War on Overworked Metaphors

Just a quick, additional example of how we should draw political conclusions from what everybody knows, this time with some criticism for the neocons. What with the Christmas Day bomber guy and all, we are seeing another round of debate between the neocons, who say we need to treat this thing like a war, and …

Timber Wolf Poo and Rabbit Poo

This post was originally titled “The Way of the Cross and Constantine,” but this is more interesting, don’t you think? Jesus died outside Jerusalem two thousand years ago. That death was not only the hinge upon which all history turns (although it certainly is that), it is also the hinge in the story of every …

A Carnival of Pillage

“And thus all have confessed that no government can be happily established unless piety is the first concern; and that those laws are preposterous which neglect God’s right and provide only for men” (Calvin, Institutes 4.20.9). And, as we see unfolding in Congress right this minute, a group of men who have no fear of …

A Pre-existing Condition

Now that the brigands of the Senate have successfully doubled down in order to get their 60 votes for cloture, they can now amend the bill at their pleasure, and part of their pleasure will be double-crossing the people they bribed to get their cloture vote. Did we say the people of Nebraska would never …

Holy Ghost Industrial Grade Sandpaper

I have been writing on distance learning, and how, while it provides some important things, like information, it is utterly incapable of providing other things, like how to deal with people. In a learning community, in a school or college, your fellow students are people, your teachers are people, the administration is made up of …

The Coming Tax Revolt

Tax revolts are funny things. The powers that be are lulled into complacency, for increased taxation is inevitable, for do we all not know that progress is inevitable, and so the grinding business of governmental coercion as usual must continue on unabated? But this is like the man who was striving to live to be …

Behemoth State U and Leviathan State

The perennial temptation of ersatz conservatives is to tell the progressives that what they are proposing cannot possibly work, and that if implemented it will ruin us all. And then, when the progressives (so called because they are progressing toward the Abyss) succeed in driving their proposals through, conservatives line up for the next election …