Welcome friends!
Looks like this will be my last post for 2015. Instead of doing an end of the year summary or clearing up any little stories I might have missed as I’ve done in the past I think one aspect of this last year was significant enough to warrant a final post all to its own. Can you guess? Yes, I’m talking about the rise of populist windbag politician par excellence Donald Trump; the one man who I feel most fully expresses the great garbage heap lying at the head and heart of today’s conservative movement. What’s interesting about that? Well, it seems to me we’ve never had a politician in this country so closely resemble one of our most despised foreign enemies from the dark days of the twentieth century, Adolf Hitler, and yet remain so beloved and admired by good old boy conservatives right across the USA. It’s been an eye opener for me. But that’s fine. Knowledge is good. Let’s talk about it... Sorry but only selected archived (previous year) posts are currently available full text on this website. All posts including this one are available in my annual anthology ebook series available at the Amazon Kindle Bookstore for a nominal fee. Hey, we all need to make a buck somehow, right? If you find my timeless jewels of wisdom amusing or perhaps even amusingly irritating throw me a bone now and then. Thank you my friends!
Thursday, December 31, 2015
Thursday, December 17, 2015
Have A Supererogatory Christmas
Welcome friends!
The holiday season is upon us once again so I thought I should do some sort of special post in honor of the occasion. I suppose I can’t talk about the manifold dangers posed by international conservatism every time out although that would certainly be easy enough. Let’s do something Christmasy. Of course, I should probably clarify that as an atheist and humanist what I think of as Christmasy is something relating to the brotherhood and sisterhood of all humankind (and it’s not getting any easier let me tell you) not the fabricated birthday of some ancient holy man / supernatural entity. I’m thinking ethics not religious mumbo jumbo. Fortunately I just read an entry in a little philosophy for common folk book I glance at now and then to pass the time entitled Fifty Philosophy Ideas You Really Need to Know by Ben Dupre. I think I’ve mentioned it before. It’s a collection of little two page blurbs introducing various philosophical ideas from a layperson’s perspective. Anyway, this time out I read the blurb on an issue called supererogatory acts, which is a fancy term for what one might call heroic acts or acts going beyond the call of duty. Do you ever encounter ideas you think have BS written all over them? Someone is blabbing way and you’re listening to be polite but in the back of your mind you’re thinking what a crock? Well, that’s the feeling I was having. Let’s talk about it.
The basic idea is that some people apparently suggest there’s some sort of philosophical conundrum about heroic acts based on the argument that if just taking the normal non-heroic line is perfectly ethically acceptable how can one say that certain acts that go beyond the normal non-heroic line are even better ethically speaking... Sorry but only selected archived (previous year) posts are currently available full text on this website. All posts including this one are available in my annual anthology ebook series available at the Amazon Kindle Bookstore for a nominal fee. Hey, we all need to make a buck somehow, right? If you find my timeless jewels of wisdom amusing or perhaps even amusingly irritating throw me a bone now and then. Thank you my friends!
The holiday season is upon us once again so I thought I should do some sort of special post in honor of the occasion. I suppose I can’t talk about the manifold dangers posed by international conservatism every time out although that would certainly be easy enough. Let’s do something Christmasy. Of course, I should probably clarify that as an atheist and humanist what I think of as Christmasy is something relating to the brotherhood and sisterhood of all humankind (and it’s not getting any easier let me tell you) not the fabricated birthday of some ancient holy man / supernatural entity. I’m thinking ethics not religious mumbo jumbo. Fortunately I just read an entry in a little philosophy for common folk book I glance at now and then to pass the time entitled Fifty Philosophy Ideas You Really Need to Know by Ben Dupre. I think I’ve mentioned it before. It’s a collection of little two page blurbs introducing various philosophical ideas from a layperson’s perspective. Anyway, this time out I read the blurb on an issue called supererogatory acts, which is a fancy term for what one might call heroic acts or acts going beyond the call of duty. Do you ever encounter ideas you think have BS written all over them? Someone is blabbing way and you’re listening to be polite but in the back of your mind you’re thinking what a crock? Well, that’s the feeling I was having. Let’s talk about it.
The basic idea is that some people apparently suggest there’s some sort of philosophical conundrum about heroic acts based on the argument that if just taking the normal non-heroic line is perfectly ethically acceptable how can one say that certain acts that go beyond the normal non-heroic line are even better ethically speaking... Sorry but only selected archived (previous year) posts are currently available full text on this website. All posts including this one are available in my annual anthology ebook series available at the Amazon Kindle Bookstore for a nominal fee. Hey, we all need to make a buck somehow, right? If you find my timeless jewels of wisdom amusing or perhaps even amusingly irritating throw me a bone now and then. Thank you my friends!
Friday, December 4, 2015
Conservatives Run Amok
Welcome friends!
