ThePythonicCow
Since Nov 25, 2000

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Seven Principles of Sound Public Policy

Lawrence W. Reed -- 01 June 2007 - 14:27
  1. Free people are not equal, and equal people are not free.
  2. What belongs to you, you tend to take care of; - what belongs to no one or everyone tends to fall into disrepair.
  3. Sound policy requires that we consider long-run effects and all people, not simply short-run effects and a few people.
  4. If you encourage something, you get more of it; if you discourage something, you get less of it.
  5. Nobody spends somebody else's money as carefully as he spends his own.
  6. Government has nothing to give anybody except what it first takes from somebody, and a government that's big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you've got.
  7. Liberty makes all the difference in the world.

Faith

I am an atheist, in the technical sense that I am certain that there is no God - no Supreme Being who conceived, created or controls this Universe. But I renounce the typical public acts done in the name of Atheism, and disagree with them on one key point: I hold that there is a higher moral order.

I would agree with my modest understanding of Ayn Rand that such morality does not come from faith in some unknowable or higher power. But I disagree with her that such morality must come from objective rational thought. I hold it comes in part from objective intuitive thought.

This objective intuitive thought I call "faith." This is not a religious faith, but rather the objective understanding of a mute -- understanding of what is that I am unable (so far, at least) to put to words, much less rational analytical thought. I like calling it "faith" in part because that choice of name seems to emphasis that we are speaking here of orderings that are at a higher level than the base physical orderings studied in physics or chemistry or biology. (I avoid mentioning sociology or psychology in this context; I fear those so called disciplines have become little more than propaganda channels for the left.)

I have faith that there is a higher moral ordering to the affairs of man and to the interplay of man and nature, and that it is the duty of each person to study, honor and nurture this ordering.

Likely my distinction between rational and intuitive thought is a simple consequence of how my mind works. It's as if it has two parts, one quite logical and verbal (the part writing this) and the other part intuitive, spacial, kinetic, emotional. Both parts work together, understanding the same objective reality, in their own ways and by their own strengths. Happily the two halves co-operate well, and have a long standing trust in the strengths of each other.

Perhaps Ayn Rand's mind was less divided than my mind is, or her intuitive mind more subdued. Perhaps I should not call the thoughts of this intuitive mind "faith", as I am using that word in a way that seemingly no else uses it.

I've read most of Langer, and some of the Tao and Spinoza. I have Sprigge on my future reading list. These philosophers might come the closest to expressing my understanding.

Ethics
by Benedict de Spinoza
Tao Te Ching
by Lao Tzu
Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling
by Susanne K Langer
The God of Metaphysics
by Timothy L. S. Sprigge
To put it another way, my atheism is the polar opposite of the atheism of liberals. Liberals deny the existance of a Judgemental God, hence deny the existence of absolute moral judgement. They are the moral relativists, the politically correct multiculturalists singing Kum Ba Yah. My atheism affirms the existence an absolute moral judgement, inspite of the absence of an Absolute Judge.

Milk

As befits someone whose handle includes the word "cow", cow's milk, preferably raw unpasteurized, has been a staple of my diet my entire life, since early infancy. Raw milk is not easy to get in America these days, due to immoral laws and regulations flowing from the corrupting influence of some industrialized food producers on our overly intrusive governments, state and federal.

Perhaps the most useful raw milk information site:


The Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund (FTCLDF):

Some other well known raw milk sites:
RawMilk.org
GotRawMilk.org
RealMilk.org

Three good books on raw milk and nutrition:
The Untold Story of Milk: Green Pastures, Contented Cows and Raw Dairy Products The Milk Book: The Milk of Human Kindness Is Not Pasteurized Nutrition and Physical Degeneration
The Untold Story of Milk:
Green Pastures, Contented Cows
and Raw Dairy Products
by Ron Schmid
The Milk Book:
The Milk of Human Kindness
Is Not Pasteurized

by William Campbell Douglass II, MD
Nutrition and Physical Degeneration
by Weston Andrew Price

Observation - Oct 15, 2007:
Actually, it's not surprising that the Left resists tax cuts that would have actually increased revenue, due to a healthier economy.

