The Doom That Came to Cowtown

Some time ago, I finally figured out the conservative definition of "liberty." For years I had no idea what they meant by it, because they usually used it in the same breath as they advocated denying someone life or a reasonable expectation of participation in society. Then one night, during a long, long discussion with a right-libertarian, I finally understood. While I define liberty as the right to life and societal participation, when we strip things down to the bones, conservative thought defines liberty as the right to control and retain ownership of property.

It is when these two definitions of liberty come into conflict that we get the biggest liberal vs conservative clashes. Slavery is the most irreducible example of this - conservatives were fighting to not be deprived of their property, while liberals were arguing that the right of the human being to live and participate in society overruled the property thing. Jim Crow is only one step removed from that - conservatives argue that the right of property owners to do whatever they want with their property trumps the right of other people to live and participate in society. Modern conservatives argue that the wealthy should have the right to prevent the poor from having access to voting, and call that liberty... because their definition of liberty prioritizes property rights over human rights.

This has helped me understand a lot of things I previously thought were just insane or stupid. The most conservative conservatives believe that the oligarchy their policies seek to bring about is the apotheosis of liberty... a world where the property owners have absolute control, and almost all of the country is private property. To them, that isn't a bug, it's a feature. A property owner having tyranny over anyone who lives or works on the property he owns is "liberty." If one of his "subjects" doesn't like it, they have the right to go find another property owner to control them, or they can attempt to buy their own property... if they were lucky enough to have a previous property owner who payed them well enough to allow them to do so, of course.

An interesting observation on a Making Light open thread by Leah Miller. It's comment 617, and has subsequently spawned a big sub-thread I've barely touched. But I wanted to share.

I'm not a big fashion guy. I have neither the eye for it, nor the body for displaying it. As with most things, that doesn't stop me from having an opinion on it.

I do, however, enjoy dressing up. That's one of the appeals the SCA has for me (even though my garb ranges between inauthentic-scottish to generic-sca-t-tunics). If I had the talent for making costumes, I'd be right into cosplay. I bought a nice suit primarily so I can wear it to the theatre. I certainly didn't have to - most people don't dress up for the theatre anymore. I raised somejauntypolka's eyebrows when I declared that I needed at least a dress shirt for seeing Xanadu. Apparently Vancouver dresses up even less than Calgary does for these sorts of things.

A few weeks ago, I was talking to someone (somejauntypolka? othelianna?) about fashion, cosplay and steampunk. I suggested that cosplay trends are now hitting mainstream fashion. They're toned down in some ways and refined in others, but the influence is there. I predicted that we were going to be seeing Victorian-style outfits coming back, with lots of brass accessories. Not obviously steampunk, unless you're familiar with it, but the influence will be obvious.

Given the timing of Prada's latest offerings, my "prediction" actually comes after the fact.

This is definitely some Victorian-via-steampunk inspired stuff:



Oh to be rich and good-looking, I would happily wear most of that stuff. Hell, good-looking is optional: Willem Dafoe is one of the models and he rocks that stuff. Sadly, even if I did lose the additional forty pounds it would take for me to fit that stuff properly, it's still not built for my frame (not one of those guys have shoulders as wide as mine).

Still, it is proof that menswear doesn't have to suck. Greta Christina has a good article on why it largely does suck though and I agree with a lot of it. Let us say that it mostly sucks because men are hidebound into traditional gender roles, but we don't have to be.

Now to find a seamstress who can make me a cheap knock-off of some of this stuff. I really would like a nice steampunk costume, and Prada is as good a place to start as any.

A libertarian tried to educate the good people over at Slacktivist. That led to the following exchange I wanted to share:

Ron paul is the 21st century candidate, the others are still living in the 80's and 90's. that style is over. it may go one for a while longer but it's done. Why are we sending 33% of our paycheck to washington so they can subsidize corn and start wars in counties none of us will ever likely visit?

Because I like living in a fucking civilization instead of being a bondsman of the local fief.

Because I don't care to owe my soul to the company store.

Because I have a fucking job that takes up a sizeable chunk of my time, so I don't really have enough left over to research every product I buy to make sure that the meat is made of actual meat and the milk is made of actual milk and the peanut butter contains only a modest amount of insect parts.

Because I have a chronic medical condition and when I ask "How much do my pills cost," there is no reason on earth that a completely free market wouldn't answer "Well, how much is your life worth to you?"

Because I successfully completed 10th grade history, and therefore know that without the civil rights act, the only reason african-americans would not still be sitting in the back of buses is that there would be no buses.

Because I think buses provide a useful service.

Because there are many women I care about, and I think it's nice that they have legal recourse when their boss decides that his position entitles him to the occasional grope.

Because I can do basic math, and know that if I had to separately pay for my roads, my schools, my fire protection, my police protection, to have my air cleaned enough to be able to breathe, to verify the safety of the food, drugs, and products I buy, to lay sidewalks where I might like to walk, to have my trash hauled away, if I had to pay private companies for all those things, it would cost pretty much every dime I make.

So I'll happily pay 33%. Because I'm not a fucking moron.

Source is a very long thread.

Holy crap - my house is on Failblog!


Check out the comments they're evenly divided between "bad assumptions" and "that's some funny shit".

In case you're curious, it was a deliberate attempt to be funny, though I might rip the gate down if it gets in my way while mowing the lawn. Of course, my master plan is to have nosarious do the yard work this summer. If he's the one who submitted the photo, it'll be his just desserts.

Here's an entry from about 5-6 years ago showing the fence intact.

They caught the Bellagio Bandit that I talked about back here. The biggest thing I got wrong in my analysis? I asserted that he was smarter then average, but thought he was smarter. I only got the second half of that right - turns out he's actually about as sharp as a sack of wet mice.

On Dec. 11, Carleo allegedly told the [poker] dealer he needed quick money and said, "Man, how easy would it be to rob a casino?"

The dealer told police Carleo dismissed the notion that it would be difficult, allegedly saying, "All you need is a black mask and a motorcycle, and I have a motorcycle."

Later, after the robbery, he went on a gambling spree at the Bellagio, proceeded to cash a bunch of those chips (any cash transaction over $10K in the states is tracked) despite having no means of income, and blabbed about it to people in person and on the net.

During subsequent talks on the phone and more e-mails — from cranberrykid25@yahoo.com, a reference to the color of the $25,000 chips, and signed "Biker Bandit" — Brooks told Bellagio investigators the subject allegedly confessed to the Bellagio robbery.

Source.

And to top it all off? The kid is the son of a Las Vegas Municipal Judge and allegedly owed $250K to the mob.

Clearly not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

Via lihan161051 and TED

It's 20 minutes long, but well worth a look. tl;dr version: You need to allow yourself to be vulnerable to achieve happiness.

I had a big damn post partially written about this, but I find my thoughts are in too much of a jumble to make the post coherent no matter how much I hammer at the edges. So I'll just leave the Powerpoint version:

• I fail at every item on her checklist for success.
  
• While I believe intellectually that she's right, my every instinct screams not to do it.
  
• That being said, I have no idea how to begin - even if I could stomp the demons into submission.

Until such a time as I achieve a spine, I'll stick with plan-A: Fix my physical shortcomings and trust that some success in that venue will translate to better romantic success and/or general confidence.

Keeping this from triggering an incident is taking a lot of mental effort. I'll be happy when Valentine's Day is past.

My fear is that a Malthusian collapse will break this trend. I hope not.

This line stood out for me:

is that engine held on with duct tape?

Wow! Tape really can do anything! Right now, it's making us crap our pants!

From the boys at Cracked.