Tuesday, April 1, 2014

"Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state"



In his superb Liberal Fascism, Jonah Goldberg convincingly points out that the encroachment of the state on private life and civic culture-- the essence of progressivism-- has parallels and in fact antecedents in fascism. The subsumption of civic institutions and private commerce under state control is the heart of fascism, which is radical secularism with a "war on..." stridency. This is not to say that progressives are incipient Hitlers or Mussolini's, but merely to point out the fact that the breaking of civic life to the state is of a fabric. Progressives are at one end of the fabric; Il Duce is at the other. But it is the same fabric.

President Obama's recent regulation that Catholic and other religious institutions-- hospitals, universities, schools, etc--  provide contraception, sterilization, and abortifacient drugs to their employees is an astonishing encroachment of government power on religious freedom. Through the imposition of a health care regime on our country-- passed by the thinnest margin amidst highly dubious legislative tactics and despite insistent assurances to the contrary provided to the legislation's skittish supporters-- the Obama administration has tossed aside protections for conscience and is actively forcing the Catholic Church and other orthodox Christians out of a central role in many aspects of our national life. Serious Christians will not acquiesce in manifest sin, and the Obama administration knows that, and obviously intends to drive Christians out of control of hospitals, universities, charities, schools, etc.

This militant secularism is manifest and rising in several areas of America's national life, areas that initially seem disconnected, but that are of a piece:

1) The rapid growth of the federal government, which now spends 42% of our GDP, up from 33% just a decade ago. This now includes substantial control of the health care industry in the US.

2) Denial of conscience exemptions in the provision of contraception, abortifacients, etc for Catholic institutions, as noted above, which, if enforced, would drive the Catholic Church out of these institutions. The Christian church has long been the primary impediment to unchallenged state power. For the state to grow, Christianity must be marginalized.

3) Fanatic censorship of any vestige of religious expression from public schools and public property.

4) Rigid protection of Darwinism-- atheism's creation myth-- from any criticism, even from objective discussion of strengths and weaknesses of the theory, in public schools.

5) Efforts to impose unprecedented control over every scintilla of national and international energy policy based on hysterical claims of an imminent global-warming apocalypse. The state control would extend to virtually every activity-- the regulated "pollutant" is the gas we exhale.

This unprecedented advance of secular state power at the expense of individual rights and civic culture is eminently in the fascist tradition:
"Against individualism, the Fascist conception is for the State... It is opposed to classical Liberalism, which arose from the necessity of reacting against absolutism, and which brought its historical purpose to an end when the State was transformed into the conscience and will of the people. Liberalism denied the State in the interests of the particular individual... for the Fascist, everything is in the State, and nothing human or spiritual exists, much less has value,-outside the State. In this sense Fascism is totalitarian, and the Fascist State, the synthesis and unity of all values, interprets, develops and gives strength to the whole life of the people. [emphasis mine]... Outside the State there can be neither individuals nor groups..."
... "Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state."

There's nothing new under the sun.


71 comments:

  1. Superb post.

    Leftists think I'm being hyperbolic when I refer to their ridiculous so-called nondiscrimination laws as fascistic but I don't relent. I'm a sovereign individual and no less sovereign simply because I chose to go into business for myself. I took the risk, not the government. I did the work, not the government. And I should be allowed to decide which contracts and/or customers I choose to take on.

    This doesn't make sense to people who think that my private business is a so-called public accommodation. I've learned that public accommodation means that I am only allowed to make the few decisions that the government still allows me to make, and only if I keep sending the government money. That list of decisions that I am allowed to make keeps getting shorter and there's nothing on that list that couldn't disappear tomorrow by governmental decree.

    >>Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.<< Yup, that sums it up pretty well. When they can force one person to do business with a person he doesn't want to do business with, that's fascism.

    JQ

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    1. No one should be forcing you to do business with anyone you don't want to. That's injustice.

      Little John

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  2. Thank you, Dr. Egnor, for this well-considered article. The crushing weight of government is truly suffocating me. These past five years of Obama trampling my rights are just too much too bear. He doesn't care about enumerated powers, checks and balances, or the proper role of government. He cares even less about our rights under the constitution: the right to free exercise of religion, the right of free press, the right to bear arms. None of these matter.

    Little John

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    1. Do tell Little John, how exactly has your life changed to the point of being “suffocating” and “too much too bear” since Obama was elected? Considering you’re quick to claim the right to not serve black people, I suspect that you just really don’t like being led by a black man.

      -KW

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    2. NSA surveillance, a denial of my first amendment rights, political bullying at the IRS, executive orders that far exceed the power of the president, gun grabbing, voter intimidation, voter fraud, the shackling of the press. That's a short list.

      I don't mind being led by a black man. I voted for Alan Keyes as a write-in in 2008. Alan Keyes is black on both sides, unlike Obama, so my guy's blacker than your guy.