The Left isn't about maximizing government power. They are about maximizing the relative power of government to the private sector.

As usual, whatever they accuse others of, they are guilty of themselves. They see greed and envy motivating the private sector. It is they who are driven by greed and envy. They would destroy the freedom and prosperity of private citizens and businesses, in order to be stronger.

They do not wish for a rising tide that would rise all boats. They wish to sink our boat.

Lacking any faith in a higher moral order, they can only measure good and evil by relative power and wealth. They are not trying to keep up with the Jones'. They are trying to impoverish and imprison the Jones' ... until they gain sufficient power, and then they commit the largest mass murders in human history, of hundreds of millions of humans.

The soulless evil they see in the eyes of the self made wealthy is a reflection of their own empty soul.

The only wealth they respect is that unearned, whether by inheritance or excessive taxation or government handouts or violent revolution or mass extermination. The only human life they respect is that of evil doers, not the innocent or unborn. The only liberty they respect is the imposed tyranny of mass equality.


My Dose Poster Toaster Award for April 13, 2006. Edson's Ridge on Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands (WWII). In honor of my Dad, who spend 3 years on that god-forsaken island.
Triple Dose Poster Awards on Oct 1, 2006 to onyx, ThreePuttinDude, and myself. After a long dry spell -- Woof! March 26, 2007
Beat the ping this time! - September 4, 2007 Beat the ping again - Jan 11, 2008

Democratic Fascism

A good explanation of the fascist (bureaucratic entanglement) rather than socialist (outright ownership) basis of the advancing tyranny in the United States can be found in this November 2005 article by Jack Wheeler: Democratic Fascism. However, I find the national focus of Wheeler's article limiting. There is a larger problem, with human civilization at this time. See the following rant ...

A rant and a vision (Jan 26, 2008)

A big lie, covering a big problem, leading to a big change.

A popular debate contrasts:

  1. big bad corporations (big oil, big drug, ...) [Leftist's side], with
  2. corporations, private enterprise and freedom [Rightist's side].

Rush speaks frequently on side (2), for example.

This debate, in its entirety, both sides and the horse they rode in on, is all a Big Lie.

It's as if we're being played for fools, but the (3) Big Conspiracy theory (the tin foil hat stuff decrying The Bilderberg Group, Trilateral Commission, Illuminati and such) is just the third leg of the stool.

If one points out legitimate abuses of power and destruction of individual health, liberty, freedom or property caused by some large corporation, then the Rightists respond with (2), demanding that the government backoff from the increasing regulation, taxes, and law suits that strangle private enterprise.

To which the Leftists respond with (1), bringing out case after case, some real, some imagined, of the evils of big corporations, demanding more government control to protect us from the big bad profit (an evil word for them) driven companies.

Then the tin-foil had crowd tries to elbow in on the fracas, telling us that we are being herded like cattle to the slaughter, by a group of secretive, very powerful men, intent on a One World Government and on reducing the worlds population by billions, through war and disease, both of which profit them.

This has been bubbling up for at least the last century. Just over 100 years ago, the Food and Drug Administration was formed, which is still the federal governments partner with Big Drug. Just under a 100 years ago, the Federal Reserve was formed, on Jekyll Island, and the Sixteenth Amendment was passed, allowing a federal income tax, which is the foundation of funding for Washington, D.C. (Big Government if ever there was.) At that same time, the Seventeenth Amendment was passed, neutering the States main control lever over the Federal Government, naming Senators. The League of Nations, our first major attempt at a World Government, was formed a few years later, by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.

The whole didactic of:

  1. Big Corporations Bad vs
  2. Excess Regulation and Taxes Bad vs
  3. Main Stream Media are Leftists apologists vs
  4. The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy is Evil vs
  5. It's all a Big Evil Conspiracy vs
  6. ... must be another angle I forgot to mention ;).

is ALL WRONG. It's as if we all think we're watching American NFL Football, and have chosen our teams, be that Patriots, Cowboys, Giants, Packers or whomever, and it's really not football we're watching at all.

