“Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.” –theoretical physicist Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
Man wearing Afghan National Army uniform kills American soldier, official says
“Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.” –theoretical physicist Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
Man wearing Afghan National Army uniform kills American soldier, official says
“There exists in the economy and course of nature, an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness; between duty and advantage; between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy, and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity; since we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained.” –George Washington, First Inaugural Address, 1789
House panel votes to ban same-sex marriages on US military bases
Obama’s week: Bad to worse – Muddles gay marriage, nearly loses in W.Va. to inmate
“An opportunity society awaits us. We need only believe in ourselves and give men and women of faith, courage, and vision the freedom to build it. Let others run down America and seek to punish success. Let them call you greedy for not wanting government to take more and more of your earnings. Let them defend their tombstone society of wage and price guidelines, mandatory quotas, tax increases, planned shortages, and shared sacrifices. We want no part of that mess, thank you very much.” –Ronald Reagan
U.S. institute says sees “new activities” at Iran site
“Government, in my humble opinion, should be formed to secure and to enlarge the exercise of the natural rights of its members; and every government, which has not this in view, as its principal object, is not a government of the legitimate kind.” –James Wilson, Lectures on Law, 1791
Russian soldiers to train at Fort Carson
CIA thwarts Al Qaeda underwear bomb plot near anniversary of bin Laden’s death
Recently re-read “Oath Of Fealty” an old SciFi novel by Niven and Pournelle. This post concerns just one quote from that book so please don’t get entangled in the balance. I mention the book as a source only, NOT as context.
Think of it as evolution in action.
A working definition: Evolution as a process that leads to survival of the fittest, or natural selection. Whether this process is controlled by The Divine or driven solely by nature is NOT germane here. It either is an on-going process – or it isn’t? And that ain’t the question anyway.
I’ll posit that we do not always do humanity a favor by fighting against nature. All men may be created equal but soon divergence becomes apparent.
One anecdotal example: Don’t pee on the third rail. Others can be found online by looking up “Epic Fail” or similar.
Then we have: Prof Stephen Hawking has been caught red-handed having visited a sex club in The States. NB, this is not exactly relevant here, it just tickles me. Arguably one of the finest minds on the planet is quite human.
How is any of this fodder for the TAH crowd you might reasonably ask? Most of us consider firearms and other weapons simply as tools. They also can trim the gene pool on occasion. War – on the scale we are capable of even more so.
And, of course, the phony socialist effort to equalize everyone is in play.
Here’s the question (it don’t get asked in polite circles)… Have we screwed up evolution, as defined above, so much with technology that the concept is meaningless? Further, is this a good thing for humanity?
“A major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that it … gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.” –economist Milton Friedman (1912-2006)
Lawyer: Edwards knew money was for his benefit
“The advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation … forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of.” — James Madison (1788)
Spirit bows to pressure: Airline CEO to refund dying veteran’s fare
Iraq’s unity tested by rising tensions over oil-rich Kurdish region
“All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.” –Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, 1801
ISAF under-reporting attacks by Afghan allies
“As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights. Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.” –James Madison, National Gazette Essay, 1792
FDA may let patients buy drugs without prescriptions – Medicare, insurance could be rid of costs
“The invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from acts of Government contrary to the sense of its constituents, but from acts in which the Government is the mere instrument of the major number of the Constituents.” –James Madison, letter to Thomas Jefferson, 1788
Official: Expanded U.S. drone strikes approved for Yemen