Batman Ninja

Rotten Tomatoes does not yet have an official rating for this film (Tomatometer is unavailable though audience rates it at 62%). Fortunately for you, I do. The art is fantastic. The animation is great. Some of the fight scenes are cool. But that's about all this has going for it.

Batman, some of his cohorts, and several bad guys time travel to feudal Japan thanks to some gizmo Gorilla Grodd made. Now you know why the movie is called Batman Ninja (or do I really have to tell you Batman becomes a "ninja"?). I'm not going to mention the ludicrous technology they use despite it being feudal Japan. I'm not going to mention the giant sock puppet a large group of monkeys combine together to form to fight the giant robot made of houses Joker created. Nor am I going to tell you about the large group of bats which surround the combined large group of monkeys in the form of a sock puppet to make a giant Batman to fight Joker's house/robot. I'm definitely not going to tell you about the large, precise rockets Joker's house/robot fires. If I told you about any of those things, you may decide not to watch the movie.

Imagine having the opportunity to see your favorite piece of art or musician in person. The catch is you'd have to do it barefoot standing on hot coals and broken glass. Visually, this movie is great. It's the story which makes it near-torture.

Lady Bird: Rated the Best Movie of 2017 by Rotten Tomatoes

Here is the full list of the best movies for 2017 by Rotten Tomatoes. Lady Bird tops the list with 311 reviews and an overall approval of 99%. The ratings become clearer when you see how they break down between "professional" critics and people like you and I (99% critic approval versus 79% audience approval). Get Out was second place overall with 99% critic approval versus 86% audience approval. How then did Lady Bird win over Get Out? Apparently by a mere five votes (Lady Bird had 311 whereas Get Out had 306).

I've not seen Get Out and though I somewhat intend to, I haven't yet. I have now seen Lady Bird. My question is: How in the world did this movie rate as the best 2017 had to offer? Have you ever seen any "coming of age" movie? Any at all? For example: The Breakfast Club, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, or Boyhood. There are tons of them. To my knowledge, 1951's The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger truly popularized the genre, though as a novel.

The point is, coming of age films are hardly new and, really, Lady Bird is simply another among them. There's absolutely nothing special about it. If you simply want to see a coming of age film, sure, you could watch this one or you could do yourself a favor and watch Boyhood instead.

Here is the entire plot of Lady Bird: Young chick (Lady Bird) goes to a Catholic school because her middle class parents didn't want their kids to attend public school after their son witnessed a stabbing. To put it another way, because the parents actually cared about their kids, they did what they could to put their children in a better environment though it put a financial burden on the parents. Horror of horrors! Young self-absorbed chick is wholly unappreciative of anything her caring parents do because she's self-absorbed and young. Because she's certain she knows best but is actually naive, she has sex with a teenage guy who (surprise, surprise) lied saying he too was a virgin. Lady Bird is unhappy about this. Finally, Lady Bird gets what she wants (freedom from home) by attending college in another state. The final scene shows Lady Bird calling home to tell her parents she loves them after she realizes her parents maybe aren't really so bad. Big whoop.

Make no mistake: I'm not saying this movie is terrible or even bad. I'm saying simply I am surprised it was Rotten Tomatoes highest rated movie for all of 2017.

Then again, when I consider some of the other movies from that year, maybe it's not so surprising. There was Dunkirk at #3 which was not bad but (intentionally) slow and, I regret to say, too slow to warrant ever wanting to see it again (though it did have a great scene in it which is best in context of the entire film). Wonder Woman placed at # 6 and, in my opinion, was enjoyable primarily because it followed the traditional comic book good versus evil formula. I didn't come away from it digging Wonder Woman as character any more or less than I did before I saw it (I still don't care for her). Logan came in at #7. I didn't hate Logan, but didn't think it particularly stellar (though I did like it more than the comic it's based on). The abomination and insult to all previous movies in the franchise which was Star Wars: The Last Jedi ranked #8. The Shape of Water was rated #9 and left me with mixed feelings. It wasn't horrible but not great either. I was thrilled Guillermo del Toro received the recognition he did as a director but ultimately felt this movie was about as bad as many others he's directed. I continue to think he's a spectacular director who, for whatever reason, picks rather poor projects to direct. #11 was Baby Driver and that movie was a complete waste of time. Thor: Ragnarok came in at #12 and was simply not great. Not awful, but definitely not great. Spider-Man: Homecoming rated #15 and, being a lifelong Spider-Man fan, I absolutely hated it. It would require a separate post to detail the reasons why, but, yes, I detested it. The only Spider-Man movie I've seen that was as bad was Spider-Man 3. Last on my list of Rotten Tomatoes' list is Hidden Figures. It wasn't bad, but it also wasn't great. It felt like a forced feel-good movie. Coming in at #55 was the laughably poor John Wick: Chapter 2. Below that at #58 was Guardians of the Galaxy, Volume 2 which made me practically hate Disney taking over Marvel.

I suppose, given the other choices which somehow dominated the top of RT's Best of 2017, it's not surprising Lady Bird would place so highly. Maybe 2017 was just a really, really bad year for movies.