What's happening is thus.

A newer, layer of complexity and involvement is being formed, layering on top of the classic institutions and interactions. We consider the world to have nations, corporations, economies and the like, which grow on top of earlier entities, such as cities, states, companies, and businesses. Big media chains are formed form various radio and TV stations and newspapers and magazines, extending integrating and leveraging them into larger units. That's the sort of world we think we live in. There are different kinds and styles of governments, such as democracy and communism, and different styles of economies such as capitalism. All this integration of the last century depends on new forms of corporate organization such as developed by Alfred Sloan (General Motors, after the first World War.) And it depended on new technologies such as world wide instant communications (AT&T), big transportation (rail - Vanderbilt), big energy (oil - Rockefeller), big chemical (Dow) and big business computers (IBM, after the second World War.) More recently we've seen Bill Gates and Sam Walton.

All the while the Federal government has been growing, with a big boost from FDR, and other world business and nations and organizations have been expanding.

Just as plants grow from dirt, as nations from towns, and communities from individuals, so we are seeing the creation of a world wide fabric of human civilization that is vastly more encompassing and far reaching than anything we can find coherently described in the history books. The two great wars, and the great depression were but birthing pains, distractions along the way.

The integrity of even the greatest, most successful institutions of the last couple of centuries is being torn asunder by the forces at play, but we lack a common understanding of the new rules which must apply for such a world-wide, vastly and rapidly interacting, civilization to operate on a healthy basis, providing ample opportunities for all responsible humans to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

I'd guess that just as it took centuries when nations were formed from city-states to realize and gain consensus for the form and constitution was best suited for a nation, so it will take centuries from now to realize and gain consensus for how to best organize this new world wide civilization.

Meanwhile, one rule certainly still applies. Power corrupts.

Big corporations are for example far too much in bed with our so called representatives and with the corresponding branches of the federal governments bureaucracy and with big media and with big universities.

Those asking for more government control of big "bad" corporations end up with more government alright, but which is corrupted by its shared power with the businesses it is supposed to be regulating, cooperatively working with big universities and big media to hide the ugly, amplify the positive, and paint false scape goats.

Those asking for less government control of free enterprise end up with little but cosmetics and yet more bloated and more corrupt governments.

Those of us asking for the Constitution to be honored are becoming increasingly depressed at the low turn out for Fred Thompson, and the apparent difficulty in turning back the Liberal Hoards (tm - Mark Levin.)

The more power is focused in places like the United States Senate, from which millions of lines of legislation benefiting one special interest or another emminate each year, the more insane and more vile the Senators get. I'd far sooner trust my life or my possessions to the garbage truck driver I hear outside my window this early morning than I would to the likes of McCain or Kennedy.

It's not a conspiracy (Illuminati or whatever) driving this, though sometimes powerful men have quietly sat down together and made important agreements, such as on Jekyll Island (Federal Reserve.)

Early attempts at a World Government would be laughable, if they weren't so depressing.

We are simply witnessing a new form, on a vastly different scale and speed of operation, of human endeavor. And it's ugly as hell, and it will be long after our lifetimes before enough successes and failures light the way to a shared understanding of how to organize human affairs on such a scale and at such a speed.

Meanwhile, it's a tad insane here.

At the moment, I'm seeing this in the Big Food and Big Drug arenas, where I am finding it increasingly difficult to eat a healthy and nutritious diet and increasingly necessary to avoid the vaunted blessings of American medicine.

If I dare however to venture some criticism of Big Food or Big Drug, I am immediately written off by any self respecting conservative as some anti-capitalist leftist.

Well ... tough ... deal with it ... something is very sick with Big Food and Big Drug and Big Medicine.

Try reading some of the following, and then telling me you still think that the big Food, Drug and Medicine companies of America are something to be proud of:

The FDA and AMA and big media and big universities and what's taught in our local schools and sold in our local grocery stores and local drugstores and prescribed to us by our private doctors are all participants in this massive destruction of our food and medicine. It's not a "big conscious conspiracy" ... that would be insanely impossible. It's no more a conspiracy with the Left than it is when I declare I'd vote for McCain over Hillary, and some other frustrated conservative yells that my willingness to compromise on this vote is destroying this nation. Even if he's right, neither he nor I would claim I got secret marching orders from some minion of George Soros. Rather he would just figure I was sorely deluded by my hatred of Hillary, leading me into the equally unforgivable decision to vote for McCain.

