In order to enter the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW), one is required to purchase a permit. The permit is issued at a BWCAW ranger station and is good for one group of up to 4 watercraft and 9 people. Requiring permits makes sense, because there are only a certain number of campsites, and limiting groups ensures one will be available (or at least makes it more likely). This also prevents overcrowding in general, and ensures the pristine wilderness is preserved and the impact of human interaction is kept to a minimum.
Overnight paddling permits are valid for the date of entry, and you may paddle for as long as you want. You may frolic among the lakes for months on-end, spending each night at a different campsite, so long as YOU ENTERED ON THE DATE OF THE PERMIT. No exceptions.
So, if, months ago, you scheduled your Boy Scout troop's permits for Sunday August 2nd, for example, and arrived only to discover one of your canoes needed to be repaired, and you cannot fix it before midnight, your trip MUST BE CANCELED and the whole troop must return home. Your permit is NOT valid for entry the next day. Once the minute hand crosses midnight on the date of entry, and you are not in the water, you are done. Go home. Your trip is over.
This was troubling news for me when I realized we will not be able to enter the water this Sunday. Since we acquired the permit months ago, usual scheduling circumstances have arisen that force us to push in Monday morning rather than Sunday afternoon. Therefore, we either need to cancel our trip or break the law and launch the day AFTER our permit. Saganaga from landing 55 will be under an iron blockade for overnight paddlers on Monday, August 3rd.
Fortunately, there was a permit available Tuesday, but, this means one day of being an outlaw on the water. Yes, from the moment our canoe slips over the placid waters of the north until midnight Monday, we will be criminals. Careful planning is required.
We will be heavily outnumbered and outgunned, so confrontation is not an acceptable tactic. We must slip through their blockade like ghosts, evading their security apparatus. We will blend into the crowd of regular paddlers christened with legal, Monday permits. Ours will be for Tuesday, at least our overnight. Our Monday permit will be for a day trip only, and require us to return to the landing the same day. By they time they discover anything is amiss, we will be miles away and dug-in to our secure bunker.
To ensure they do not find us, we will excavate a 10-foot deep circular pit, falling as many of the tallest Norway Pines as we can to construct an outer shell resistant to any small arms fire. We expect our holdout will be one of the islands on Saganaga lake, where we must repel all advances until midnight, when our Tuesday permit becomes effective. After, we must eliminate all evidence, burning the pines, and detonating enough explosives to ensure the entire island is completely submerged, and never seen again.
As a diversion, we will float one hundred fifty-five gallon drums of light crude into adjacent Seagull lake timed to charges approximately the time of our departure. The resulting oil spill will occupy the authorities the while we hide under our log and pine needle cover. There may be pandemonium and we don't want people caught in the crossfire. Therefore, we have reserved all remaining available permits for every entry point across the entire BWCAW to limit casualties. Almost every date before or after Monday was available, so we could seriously limit the possiblility of any unnecessary casualties.
If we make it, we expect to enjoy our reward. We have used our formidable resources to book every permit at every entry point throughout the BWCAW for the next 10 years. We expect to be the ONLY paddlers in the entire 1.09 million acre area for whichever 2 or 3 day trips we intend to take during that period. A secluded undisclosed location somewhere within this desolate expanse is where we will plan our next assault. The blood of renegade paddlers runs in our blood. It is our purpose, our mission. When we go down, it will be over the broken, scarlet paddle clutched within our fists as we slowly sink to the bottom of our watery grave.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Monday, July 20, 2009
Time Travel
I just finished Ronald Mallett's book Time Traveler, which explains how, theoretically, we will one day be able to transport matter into the past...go back in time. When I say I just finished, I actually mean will finish July 20th 2019. But, I is actually my 41-year-old self which is someone entirely different from my young and stupid 31-year-old self. We both now exist in this causal plane, although he/me doesn't know I'm here. Anyway, I figured now would be a good time to zip back 10 years and write a quick post about the future before I continue my tour through history...
I became interested in time travel when I realized that it happens all the time. Scientists call time travel into the future "time dilation," and it happens whenever things move really fast. Sergei Avdeyev, for example, after zipping around the earth 11,968 times on the Mir space station is 1/50th of a second younger than he would have been had he stayed on earth. This is because things slow down as we approach the speed of light, even a tiny fraction of the speed of light. This has practical consequences, like clocks on satellites run more slowly, requiring its operators to compensate for the difference. If GPS satellites didn't take this relativistic effect into account we would all be careening off cliffs and driving into farmers markets and such.
