Dostoyevsky on Atheism and Loving Humilty

The first quote is from Pious Fabrications:

"That science which has become a great power in the last century, has analyzed everything divine handed down to us in the holy books. After this cruel analysis the learned of this world have nothing left of all that was sacred. But they have only analyzed the parts and overlooked the whole, and indeed their blindness is marvelous. Yet the whole still stands steadfast before their eyes, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Has it not lasted nineteen centuries? Is it not still living, a moving power in the individual soul and in the masses of people? It is still strong and living even in the souls of atheists, who have destroyed everything! For even those who have renounced Christianity and attack it still follow the Christian ideal. And neither their subtlety nor the ardor of their hearts has been able to create a higher ideal of man and of virtue than the ideal given by Christ of old. When it has been attempted, the result has been only grotesque."
--Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, p. 171

And this second Dostoyevsky quote is from "The Orthodox Way" by Bishop Kallistos Ware:

"At some thoughts a man stands perplexed, above all at the sight of human sin, and he wonders whether to combat it by force or by humble love. Always decide: 'I will combat it by humble love'. If you resolve on that once and for all, you can conquer the whole world. Loving humility is a terrible force: it is the strongest of all things, and there is nothing else like it." --Father Zosima, "The Brothers Karamazov"

It's sitting on my shelf. I really ought to pick it up and read it sometime.

Anti-lifers in a froth over modified and permanent Hyde Amendment

Washington Post: Legislative proposal puts abortion rights supporters on alert

"The bill, called the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortions Act, would make permanent several provisions that have been law for years but require annual renewal by Congress. It is a top priority of Republican leaders who took control of the House after the November elections.

The most well-known provision that would become permanent under the bill is the Hyde Amendment, which prevents some federally funded health-care programs from covering abortions. For years, it has allowed exemptions in cases of rape and incest, and when the life of the woman is threatened.

Under the proposed language, however, rape becomes "forcible rape." Critics say the modifier could distinguish it from other kinds of sexual assault that are typically recognized as rape, including statutory rape and attacks that occur because of drugs or verbal threats."

And of course this has anti-life types foaming at the mouth. Why, I wonder? No doubt they'll give very impassioned speeches which include the words "women's rights" and "freedom to choose" and other phrases carefully chosen in order to obscure the fact that said "choice" includes the forced death of another human being. But what it all comes down to is taxpayer funding of abortion. That's it. The Republicans (and one Democrat) aren't outlawing abortion; they're pushing it one step closer to going off of "welfare".

Seriously. If you look at the law this is the abortion folks blowing this shit out of proportion. Right now every US taxpayer pays for a doctor to shove a vacuum into a woman's uterus and rip apart a developing human being and suck it up.

Government should not be paying for any of this. If there's a market for it Planned Parenthood should be able to make ends meet. But the truth is they can't. The truth is Planned Parenthood needs to live off the US taxpayer (the REAL parasite in the abortion debate) because their little social eugenics experiment couldn't survive without mountains of federal cash.

"We're too big to fail!" they cry. Well fuck you. I didn't buy it when Goldman Sachs and GM said it. I sure as hell don't buy it when the little Mengeles of PP say it.

I'll go ahead and say this bill doesn't go far enough. All fed funding for abortion should cease.

Book Review: We Are Doomed

So I read this book about a month or so ago by John Derbyshire called We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism. I read it and quite enjoyed it, and promised I'd do a book review.

And then I found this article by the same author-- which just happens to be the article which he later expanded into the full length book. So rather than tell you what I think about the book or to try and reinvent the wheel explaining it, I will link to the article itself.

If you enjoy what you read, by all means pick up We are Doomed by John Derbyshire.

Here.


+++AWESOME QUOTE+++
"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it." --Thomas Jefferson

Part of the reason for my abortion post earlier...

Was this.

What's the difference, I'd like to ask the pro-abortion types, between what this guy did and an everyday, common abortion?

A: Location, location, location!

/disgust.

Happy Birthday, Robert E. Lee

"He was a foe without hate; a friend without treachery; a soldier without cruelty; a victor without oppression, and a victim without murmuring. He was a public officer without vices; a private citizen without wrong; a neighbour without reproach; a Christian without hypocrisy, and a man without guile. He was a Caesar, without his ambition; Frederick, without his tyranny; Napoleon, without his selfishness, and Washington, without his reward."
— Benjamin Harvey Hill of Georgia referring to Robert Edward Lee during an address before the Southern Historical Society in Atlanta, Georgia on February 18, 1874

Happy Birthday to an American Hero.

Margaret Sanger on Abortion and Eugenics

From the founder of Planned Parenthood herself:

“The most merciful thing that a family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.”

Margaret Sanger (editor). The Woman Rebel, Volume I, Number 1. Reprinted in Woman and the New Race. New York: Brentanos Publishers, 1922.


“Birth control must lead ultimately to a cleaner race.”
Margaret Sanger. Woman, Morality, and Birth Control. New York: New York Publishing Company, 1922. Page 12.


“We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We don’t want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population. and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.”

Margaret Sanger’s December 19, 1939 letter to Dr. Clarence Gamble, 255 Adams Street, Milton, Massachusetts. Original source: Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, North Hampton, Massachusetts. Also described in Linda Gordon’s Woman’s Body, Woman’s Right: A Social History of Birth Control in America. New York: Grossman Publishers, 1976.


“Eugenic sterilization is an urgent need … We must prevent multiplication of this bad stock.”

Margaret Sanger, April 1933 Birth Control Review.


“Eugenics is … the most adequate and thorough avenue to the solution of racial, political and social problems."

Margaret Sanger. “The Eugenic Value of Birth Control Propaganda.” Birth Control Review, October 1921, page 5.

Absolutely horrendous.

Does anyone take the ATF seriously anymore?

They shouldn't.

The airsoft folks and the reporter are right-- there isn't any way to turn an airsoft rifle into anything capable of firing a real bullet. What people seem to forget is that a bullet is, in essence, a controlled explosion in your hands directed down a steel tube (specifically built, as is the bolt, chamber, firing pin, etc., for such a purpose). The plastic used in even top-of-the-line airsoft toys is not built to withstand those pressures.

That said, airsoft can be a fine way to train you and your friends in squad tactics, movement, etc. Besides the danger of swinging loaded weapons around a field, forest or building with your friends, there's also the "militia" element. Simply put, if you put on full battle-rattle and brought your FAL or SKS out into the woods to practice fire and manuever tactics, its gonna scare the shit outta some people that don't know any better. But if you do the same with airsoft rifles in hand, people will just look at you odd and go about their business. I will leave my ire for the ATF for another post.

+++AWESOME QUOTE+++
"The fact is that the average man's love of liberty is nine-tenths imaginary, exactly like his love of sense, justice, and truth. He is not actually happy when free; he is uncomfortable, a bit alarmed, and intolerably lonely. Liberty is not a thing for the great masses of men. It is the exclusive possession of a small and disreputable minority, like knowledge, courage, and honor. It takes a special sort of man to understand and enjoy liberty-- and he is usually an outlaw in democratic societies." -H. L. Mencken