Major General Bob Livingston fielding the last question from the Palmetto Conservative Show, a blog show, said he would not confiscate firearms even via a federal order. Alluding to the fact that it would violate the Constitution that he as sworn an oath to, the Major General explained that his oath would prevent him and other Constitutionally sworn federal officers from carrying out this hypothetical order.
This interview was on: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/cbmedia-network/2010/03/16/the-palmetto-conservative-show
Monday, March 15, 2010
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Tenets of Conservatism
As I see it:
Limited Government. Conservatives understand that all governments grow. That they have a natural inertia towards growth. Without measures to control that growth we get Hobbes' Leviathan.
Restraint Based Values. Any values system, religious or otherwise, that is based on personal restraint and responsibility is Conservative-friendly.
Personal Responsibility. It is the individuals responsibility to provide for him/herself and for the family. This includes security as well as education and economic concerns.
International Affairs. Conservatives understand that engagement abroad is a necessity. Our way of life must be represented and defended when necessary. Economic disengagement abroad is not an option as economies become more global everyday.
Federalism. State's Rights are not an antiquated part of US History but are a necessary part of our future. Federal over-reach threatens everything that is American. Conservatives believe in a Union of 50 sovereign states. The concept of Federalism is based a basic premise that the smallest government entity able to perform a task will be the most effective, efficient and easiest to hold accountable.
The Enemy of Tyranny. Conservatives are the natural adversary of tyranny. Our core principles stand in direct opposition to all tyrants including and especially Tyrannies of the Majority and the Elite/Elect.
Constitutional Stricture. The Constitution must not be as malleable as clay but rather as iron. Not impossible to cast or to shape, but difficult, time consuming and measured.
Limited Government. Conservatives understand that all governments grow. That they have a natural inertia towards growth. Without measures to control that growth we get Hobbes' Leviathan.
Restraint Based Values. Any values system, religious or otherwise, that is based on personal restraint and responsibility is Conservative-friendly.
Personal Responsibility. It is the individuals responsibility to provide for him/herself and for the family. This includes security as well as education and economic concerns.
International Affairs. Conservatives understand that engagement abroad is a necessity. Our way of life must be represented and defended when necessary. Economic disengagement abroad is not an option as economies become more global everyday.
Federalism. State's Rights are not an antiquated part of US History but are a necessary part of our future. Federal over-reach threatens everything that is American. Conservatives believe in a Union of 50 sovereign states. The concept of Federalism is based a basic premise that the smallest government entity able to perform a task will be the most effective, efficient and easiest to hold accountable.
The Enemy of Tyranny. Conservatives are the natural adversary of tyranny. Our core principles stand in direct opposition to all tyrants including and especially Tyrannies of the Majority and the Elite/Elect.
Constitutional Stricture. The Constitution must not be as malleable as clay but rather as iron. Not impossible to cast or to shape, but difficult, time consuming and measured.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Thursday, February 11, 2010
The Information Ownership Act
The Information Ownership Act
Recognizing the evolving importance of secure personal information,
Understanding that the collection, dissemination and synthesis of this information has worth,
Understanding that abuse, fraud and government intrusion or over-reach are but a few of the dangers of unsecured personal information,
Confirming that individuals are the best owners, lessors and arbiters of their own property and information,
Introduced is the Information Ownership Act.
1. Any personal information generated or collected via a commercial relationship is owned by the individual citizen and not the commercial entity.
2. The commercial entity possesses the information for the sole purpose of maintaining the commercial relationship between itself and the private individual.
3. At the close of the commercial relationship the commercial entity may keep in its possession a copy of all information generated and use it internally.
4. Any selling or disclosing of information must be done with permission and compensation to the individual owning the personal information.
5. Commercial entities may not, as condition of service, require individuals to waive or amend their rights in regards to their personal information.
6. Commercial entities must disclose in detail any charges or fees associated with maintaining personal information.
7. Commercial entities are liable for negligent use, or loss of personal information.
8. There is a reasonable expectation of privacy in regards to personal information created via a commercial relationship.
9. Commercial entities that maintain financial or medical personal information must disclose all policies, fees, procedures and safeguards to the individual via a clear "plain English" disclosure.