It's mostly all like that ... individual people, mostly deluded (whether Republican or Democrat), some treacherously lusting for power or wealth or fame, each doing the best they can. The combined result is pretty ugly, and getting uglier.

I also see this in my professional area, where it remains obvious as it has for twenty years to me that Big PC (Microsoft) has been doing great harm to computer software (even as the computer business has been taking off like a Nike Zeus accelerating non-stop my entire life, from the day I was born, in the same week the transistor was invented.)

A well ordered society requires that the Big Ideas are big enough to encompass and guide the organization of the big institutions and most powerful individuals. The Big Ideas of our founders, in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution, formed the basis of the most successful, prosperous and free nation in human civilization. But now human civilization is like a teenage boy who just inherited a million dollars, got a drivers license and discovered girls. The Big Ideas we have are puny in comparison to the new found energy and power of a youth, entering into a new stage of life entirely different than anything they knew before, with no one to guide them (at least, not that they will listen to.) The energy of this new world wide civilization is overwhelming any shared and widely acceptable understanding of how to harness it.


May 17, 2002 post on the thread Cheney says U.S. faces threat of worse attack:
June 5, 2002 post on the thread The Biological Case Against Race:
June 24, 2002 post on the thread Bush Middle East Speech Discussion Thread:
August 21, 2002 post on the thread: Deploying Marines for gays, feminism and peacekeeping (ANN COULTER)Slams the left:
December 18, 2003 post on the thread: Is the Death Penalty Morally Equal to Abortion? Bishops Preach Politics Rather than Gospel Truth :
January 14, 2006:
June 9, 2004 post on the thread: A day in the life of President Bush (photos): 6/8/04 :

May 12, 2007 post on the thread: (TIME FOR A RESPONSE) DFU Letter to Howard Dean - stop lying about me OR ELSE! :

Oct 10, 2004 post on the thread: 12 Reasons Why I Am Conservative:

Sept 4, 2004 post on the thread: CA: Cost of illegal-immigrant labor exceeds benefits:


February 2006 - an excellent article on "What Went Wrong In America In The 20th Century" -- A Full House For Disaster:
August 29. 2005, on the thread BREAKING!!! - Weldon says records were ordered destroyed!! (Able Danger) #616:

I had previously posted a link to an article by Jesselyn Radack, a former DoJ lawyer, but the authors requested that I pull that article. Contact me for further information.


Sept 11, 2005, on the thread Katrina, a photographic timeline: Powerful proof federal response was NOT slow (warning, many pics):
I posted a link to Wolfstar's Katrina timeline, with all photographs, into a single web page, and bundled that web page and images into a .zip file, for ease of making local copies of her post.

This web page is available at http://sanityisland.us/katrina/Katrina.html See the top of this page for the URL of the .zip file, and a rough idea of how to create a self-contained CD-ROM of this post, using that .zip file.


Nov 12, 2005, on the thread Bird Flu May Over-Stimulate Immune System:
I've continued to search on the Web for alternative medicines affective against the cytokine storm thought to be caused by H5N1 bird flu. The site that best represents what I could find, with a good list of herbs to use and to avoid, is http://bird-flu-influenza.com/relenza-tamiflu-alternatives-folk-medicines.htm.

It, and several other sites, also recommend:

  • keeping your distance from others - stay away.
  • washing hands
  • bleach diluted in water disinfectant
  • P2N95 masks
  • agressively hydrating the sick (plenty of water)
On Nov 27, 2005, 2ndreconmarine followed up that post, and others with further results on herbal anti-virals as an additional protection against H5N1, concluding:

In our previous discussions, we had come up with a tentative list from those discussions. My variant of this list was (in rough order of importance):

Vitamin C
Resveratrol
Sambucol (this is somewhat controversial)
Cinnamon
Turmeric
St. Johns Wort

I have eliminated other candidates because the results were not well-substantiated or there were significant side effects.