Anyway, it's moving into the past that is difficult, which makes sense, as this is the thing that most of us really want to do. Mallett discovered that, since light can 'drag' spacetime, you can circulate a laser beam to create a vortex which can allow a pathway through time. Now, this pathway was only big enough to allow a neutron through. But, once he turned it on, he immediately started receiving all these neutrons from the future. He took a closer look and discovered messages encoded in the direction of their spin. He was receiving advice from himself and others in Morse code (or some other code) from the future! Well, this made his task far easier. His future guides explained exactly how to construct a working time machine that would allow humans to travel backwards or forwards through time at will. Within a few years they were being mass-produced, and every library and museum had its own public time machine. They became as common as telephone booths (when they were still around).
Now, at first I thought this would cause mucho mayhem too. I've seen Back the the Future, and I know what messing with the space time continuum can do to your guitar-playing skills. Fortunately, those writers tweaked the physics to intensify the dramatic storyline. The plot is not probable. Actually, the moment Marty went back, he would have become part of a completely new universe whose entire future would be irrevocably rewritten because of his arrival. It's kind of like how I came from the future and created this universe where I wrote this post and forever changed this causal plane of existence forever.
The future/present as I otherwise would have known it will never exist again, and the past as I had known it is gone forever. While there is some unimaginably small chance the course of events may turn out to be recognizable if I lay low (i.e. Marty's parents fall in love, get married, and have Marty), probability immediately fucks with everything indelibly changing whatever you remember from history books or heard from your parents. Chance is still chance, and just because the coin flipped heads before doesn't mean it will again. To move ahead to Back to the Future part II, remember Biff got his hands on the sports almanac and then bet on horses until he basically owned Hill Valley? Seems plausible, but that almanac would be completely unreliable seconds after you arrived in the past. The odds of the same horse winning are only slightly better than before, and only because you have access to additional records. But, there is no guarantee the horse that wins in the almanac will even make it out of the gate in your new universe.
Since I have chosen to return to 2009, the past 10 years (2009 through 2019) are gone...a personal fiction which never existed. I am simply 10 years older living in a reality only vaguely similar to the one in which I lived. Even though I have lived these years already, I have virtually the same chance of screwing them up.
Our future is always in our hands, and opportunity is slipping away each moment. Of the infinite number of possible futures, I am perpetually letting all but one slip through my fingers anyway. I find this daunting, even paralyzing. Nonetheless, it is a fact, and one which allows me to take my adventure in time travel lightly. For example, there is the universe in which I post this message on my blog, and, there is the universe in which I save it as a draft and forget about it. Traveling backwards in time was just another one of those irrevocable decisions that may haunt me the rest of my life or lead to enduring bliss. Who knows? The universe in which I had the opportunity to time travel but didn't would be difficult to tolerate.
While I am not actually future Mark, the plausibility of time travel does beg the question: "Are visitors from the future returning to our time to play? Rewrite history as they see fit?" Sounds disturbing, doesn't it? No wonder they don't show themselves. I think most of us enjoy some semblance of order, regularity and free will. And, if we are being subtly influenced by friends from the future, we are largely at their mercy. After all, we might ask why they haven't fixed everything already. We might blame them for all of our problems...the worlds problems from the dawn of civilization. No, they certainly couldn't show their faces, no matter how much suffering they have prevented or how many lives they have saved. I like to think of them as courageous and compassionate individuals, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank them for whatever past/present they have provided for us. In return, I might see what future I can help provide for them (or rather, their incarnation in this universe), and try not do a whole lot of damage in the process.
I became interested in time travel when I realized that it happens all the time. Scientists call time travel into the future "time dilation," and it happens whenever things move really fast. Sergei Avdeyev, for example, after zipping around the earth 11,968 times on the Mir space station is 1/50th of a second younger than he would have been had he stayed on earth. This is because things slow down as we approach the speed of light, even a tiny fraction of the speed of light. This has practical consequences, like clocks on satellites run more slowly, requiring its operators to compensate for the difference. If GPS satellites didn't take this relativistic effect into account we would all be careening off cliffs and driving into farmers markets and such.
Anyway, it's moving into the past that is difficult, which makes sense, as this is the thing that most of us really want to do. Mallett discovered that, since light can 'drag' spacetime, you can circulate a laser beam to create a vortex which can allow a pathway through time. Now, this pathway was only big enough to allow a neutron through. But, once he turned it on, he immediately started receiving all these neutrons from the future. He took a closer look and discovered messages encoded in the direction of their spin. He was receiving advice from himself and others in Morse code (or some other code) from the future! Well, this made his task far easier. His future guides explained exactly how to construct a working time machine that would allow humans to travel backwards or forwards through time at will. Within a few years they were being mass-produced, and every library and museum had its own public time machine. They became as common as telephone booths (when they were still around).
