Random Monday

1. Climate Change: It's 60 degrees outside (15C). I live in Pennsylvania, and it's January. That's about 30 degrees higher than it should be. (Highest normal temperature in PA for January: 32F/0C.) And just so everyone will get sick, the high for tomorrow is indeed 32.

2. The Weather (Wo)Man: In the Northeastern United States, winter is cold and snowy. It regularly gets well below freezing, and it regularly snows. If you so much as mention a snowfall of less than 6" (15.24cm), you will be forever known as that nervous person who is afraid of snow. So why does every single weather(wo)man treat 1/2" of snow as the first stage of the apocalypse?

3. Extreme Makeover Home Edition. My MIL loves this show. If you've never seen it, a bunch of terminally cheerful people replace a falling down home for free. I think it's exploitive of the poor/suffering, and a wonderful example of drive by charity (Here's a bunch of stuff- your life is all fixed now!). At this point, however, I am wondering when we will see the apex of pathetisad.

You see, the first season of the show, they picked poor families whose homes were falling down around them. Apparently, however, simply being so poor that you can't maintain your home, so that it becomes actively dangerous, just isn't enough. You need to deserve all this charity, so the recipients became increasingly pathetisad as seasons went by. Nowadays, you not only have to have an unbelievably sad present, you also need a pathetisad past and you have to give outrageously to charity- generally in terms of time, because none of these people have money.

So far, I've seen family with child dying of cancer who started a charity for other children with cancer. (The family got a nice house, the child died.) I've also seen Native American family living in a trailer without electricity with a wheelchair using family member. Last night, the featured family member was a Jamaican woman who, as a child, walked 8 miles to school and 8 miles back barefoot.

Then, for some reason, I had to listen to Ashanti blabbering on about how fixing this woman's house, and doing cosmetic work to other houses in the neighborhood, would teach the entire world to sing. Or something.

I figure we'll hit the apex of pathetisad sometime late this season, and then hopefully they'll end the show on a high note. Or, low note. It's a little hard to say.

4. Mass Effect 2: I actually don't need to say anything.



The music, btw, is Heart of Courage by Two Steps From Hell. It owns me.

Confusing Cause and Effect

I keep coming across these vaguely libertarian (I've got mine, fuck you!), pseudo-Christian complaints about government social programs. I don't know if this has been going on for years, or if this is something new, but they always strike me as being . . . I don't know. Disingenuous? Obtuse? I'm not sure.

For one thing, if you truly care about feeding the hungry and sheltering the homeless, I'm not sure why you would care who does it. Sure, we shouldn't be paying for charity by prostituting children, but why so much fuss about charity done through taxes as opposed to churches? I've heard weak complaints about "waste", but churches pay administrative costs, too, so it's not like 100% of the money is ever going to charity.

To me, it sounds like a combination of two things: a rather childish I don't want to and you can't make me! (but I totally would anyway if you just wouldn't make me) and how dare you take the Jesus out of caring for the poor!

Take this particular post from American Catholic, for example. Basically, the author argues that government social programs are the cause the very social ills they address. As if children were never starving before we came up with WIC, or in this case, as if all the elderly were happily being supported by their families until Social Security came along, and then people stopped caring for their elders and now the elderly are lonely and poor.

Working with a large number of recent immigrants from India, one of the biggest social differences that stands out when family interactions are discussed at work is that in Indian families it is expected that unless they are very rich, when parents retire they will go to live with one of their married children, or circulate from one filial household to another, staying at each for several months out of the year. This is practically unheard of in the US at this time, and it is frequent for US-born people around the office to say, when hearing about this, “I couldn’t stand to have my parents visit for more than a week.” However, such arrangements were far more common both in the US and in Europe before social programs to assure an independent income for the retired rendered such arrangements unnecessary. One can argue that longer distances make for closer families, and certainly, human nature being what it is, enforced closeness can lead to resentment instead of love, but I don’t think it takes a great deal of imagination to see that this is a case where removing the need to care for each other in a practical and financial sense has allowed the erosion of social relationships.

Um, no. The reason Social Security and such were created was because of the large numbers of elderly persons living in extreme poverty because they weren't being supported by their families. Keep in mind, in order to be supported by your children, three things need to happen, (a) you have to have children, (b) those children need to survive to adulthood, not a guaranteed thing when Social Security was created, or even today, and (c) those children need to be doing well enough financially to support you. That's an awful lot to make people depend on, especially people like me who can't children.

I would also like to point something else out. Religious charity existed well before government social programs. The fact that government social programs had to be created is proof of the fact that voluntary religious charity was not enough. If it were enough, we wouldn't need food stamps and WIC and Social Security. Duh.

Oh, and the next person who invokes Scrooge as proof of anything is getting a visit from nihilist hackers. Scrooge is not real, people. Stop it!