To this list we must now add:

Ginger.


October 1, 2006, on the thread A day in the life of President Bush (10/1/06): photos & news:
And we know one other thing that Clinton didn't do. He did not lead.

The first thing a leader does when faced with an enemy is to lead his people against that enemy. He stands aside the pile of rubble, calls out the enemy by name, and announces that we are coming to get them.

The mark of a leader is less in what he personally does, and more in what he guides his people to understand, and inspires them to do.

Clinton stayed up nights and went to great lengths to cover up or downplay the threat to this nation from the Islamo-Fascists. We saw this after the first World Trade Center bombing, after the Oklahoma City bombing, after TWA-800, and after the other more obvious acts of terrorism.

He led us down the path of obliviousness to the threat that this mortal enemy poses.

That is not the mark of a leader.

Now when faced with challenges to his record on terrorism, Clinton, after he gets past his sputtering rage and finger jabbing, can only talk (aka - lie) about what he did or did not do. He has no clue what it means to be a leader of men, for he has no clue what it means to be a man.


March 24, 2007, on the thread Why do Democrats crave defeat? :
Perhaps the left confuses family with global. The instinctual interactions between parents, children, siblings, teams, herds, packs, ... are deep in our bones. Not just humans, but all social animals have such instincts.

Within the family or team, it's one for all and all for one, from each according to their ability to each according to their need. Very Marxist. Any child worth their salt would cry bloody murder if their parent gave their sibling millions and a life of luxury, while they were left to clean the fireplace like poor Cinderella.

It takes a firm grounding in religion, history or other studies to learn that the rules by which communities, economies, corporations and nations best operate are quite different.

The leftists lack this grounding. Perhaps in a few cases they are well read, but they haven't learned to apply different rules to the world at large.

They instinctively hate the successful, the wealthy, the biggest businesses, the wealthiest nations, and in particular the modestly wealthy, big business friendly, leader of the wealthiest nation - President Bush. They go after big oil, big drug, big hamburger, big retail (Wal*Mart), big tobacco, big auto, big construction (Haliburton), big military, big anything. It's all evil to them. The only exceptions are big government, big media, big grant foundations and big education, which are exempt because they have been co-opted by the Left to fund and spread the big Lies.

Those on the left get spitting mad at all this ... It's just not fair!! If someone has a million times another, it is just plain evil!! Nevermind that the only alternative is for almost everyone to live in deep poverty, poorer than the poorest American.

They live in fear, fear arising from ignorance and from lack of faith. And as all fearful people, they are particularly subject to rage, jealousy, envy and hatred.

They are the left. Their leaders have known for a century that a well taught, faith based, population is the mortal enemy of concentrated (in their hands) power at the highest levels. Their leaders have somewhat successfully worked to undermine the religious and educational basis of a strong citizenry.

We fight on two fronts - Islamic Jihad and Leftist Marxism. I don't know which is more dangerous, but I suspect that it is the latter.


A high quality gif of the FreeRepublic.com Logo can be found at http://sanityisland.us/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=15701&g2_serialNumber=1:
My favorite Election 2004 graphic so far, from http://www.thoseshirts.com/donkey.html:

SanityIsland.us Daily Dose Image Server Instructions

I am now providing an image server for Daily Dose and other Free Republic uses. This is on a web site that I maintain, hosted by pair.com. I reserve the right to perform random house cleaning and removal of images, if this service becomes over used, or I don't like something or I can no longer keep this service running for any reason. Freepers, especially Daily Dosers, are welcome to make use of it for Freeper Friendly purposes. Freep mail me if you have questions or suggestions, or would like to notified of changes in this service, or to obtain an account. I know of one public server that hosts images you can freely link to from Free Republic posts: PhotoBucket.com.