      That was a lazy and predictable slight on your part. I don't think that you should have to serve Christians in your business but that doesn't mean that I hate Christians. I just think that it exceeds the government's rightful authority to make people engage in commerce against their will.

      Little John

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    3. don't forget the fact that he forces us to buy a crappy product we don't want that he denied was a tax when passing it, then claimed was a tax when defending it in front of the supreme court. yes, this is a suffocating regime. very good word.

      naidoo

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    4. Good response to KW there Little John.

      KW, you're up. KW? KW??

      Delete
  3. It cracks me up when folks take Jonah Goldberg seriously. The guy wrote his silly book just to get back at liberals, by his own admission.

    But never mind that.

    The 5 theses advanced in this post are laughable. Christianity has been and remains the dominant religion in the United States. Atheists comprise a tiny minority of the population. Christians make the absolute, vast majority. Cry me a river, boys.

    Discussing strengths and weaknesses of a scientific discipline in classroom is subterfuge from the Christian fundies like Johnson, Meyers, Luskin, and the like. High schoolers know shit about science, any branch of it. They need to fucking learn a whole lot before they can discuss strengths and weaknesses. These shenanigans aren't fooling anyone.

    And what's with the latest round of denying global warming, Egnor? Dishonest hackery yet again? Big surprise!

    Hoo

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    1. What does America being predominantly Christian have to do with the topic, that being that the government is pursuing policies which undermine Christianity? As Dr. Egnor pointed out, the government targets the Church with the knowledge that it poses the greatest impediment to the government's quest for uninhibited power. This is all rooted in Freemasonry since their end goal to destroy the Catholic Church and form a new world order, i.e. one world government, placing themselves in charge. Thus, they systematically seek to create victim classes out of generic classification of people, e.g. minorities, homosexuals, atheists and women, and thus by extension portray the majority as the entitled oppressor class in order to force through onerous policies, because God forbid that Anglo-saxon Christians should have a country for themselves. The right to self-determination is reserved solely for other ethnic groups, because ...we're the majority and therefore *wrong*. Jews, Asians and every other ethnic group can have their own country for themselves, yet if we want the same for ourselves, we're slandered as racist bigots.

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    2. Michael: "because God forbid that Anglo-saxon Christians should have a country for themselves."

      Right. That's why they killed off American Indians. Just to have a country for themselves.

      Hoo

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    3. If we're going that route then perhaps everyone should look back into history to find every ethnic group's nation of origin, restore the old borders and be done with it. Practically every nation has had its fair share of conquest.

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    4. In that light, how can you claim that "Anglo-saxon Christians should have a country for themselves?" Why can't, say, Jews or Catholic Hispanics live in the same land?

      Hoo

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    5. Well, you were the one who brought it up. Practically every nation on the face of the planet was won by conquest/violence. So if you're going to broadbrush the early white settlers as conquerors, well, name an ethnic group absent such a history.

      Delete
    6. Do you want a country for WASPs, Michael? It used to be one.

      Hoo

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    7. No idea what you're referring to. I'm opposed to the ethnic displacement of whites through mass immigration and granting amnesty to illegal immigrants. Would it not be arrogant and absurd for someone to try and tell the Koreans, Japanese, Indians, Germans, Jews, etc. in their own country that they need to open their borders and "embrace diversity" (i.e. accept their ethnic displacement) in order to curb racism, as is being done right here in the US?

      Delete
    8. hoo, you make me laugh. while it may be true that atheists are a small minority it does not follow that practicing christians are a majority.

      not that it would matter if it would. your non-sequiter is that any group that represents a numerical majority cannot possibly be oppressed. that's a false assumption but it allows you to dismiss the mountains of evidence that our government in fact hates us and treats us with contempt. a us army training manual, for example, listed catholics and evangelicals as religious extremists, grouping them together with al-qaeda. if that doesn't tell you what our government thinks of us, i don't know what does.

      i was born in south africa. my great grandparents were imported there as little more than slaves, though they weren't called that. they built the railroads for white people to ride on. though i don't remember much of that country, i know enough to tell you that being in the majority does not mean that you cannot suffer discrimination.

      naidoo

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    9. You would have a point, nadoo, if the US had an atheist President, an atheist Supreme Court, and an atheist Congress. (Just like all of the South African government institutions were white.)

      But it's the exact opposite. The US Supreme Court is dominated by Roman Catholics. The US President is a Protestant Christian. If there are any atheists in Congress, I'd like to know their names.

      Your claims of prosecution ring very hollow.

      Hoo

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    10. @ Hoo: Chai Feldblum, one time head of the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission under BHO was asked what should happen when religious liberty (a genuine right guaranteed under the constitution) should come into conflict with sexual liberty (notably absent from the constitution). She replied:

      “I’m having a hard time coming up with any case in which religious liberty should win.”

      She continued:

      “Sexual liberty should win in most cases. There can be a conflict between religious liberty and sexual liberty, but in almost all cases the sexual liberty should win because that’s the only way that the dignity of gay people can be affirmed in any realistic manner.”

