Another year, another election.

In the past several elections, I've usually posted my own "(un)Official Voter Information Guide." This year I failed - not because there weren't props I didn't care about, but partly because the entire political system has me more depressed than ever.

If you care how I did vote - I voted no on every proposition with two exceptions. I left prop 4 blank, because while I support parental notification for abortion, I just didn't feel comfortable enough with the bill this year (since I hadn't read the text). And I voted yes on prop 5, which was a last minute change of my mind. This marks the first time I've ever voted for something that increased spending (shock!) - though it did at the same time reduce costs. I almost voted no, but at the last minute I noticed that former LP candidate for Senate Judge Jim Gray was a supporter; I've met him, and I liked him. Also - while on libertarian grounds the bill is extremely iffy, I ultimately decided that the benefit in terms of human freedom outweighed the negatives of the particular bill. I don't think it will pass, anyway- but I feel okay with my decision to vote for it.

I cared a lot about proposition 8, of course, but that almost goes without saying.

Anyway, to my ennui. As you can tell from some of my more recent posts, I've been particularly irritated at all the Obama worship. Yes, I hate McCain just as much, and I've had shouting arguments with my father over that - but at least my dad and most other McCain supporters don't regard him as some savior. He's just another politician to them, and they recognize that they're voting for a "lesser evil". This is a contrast with Obama supporters, many of whom positively seem to think they're voting for Jesus Christ Himself, come to save us from all the evils of the Bush administration. As both an anarchist and a religious person, I find any kind of worship of a politician to be profoundly disturbing. Honestly, every time I see that picture of Obama with the word "Hope" or "Change" under it, I want to scream.

The truth is that, when it comes down to it, there's a dime's worth of difference between the two candidates. McCain is a mealy-mouthed liberal of a Republican, and Obama is a junior senator who most people really don't know (he abstains so often, how could anyone really know what he believes?). He's not even a paragon of Leftism that conservatives make him out to be, either; his health care plan isn't truly "universal", he voted for FISA and to reauthorize the Patriot Act, he's postured about invading Iran and Pakistan, he voted for the bailout to Wall Street...I could go on. Essentially, both candidates are moderate Republicrats, both of whom are willing and eager to lie, cheat, and hide their records in order to obtain the highest offices in the land.

As an anarchist I could go even farther, but I'll leave it at that. The real truth is that you might as well have flipped a coin today when voting for President. The only substantive difference between the two is the speed with which they might draw down troops in Iraq, and the degree to which their policy proposals will be approved by Congress. Obama, as a Democrat, will have an easier time - and that is unfortunate, because I prefer an adversarial system with one party in the executive and the other in the legislative. Even better if the Senate and Congress can't agree. So, purely strategically - and only as long as the Democrats have control of the Congress - a Republican president might be preferable. But it's so weak that I wouldn't even vote if Obama and McCain were the only choices.

Today, I wrote in Ron Paul.

Tags: politics, rant, voter information guide
Current Mood: discontent

Okay, so I plan to update you on my recent drama soon, but for now I just have a public service announcement.

Do NOT See "Meet the Spartans"

I would pay another $10.50 to get that hour and a half of my life back. If I didn't have someone to make fun of it with, the experience would have been entirely without merit - but it's still not worth seeing even for mocking value.

Seriously, people. This was one of the worst movies I've seen in years. I would be embarrassed to have my name associated with that kind of trash. Kevin Sorbo should be ashamed for being involved. It is an unfunny comedy, entirely without a shred of redeeming value, and it is a disgrace to the genre (founded by Zucker/Zucker/Abrahams and Mel Brooks) which spawned it.

Tags: entertainment, public service announcement, rant

Girls Who Said 'Vagina' During Monologues Suspended

Damn!  If I was one of those girls' parents, I would be proud as hell.  Go tell 'em what they can do with their ruttin' "orders."

I've never seen "The Vagina Monologues."  I have no idea if I'd like it or not.  Nevertheless, I admire the bravery of these girls in standing up against brainless censorship.  I love the double-speak in the article, too - "When a student is told by faculty members not to present specified material because of the composition of the audience and they agree to do so..."  How much agreement do you really think was going on?  How much choice do you imagine they supposed they had?

Respect for authority figures (in action, if not thought) is reasonable to a certain extent to ensure social harmony.  Even, occasionally, against unreasonable requirements.  So I wouldn't encourage many public school students to engage in confrontational behavior of this sort as a matter of course; at least in the current climate, it's better to stick it out until it's over.  But occasional challenges to authority by individuals let them know we're not just sheep.  As long as there is respect for the rebel, this nation of individualists will not fall wholly into collectivism.  And that does give me some small hope.

