Fear is the foundation of most governments.
-John Adams
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
FAT STACKS OF CASH
CAPMAGISTAN
Here we are again, diving into the Stygian depths populated with those capable of misusing the word "objectively" to discuss any subject whatsoever.
That's right, we're shining a light on the Randroids and seeing what kind of misinformation we can extract before our brains start leaking from our tear ducts.
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The first specimen is one Nicholas Provenzo, penning a lovely screed to state censorship. He titles it The Jay Bennish 'Diatribe as Geography,' which, we must admit, has a satirical bite to it. Thus it becomes impossible not to be extremely disappointed in the article, which is utterly joyless, nonsensical and full of high-handed smugness.
So, we've taken his "arguments" and blended them with SatiriCal, the artificial sweetening paste that pokes holes in authority using derision or wit. Also, it rots your teeth.
The Nicholas Provenzo 'Rant as Censorship' now with SatiriCal (tm)!
Apparently Jay Bennish believes that educating children in a classroom involves more than rote dissemination of Government-approved "factites," bite-sized facts which objectively describe reality in the same way that donkeys describe ontology. He seems to think that a twenty-minute stream-of-consciousness leftist diatribe in which he invites questions and presents an opinion while encouraging his students to do the same fits into the idea of education.
Even though there was no attempt by the parents raising the complaint to deal with the matter administratively, instead opting to hype the story as much as possible, I fully believe that he should have been sanctioned. After all, those children were chained to their desks, and wholly unable to use their minds or their voices.
We must get rid of the public schools, except where they encourage blind obedience to a dimwitted figurehead.
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Next we find Thomas Sowell in near-perfect form. Do read his piece "Big Oil: A Politician's Favorite Villain," alternatively titled, "It is Impossible to Believe that I have not been Bought."
There are several startling revelations in his love letter to the Oil Industry.
Revelation Number One -- The law of Supply and Demand ensures that prices are completely fair, everywhere, at all times. It's such a basic, oversimplified rule that there is no way it is inadequate at explaining even the most advanced economies.
Revelation Number Two -- Big Oil doesn't make any money at all! Since they follow Supply and Demand, they only charge just enough to squeak by. Those record multibillion-dollar quarterly profits are perfectly normal.
Revelation Number Three -- Coal is what all those politically correct environmentalists are referring to when they talk about "alternative energy sources." No, seriously. I hear hippies talk about coal all the time. What? Solar? Hydrogen? Wind? Sorry, I'm not following you. You're speaking gibberish.
There's some fancy adding and subtracting in this column to prove the startling fact that the government uses taxes to pay for things that private businesses could make cheaper and shoddier while defrauding the government out of millions in taxes.
Does Mr. Sowell use highways, that liberal big-government tax-and-spend handout program to improve interstate commerce and settle the western states? We sure hope not.
How does he manage to use the Internet, built as it was by ivory tower Universities and that government pork known as DARPA?
Does he purchase foods inspected by the USDA? Has he ever worked for minimum wage?
Anyway, the gist of Mr. Sowell's piece is that government is inefficient. Since he can't conceive of any way that governments could be efficient, we should just corporatize everything, because there is no possible way that corporations could be inefficient.
Mr. Sowell's America of the Future looks a lot like Snow Crash. Delightful.
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Using the Reduci-Lator [patent pending], we have managed to extract a few common themes of most Randroid articles:
1. If only there were this perfect world that exists only in my head, then getting rid of program X would be a good thing, so let's get rid of it and see if that makes my perfect world manifest itself.
2. Money is morally neutral, therefore anything associated with money couldn't possibly be immoral.
3. Objectivity means never having to interact with actual human beings.
