BEWARE THAT STAT

The thing about statistics is this: they are commonly the first things turned to when someone is trying to prove a point, when in fact they rarely prove anything.

For example: let's say someone is trying to prove the economy is gettiang better by citing a statistic that more homes were sold in the past three months than were sold in the three months priori That stat could indicate that more people are working and are earning and spending more money...a good sign for the economy. Possibly.

Or, it could mean that fewer people are working, have used up their savings, need money to live and are selling their homes at low low prices, mostly to a small number of speculators...and that stat reflects a deepening of the recession.

Which is it? Or any one of a hundred other possible meanings?

For example: let's say a stat shows that a greater percentage of high school graduates are going on to college, and it is used to prove that our educational system is working better and that more of today's youth see the value of education. Possibly.

Or, it could be that our educational system is in decline, that today's high school students are less interested in education, learned little in high school, do not have the skills to make a living, and are looking for four more years of partying and fun, fun, fun.

Which is it?

STATS REVEAL FACTS BUT GENERALLY PROVE NOTHING BECAUSE THE REASONS BEHIND THOSE FACTS, THE CAUSE OF THOSE FACTS, IS MISSING...UNKNOWN.

We live in a cause and effect world. Things do not happen arbitrarily. Some cause produces some effect. Different causes may produce the same effect.

For example: a television commercial shows some fellow saying, "I had a headache the other day, took an XXX pill and my headache went away. XXX works great!" Does it? What caused the headache to go away? The XXX pill? The water that was taken to help swallow the pill? The body's natural healing system? The phone call he got from that pretty young lady inviting him to dinner? The $100 bill he found in the street? The doctor telling him his biopsy was negative? What?

To prove cause and effect is one of the more difficult things to do. Generally takes extensive research and study, examining and testing a multitude of alternative possibilities, etc. Most are not willing to expend the effort and time, which can be substantial. Hence, the grabbing of a stat out of the drawer, waving it about and shouting "Can't argue with facts. Here's the proof".

Proof, hell.

SUPER SPEECH

One day after I wrote Viva la Truth!, which dealt with the claim by dems that Justice Alito's mouthing of the words "not true" during President Obama's SOTU address was "inappropriate", comes another attempt at repression of speech and opinion that makes the news.

The pro-choice National Organization for Women is objecting to an ad scheduled to run during the Super Bowl tv broadcast that is pro life. The objection is that it is the "wrong" event during which to run such an ad. The ad by Focus on the Family shows the mother of Heisman-winning quarterback Tim Tebow telling her story of why she refrained from aborting the birth of her now famous son though physicians told her that her life was in jeopardy and recommended she have an abortion.

Americans are ingrained with the idea of free speech, and treasure it. Frontal attacks claiming your opponents' views violate free speech will not likely succeed. So attacks on those opposing views are now being launched from the blind side under the banners of political correctness, social protocol, tradition, etc. Now comes football correctness. What's next? Rodeo decorum? Circus decorousness? Bowling alley seemliness?

And please, would someone tell me what standard is being used to formulate these refinements to free speech, and prove to me that it is the correct standard for us to use. The hearing of opposing positions via free speech oils the way to knowledge. It is never inappropriate, untimely, improper, unseemly, to get as much of that as we can.

Are we to assume that the reason NOW was concerned about the pro life tv ad being aired on the Super Bowl telecast was NOT the fact it will be seen by over 100 million viewers...but just a matter of appropriateness?

The Super Bowl this year will be played by football players whose mothers did not abort them when they were fetuses. That makes the ad in question seem appropriate to me. When the game is played by football players whose mothers aborted them when they were fetuses, a pro choice ad at halftime will be perfectly in order.

VIVA LA TRUTH!

In his State of the Union address, President Obama referred to and voiced strong disagreement with a recent Supreme Court ruling that overturned the law that prohibited corporations from contributing to our elections. When the President erroneously said the new ruling would allow foreign corporations to make such contributions, when, in fact, it does not, Justice Samuel Alito, Jr., sitting in the audience with other members of the Court, was seen to mouth the words, "not true".

