Post by LibertyFever on Jun 26, 2007 6:13:56 GMT -5
From: "Erik D. Freeman" <efreem2@alumni.umbc.edu>
Subject: Turtles?
Date: Friday, January 19, 2007 4:12 PM
George Carlin's new rules for 2007
New Rule: Stop giving me that pop-up ad for classmates.com! There's a
reason you don't talk to people for 25 years. Because you don't
particularly like them! Besides, I already know what the captain of the
football team is doing these days--mowing my lawn.
New Rule: Don't eat anything that's served to you out a window unless
you're a seagull. People are acting all shocked that a human finger was
found in a bowl of Wendy's chili. Hey, it cost less than a dollar. What
did you expect it to contain? Trout?
New Rule: Stop saying that teenage boys who have sex with their hot,
blonde teachers are permanently damaged. I have a better description for
these kids: lucky bastards.
New Rule: If you need to shave and you still collect baseball cards,
you're a dope. If you're a kid, the cards are keepsakes of your idols.
If you're a grown man, they're pictures of men.
New Rule: Ladies, leave your eyebrows alone. Here's how much men care
about your eyebrows: do you have two of them? Okay, we're done.
New Rule: There's no such thing as flavored water. There's a whole aisle
of this crap at the supermarket, water, but without that watery taste.
Sorry, but flavored water is called a soft drink. You want flavored
water? Pour some Jack Daniels over ice and let it melt. That's your
flavored water.
New Rule: Stop screwing with old people. Target is introducing a
redesigned pill bottle that's square, with a bigger label. And the top
is now the bottom. And by the time grandpa figures out how to open it,
his ass will be in the morgue. Congratulations, Target, you just solved
the Social Security crisis.
New Rule: The more complicated the Starbucks order, the bigger the
asshole. If you walk into a Starbucks and order a "decaf grande
half-soy, half-low fat, iced vanilla, double-shot, gingerbread
cappuccino, extra dry, light ice, with one sweet-n'-Low, and one
NutraSweet," ooh, you're a huge asshole.
New Rule: I'm not the cashier! By the time I look up from sliding my
card, entering my PIN number, pressing "Enter," verifying the amount,
deciding, no, I don't want cash back, and pressing "Enter" again, the
kid who is supposed to be ringing me up is standing there eating my
Almond Joy.
New Rule: Just because your tattoo has Chinese characters in it doesn't
make you spiritual. It's right above the crack of your ass. And it
translates to "beef with broccoli." The last time you did anything
spiritual, you were praying to God you weren't pregnant. You're not
spiritual. You're just high.
New Rule: Competitive eating isn't a sport. It's one of the seven deadly
sins. ESPN recently televised the U.S. Open of Competitive Eating,
because watching those athletes at the poker table was just too damned
exciting. What's next, competitive farting? Oh wait. They're already
doing that. It's called "The Howard Stern Show."
New Rule: I don't need a bigger mega M&Ms. If I'm extra hungry for M&Ms,
I'll go nuts and eat two.
New Rule: If you're going to insist on making movies based on crappy,
old television shows, then you have to give everyone in the Cineplex a
remote so we can see what's playing on the other screens. Let's remember
the reason something was a television show in the first place is that
the idea wasn't good enough to be a movie.
New Rule: No more gift registries. You know, it used to be just for
weddings. Now it's for babies and new homes and graduations from rehab.
Picking out the stuff you want and having other people buy it for you
isn't gift giving, it's the white people version of looting.
New Rule: and this one is long overdue: No more bathroom attendants.
After I zip up, some guy is offering me a towel and a mint like I just
had sex with George Michael. I can't even tell if he's supposed to be
there, or just some freak with a fetish. I don't want to be on your web
cam, dude. I just want to wash my hands.
New Rule: When I ask how old your toddler is, I don't need to know in
months. "27 Months." "He's two," will do just fine. He's not a cheese.
And I didn't really care in the first place.
New Rule: If you ever hope to be a credible adult and want a job that
pays better than minimum wage, then for God's sake don't pierce or
tattoo every available piece of flesh. If so, then plan your future
around saying" Do you want fries with that?"