Wah Wah Wah or Bureaucracy for Bureaucracy's Sake?

I stumbled upon this article from MSN. The headline reads: "Nearly all members of National Park Service advisory panel resign in frustration." I, of course, noting the article was from a leftist source and had something to do with Trump and his surely dastardly administration, assumed it was going to be a typical fear-mongering, Trump-hating, SJW "We're all gonna die!" tripe.

Being the pessimistic optimist I am and with the recent news Trump's Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke had recently reversed some of his decisions about off-shore drilling (which I was rather glad he did), I decided I'd best read the article.

I am also aware of the reality that in many cases, bureaucracy exists for the sake of bureaucracy. Consider, for instance, how likely it is any employee would ever make an argument to their employer that the employee is unnecessary. If it ever happens, it won't be on a large scale. Few people intentionally talk themselves out of a job.

The article begins with the plight of the National Park Service advisory panel. The details are stunning. Why, the certainly soulless Zinke "refused to meet with them or convene a single meeting last year." It gets worse... Then we learn "[t]he resignation of nine out of 12 National Park System Advisory Board members leaves the federal government without a functioning body to designate national historic or natural landmarks"! Alright, that's a thing, but... people, we are far from talking about lives on the line. I mean only that perspective matters.

We are then graciously informed by MSN such behavior "...underscores the extent to which federal advisory bodies have become marginalized under the Trump administration." Well... maybe, but isn't that all of one example? That's like saying your kid is definitely going to become the worst of criminals because he was okay with stealing a candy bar at age five.

Oh... but there is more. And the details are juicy to say the least. It seems Zinke once "suspended all outside committees "! Is this guy outta control or what?!? Revolt! Rebel! The possible designation of national or historic or natural landmarks is in peril! Hold on, what's this? He suspended them "while his staff reviewed their composition and work." Well, that actually could be useful. I would think if you're going to run an organization, it would help to fully know what they're about and do.

We learn also former governor of Alaska Tony Knowles, the board chairman who decided to bounce in, I guess, outrage, wrote a stinging letter to Zinke stating: "...our requests to engage have been ignored and the matters on which we wanted to brief the new Department team are clearly not part of its agenda." The letter was signed by eight other frustrated board members all of which were conceivably on their way out anyway (their terms were set to expire in May).

It seems a little late to say this, but to make a long story short, to the discerning reader, what the article basically does is give you the leftist (MSN's target audience) angle but by reporting simply the truth (the Trump/Zinke angle), causes them to produce, as Rush Limbaugh says, "random acts of journalism". For practically every intended shocking nugget, there follows a rather reasonable explanation for why. Reasonable if one is willing to be informed and critical as opposed to simply outraged.

I say that last bit because I believe it to be true a certain side of the current dominant political ideologies in America is far less interested in truth than emotion but also because of the title of this writing. I stopped reading article when I reached this line: "Two of the Bureau of Land Management's 38 resource advisory councils..." Two of only the BLM's thirty-freaking-eight advisory councils!! A single agency has thirty-eight advisory councils?!? To be a "council" you obviously need more than one person. Who even knows how many people are on these councils. Maybe some of the people on some of these councils works for free, but I doubt it's many.

So, yes, one government agency feels it cannot possibly be effective without thirty-eight councils to advise it. That's not encouraging to me. Then I consider that if that one agency has such an insanely high number of advisory councils, what about the other hundreds of government agencies? Why would not they also have as many advisory councils as possible? What incentive do they have to not expand their size and income? Yes, I am italicizing these words for emphasis. On the one hand, there is the sheer number of "advisers". On the other there is the fact these people simply advise. Are they not also the workers on the ground? Not to say they aren't necessary, but shouldn't it be at least desirable to determine they are?

My point is this: It may be true Zinke isn't doing everything completely right or desirable, but it is also true no one is going to talk themselves out of a job (especially not a cushy one). Instead, that person is going to droll on about how necessary their work and thus they are. So, when I hear that a bunch of dudes quit because they feel they aren't being heard and then learn the guy not doing the listening may just be deciding if they need to keep getting paid, I'm not so quick to feel tremendous sympathy for them and automatically demonize their boss.

UPDATE! One day after making this post, I happened to catch former governor of Alaska and former board chairman of the National Park Service advisory panel, Tony Knowles, on NPR discussing the dire situation with Trump. When asked essentially why his team is important his response was that they have made a lot of progress in (let the suspense build for the totally shocking and not at all predictable answer...) "climate change" and "education". Remember, now, the purpose of the National Park Service advisory panel (according to the very article which brings us here) is to ..."designate national historic or natural landmarks". Sure. I can see how "climate change" and some unspecified claim of  "education" might have a bearing on designating stuff.

Like I said: "bureaucracy for the sake of bureaucracy." From what I can tell, these jackasses just want to keep the money flowing to them for a cake job.

Somali Police Lady Arrested

Here is a very brief summary of the episode.

It is true all of the reporting on this I'm aware of has given simply the charges; the location of the arrest; the venue; and the sex, nationality, and occupation of the offender. It is also true none of the reporting I have heard or seen on this has made any overt implications. No, no trace of "Aha! And therefore... something about immigration generally or immigration for or against certain countries."

