Things Heard: e229v3

Good day (if just a tad hot).

1. On rights and the 4th. Those who thing rights important or useful need to deal with Rousseau’s (if I remember correctly) criticism that rights are insufficient against government which can redefine/define them as they see fit for their purposes … and we see that in action today.
2. A reading/viewing list … interesting intersection, I’m trying to read Moby Dick in parallel with China Meiville’s Railsea, ?as the latter seemed from the outset to draw a lot from the former and my memory of Mr Ahab and company is dim.
3. Slipped through the liberal eugenics screening programme.
4. Making it a law … as if everything were free and adding ~$2k to the cost of a table saw is inconsequential.
5. A liberal/progressive maxim … “the US is no longer the greatest country in the world” which oddly enough never proposes an alternative. The reason is that the statement is false. Others may be catching up, but in the words of UK educational maxims (as expressed in this wonderful book) if the US is not “top nation” who is? China with $4/day labor? India? France? Germany? Sweden? Cuba? Get real. If you want to name the US as not “top nation” you need to indicate which nation replaced the US.
6. Of taxation and consent.
7. Which founder?
8. Oooh, I did this (sort of) for my kids. When they were little and worried about the noise from the freight trains going through town … I told them, don’t worry, if it gets off the rails, the “snake” will get it.
9. To what purpose.
10. A Saint and romance.
11. Unnoticed and forgotten peoples.
12. There will always be war?
13. On union labor and freedom.

Filed under: Links • Mark O.

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