Now, at first I thought this would cause mucho mayhem too. I've seen Back the the Future, and I know what messing with the space time continuum can do to your guitar-playing skills. Fortunately, those writers tweaked the physics to intensify the dramatic storyline. The plot is not probable. Actually, the moment Marty went back, he would have become part of a completely new universe whose entire future would be irrevocably rewritten because of his arrival. It's kind of like how I came from the future and created this universe where I wrote this post and forever changed this causal plane of existence forever.
The future/present as I otherwise would have known it will never exist again, and the past as I had known it is gone forever. While there is some unimaginably small chance the course of events may turn out to be recognizable if I lay low (i.e. Marty's parents fall in love, get married, and have Marty), probability immediately fucks with everything indelibly changing whatever you remember from history books or heard from your parents. Chance is still chance, and just because the coin flipped heads before doesn't mean it will again. To move ahead to Back to the Future part II, remember Biff got his hands on the sports almanac and then bet on horses until he basically owned Hill Valley? Seems plausible, but that almanac would be completely unreliable seconds after you arrived in the past. The odds of the same horse winning are only slightly better than before, and only because you have access to additional records. But, there is no guarantee the horse that wins in the almanac will even make it out of the gate in your new universe.
Since I have chosen to return to 2009, the past 10 years (2009 through 2019) are gone...a personal fiction which never existed. I am simply 10 years older living in a reality only vaguely similar to the one in which I lived. Even though I have lived these years already, I have virtually the same chance of screwing them up.
Our future is always in our hands, and opportunity is slipping away each moment. Of the infinite number of possible futures, I am perpetually letting all but one slip through my fingers anyway. I find this daunting, even paralyzing. Nonetheless, it is a fact, and one which allows me to take my adventure in time travel lightly. For example, there is the universe in which I post this message on my blog, and, there is the universe in which I save it as a draft and forget about it. Traveling backwards in time was just another one of those irrevocable decisions that may haunt me the rest of my life or lead to enduring bliss. Who knows? The universe in which I had the opportunity to time travel but didn't would be difficult to tolerate.
While I am not actually future Mark, the plausibility of time travel does beg the question: "Are visitors from the future returning to our time to play? Rewrite history as they see fit?" Sounds disturbing, doesn't it? No wonder they don't show themselves. I think most of us enjoy some semblance of order, regularity and free will. And, if we are being subtly influenced by friends from the future, we are largely at their mercy. After all, we might ask why they haven't fixed everything already. We might blame them for all of our problems...the worlds problems from the dawn of civilization. No, they certainly couldn't show their faces, no matter how much suffering they have prevented or how many lives they have saved. I like to think of them as courageous and compassionate individuals, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank them for whatever past/present they have provided for us. In return, I might see what future I can help provide for them (or rather, their incarnation in this universe), and try not do a whole lot of damage in the process.
Friday, July 17, 2009
My vacation down south
I haven't posted in a while.
Been in hell waiting for you.
You never showed!
Should have, it was nice. I roasted marshmallows, floated down rivers of liquid hot magma, and even tried my hand at chaining myself to large stones and dragging them uphill. I got some silly looks, the same looks I got when I asked for extra fortune cookies in a small Chinese village. Apparently they don't do much of that anymore. Nonetheless, I was strangely comfortable there, basking in the pleasant toasty air. I rather enjoyed the flames, which circled around me. They tickled a bit.
The natives were friendly. There was no screaming or burning of flesh. I didn't see any agony at all in the whole place. The servants wore nice clothes and had a nice suite prepared for me, such fine cuisine, and I really wasn't sure sure whether to be delighted or insulted. They carried me everywhere on a chair they held on their shoulders. Hell was really a perfect fit for me. It so happens demons are excellent hosts, and they happily accommodated my every wish throughout my stay. Apparently all visitors get VIP service, but I got extra special top secret VIP service.
Aromatherapy, massages, turn down service. They even manually buttered my butter dish and de-crumbed my place setting before dessert. I had a team of attendants. After my Roman bath I was told I was welcome to stay. I asked for how long, and they said eternity. Imagine that! I was asked to sign on the dotted line. I thought about it...
Then, I thought about all the work that wasn't getting done back up top. I thought about you, the hard ground beneath my feet, the regular food, the perpetual inconveniences. I signed my first name, but paused. There were other things...things left unfinished. I stopped signing and took a rain check. My companions bristled, but allowed me to leave: "whatever you say, chief," they said.
I have an open invite to return any time. Let's take a tour sometime.
Been in hell waiting for you.
You never showed!