So Funny I Had to Share

christian, libertarian, ayn rand, jesus, charity,
Thanks to [redacted] for pointing me to Our Libertarian Spirit, source of much lulz for proposing that Ayn Rand and Jesus are spiritual siblings*.

It is far too easy (intellectually lazy) to conclude that Jesus Christ and Ayn Rand are miles apart in what they teach. Nothing is further from the truth. It is only necessary to juxtapose the words of Ayn Rand with the words of Jesus to see they teach exactly the same.

Just let that sink in for a moment.

If you've read Atlas Shrugged and anything attributed to Jesus in the Bible, you're laughing so hard you can't breathe right now.

Jesus and Rand aren't "miles apart", they're diametically opposed. Ayn Rand hated Christianity, specifically because of all the charity proposed by Jesus.

The following excerpt is from a letter to Sylvia Austin dated July 9, 1946, in Letters of Ayn Rand, p. 287:

There is a great, basic contradiction in the teachings of Jesus. Jesus was one of the first great teachers to proclaim the basic principle of individualism -- the inviolate sanctity of man's soul, and the salvation of one's soul as one's first concern and highest goal; this means -- one's ego and the integrity of one's ego. But when it came to the next question, a code of ethics to observe for the salvation of one's soul -- (this means: what must one do in actual practice in order to save one's soul?) -- Jesus (or perhaps His interpreters) gave men a code of altruism, that is, a code which told them that in order to save one's soul, one must love or help or live for others. This means, the subordination of one's soul (or ego) to the wishes, desires or needs of others, which means the subordination of one's soul to the souls of others.

This is a contradiction that cannot be resolved. This is why men have never succeeded in applying Christianity in practice, while they have preached it in theory for two thousand years. The reason of their failure was not men's natural depravity or hypocrisy, which is the superficial (and vicious) explanation usually given. The reason is that a contradiction cannot be made to work. That is why the history of Christianity has been a continuous civil war -- both literally (between sects and nations), and spiritually (within each man's soul).

The concept of altruism, the calls to charity, are something that Rand found appalling.

What Christian Prophet is engaging in is essentially doublethink: I like the idea of living only for the self and kicking all those freeloading maggots off of welfare, but Jesus said to help the poor . . . no, wait, it's really the same philosophy! Yay!

Look, you can't square Ayn Rand's philosophy with Christianity, no matter how you wield that hammer. I get it, "it's mine and I'm keeping it!" is much more attractive than "give it all away to the poor and follow me", but don't try to claim they're the same thing.



*Christian Prophet actually calls them "spiritual brother and sister", but "sibling" means the same thing and allows for alliteration. Never pass up an opportunity for alliteration.

Let's Hear It for Begging!

libertarian, health care, charity, fail

There's no zealot like a new zealot, and renaissanceguy is indeed a zealot. A Libertarian zealot. Honestly, I'll take the freaks over at Rapture Ready over Libertarians. A belief that Jesus is going to descend from the sky on a white horse shortly after Kirk Cameron converts in a public restroom is way saner than the Libertarian answer to poverty and need, which can be summed up thusly:

Beg, beg and beg some more.
Beg until you can beg no more!

Recently a commenter named Personal Failure asked:

What happens when private help isn’t available or isn’t enough? What then? My husband has MS. He needs medication, tests, doctors and treatments, but he was rescissed by his insurance because he failed to disclose a blow to the head as a child. (Does not cause MS.) He can get his MS meds free from the company, but those meds are known to cause liver damage, and he can’t get liver function tests for free, so he can’t take the meds. So there he is on the couch, too dizzy to walk the dog, let along work. Libertarianism works great- until you can’t work.

I have thought long and hard about an answer. Here is part of the answer below. More is coming, but I try to keep each post around 500 words.

I do not want to minimalize the situation that you find yourself in. It stinks, plain and simple. My heart goes out to you and your husband. I hope that he has the remitting kind of MS and that he enters remission soon. I would first like to ask a series of questions and then conclude with a comment about your last sentence.

Note 1: MS comes in 6 varieties, the most common being Relapsing/Remitting. R/R however, does not mean that you go from symptoms to total lack of symptoms. The disease may go into an inactive state, but the damage from the active state may very well remain. The dizzy? It's not going away. That's permanent now.

Have you sought a legal remedy against the insurance company? It sounds like they have violated their contract. Libertarians are against anyone’s doing that.

ZOMQF! That's hi-fuckin-larious. People are recissed every day in this country, and people die because of it. Recission is immoral and unethical, but it's not illegal.

Have you asked your friends and family for help? Perhaps each of your close friends and family members would be willing to pay for one liver test per year.