Potentially unrelated observation: It is ironic to me that conservatives seem to be the biggest champions of social collectivism in the US these days.  That's a topic to think on.

Tags: culture, feminism, politics, rant, vagina
Current Mood: impressed

"Quidquid Latine dictum sit altum videtur." (translation: "Anything said in Latin sounds profound")

Quotation is a funny thing.

Just take a look at my profile and you will see that I am a fan.  I even wrote a series of entries (here, here, here, & here) based entirely on the significance I found in certain quotations.  Some I find inspiring, others enlightening, and some simply amusing.  I've got hundreds lying around that are significant to me in some way.  But why these short snippets?  Why so much emphasis on the wisdom of a few phrases?

Some people get irritated when I recite quotes to them.  They cry, almost reflexively, that a quote does not constitute an argument.  Fully granted!  But what use are they, then?  I don't pretend to have a complete answer to this question, but I can tell you a few reasons I might include one in a discussion.

1. Most importantly, there are some things that certain people have said which simply express a concept far more simply and elegantly than my abilities are able to generally muster.  For example - I really, really like Roderick Long's summation of libertarianism as "Other people are not your property."  This is about as simple and imprecise as you can get, but it expresses in six words a whole bundle of concepts which it would take me chapters to express otherwise.  Yes, it relies on preconceived notions about property, and it does not offer a why.  But that can all be resolved.  This is the Libertarianism Elevator Pitch.
   
   
2. Quotes can be pointers to a larger body of supportive evidence.  No, the quote itself is not what is important - but I might say, "Look, this is what Mises concludes after 100 pages of exposition.  Here is a link also to that exposition, so you can read it for yourself, but this is the meat."  I might especially use this tactic when arguing in a field that is outside my expertise; it involves an implicit appeal to authority, to be certain, but such an appeal is not wholly unwarranted if there is further evidence to back it up.  For example, I might quote the conclusions of a particular medical study or other without inserting the entire body of the study.
   
   
3. Boldness.  I'll admit it, I feel more comfortable citing radical things said by people more famous than I am.  For example, the brave H. L. Mencken wrote: "The only good bureaucrat is one with a pistol at his head. Put it in his hand and it's good-by to the Bill of Rights."  Coming from me, most people would probably back away as if I were a lunatic.  But quoting a rather sardonic journalist from the early 20th century, there is some distance between the quoter and the quotee.  Even if I agree with Mencken here (which I do - in the metaphorical sense, of course), the quotation demonstrates that I'm not the only loony who thinks this way.
   
   
4. Simple appeal to authority.  Yes, yes, not the best reason, but we are all guilty of it from time to time.  It is a lot easier to pull a quote from a respected person out of the air than a complete argument, and that's an easy crutch to abuse.  In particular, one sees this often with the Founding Fathers - so many people have such instant respect for the likes of Jefferson, Madison, Adams, and their ilk that anything from their mouths become instant gospel.  Second amendment buffs particularly seem to fall prey to this fallacy, so it's something we have to watch out for.
   
   Of course, not all appeals to authority are so bad.  In particular, as a Christian, I have no problem citing verse to support my argument with other Christians (or Jews, if we're talking Old Testament).  But the Bible is, for most Christians, an unimpeachable authority - so this tactic is usually acceptable in this range of arguments.

All things considered, I don't think it should be that controversial. No, a quote should not be allowed to stand alone too often (though they do make such good bookends for an article!). No, they do not usually count as an argument by themselves.  But there is value in what has been written through the ages by people more intelligent - or, at least, more eloquent - than most of us.  If nothing else, they serve as useful points for meditation; an exercise for the mind to puzzle out all of the assumptions and implications of what has been said.  At their worst, they can be vicious - as with many religious peoples' selective reading of their religious texts.  But at their best, they can be truly inspiring; a point of view, simply expressed, opening a realm of previously unexplored avenues of thought in but a few sentences.  Words, in the pen (or throat) of a master, are power.

"The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do." --Thomas Jefferson

"I have gathered a posie of other men’s flowers, and nothing but the thread that binds them is mine own." --John Bartlett

Tags: geekery, rant
Current Mood: thoughtful

For this Independence Day, I'd like to take a page from Roderick Long and point you all to Voltairine de Cleyre's insightful thoughts on the revolution.  Think about the prophetic words of Thomas Jefferson, which she quotes:

"The spirit of the times may alter, will alter. Our rulers will become corrupt, our people careless. A single zealot may become persecutor, and better men be his victims. It can never be too often repeated that the time for fixing every essential right, on a legal basis, is while our rulers are honest, ourselves united. From the conclusion of this war we shall be going down hill. It will not then be necessary to resort every moment to the people for support. They will be forgotten, therefore, and their rights disregarded. They will forget themselves in the sole faculty of making money, and will never think of uniting to effect a due respect for their rights. The shackles, therefore, which shall not be knocked off at the conclusion of this war, will be heavier and heavier, till our rights shall revive or expire in a convulsion."