None of that anywhere. However, when I realized that my mind had made that connection, I began wondering why, then, this arrest had received even the attention it had.

While always unwelcome and justifiably upsetting, it's hardly unheard of that some cops some times don't act the way a citizen expects them to. Those instances are often reported. Depending on the press-value, they may become national headlines.

Nearly every account of this story I'm aware of begins by mentioning that this is Maine's first Somali police officer. Why? Sure, yes, I can see it in the way that the first black whatever tends to make headlines simply for being the first black whatever. The link I gave to an article about the arrest is from The San Antonio Express-News, a paper based in Texas. Here's one from The Seattle Times in Seattle, Washington.

The arrest was made in Massachusetts. The officer, from Kenya, lived in Maine. Both of those states are in the northeast of the U.S. Why in the world does a relatively minor story like this (no one was killed, right?) make its way to the headlines of papers literally on the other side of the country and parts in-between?

I cannot help but feel that reason is for the purpose of shaping opinion on immigration.

Make no mistake, I support not only true immigration reform because the policy we've been "acting" under for too long has proven grossly ineffective. I'm even a fan of a merit-based system as opposed to a lottery system. I'm cool with all of that.

I'm also well aware of the fact that Somalia has a bad reputation for a reason. And I'm fine enough with that.

What I'm not so cool with is what occurs to me as the implied message that this one officer may very well be evidence that Somalis are or could be problematic. Of course I can't prove that this is the intent of any of the reporting including even the initial local report. Yet, as I mentioned, why would Seattle care what a lone officer of any background does in Massachusetts?

Yeah, yeah, the "information age" and all that, but still. Is it necessary to publish something simply because its available to you? I doubt it. If that were true, we'd be even more inundated with all sorts of drivel and minutia from across the globe.

My thinking on this may be wrong, but until I'm offered a more plausible reason for the reporting, I'm trusting my gut. And for now, that trust leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

God and Science

19 Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals. 

- Genesis 2: 19 & 20.

Growing up, I attended several churches though only one with any real degree of regularity. These were generally Baptist and Methodist but, for my point, likely could easily have been practically any Christian denomination. This practice is called church shopping. The purpose is to find a denomination and church where one feels most at home. I would later learn this also served the purpose of having seeds sown in regards to spiritual matters.

At the time, I didn't think much about God or the possibility of such a being nor did I much care. I was a kid and had other things to think about. The idea didn't sound completely horrible and, indeed, sounded better than some others I'd heard for explanations of why and how the earth existed. I essentially just accepted it and went about my business.

Later, in public schools, I would learn about the argument for evolution and the science which supported it. I was fine with the idea but had a bit of difficulty understanding why so many people would subscribe to the thinking that something came from nothing (the one idea which no current science explained). Regardless, I accepted everything after that single event as plausible enough and found myself somewhat on the fence about the origin of the universe.

Later still, I had a conversation with a buddy who was far more knowledgeable about all-things-science than I, and he laid out what was to be the most effective argument against creation I'd heard. His position was simple: How could Noah have gathered all the animals up given they lived in such remote parts of the world and transportation during Noah's time was so primitive? That was all it took. I decided I would be agnostic if not strictly atheistic.

Several experiences and years later, I would become a true Christian. This came, in no small part, thanks to apologists like Ravi Zacharias who would introduce me to the science supporting creation. I would learn about the shape of the universe which eliminates the possibility if our universe expanding and contracting repeatedly providing an endless number of Big Bangs (though this does allow for a single Big Bang). Still, there are some who argue this does not exclude the possibility of "creation" being cyclical because our universe was "created" because two universes collided or a black hole hit what would be ours and, in either scenario, there was an explosion, here we are, and it will all happen again endlessly.

While these ideas are novel enough, they do nothing to explain how or why anything ever happened in the first place. In fact, it makes less sense a universe like ours would exist than if it didn't. Stefan Countryman, a physics PhD student at Columbia University, offers:

"Think of it this way: Imagine a bomb full of sand exploding onto an empty surface—that’s the Big Bang. You would expect a pretty uniform heap of sand after the explosion, but instead, our universe immediately arranged into lots of sand castles seemingly for no reason and with no help, and we don’t really know why. The Big Bang could have (and maybe should have) resulted in a high-entropy mass of uniformly distributed, disorganized stuff. Instead, we’ve got star systems, galaxies, and galactic clusters all linked together with dark voids between them. We have order." 

Was I to believe not only did something come from nothing (which defied science), but also that that something simply happened to organize itself in a sustainable way (which also defies science)?

For all the theories for pre-Big Bang, the one which seems most plausible to me and, I believe, is supported by scripture suggests prior to creation was not a bunch of nothing but was instead a "liquid" state. This theory proposes the liquid prior to the Big Bang crystallized into the "three spatial and one time dimension that we see today." I think it quite possible God's command for light could have been the catalyst causing the crystallization. 

Yet, only recently (due to my poor inconsistent reading of scripture), I read the verse above. This verse could readily explain how Noah, also, was able to see and gather so many animals. And this article about the original shape of our lands provides scientific support for Noah's animal gathering ability. From what I know of scripture and science, I can imagine Continental Drift occurring after the flood.