      So don't tell me that Christians aren't oppressed in this country or that our government is run by devout Christians like (don't make me laugh) Barrack Obama and (you've got to be kidding me) Sonya Sotamayor. The woman whose job it is to ensure that we all have "equal" opportunities has already admitted that when it comes to homosexuals and religious people, there's really no equality at all. The homosexuals win because they have delicate feelings and they need to have their "dignity" "affirmed."

      What about my dignity? She doesn't care.

      If she were honest she would admit that they need to have their BEHAVIOR affirmed. That's what homosexuals want and they are never happy until they get it.

      The Torch

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    11. The Constitution protects religious liberty, not so-called "sexual liberty." Lest people forget, the Constitution doesn't *grant* people rights -- rather, it serves to restrain government from infringment upon any of them. Thus, any law enacted or judicial verdict which infringes upon our inalienable rights constitutes a direct violation of Constitutional law and no American should feel obligated to comply. We didn't win our independence just so that some unscrupulous activist-dictator wearing a black robe could one day decide to throw liberty under the bus, least of all for the sake of the lavender mafia's feelings.

      Delete
  4. Hmmm, what organization was it again that supported fascist regimes in countries such as Germany, Croatia, Italy, Spain, and large parts of Latin America? That's right, the Roman Catholic Church. The RCC has always sided with totalitarian and often anti-Semitic regimes and their big business cronies, in return for monopolies on indoctrination and industrial-scale abuse of children. Not to mention huge financial benefits flowing into the corrupt Vatican Bank. It has always been thus. Conservative Catholics are born fascists. Had Egnor lived in, say, Germany in the 1930s, no doubt he would have volunteered to serve in the concentration camps to destroy the enemies of Church and State.

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    1. Citizen Boggs, Committee of General SecurityApril 1, 2014 at 7:20 AM

      And the shoes! You forgot to mention the shoes!

      Shoes of Satan, that's what they are. Evil shoes. Shoes of Doom.

      We knew what to do with meddling priests in shoes back in the Good Old Days. A date with Mademoiselle Guillotine, eh?

      Delete
    2. troy is lying. The Catholic Church remains the greatest impediment to totalitarian regimes because it exposes injustice and works for good. No other insititution comes close to doing as much charity the world over as the Church. The Church secretly escorted hundreds of thousands of Jews out of Europe to safety during Nazi Germany's reign. While on the subject, what were the atheists (you know, those wonderful bastions of moral upstanding and enlightenment) doing at that time? Oh, that's right: committing mass genocide in their communist utopias. Over a hundred-million people dead. There, that's their legacy.

      Delete
    3. sometimes the church has sided with evil regimes. they were wrong to do so, and you're wrong to side with this one. read mussolini's own definition of what fascism is and tell me it doesn't look like obama's america.

      i would also tell you that the catholic church's supposed support for nazi germany is overblown. during the 12 years of hitler's rule, the relationship between the fuehrer and the church ebbed and flowed. the church challenged him for example on euthenasia and were told to shut up with they didn't want to see their churches boarded up.

      naidoo

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  5. Commissar Boggs, Ministry of TruthApril 1, 2014 at 7:14 AM

    Obviously, the current regime is not going to go gentle into the night.

    Therefore, lovers of liberty and republican government, if they are to keep it, are going to have to take it back.

    In part, that is already happening. The regime cannot enforce the laws they wrote because the laws they wrote are incoherent and the execution has been utterly incompetent. Incoherence and incompetence work in our favor, rotting the regime from the inside and providing pressure points to exploit.

    But there is more to do. Free citizens must show up in droves to monitor the voting process and polling places. Yes, first and foremost, we must True the Vote. We will need observers at every polling place.

    Second, free citizens must take time, from work if and whenever necessary, to show up and confront the Left at every possible public opportunity.

    Third, free citizens must monkeywrench and publicly defy unconstitutional laws and regulations en masse and in every way possible, as they are doing at this moment in Connecticut.

    But most importantly, free citizens must stand together in solidarity, arms locked, e pluribus unum, just as they did in Gdańsk.

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    1. Commissar Boggs, Ministry of TruthApril 1, 2014 at 8:03 AM

      Well, maybe it won't be all that difficult...

      Daily Truth™:

      Obamacare Website Takes a Dump on Obamacare Enrollment Deadline
      --- jezebel.com

      The ones we'd been waiting for, eh? :-D

      Delete
    2. Michael: "This is all rooted in Freemasonry since their end goal to destroy the Catholic Church and form a new world order, i.e. one world government, placing themselves in charge."

      Heh, the tin foil hat brigade is out early today.

      Hoo

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    3. Commissar Boggs, Ministry of TruthApril 1, 2014 at 8:12 AM

      I think they stay up all night, actually.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous,

      http://padrepioandchiesaviva.com/Padre_Pio___Fr.html

      Delete
    5. Commissar Boggs, Ministry of TruthApril 1, 2014 at 10:43 AM

      Good grief! I checked that link and it looks like our Little Dutch Boy was on to something with the shoes. Who knew?

