Wednesday, November 13, 2002

[Colin Glassey 6 PM] Yet another well reasoned arguement for why liberals ought to support a war against the murderous dictator Saddam. This essay is by Richard Just, editor of The American Prospect online. Here is my favorite quote: But not one of those arguments [against the removal of Saddam] will lead to the liberation of a frighteningly Orwellian society based on fear and torture. Not one of them will protect the citizens of the Middle East's democratic nations against future attacks with weapons of mass destruction. Not one of them could lead to a beachhead -- however small -- of democracy in the Arab world. Not one of them will help resolve the Israeli-Palestinian standoff. Not one of them will allow America to take initial steps toward addressing the "root causes" of terror. Not one of them is worthy of the deeply moral traditions of Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And not one of them will lead to progress in the Middle East -- yet these objections are apparently all most "progressives" have to offer. 5:53:08 PM     [Colin Glassey 5:30 PM] Here is a lovely essay by Eric Raymond called Libertarianism and the Hard SF Renaissance. I'm just a little younger than Mr. Raymond and I read just about the same things he did (and liked them just about as much). I also absorbed Heinlein's political philosophy without really understanding that is was a political philosophy. When I read people who argue that Ayn Rand was an important philosopher of the 20th century, I think: If Ayn Rand is, then so is Robert Heinlein. In fact, I believe Heinlein is an even more influential philosopher. Here is how I understand Heinleinian philosophy: racism is stupid and pointless. Pacificism is foolish and dangerous. The universe is fundementally understandable, though our understanding is always going to be imperfect. I don't agree with everything that Heinlein suggested in his three great works of political philosophy (in chronological order: Starship Troopers, Stranger in a Strange Land, and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress) but I agree with a lot of it, especially There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. 5:30:16 PM     [Colin Glassey 1 PM] Some random thoughts: Halle Berry is a very nice looking woman. Try out this picture from the up-coming Bond film if proof is needed. However, given the fact that her mother is European-American or white why is she considered African-American or black? To my mind she is mixed. Like many people in this country she is not of one race. My children are of mixed race and I don't want to see them grow up in a country where they have to choose between my race or my wife's race. I argue that to call Halle Berry black is racist. It harkens back to the old, racist idea that if you had even one black ancestor, no matter how distant, you were black. This is a stupid, unsupportable idea because if you go back far enough, we are all one race. I really liked this essay about how Harry Potter is a pampered jock and a patsy. I don't much like the Harry Potter series in the first place. I regard it as unoriginal junk. Lacking in the essential otherness of real fantasy. Lacking in any real sense of moral force in the world, where the hero must make choices that mean something. A book I strongly recommend about a young wizard going to school is Ursula Le Guin's A Wizard of Earthsea. The problems I have with Harry Potter: he is born famous (thanks to his parents' heroic deaths); he is rich (thanks to his parents); he never has to make any hard choices (in his world the bad guys are called death eaters, gee I wonder which side Harry should choose? Oh, he isn't even given a choice). And to top it all off, J.K.Rowling has made up the stupidest rules for her Quidich game. Its totally absurd. I could go on for 15 minutes on why Quidich is one of the worst designed games ever made famous. But I won't. Today. 12:29:04 PM

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