NEW RULE: Get a belt and a pair of pants that fit, I'm tired of seeing
the crack of you ass every time you bend over.
*.*
Frederick Charles Wood, about to take a seat in Sing Sing's electric chair
in 1963 for a double murder, said, "Gents, this is an educational project.
You are about to witness the damaging effect electricity has on Wood."
*.*
When I was a kid, we were so poor that when
my little brother broke his arm
we had to take him out to the airport for ex-rays.
The Torah says, "Love thy neighbor as thyself."
The Buddha says there is no "self."
So, maybe you're off the hook.
Businessman to partner:
"Since we began our corporate stress-reduction seminars,
production's gone down and no one seems to care."
My doctor told me there are over seven million people
who are overweight.
These are not exact numbers, of course, only round figures.
*.*
Oneliners
Doubt is often the beginning of wisdom
A bore is a guy who talks about himself when you want to talk about
yourself.
Things turn out best for people who make the best of the way things
turn out.
A censor is a man who knows more than he thinks you ought to.
To succeed in politics, it is often necessary to rise above your
principles.
A filibuster is a long speech about nothing by an authority on the
subject.
Time heals all wounds, but the belly button remains.
Baseball: Twelve minutes of excitement crammed into two and a half
hours.
After raising three teenagers, I say, "Youth is stranger than fiction."
The believer is happy - the doubter is wise.
I'm not a complete idiot. Some pieces are missing
*.*
The U.S. Treasury has released 800 million newly designed $10 bills. The
bills have a different color scheme, featuring more red.
The Treasury wanted the bills to more closely match the national budget.
Issue of the Times;
Turtles All the Way Down by Stefan Molyneux
According to an apocryphal story, a well-known scientist was describing to
an audience how the Earth orbits the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits
the centre of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of
his lecture, a little old lady got up and said: "This is all nonsense.
Everybody knows that the world is really a flat plate supported on the
back
of a giant turtle."
The scientist smiled and said, "I see. Can you tell, me, then, what is the
turtle standing on?"
"You're very clever, young man," replied the old lady with a prim smile.
"But it's turtles all the way down!"
This story neatly captures the logical foolishness of the "Infinite
Regression." It is a tale pregnant with meaning for Libertarians, for we
face some version of it almost every time we open our mouths.
The appeal to political authority in all its forms is really an attempt to
bypass the black hole of Infinite Regression.
Here's a pro-state argument we are all intimately familiar with:
1.. Bad people like to use force to prey on good people.
2.. Good people require a government to protect them from bad people.
3.. This government, in order to be the final arbiter, must possess
overwhelming force.
The logical madness is clear. Since bad people like using force to prey on
good people, and the government is the greatest concentration of force in
society, it stands to inevitable reason that bad people will use the
government to prey on good people.
This is the central problem of Infinite Regression: who will watch the
watchers? There is, of course, no rational or political answer. (There is
an
anarchistic answer, which I discuss in my podcasts at
http://www.freedomainradio.com.)
Unjust parental authority faces the same problem.
I say to my son: "I am right because I am your father."
He naturally asks: "Are you 'right' because you are my father - i.e. all
fathers are right - or are you right because fathers possess some wisdom
or
knowledge that sons do not?"
"I am right because I am your father," I repeat.
"And who taught you this?"
"My father."
"And he was taught this by his father?" he asks.
"Yes."
"So who was the first father to say this? And did he not disobey his own
father by teaching something new? And does that not make all subsequent
teachings of this rule invalid?"
Here I am generally stumped, and call him a communist. Another argument is
swallowed up by the black hole of Infinite Regression.
Here's another. People like to argue that the government should control
the
use of guns. Why? Because there are bad people who would use those guns to
hurt us. What logical rule is this reasoning based on? Well, we need a
gang
with more guns (the government) to protect us from gangs with fewer guns
(criminals). So naturally, when the government, having gotten rid of its
competition, steals our money through taxes, we logically need a World
Government to disarm the existing governments. Then we will doubtless need
an Interstellar Federation to, well you get the idea.