Both Obama and Alito were said to have acted "inappropriately". Reps said the function of the SOTU address is to state the condition of the country at the time, and that it is outside its purview for the President to make politically-charged statements, as he did frequently in his talk. True enough, but the President's voicing of his opinion of the recent ruling is barely over the edge of appropriateness and I have no major problem with his doing so.

Dems said that Supreme Court justices normally sit silent and stony faced at SOTU addresses and that Alito violated that protocol. Perhaps he did, but viva la violation.

Unlike Representative Joe Wilson who shouted out "you lie" during a Presidentiall speech, Justice Alito did not make an accusation of deceipt. He merely, silently, was expressing the fact that the President had made an error in what he had said, which he had, and that the truth was otherwise. AND THAT THE TRUTH WAS OTHERWISE.

The Dems who criticized Alito for mouthing his opinion are the same Dems who had no compunction to make their approval of the President's speech via frequent applause. So much for equality under the law!

So, here's your choice: meaningless protocol or meaningful truth? What side do you come down on? What better serves our interests? Which pillar better supports our country?

The question, buried by the media in its reporting of this story, is how, for heaven's sake, could the President of the U.S., in a speech heard round the world (and by CEO's of some of those foreign corporations the President spoke about)be so wrong about the court ruling? Who did the research?...who wrote the speech?...and what unemployment line are they now on? And why have I heard not one word from this Administration correcting the error?

In philosophy we say that those who fudge the truth will come to learn that truth avenges itself. Beware, Mr. President. When shining light on the truth is broadly accepted as "inappropriate", we will be plunged into darkness.

Long live the truth!

THE REALITY OF IT ALL

It's easy, really easy...

We live in a reality, all of us, you know that and I know that...those who tell you otherwise have a mind to control you...as humans we have our five senses that put us in touch with that reality...five senses and five senses only...when we believe something to be part of that reality without any of our senses proving that to us, we are in unreality..which is nonexistence, a nothingness, in which there is nothing to be gained, nothing to be enjoyed...

Reality, that is, what is out there, objectively exists independent of what we subjectively think in our minds...the opinions of others as to what is true, absent existential proof, does not determine reality...in philosophy that is referred to as the primacy of existence, existence is real and true, opinions may or may not be...education is the learning of what is out there so that we may better use it to enrich and enhance and extend our lives...

Reality dictates four things we must do to live...two of which are programmed into us and that we do automatically: breathing and heart beating...two of which we must choose to do: eating and drinking, and reality reminds us of those two via hunger and thirst...everything else we do or don't do has been blessedly left to our own choosing, and that includes our choice of career, whom to love, how to find happiness... and even the choice to live totally or at times in unreality...though the more time we exist in unreality, the greater the risk that we will not survive in reality...

Each of us, though we may be a part of a family, society, race, religion or other group, live and die as individuals...we are each an independent being...we each have the capacity to choose the course of our life...the sole authority of the government we have established is to protect and guarantee our freedom to make those choices...anyone, any society, any government, that seeks to forcefully impose dominion over our lives to any extent, great or small, to limit our freedom to choose, whether in the name of our general welfare or not, and no matter how noble or humanitarian you may think it to be, is violating our individual sovereignty and committing the most insidious crime against us...what you may think of what they are doing does not alter the reality of it...

It's as easy as that.

LOUSY IDEAS

Here is today's list of lousy ideas:

Behind every great man is a woman...don't tell that to Christ, Thomas Jefferson, Martin Luther King, Albert Schweitzer

Dead men tell no tales...see CSI, NCIS

All's fair in love and war...including deception, dishonesty, trickery, subterfuge?

Familiarity breeds contempt...in loving relationships, too?

Out of sight, out of mind...so absence doesn't make the heart grow fonder?

Spare the rod and spoil the child...or use the rod and make him prone to violence

The pen is mightier than the sword...but actions speak louder than words?

Variety is the spice of life...so monogamy is bland?

Every man has his price...including John, Paul and Matthew?

Can't teach an old dog new tricks...so it can become too late to learn?

