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"Just the facts M'am, Just the facts." -- Sgt. Joe Friday

Eamonn Butler on Daniel Hannan

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Rush covered this from Dr. Butler today.  I had the good fortune to have a class with Dr. Butler at Hillsdale, a long time ago in a galaxy far far away.

Published on Adam Smith Institute (http://www.adamsmith.org)

Written by Dr. Eamonn Butler [2] | Monday 20 January 2014

I was struck by a passage in Daniel Hannan’s new book How We Invented Freedom And Why It Matters. As a UK Member of the European Parliament, he is always asking other MEPs why they think new rules are needed, in banking, working hours, herbal remedies and much else. As he says:”The response is always the same: ‘But the old system was unregulated!’ The idea that absence of regulation might be a natural state of affairs is seen as preposterous. continue

gender, class, environment, pacifism, rogue markets

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So many “foundational theories” – like those in the title of this post – lay strewn about like scattered tinker toys.  The Left use them to frame all of their views, whether in Elbert County or the Universities.  They’re not really theories in the scientific sense, because a theory is an idea capable of being disproved.  These “foundational theories” of the Left are outcomes the Left intends to manifest.  They are “foundational” in the sense they create movement toward whole sub-menus of corollary Leftist activities.  Leftists hold these truths to be self-evident, above question, and they will protect them from refutation at any cost.

Read:  Daniel Greenfield’s –  Academics in Wonderland

paring knives

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I’m reading a Richard Dawkins book from the last decade, and now and then he leaves a gold nugget on the trail – a little truth he’s boiled down to an essence.

For example –

  •     An inability to prove the existence of something does not make its existence a 50-50 proposition.  In fact, the inability to prove the existence of something has no bearing on the probability of its existence.
  •     The fact that a question can be phrased in a grammatically correct English sentence doesn’t make it meaningful, or entitle it to our serious attention.

Truths like these – variations on the idea of Occam’s razor I suppose – are like paring knives for whittling away the spoiled meat from the fruit salad of unfounded theories and hack philosophies so prevalent today.

story of Elbortopia

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As if to defy the ruling logic of Elbortopian Leftist Dinosaurs, the sun rose again today.  Mother Gaia continued to spin the earth underneath the sacred alluvium that supports beloved Elbortopia, and brought our little patch of heaven into the light once again.

Elder Dinos predicted we would not see this future day.  They told us that only the sacred statutory zoning scrolls of Elbortopia would satisfy [Read more…]

time for Brown to be excused

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According to the BOCC, the Oil & Gas MOU on the table is the draft from 11-27-13.

Mr. Rick Brown of the Planning Commission expressed dissatisfaction with this MOU in the Prairie Times this week, and said that the BOCC is “rushing to judgment on an inadequately vetted MOU” and that Commissioners Rowland and Schlegal [sic] have “contempt for transparency and citizen involvement.”

I’d have to say it’s Mr. Brown showing contempt for Elbert County citizens – in particular the Elbert County citizens who have waited 3 years now while the Planning Commission played cat-and-mouse delaying games with the Oil & Gas industry.

The problems I see with the above MOU are as follows; [Read more…]

The Declaration of Independence

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I grant Dr. Keyes all of it and thank him for his passion and his encyclopedic historical understanding and unified analysis. The written, enforceable, construct of our rule of law depends for legitimacy on submission to an empowering supernatural will. And the consequences to humanity – within that construct and upon the removal of that supernatural will – have historically been deadly.

The ethics, however, of liberty and freedom, born of that supernaturally-based system of justice, remain compelling for all phases of human existence, concurrent with a modern scientific skepticism about the metaphysical and the supernatural. [Read more…]

sticky zoning laws

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Writing them is a lot easier than cleaning them up.

Elbert County Republicans ceded direction of Elbert County zoning law to the Left years ago. Under the Left, master planning – what used to be a guideline for officials – became, effectively, regulatory.

Discretion by elected County Commissioners, who citizens used to go to for reasonable treatment in the face of overwhelming bureaucratic power, has been replaced by heavy-handed zoning laws written by Leftist planners. [Read more…]

keeping score

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Elbertonians, look around you. How many people do you know employed by taxpayer funded entities? How many people do you know who administer taxpayer funded entities? [Read more…]

politics by any means possible

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“[G]uilty as charged!” crowed Jill Duvall in a New-Plains.com article today.

Not exactly.  “Guilt” and “charges” relate to prosecutions under a criminal statute. Ms. Duvall conflates criminal law with civil law.  For future reference, Ms. Duvall might keep in mind that crimes put an individual at risk, based on evidence found beyond a reasonable doubt, of the loss of their freedom through incarceration.

The Fair Campaign Practices Act allows for sanctions involving civil penalties based on a preponderance of evidence – a much lower standard.

Let’s look at the Judge’s ruling; [Read more…]

Power

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The Bishops, Mr. Blotter, Mr. Brown, Mr. Corrado, the Duvalls, Mr. McShay, Mr. Phillips, Mr. Thomas, Mr. Thomasson, and friends, share an orthodoxy.

A little background is in order for any of the 3000+ daily hitters here who may not know Elbert County, Colorado.  The above individuals fuel and publish the counter culture press in Elbert County at New-Plains.com and Prairietimes.com with weekly writings promoting their shared orthodoxy, and trashing any who might contemplate a dissent. [Read more…]

. . .it’s Mitt’s fault now

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The Amazing Mittdrake the Magician

The Amazing Mittdrake the Magician

To deflect from the Obama train wreck, the Aspen Daily News resurrects the fear of Romney.  Surely the threat Romney presented to the mountain Left’s way of life was mitt-i-gated at the polls over a year ago?  But so long as Romneycare keeps chunking along up in Massachusetts, and the promised magic of Obamacare keeps failing to materialize out of the One’s hat, the Aspen Left will have to keep reaching.

Thomas Jefferson

"It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself."

Aristotle

"Only an armed people can be truly free. Only an unarmed people can ever be enslaved."

Karl Popper

“A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is nonscientific. Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory (as people often think) but a vice.”