Rejecting "arguments" based on the Infinite Regression fallacy can unleash
prodigious creativity. What has been sometimes called the single greatest
idea in the history of the world arose from Darwin's failure to be
impressed
by the Infinite Regression paradoxes of creationism. Free markets - and
economics in general - arose from the failure of Ricardo and Smith to be
impressed by the Infinite Regression argument that the nobility should
manage resources on behalf of everyone else.
In the realm of morality, the problems of Infinite Regression are,
literally, genocidal. The fantasy that a minority of men can justly force
obedience from everyone else is responsible for more deaths than any other
single delusion. In the realm of morality and the use of force, there is
simply no solution to the problems of Infinite Regression. A stateless
society is the only answer.
Rational thinkers must reject arguments that pass anywhere near the black
hole of Infinite Regression. Appeals to the "virtuous violence" of the
state
instantly self-destruct, because of Infinite Regression. Demands for
"obedience to gods" instantly self-destruct, since such obedience would
require an infinite chain of more powerful gods, all obeying the "god
above," which would instantly result in a truly bureaucratic cosmic
paralysis. Even merely mortal parents who attempt to justify their
commandments through appeals to power, biology or position succumb to the
error of Infinite Regression.
The three traditional power centers - politicians, priests and most
parents - justify their authority based on Infinite Regression fantasies.
If
mankind continues to believe in any moral authority except logical
consistency and evidence, we will continue to sail blithely over the edge
of
the old lady's imaginary plate, falling forever.
As the turtles descend, so do we.
Copyright 2007 LewRockwell.com
Quote of the Times;
"Conscription is slavery. Anyone who would defend it is a tyrant. Any
country
that uses it deserves to die."
Link of the Times;
video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6760530260633420235&q=firearms+train
ing&hl=en
Subscribe or Submit to the Internet's elite source;
Send E-mail to efreem2@alumni.umbc.edu
to complement The Field!
or
If you like what you see,
Witness the Archives;
www.alumni.umbc.edu/~efreem2
Subject: Turtles?
Date: Friday, January 19, 2007 4:12 PM
George Carlin's new rules for 2007
New Rule: Stop giving me that pop-up ad for classmates.com! There's a
reason you don't talk to people for 25 years. Because you don't
particularly like them! Besides, I already know what the captain of the
football team is doing these days--mowing my lawn.
New Rule: Don't eat anything that's served to you out a window unless
you're a seagull. People are acting all shocked that a human finger was
found in a bowl of Wendy's chili. Hey, it cost less than a dollar. What
did you expect it to contain? Trout?
New Rule: Stop saying that teenage boys who have sex with their hot,
blonde teachers are permanently damaged. I have a better description for
these kids: lucky bastards.
New Rule: If you need to shave and you still collect baseball cards,
you're a dope. If you're a kid, the cards are keepsakes of your idols.
If you're a grown man, they're pictures of men.
New Rule: Ladies, leave your eyebrows alone. Here's how much men care
about your eyebrows: do you have two of them? Okay, we're done.
New Rule: There's no such thing as flavored water. There's a whole aisle
of this crap at the supermarket, water, but without that watery taste.
Sorry, but flavored water is called a soft drink. You want flavored
water? Pour some Jack Daniels over ice and let it melt. That's your
flavored water.
New Rule: Stop screwing with old people. Target is introducing a
redesigned pill bottle that's square, with a bigger label. And the top
is now the bottom. And by the time grandpa figures out how to open it,
his ass will be in the morgue. Congratulations, Target, you just solved
the Social Security crisis.
New Rule: The more complicated the Starbucks order, the bigger the
asshole. If you walk into a Starbucks and order a "decaf grande
half-soy, half-low fat, iced vanilla, double-shot, gingerbread
cappuccino, extra dry, light ice, with one sweet-n'-Low, and one
NutraSweet," ooh, you're a huge asshole.