I'd like to re-visit that conversation with my friend so many years ago. Maybe one day I'll have the chance.

Liberalism

Original post here. All posts here.

I’m a liberal because I don’t think that the status quo can be defended on the merits of its own existence. It needs to be challenged on the grounds of its effectiveness.

I’m a liberal because I also believe that one needs to make ones’ case for change and I don’t believe in change for changes’ sake.

I’m a liberal because I believe that wealth creation via capitalism is fantastic but that doesn’t always translate to wealth distribution.

I’m a liberal because I believe that since we do have a State, it’s function should be for the public good.

I’m a liberal because I believe that State does have a role to play in the creation of public goods.

I’m a liberal because I believe the State should protect the weakest among us and work to raise them up and while I really don’t like paying taxes, I’m willing to fund those efforts.

I’m a liberal because I believe in politics that are informed and transformed with the arrival of information.

I’m a liberal because I believe religious liberty and secular Liberty should not stand against one another.

I’m a liberal because I believe in consequentialist arguments and not deontological ones.

I’m a liberal because sometimes the rules need to be challenged.

I’m a liberal because I reject State Socialism and Communism.

I’m a liberal because I reject the idea that the State is a church or anti-Church.

I’m a liberal because I’m willing to admit when I’m wrong and revise my policy prescriptions with new information.

I’m a liberal because I’m willing to change my mind.

I’m a liberal because I will change my mind.

I’m a liberal because I think leftist and right wingers have serious issues of logic and they need to be fleshed out fully.

I’m a liberal because sometimes there is more than one correct answer.

I’m a liberal because I strive to be free of dogma.

I’m a liberal because I seek to understand.

I’m a liberal because I don’t pretend to have all the answers. I know I don’t have all the answers. None of us do.

I’m a liberal because I recognize that the world is full of shades of gray.

I’m a liberal because I think it’s necessary.

I’m a liberal because choice isn’t always freedom.

I’m a liberal because I will learn from the past but I will not be held hostage by the ideas of dead men.

From these things comes an philosophy and from that comes a political philosophy and ideology.

A Breakthrough (FB Repost)

Original post here. Read all posts here.

I believe I’ve properly identified the problem I’ve been having for the last few years. It goes something like this:

I’ve had a misallocation of resources due to a skewed perception of value and ROI. Put a different way, the idea the one should spend hours out of the week paying attention to the coming and goings of politicians is foolish at best and hubris at worse. Allocating resources (mainly time) in this way is wasteful and the payoff (knowledge of events) is mostly useless information. Nassim Nicholas Taleb‘s comment about the diminishing returns on constant news watching was 100% dead on. 

Something else came to me as well. The gap between experts and laymen cannot be bridged by the consumption of fast media. It takes time, effort, mentorship and the consumption of slow media and distilled information. More slow burns than flareups. The irony is that the day I was thinking of this, I got a text from someone that showed to me just how big the gap is and demonstrated the point.

You will likely never become an expert of anything spending time reading Drudge or Salon or arguing on FB. You may glimpse expertise on FB but it is very easy for signal to get drowned in the noise, and without proper compensation, you might not even realize it.

“We are drowning in information but starved for knowledge.” John Naisbitt

#distilledinformation
#slowmedia
#misinformationage
#godeeper

A Few Random Thoughts

Read original post here. Be sure to check out the other posts.

Saying that powerful people want X and I think that it is prudent to go along with X so that it doesn’t cause me any issues is a fair position. It might not be the most principled on paper but it is justifiable in terms of self preservation, assuming you can be sure of the impact of your actions. I also find it to be more honest than trying obfuscate your true intentions and concerns. Be direct and drop the pretense.

Related to the first point, when someone complains about hiring based identity(1), depending on their identity, they may move from a state of impossibility to highly improbable. If MegaCorp says, I’m going to hire 6 green people and 1 purple people, if you are the 7th green person, you might be upset about the purple person’s job. Put more directly, you are upset about MegaCorp’s decision to hire a purple person instead of one more green person.

Sounds good?

There are at least two issues that I notice. The first is that is it, in most cases, impossible to know if you are the 7th person. Outside of some cases in academia, you can’t really know if you are person 7 or person 777. Leading from that point, the second part is what happens next. Suppose you aren’t, person 7 but person 777 or just person 10, you still don’t get the job. Nothing has changed for you. You might feel that you have been beaten more fairly but you still lost. This is sort of a zero sum game or musical chairs. If you lose a chair you could never have due to your identity or if you lose a chair you could have had but you just weren’t good enough, the result is the same.

Of course, because of what jobs and what they represent (0: Livelihood 1: Quantifiable measurements of the market value of your labor, time and morbidly your life at a time slice in a particular place according to a particular set of people, the employers) perhaps losing “fairly” matters to certain people. Perhaps it satisfies something outside of the economic. But, for green person 7 or green person 777, doesn’t it initially make sense to go after green people 1-6? Is the idea that those green people *ought* to occupy those jobs and it is *only* the purple person that is out of order? I mean, that’s fine but it doesn’t change anything for your situation.

