politics

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Dreams, consciousness and sanity

It’s interesting that before he became the first human to die live on the Web, Tim Leary changed his tune (and the title of one of his books) from Exo-Psychology to Info-Psychology.

Leary acknowledged that his one-time obsession with space exploration and the future of humanity off-planet was at least partly the result of his time in jail in the 1960s and 70s and the natural tendency of the mind to want to free itself by flying high above the prison grounds. For an old dude, he seems to have rapidly grasped the possibilities of the Web and some of the changes to our lives that digital world would bring. He apparently continued to consume plenty of drugs up until the end. The funny thing, to me, is that there’s no indication that in all his years of psychonauting he ever deeply explored the free, easily available and abundant resource that’s provided to us every night: The Dreamscape. (more…)

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Sometimes our political rhetoric ties us up in knots

Reprinted from the Press and Journal

If you were paying attention in philosophy class, you’ll remember Aristotle’s law of non-contradiction. Without this ontological law, Plato’s most famous student thought that we could never know anything about the things we already understand – for instance, the science of mathematics would mean nothing if it couldn’t be differentiated from biology.

Aristotle, smart as he was, would be baffled by today’s political rhetoric. His logical approach to the world does not fit well with our discourse over public affairs.

Too often, politicians choose subterfuge over truth and circumlocution over clear language. This makes the act of governing extremely difficult.

Some examples: In a recent Republican candidate debate, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio defended his call for a bigger Pentagon budget by declaring, “We can’t even have an economy if we’re not safe.”

We can’t? Last I checked, economies are nothing but the sum total of individuals trading goods and services. Even in the most rudimentary societies, barter still existed. And let’s not forget that in order for the military to function, tax dollars must be collected from business to finance its operations.

All that said, Rubio has a point: If we’re dead, we aren’t buying and selling things. So in a sense, you can’t have an economy without a certain degree of safety.

Confusing, right?

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Pope Francis ticks off both the left and right

Reprinted from the Press and Journal

I’m not Catholic, but man do I love this pope.

Ever since Jorge Mario Bergoglio, otherwise known as Pope Francis, was confirmed as the Vicar of Christ in March of 2013, he’s been boggling the minds of religious and political observers.

Born to Italian immigrants in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Francis grew up in a lower-middle class environment in a country about as politically clean as the mob. He came of age in a place very much removed from stable public order. This upbringing led to become the head of the Jesuit order in Argentina at a time of dictatorship and domestic strife.

It is from this background that the Pontiff learned the importance of giving the needy a voice in human society.

All this and more make Francis a fascinating character.

His tenure as Bishop of Rome has been spent reaching out to the margins of society – the poor, the diseased, the lost and forgotten. Not long after being confirmed, he was photographed kissing the head of a disfigured man, an act of profound grace. During his recent trip to Washington, he snubbed a bunch of congressmen to visit a homeless shelter.

The caritas Francis has spread has not come without controversy, however.

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A House United

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A castle which stands upon nothing at all
Seen by those walking quickly by
In a shadow of its great monstrance
They dare speak not ill, but fully serve
A meal given of our last substance
To the hungry birds, poor and ravenous
Men in lines and cues, black and white
Given without measure, Given without measure,
Men in lines and cues, black and white
To the hungry birds, poor and ravenous
A meal given of our last substance
They dare not speak ill, but fully serve
In a shadow of its great monstrance
Seen by those walking quickly by
A castle which stands upon nothing at all.

Image credit: Justin Brown (flickr).
Cross-posted at A Spy In The House of God.

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America needs to get back to religion, no matter what libertarians say

Here’s a quick lesson for young, self-styled libertarians: Nick Gillespie’s punk-rock stylings and irreverent attitude are not a formula for success.

Admittedly, few in the budding millennial libertarian “generation” will believe me. They are busy celebrating pot freedom and the right to marry whoever they want. Clearly, somewhere along the line between Leonard Read and the New York Times-dubbed “libertarian moment,” freedom turned into blissful sodomy and getting stoned. Should the trend continue, libertarianism will wither, and rightly so.

Gillespie, who is a thought leader in the trendy libertine-leaning freedom movement, is championing the decline. From his soapbox at Reason magazine, he preaches the principles of free association and non-aggression. Much of his work is laudable; his wittiness is a great tool showing how foolish the warmongers in Congress are. But even the wisest jokester is not immune to stupidity. Gillespie’s attitude, anti-authoritarian as it is, is a road map of the perilous direction that libertarianism is trending.

In a recent diatribe, the black jacketed sermonizer attempts to correct Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal on a topic of high importance: God and America. The governor, who is a convert to Catholicism, recently told a group of Christians and Jewish leaders the country has drifted away from God. This path is dangerous for America, he averred. As a possible 2016 presidential candidate looking to court social conservatives, Jindal was unambiguous about his warning, telling the crowd, “We have tried everything and now it is time to turn back to God.”

This is all wrong according to Gillespie. Issues of public policy, spending and debt, entitlement programs, civil liberties, and militarization are not matters of spiritual conviction. When it comes to politics, he maintains, “God has nothing to do with any of that.”

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Jane Hewes, Ron Paul

You don’t win converts by being rude

“I’m going to be 100% honest with you,” her email started. “I want you there but I don’t want [her] there.” That’s the excuse I was given for why I was not invited to a friend’s engagement party. As an ardent anarcho-libertarian, she didn’t want my girlfriend in attendance. My expected guest committed the gravest of sins: she “honestly believed Romney would be a good president.” That belief might as well be the same as robbing starving children of their last scraps of food. My girlfriend also had the audacity of criticizing libertarians for both being too purist and not casting a ballot for Governor Romney when it mattered. In the libertarian world, this accusation is the equivalent of first degree murder. So she must be shunned.

When I first received the email, I stared at it for a minute before clicking off and hitting the “trash” button. At first I smirked about the declined invitation. I used to be a militant defender of libertarian non-politics. I avoided company with government workers, preferring to withhold my presence from those awful “thieves and murderers.” I understood where the disinvitation was coming from. But even still, I was hurt by the sentiment. I was being kept out of gathering of friends because of my girlfriend’s political beliefs. She’s not some bullhorn Republican, aggressively deriding everyone who doesn’t vote straight R. She’s as amicable around liberals as she is around conservatives and libertarians. This was strictly politics.

The liberal press loves to fret about the current polarization in politics facing America. Tea Party Republicans are painted as intolerant of compromise. President Obama’s aloof stance toward the loyal opposition is seen as a necessary undertaking if he is ever to get anything done. Washington, we’re told, is a town divided on ideological lines that is as cynical as it is inept. There’s a lot of truth in these caricatures. But the American polity isn’t all that venomous or divided as it was two centuries ago. In the contentious campaign between then-President John Adams and then-Vice President Thomas Jefferson, sycophants from both sides called the candidates everything from “a hideous hermaphroditical character” to a “gross hypocrite.” If anything, political discourse has cooled down to a level of respectful civility.

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