Aikido - the way of harmony (IOW, hitting people with the Earth instead of your fist)
Aikido is like libertarianism - it does not believe in initiating violence, but believes in dealing with it promptly and effectively when it occurs. Probably the most "moral" of the martial arts, Aikido allows one to have more decisions about whether or not to injure an attacker than do most martial arts.
Morihei Ueshiba - The Founder of Aikido (complete) 1 of 5
Morihei Ueshiba - The Founder of Aikido (complete) 2 of 5
Morihei Ueshiba - The Founder of Aikido (complete) 3 of 5
Morihei Ueshiba - The Founder of Aikido (complete) 4 of 5
Morihei Ueshiba - The Founder of Aikido (complete) 5 of 5
Morihei Ueshiba - Divine Techniques (complete) 1 of 4
Morihei Ueshiba - Divine Techniques (complete) 2 of 4
Morihei Ueshiba - Divine Techniques (complete) 3 of 4
Morihei Ueshiba - Divine Techniques (complete) 4 of 4
Monday, July 9, 2007
Friday, June 15, 2007
Darwin adapted for sociology in 19th Century America: William Graham Sumner and Lester Frank Ward
In the same way, though animals are somewhat more versatile, not only are some species more well-suited than others to survive and flourish in certain areas, but the natural variations that exist within species may cause certain members of that species to be “favored” over other members. Perhaps, in one location, thin beaks on birds may be more efficient at gathering seeds from small crevices. Perhaps, in another location, there are large nuts available which require a large sturdy beak in order to crack them. In each of these environs, the animals most likely to die will be the ones least suited to survive in that environ, and the animals that flourish will be the ones most well-suited to survive there. Through the process of time and such selections as progressively occur, living things change within species to adapt to the conditions that they are presented with.[2]
There is, of course, no “justice” or “injustice” to this process: It is completely amoral, as the process itself affects no conscious choices. While we call the process “natural selection,” nature never makes a selection: The world simply is what it is: Some traits work out better for the animals that possess them, and some trait do not.
Mankind also survives in the world, but unlike other animals, his principle tool for survival is not claws, or beaks, or wings, or any other purely physical characteristic, but his mind, and the adaptability that it allows him to have. Nonetheless, mankind still lives in the physical world, and must perceive that world as it exists correctly in order to have the maximal chance of survival. In some environments, it may be more useful to build a boat than a cart – in others more useful to do the reverse. In all cases, if one’s life depends on making the most-correct decisions based on the extant condition at hand, those who make decisions most closely in conformity with reality will survive better than those who do not.
However, as philosophers from Plato to Locke have noted, mankind like other animals, has the ability to survive by appropriating the efforts of others. This can be accomplished many means – force, guile, sympathy, misdirection – but mankind alone has an additional way: By using government to force such assistance, and to legally disarm and outlaw resistance to such appropriation. Man also has a second unique quality of action: He can deliberately choose maladaptive strategies and ignore the results. Natural Law theories, and John Locke’s in particular, address the particular problem of appropriation of the efforts of individuals to favor chosen recipients (such as, for instance, nobles and royalty.) Locke’s prescription for government in society, upon which in large part America was founded, was designed primarily to attempt to prevent what Locke perceived as a never-ending-cycle of government enlargement and degradation, leading inevitably to eventual revolt, and the start of the cycle anew. This was to be accomplished by acknowledging that individuals had legally inalienable rights to live their lives as they chose, which government was unable to breach – even if it seemed like a good idea at the time. [3] In this way, though Locke preceded
It is against this critically important backdrop that Sumner and Ward battled, respectively, for laissez-faire government non-intervention, and active socialistic or communitarian government management of the lives of individuals in society. Though Sumner is a sociologist, his argument is principally constructed as an economist would argue – seeking to identify not only the visible consequences of positive actions, but also the hidden consequences of the “what-would-have-been” that are prevented by the visible action – the more subtle results that cannot be observed because they have been foreclosed by other actions. In this style of analysis, Sumner is much in the style of Frederic Bastiat, though he terms his object of examination “the forgotten man.”[4]
Sumner argues that before “A and B decide what C shall do for D,”[5] they first ought to have a moral justification for doing so – not just for desiring to provide for “D” but for appropriating from “C” in the first place to do so – especially since “D” is typically not particularly deserving or well-defined, and “C” is not the rich target from which “A” and “B” intend to take the money, but is in fact “D’s” hardworking, employed, but relatively poor neighbor. As Ayn Rand would have termed it, the question of “Provided by whom?”, never goes away merely because one wishes to do good deeds for others. Sumner argues, in the same vein as Adam Smith, that the aggregate results of individual actions and decisions will be better for the whole of society if individual’s attempts to cope with life and reality are not meddled with and altered by government.
