The religious tradition of saying grace before meals becomes especially popular around the holidays, when we all are reminded of how fortunate we are to have an abundance of life-sustaining goods and services at our disposal. But there is a grave injustice involved in this tradition. It is the injustice of thanking an alleged God for the productive accomplishments of actual men.
Where do the ideas, principles, constitutions, governments, and laws that protect our rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness come from? What is the source of the meals, medicines, homes, automobiles, and fighter jets that keep us alive and enable us to flourish? Who is responsible for our freedom, prosperity, and well-being?
Is freedom a gift from God? It is not. Freedom, the absence of physical coercion, is a political condition resulting from the rational, principled thought and action of men—men such as Aristotle, John Locke, the Founding Fathers, Frederick Douglass, and American soldiers.
Did God make the ambrosia that melts in your mouth, or the asthma medicine that keeps your child alive, or the plush recliner in which you relax, or the big-screen TV on which you watch your favorite show? Did God create the jetliners that bring friends and family from afar, or the stealth bombers that keep the barbarians at bay, or the music that warms your heart and fuels your soul?
Since God is responsible for none of the goods on which human life and happiness depend, why thank him for any such goods? More to the point: Why not thank those who actually are responsible for them? What would a just man do?
Justice is the virtue of judging people rationally—according to what they say, do, and produce—and treating them accordingly, granting to each man that which he deserves. If someone spends the day preparing a wonderful meal, justice demands that he, not God, be thanked for doing so. If someone provides his family with a warm, safe, comfortable home, justice demands that he, not God, be thanked for providing it. If a policeman or fireman or doctor saves someone’s life, justice demands that he, not God, be thanked. If a loving spouse or child or parent or friend provides you with great joy, justice demands that he, not God, be acknowledged accordingly. If a philosopher discovers the principles on which freedom depends—and if others put those principles into practice—justice demands that they, not God, be given credit.
To say grace is to give credit where none is due—and, worse, it is to withhold credit where it is due. To say grace is to commit an act of injustice.
Rational, productive people—whether philosophers, scientists, inventors, artists, businessmen, military strategists, friends, family, or yourself—are who deserve to be thanked for the goods on which your life, liberty, and happiness depend. This holiday season—and from now on—don’t say grace; say justice. Thank or acknowledge the people who actually provide the goods. Some of them may be sitting right there at the table with you. And if you find yourself at a table where people insist on saying grace, politely insist on saying justice when they’re through. It’s the right thing to do.
Jim Edgar, former Governor of Illinois, and Bill Daley, former U.S. Secretary of Commerce, came together today with Illinois civic and business leaders and the Bill & Melinda Gates and Joyce foundations to launch Advance Illinois, a bipartisan effort to push toward improved public education in Illinois.
Illinois public education stinks. The organization recognizes this. Good. That’s the first step:
…22 percent of high school students are college-ready across the four ACT testing areas, and fewer than 30 percent of Illinois students demonstrate proficiency on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tests, placing the state at or below national averages in all areas and at all grade levels.
So what exactly are the strategies, the particular tactics, to this end? What is their plan to improve public education?
<Crickets>
Yeah… that’s hard to tell. Really hard. Arguably painful. I mean, watch this story from Monday’s Chicago Tonight. Tell me if you can figure out what their plan is. Chicago Tonight spends over five minutes on the story and all they come up with is a “listening tour”, whatever that means.
You will notice, however – taking a page out of the Obama playbook – that a big part of their solution is “Change”.
Yes, “Change”. Throughout the broadcast, in fact, viewers hear the word “change” 13 times. 13 times!
Like the Obama campaign, “Change” for Advance Illinois remains undefined and thereby, utterly meaningless. That’s okay though. People just want “Change”. Me? I’d rather they be feeding me some more of that “Same”; at least it’d be honest.
Interesting how this AP story makes it seem like Chicago’s 2009 city budget is really cutting costs and streamlined.
Aldermen have approved Chicago Mayor Richard Daley’s $6.2 billion budget amid worries over the economy.
The budget, approved 49-1 on Wednesday, calls for as many as 635 layoffs, selling city assets and new fees and taxes.
It requires the hiring of fewer police officers, but stipulates that no officers or firefighters will lose their jobs. The city also won’t fill 1,600 vacant positions.
My guess is dishonesty on the part of the city and journalistic laziness on the part of the AP.
Still, one alderman – my old one, in fact – voted against it. Hot damn! Was it because the alderman in question pierced through the charade, the misrepresentation, and wanted to stand up for the taxpayer? No. No, he was protesting the severity of the “cuts”.
Alderman Billy Ocasio cast the lone dissenting vote. He says most of the layoffs affect “people who do the work and get paid the least.”
Ah, I love stuff like this. It makes blogging so easy. From TMZ:
The season six winner of “The Bachelor”… Mary Delgado — who was arrested last year for allegedly punching her fiance, “Bachelor” Byron Velvick — was busted again on Saturday night for public intoxication, resisting arrest and disorderly conduct at Lorina’s Cantina in Del Rio, Texas.