10. Commercial entities must immediately provide to owners of personal information, at a reasonable cost, all information created and maintained by the commercial entity upon request.
This Act is clearly designed to cover this non-exhaustive list: mobile phone information including any location data - internet access data including browsing habits and usage between the user and service provider - all medical information - all financial information including credit and commercial reports - any personal information that has worth or is reasonably considered private or valuable.
This Act is clearly NOT designed to cover this non-exhaustive list: simple over the counter transactions - purchases made or commercial relationships created while physically outside the United States - criminal background checks - tax information - personal information generated or exchanged for simple transactions that is not subject to data mining, resale or third party synthesis.
Recognizing the evolving importance of secure personal information,
Understanding that the collection, dissemination and synthesis of this information has worth,
Understanding that abuse, fraud and government intrusion or over-reach are but a few of the dangers of unsecured personal information,
Confirming that individuals are the best owners, lessors and arbiters of their own property and information,
Introduced is the Information Ownership Act.
1. Any personal information generated or collected via a commercial relationship is owned by the individual citizen and not the commercial entity.
2. The commercial entity possesses the information for the sole purpose of maintaining the commercial relationship between itself and the private individual.
3. At the close of the commercial relationship the commercial entity may keep in its possession a copy of all information generated and use it internally.
4. Any selling or disclosing of information must be done with permission and compensation to the individual owning the personal information.
5. Commercial entities may not, as condition of service, require individuals to waive or amend their rights in regards to their personal information.
6. Commercial entities must disclose in detail any charges or fees associated with maintaining personal information.
7. Commercial entities are liable for negligent use, or loss of personal information.
8. There is a reasonable expectation of privacy in regards to personal information created via a commercial relationship.
9. Commercial entities that maintain financial or medical personal information must disclose all policies, fees, procedures and safeguards to the individual via a clear "plain English" disclosure.
10. Commercial entities must immediately provide to owners of personal information, at a reasonable cost, all information created and maintained by the commercial entity upon request.
This Act is clearly designed to cover this non-exhaustive list: mobile phone information including any location data - internet access data including browsing habits and usage between the user and service provider - all medical information - all financial information including credit and commercial reports - any personal information that has worth or is reasonably considered private or valuable.
This Act is clearly NOT designed to cover this non-exhaustive list: simple over the counter transactions - purchases made or commercial relationships created while physically outside the United States - criminal background checks - tax information - personal information generated or exchanged for simple transactions that is not subject to data mining, resale or third party synthesis.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Avatar... great movie... childish message.
Hey it's fantasy!
Yeah... that could not be more true. Even the overall tone that at one point seems like a lecture is pure fantasy.
Now, let me quickly say that I plan on giving James Cameron some more of my money as soon as it comes out on DVD. I might even see it again to get the full 3D effect. (Hey, see it in 3D... don't be cheap.) I LOVE this movie. I really do.
But, since Cameron's lecture is sooooo prevalent and the demographic for this movie so willing to be led by the nose... I feel I must respectfully protest it's cultural relativity message.
If you don't know cultural relativity is basically the belief that all cultures have a right to exist and that one shouldn't dominate the another.
WRONG...
It is this kind of Mickey-Mouse Pollyanna thinking that drives me nuts.
My thinking on the meshing of cultures is simple, trade up or you will be engaged in a protracted struggle to survive.
What do I mean by "trade up". Simple. When two cultures meet the less dominant and less modern culture has no choice but to trade up for the dominant culture. The more progressed, more modern, more advanced.
If the less dominant culture chooses to hinder this trade, this inevitable trade, a protracted conflict is possible. The result is that the dominant culture succeeds and the less dominant culture suffers.
Concepts as large as "cultures" survive in a state of nature or every culture for itself, or a completely self-serving agenda. Because of this self-serving nature in which no culture has at any relative time an advantage over another culture this concept is logically and ethically sound.
It is in effect a sort of natural selection for cultures. The ones that work survive, the ones that don't will eventually be taken over by the more dominant selections. Things that "work" in the less dominant cultures survive or assimilate with other working dominant culture aspects. Things that don't "work" are discarded.