Ward, on the other hand, sees great possibilities in social engineering as a means of achieving success for society. “Man cannot finally consider himself superior to other animals until he supplants genetic with telic [teleological, or “purpose based”] progress by applying his intellect to his own improvement.”[6] He called for “the improvement of society by cold calculation”[7] – socially organized and guided reform[8], run by an elite who would prescribe how society should be run. Interestingly, this not only begs the question of how this “elite” – who have not actually achieved any particular success in life aside from writing books or teaching classes – “knows” in any positive sense that its ideas are better than those already in operation, but also postulates that all individuals in society should accept as immutable factors with which they must cope not only reality and the circumstances they find themselves in, but also the whims of political reformers and politicians.
Ward appears to completely miss the idea that
[1] Various lectures in biology over several decades, as well as varied independent readings.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Twenty-five years study of philosophy, and an undergrad degree in same.
[4] William Graham Sumner. What the Social Classes Owe to Each Other. (1883) http://oll.libertyfund.org/Home3/HTML.php?recordID=0317#LF-BK0317front02
[5] Ibid.
[6] Richard Hofstadter. Social Darwinism in American Thought. p 75.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.
Commentary on FDR’s “Economic Bill of Rights”
This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights—among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty.
Here FDR cleverly forgets “property", as in “life, liberty, and property.” The ability to perform actions in the world and to retain the results of those actions is the concept of property, and maintaining life and liberty are subsequent rights needing property as a pre-existing condition, FDR attempts to allege that the government can continue to protect life and liberty while destroying their foundation.
As our nation has grown in size and stature, however—as our industrial economy expanded—these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.
Fallacy of disambiguation: Certainly it is not true that anyone has been deprived of equality of attempting to pursue happiness – well, notwithstanding those affected by the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act (which raised prices of imports in a depression and depressed trade,) the Fed’s contraction of the money supply by 1/3, (raising prices for consumers) the imposition of myriad regulations on business, (raising prices for consumers) and price stabilization and farm agricultural limits (raising prices for consumers,) the government’s role in creating the great depression itself, and the death toll of WWII. It is not really very nice to create a massive problem yourself, and then claim a mandate to fix it by destroying capitalism. What FDR means here is that people have not been achieving happiness equally, not that they do not possess equality in its pursuit..
We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. “Necessitous men are not free men.” [Vernon v Bethell, 2 Eden 113 (1762) English court case ] People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.
A dictatorship of the proletariat, with FDR at the head.
In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed.
Self-evident for whom? Provided by whom?
Among these are: The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;
The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
Provided by whom? What is “adequate”? They apparently did not possess these rights while FDR was imposing tariffs, price stability, and paying farmers not to grow crops, as artificially raising the price of goods in the marketplace is the antithesis of the ability to buy adequate consumer goods. After 12 years of raping end consumers with his social policies, now he thinks they are “entitled” to them?
The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
Aristotle observed that a thing cannot be itself and something else at the same time. FDR apparently needs to read more Aristotle, as he is promising high-priced scarce goods to farmers, and low-priced plentiful goods to consumers.
The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
The purpose of economics is to supply end-consumers with goods. If a natural monopoly is good at this, there is no harm in having one. “Unfair” to whom? Freedom from what “domination”? Every businessman, no matter how inefficient, has the right to trade free from nasty competition that might put him out of business by supplying low-priced goods to consumers?
The right of every family to a decent home;
Provided by whom? The right of every homebuilder to be enslaved to provide labor to build the homes every family has a right to, and every lumber-yard owner and lumberjack the right to supply these materials?
The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
Provided by whom? If I have a right to medical care – a highly-trained profession – then doctors must have a commensurate “right” to work for free to provide it for me.
The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
To be provided by enacting a giant Ponzi scheme that now consumes more taxes than federal income taxes, and insures that no one can actually use the time-value of money to provide an adequate retirement.
All of these rights spell security.