We’re told the Cantina called the cops because Delgado refused to leave the bar, saying it was her “constitutional right” to stay as long as she wanted. [emphasis mine]
Golden.
What an utterly warped understanding of rights – that negates the property owner’s rights entirely, replacing them with a fictitious (and seemingly unconditional) set of patron rights.
From my least-favorite-2008-presidential-candidate’s brand-new book Do the Right Thing:
The real threat to the Republican Party is something we saw a lot of this past election cycle: libertarianism masked as conservatism. And it threatens to not only split the Republican Party, but render it as irrelevant as the Whig Party.
Of course, I’d frame it inversely, that the real and most damaging threat to liberty is the Republican Party, whose alligients oh-so-casually throw around the small-government lingo but fail to deliver on anything even remotely close.
Instead, decade after decade with their paternalistic impulses, hyper-religious moralism, and corporate socialism, the association continues to bastardize the philosophical reputation of liberty.
Want to see a bunch of purported financial experts over the years deny, denounce, refuse, reject, and make fun of those who vocally stress the toxicity of our institutionalized funny-money culture (i.e. perpetual borrowing, gov. lowering the interest rates, printing more money, etc.)?
And, in case seeing ten minutes of Peter Schiff hammer the same points over and over despite the objections of the voodoo-economic pros, here’s Uncle Strooge.
I was unaware as to the degree of self-righteousness Obama possessed until, at the behest of E!! and Let Them Eat Cake, I checked out Change.gov.
Now, I’m not referring to an explicit form of self-righteousness, where one thinks he/she is simply better than most everyone else and inconveniences oneself to express that sentiment. For, ostensibly, change.gov is the opposite. There are various invitations for civic involvement and appeals to democratic inclusion. And these things, when applied competently and spoken authentically, are not self-righteous. Not at all.
But, here, you’re not getting any of that – an invitation for civic involvement that is authentic, let alone practical. The over-the-top degree to which Obama wants to make individuals feel apart of his presidency, like they’re actually helping shape policy, is silly bordering on laughable. There’s Your Vision, a page where one is asked to, “Share your vision for what America can be, where President-Elect Obama should lead this country.” Immediately following, one is asked to invite friends so that they too can “share their visions of what President-Elect Obama should do”. Fine, fine. (Now, there has been a meta-suggestion circulating on how to streamline this (as it stands) terribly inefficient process, a suggestion, in fact, more reflective of Obama’s political philosophy. But until I see some movement on it, I remain dismissive of such an all-inclusive feedback mechanism. [Although, I still shared my vision in the comments of this blog post.])
For those not content with simply contributing policy – as if the transitory team were actually planning on reading the visions – one can help implement policy. Yes, right there on the site one can apply for a position in the Obama-Biden Administration. Not counting the contact info request, the introductory application is all of five questions. Surprisingly, I manged to fit it into my day.
And these syncophantic offerings – masturbatory in that they’ll have no effect whatsoever yet make the public feel good as if they were (i.e. recycling) – certainly mesh well with the overall tone and presentation of Obama’s policy. For instance, take Obama’s education plan. No reform here. It promises the same, an increase in funding of our demonstrably-failed public education system. But it doesn’t come off that way. And it’s all in how he asks citizens to be part of the solution. Marvel at how he makes the same old shit sound revolutionary, important, and courageous. By simply throwing on a touch of hollow civic participation at the end:
But the truth is government can’t do it all. As parents, we need to turn off the TV, read to our kids, and give them that thirst to learn.
Quite the education plan, right? I mean, all Washington had to do was ask!
Obama’s citizenry-empowered prescriptions have no meat to them. Lacking practical implementation, his interest in and advocation for civic participation is surface at best. As Dan Denning at The Daily Reckoning put it:
…the Obama brand has all the depth and staying power of a catchy pop tune. It’s like Mountain Dew, all sugar rush, no nutritional value. You feel better but you’re not getting any healthier.
That such pandering, such fake interest, has the audacity to pose itself as legitimate – assuming this tripe is, indeed, inauthentic (as I suspect) – it’s certainly indicative of self-righteousness.
Listening to Pandora the other day, I came across London Telecommunicating by The Polish Ambassador. No vocals, the style provides the perfect working vibe. Mellow and yet still, interestingly enough, very much a jam. YouTube:
I was so impressed I download the whole album, entitled Diplomatic Immunity. My overall reaction is something like a thoughtful “whoa”, if that makes any sense. Definitely doesn’t disappoint. Other jams include Mechanical Lumberjack and Oxygenating Mars.
You know, I have issues with some of Mattera’s activism – it strikes me, as more often than not, ostentatious and line-toeing neo-con – but the following video is simply hilarious. I love his impression of the uber-lefty thought process and, moreover, stoner-esque attitude.
More! What up with that?
