the planet.

Give me some evidence that Germany was a credible threat to the US.  Or give up your “Good War” myth.

One important concept that atheists have of themselves is that they are independent, free thinkers; rocks of logic and reason amid a sea of myth; non-conformists.  Christians of course are the exact opposite: they subvert their independence and conform to the dictates of a religion, no matter how ridiculous.

This belief is most notably exemplified by the Christian insistence on joining a church.  A church demands that its members hold to a code of personal conduct and a set of beliefs, and claims the power to judge and expel members.  “Exhibit A of the Christian urge to conform and surrender independence,” the atheist explains.

Perhaps.

Let’s test this concept in the real world.  Note the libertarian view that the State will ultimately demand the total allegiance of its subjects.  In pursuit of this goal, the State will co-opt and destroy any association that a person has outside of the relationship with the State.  To leave a man “naked before the State,” as the saying goes.

The problem with a church is that it claims there is a Power (God) beyond the State.  It maintains that if the dictates of that Power (God) ever come into conflict with the State, the duty of the church is clear: follow God and reject the state.  The church does not claim first allegiance to the State.

In other words, the State must declare war upon the Christian church if it is to achieve its goal of total power.

No example of this is stronger than in one of the biggest institutions of the State: public schools.  In school children are molded to become the future subjects of the State or members of a church.  Logically then, in State-run schools we should expect insistence on training in something other than Christianity - preferably something totally at odds with Christianity.  And viola!  We find that evolution is taught as a matter of fact.  Woe to anyone who attempts to introduce anything resembling Biblical creation or religious training.  The State will use its institutions to create subjects and discourage church membership.

So we see that atheists are not independent non-conformists.  On the contrary, atheism is the preferred religion of the State.  Atheism is the surest way for the State to achieve total power.

In contrast, it is the Christian who is the independent non-conformist.  It is the Christian, by the simple act of joining a church, who denies the absolute power of the State.  Who knew that something so common was an act of revolution, even treason?

Perhaps you also have a fuzzy memory of studying the play, “Our Town,” in Senior English.  Minimalist staging was used in the play: the actors sat on chairs set in orderly rows to simulate being dead and buried in the graveyard.  This gave them the opportunity to discuss their lives and their town.

Have you thought about what’s going on in your town lately?  Unless you are living in an oil/gas boom town or in a town sucking resources from the rest of the country (Washington,DC), then your town probably has a lot in common with the towns I’ve lived in lately.

Just ask yourself some questions about your town: “is it booming with growth or is it visibly decaying?”  “What industry consistently employs the most people?”  “How does this industry invest in your town?”

My answers are, “decaying; government; buildings.”

Seriously.  Look around you.  The employer that has consistently expanded by erecting the newest and largest structures in town is government.

The very small town I work in has multiple downtown structures completely abandoned and falling apart.  No one bothers to do anything about it – it’s just not worth the effort.

In stark contrast, just across the street from the aging, decaying structures is a decades-newer multi-story building.  It dominates the main thoroughfare through town, occupying the choicest location.  It is the county administration building.

I was shocked, and yet not so, to recently learn that the site was formerly occupied by a thriving hotel.  A hotel that brought tourists, trade, and investment to the area.

No more striking example of what is wrong with our towns could possibly be presented.

You see, government does not invest or grow anything.  Economic growth is simply the ability to produce more of the goods and services that we want while using consistently fewer resources.  Businesses accomplish this by investing and then reinvesting any profits earned.

Government does no such thing.  It exists entirely off of the taxes taken from productive business.  It invests nothing that will allow it to produce more goods and services with fewer resources in the future.  It doesn’t need to.  Like a leach it depends on business to do this for it.  This is a self-destructive model of consumption without investment.

The simple fact is that increased government consumption resulting in downtown real estate takeovers is destroying our towns.

Don’t believe me?  Look around your town.  Look at reality in bricks and mortar.  The answer to Our Town’s decay is staring us in the face.

In the wake of the Denver movie theater shooting and the Sandy Hook school shooting, many of our political leaders and the popular media have demanded new gun-control measures.  This seems very odd since the one characteristic shared by both perpetrators is that they had mental health problems.  For reasons apparently unknown, our society is producing mentally ill people with violent tendencies.

What gun-control advocates apparently want to do about this problem is to take guns away from the violent, mentally ill and replace them with knives, baseball bats, and sledgehammers.

Ummm, yeah.  That sounds like a great idea.

A better solution would be to provide the mentally ill with the medical treatment they need before they do something awful.  Such a solution would show the best traits of humanity: empathy, sympathy, and patience.

Contrast the empathy and sympathy of treating the mentally ill with gun-control, which tells the mentally ill: “we don’t really care about you - we just want to make sure you can’t hurt us.”

In other words, “let them eat cake.”

So I’d like to thank the gun-control lobby for helping me make this historical connection: Marie Antoinette supported gun-control.  But if we really want to reduce mass violence in our society we will reject their shallow, unsympathetic solution.  Instead, let’s show some sympathy and provide the mentally ill the treatment they need.  We’ll be better off for it.

Some libertarians take it as an article of faith that gay marriage is a libertarian ideal.

However, is gay marriage really about freedom?  Freedom from what?  If gay people want to have a marriage ceremony, I’m not aware of anyone proposing to stop them, and I’m certainly not aware of any laws that would prohibit them from living together.  What else could the movement possibly be looking for?

It appears to me that the gay marriage movement is about legitimacy.  It’s about having the government force society to recognize the gay lifestyle as legitimate.  In other words, the gay marriage movement is based on tyranny, not freedom.

What other benefit could marriage “fairness” possibly confer?  Better tax breaks?  Then the logical decision would be to demand lower taxes for everyone, not more tax breaks for favored special interest groups.  If taxes were lower for everyone, no one would care what marital status someone claimed on a tax return.

In my opinion libertarians need to focus on fewer government laws and more freedom.  Not more laws, and certainly not laws meant to legitimize a particular lifestyle.  The gay marriage movement has nothing to do with libertarian ideas.