In my lifetime, I’ve applied to many, many jobs and held quite a few. Conservatively, I can say that of the jobs that I’ve applied for, I’ve been hired on for maybe 20% of them. In my particular field, I can be sure that most of the jobs I didn’t get went to white males. Does it really matter to me? Of course not. Why? Because it makes no difference if the job went to a white male or a black woman, a gay vet or whomever, the pressing matter is that *I* didn’t get it. Of the jobs I have applied for and received, the only thing that really matters is that I got it. I don’t know how many people applied for the same jobs that I got but I got it. If any job I applied to was limited only to black males, my mentality wouldn’t change. I’d still have to beat the competition. Shrinking the sample size or raising the amount of jobs might raise your probability on an individual level but it doesn’t make a difference if you “lose.” You are in the same boat either way.

*When people talk about identity it’s often just a stand in for race but it doesn’t have to be. For an example, Starbucks pledged to hire 10,000 vets but I don’t think anyone complained about that. From my perspective, it doesn’t matter if you lose a job because of a Vet, to a gay person, to a black person or to a woman. The economic state is exactly the same. You lost. Now, I’m not saying that without compassion. I’ve been disappointed about not getting a job I wanted before. But, from my perspective, it doesn’t matter if you lose to someone who looks like you or someone who doesn’t. A loss is a loss and seeing how the people are selected, the real animosity should be turned towards the selectees imo. I, of course, have a major caveat to this but I’m strictly talking about philosophy at this time.

In summation, what I’m really saying is that sometimes these conversations get extremely group oriented when the reality is, they should be focused on individuals. I’m not saying that group action isn’t justified nor am I even saying that collective outrage isn’t required from time to time. What I am saying is, once you’ve eliminated the job for the purple person, are you sure you are the green person that will be selected? If not, an internal dialog needs to happen with the external conversation.

Edit: Don’t mention starting your own business on this. Yes that’s a third option but that’s not what I want to talk about on this post.

No Agenda Show - Episode 845 "Kaine and Unable"

Direct link to mp3 here. Show page here. 

In today's episode John and Adam deconstruct the Republic National Convention, Trump's speech, recent trouble in Munich, the WikiLeaks release of the DNC's emails, and a host of other issues. This episode is a splendid three hours. 

No Agenda Show - Episode 843 "Save the Date"

Show page here. Direct link to mp3 here. 

In this episode John and Adam discuss the failed coup in Turkey, the attacks in Nice, BLM, Ebola, and the recently declassified 28 pages from the 9/11 report among other topics you won't hear reportedly accurately in the mainstream media. 

No Agenda Show - Episode 842 "Cannmed"

Show page here. Mp3 here. 

In this episode, John and Adam discuss Pokemon Go, BLM, the war on guns, medical marijuana, and the 2016 elections. 

No Agenda Show - Episode 841 "Summer of Chaos"

Show page here. Direct link to 841 mp3 here.

In this episode, Adam and John deconstruct the media's coverage of #BLM, the Dallas shootings, Alton Sterling, and Philando Castille among other things you need to know about. 

24

Originally posted by Kevin Minus here.

My co-admin said this:  “In order for libertarians to gain a foothold in congress, we’d have to do two things libertarians generally hate doing. That is learn to play the political game and the art of compromise.”  

I think what he said was right but it needs to be expanded. 

First and foremost, we need to define what we mean by “libertarians”. LP members and ideologically libertarians are not always the same group. In fact, the latter outnumbers the former several times over. 

Let’s assume that we are talking about the LP members for a moment. In order for Libertarians to gain a foothold in congress, Libertarians needs to start with State and Local government positions and build upon those successes. Right now there are currently 143 LP members in office and 39 of those positions are partisan. For some perspective, consider this:  

There are almost 520,000 elected offices in the US. 0.000075% of those positions are claimed by Libertarian Party….. For the LP members, just getting elected to any position would be a victory. Dog catcher, State rep, city council, anything that they can get their hands on. The idea is to get exposure for the party and shift the numbers a big. This will probably take generations of work so I hope they are in it for the long haul…  

So let’s shift for a moment to the “ideological” libertarians. I think sisyphean task is best shown when you had a person like Rand Paul (who wasn’t even libertarian but close) polling at 2-3% throughout his entire time running for POTUS. I said once that Paul wasn’t running for Pastor of the libertarian unification church, I should have been more precise: Paul couldn’t run under the platform of L/libertarian unification even if he wanted to. No one wanted what he was selling.  

This is where my co-admins comments ring true. We do need to play ball with Liberals and Conservatives because they hold almost all of the power. I think our best bet politically is to get elected and start to influence both parties. Outside of the political process, we need more youth outright in order to raise a generation of people who are more likely to vote along *our* ideas (more on this later). If we are trying to win scores of people during POTUS elections, we have already lost. The Party nor the ideologically aligned will never win in this way. The numbers just aren’t on our side.  

The average voter does care about liberty but many do care about safety, who will build the roads, who will feed the poor and who will do xyz. If we approach them with our “The market will provide it” platitude, we will lose many people simply because of entrenchment. Even in places where the “market” is already providing it in some places such as water suppliers (more on this later as well).  

