[lit-ideas] Re: perfection
- From: Thomas Hart <tehart@xxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2012 20:26:10 -0400
"All women are created equal.
Then some become Marines"
Katy Perry video for "Part of me"
Thomas Hart
tehart@xxxxxxx
On Jun 20, 2012, at 6:00 PM, Veronica Caley wrote:
> I am skeptical re this:"The Swedes are reputedly considering legislation to
> regulate a man's excretory posture.)"
I'm not sure why, but Google says there are 21 million articles on the topic:
https://www.google.com/search?q=swedish+law+male+urination&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-beta
>
> I am a great fan of e-books. My only complaint with them is that I can't
> read maps, genealogical tables and such. So I do that on the computer.
> Being able to read inexpensively is only part of the question. The other
> ibis what people are reading. I have not read a book recommended by a friend
> in years, except here and there some nut case lady detective hero.
Unless you don't trust your friends, in which case why are they still friends,
why are you so ungracious? The implicature of your statement about what people
are reading seems to be that you don't approve of what they read. In which case
I'm afraid that there are some nasty implications about your world view which,
out of politeness, I will not elaborate upon.
>
> I disagree with your comment re over regulation by government. For starters,
> I would regulate every bank operating in Europe and North America. As
> things now stand, many of them are still too big to fail, that is, will need
> tax payer bail out sometime in the future.
It is precisely regulation that caused the housing crisis. The banks were
urged/coerced into lending to unfit borrowers so that these borrowers could
fulfill what legislators/bureaucrats deemed a worthy goal, the purchase of a
house. The fact that they were unable to pay is what caused the banks to go
belly up. The bank regulations need to be done away with. Banks need to be
allowed to fail.
One of America's greatest presidents prevented a depression from happening by
doing nothing rather than pursuing the interventionist policies of his
successors. Thank God for Warren G. Harding.
Every regulation brings the boot closer to the human face. Whether it's telling
little girls that they can't sell lemonade, a farmer that his raising of wheat
for his own consumption is interstate commerce, or mandating health insurance,
the boot of government moves ever closer to the face till it grinds the poor
bastard into the ground.
>
> Re education availability on line is a wonderful thing. Unfortunately,
> education ought to include ethics and I don't see that except as an academic
> endeavor, not as a way of life for millions of us. And many who viewed hier
> education as a path to a job is probably not going to avail himself of on
> line courses from great universities.
Ethics as defined by whom? If you mean ethics as defined by Plato, Aristotle,
Aquinas, Kant etc, fine. If you mean indoctrination, include me out.
>
> More sad news today re civilization: All CA state parks but one will be shut
> down. The exception is being paid for by a millionaire.
California is broke because they spent too much money. That's it. They need to
cut back. Privatize schools. Cut pensions. Promote business. Get out of the
regulatory business.
>
> Re population, I don't worry about decline in numbers. I worry more about
> breeding ourselves off the planet if not by eating everything but running out
> of water. The Muslims will make up for population decline among European
> and North Americans of European stock. That is a worry for Christians. I
> only care about extreme moral rules by any religion, especially as they fall
> on women. And the inclination of religions to intrude themselves into the
> political process to push their views on people not of their faith.
And of course people of no faith are perfectly content to push their lack of
fidelity on the rest of the population. Once again the boot on the face.
>
> Veronica Caley
>
> Milford, MI
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Thomas Hart
> To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Sent: Monday, June 18, 2012 9:12 PM
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: perfection
>
> Civilization may be in decline, but the symptoms are not those that Ms. Caley
> suggests. I would suggest that a more pertinent symptom is the omnipresent
> desire to invade even the most intimate details of a person's life. (The
> Swedes are reputedly considering legislation to regulate a man's excretory
> posture.) Couple that with a declining birth rate, government
> over-regulation, and the looming fiscal disaster that threatens to engulf
> Europe and the West, and you have better signs of Western decline/suicide.
>
> As to the bookmobile, might I point out that all of those books were at one
> time bought. He might be distributing his own, or he might be distributing
> donations, in which case he may simply be a parasite, preying upon people's
> charitable impulses to attain fame, good repute, etc.
>
> More promising though is the existence of Amazon, Apple, and others that are
> in the ebook business. The cost of books that aren't on dead trees is usually
> far lower (free, $.99, 9.99 being typical prices) than books on paper. They
> take up less room. They do less damage to forests, though that is negated by
> the tendency of legislatures to churn multi-thousand page laws. You can also
> find an enormous library of classic and not so classic lit on the web.
>
> iTunes U, Udacity, Mitx, and similar ventures bring quality education to a
> vaster audience than is possible through standard means. My wife just
> finished a Yale course on the history of epidemics, and we're doing a Harvard
> class on Jewish and Christian views of the Hebrew Bible. I've done classes
> from MIT, Yale, Berkeley, Missouri State, and Notre Dame.
>
> The big question is whether the forces of progress, i.e., capitalism and free
> markets, or the forces of tyranny, big government, oppressive taxation,
> religious oppression, going to win.
>
>
> "All women are created equal.
> Then some become Marines"
>
> Katy Perry video for "Part of me"
>
> Thomas Hart
> tehart@xxxxxxx
>
>
>
> On Jun 18, 2012, at 12:06 PM, Veronica Caley wrote:
>
>> What a wonderful thing to hear. In contrast, we are closing down libraries
>> or limiting hours, while shortening school days or increasing class size.
>> Measure of a civilization in decline I think.
>>
>> Veronica Caley
>> Milford, MI
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: Julie Krueger
>> To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> Sent: Sunday, June 17, 2012 12:00 PM
>> Subject: [lit-ideas] perfection
>>
>> Argentina-based Raul Lemesoff created the Arma De Instruccion Masiva (Weapon
>> of Mass Instruction), a converted 1979 Ford Falcon formerly belonging to the
>> Argentine armed forces, to distribute free books to people on the streets of
>> Buenos Aires.
>>
>>
>> Julie Krueger
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