Rationality vs. Irrationality

February 24, 2013

Rain = Snow

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By Don Kirk in Ideo/theologies, Rationality vs. Irrationality

Increasing carbon dioxide levels will lead to less snowfall worldwide, say scientists

The Science Recorder reports today that the amounts of snow will likely decline because of increased carbon-dioxide in the atmosphere. They fail to mention–so conveniently–that the amount of rain will likely increase. Once again, the ideological true-believers filter facts in order to scare-monger policies that fuel their ideo/theological agenda.

So long as the amount of precipitation in a given area of the globe is the same, except for in the Arctic or Antarctic (which are actually deserts, where it doesn’t ever rain), it does not matter whether the precipitation falls in the form of frozen or liquid water. The report never claims that precipitation will decline; only that snowfall will be less.

Frankly, humans prefer falling rain to falling snow, so why the apocalyptic anxiety? Perhaps the anxiety is because the priests and priestesses of ideo/theological environmentalism are compelled to preach fear in order to assert dominance and control over their frightened congregations. If this is accurate, then the apocalyptic priest—whether on the socialist Left or religious Right—is a closet sadist.

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December 16, 2012

Chop Hands Instead of Chopping Heads

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By Don Kirk in Human Identity Formation, Philosophy of Freedom, Rationality vs. Irrationality

Courtesy of economist Brian Knight at Brown University, this is a graph measuring the relative strictness of gun control laws in the 48 contiguous States. With the recent tragedy in the Connecticut elementary school, calls for greater gun controls dominate the national media, and California’s senior Senator has just promised to introduce tougher controls in the new Congress.

Note that although Connecticut already had a strict gun control regime, the strict controls did not prevent the tragedy. In China, where no one can own a gun, that absolute ban on gun ownership did not prevent a lone man from slashing a room of elementary school children with a long knife. The problem is not with guns; the problem is with humans.

The ultimate logic of gun control is to amputate the hands every human being on the planet. Only then will there be no more tragic deaths from guns, knives, swords, spears, or a rock.

Everyone one of us is capable of committing unspeakable brutality, as psychological research on normal human beings has demonstrated for more than half a century. Gun control no better solves the problem of human violence than banning nuclear weapons solves the problem of wars. The cry for gun control is understandable and appealing, but all it will accomplish is surrendering more individual freedom while doing nothing about the true problem.

Either chop off everyone’s hands, or do something about finding and solving the problem of human self-destruction. That’s right. The homicidal impulse against innocent strangers is rooted in the human impulse for suicide. Guns and knives and spears and rocks have no such self-hatred, banning them is futile and only less freedom will be the result.

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October 18, 2012

French Suicide

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By Don Kirk in Economics, Rationality vs. Irrationality, Social Regress & Social Progress, Socialism's "intellectual suicide"

Apparently the French disdain for all things American extends to supply-side economics. Clearly the French never learned economic growth from John Kennedy’s or Ronald Reagan’s supply-side economics in the 1960′s and 1980′s. CNBC reports today that real estate listings of the most expensive homes in France are up a whopping 25% this year. Commission real estate agents are having a booming year.

The socialist president of France, monsieur Hollande, recently raised taxes on the wealthy French to 75%. The conclusion from the CNBC story is, such punitive rates are driving many of France’s most prosperous citizens to sell their French luxury homes in anticipation of moving abroad to escape the super-high level of French taxation

Economist Arthur Laffer–an American–famously drew the ‘Laffer Curve’ on a cocktail napkin, pointing out that at some level of rising taxation the government receives LESS revenue, because people naturally will adjust their lives to minimize their immediate earnings. The magic point of falling government revenue from rising government taxes is believed to be 40%, hence Mr. Obama’s call for raising income taxes upon America’s wealthy to 39.5%.

Mr. Obama’s call for 39.5% tax rate on the American wealthy appears to have read Laffer, and learned a lesson. The French call for 75% tax rate on French wealthy  appear to have never read Laffer, or perhaps because he is an American, they simply ignore him. If the Laffer Curve is accurate, the French government will see its revenues DROP as wealthy French leave the country and those remaining work to minimize their taxable incomes. If raising government revenue is the French goal, then the too-high tax rate is self-destructive and is a social regress committed in the name of ‘social progress.’

As ever, socialism is, even if unintentionally, economically and intellectually suicidal.

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October 16, 2012

More Egalite, Less Liberte

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By Don Kirk in Ideo/theologies, Rationality vs. Irrationality, Socialism's "intellectual suicide"

The socialist president of France, M. Franςois Hollande, wants to abolish homework for French students. While the kids cheer, 70% of the parents are opposed.

M. Hollande’s argument is that school work at home creates inequality, because some students and families are more diligent than others at doing homework. Since those students who do homework perform better academically than those students who do not do homework, M. Hollande wants all homework banned so that everyone is equal. In plain words, his socialist idea is intellectually suicidal; the result has to be lower academic performance of French students since the lowest performer is now the standard.