This is and always has been the way of things. The victims of this "trade up" system are often dear to the less dominant culture. Languages, traditions, land, resources are lost to the less dominant culture. These are redistributed via the dominant culture's system or discarded. This redistribution and discarding of once important parts of the less dominant culture are quite expectantly painful and hard to cope with. But, the utility of this assimilation is undeniable and fair.
Is it fair in a particular instance? Not always. Can examples of horribly inhuman treatment be found in the history of meshing cultures? Of course. But in a utilitarian, do the most good and the least harm, sense it is the only rational system available, and in fact is the only system available.
Attempts to thwart the "trade up" only result in a delaying of the inevitable and protracted suffering borne mostly by the least dominant culture.
How does this translate to the Na'Vi in Avatar?
First let me say I understand the license taken to make the Na'Vi appear flawless and completely endearing. I get it. But if you are going to have a message it needs to be accurate. This movie could have been just as good and just as successful without the lecture.
A simple but accurate observation of the Na'Vi is that they are of course tribal, yet none of the horrible cultural practices that many "tribal" cultures have exist in the Na'Vi culture. No honor killings, no cannibalism, polygamy, no arranged marriages no female genital mutilation, and no infanticide.
A more advanced culture that doesn't rely on tribal principles to maintain order and predictability shuns these tribal practices because they are no longer needed. Ordered systems of government and civil society replace polygamy, FMJ and other acts we now find horrific or outside the norm. Witchcraft, wizardry and oracles are replaced by the much more reliable and predictable philosophy, scientific method and logic.
Cameron knows this so he had to create a fictional device to over come it. This device is the Na'Vi ability to network with nature. This small but important fictional element actually proves my point. That without this fictional parallel that made the Na'Vi pseudo-modern they were in fact a much less dominant culture. One that could benefit from the human culture in both the painful short term and utilitarian long term.
Emotionally we pull for the Na'Vi. But the bad guy... modernity (the same modernity that allows for this kind of advanced cinematography) has just as much "right" to advance as a culture has to survive. The assumption is that billions or even tens of billions of people need the fictional element Unobtainium that is a metaphor for oil.
If the metaphor is to be complete then this fictional element is literally the second air that the human society needs to breath and survive. Like oil, it touches every part of our lives. Improving it, moving it, saving it, prolonging it. Without it we would not be recognizable as the society we are.
To be clear, if we did not have oil/unobtainium that means you can't go to work, buy goods and services for your family and would have to return to a self-sufficient means of leaving. No, gas. No, markets. No, cheap goods from other parts of the world/universe.
Do your children have the right to be educated? Then quit work and home school because that is your choice without the catalyst that is oil/unobtainium. Want them to be healthy? Tough. We are back to country doctors that can not proscribe modern medicine or treatments. No MRIs, no advanced antibiotics, no cancer treatments.
The assumption and metaphor used in the movie suggests that human life depends on that fictional element. So, while you are ready to cheer for the Na'Vi as I did. Understand also as I did, that the movie is a one of a kind work of fictions to include the poorly thought out and typically leftist lecture on cultural relativity. A lesson that disregards the realities of an upward moving dominant culture and the benefits we enjoy.
And while many of us understandably turn away and prefer a fiction to the reality of the makings of modern society, that reality remains and much be dealt with via an accurate lens that accounts for what will do the most good for all involved or sometimes what will do the least harm. Or to simplify via a common metaphor, many of us don't want to know or see how the sausage is made, we just want to enjoy it.
So enjoy your sausage. Go see Avatar!!! It is a one of a kind masterpiece.
Yeah... that could not be more true. Even the overall tone that at one point seems like a lecture is pure fantasy.
Now, let me quickly say that I plan on giving James Cameron some more of my money as soon as it comes out on DVD. I might even see it again to get the full 3D effect. (Hey, see it in 3D... don't be cheap.) I LOVE this movie. I really do.
But, since Cameron's lecture is sooooo prevalent and the demographic for this movie so willing to be led by the nose... I feel I must respectfully protest it's cultural relativity message.
If you don't know cultural relativity is basically the belief that all cultures have a right to exist and that one shouldn't dominate the another.
WRONG...
It is this kind of Mickey-Mouse Pollyanna thinking that drives me nuts.
My thinking on the meshing of cultures is simple, trade up or you will be engaged in a protracted struggle to survive.