Basic social understanding fail. On two levels, actually. (1) I'm poor. Generally, if you're poor, all your friends are poor. I have no idea where rich people hang out, but it's not where I do. (2) If you want to find out exactly how many friends you have, get sick and stay sick. You probably have 1 or 2 friends. Oh, and begging? As if MS weren't bad enough, now we've got to beg?

Have you asked a church or other religious body for help? In my hometown there is a network of churches known as the Community Ministries that provides all sorts of resources to people in need. Maybe there is something like it where you live.

I'm an atheist, but even so, my local churches are totally overwhelmed with the need for food and shelter. There is no church medical charity in my area. For those counting, this is beg #2.

Have you held fundraisers or, better yet, asked a close friend or family member to hold fundraisers on your husband’s behalf? That is often done for people with chronic illnesses.
Is your husband a member of a support group? Perhaps they know of a foundation or private charity that could help him out.

And beg #3. Oooh, I have an idea. Let's take my desperately ill husband and parade him around for strangers to point at and feel sorry for. Not that every gas station in town isn't already filled with little donation jars for this person's house fire or that person's leukemia.

Has your husband thought about ways that he might still be able to make money from home, perhaps part-time? If that is not possible, please forgive my even asking the question. Last year I was struck with a debilitating condition that I thought would make it impossible for me to work anymore at my job. I told my wife that I might have to stay home from school and try to write a book or offer private music lessons or private tutoring to struggling students. Fortunately, my condition is under control–at least at the moment.

Oh, you know just how I feel. You almost had to maybe have a conversation about working from home. Hey, asshat, you never even tried to work from home, so you have no idea if that's possible or not, and, Teh Hubby did work from home. Before he got too sick to work.

In the meantime, I have no problem with you and your husband availing yourself of any government programs for which you qualify. You helped pay for them, after all. Although I would like to see most public welfare programs reduced or abolished, you might as well benefit from the ones that are operating now.

Oh, it's so nice of you to let us try to get disability/medicaid in another 3 months. You know, before you try to get rid of it. That's so sweet.

It is not fair to discuss whether or not Libertarianism would work in light of or current situation. The United States of America is not currently operating under anything like a Libertarian-type government. I believe that both you and your husband would be better able to withstand the current crisis if Libertarian principles were enacted.

Orly? You haven't given me one example of a Libertarian principle that would help in this situation, probably because their aren't any, you whingey spleenweasel.

If That Were Going to Work . . .

health care, crisis, charity,
If charity were a valid solution to the health care crisis in the US, we wouldn't have a health care crisis in the US right now.

Larry Elder of Townhall.com has moved on from "everybody who doesn't have health care is spending their money on cavier instead" to "let the charities handle this because they'd be so good at it."

Since Mr. Elder doesn't live in reality, I'll fill him in on a little secret: we've been trying that. For years. It isn't working.

Unless you live in a very small town, you have a free/low cost clinic where you live. There may be more than one. Here's how they work, or at least how the one in my town works:

• They are staffed by interns the same way ERs are, only these interns want to be general practitioners. There is one experienced doctor watching over all the interns.
• They have a very limited capacity. There are only so many exam rooms, so many interns, so many hours in a day, and only so much money. You may wait months for an appointment at a free clinic to see an inexperienced doctor.
• They offer very little in the way of testing. The one I went to could only do very simple tests on site: finger prick tests for blood sugar, the urine test for protein, etc. Tests for strep and the like had to be sent out to an independent lab, and the patient pays whatever the lab charges, if they can.
• X-rays, MRI's, echocardiograms, blood tests, etc. all have to be referred out, and if you have to go to a free clinic in the first place, you can't afford to pay for an x-ray, let along an MRI.
• You see whatever intern you happen to get that time. This makes ongoing treatment for a chronic disorder, even one as relatively simple as arthritis, inconsistent at best.
• There are no specialists at most free clinics. Medicine has become superspecialized in recent years. A general practice intern, no matter how talented or well trained, just doesn't have the knowledge or experience to effectively deal with heart issues, neurological disorders, etc. I know this because I had to tell several interns how to treat my seizure disorder. I'm lucky I learned this from the neurologist I had previously been seeing. Otherwise, I would have been totally screwed.
• You pay for medications. Medications are expensive.
• You pay for surgeries. Surgeries are expensive.
• You pay for therapy, mental or physical. Therapy is expensive.

A free clinic is an acceptable option for a person that has an ear infection. If all 50,000,000 uninsured persons in the US were young and healthy, free clinics run by charities would be the solution. Unfortunately, that's just not the way things are. If charities were the solution to the problem, there wouldn't be a problem. We already have charities, and we still have a problem. Ergo . . .

Darwin Sucks and So Do I

atheism, atheist, darwin, evolution, evangelical, religion, charity, communism,
(Though that's really a personal choice on my part.)

