The Rational Mind

It has become obvious to any honest individual that the UN is essentially a pulpit for dictators, communists, and looters of all sorts to attack and demand welfare from the few free countries of the world.

The latest resolution against Israel condemned “the most recent extrajudicial execution committed by Israel” and “all attacks against any civilians as well as all acts of violence and destruction.” This was for the killing of a man “responsible for the deaths of 377 Israelis in at least 425 terrorist attacks over the past three-and-a-half years of the Palestinian Authority’s war against Israel.” How many resolutions were passed to condemn the murder of all those innocent people? How many resolutions were passed against brainwashing and sending little boys who “don’t want to die” to blow themselves up? You guessed it – zero. No, the UN cannot even be accused of pacifism –the latest vote demonstrates its open support of terrorists.

Lest we forget that UN representatives represent the policies of the nations they represent, here are the nations that voted to support this mass-murdering “spiritual leader:” China, Russia, France, Angola, Chile, Pakistan, Spain, Algeria, Benin, Brazil, and the Philippines.

Want to send email from the grave? Now you can!

I don’t need to mention what I think of the EU ruling to fine Microsoft €497.2 million ($605 mil U.S.) for having the audacity to make superior software. However I was curious how the loot would be split it up. Turns out that it will be a trickle into the €100bn EU budget, which is allocated as follows:

Almost half of this is spent on agricultural aid, for subsidising farmers and their produce, and for improving rural development.

The second biggest portion – about one-third – goes on EU funding, which supports the poorer countries in the union. Currently Ireland, Spain, Portugal and Greece benefit most from this fund.

Money has also been allocated for the 10 countries set to join the union – some 40bn euros in the first three years of enlargement, in which time these countries will pay 15bn euros into the EU budget.

The remainder goes on research and educational programmes, aid to regions outside the EU such as Africa and the Balkans, and administration costs…

Yes, nearly 100% of it is welfare. The linked article also mentions that the DOJ is complaining – such a fat cash cow should not be shared that easily.

From “Rattling the Chains of Slavery” by Thomas Sowell:

Europeans enslaved other Europeans for centuries before the drying up of that supply led them to turn to Africa as a source of slaves for the Western Hemisphere. Julius Caesar marched in triumph through Rome in a procession that included British slaves he had captured. There were white slaves still being sold in Egypt two decades after blacks were freed in the United States.

It was the same story in Asia, Africa, and among the Polynesians and the indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere. No race, country, or civilization had clean hands.

What makes the current reparations movement a fraud, whether at Brown University or in the country at large, is the attempt to depict slavery as something uniquely done to blacks by whites. Reparations advocates are doing this for the same reason that Willie Sutton robbed banks: That’s where the money is.

No one expects Qaddafi to pay reparations to the descendants of Europeans whom his ancestors captured on the Mediterranean coast or Western Europeans to pay reparations to Slavs who were enslaved on such a scale that the very word slave derived from their name.

Still less does anyone expect Africans to pay reparations to black Americans whose ancestors they sold to white men who took them across the Atlantic. Only in America can guilt be turned into cash.

Not quite. Europeans are getting quite good at seeking out willing victims themselves.

If you believe the mainstream media you might think that it’s “common knowledge” that Israel’s policy of assassinating terrorist masterminds creates more violence. New Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal would like you to believe that:

Your leaders, chaired by Sharon, will only bring you destruction. Blood begets blood. The Palestinian people can endure a long struggle and if you think that the confrontation will exhaust it then you are deluded. You will lose.

Rantisi said similar things just last year, after he himself survived an Israeli targeted strike: “By G-d we will not leave one Jew alive in Palestine.”
… “Sheikh Ahmad Yassin rest in peace. They will never enjoy rest. We will send death to every house, every city, every street in Israel!”

What form of “death” did he send to Israel?

A 16 [edit:14]-year-old Palestinian with a suicide bomb vest strapped to his body was caught at a crowded West Bank checkpoint Wednesday, setting off a tense encounter with Israeli soldiers whom the army said he was sent to kill.
The family of the teenager, identified as Hussam Abdo, said he was gullible and easily manipulated.
“He doesn’t know anything, and he has the intelligence of a 12 year old,” said his brother, Hosni.
“He told us he didn’t want to die. He didn’t want to blow up,” Milrad said.
The military said Abdo’s mission was to kill soldiers at the crowded checkpoint.
“In addition to the fact that he would have harmed my soldiers, he would have also harmed the Palestinians waiting at the checkpoint, and there were 200 to 300 innocent Palestinians there,” said the commander of the checkpoint, who identified himself only as Lt. Col. Guy.
Several teenagers have carried out suicide bombings over the past 3 1/2 years, and there has been recent concern that militant groups were turning to younger attackers to elude Israeli security checks.
Abdo, though 16, looked far younger, and the Israeli military initially said it believed he was 10 years old.

But what about all this talk about “cycles of violence?”