      In fact, here's some photographic documentation.

      Delete
  6. I have a feeling that this post (and the whole Egnorance thing) is an elaborate April Fools joke.

    Hoo

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  7. 1. America is a low taxation country. Even with deficit spending, federal government spending is less than 30% of GDP. There isn't 'substantial control' of the health care industry. It's well and truly out of control, accounting for 16% of GDP (in Australia it's 9%, and the government thinks that's too much...)

    2. So individuals don't have a right to contraception? Their employing institutions have all the rights?

    3. Captive audiences in public schools have the right not to be inculcated with religious beliefs which may conflict with those of their families. Religious instruction should be in non-school hours in the churches of the parents' choice.

    4. Darwinism has nothing to do with origin of life. It deals with the radiation of species. If you want another theory taught in public schools, then find one with an equal (and considerable) amount of empirical support. No one is suggesting that the 'strengths and weaknesses' of gravitation theory is taught in schools (and there are considerable problems with gravity, not yet resolved).

    5. Even ignoring AGW, there are considerable problems with energy supplies. Oil consumption is currently around 90 million barrels per day. The global population will increase to 9 billion in 2050. Oil production would have to double (allowing for developing poor countries), but new major oil fields aren't being found. America (with fracking) had a good year in 2013 recovering 8 million barrels of oil a day - around 40% of consumption.

    Energy prices must increase, just because of the imbalance of exponentially increasing demand over relatively plateauing supply. And the GFC of 2008 was largely due to the spike in energy prices in 2007.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. "2. So individuals don't have a right to contraception? Their employing institutions have all the rights?"

      The supreme court invented a right to contraception out of whole cloth. It isn't anywhere in the Constitution but the supreme court says that it is.

      Which is actually quite irrelevant. Just because you have a right to something doesn't mean that your employer is required to buy it for you. No one is required to buy it for me. If that were the case then my employer would have to buy me a gun, which is an actual right under the US Constitution, or they would have to buy me a Bible and meet me halvsies on my weekly donation to the church. Anything less means that corporations have all the rights and the people have none, by your absurd "logic."

      By the way, Hobby Lobby opposes abortifacents, not contraceptives.

      The Torch

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    2. bachfiend, if teaching my child that homosexuality is good and that homosexuals are brave, do is still retain the right not to have my captive children inculcated with beliefs that conflict with those of my family?

      naidoo

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    3. The Torch,

      From what I understand, Obamacare requires employers to pay for insurance for their employees that allows them to get contraceptives - not that they're directly required to buy their contraceptives.

      That said, I regard Obamacare as bad policy. Australia would never adopt it in preference to its health insurance system. Our pharmaceutical system exists to insure individuals against the cost of very expensive approved medications, which may cost thousands of dollars per month. Most prescriptions are paid in full by the patient (including OCs).

      Naidoo,

      You have (or should have) the right to object to your children being taught subjective opinion, which includes the benefits of homosexuality.

      You shouldn't have the right to object to your children being taught reasonably established facts and reality.

      Delete
  8. Sturmbahnfuehrer Boggs:

    Therefore, lovers of liberty and republican government, if they are to keep it, are going to have to take it back.

    What's not to love about the previous republican government? Wasting trillions of tax payers' $$ on two wars, crashing the global economy. A great victory for liberty indeed, especially for chicken hawks on the side lines feeding off government defense contracts and government bailouts of the financial industry. Quite typical for a fascist regime actually.

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    1. Commissar Boggs, Ministry of TruthApril 1, 2014 at 8:09 AM

      Actually, Señor Zapatos, I don't disagree with any of that.

      Delete
  9. Fascism as a political movement has much more in common with the modern right than the modern left. The strong nationalism exemplified by the notion of American exceptionalism, the exultation of all things military, the scapegoating, the anti-intellectualism, and the appeal to religion, are just some of the more obvious similarities.

    -KW

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    1. Commissar Boggs, Ministry of TruthApril 1, 2014 at 11:22 AM

      Like fish in a barrel...

      Mussolini was editor of the leftist paper "Avanti!" Which happens to translate into English as....

      Mussolini became a national socialist.

      Delete
    2. KW:

      "Fascism as a political movement has much more in common with the modern right than the modern left"

      Oh sure. "Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state." pretty much sums up the philosophy of Rand Paul, Ted Cruz and the Tea Party.

      ;)




      Delete
    3. The confluence of government and business as advocated by the right is much closer to fascism than anything being advocated by the left. Just replace “the state” with “the Corporations”, and you have the modern right. For this modern-day fascism to thrive in America, with our strong democratic tradition, it’s absolutely nessisary for the would-be oligarchs to make the government as week as they can. You idiots have been duped.

      -KW

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    4. I'm on the right and I don't support a confluence of business and the state.

      Requiring businesses to cover contraception is exactly that, though. Keep the state out of the market, that's what I'm for.