Provided from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.
Pericles Funeral Oration from the Peloponnesian War
We are a democracy. Our government is unique. It does not borrow from others, it is itself unique. It is government of the people, by the people, and for the people. It is a democracy, power of the people, in fact as well as in name. It is a government in which every citizen is equal before the law. But it goes beyond that – it believes in equality of opportunity. That every citizen should have a chance to go as far as his abilities will carry him. We don’t think it a shame to be poor. The only thing we think is a shame is trying not to get rich. We obey the laws, ours is a law-abiding society. We obey the laws that are written, and the laws that have been handed down. We are also a tolerant society. We think that you should be free to live as you choose. And if we don’t like your lifestyle, not only do we not charge you, remove you from the citizenship list the way the way that would happen at Sparta, instead, we don’t even give you sour looks that might just hurt your feelings.
You are free to live as you choose here, and what is more you have the great advantages of our society. Because ours is a society open to the world. The goods of the whole world pour in here. People come from all over the world to
And yet, I’m going to tell you something, when we go into battle we have time and time again proven that we are as brave as they are. Did we not fight alone at
I say this to you: The ordinary Athenian citizen is absolute master of himself, and does it with a unique degree of beauty and excellence. In fact, I’m going to tell you something: We are a model to the world. The whole world should look at us and pattern itself upon us. Later ages will remember that. We will not need a Homer to sing our praises. The great buildings we have erected, the great achievements of our democracy, will cause every highway and sea to bear testimony to our grandeur. The world will stand in awe of what we have done.[1]
[1] Thucydides. Pericles' Funeral Oration from the Peloponnesian War (Book 2.34-46) translation by J. Rufus Fears, Ph.D., David Ross Boyd Professor of Classics, and G. T. and Libby Blankenship Chair in the History of Liberty at the University of Oklahoma.
Commentary on “the Western Mythos”
Unlike some terms that are easily definable, a truly satisfactory definition of myth or mythos does not actually exist. A myth (mythos) “is a sacred story concerning the origins of the world or how the world and the creatures in it came to have their present form. The active beings in myths are generally gods and heroes. Myths often are said to take place before recorded history begins. In saying that a myth is a sacred narrative, what is meant is that a myth is believed to be true by people who attach religious or spiritual significance to it. Use of the term by scholars does not imply that the narrative is either true or false.”[1] Myths are sometimes “stories shared by a group that are a part of their cultural identity”,[2] or “legendary narrative[s], usually of gods and heroes, or a theme that expresses the ideology of a culture”.[3] A myth may be a “narrative in which some characters are superhuman beings who do things that ‘happen only in stories’; hence, a conventionalized or stylized narrative not fully adapted to plausibility or ’realism’."[4] Myths may be “stories that explain the origins of current phenomena. They may be believed literally or figuratively, or as metaphorically moral truths about the workings of the world.”[5] For the purposes of this examination, the best definition may be "stories drawn from a society's history that have acquired through persistent usage the power of symbolizing that society's ideology and of dramatizing its moral consciousness--with all the complexities and contradictions that consciousness may contain."[6]
The western myth in America has a number of cultural characteristics; “Manifest destiny; rugged individualism; a pre-modern Eden of moral simplicity; a future built on the harmonious union of man and nature -- all four cornerstones of the American psyche, each with their locus on that single moment of expansion and creation. No other period in American history has so frequently been called upon to define and solidify national identity. For this reason alone, the migration West is the single most important event in American history -- an event that is replayed over and over in an affirmation of all that is American, all that is good, bad, and ugly.”[7]
Manifest Destiny was originally a Jacksonian Democratic slogan in the decade between 1845 and 1855 to describe the idea that western expansion was not only good, but inevitable. The phrase was rejected by the Whigs and the Republicans, who preferred to advocate a more mercantilist expansion of the infrastructure of the existing territory already held by the United States, rather than the Jeffersonian-farmer based expansion into the Oregon Territory, the push to allow the voluntary annexation of the Republic of Texas which had achieved its independence from Mexico in 1837, and the Mexican Cession of the territory comprising California, Nevada, Utah, and portions of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming, “in exchange for ending the Mexican-American war and payment of $15 million dollars.”[8]