Should have, it was nice. I roasted marshmallows, floated down rivers of liquid hot magma, and even tried my hand at chaining myself to large stones and dragging them uphill. I got some silly looks, the same looks I got when I asked for extra fortune cookies in a small Chinese village. Apparently they don't do much of that anymore. Nonetheless, I was strangely comfortable there, basking in the pleasant toasty air. I rather enjoyed the flames, which circled around me. They tickled a bit.
The natives were friendly. There was no screaming or burning of flesh. I didn't see any agony at all in the whole place. The servants wore nice clothes and had a nice suite prepared for me, such fine cuisine, and I really wasn't sure sure whether to be delighted or insulted. They carried me everywhere on a chair they held on their shoulders. Hell was really a perfect fit for me. It so happens demons are excellent hosts, and they happily accommodated my every wish throughout my stay. Apparently all visitors get VIP service, but I got extra special top secret VIP service.
Aromatherapy, massages, turn down service. They even manually buttered my butter dish and de-crumbed my place setting before dessert. I had a team of attendants. After my Roman bath I was told I was welcome to stay. I asked for how long, and they said eternity. Imagine that! I was asked to sign on the dotted line. I thought about it...
Then, I thought about all the work that wasn't getting done back up top. I thought about you, the hard ground beneath my feet, the regular food, the perpetual inconveniences. I signed my first name, but paused. There were other things...things left unfinished. I stopped signing and took a rain check. My companions bristled, but allowed me to leave: "whatever you say, chief," they said.
I have an open invite to return any time. Let's take a tour sometime.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Independence Day
Every discussion about religion should end with "I'll see you in hell." I think it's also a good way to start...
So, when we get there, do you think we'll be able to complain about the heat and argue over the nature and temperament of our new pointy-tailed overlord? "The big guy seems to have a particularly voracious appetite for soul today; makes ours seem like an appetizer." Will we have time to discuss hell politics or ponder the nature of the afterlife? Oooh, wait. It would be the afterlife. No more lively speculation about that one. We would be fairly certain that things really could not get much worse. I mean, there isn't a "sub-hell" or anything, is there? If we were situated in a tolerable ring, imagine the possibilities! Eternal damnation is no longer a threat. Our pious hearts would no longer tremble with perpetual fear as they do here on earth. We could perhaps relax and enjoy a gentle roasting assured that our thoughts and actions would not deliver us to that screaching, blistering eternity of indescribable suffering. Think of the sinning we could do!
We could start at the top of the list and work our way down. Let's see, first we would make a toast to Satan, and agree that he is far superior to God. Then, toast to ourselves. Then, we could think of a whole bunch of silly names for God, and call him those. Oooh, what fun. Of course, this would all have to occur on a Sunday, and involve lots of work. Sinning ain't easy. Next, we could dishonor our parents somehow, which shouldn't be too dificult. Murder? Hm. Well, since there are no rules any longer, it would be okay to skip that one, but adultery would be a shoe-in. Woe to the unmarried without the opportunity to indulge in that particularly agreeable sin. Let's see. Next we have stealing, easy. We'll rip-off some of Satan's property. Bear false witness? "Hey, Satan, that guy stole your briar! I think he's after your trident." Covet? Not really sure what that one means exactly, but we would need to find a neighbor somewhere and do it to his wife, his male and female slaves, his ox, his donkey, and everything that belongs to him. Just finding a neighbor with all these things will probably be enough work to satisfy sin number 4. Then, we will need to rest for 6 days, and do it all over again next Sunday. Whew.
See? Hell ain't so bad. It's all how you approach it. In wilderness survival they call that PMA for "Positive Mental Attitude." I imagine a resolute cheerfulness would make hell quite tolerable, and even enjoyable...much better than all this terror of impending doom we have here on earth; what a downer. I imagine hell is really a place where we can gain a bit of independence from such things and live as happy, healthy demons. In fact, I'm quite looking forward to my stay, and look forward to seeing you there.
So, when we get there, do you think we'll be able to complain about the heat and argue over the nature and temperament of our new pointy-tailed overlord? "The big guy seems to have a particularly voracious appetite for soul today; makes ours seem like an appetizer." Will we have time to discuss hell politics or ponder the nature of the afterlife? Oooh, wait. It would be the afterlife. No more lively speculation about that one. We would be fairly certain that things really could not get much worse. I mean, there isn't a "sub-hell" or anything, is there? If we were situated in a tolerable ring, imagine the possibilities! Eternal damnation is no longer a threat. Our pious hearts would no longer tremble with perpetual fear as they do here on earth. We could perhaps relax and enjoy a gentle roasting assured that our thoughts and actions would not deliver us to that screaching, blistering eternity of indescribable suffering. Think of the sinning we could do!