Put a different way, the average voter cares about liberty on their terms, defined by their ideology, their faith their community etc. This is not captured well in Individualism, especially in the Black Community. Liberty is safety and collective safety in the minds of many people. This is not an entirely bad position nor is it something L/libertarians should reject IMO. The critique L/libertarians should have is along the lines of who gets to draw the lines of community. A sort of libertarian communitarianism is what I think, *will* draw many people towards this way of thinking. In other words, we care about you and the people in your community. We want to empower you and your neighbors.  

I think this is the major issue is the LP members and the ideologically aligned libertarians do not want the same thing. I think there are similar goals, and the methods to get towards those goals are similar but there is significant conflict. Assuming he was still running, Rand Paul as a fully actualized libertarian aligned Republicans would be antithetical to the goals of the LP (because the LP and the GOP are competitors). The same goes for any libertarian aligned member of the “Liberty” caucus or any similarly aligned members of the Democratic Party. I think this is important to keep in mind, although not entirely necessary because of the low impact of the LP in politics. Ultimately I believe that the LP should resign attempting to get into federal positions and focus for the next decade on getting elected in State and local positions. I think ideologically aligned libertarians should focus on building coalitions in the existing major parties and inject as much libertarianism as possible into the mix. When those two goals are in conflict, the LP members should defer to the ideologically aligned libertarian in the major party. If there is none, proceed with the campaign process.

Black Conservatives and Black Libertarianism

By Kevin Minus and originally posted here.

First, I think that it is entirely possible to be a Black Conservative without any conflict, if and only if certain precautions are taken and certain mindsets are avoided.  However, there is a certain brand of Black Conservatism that is damaging to the former institution in order to support the latter. Reactionary Black Conservatives (RBC) are people that I dislike the most and people I believe, have the least to offer regarding moving the Black Community forward outside of more outright racist. In my personal experience, anyone who makes an attempt to live the mindset of a Liberal Democrat has the potential of becoming a RBC. I think this happens for several reasons but the main reason is that it takes a level of energy to overcome to Inertia of Liberalism. I think that while intellectualism and its pursuits are a preferred force to overcome inertia, they are far less accessible than what can what powers many over the cliff: hate and anger. While it may be perfectly rational to hate certain things and be angry about other things, left unchecked it can fester then metastasize and become your dominant ideology, without you realizing it. This happened to me in the past when I abandoned the left. I became conservative, latched onto the plentiful hate and eventually became a RBC for a time. It was only after I settled into myself, actually studied a little philosophy and did a self-examination did I realize what had happened and what I needed to change about myself and what I was consuming.

I see RBCs on my Facebook timeline who went down a much darker and deeper path than I, where hate of the left and self-hate commingled in a witches’ brew of ideology, dogma and contrarian fiction.  I see what I was and what I could have become.  I see famous ones, with their gaggles of non-black supporters, who use them as a source of validation, a security blanket and a tool to prevent discussion and analysis.  They are swords and shields. “So and So said this and he is black, therefore” should be prepended to someone of the videos that are shared from certain actors. In future post, I plan this will be elucidated but I think there is an easy test to see what sort of Black Conservative you are dealing with: Look at who makes up their support. The RBCs will almost always be more popular because of the role they play. The more principled Black Conservatives will be called traitors and race baiters and eventually be cast aside as something less Conservative.

One of my goals is to make sure that Black Libertarianism does not have the same relationship to Conservatism has to RBCs. I’ve seen some of the evidence of a similar movement in some of my interactions but I mostly think this is due to the great shadow that Conservatism casts across L/libertarians. It’s important for me personally that Liberty and Libertarianism be something that supports my Blackness and ethnic identity and not something that would cause a false choice.  A multifaceted and modular framework is what I believe the movement must be in order for it to survive in any usable form. I believe that is what Black Libertarians (and all Libertarians) must work towards. That is purpose of this blog. I hope in whatever small way I can, I help make New Liberty.

Thoughts on Jesse Williams

By Kevin Minus and originally posted here.

Maybe this makes me less woke than most but I wasn’t impressed by the Jesse Williams speech. It didn’t move me, I wasn’t inspired and ultimately, I didn’t think too much of it.  

Why? Well that’s twofold:  

0: A speech like that, while provocative, was done in the “safest” possible way possible. It’s the *BET* awards, not the Emmy’s. Racial commentary is almost a requirement whenever we gather for any reason in a post Black Lives Matters world.  

1: The content itself wasn’t fresh to me at all. In fact, I believe I could tag no less than 20 people on my Facebook feed and produce a speech that is similar in message or even more radical. It was measured, it was almost paint by the numbers “woke” commentary.  

The speech wasn’t that interesting but the responses where. White (and black) conservative commentators responded to an apparent attack with vapid retorts. Black commentators responding about how much they love it, while others bringing up colorism and its impact on the situation. This was not just limited to Facebook comments and memes either. It was a real Willie Lynch death spiral, predictable and depressing. Other commentators calling for “unity” and that we should accept “the message” from any source. 
Race is political and skin tone matters in this context.  

