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George Carlin on Not Voting

Scott, in the comments at MR, posted a link to this Carlin clip. I don’t actually endorse everything Carlin says here; for example, he thinks awful politicians prove how awful Americans are in general, when I would say it rather proves how awful democratic institutions are. But in any event, it’s always fun to hear […]

Why I Don’t Vote

Today it’s appropriate for me to summarize my reasons for not voting. To put it in a nutshell, democracy is a repugnant and ridiculous system, and so I have no ethical duty to vote. And then, my vote by itself will almost certainly have no effect on the election, and hence I have no pragmatic […]

Peace Candidate Obama Calls for Civilian National Security Force "Just as Powerful" as Conventional Military

HT2EPJ. I don’t know the context of these remarks, but does it even matter? When someone calls for a “civilian national security force” that is “just as strong, just as powerful, just as well-funded” as the military, I think that should give people pause before making this guy the most powerful person in world history.

Gordon Tullock on Not Voting

Here is a short PBS video featuring Gordon Tullock and the typical game theory critique of mass voter turnout; HT2MR. (Incidentally, for my “third year paper” at NYU I came up with a way to get arbitrarily large voter turnout–where each voter only cared about the outcome–so long as certain conditions were satisfied in the […]

Obama Says He Wants (Dirty) Coal Power Plants to Go Bankrupt

I am sorry for the obviously partisan YouTube; I couldn’t find a neutral one that had the money quote as succinctly as this version. I don’t know whether to find his frankness refreshing or scary. In other words, is he at least telling us exactly how he will kick the economy, or are his plans […]

"If God Exists, Why Doesn’t He Reveal Himself?"

This is a typical challenge from smug atheists. (BTW I am not using that term as a pleonasm; I am referring to atheists who happen to be smug.) However, in the comments to my previous post about donning the armor of God, Aristos said: I’ve always enjoyed the “whole armor of God” metaphor, but whenever […]

Preparing For Spiritual Warfare

One of the “coolest” things about being a Christian knight (a term I prefer to “soldier in God’s army”) is that you get all the excitement of being a warrior, without having to engage in a morally dubious use of violence. C.S. Lewis wrote that because Satan rules this world, Christians are behind enemy lines. […]

This Tuesday…Vote Elvis for King!

My friend “Aristos” was a monarchist during our undergraduate years. (What’s funny is that I think I am more sympathetic to this system than he now is.) On a recent blog post, he paid tribute to Elvis who made more money this year than Madonna did, despite her advantage of a beating heart. Wiseguy that […]