Chip Gibbons writes a rebuttal to Charley Reese's claim that a free society needs religion and morality.#

He speaks of the importance of a "private morality." There is nothing "private" about a collective religion inspired morality arbitrarily chosen by some and imposed on others through he use of force.

The God concept is not necessary for knowledge or predictability; an understanding of the physical universe is necessary for that. What kind of morality comes from theistic religion? The morality of obedience to arbitrarily chosen and made-up authorities. In that type of environment, no private morality is necessary, all the work of one's conscience comes pre-packaged.

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His assertion implies that without his God concept standing over him and threatening to punish him, he cannot be moral and cannot make choices that are good for himself and/or others. This is not evidence of the need of theistic religion in creating successful societies, it is evidence that Reese and other pratitioners of religious voodoo and superstition, have a very fragile hold on morality and ethics. It is evidence that their morality is not privately held but externally imposed. Externally imposed also means easily taken away.

Make sure to read his 'closing thought' at the bottom.

Trey Givens comments,

Finally, whatever equivocating Washington, Reese, or others care to do on the matter, Christianity and many other major religions share, explicitly, the notion that there is only one right way and everyone else is evil and should be destroyed. If you choose any reilgion upon which to base your morality, you have chosen faith over reason. You have forfeited the option to choose to do what you think is right, because you have chosen not to think.

Reese may believe that all athiests have chosen arbitrary systems of morality, but faith is the act of believing without reason. If you haven't any reason for what you believe, then you might as well believe anything at all. What could be more arbitrary than religion, then?

Tony Pierce on his comment about Reagan's death.#

dont kiss my dead ass on the day that my spirit is lifted from this mortal coil.

if you liked me, tell me so while i can hear it.

if you didnt like me, have the nads to say so, and when people call you classless tell them to suck your big hairy black cock.

of course im happy when bad people die.

and if youre honest with yourself, let alone, me, you'd admit that youre happy when bad people die too.

Later, he continues and says this about politics and leaders:

but fuck all this fucking bullshit. the bigger problem that i have with reagan, and in a much larger sense against bush is this: america, by pure numbers, should have a brilliant, powerful, charismatic leader who you dont have to quibble about to agree upon his brilliance.

shit we should have dozens, if not more.

out of nearly three hundred million people, one or two friggin geniuses should have risen to the top over the last twenty five years by now, capable of not only holding his own during the tough times, but able to lead this nation into a land of milk and honey during the good times. but instead you invite me to tolerate these knuckleheads. and you want to pretend that youre dumbfounded by me

I very much agree that most political leaders are idiots. I don't think that it is likely that a non-idiot will be elected, primarily for two reasons: (1) as Tony mentions, it's essentially an accident and they are not elected on merit; and, (2) the average smart person could make a lot more money for themselves and be better off by actually providing something to people, as opposed to robbing and murdering them.

Politics, by its nature, attracts evil, corrupt people.

Philip Greenspun is hilarious.#

The D.C. of my childhood is vastly different from the D.C. of today. Those imposing buildings that symbolize the government's power are now wrapped in concrete highway barriers that broadcast the government's fear of a lone terrorist driving a truck filled with a fertilizer bomb. Around the Federal Reserve building, for example, the barriers cover part of the sidewalk so as a pedestrian you're separated from the street by a wall of concrete. The effect is certainly ugly and it will be interesting to see what happens if a beautiful Old World city such as Paris needs to be secured against lone terrorists in trucks. But in a way the cowering of the government marks the triumph of the individual in American society. "God created men; Colonel Colt made them equal" wasn't quite right after all. It was the terrorists who blew up the Marine compound in Beirut and those who blew up the World Trade garage in 1993 who actually made individual men the equals of government.

Arnold Kling quotes an interview with Milton Freedom.#

There are four ways in which you can spend money. You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch out what you're doing, and you try to get the most for your money.

Then you can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well, then I'm not so careful about the content of the present, but I'm very careful about the cost.

Then, I can spend somebody else's money on myself. And if I spend somebody else's money on myself, then I'm sure going to have a good lunch!

Finally, I can spend somebody else's money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else's money on somebody else, I'm not concerned about how much it is, and I'm not concerned about what I get. And that's government. And that's close to 40% of our national income.

Don Boudreaux writes about why Julian Simon helped him stopping using the phrase, "natural resource."#

One of the many consequences of my reading Simon's work is the fact that I seldom use the term "natural resource." With the possible exception of water, no resource is natural. Usefulness is not an objective and timeless feature ordained by nature for those scarce things that we regard as resources. That is, all things that are resources become resources only after individual human beings creatively figure out how these things can be used in worthwhile ways for human betterment.

Consider, for example, crude oil. A natural resource? Not at all. I suspect that to the pre-Columbian peoples who lived in what is now Pennsylvania, the inky, smelly, black matter that oozed into creeks and streams was a nuisance. To them, oil certainly was no resource.

Alex Singleton is very skeptical of so-called, "ethical investment."#

Companies which make and sell tobacco are not immoral. They offer a product in which over-indulgence or misuse might bring harm. The same is true of those who deal in sugar, butters, burgers, fried potatoes and proprietary medications. It is probably true of those who sell climbing or ski equipment, too. This does not make them unethical.

As for biotech, it offers great opportunities for humankind. It opens the door to the conquest of killer diseases such as malaria, and to enabling those in poorer countries to feed themselves without massive use of fertilizers and pesticides. Classifying investment in it as unethical seems strange.

Then there is the question of oppressive regimes. Sanctions against Iraq did not work, but led to a lot of children dying. American sanctions against Cuba have not led to the removal Castro. In the vast majority of cases, sanctions are a failure. Trying to use ethical investment to remove money from oppressive countries may sound like a good idea, but in reality it means that jobs are lost, and there is less food and basic amenities.