      The Torch

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    5. That’s just it. The populist part of the Tea-party is much closer to the left than the right on so many issues it’s not funny. But because of divisive issues like contraception, gay marriage, and guns, the Tea Partiers are effectively forced to support the party most closely allied to the super-rich and big business. Fucking Hobby Lobby gave birth control coverage to its employees before Obama Care, but the opportunity to attack a law that limits corporate profits by turning the religious base against it was just too good to pass up. Like I said, you’ve been duped.

      -KW

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    6. Do you really think an IUD is an abortifacient? You really don’t know much about birth control do you?

      Allow me revise my statement to make it less confusing for you. “Hobby Lobby gave abortifacient coverage to its employees before Obama Care...”

      -KW

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    7. Commissar Boggs, Ministry of TruthApril 1, 2014 at 3:35 PM

      Pop-Tard: "Do you really think an IUD is an abortifacient?"

      [The copper ions from copper IUDs] also cause the uterus and fallopian tubes to produce a fluid that contains white blood cells, copper ions, enzymes, and prostaglandins, a combination that is also toxic to sperm. The very high effectiveness of copper-releasing IUDs as emergency contraceptives implies they may also act by preventing implantation of the blastocyst.
      --- Wiki: Intrauterine device

      Delete
  10. “1. America is a low taxation country. Even with deficit spending, federal government spending is less than 30% of GDP. There isn't 'substantial control' of the health care industry. It's well and truly out of control, accounting for 16% of GDP (in Australia it's 9%, and the government thinks that's too much...)

”
    Thanks to Ronald Reagan. Before Reagan the top marginal bracket was upwards of 70 percent and it would have kept going up under the Marxist fascist progressives had not Reagan awakened America to the immorality of it, and it will go up as it has since Reagan if the Marxist progressives have their way. Strike one, Bach.

    2. So individuals don't have a right to contraception? Their employing institutions have all the rights?


    Forcing the employer to provide abortifacients in no way hinders the rights of the employee. The employer is not determining individual rights by not violating its own. The employee may do as they wish. They may murder their unborn child – just not on the dime of the employer. Does that really not compute with you? Strike two!.
    3. Captive audiences in public schools have the right not to be inculcated with religious beliefs which may conflict with those of their families. Religious instruction should be in non-school hours in the churches of the parents' choice.



    Where does the Constitution say that public schools can’t teach religion? In any case, non-believers don’t have to be “inculcated” – they may leave. But, you shouldn’t complain here. You’ve won this one. Kids like Dylan Klebold never hear, “thou shall not kill,” at school and take it to heart. I’ll call this one a foul ball. You’re 1 – 2.

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  11. 4. Darwinism has nothing to do with origin of life. It deals with the radiation of species. If you want another theory taught in public schools, then find one with an equal (and considerable) amount of empirical support. No one is suggesting that the 'strengths and weaknesses' of gravitation theory is taught in schools (and there are considerable problems with gravity, not yet resolved).



    There is no naturalistic evolution without a naturalistic origin of life. Darwin himself talked about life originating in some warm little pond (as did silly Neil DeGrasse recently) and since then billions (trillions if you count the trips to Mars) have been spent by Darwinists trying to prove that life arose naturalistically even though everything known indicates that the probability of such is beyond human comprehension – “greater than all the individual atoms in the universe,” said Crick and he was short by incomprehensible magnitudes. Darwinism itself is circling the drain. It was always an atheistic fantasy with little or no scientific support, but science has marched onward leaving the Darwinism on the garbage pile of history. If you don’t know this, you are ignorant of the latest science. Strike three – you’re out but for grins and giggles I’ll take on your last point.


    5. Even ignoring AGW, there are considerable problems with energy supplies. Oil consumption is currently around 90 million barrels per day. The global population will increase to 9 billion in 2050. Oil production would have to double (allowing for developing poor countries), but new major oil fields aren't being found. America (with fracking) had a good year in 2013 recovering 8 million barrels of oil a day - around 40% of consumption.

Energy prices must increase, just because of the imbalance of exponentially increasing demand over relatively plateauing supply. And the GFC of 2008 was largely due to the spike in energy prices in 2007.

    There are ample supplies of fossil fuels. There is enough coal alone just in the U.S. to supply all the energy needs of the world for decades if not longer. Coal can be both liquefied and gasified and yes, it can be burned cleanly. The achievement of which was why Marxists switched the fight away from actual pollutants like SOx and NOx to the harmless, innocuous gas we all exhale and plants require to live and most importantly makes Coke bubble. Nothing much anyone can do about that one, but why even try? Why not develop ways to safely use the most abundant energy source we have? But, there’s plenty of oil too and tons of natural gas. Fracking has just begun to tap the oil reserves formerly locked up in oil sands and we have not even touched the Artic. There is no evidence of AGW that is not tainted by suspicion and even if there was, there is no conclusive study that proves that AGW would actually be bad. Sorry Bach, you’ve been ejected from the game.

