Archives for April 2005

Dale Franks does a nice (and suitably humorous) job with this David Gelernter piece in the LA Times.

But at a point, I have to ask: don’t the democrat politicians have a point? I mean, they’re the ones proclaiming over and over again that democrats, their voters, their very base of support are just too stupid when it comes to politics and many aspects of self-responsibility in living. You know what? I believe them. Of course, I know lots of democrats who are perfectly able to conduct their lives in a self-responsible, self-sufficient, upstanding manner. But whenever I engage such people in discussions over politics or basic logic, I nearly always experience breathtaking ignoranc–at so many levels. It’s mostly manifest in an astonishing degree of ignorance about history, civilization, enlightenment, industry, capitalism, and so on. In other words, these are people who act as though they were just dropped off on Theme-Park Earth, but have no idea in the Universe how any of this came to be, or how any of it works.

And if that isn’t enough, then how about the fact that you don’t see any rank-&-file democrats objecting to the way they are being portrayed and characterized by their own political representation? I’d have to conclude that either they are that stupid, or, at least too stupid to notice what’s going on. Perhaps they’re too stupid to harbor any real dignity?

Lest anyone think I’m singling out the democrats, here, I point out plenty how stupid republicans are.

Word is, a bunch of us are now referred to as "paleolibertarians." See here for background. Well, whatever. There is one of two possibilities for the Neo-Libertarians:

1. Utter and complete failure.
2. Success, but with no discernible essential difference from the status quo.

The current political system cannot be reformed. It never has been and it never will be. Political systems collapse (of their own weight or revolution) and are replaced with completely different ones. They don’t grow to become more honest. They don’t evolve into beacons of fiscal responsibility. They don’t progress towards a higher quality and plane of liberty and justice for all. They never tend to engage less and less coercion over time.

Practical politics is The Beast with an ability to feed and gorge itself, and that’s what it does. The Beast is more than happy to engage the world of would-be political reformers. Such naive sycophants are lured into believing they can weaken The Beast, but in reality, their zealotry in compromise only energizes The Beast and is turned against them. It will turn them into agents of The Beat too, just like it does to everyone who gets too close.

If the Neo-Libertarians want to be useful, then they ought to be showing people how to Abandon the Beast.

Well, I finally got off my ass and set up a custom domain. This blog can now be reached via:

www.uncsense.com

In another day, I should have simply http://www.uncsense.com/ working as well. Been a while since I messed with DNS, and what I thought would do the trick…didn’t.

The old URL (uncommonsense.typepad.com) still works as well, so all linkage to posts here will continue to function just fine.

I’d say that’s pretty much the take of Ed Rasimus concerning The Pledge of Allegiance. Ed’s a former Air Force fighter pilot during Vietnam and author of When Thunder Rolled, a combat memoir. I digress, but I’m gonna have to get hold of that book:

Riveting stories of aerial combat over Vietnam and candid commentary on
the doomed Rolling Thunder campaign Ed Rasimus straps the reader into
the cockpit of an F-105 Thunderchief fighter-bomber, hurtling through
the MiG-filled skies over North Vietnam, and then fast and low into the
teeth of the enemy’s ferocious air defenses—with less than a 50-50
chance of surviving. The most engaging writing ever published about the
Rolling Thunder campaign and the war in the North, When Thunder Rolled
balances fist-gnawing action with the horror and sorrow of modern
aerial combat.

More than 300 F-105s were lost in the campaign
because the Air Force brought the wrong strategy, disastrous tactics,
and an ill-suited aircraft. A Cold War nuke sled, the Thunderchief was
as much the pilots’ enemy as the North Vietnamese and LBJ’s war
planners. Rasimus spares none of the outrage he experienced 35 years
ago in this astute, surgical strike on Washington’s deadly arrogance
and inflexibility.

The first account by a junior officer serving
at the height of the campaign, the book breaks the unspoken vow of
secrecy surrounding a new pilot’s psychological gauntlet of fear. It’s
a moving testament to those who survived and those who paid the price
of honor.

Anyway, this was my take on the Pledge way back when.

(link: Beck)

We often refer to hang gliding as "free flight" because of the fact that we can fly for hours and go for many miles without any power source other than the heating provided by the sun beating against the ground and the gravity that creates our glide.

But lots of us like the term for other reasons. Hang gliding–unlike just about every other facet of everyone’s life–is unregulated by government. That’s right. The FAA does not get involved in our pilot certification (which is quite rigorous, nonetheless). The FAA does not get involved in the certification of gliders and other equipment (rigorous, and expensive, for manufacturers–and there aren’t even any "uncertified" gliders for sale (see HGMA)). The FAA does not get involved in the locations we fly. Our association, the United States Hang-Gliding Association (USHGA) coordinates with landowners to provide insurance for our flying activities. In short, you, dear citizen, don’t pay a single penny for our activities. I wouldn’t trade such rational and natural anarchy for anything, and most of those I know in the sport wouldn’t either.

Proof?

Well, it pains me to prove it in such a heartbreaking way, but here it is. There was a tragic death; a great young pilot who’s been flying both hang-gliders and para-gliders since he was a boy. Chris Muller, age 29, died the other day.

He was flying in an international-level competition in Florida. Here’s the description of the crash. And here’s the reportage of his death a short time later. He died as a result of his own risk taking and error. No one, anywhere, should be held responsible or should in any way be restrained in their future actions as a result.

Even still, there are always those who speak from different viewpoints, who call for this measure or that, in hopes of curtailing future risk-taking of a sort that might lead to a similar tragedy. But you know what? In the absence of politics, bullshit, and government force (I repeat myself), such viewpoints gain little audience, if any.

This tragedy was no different. There are always those who speak with authority and sense. Read the sanity from those who knew Chris Muller.