What do I mean by "trade up". Simple. When two cultures meet the less dominant and less modern culture has no choice but to trade up for the dominant culture. The more progressed, more modern, more advanced.
If the less dominant culture chooses to hinder this trade, this inevitable trade, a protracted conflict is possible. The result is that the dominant culture succeeds and the less dominant culture suffers.
Concepts as large as "cultures" survive in a state of nature or every culture for itself, or a completely self-serving agenda. Because of this self-serving nature in which no culture has at any relative time an advantage over another culture this concept is logically and ethically sound.
It is in effect a sort of natural selection for cultures. The ones that work survive, the ones that don't will eventually be taken over by the more dominant selections. Things that "work" in the less dominant cultures survive or assimilate with other working dominant culture aspects. Things that don't "work" are discarded.
This is and always has been the way of things. The victims of this "trade up" system are often dear to the less dominant culture. Languages, traditions, land, resources are lost to the less dominant culture. These are redistributed via the dominant culture's system or discarded. This redistribution and discarding of once important parts of the less dominant culture are quite expectantly painful and hard to cope with. But, the utility of this assimilation is undeniable and fair.
Is it fair in a particular instance? Not always. Can examples of horribly inhuman treatment be found in the history of meshing cultures? Of course. But in a utilitarian, do the most good and the least harm, sense it is the only rational system available, and in fact is the only system available.
Attempts to thwart the "trade up" only result in a delaying of the inevitable and protracted suffering borne mostly by the least dominant culture.
How does this translate to the Na'Vi in Avatar?
First let me say I understand the license taken to make the Na'Vi appear flawless and completely endearing. I get it. But if you are going to have a message it needs to be accurate. This movie could have been just as good and just as successful without the lecture.
A simple but accurate observation of the Na'Vi is that they are of course tribal, yet none of the horrible cultural practices that many "tribal" cultures have exist in the Na'Vi culture. No honor killings, no cannibalism, polygamy, no arranged marriages no female genital mutilation, and no infanticide.
A more advanced culture that doesn't rely on tribal principles to maintain order and predictability shuns these tribal practices because they are no longer needed. Ordered systems of government and civil society replace polygamy, FMJ and other acts we now find horrific or outside the norm. Witchcraft, wizardry and oracles are replaced by the much more reliable and predictable philosophy, scientific method and logic.
Cameron knows this so he had to create a fictional device to over come it. This device is the Na'Vi ability to network with nature. This small but important fictional element actually proves my point. That without this fictional parallel that made the Na'Vi pseudo-modern they were in fact a much less dominant culture. One that could benefit from the human culture in both the painful short term and utilitarian long term.
Emotionally we pull for the Na'Vi. But the bad guy... modernity (the same modernity that allows for this kind of advanced cinematography) has just as much "right" to advance as a culture has to survive. The assumption is that billions or even tens of billions of people need the fictional element Unobtainium that is a metaphor for oil.
If the metaphor is to be complete then this fictional element is literally the second air that the human society needs to breath and survive. Like oil, it touches every part of our lives. Improving it, moving it, saving it, prolonging it. Without it we would not be recognizable as the society we are.
To be clear, if we did not have oil/unobtainium that means you can't go to work, buy goods and services for your family and would have to return to a self-sufficient means of leaving. No, gas. No, markets. No, cheap goods from other parts of the world/universe.
Do your children have the right to be educated? Then quit work and home school because that is your choice without the catalyst that is oil/unobtainium. Want them to be healthy? Tough. We are back to country doctors that can not proscribe modern medicine or treatments. No MRIs, no advanced antibiotics, no cancer treatments.
The assumption and metaphor used in the movie suggests that human life depends on that fictional element. So, while you are ready to cheer for the Na'Vi as I did. Understand also as I did, that the movie is a one of a kind work of fictions to include the poorly thought out and typically leftist lecture on cultural relativity. A lesson that disregards the realities of an upward moving dominant culture and the benefits we enjoy.
And while many of us understandably turn away and prefer a fiction to the reality of the makings of modern society, that reality remains and much be dealt with via an accurate lens that accounts for what will do the most good for all involved or sometimes what will do the least harm. Or to simplify via a common metaphor, many of us don't want to know or see how the sausage is made, we just want to enjoy it.