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    1. tiny dick:

      billions (trillions if you count the trips to Mars) have been spent by Darwinists trying to prove that life arose naturalistically

      Hahaha. I would be surprised if more than 10 million per year is spent on OOL research. Probably less than what priests spend on kiddy porn and prostitutes per year.

      everything known indicates that the probability of such is beyond human comprehension

      If by that you mean we currently can't accurately estimate the probability that life arises naturally on an earth-like planet - then yes, that's true. But I suspect that's not what you mean.

      science has marched onward leaving the Darwinism on the garbage pile of history. If you don’t know this, you are ignorant of the latest science.

      Scientists themselves are the least ignorant of the latest science and they tend to disagree with your claim. But how would you know? You probably copied and pasted it like a good little Christian soldier from a creationist website.

      Delete
    2. Commissar Boggs, Ministry of TruthApril 1, 2014 at 2:36 PM

      "[W]e currently can't accurately estimate the probability that life arises naturally on an earth-like planet" because we have no no scientific theory capable of being tested that can account for it.

      Of course, what we have plenty of is Just-So stories. My personal favorite is "Aliens did it".

      Delete
    3. Sturmbahnfuehrer Boggs,

      let's agree to agree no more than once a tread, ok? I'm starting to feel old.

      Delete
  12. The fact that the Curia is now making its peace with Fascism shows that the Vatican trusts the new political realities far more than did the former liberal democracy with which it could not come to terms. ...The fact that the Catholic Church has come to an agreement with Fascist Italy ...proves beyond doubt that the Fascist world of ideas is closer to Christianity than those of Jewish liberalism or even atheistic Marxism...

    - Adolf Hitler in an article in the Völkischer Beobachter, February 29, 1929, on the new Lateran Treaty between Mussolini's fascist government and the Vatican

    -KW

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    1. Commissar Boggs, Ministry of TruthApril 1, 2014 at 2:39 PM

      Leave it to you to cite Hitler as a political authority, Popeye.

      Delete
    2. Commissar Boggs, Ministry of TruthApril 1, 2014 at 3:36 PM

      Pop-Tard, I have no doubt you have many Hitler quotes at your fingertips.

      Delete
    3. Just as I'm sure you haven't a clue what he said.

      -KW

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    4. You can quote Hitler as much as you want; it doesn't make whatever he says true. I guess that when you're an atheist desperate to blame Christianity for all the world's problems, even dictators' comments will suffice.

      Delete
  13. my government lumps my religion in with the kkk and al-qaeda, denies my first amendment rights, and you think my claims of prosecution rings hollow?

    naidoo

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  14. Boy Toy Troy: “Probably less than what priests spend on kiddy porn and prostitutes per year.”

    Now now, Boy Toy Troy, keep your fantasies to yourself. Not interested in your predilections with pedophilia nor your thinking of my dick. It may be tiny but it does not swing your way, got it?

    Boy Toy: “everything known indicates that the probability of such is beyond human comprehension

If by that you mean we currently can't accurately estimate the probability that life arises naturally on an earth-like planet - then yes, that's true. But I suspect that's not what you mean.”

    I meant exactly what I said, Boy Toy. You have it backwards (not surprising considering your tendencies) I even quoted Francis Crick. He accurately estimated that the probability that life arose by chance was greater than all the individual atoms in the universe (actually its worse – he actually said that the chance that a simple polypeptide chain arose by chance was greater than all the atoms in the universe but didn’t want to confuse your little brain especially when it was preoccupied with little dicks). Greater than all the atoms would be about 10 to the 80 but others have estimated that the number is 10 to the thousands. We can estimate fine but those numbers are beyond comprehension unless you can comprehend the magnitude of 10 with 80 zeros after it much less a 10 with a thousand zeros after it. The math is easy – its how many variables that go into the calculation that presents the problem, but in any case, they are beyond comprehension and to succeed would need several iterations per second to have a chance in 4 billion years. So not good for your side, boy toy?


    Boy Toy Troy: “Scientists themselves are the least ignorant of the latest science and they tend to disagree with your claim.”

    Actually, no they don’t, Boy Toy. Do you not read? How about the cover of the New Scientist a few years ago? It was “DARWIN WAS WRONG.” Remember that one? Practically every aspect of Neo-Darwinism is in dispute and crumbling faster than Humpty Dumpty. It might be called Darwinism in a few years but you won't recognize it. From the Tree of Life to core of Darwinism – the ability of random mutations to create novel new organs. Science is putting it out to pasture. It is grazing next to alchemy. The only proponents are the vocal atheists for whom it is their creation myth and who have no alternative, but Darwinism is dead and Darwinists are the Walking Dead. Get used to it.

    Boy Toy Troy: “But how would you know? You probably copied and pasted it like a good little Christian soldier from a creationist website.”