Will wonders never cease?...I wonder

BILL OF CLARIFIED RIGHTS

One of the things trampled nearly to extinction by the stampeding herd is the concept of individual rights envisioned by the Founding Fathers. Accordingly, I believe it vital to specify and clarify those rights and propose:

THE NEW BILL OF RIGHTS

Rights apply to all American citizens. Rights may be exercised by anyone who has attained age 18, except that right TEN may be exercised by anyone who has attained age 21. The rights of any person under those ages shall be exercised by the parents, guardian, or in an emergency by a court, on behalf of and for the benefit of such person.
The terms "anyone" and "one" shall include persons, corporations, government or other entity.

Whenever a person's action is contested on the grounds that it does not fall within any of such person's rights, the person, government or other entity contesting such action shall have the burden of proving in a court of law that it does not. Any ambiguity or uncertainty in the evidence or the law or in the application of the law, shall be resolved in favor of the action being considered a right.

ONE: The right to live their lives as they choose free of the initiation of force against them by anyone, provided that this right does not include the right to initiate force against anyone.

TWO: The right to peacefully assemble or otherwise speak their minds.

THREE: The right to select their names and to change them without anyone's approval.

FOUR: The right to ingest into their bodies whatever they wish, including any drugs, without the need for a medical prescription.

FIVE: The right to retain and/or spend or gift their assets as they choose, free of any income, sales, capital gains, gift, estate, or other taxes or levies imposed by government.

SIX: The right to engage with others in any enterprise on terms of their own choosing.

SEVEN: The right to marry and divorce anyone without government license.

EIGHT: The right to sell their body organs.

NINE: The right to live in a serene environment.

TEN: The right to choose not to live.

In a very real sense, right ONE includes them all.

WHERE'S THE HARM?

There is a Grand Canyon-like crevice in the field of morality.

On the one side are those I call social moralists...they who believe that there is no one objectively provable correct code of morality for humans. They believe that each society establishes its own code.

On the other side are those I call natural moralists...they who believe that there is an objectively provable correct code of morality based on the nature of the human species. Just like the proper amount of water and sunlight any species of plant needs to survive and to flourish is determined by its nature, so, too, they say, the proper way for humans to act to survive and flourish (that is, be happy) is determined by their nature.

For example: unlike a stone, man is confronted with a life and death alternative. To remain alive, man needs certain things: food, shelter, clothing, etc. Therefore, the proper code of morality (or code of pro-life conduct) includes the virtue of Productivity.

Another example: man lives in reality, he must survive, if at all, in reality. Unlike animals, he is not programmed by instincts to act a certain pro-life way. He must make countless decisions each day of his life. Should he eat poison for breakfast or bran flakes? Should he jump out the window of his tenth floor apartment, to get down, or should he take the stairs? Etc., etc., etc. His nature gives him an effective way of making these decisions: it provides him with (1) five senses to gain information about reality, (2) a mind that can process and objectively evaluate that information logically, and (3) the capacity to choose a course of action. In combination, those three natural traits of the human species give rise to the virtue of Rationality.

Natural moralists reason that all other virtues (including honesty, integrity, justice, independence and pride) can be proven by reference to man's nature.

Natural moralists believe that man acting immorally, even in the solitude of a locked room, generates punishment for those actions since they are, at root, opposed to his nature. He cannot escape them. His actions are anti a pro life code of morality and he suffers their natural consequences (loss of self esteem, loss of confidence, self denigration, despair, loss of ability to distinguish reality from unreality,etc.).

Overwhelmingly, though, most people are social moralists and they believe that there is no punishment to be had for acting immorally unless society knows about it. Morality is considered to be in the same category as socially established crimes: unless you're caught, no punishment. Which is why it is common to hear these defenses of immorality:

"So I lied...nobody will ever know...what's the difference?"
"I got away with it, didn't I?"
"It's a dog-eat-dog world...anything goes."

And even when caught, social moralists defend their transgressions with:

"It was only a white lie."
"Come on, everybody does it."
"Who are you to say what's immoral?"

Point: Unless and until natural moralism is more generally accepted, and it becomes more widely understood that there are inate inescapable penalties to be paid for your acting against your nature, there will be no reduction in, no way to counter, the immorality plaguing our world. No way. And it all begins with educating our youngsters.

Take it from a natural moralist: even if no one is watching, eat the bran flakes and take the stairs.