We could start at the top of the list and work our way down. Let's see, first we would make a toast to Satan, and agree that he is far superior to God. Then, toast to ourselves. Then, we could think of a whole bunch of silly names for God, and call him those. Oooh, what fun. Of course, this would all have to occur on a Sunday, and involve lots of work. Sinning ain't easy. Next, we could dishonor our parents somehow, which shouldn't be too dificult. Murder? Hm. Well, since there are no rules any longer, it would be okay to skip that one, but adultery would be a shoe-in. Woe to the unmarried without the opportunity to indulge in that particularly agreeable sin. Let's see. Next we have stealing, easy. We'll rip-off some of Satan's property. Bear false witness? "Hey, Satan, that guy stole your briar! I think he's after your trident." Covet? Not really sure what that one means exactly, but we would need to find a neighbor somewhere and do it to his wife, his male and female slaves, his ox, his donkey, and everything that belongs to him. Just finding a neighbor with all these things will probably be enough work to satisfy sin number 4. Then, we will need to rest for 6 days, and do it all over again next Sunday. Whew.
See? Hell ain't so bad. It's all how you approach it. In wilderness survival they call that PMA for "Positive Mental Attitude." I imagine a resolute cheerfulness would make hell quite tolerable, and even enjoyable...much better than all this terror of impending doom we have here on earth; what a downer. I imagine hell is really a place where we can gain a bit of independence from such things and live as happy, healthy demons. In fact, I'm quite looking forward to my stay, and look forward to seeing you there.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Odds
I was walking through the urban canyon of Vegas a few months ago marveling at the giant casino hotels constructed with money swindled from the mathematically challenged. Count me among them. It was an amazing sight. Millions of square feet have been dedicated to the satisfaction of thrill seekers willing to play games they know they will probably lose, lured by the lights and sounds and grand delusion of happiness and affluence.
As we walked the endless strip the subject of evil came up. Is it 'evil' to take money from those who volunteer it to their own disadvantage? Nope. If I am wearing a t-shirt that reads "I will take your money" and strangers start handing me hundred dollar bills, I have no obligation to refuse. I would not feel the least bit guilty, even. They must not need those hundred dollar bills and I can certainly find a use for them.
Vegas isn't the only place people trade money for an illusion. As we thought about it, it became clear that most of the modern economy, and a large portion of the financial sector, are precisely the same thing: gambling. But, in Vegas, you are not promised material gain, and the obvious signs everywhere around you make it obvious to all but the most deluded that they are hunting you and everything in your wallet. In the financial services industry, they act as though they are providing you a money-making service, although they might not make you any money.
In Vegas, the odds are listed for every craps table, and you know your chances with every roll. In an economy afflicted with the scourge of 'shared responsibility' (i.e. the well-connected win), we DO NOT know the odds. Regardless of our portfolio and the assurances of brokers, we do not know the backroom deals going on in Washington. We do not know who's scratching who's back on Wall Street. Yet, the trumpets of "it's a great time to buy" blare as our life savings swirl down the drain. What's more, the whole industry is financed by people who want to make money for nothing, just by waiting and watching their net worth magically grow. And no one sees the absurdity.
I took my odds in Vegas, where at least I knew I was going to get fleeced. I invested in the good old-fashioned method of rolling up my sleeves and getting down to business; at the craps table.
I won about $4500 in one night. And, I can't imagine an evening of snorting cocaine could have possibly been more fun. I'm sure they'll get it back eventually, but when they do I know they'll use much of it to keep building bigger and better casinos where the odds are posted. I would much rather contribute to this racket than financing the rabble of lawyers, bureaucrats, and CEOs in their endless plight to disguise the ways they plan to steal my money. I'll take my odds in Vegas any day.
As we walked the endless strip the subject of evil came up. Is it 'evil' to take money from those who volunteer it to their own disadvantage? Nope. If I am wearing a t-shirt that reads "I will take your money" and strangers start handing me hundred dollar bills, I have no obligation to refuse. I would not feel the least bit guilty, even. They must not need those hundred dollar bills and I can certainly find a use for them.
Vegas isn't the only place people trade money for an illusion. As we thought about it, it became clear that most of the modern economy, and a large portion of the financial sector, are precisely the same thing: gambling. But, in Vegas, you are not promised material gain, and the obvious signs everywhere around you make it obvious to all but the most deluded that they are hunting you and everything in your wallet. In the financial services industry, they act as though they are providing you a money-making service, although they might not make you any money.