Here are the instructions for uploading images to SanityIsland.us:

  1. Go to: SanityIsland.us
  2. Click on: The New Daily Dose Galleries
  3. If this is your first time, click on the Register button in the upper right and submit a request for an account.
  4. Once you have an account, click on: Login (upper right corner)
  5. To add pictures, click on the Add Items button, on the left side. You can add images from your local disk, or -directly- from other web sites, including picking up in one shot all the images you select from those visible on some other web page. This direct cross-site loading is ideal for those working from a slow dial-up line; no need to waste time copying the image back up from your PC.
  6. The "Add Photos" pop-up will come up, with five tabs offering various ways to upload photos.
    • The first two, "Applet" and "Applet (big)" require Java, but provide a slicker interface for frequent users.
    • The third, "Form", should work most anywhere.
    • The fourth, "URL", lets you pick pictures off other web sites and put them directly into this Gallery without downloading them to your PC first.
    • The fifth, "Other", links to other possible ways to get pictures into this Gallery
  7. Upload your images. View your uploaded image and right click on it to obtain the URL link you can use to link to the image from other sites, and in particular from a posting on the FreeRepublic.com.
  8. The html syntax for posting an image available on the web at URL link http://www.example.com/image.jpg is:
    <img src=http://www.example.com/image.jpg>

ThePythonicCow's Best Sites for Computers, Networking, and HTML

The best list of HTML help links is in this FR post by Fiddlstix: HTML Help Threads & Other Info for Newbies (And Anyone Else Who Needs It)

The best site for explaining how to post links, images and other HTML stuff to the Free Republic is Freeper Tips and Helps (thanks to Texas Yellow Rose .)

The best web developers resource site is Webmonkey, and the best HTML Cheatsheat is Webmonkey's HTML Cheatsheet.

The best site for keeping your PC safe from spam, viruses, spyware and other security hazards on the internet is FirewallGuide.com.

The best sites to go to when you've got a nasty spyware infection and all else has failed and you need some real live expert help are CastleCops.com, Gladiator Security Forum, SpywareInfo, Spyware Warrior, Wilders Security Forums, or Geeks to Go. Thanks to Freeper backhoe for some of these suggestions.

The Geeks to Go site has a couple of excellent lists of steps to follow:

  1. Steps to clean up a system
  2. Steps to keep your system healthy

The best site for help setting up home and small business networks, and for networking equipment recommendations and reviews is PracticallyNetworked.com. Post your questions to their online forums.

The best site for reviews and ratings of online computer and electronics vendors is ResellerRatings.com. Whether building my own computer from components, or buying a laptop or digital camera, I go here first to find the vendors with the best service and prices.

The best site for selecting a local DSL or Cable broadband provider (if you are lucky enough to have a choice) is BroadbandReports.com.

The best site to explain the technology and terms of home networking is CERT's Home Network Security.

The best checklists of security recommendations for Windows XP are:

The "best Ad Killer out!" is: Ad Muncher (thanks to Malsua for the link.)

One decent (probably not the best) site for anti-spyware tool recommendations and downloads is Spychecker.

To rebuild your Windows XP installation without having to reinstall your applications, try the Fred Langa's XP's No-Reformat, Nondestructive Total-Rebuild Option, available at any of Informationweek, Techweb, or here as an FR post .

The first and still the best, comprehensive, step-by-step XP tweaking guide is TweakHound's Super XP Tweaking Guide.

The best list of computer resources and links is not this list <grin>. Take a look at Gizmo's Top Picks of the Best Utilities and Tech Resources, for more extensive, better researched, actively maintained recommendations.

The best instructions for data recovery from a sick disk are at Tech-Hints.org: Hard Drive Data Recovery Guide.


Nutrition, Health, and Medicine

I recommend Swanson Vitamins and The Blaylock Wellness Report. I've just ordered Health and Nutrition Secrets That Can Save Your Life by Russell L. Blaylock. It looks like it should be a good book. Other worthwhile sites on health and nutrition, perhaps a bit strong on their over zealousness, include Articles by Karl Loren and Mike Adam's NewsTarget.com. Also check out Dr. Joseph Mercola, at Mercola.com. Mercola is obviously selling stuff, but at least he's selling healthy stuff.