What about that message? What *exactly* is the point? Has Black Intelligensia really changed since the 60s or 70s? Where are the market oriented solutions? Even when talking about the market, race lathers, always in the foreground.  

I wish Jesse had said, look, go move your money to this bank or buy X product from this seller because they support the community. That, would have been evolutionary to me, but it also may have pissed off the advertisers.  

Stacey Dash called Jesse Williams a “Hollywood Plantation slave.” She wasn’t entirely wrong in one sense. Of course, since she is a right wing Conservative plantation slave, she has no room to talk. The free are those who absolutely control their own destiny or have relinquished the need to control said destiny. I doubt either of them meet either requirement. 

The next time a famous black person gets a platform and wants to talk about revolution, I want to hear about some stock tips or investment advise at scale. Give me some information to reduce my debt. Tell me how I can be healthier or how I can reduce stress in my life. Tell me how to start a sustainable business or double my income. I need help with my real problems, I don’t need a rallying cry to fight for progressive values. At some point, the (r)evolution must be commodified and turned into a usable product. I look forward to that day.

The No Agenda Show - Episode 839: "Spatchcock"

Adam and John deconstruct the media this time with a focus on the meeting between Bill Clinton and Loretta Lynch, drone strikes, the CIA, and other aspects of Gitmo Nation.

Show page here. Direct link to mp3 here. 

The No Agenda Show - Episode 838: "Hillary and the Vase"

For episode 838 Adam and John discuss the Brexit, Hillary Clinton, and all things "shut up, slave." Don't miss it. 

The Art in art (or the art in Art) : Integrity

As a creative person and an artist I am, like, most artists, constantly striving to make work that satisfies both my vision and my compulsion. To create for the purpose of selling and making money is a noteworthy endeavor, but the most grinding of monotonous boredom. It takes a very particular commission to generate any interest or enthusiasm. To create for concept and dialogue is increasingly pointless. Any position you can take has been already taken by any number of other artists, both more and less capable. This ensures that the only way to have your art received well enough to begin that dialogue (outside an academic setting) is to make it "original", which is the third possible point of satisfaction that engages an artist. However, you can ignore the amalgam of art history and pretend that you are being original until you are confronted with the evidence that you are not, or you can fall prey to the notion that "there is nothing new under the sun" (which is quite biblical, but seems limiting to an artist's hopes that he/she can make a truly unique piece), but I don't see the way to escape either conclusion for long.

This promotes a certain despair in the artist's mindset that is typically already besieged with the inadequacies of the world around, and can serve as a damper to many possible projects or concepts.

Fortunately, contemporary art practices provides an idea that supersedes those three formats and allows an artist to make work under the proposition of integrity. I was first introduced to the idea of integrity as an art student. It was immediately appealing in that it seemed to validate that I cold make anything as long as I was "true" to the integrity of my vision. This of course is a misapplied and simplified twist of the whole idea, as integrity is not quite malleable into the relativistic idea that my art must be accepted as such if I can "prove" the validity and integrity of my work and concepts, although a large part of formal art training is the proving of just such an idea.
Personally, I have reached the point where the making of art under that pretense is no more satisfying than making it for money, concept, or originality, which sometimes threatens to derail any project I begin.

There is another way to look at the idea of integrity though that does provide reason and impetus to continue work. This way is sort of the esoteric shibui (beauty with inner implications) of the concept integrity. It is this concept that provides me with an external meaning for integrity with which to work, and I am not long into any piece or idea before I get the sense that I am within this aesthetic integrity or not. It is becoming my basis for achieving, through this integrity, any of the other form/means that come with an artistic expression.

When it works it is an amazing thing. When it falls short it is excruciating.
This type of integrity  begins with (though it has become fashionably trite to say) the zen of material- to not necessarily master, but to know and to respect the medium. It is to use the nature of that medium to be what it is, rather than fight against and make it what it is not. *For more on the origins and explanations of this idea see pre-restoration Japanese wooden sculptures and the particular and reverent architecture of Shinto shrines.
This truth to material allows for more manipulation of the material and better control over how it may represent the overall concept.

Working past the material is the tricky part. There are many moments that the concept must be tested and revised and shifted, but there is one moment in particular that is the point where the idea must stand or fall on its own. It is the point where material, concept, and craftsmanship must meet. Failure to do so does not mean a piece can't be successful, but rather that its execution lacks some quality. This is 98% of an artists finished personal work. (which is why we keep making, or fall into making the same thing over and over and over). And that doesn't include those pieces that were doomed from the start but the artist fails to notice...

I wish I could better describe the end of this aesthetic integrity (for me), but it is, unfortunately only 2%, and often seems to conflict in resolution, Sometimes I am satisfied and simply walk away from it, as detached as Greenburg ever could be. This is what I think the exemplar should be; that the piece can be let go, to exist on its own as it were. Other times, I admit, I am too attached, and don't want to let a piece go and this becomes a fetter and an expectation of future work. On rare occasion, this feeling is due to the exceptional success of the piece (though I have seen others wonder how that could be, considering what they are looking at- so in a way it still falls short in some respects of audience) but this only partially ameliorates the problem.