New Rule: I'm not the cashier! By the time I look up from sliding my
card, entering my PIN number, pressing "Enter," verifying the amount,
deciding, no, I don't want cash back, and pressing "Enter" again, the
kid who is supposed to be ringing me up is standing there eating my
Almond Joy.
New Rule: Just because your tattoo has Chinese characters in it doesn't
make you spiritual. It's right above the crack of your ass. And it
translates to "beef with broccoli." The last time you did anything
spiritual, you were praying to God you weren't pregnant. You're not
spiritual. You're just high.
New Rule: Competitive eating isn't a sport. It's one of the seven deadly
sins. ESPN recently televised the U.S. Open of Competitive Eating,
because watching those athletes at the poker table was just too damned
exciting. What's next, competitive farting? Oh wait. They're already
doing that. It's called "The Howard Stern Show."
New Rule: I don't need a bigger mega M&Ms. If I'm extra hungry for M&Ms,
I'll go nuts and eat two.
New Rule: If you're going to insist on making movies based on crappy,
old television shows, then you have to give everyone in the Cineplex a
remote so we can see what's playing on the other screens. Let's remember
the reason something was a television show in the first place is that
the idea wasn't good enough to be a movie.
New Rule: No more gift registries. You know, it used to be just for
weddings. Now it's for babies and new homes and graduations from rehab.
Picking out the stuff you want and having other people buy it for you
isn't gift giving, it's the white people version of looting.
New Rule: and this one is long overdue: No more bathroom attendants.
After I zip up, some guy is offering me a towel and a mint like I just
had sex with George Michael. I can't even tell if he's supposed to be
there, or just some freak with a fetish. I don't want to be on your web
cam, dude. I just want to wash my hands.
New Rule: When I ask how old your toddler is, I don't need to know in
months. "27 Months." "He's two," will do just fine. He's not a cheese.
And I didn't really care in the first place.
New Rule: If you ever hope to be a credible adult and want a job that
pays better than minimum wage, then for God's sake don't pierce or
tattoo every available piece of flesh. If so, then plan your future
around saying" Do you want fries with that?"
NEW RULE: Get a belt and a pair of pants that fit, I'm tired of seeing
the crack of you ass every time you bend over.
*.*
Frederick Charles Wood, about to take a seat in Sing Sing's electric chair
in 1963 for a double murder, said, "Gents, this is an educational project.
You are about to witness the damaging effect electricity has on Wood."
*.*
When I was a kid, we were so poor that when
my little brother broke his arm
we had to take him out to the airport for ex-rays.
The Torah says, "Love thy neighbor as thyself."
The Buddha says there is no "self."
So, maybe you're off the hook.
Businessman to partner:
"Since we began our corporate stress-reduction seminars,
production's gone down and no one seems to care."
My doctor told me there are over seven million people
who are overweight.
These are not exact numbers, of course, only round figures.
*.*
Oneliners
Doubt is often the beginning of wisdom
A bore is a guy who talks about himself when you want to talk about
yourself.
Things turn out best for people who make the best of the way things
turn out.
A censor is a man who knows more than he thinks you ought to.
To succeed in politics, it is often necessary to rise above your
principles.
A filibuster is a long speech about nothing by an authority on the
subject.
Time heals all wounds, but the belly button remains.
Baseball: Twelve minutes of excitement crammed into two and a half
hours.
After raising three teenagers, I say, "Youth is stranger than fiction."
The believer is happy - the doubter is wise.
I'm not a complete idiot. Some pieces are missing
*.*
The U.S. Treasury has released 800 million newly designed $10 bills. The
bills have a different color scheme, featuring more red.
The Treasury wanted the bills to more closely match the national budget.
Issue of the Times;
Turtles All the Way Down by Stefan Molyneux
According to an apocryphal story, a well-known scientist was describing to
an audience how the Earth orbits the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits
the centre of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of
his lecture, a little old lady got up and said: "This is all nonsense.
Everybody knows that the world is really a flat plate supported on the
back
of a giant turtle."
The scientist smiled and said, "I see. Can you tell, me, then, what is the
turtle standing on?"