I almost did another post on the ongoing comedy revue known as the Republican Party but it’s probably getting a little monotonous. If I covered every bit of cringeworthy claptrap coming from the motley pack of buffoons conservatives have put forward as their candidates for President of the US I’d never have time for anything else. I must admit I was tempted to address the latest anti-terrorist idea put forward by Republican front runner Donald Trump, which was to murder the families of terrorists. Is the guy self-consciously modeling himself after Adolf Hitler or is it just coincidence? One never knows with American conservatives. Or maybe all conservatives are just pretty much the same at some level? Anyway, I read an entertaining rebuttal by an Israeli anti-terrorism expert who explained patiently murdering the quite possibly entirely innocent families of terrorists would not only be immoral and basically a war crime but ineffective as well. I wonder, how stupid is the Stupid Party anyway? Do conservatives think this is all a big joke? Do they think they’re doing some sort of extended TV comedy skit? I do eventually want to do a post on the GOP’s attempt to erode support for our democratic government by gutting the ability of the IRS to enforce the tax code but I’ll save that another day. Setting aside the Republican scourge I then thought I might do something on the latest crazy Muslim attack (CMA). No, not the one in Paris; I’m talking about the one here in sunny Southern California in which a couple of lovebirds named Farook and Tashfeen Malik murdered fourteen unarmed people and wounded an additional twenty one at a holiday party at some sort of facility for the developmentally disabled. Who shoots people working at a school for the disabled? Well, yes, probably the same sort of person who shoots people at a holiday party. Point taken. Fortunately the cops tracked them down and helped them reach their final destination in short order so it was all over pretty quickly but you know that sort of thing is also getting a little monotonous. News Flash! Crazy Muslim terrorists like to murder innocent unarmed people! Details to follow! Thankfully I then noticed a story on something that is actually probably also depressingly commonplace but at least something I haven’t written about recently so let’s just go with that one. The story involved a US Marine murdering a transgendered woman in the Philippines and getting handed a laughably lenient sentence of six to twelve years in jail. I mean honestly. Hello! Is there anyone out there other than me interested at all in what we used to call justice? Well, let’s talk through the damn thing and be done with it... Sorry but only selected archived (previous year) posts are currently available full text on this website. All posts including this one are available in my annual anthology ebook series available at the Amazon Kindle Bookstore for a nominal fee. Hey, we all need to make a buck somehow, right? If you find my timeless jewels of wisdom amusing or perhaps even amusingly irritating throw me a bone now and then. Thank you my friends!
I almost did another post on the ongoing comedy revue known as the Republican Party but it’s probably getting a little monotonous. If I covered every bit of cringeworthy claptrap coming from the motley pack of buffoons conservatives have put forward as their candidates for President of the US I’d never have time for anything else. I must admit I was tempted to address the latest anti-terrorist idea put forward by Republican front runner Donald Trump, which was to murder the families of terrorists. Is the guy self-consciously modeling himself after Adolf Hitler or is it just coincidence? One never knows with American conservatives. Or maybe all conservatives are just pretty much the same at some level? Anyway, I read an entertaining rebuttal by an Israeli anti-terrorism expert who explained patiently murdering the quite possibly entirely innocent families of terrorists would not only be immoral and basically a war crime but ineffective as well. I wonder, how stupid is the Stupid Party anyway? Do conservatives think this is all a big joke? Do they think they’re doing some sort of extended TV comedy skit? I do eventually want to do a post on the GOP’s attempt to erode support for our democratic government by gutting the ability of the IRS to enforce the tax code but I’ll save that another day. Setting aside the Republican scourge I then thought I might do something on the latest crazy Muslim attack (CMA). No, not the one in Paris; I’m talking about the one here in sunny Southern California in which a couple of lovebirds named Farook and Tashfeen Malik murdered fourteen unarmed people and wounded an additional twenty one at a holiday party at some sort of facility for the developmentally disabled. Who shoots people working at a school for the disabled? Well, yes, probably the same sort of person who shoots people at a holiday party. Point taken. Fortunately the cops tracked them down and helped them reach their final destination in short order so it was all over pretty quickly but you know that sort of thing is also getting a little monotonous. News Flash! Crazy Muslim terrorists like to murder innocent unarmed people! Details to follow! Thankfully I then noticed a story on something that is actually probably also depressingly commonplace but at least something I haven’t written about recently so let’s just go with that one. The story involved a US Marine murdering a transgendered woman in the Philippines and getting handed a laughably lenient sentence of six to twelve years in jail. I mean honestly. Hello! Is there anyone out there other than me interested at all in what we used to call justice? Well, let’s talk through the damn thing and be done with it... Sorry but only selected archived (previous year) posts are currently available full text on this website. All posts including this one are available in my annual anthology ebook series available at the Amazon Kindle Bookstore for a nominal fee. Hey, we all need to make a buck somehow, right? If you find my timeless jewels of wisdom amusing or perhaps even amusingly irritating throw me a bone now and then. Thank you my friends!
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