    Whatever helps you sleep at night, Boy Toy. What you gonna to do when you have no creation myth? From the Big Bang to bacteria -- everything in science is confirming my belief and denying yours. That’s got to feel pretty bad when you let your little mind actually think, doesn’t it?




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    1. Big Richard,

      The 'Darwin was wrong' cover on New Scientist was referring to horizontal gene transfer in bacteria, which Darwin didn't know about (obviously, because he was ignorant of genetics and bacteria).

      HGT makes the Tree of Life matted rather than branching in areas.

      Whenever people offer odds against something happening, then they usually have forgotten to account for something in their calculations - including the known knows, unknown knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns (actually, that covers all the possibilities).

      We don't know how life arose on Earth. We do know that it arose 3.8 billion years ago (within 200 million years of the Earth being cool enough for it to happen) based on the carbon isotope ratios in rocks reflecting a 'Life' caused pattern of deposition.

      As an analogy, you're extremely unlikely to exist - your parents had to meet at precisely the right time (and your grandparents too, and all your ancestors too). But you do exist.

      Anyway - the optimism about fracking is misplaced. The evidence is that the recovery rates from individual wells drops off much faster than claimed by proponents - and they pick the best sites to drill first.

      Coal has problems besides SO2 and nitrogen oxides - because it's a 'sponge' it absorbs heavy metals such as uranium, lead and mercury. Coal is burnt in such large amounts that a coal powered generator releases more radiation into the atmosphere than a similarly sized nuclear reactor.

      Delete
  15. http://www.amazon.com/Biological-Information-Perspectives-Synopsis-Commentary-ebook/dp/B00IKTVD2C/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1395349056&sr=1-1&keywords=biological+information

    Hey Troy, above is a link to the book, “Biological Information - New Perspectives A Synopsis and Limited Commentary.” Here’s Amazon’s summary of the book:

    “This booklet is a synopsis and limited commentary on the 563 page proceedings of the symposium Biological Information - New Perspectives. The author of this synopsis was the organizer of that symposium and was one of the editors of the proceedings. At this symposium a diverse group of scientists gathered to critically re-examine neo-Darwinian theory, in light of major new evidences that relate to the nature of biological information. This symposium brought together experts in information theory, computer science, numerical simulation, thermodynamics, evolutionary theory, whole organism biology, developmental biology, molecular biology, genetics, physics, biophysics, mathematics, and linguistics.

    This synopsis summarizes a milestone book. For over 100 years, it has been very widely believed that the mutation/selection process is sufficient to explain virtually everything within the biological realm. The 29 contributors to this volume bring into serious question this neo-Darwinian paradigm. They use their wide-ranging expertise to carefully examine a series of very fundamental theoretical problems that are emerging. These problems all relate to the exploding field of biological information. Biological information is becoming the primary focus of 21st century biological research. Within each cell there are information systems surpassing the best human information technologies. These systems create what is essentially a biological Internet within each cell. The authors, although holding diverse philosophical perspectives, unanimously agree that the mutation/selection process is not adequate to explain the labyrinth of informational networks that are essential for life. “

    Since you won’t read it anyway, here are author Dr John Sanford’s concluding remarks:

    “Many scientists who are committed to the standard neo-Darwinian model of life may find these proceedings disturbing – which is unfortunate. I do not think any of the contributing authors to the proceedings had any intention to offend anyone. It is just that it is increasingly clear that the long-reigning neo-Darwinian paradigm is collapsing – and despite many efforts to deny what is obvious – clearly “the emperor has no clothes.” The extremely sophisticated hardware and software systems that enable life simply cannot be built by any trial and error system. In particular – it is very clear that software can never be developed one binary bit at a time. Apart from a fully functional pre-existing hardware/software system, a single bit has absolutely no meaning. I feel that if we are to preserve our scientific integrity, we must acknowledge that we have a major explanatory problem, and we need to go back to the drawing board in terms of understanding the origin of biological information.”

    Catch that Troy?

    "It is just that it is increasingly clear that the long-reigning neo-Darwinian paradigm is collapsing…"

    Should read "has collapsed," but I can live with "collapsing." What about you, Troy?

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  16. http://www.amazon.com/The-Altenberg-16-Evolution-Industry/dp/1556439245

    Ever hear of the Altenberg 16, Troy Boy? I know your comfortable with your head stuck up your ass or someone else's but here we have what was supposed to be a secret meeting to reformulate evolutionary theory by 16 of the most prominent evolutionary scientists in the world. Why did they feel the need to do that, Troy Boy? Maybe, just maybe it was because they understood that the old Darwinist paradigm was completely inadequate in light of modern science.

    "The book grew out of a story Mazur broke online in March 2008—titled "Altenberg! The Woodstock of Evolution?"—about the now famous meeting at Konrad Lorenz Institute in Altenberg, Austria in July 2008, where 16 scientists discussed expanding evolutionary thinking beyond outdated hypotheses. (MIT will publish the proceedings in April 2010.) Science magazine noted that Mazur’s reporting "reverberated throughout the evolutionary biology community."