Most objectionable to those today who refer to the western as not mythic but “merely a myth” in the sense of an incorrect or spurious belief, are the values of rugged individualism, moral simplicity (especially when it comes to the idea of solving a moral issue with a gun, an object which the intellectual elite currently regards as evil and wishes to characterize as capable of initiating evil action on its own,) and a harmonious union of man and nature (especially as this conflicts with the currently dominant theme that man in an alien intruder in nature, intent on perverting and killing all that is good.) An quality of the mythic Western as seen through thoroughly modern eyes is the honor-based culture that it portrays, which is at odds with today’s culture which seems at risk of losing the concept altogether.[9] The western portrayed the "independent man ... who owed allegiance to a universal and ethical standard."[10] He was a "chivalrous man who assuredly stood up for his principles. In this man the West had found it's most developed "honor code."…[11]
James Bowman, author of Honor: A History believes that over the last 30 years, this old notion of honor has even become "shameful." The influence of the "media and celebrity culture" has reversed that notion to almost the "complete opposite" of what it once meant. Displays of "weakness," such as "admittance of doubt and outpourings of emotion" have now become far more honorable, especially in the public arena.[12] Ultimately, Bowman argues, “Western honor was always different from that found in other parts of the world. Its idiosyncratic qualities derive partly from the Classical tradition but mainly from the Judeo-Christian heritage whose emphasis on individual morality and, more recently, sincerity and authenticity in private and personal life, has acted as a continual challenge to the traditional concept of honor as it is still understood in other parts of the world.”[13] The discarding of our concept of honor, which stood in historic contrast to the much different Eastern concept of “avoidance of losing face” is making it difficult, if not impossible, to understand, or to counter, the rising tide of Islamic fundamentalism that thrives on violently reacting to the tiniest imagined slight.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth
[2] http://ancienthistory.about.com/b/a/027495.htm
[3] http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/oal/gloss.htm
[4] http:// www.sil.org/~radneyr/humanities/litcrit/gloss.htm
[5] www.lpb.org/programs/swappingstories/glossary.html
[6] web.nwe.ufl.edu/~gulmer/s03/zwhalen2/definitions.html
[7] http://www.imagesjournal.com/issue06/infocus/silentwesterns.htm
[8] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Cession
[9] http://www.nysun.com/article/34278
[10] Ibid.
[11] Ibid.
[12] http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/bowman200604190610.asp (book exerpt)
[13] http://www.eppc.org/publications/bookID.60/book_detail.asp
Front Sight Firearms Training Institute Links
- Front Sight Firearms Training Institute
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Why I’m a Libertarian (part 1)
The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God. -Thomas Jefferson [1]
The concept of government is somewhat like the concept of God – most people believe it to be a thing which by its very nature ought not to be doubted, but very few people rationally examine its conceptual foundations. Yet, by its nature, government is far more dangerous than God – for while God steadfastly refuses to be seen and insists (we are told) that his or her existence be revealed by “faith,” government is omnipresent, generally more than willing to demonstrate its power, and tends to deal harshly with those who doubt its authority or legitimacy.
Twenty-five hundred years ago, the Greek philosopher Plato tells us, Socrates wandered about Athens asking annoying questions, inventing the Socratic Method, and generally demonstrating that very few people possess and actual knowledge of why they believe the things that they believe: That they have no idea of the principles on which their beliefs are based. Plato’s general objective was to demonstrate that he was the smartest man in
One cannot, of course, disbelieve in the existence of government as one can of gods. However, in parallel fashion, one can question its moral authority over one’s life.
Frederick Bastiat pointed out that “The nature of law is to maintain justice. This is so much the case that, in the minds of the people, law and justice are one and the same thing. There is in all of us a strong disposition to believe that anything lawful is also legitimate. This belief is so widespread that many persons have erroneously held that things are ‘just’ because law makes them so.”[2] Yet, as Socrates pointed out on the subject of gods, different governments approve and disapprove of different things – therefore things cannot be just merely because government approves of them.
In many ways, governments are an enchanted creation like “the great and terrible wizard” in the uniquely American fairly tale of The Wizard of Oz.[3] In the land of Oz, a “yellow-brick” road of gold leads to the resplendent capital Emerald City, where “The streets were lined with beautiful houses all built of green marble and studded everywhere with sparkling emeralds”[4] – much like the river of money that flows to our own capital, where the denizens therein use it in part to create and maintain monuments to the concept of the wonderfulness of government.
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