This is precisely how socialists think. Chop everyone down to the lowest level, in the name of equality, rather than create an environment of freedom where you raise those you can to a higher level. Churchill famously said that while capitalism generates prosperity unevenly, socialism generates poverty equally for all.

A very similar socialist dogma governs French productivity. French workers are paid for 40 hours of work with August off, but in the name of equality and worker solidarity they are forbidden to work more than 35 hours per week. That means, every French product is over-priced by 14% relative to the products produced by competing nations where workers are paid for actually doing 40 hours of work. Therefore, French-made products, like the future French students, are less competitive in the global economy. As a result of the equalized, downward levelling, within the next generation the personal incomes of 50% of all French workers will be below the poverty line of the U.S.

As always, these suicidal policies are enacted by socialists in the firm ideo/theological belief that they “care” about students and workers more than capitalists do.

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July 14, 2012

Talons and Teeth, Restraining or Goading?

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By Don Kirk in Foreign Affairs, Rationality vs. Irrationality, Theofascism

Ninety days days ago, the United States Air Force sent an unspecified number of the new F-22 fighter aircraft to their new home at a military base just 200 miles from Iran. The fifth generation fighter has a reputation for chronic problems with its internal air circulation system, but it also has a reputation for its lethality and complete air dominance against all other military aircraft in the world. A single F-22 is designed to take on–and defeat–a small squadron of opposing fighters. No F-22 has ever been defeated in combat trials, but its new position near Iran sends a clear message that the Air Force is willing to test the new technologically-advanced fighter in actual combat.

Next month, a fourth U.S. battle group will join three other battle groups already steaming in the Persian Gulf. A single American battle group has more fire power than all of the combined armies of the world in all of history. ‘Lethal’ does not come close to describing such overwhelming military power of a single group; four groups is the threat of complete annihilation four times over. Even if Iranian missiles, gunboats, mines and submarines managed somehow to defeat one, two, or even three battle groups of surface ships, they could not prevent all of the battle group carriers from launching their nuclear-armed aircraft. The surface ship battle groups are centered around the nuclear aircraft carriers U.S.S. Enterprise, Dwight Eisenhower, Abraham Lincoln, and John Stennis, each armed with its own air force.

The massive buildup is designed to make the theofascist government in Iran think rationally about the military consequences if it honors its threat to close the Straits of Hormuz, the choke-point for shipping 40% of the world’s entire energy supplies. So in this respect, the American military buildup wants to avoid war by the threat of certain complete destruction of Iran if it behaves irrationally.

But will the U.S. buildup discourage Israel’s Air Force from attacking Iranian nuclear facilities, or instead, will the amassed American firepower encourage Israel to strike sooner rather than later at Iran? Israel is not simply an important U.S. ally. The American election of a president is to take place in four months, and if millions of Jewish-American voters en masse were to abandon either major party candidate for the presidency, he would lose.

Therefore, the buildup to discourage war might act to goad Israel into waging war, and both by defense treaty with Israel and domestic politics, the U.S. is then at war with Iran in the weeks shortly before or after the American national elections.

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May 28, 2012

There’s Prudence, And There’s Suicidal Prudence

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By Don Kirk in Rationality vs. Irrationality, Socialism's "intellectual suicide"

In today’s Sacramento Bee newspaper, Kassie Siegel, from the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute in San Fransisco, has a Op-Ed calling for the immediate ban on fracking in California. Public testimony on fracking in California will start in late July, not soon enough for Ms. Siegel, but she is committed to the transparency such public hearings will offer.

The view that avoiding or prohibiting whatever creates harm is known as ‘prudence.’ Aristotle is famous for writing about prudence, and the concept has long been a part of Christian theological doctrine. Prudence is a life-saving judgment and whatever is life-saving is usually life-flourishing, so prudence should have a more prominent position in philosophy.

The difficulty with prudence is when it becomes non-empirical, that is, when the principle of prudence becomes ideological. For example, much political agitation accompanied the introduction of saccharine into the marketplace, arguing that the artificial sweetener had never been proven to be safe before it was marketed to the public. Since the sweetener was unknown to be carcinogenic, the agitation demanded it be banned, in accord with the principle of prudence.

But wait. In logic, such use of the prudence principle is self-defeating, because it eliminates any human action before knowing the consequences. No one knew whether or not saccharine was carcinogenic, so banning the sweetener without having such knowledge meant adopting a suicidal position based upon one’s personal psychic pessimism. Fortunately, the final regulatory decision on saccharine rejected the pessimism of ideological prudence and now anyone can safely enjoy non-caloric sweeteners.

When we caution children not to put their finger into an electrical socket, we are exercising prudence, and such prudence is based upon actual experience. Banning fracking because it might be harmful is not prudence; it’s ideological pessimism, the psychological trait whereby anything that can go wrong will go wrong. Not to make too much of this point, but the regress of penultimate pessimism is suicide. Until fracking is proven to be harmful to Ms. Siegel’s California condor, kit fox, and “blunt-nosed leopard lizard”–or especially, to humans–the oil extracting technology should not be banned in California.

Prudence is a valuable, life-saving judgment. Ideological prudence is simply psychic suicide.

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