So it is this sense of artistic integrity that demands attention to material, defines the level of craftsmanship, and tests the overall vision or concept. The search for it in my work is exacting and frustrating. It leads to many abandoned or never begun projects, and I hope really that I am not in some way hindering myself with such demands. Many are the times I have struggled through a piece only to bury it so that it may never be seen by mortal eyes (that may be a slight exaggeration). Is it worth it? Will it lead me to that philosophic aesthetic I am looking for? I don't know yet. I may not for a while
But, it keeps me working.

A Brief History on the Nature and Habits of the Absolute Relativist

(a tongue-in-cheek look at a contemporary occurrence)



There has been, on any number of occasions, the opportunity to observe the peculiarities of a relatively new creature that has become increasingly more common, as well as more prodigious, since the advent of the 21st century.  A strange creature, of dubious logical positioning, that has come to be known as Relativus absoluta (a semi-Latinate designation that translates to Absolute Relativist).  The meaning of the appellation deriving from the terms absolute-being self-sufficient and free of external references or relationships (def 9) and relativist- a view that ethical truths depend on the individuals and groups holding them (def 2).

It is, of course, readily apparent that the terms, when juxtaposed, are contraindicative and establish an oxymoron, a device to be avoided generally speaking, except in such instances as its use in satire or in circumstances of irony, such as is the case herein.

This creature, the Absolute Relativist, can trace its ancestry directly to the demise of Modernist theory in the mid-20th century and the advent of post-Modern theory, along with its cousin Deconstructivism.  Modernism itself can trace its lineage through time back to the Enlightenment period of the late 18th century and the intertwining of scientific thought as praxis for the dissemination of world-view, rather than spirituality, myth, religion, faith, or, dare I say, the sublime.  This scientific-ism did not fully gestate into its present form until the first World War shredded the utopian idealism of the pre-war western world, leaving literature, Art, and philosophy, seeing the ramifications, in a desperate search for meaning, especially grand unifying meaning.

The search, through Modernism, proved fruitless however, as western thought dismantled itself, and the underlying structure necessary to build upon, at the same time it attempted to apprehend this universal concept.  As an aside, it would be remiss here not to note the schism between the actually of scientific thought and the practice of what is considered scientific thought in the sense that science, built upon pre-existing thought, when proven deficient can discard meaningless attribute and rebuild on established systems whereas what is considered scientific thought had no such solid foundation, but must instead redefine terms to avoid structural calamity.  The search through the rubble for the former yields Laws and Theory, through the latter there is only more rubble.

Much like the scientist searching for the building blocks of matter and finding ever smaller pieces with ever more peculiar qualities so too the artist, writer, thinker, found less adhesion between thought and reality, though the non-scientist had no Law of Universal Gravitation to revert to stop the free fall.  In science this is called Uncertainty.  In the Arts it is called Post-Modernism, and in philosophy it is called Relativism.

With this said, it is not important to fully attend the process theory and resultant implications of post-modern relativist thought beyond one simple clarification. To the relativist, meaning is a fluid concept, ever changing, dependent on time, location, and circumstance.  Reality is an instantaneous concept, fragmentary, and only coalescing as reality when it is observed through the subjective lens of culture, locale, period, and of course, intelligence.  It is not the perception of an objective reality the true relativist denies, but rather the actuality of an objective reality altogether, as reality can be said to be only the convention of subjective discernment.

Very few relativists will acknowledge the fundamental flaw inherent in their world-view, such as Sartre, and of those few most will attempt once again to redefine terms to avoid the problem, such as Dawkins.  This flaw can be summed up in the proposition that making an inviolable statement that there are no inviolable statements violates not only the Law of Non-contradiction but also relativism’s most basic tenet.

The Absolute Relativist takes this one step further, not only refusing to recognize this contradiction, but to magnify it to the point of absurdity.  Such a creature will not only state that it is absolutely true that everything is relative to subjectivity, but that this point of view is absolutely true and can be deduced from objective empirical data, such as observation.  This is to say that the Absolute Relativist claims that there is no external objective source, for truth and value propositions, but that through personal experience they have discovered absolute values and truths.  Some such claims made by these creatures are the following: that there is no God (an absolute statement to end all absolute statements, and it is also important to note that, due to their very nature, this is claimed to be not a mere belief, but an exhaustive fact), that people (implying all) are better off today than they used to be, morality is an effect of evolution (people are nice to each other because of it), science is always right (Kuhn begs to differ), being kind makes you good (a valueless statement without a scale by which to measure), and that morality (defined as how to be a good person) has no objective impetus yet is a universal proposition that holds true regardless of the relative situation of cultural, societal, religious, and historical context and is discoverable only by evolution, intelligence, and experience. While this may hold true for some manners of technology or medical practice it seems illogical to infer that there has been a time when people could not have been moral because they were un-evolved or lived outside the proper timeframe.

The No Agenda Show - Episode 837: "Open the Chunnel!"

Adam and John offer their usual splendid media deconstruction with this episode focusing on the Brexit. Don't miss episode 837 and, by all means, keep propagating the formula!