"You're very clever, young man," replied the old lady with a prim smile.
"But it's turtles all the way down!"
This story neatly captures the logical foolishness of the "Infinite
Regression." It is a tale pregnant with meaning for Libertarians, for we
face some version of it almost every time we open our mouths.
The appeal to political authority in all its forms is really an attempt to
bypass the black hole of Infinite Regression.
Here's a pro-state argument we are all intimately familiar with:
1.. Bad people like to use force to prey on good people.
2.. Good people require a government to protect them from bad people.
3.. This government, in order to be the final arbiter, must possess
overwhelming force.
The logical madness is clear. Since bad people like using force to prey on
good people, and the government is the greatest concentration of force in
society, it stands to inevitable reason that bad people will use the
government to prey on good people.
This is the central problem of Infinite Regression: who will watch the
watchers? There is, of course, no rational or political answer. (There is
an
anarchistic answer, which I discuss in my podcasts at
http://www.freedomainradio.com.)
Unjust parental authority faces the same problem.
I say to my son: "I am right because I am your father."
He naturally asks: "Are you 'right' because you are my father - i.e. all
fathers are right - or are you right because fathers possess some wisdom
or
knowledge that sons do not?"
"I am right because I am your father," I repeat.
"And who taught you this?"
"My father."
"And he was taught this by his father?" he asks.
"Yes."
"So who was the first father to say this? And did he not disobey his own
father by teaching something new? And does that not make all subsequent
teachings of this rule invalid?"
Here I am generally stumped, and call him a communist. Another argument is
swallowed up by the black hole of Infinite Regression.
Here's another. People like to argue that the government should control
the
use of guns. Why? Because there are bad people who would use those guns to
hurt us. What logical rule is this reasoning based on? Well, we need a
gang
with more guns (the government) to protect us from gangs with fewer guns
(criminals). So naturally, when the government, having gotten rid of its
competition, steals our money through taxes, we logically need a World
Government to disarm the existing governments. Then we will doubtless need
an Interstellar Federation to, well you get the idea.
Rejecting "arguments" based on the Infinite Regression fallacy can unleash
prodigious creativity. What has been sometimes called the single greatest
idea in the history of the world arose from Darwin's failure to be
impressed
by the Infinite Regression paradoxes of creationism. Free markets - and
economics in general - arose from the failure of Ricardo and Smith to be
impressed by the Infinite Regression argument that the nobility should
manage resources on behalf of everyone else.
In the realm of morality, the problems of Infinite Regression are,
literally, genocidal. The fantasy that a minority of men can justly force
obedience from everyone else is responsible for more deaths than any other
single delusion. In the realm of morality and the use of force, there is
simply no solution to the problems of Infinite Regression. A stateless
society is the only answer.
Rational thinkers must reject arguments that pass anywhere near the black
hole of Infinite Regression. Appeals to the "virtuous violence" of the
state
instantly self-destruct, because of Infinite Regression. Demands for
"obedience to gods" instantly self-destruct, since such obedience would
require an infinite chain of more powerful gods, all obeying the "god
above," which would instantly result in a truly bureaucratic cosmic
paralysis. Even merely mortal parents who attempt to justify their
commandments through appeals to power, biology or position succumb to the
error of Infinite Regression.
The three traditional power centers - politicians, priests and most
parents - justify their authority based on Infinite Regression fantasies.
If
mankind continues to believe in any moral authority except logical
consistency and evidence, we will continue to sail blithely over the edge
of
the old lady's imaginary plate, falling forever.
As the turtles descend, so do we.
Copyright 2007 LewRockwell.com
Quote of the Times;
"Conscription is slavery. Anyone who would defend it is a tyrant. Any
country
that uses it deserves to die."
Link of the Times;
video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6760530260633420235&q=firearms+train
ing&hl=en
Subscribe or Submit to the Internet's elite source;
Send E-mail to efreem2@alumni.umbc.edu
to complement The Field!
or
If you like what you see,
Witness the Archives;
www.alumni.umbc.edu/~efreem2