The number of suicide bombings and the number of victims has dropped, with 142 Israelis killed in 22 bombings in 2003, compared to 214 killed in 53 bombings in 2002. Analysts attributed the drop to Israel’s partially built West Bank barrier, beefed-up intelligence and Hamas leaders’ fear of assassination.

I suspect that the terrorist leadership is not nearly as death-happy as they fervently claim – they prefer to send scared little boys to carry out their threats of martyrdom.

Virus writers are getting more crafty then ever. Here is the content of two out of the dozens (!) of viruses I receive daily:

Please read the attached file!

++++ Attachment: No Virus found
++++ Norton AntiVirus – www.symantec.de

Dear user of Objectivismonline.net gateway e-mail server,
Your e-mail account has been temporary disabled because of unauthorized access.
…
Attached file protected with the password for security reasons. Password is 20530.
Sincerely,
The Objectivismonline.net team http://www.objectivismonline.com

Britain’s Labor Home Secretary is suing people wrongfully imprisoned for crimes they did not commit to pay for the costs of their incarceration.
Diana Hsieh comments:

John McManus of the Scottish Miscarriage of Justice Organisation put his finger on the issue in saying that the government seems “to want to punish people for having the audacity to be innocent.” Well, perhaps that’s no surprise, given that they also want to punish people for the audacity of defending themselves against criminals.

Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the founder and spiritual leader of Hamas was just killed in an Israeli airstrike. MSNBC was quick to point out that he was a quadriplegic, but not that he has been planned uncounted terrorist attacks, openly assassinated IDF soldiers, and murdered many Palestinian “spies.” Earlier this year, he made his stance clear: “Muslims should threaten Western interests and strike them everywhere.” We should celebrate the fact that Israel has made it’s anti-terrorist stance clear – and demand that our leaders do likewise.

A long time ago, I discovered my school’s file-sharing network and stopped buying music CD’s. Some time after that, I decided that while CD’s cost too much, stealing music is wrong. So, I switched to streaming internet radio, and have been listening to various streaming stations ever since. I’d like to share some of my favorites – just keep in mind that I listen to this while working or studying, so I prefer music that I can play in the background without distracting me too much. Feel free to comment with the streaming stations you like.

• Yahoo Launch offers personalized music streams and lets to rank your favorite genres/artists/albums/artists. They have a free ad-based and premium stations.
• Club977 is a “commercial free” 80’s station.
• Soma FM offers “Groove Salad,” a “ tasty plate of ambient beats and grooves. Takes the edge off work.”
• Digitally Imported offers a number of great stations including hard/soft/euro techno and classical stations.
• Shoutcast is a directory of thousands of free streaming stations playable with WinAmp.

The Young Republicans group at Roger Williams University recently offered a $250 “why you are proud of your white heritage” scholarship contest. Following up on their lead, the Young Conservatives at my own Texas A&M have created a $10,000 “Overcoming Affirmative Action Essay Contest” that open to everyone.

The scholarship follows up on an “Affirmative Action Bake Sale” and other provocative actions by conservative groups across the nation. Such demonstrations rely on a strategy of reductio ad absurdum, “a type of logical argument where we assume a claim for the sake of argument, arrive at an absurd result, and then conclude the original assumption must have been wrong, since it gave us this absurd result.” The assumed claim is that an individual’s identity and personal worth are determined by ethnic/racial membership. The absurd conclusion is that Caucasians are just as entitled to ethnic pride and entitlements as other ethnicities. Therefore, one should conclude that neither whites nor any other group is entitled to racial pride or entitlements based on un-chosen traits.

While reductio ad absurdum can make a powerful emotional impact, it has a major pitfall as a method of persuasion: it requires that one’s opponent rejects the “absurd” conclusion — and that they do so for the same reasons. It is not a logical argument, as much as a means of getting someone to see the inconsistency of his own position. In this case, the shared idea is that racism is wrong. White-only entitlements are meant to make people realize that racism is wrong no matter which group it favors. The problem is that advocates of multiculturalism do not reject the “absurd” conclusion for the same reasons because they do not hold a proper definition of “racism.”

Liberals are incapable of recognizing that one’s mind determines one’s identity and achievements, not his social/racial/ethnic group. Because of this basic premise, they cannot imagine an alternative to class or race-based discrimination. Hence, they reject white-only entitlements not because they are racist, but because they favor the wrong ethnic group. Their concept of “racism” means, “discrimination based on the belief that some groups are superior to others.” This definition fails to recognize the distinction between discrimination based on superior values and discrimination based on inherited traits. In practice, this means that the only “racism” that they recognize is that directed by a dominant group towards a weaker one – whether it is whites against blacks or Israel against the PLO, or successful businessmen “against” bums or the terrorists against America. Decades of public-school indoctrination has embedded such collectivist attitudes in the American public. Conservatives themselves are unable to recognize the root of racism because they accept their own collectivist doctrine of “original sin.”

While the Young Conservative’s protests are effective means of bringing attention to the multiculturalism that dominates our schools, only an explicit recognition of the individual’s mind and a rejection of collectivism can provide the intellectual ammunition necessary to combat it.