In Vegas, the odds are listed for every craps table, and you know your chances with every roll. In an economy afflicted with the scourge of 'shared responsibility' (i.e. the well-connected win), we DO NOT know the odds. Regardless of our portfolio and the assurances of brokers, we do not know the backroom deals going on in Washington. We do not know who's scratching who's back on Wall Street. Yet, the trumpets of "it's a great time to buy" blare as our life savings swirl down the drain. What's more, the whole industry is financed by people who want to make money for nothing, just by waiting and watching their net worth magically grow. And no one sees the absurdity.
I took my odds in Vegas, where at least I knew I was going to get fleeced. I invested in the good old-fashioned method of rolling up my sleeves and getting down to business; at the craps table.
I won about $4500 in one night. And, I can't imagine an evening of snorting cocaine could have possibly been more fun. I'm sure they'll get it back eventually, but when they do I know they'll use much of it to keep building bigger and better casinos where the odds are posted. I would much rather contribute to this racket than financing the rabble of lawyers, bureaucrats, and CEOs in their endless plight to disguise the ways they plan to steal my money. I'll take my odds in Vegas any day.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Late Term Abortion
With the recent slaughter of a man who assists women safely kill babies/parasites (whichever you like) weeks before they would otherwise be born, I am moved to voice my thoughts of the matter here, as I consider his life choice and profession a courageous exercise in human justice...
To those who attack abortion doctors:
You have cast the first stone, if I may speak biblically. It seems the pro-life crowd responds to this type of language. Your love for another's baby is admirable, and even unavoidable. Your ignorance of the sanctity and responsibility of motherhood is unfortunate. One thousand women might one day choose to volunteer to impregnate themselves and then tear the ripe fetuses from their own bodies in the most graphic statement imaginable to prove that their baby is not yours; not even if your covetous emotional stability (often mistook for conscience) is dependent on adopting them all. Unless you can personally restrain her in your maternity ward/dungeon, of which the likes any free and civil society is instituted to prevent, you have no right to prevent her violation of that very clear commandment (with, through implication, I reserve for humans and fetuses), that 'Thou shalt not kill.' This is not Minority Report, you are not a Precog, and there is no such thing as a pre-crime. A woman's reign over her unborn child is a bond more secure than any legal or social abstraction and welded by that most perfect and unchangeable force in the universe; that of natural law. If God ever did grant a human the authority to rule over another it is the mother over her unborn fetus, and if you do not grant that, then you certainly cannot argue that God granted you the power to force her, against her will, to relinquish that authority. If she does not know it herself, empathy may move you to remind her that God will be the judge, which I consider the limit of your rightful interference.
To the dead children:
If you had not been relieved of your worldly duties so soon, your barbaric mother would have likely extended your suffering in ways so dramatically more horrific, physically and/or emotionally, that the world secretly pities you less for having suffered so quick a death.
To the abortion doctors:
They say women must have access to safe abortions lest they harm themselves with unsanitary and dangerous procedures in secret. This is the argument I have heard, which is weak and irrelevant. Even if no woman has harmed herself in want of the procedure, access to it, if a willing doctor exists, is inherently justified. The unreasonable and aggressive attack upon the unchangeable principle defined above is now raging. While it may seem an attack against a fact of nature is harmless and futile, like draining one ocean into another, it is not. We must consider how such efforts would otherwise have been directed. The army dedicated to draining the Atlantic into the Pacific not only exerts its own time and labor at the expense of what good they might otherwise do, but also, they divert all the resources procured from other sources for this completely irrelevant purpose. What expecting mother is moved to swear-off her abortion appointment upon seeing a cutesy "pro-life" billboard along the highway - the one between two other corporate advertisements encouraging her to ingest a particular brand of fast food. Such tasteless propaganda directed in this way, in my estimation, is offensive and dehumanizing to any expecting mother, and can only serve to encourage the exact opposite of the intended result. (What baby deserves to suffer a prison bemired and so heavily influenced by such malfeasance). Moving beyond billboards and other wasted resources, the deadly recent example was far from harmless. The killing of a defender of (what I call) the principal of feminine liberty is a tragic loss, not only of a human life, but of one dedicated to this evasive and unpopular truth; that a fetus is not property of the state, and invisible to it for all intents and purposes.
To further illustrate the necessity for this understanding, consider the nurturing way a 'mother state' already treats its youth, targeting them to ruthlessly kill in their belligerent nation's war for reasons they couldn't possibly begin to understand? Certainly if they could they might reconsider (e.g. to protect Stalin, to defend Mao, etc.). The young man's country assures him he is relieved of his moral responsibility and made a champion for obediently killing people, while left little choice with the sharp bayonet against his back. How much more justified is the defense of a principal that is understood, by a doctor with the courage and ability to defend it while at the same time jeopardizing his own life?