Does the spirit of '76 live on in the United States on this, its 230th birthday?  Or have Americans lost their stomache for liberty entirely?

The 4th is not a celebration of fireworks, or of flags, or of wars, or of men.  It is fundamentally a celebration of ideals.  On this day, our founders pledged "their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor" on the gamble that they might see freedom from England - and establish a nation on the principles of the Enlightenment.  The rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were "self-evident truths," not merely nice goals, to be tossed aside when we are too lazy, afraid, or power-mad to keep them.

A microcosm of the perverse nature of our current Congress is the closeness of the flag burning amendment to passing the Congress last week.  By one vote!  A vote to destroy the very ideals for which the flag stands, in honor of the flag!  How hypocritical, or how misguided, for men whose bread and butter are platitudes built on the fathers of the Revolution?  Those men cared not for flags, but for liberty.  A flag is a symbol, and for Americans it is the symbol of that liberty - but it is the liberty also to destroy one's own property, no matter what its symbolism to others.  Yet the people do not know this.  They do not think about it, even; they merely get upset at the burning of their symbol, and cry out for the American judicial system to satisfy their anger.  Not because of principle, not because of the ideals of the flag, but merely because they are angry.  It is this that the Constitution tried to prevent, which it has failed to do.

Realize today that the federal government is merely another group of men, just like yourselves.  That it does not have the power to heal all wrongs, and that granting it more power will inevitably corrupt it further.  Those radicals in 1781 and 1789 had the right idea in attempting to chain Leviathan.  But it is up to us, not the Supreme Court or anyone else, to ensure that those chains remain strong.  In that duty, Americans have been derelict.

It is not too late, but it is a hard road back.  And I fear there are few men or women left in this country.

Jefferson said, also:

"God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion...What country before ever existed a century & half without a rebellion? & what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is its natural manure."

Tags: culture, events, history, holidays, politics, rant
Current Mood: contemplative

Math geekery ahead...

So, I wasted a ridiculous amount of time this week on Polymath's blog arguing mostly with math illiterates over the fact that .999... = 1.  As of right now, the comment count for that post and the three follow-ups comes out to 762, involving probably around 50 people.  Of course, this is probably because the story was farked.

It really is a very simple problem, and I've only ever had one math person I respect disagree with me on it (and that conversation was short, so I can't say why), but it seems to really offend many peoples' sensibilities for some reason.  There are so many different ways to prove it, however, that I really can't fathom how anyone can reasonably deny it.  So, since the doubters in polymath's comments couldn't find any way to really disprove his proofs, they began resorting to ever more bizarre claims - including denying that 1/3 = 0.333... and doubting the validity of all of mathematics because of this one break from their intuition!  I actually had to prove that "1/3 = 0.333..." to one commenter; I'm reproducing that proof in a cut here just because I couldn't format it correctly in the comments.

( proof )

One can actually use a very similar proof to demonstrate the point of contention; see "The real proof" here.  But one doesn't even have to go that far, because it's really simpler than any huge math proofs.  It has to do with the nature of real numbers.  See, real numbers are a continuous set - between any two real numbers, by definition, there are infinite other real numbers.  Between 0.1 and 0.2, for example, there are 0.100001, 0.100002, 0.199998, etc.  Between 0.999... and 1.000..., however, there are NO numbers.  If one subtracts 0.999... from 1, there is no number one can get other than 0.  So since there are no numbers between them, they are equal by definition.

Now, many people at this point resort to creating their own notation and try to posit that 1 - 0.999... = 0.000...1.  But this number is both incorrect notation and a meaningless figure - the ellipses indicate an INFINITE set of zeros.  How can you have a 1 at the end of an endless series?  You can't, otherwise the series would be finite.

Other people try to say that 0.999... approaches 1.  These people are thinking of asymptotic functions, such as f(x) = 1/x, wherein f(x) approaches but never actually reaches zero.  But this is a mistake, because 0.999... is not a function - it is a number.  A single number.  It doesn't approach anything; f(x) = 0.999... is just a horizontal line.

If you have a math background and you disagree with polymath's analysis or mine, I encourage you to comment on why you disagree.

Tags: geekery, math, rant
Current Mood: geeky