Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Friday, January 6, 2012
Catholics vs. Libertarians
Why are we fighting against each other ?
Maybe I should read some St. Augustus. I like this story told by Horn via Raico and Chomsky.
In the "The City of God" St. Augustine tells the story of a pirate captured
by Alexander the Great. The Emperor angrily demanded of him, "How dare
you molest the seas?" To which the pirate replied, "How dare you molest
the whole world? Because I do it with a small boat, I am called a pirate
and a thief. You, with a great navy, molest the world and are called an
emperor." St. Augustine thought the pirate's answer was "elegant and
excellent."
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Friday, December 16, 2011
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Glory Road by Robert A. Heinlein
Glory Road @ Amazon.com
I was twenty-one but couldn’t figure out which party to vote against.
I object to conscription the way a lobster objects to boiling water.
One of my neighbors had a terrible asthma that lasted till his twenty-sixth birthday. No fake--he was allergic to draft boards.
I wanted the world to be what they had promised me it was going to be--instead of the tawdry, lousy, fouled-up mess it is.
“Ever play water polo, Rufo?”
“I invented it.”
A hundred feet below the reception committee had gathered.
It looked like an asparagus patch. Of bayonets.
“Darling, there is black-widow blood in every woman.”
“Rufo, were you really at Omaha Beach?”
“Hell, yes, Boss. I did all of Eisenhower’s thinking.”
For the one thing that stood out as this empirical way of running an empire grew up was that the answer to most problems was: Don’t do anything.
“It is the incidence of heroes that counts, not the pattern of zeros.”
“You know I would never draw against you.”
“I know no such thing,” he said querulously. “There’s always that first time. Scoundrels are predictable, but you’re a man of honor and that frightens me.”
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