George Tiller was martyred in defense of the sacred principal that a woman's authority over her body and unborn child is complete, and that no other person, state, or organization may wield the power to compel the fruition of a pregnancy against the mother's will. Any person, state, or organization that wields this power also wields the power to compel an abortion, the most egregious abuse of authority imaginable, and one that would mark the end of any population's rank among the word's civilized communities.
What nation is worth instituting and defending if not to protect the lives and to respect the decisions of those expectant mothers solely responsible for nurturing the newest members of our culture and fostering the continuation of its principals. What culture or population is worth propagating if its mothers are so fearful and disrespected that they only accept motherhood against their will? What future can we expect for such a society, and who do we expect to defend it?
To those who attack abortion doctors:
You have cast the first stone, if I may speak biblically. It seems the pro-life crowd responds to this type of language. Your love for another's baby is admirable, and even unavoidable. Your ignorance of the sanctity and responsibility of motherhood is unfortunate. One thousand women might one day choose to volunteer to impregnate themselves and then tear the ripe fetuses from their own bodies in the most graphic statement imaginable to prove that their baby is not yours; not even if your covetous emotional stability (often mistook for conscience) is dependent on adopting them all. Unless you can personally restrain her in your maternity ward/dungeon, of which the likes any free and civil society is instituted to prevent, you have no right to prevent her violation of that very clear commandment (with, through implication, I reserve for humans and fetuses), that 'Thou shalt not kill.' This is not Minority Report, you are not a Precog, and there is no such thing as a pre-crime. A woman's reign over her unborn child is a bond more secure than any legal or social abstraction and welded by that most perfect and unchangeable force in the universe; that of natural law. If God ever did grant a human the authority to rule over another it is the mother over her unborn fetus, and if you do not grant that, then you certainly cannot argue that God granted you the power to force her, against her will, to relinquish that authority. If she does not know it herself, empathy may move you to remind her that God will be the judge, which I consider the limit of your rightful interference.
To the dead children:
If you had not been relieved of your worldly duties so soon, your barbaric mother would have likely extended your suffering in ways so dramatically more horrific, physically and/or emotionally, that the world secretly pities you less for having suffered so quick a death.
To the abortion doctors:
They say women must have access to safe abortions lest they harm themselves with unsanitary and dangerous procedures in secret. This is the argument I have heard, which is weak and irrelevant. Even if no woman has harmed herself in want of the procedure, access to it, if a willing doctor exists, is inherently justified. The unreasonable and aggressive attack upon the unchangeable principle defined above is now raging. While it may seem an attack against a fact of nature is harmless and futile, like draining one ocean into another, it is not. We must consider how such efforts would otherwise have been directed. The army dedicated to draining the Atlantic into the Pacific not only exerts its own time and labor at the expense of what good they might otherwise do, but also, they divert all the resources procured from other sources for this completely irrelevant purpose. What expecting mother is moved to swear-off her abortion appointment upon seeing a cutesy "pro-life" billboard along the highway - the one between two other corporate advertisements encouraging her to ingest a particular brand of fast food. Such tasteless propaganda directed in this way, in my estimation, is offensive and dehumanizing to any expecting mother, and can only serve to encourage the exact opposite of the intended result. (What baby deserves to suffer a prison bemired and so heavily influenced by such malfeasance). Moving beyond billboards and other wasted resources, the deadly recent example was far from harmless. The killing of a defender of (what I call) the principal of feminine liberty is a tragic loss, not only of a human life, but of one dedicated to this evasive and unpopular truth; that a fetus is not property of the state, and invisible to it for all intents and purposes.
To further illustrate the necessity for this understanding, consider the nurturing way a 'mother state' already treats its youth, targeting them to ruthlessly kill in their belligerent nation's war for reasons they couldn't possibly begin to understand? Certainly if they could they might reconsider (e.g. to protect Stalin, to defend Mao, etc.). The young man's country assures him he is relieved of his moral responsibility and made a champion for obediently killing people, while left little choice with the sharp bayonet against his back. How much more justified is the defense of a principal that is understood, by a doctor with the courage and ability to defend it while at the same time jeopardizing his own life?
George Tiller was martyred in defense of the sacred principal that a woman's authority over her body and unborn child is complete, and that no other person, state, or organization may wield the power to compel the fruition of a pregnancy against the mother's will. Any person, state, or organization that wields this power also wields the power to compel an abortion, the most egregious abuse of authority imaginable, and one that would mark the end of any population's rank among the word's civilized communities.
What nation is worth instituting and defending if not to protect the lives and to respect the decisions of those expectant mothers solely responsible for nurturing the newest members of our culture and fostering the continuation of its principals. What culture or population is worth propagating if its mothers are so fearful and disrespected that they only accept motherhood against their will? What future can we expect for such a society, and who do we expect to defend it?
