I hate the government - a rant

So I want to get from Florida to California. I'm relocating.
I figured a train would be cheaper than a plane, and could carry more. Stupid me, I forgot the government runs it.
No only does it takes many days (yes, days) longer to get from FL to CA by train (because Amtrak basically forces you to go to DC first, then it sets you through a series of other transfers to eventually, you hope, get to your destination) but it's also just as expensive as going by plane. Not only that, the only luggage benefit I could see from going by train is that you can take your bike on SELECT trains.
I'm so glad that POS organization some call our protectors is protecting me from the inefficiences of poor train management, service, and monopoly prices.



Oh wait.

Convoluted Rant for the New Generation of Snooty Philosophers

When I get into political arguments with others over rights in the like, I often find (and comment accordingly) that fundamental differences in justification for political positions render debates about specific topics rather pointless.
This gets best illustrated with my claim that "empirical problems" are not at all. Maybe I say it so calmly, confidently, and frequently because the Matrix had a larger impact on me than I care to admit, or rather, let me give credit to a much forgotten film, eXistenZ, which drove paranoia home a lot more than the Matrix ever could for me.
I exist in a universe of ideas--ideas with much more worth than any self-assured claim to knowledge of the real world. As afeared of math as any person, I still hold more strongly to the claim 2+2=4 than that which states George Bush faces difficulties pronouncing words. I heard it with my own ears, "nuke-yule-er," didn't I?
This must seem a jumbled mess: three dubiously connected paragraphs, but to what end?

So let me try to make sense now, and that will hopefully shed light on the situation, and create a good topic of discussion.
I advocate a notion of natural rights based on an assumption about nature. I advocate abolishing all forms of violence (I suppose save those associated with lesser animals agressing against eachother in search for sustenance & other silly adventures), including, but not limited to, governments, slavery (nudge, nudge, milita enforced sweatshop labour), non-consentual brawling, thievery, and meanness (ok, maybe meanness does not count as a form of violence, but it counts as form of un-niceness!) which impede on the natural rights I aforementionedly advocated.
Beyond this, any attempt to delay a movement toward the abolition of all violations of natural rights, regardless of their pragmatic merit, will not have my support. Such include the argument of forcefull eliminating publicly traded corporations as they tend to violate others' rights. This brings us back to where I began, "empirical problems." Pre-emptively attempting to prevent large scale rights violations by means of a smaller scale rights violation (if such a thing is) has as much appeal to me as an argument for eliminating all of humanity to avoid the entirety of future violatoin of rights by the hands of human beings: none. I have empirical reasons for not accepting this argument, but more imporantly I have fundamental philosophical problems with the paradigm of the argument itself.
I find making plans and attempting to get things done in the real world fun, but not real. Ideas are reality.


Seeing as this is my first post. And I haven't had much sleep the last few nights, I may edit it somewhat, or tremendously, to save myself embarrassment. Reasons for editing, beyond that, include clarity, and possibly making my point clear, which at this hour, I am not at all certain I did. Haha!

Getting Your Hands Dirty / Roderick's Wish Is My Command

I once knew a person, whom I won't name here. As far as I could tell, she was more concerned with animal rights, veganism, and dumpster diving than she was about the war. And she had the chutzpah to call herself a "radical" and to condemn other people for not being radical enough.
Phoney radicals, who would be many or most of them, honestly, tend towards things like these because they aren't thereby committed to any real course of political action. It's why every liberation struggle in every farflung country attracts massive attention, while there's no real, organized movement in this country to take on police brutality or educate prospective jurors about nullification. It's because saying "Yay Evo Morales!" allows one to be Fashionably Radical while not getting one's hands dirty, while mass organization of people here at home who aren't Starbucks baristas requires actual work and just isn't nearly as hip.

via CNN

Anti-creationism prof quits department chair

To summarize my opinions on the subject, Dr. Mirecki (the prof in question) is right. From my own experience, many of the politically-active fundamentalists (many of them are not politically active, and many are very nice people) tend to be thin-skinned, schadenfreude-ridden advocates of political violence. Dr. Mirecki may very well be biased, unprofessional, etc, etc, but he happens to be correct, and the way in which he was beaten by two men on the side of a road because of this incident on Monday serves almost as an archetypical example of the way in which (actual) conservatives resort to force when argument is exhausted, when they are shown to be incorrect or offended/insulted in some way.

“Peace and Freedom” The Inaugural Post

The title of this blog, “Pax et Libertas,” is not a random pairing of two unconnected words. Peace cannot, has not, and never will exist without freedom. Without recognition by each of the rights of all to dispose of their lives and property in ways of their own choosing, what exists is nothing more than carefully-hidden oppression and a lack of open conflict. This is not peace. At the very least, it is not peace in any meaningful sense of the word. Freedom cannot exist without peace because there can be no freedom, no security, no recognition of rights in an atmosphere of terror, whether this terror is the terror of the State directed at helpless civilians, the terror used by a mugger against his victim, or the terror that results from a system of patriarchy which functions to ensure that, even now, rape is still extremely common. At the bottom, all of these things have the same root: the idea of violence. This idea must be destroyed. Only then does some possibility exist that the bulkof the earth's population will be able to live a life worth living for a human being.

It is my hope that this will serve as some small contribution to that larger effort.