Some guy from the Colorado Springs Gazette clearly does not understand the Theory of Evolution, the works of Charles Darwin or atheism. That does not prevent him from writing on these subjects.

Happy birthday, Charles Darwin. His theory of natural selection celebrates the virtues of capitalism, competition, risk, strength, victory and defeat.

Is it really too much to ask that people who criticize the Theory of Evolution actually at least find out what it is before criticizing it. The Theory of Evolution has nothing to do with capitalism. (Unless birds in the Galapogos were engaging in free market activities.) It also has nothing to do with competition, risk, strength, victory and defeat.

May he rest in peace this day, despite the abuse of his great legacy by an angry movement known as the "New Atheism." We're angry! Angry Alliterative Atheists! With jackboots!

Despite Darwin's profound tolerance for religion huh?, one group of anti-religionsists mispelled and "atheists" works so much better. we're not antireligion, we'd just like you to stop abusing science and rational thought in your pursuit of heaven. has bought billboard space for a message that exploits him. you mean like the prolifers that created an ad exploiting Obama (a living person who also happens to be the present POTUS)? that's terrible! The signs say: "Praise Darwin. EVOLVE BEYOND BELIEF." It's okay to use taxpayer (atheists, hindus, pagans, buddhists, muslims) money to erect monuments to the Ten Commandments or to put up religious Christmas displays, but for atheists to use their own money to buy billboards is just beyond belief. Get over yourself.

The group, called the Freedom From Religion Foundation, rides a wave of atheistic evangelism that is to science what closed-minded fundamentalism is to religion. creationism is not science. sorry. it's not. it's not open-mindedness to accept any ridiculous idea as being equal to science.

Highlighting their publicity stunts serves to strengthen the positive role of religion in a free society. yes, acting like an intolerant asshole is always positive.

Darwin wouldn't have excelled in a world without religion. All of his formal education was provided by institutions of the Church of England, including Oxford and Christ's College. oh, puh-lease. christians founded oxford, therefore science is religion?

Darwin's wife, Emma, was deeply religious and the two enjoyed intelligent discussions about the origins of all which exists. Darwin's best friend was the Rev. Brodie Innes, who became a supportive asset in the scientist's never-ending quest for answers. so darwin had religious friends. darwin himself could have been the most religious man alive, and that wouldn't change evolution or atheism. red herring fail.

I will now remove about 10 more paragraphs of red herring. Feel free to read them if you have nothing better to do.

Today, a growing number of scientists express concern about zealous atheistic evangelism diminishing the stature of science. Matt Nisbet, author of "Framing Science," in case you don't feel like following the link, Nisbet is not a scientist, he is a professor in the School of Communication at America University. argues that New Atheism fails because it alienates the people it seeks to convert. that's stupid. atheism isn't interested in converting people, and even if it were, that would make the evangelism a failure, not the atheism itself. Michael Schermer, in a column for Scientific American, wrote: "Anti-something movements by themselves will fail. Atheists cannot simply define themselves by what they do not believe. As Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises warned his anti-Communist colleagues in the 1950s: ‘An anti-something movement displays a purely negative attitude. It has no chance whatever to succeed. Its passionate diatribes virtually advertise the program they attack.'" interesting quote mine there. basically, Schermer believes that atheism should redefine itself by what it is for, rather than what it is not. he does not state that atheism itself fails. also, I love the random communism moment. atheists=communists=murderers. thanks.

Case in point: Those "Imagine No Religion" signs, which caused people to imagine a dearth of hospitals, soup kitchens, universities and homeless shelters. seriously? that's what you think of when you think of no religion? there are no secular hospitals, no secular universities, no secular charities at all? reality fail.

This is so utterly silly that all I can say is, if you can't think of anything to say that could be supported by, I dunno, reality, don't say anything at all.

Sorry, Jesus Doesn't Make You Better Than Me

religion, religious, charity, giving, atheism, atheist, christian, fundamentalism, fundamentalist, fundy, barna
Well, the science is in, including science done by evangelical Christian pollster George Barna: Christians and atheists act the same. That's right- Jesus doesn't make you one whit better than anyone else.

There are only two differences between Christians and atheists: atheists have a lower divorce rate and charitable giving. Here's the catch on charitable giving, though: most Christians' charitable giving involving tithing to their church. (a) only 8% of Christians tithe, and they only tithe 3%, and (b) money given to the church most often goes back into running the church, so while it is "charitable" to give away money, money given to a church doesn't equal money feeding the hungry or housing the homeless.

Also, the study showed that non-Christians are more likely to give money to a homeless or poor person in any given year (34%) than are born-again Christians (24%).

So, stop telling me that atheists are immoral. We're just like you. Without all the burning in hell.