So enjoy your sausage. Go see Avatar!!! It is a one of a kind masterpiece.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
John McCain is supporting Henry McMaster...
Just got an email from McCain giving his support to McMaster for SC Governor.
Well, I wasn't leaning towards McMaster. Now I know I will not vote for him!!!!
Well, I wasn't leaning towards McMaster. Now I know I will not vote for him!!!!
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Politics Makes Strange Bedfellows
Politics Makes Strange Bedfellows
California is set to have its citizens vote via referendum on the legalization of pot in 2010. As of now, it is legal for medical use despite it being illegal per the Federal government. Without telling my actual stance on the legalization of marijuana let me list some pretty significant "pros" that will come out of California's social experimentation.
First, the Federal government will be shown to be the actual paper-tiger that it is when it comes to drug enforcement. Long has the US spent BILLIONS on chasing drug dealers and as far as I know the drug trade is tougher and deadlier than ever. No return on our investment! If California legalizes pot, marijuana producers go legal or get shut down via market forces. (Do you buy beer/wine/liquor from a bootlegger or from Foodlion or BiLo?) Chasing drug dealers...good! Putting drug dealers out of business and not spending Billions chasing them... better. As well, now California municipalities can tax the drug and use those funds to chase crack, meth, and cocaine dealers. Or fund addiction centers, head start school programs or build prisons! (Knowing California it will be wasted on a typical liberal agenda.)
Second, the legal precedent of California standing up to the US government will trickle down to all states. California legalizing marijuana will actually make it easier for states like Texas, South Carolina Vermont, Iowa and others who consistently try to protect State's Rights, to do so. That means telling the Federal government "NO" even if they pass massive healthcare legislation that has no Constitutional backing. That means telling the Federal government "NO" to education mandates that are not right for South Carolina.
Finally it lets California, a pretty diverse and representative sample of the US, conduct the social experiment of legalizing weed. We, in SC, get to sit back watch this either be a success or a complete failure. Perhaps test scores will drop and kids become more lazy than they are now. Perhaps people are constantly late for work, zoned out at work and always have the munchies. Maybe California collapses on itself in a drug educed haze. Maybe. Or, they enjoy Billions of dollars in new tax revenue, cut crime and show the Federal government that we are 50 sovereign states in one union of mutual support and protection, not one 350 million person state in need of a massive government Nanny.
California is set to have its citizens vote via referendum on the legalization of pot in 2010. As of now, it is legal for medical use despite it being illegal per the Federal government. Without telling my actual stance on the legalization of marijuana let me list some pretty significant "pros" that will come out of California's social experimentation.
First, the Federal government will be shown to be the actual paper-tiger that it is when it comes to drug enforcement. Long has the US spent BILLIONS on chasing drug dealers and as far as I know the drug trade is tougher and deadlier than ever. No return on our investment! If California legalizes pot, marijuana producers go legal or get shut down via market forces. (Do you buy beer/wine/liquor from a bootlegger or from Foodlion or BiLo?) Chasing drug dealers...good! Putting drug dealers out of business and not spending Billions chasing them... better. As well, now California municipalities can tax the drug and use those funds to chase crack, meth, and cocaine dealers. Or fund addiction centers, head start school programs or build prisons! (Knowing California it will be wasted on a typical liberal agenda.)
Second, the legal precedent of California standing up to the US government will trickle down to all states. California legalizing marijuana will actually make it easier for states like Texas, South Carolina Vermont, Iowa and others who consistently try to protect State's Rights, to do so. That means telling the Federal government "NO" even if they pass massive healthcare legislation that has no Constitutional backing. That means telling the Federal government "NO" to education mandates that are not right for South Carolina.
Finally it lets California, a pretty diverse and representative sample of the US, conduct the social experiment of legalizing weed. We, in SC, get to sit back watch this either be a success or a complete failure. Perhaps test scores will drop and kids become more lazy than they are now. Perhaps people are constantly late for work, zoned out at work and always have the munchies. Maybe California collapses on itself in a drug educed haze. Maybe. Or, they enjoy Billions of dollars in new tax revenue, cut crime and show the Federal government that we are 50 sovereign states in one union of mutual support and protection, not one 350 million person state in need of a massive government Nanny.
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