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
A Wager
It's fun to be part of something organized and powerful; a team, a company, a movement. It is a relief to fight for a cause, actions reinforced by conscience along with others engaged in the same fight. Maybe it's all for better software or medicine. Maybe it's for tastier booze or for powered paragliders. Maybe it's for children on another continent or the local homeless. Whatever it's for, we give our time and labor for it. What a nice fuzzy feeling it is to be part of something great.
And when my day is done more products fly out of the shipping dock making life easier for someone else. My work allows another to finish his job faster so he can make another's life easier. And then, that customer is pleased, finishing his job faster. The everlasting chain flows through every one of us, all fighting to make the lives of our customers more pleasant. And when I receive a compliment or a thank you I feel as though my work has vindication of some sort, an illusion our masters rely upon. This delusion of benevolence is the mode by which us slaves persist in the endless struggle to find happiness, all while watching happiness itself unfurl before our eyes from the second hand, the minute, the hour, sucked down into the bottomless crevasse that is the "economy," desperate to squeeze us for every moment of labor on behalf of the interests of...
of...
us.
And we believe it.
Because they have mortgaged away the fortunes of our grandchildren rather than our own.
For political approval.
And for the benefit of...
themselves.
I cannot blame them, the congressmen, CEOs, lobbyists. I would likely have done the same thing in their shoes, not having the expertise or time required to act in the best interests of my constituency; turning a blind eye to the consequences of my actions. How could our representatives compete with the most brilliant psychopaths in the financial sector? How can you expect a brilliant psychopath to not exploit a loophole? The cycle will continue. Our current battle was won before it began as Wall Street bet on a cocktail of incompetence, pride, and hubris of our elected officials...that the law would continue to be ignored. As such, the people's creation was turned against us, the law hijacked by the desperate and interested clinging to mountains of cash at our expense. And, our representatives will never see their error, following the same path as all former failed nations under the guise of liberty for all. Socialism is always in the best interest of the sedentary, rich, and well-connected at everyone else's expense. Just watch its Marxist-bent emotional extortion indoctrinate every child and seduce every adult until every one of us begs each other to just do something about it in a continued hysterical frenzy of entitlement and laziness. This, we, as well as the rich, can safely bet on.
If we are not part of the solution, an old friend told me, we are part of the problem. But, the truth is, were law has been usurped by kleptocracy, you are either robbing, or being robbed from. Those of us being robbed from (the entire middle class) must choose whether to restore the law or start robbing, and robbing is so much easier. I'm still thinking about it myself.
And when my day is done more products fly out of the shipping dock making life easier for someone else. My work allows another to finish his job faster so he can make another's life easier. And then, that customer is pleased, finishing his job faster. The everlasting chain flows through every one of us, all fighting to make the lives of our customers more pleasant. And when I receive a compliment or a thank you I feel as though my work has vindication of some sort, an illusion our masters rely upon. This delusion of benevolence is the mode by which us slaves persist in the endless struggle to find happiness, all while watching happiness itself unfurl before our eyes from the second hand, the minute, the hour, sucked down into the bottomless crevasse that is the "economy," desperate to squeeze us for every moment of labor on behalf of the interests of...
of...
us.
And we believe it.
Because they have mortgaged away the fortunes of our grandchildren rather than our own.
For political approval.
And for the benefit of...
themselves.
I cannot blame them, the congressmen, CEOs, lobbyists. I would likely have done the same thing in their shoes, not having the expertise or time required to act in the best interests of my constituency; turning a blind eye to the consequences of my actions. How could our representatives compete with the most brilliant psychopaths in the financial sector? How can you expect a brilliant psychopath to not exploit a loophole? The cycle will continue. Our current battle was won before it began as Wall Street bet on a cocktail of incompetence, pride, and hubris of our elected officials...that the law would continue to be ignored. As such, the people's creation was turned against us, the law hijacked by the desperate and interested clinging to mountains of cash at our expense. And, our representatives will never see their error, following the same path as all former failed nations under the guise of liberty for all. Socialism is always in the best interest of the sedentary, rich, and well-connected at everyone else's expense. Just watch its Marxist-bent emotional extortion indoctrinate every child and seduce every adult until every one of us begs each other to just do something about it in a continued hysterical frenzy of entitlement and laziness. This, we, as well as the rich, can safely bet on.
If we are not part of the solution, an old friend told me, we are part of the problem. But, the truth is, were law has been usurped by kleptocracy, you are either robbing, or being robbed from. Those of us being robbed from (the entire middle class) must choose whether to restore the law or start robbing, and robbing is so much easier. I'm still thinking about it myself.
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