    So there you go, Troy Boy. You've got a little reading to do if you can put down the gay porn long enough.

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    Replies
    1. Big Rich,

      I've noticed that creationists (and conservatives too) love to appeal to authority - either choosing someone who agrees with their previously established beliefs ( no matter how extreme their position is) or choosing someone who disagrees, and then attacking that person for other opinions hold.

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    2. Big Rich, did you bother to do a little research on Dr John Sanford? He's a Courtesy Associate Professor of Horticulture and Christian young earth creationist, who says “we are created by a special creation, by God”. In other words, he's crazy.

      -KW

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    3. Oh I see KW. All scientists believe in Neo-Darwinism and the scientists who don't, we just label them crazy creationists, and then we can go on saying with a straight face that all scientists are Darwinists. Got it! Thanks for clearing that up. Why didn't little Troy Boy just explain how you think. I guess he was trying to conceal the, "heads I win, tales you lose," tactics. BTW KW, there were a few more scientist at the symposium besides Sanford. He just wrote the summary of their discussions and his writing certainly doesn't sound like a lunatic but I'm sure you've already given yourself an excuse not to consider any point of contention. Would want to confuse yourself, right?

      Not appealing to authority, Bach. Just telling you blissfully ignorant Darweenies what's been going down. So how do you explain the Altenberg 16, Bach?

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    4. Big Rich,

      They're '16'. You can always find a very small minority of scientists who will be contrarian for non-science reasons.

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    5. Big Rich, I'm happy to be of service. You'll find the same reasoning applies to flat-earthers, astrologers, Homeopaths, and anyone else that makes claims counter to all evidence. Their positions have been so well debunked that without the presentation of substantial new evidence they can simply be dismissed.

      -KW

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  17. Right KW. Random mutations building novel, super-complex, apparently designed organs and structures is completely documented and proven by science and anyone who questions it is a flat-earther. Got it! If you could only hear poor little self. You are a true believing, never questioning, cultist -- more religious than the most religious creationist ever was.

    Bach, have you read the book? There's plenty more than these 16. In fact, I would bet most scientists realize that the neo-Darwinian mechanism (random mutations building complex machines) is complete bull shite but keep quiet out of fear of the DarwiNazis like KW and Troy who would happily destroy their careers for the blasphemy of questioning St Charlie, but even if it was only those 16, they happened to be some of the most prominent Darweenies in the world and they realized that they needed a new theory because the old one is laughable. Their sabotage would have never come out had science journalist Susan Mazur not gotten wind of it and decided it warranted a book. Guess all the rank and file Darwinists are too busy kissing Richard Dawkins ring or something else to actually keep up with what is happening in their religion. Anyway, its a big deal.

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    1. Big Rich,

      I've looked I into a little more. Apparently, Susan Mazur just got the meeting wrong. You're relying on the reporting of a self claimed journalist.

      Anyway. Most evolutionary biologists would agree with you that random mutations don't build complex machines because random mutations isn't the only mechanism involved.

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  18. You guys always like to equivocate on some random irrelevant point as if that mattered to the truth of the issue. Did 16 prominent scientist meet to reformulate evolutionary theory or not? Did you even read the book or had you even heard of it before I mentioned it? If you didn't, you're ignorant. Not attacking your personally but this is what I always find with Darwinists who are the first to call everyone who doesn't agree, "crazy," or "uneducated," or "unread," but it always turns out that it is them who are blissfully smug in their ignorance.

    Oh and please, by all means, expound on what other Darwinian mechanism there is besides natural selection acting on random mutations but first let me get my popcorn. This is gonna be good.

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    Replies
    1. Now that you’ve added natural selection to random mutation your more than halfway home. Symbiogenesis, the merging of two or more separate organisms, and horizontal gene transfer, the incorporation and expression of genes from a different organism, have also played important roles in evolutionary history. I’m not sure if these are strictly “Darwinian”, but they are important.

      -KW

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    2. Dicky,

      Thanks for your elaborate rants in reply to my reply. You confirmed my suspicion that your 'understanding' of current evolutionary biology has entered your brain almost exclusively via creationist websites (UD most likely, where that most untalented of writers Denise O'Leary wastes no opportunity to promote that Kiwi 'journalist'. Are you Denyse?). I'm not going to waste my time trying to educate the likes of you. I'm here to get entertained - I teach enough in daily life.

      cheers

      Delete
  19. Big Rich,

    No - 16 prominent scientists didn't meet to reformulate neo-Darwinism. I had heard of Susan Mazur's book before (several years ago - also recommended by a creationist, and a young earth creationist at that, so I didn't feel the urge to read it).

    Random mutation isn't the only mechanism of producing variation in populations. There's also gene duplication and chromosomal translocations which affect the amount but not kind of gene product. And once you've got variation you need mechanisms to change their frequency; besides natural selection, there's also sexual selection and neutral drift.

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  20. It's one thing to call yourself Christian and another to live as a Christian.

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