This morning, the topic was German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s speech last Saturday, in which she declared multiculturalism a failure. The panelists agreed that multiculturalism is inherently morally subjectivist. John then identified what he believed might be the fundamental question: is it time for government and society to end its attachment to “secular humanism” and to instead adopt “Judeo-Christian values”. The phone lines were jammed. I wrote, instead, the following.

Hi John:

I listened – with great frustration – to your Culture War segment today (I try to listen to all of your 9 AM segments, actually: the best thing in mainstream talk radio…but I digress into compliments when I want, instead, to air a beef). Sorry, in advance, for the length of this…had I time, I’d have written a shorter letter.

1. It’s certainly true that multiculturalism is inherently morally subjectivist. What must be understood, though, is that the destruction of moral judgment – of valuing one thing higher than another – is its *purpose*. It is only after a society is unwilling to judge anything as better or worse, and unwilling to judge anything as good or as evil, that oppressive government can proceed without being thought of as oppressive; without being resisted.

Multiculturalism starts by saying all ideas are possibly true (i.e., that man cannot be certain of anything: a deliberate defamation of the efficacy of reason), such that no ideas can be rejected as false, or condemned as evil (the true being the good, the false being the evil). Having dispensed with the valuation of ideas and assertions – having dispensed with the thing that differentiates man from beast: the power to think and choose) – multiculturalism attempts to divide us into collectives defined not by our ideas or actions (since multiculturalism deems them to be indistinguishable), but according to non-intellectual, unchosen (or allegedly unchosen) characteristics: the colour of our skin, our sex, our sexual orientation etc.. There is, of course, nothing about having one colour of skin (for example) that makes one better than another person, so the stage is set: multiculturalism declares that no thing and no one is any more *deserving* of anything, than is anyone else.

Having destroyed valuation per se, multiculturalism destroys any connection between thoughts and actions on the one hand, and the physical values upon which survival and happiness depend on the other. The man who spends his day chopping down trees or inventing an internal combustion engine is judged – by multiculturalism – to be no more deserving of wine, women, and song than the man who instead sat on the beach all day, smoking weed and praying to The Most High for lumber and transportation. At the end of the day, says multiculturalism, all men must have his equal share of wood and transportation because, hey, how can we judge one man to be more deserving than others when man can be certain of nothing, including the value of things?

2. Which takes me to your debate today. Your set-up for the debate pitted “secular humanism” against “Judeo-Christian values”. This raises a number of problems.

Whereas it is arguable that “secular humanists” are little more than agnostic, multiculturalists (i.e., anti-reason collectivists who: declaring war on the ability to know anything, deny the ability to know whether or not an omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient entity exists), it is utterly false that if you want a separation of church and state you want what humanism wants: multiculturalism, collectivism, etc. Take me as an example. I’m an Objectivist: think of me as a doubting Thomas, except that a ghostly Jesus has never appeared to me. I consider no claim or belief to be true or “possible” if there is ultimately no physical evidence to support the claim. Reason, as is demonstrated by the invention of the radio, is clearly effective: man *can* be certain of things, he *can* hold knowledge, and *reason* (as opposed to divine revelation, or group consensus) is his *only* effective tool for discovering what is true/false, good/evil. In short: I value the true, and give no value to the false: the true is the good, the false the evil…or, as they say: Every IS implies an OUGHT. And, it is *because* I value reason and the demonstrable facts of reality, and hold up as the good all decisions a man must make rationally to pursue his own happiness, that I seek the separation of church and state: secularism, if you will, minus the humanist, multiculturalist, anti-reason, anti-morality BS.

If a man is to be able to pursue his own happiness, the government must not be using guns, fines, and imprisonment to enforce laws founded upon claims of good and evil that are founded not upon facts proven with physical evidence, but upon tales set out in religious texts. It must, in making laws, entirely ignore a claim that the Wonderful Wizard of Oz commands all earners to share their products with non-earners. It must turn a blind eye to claims that The Great Gazoo wants women to cover themselves so that men with sexual insecurities don’t have to worry as much about another guy picking up their good-looking wives.

Judeo-Christian values – like all religious values – are a mixed bag of dogmatic assertions, allegedly having their origin in the mouth of a supernatural being. Just like multiculturalism, religion tells man that he cannot think and judge for himself; he cannot be certain of anything; he lacks the ability to discover what is good and what is evil; what will allow him to live and achieve happiness, and what will cause him pain, suffering, and death. Religion tells man that his role is to obey what The Most High tells him to do, even if his own rational judgment of the facts – supported by physical evidence – indicates that The Most High is wrong about something. Like multiculturalism, religion defames the efficacy of reason. It proclaims the existence of realms and supernatural powers undetectable by man, and tells man to adopt a code of behaviour suited not to pursuing happiness on this earth, but for enduring suffering and loss in this life as the price of obtaining an afterlife filled with unearned happiness. It tells us not to produce physical values, but to deny ourselves those values and to give them to others who have not earned them (“it is harder for a rich man to enter heaven than for a camel to pass through the Eye of the Needle”). It tells us to do *exactly* what multiculturalism tells us to do: to have nothing that ones neighbour lacks, and to give to ones neighbour that which he lacks if you have more than enough to satisfy your basic needs (you are your brother’s keeper).

In conclusion: John, your discussion was about whether “we” should replace one form of anti-reason, anti-egoism, pro-collectivism (multiculturalism, or “secular humanism”) with another form of anti-reason, anti-egoism, pro-collectivism (obedience to religious dogma). It was about replacing one form of government oppression (secular collectivism) with another form (religious collectivism): each serving to violate the lives, liberty, and property of individuals who are not harming anyone, but who are – by thinking and acting rationally – producing values and achieving happiness not achieved by some others…others who choose not to go to the bother of thinking and acting, but who still expect to have a hot meal for dinner and a 3 bedroom home to live in.

It’s not multiculturalism per se, that is the problem, John. It is, more fundamentally, the assault on reason. Oppression – as has always been true in history – is the necessary result of that constant groping for endarkenment.

As evidence: just watch as Europe’s backlash against multiculturalism turns, once again, into the embrace of a system – another collectivist system – that groups people according to race, and that values people according to race. The pendulum swings, yet nobody seems to notice that the clock is broken.

Cheers,

Paul

As an online discussion grows longer, the probability that someone will cite Godwin’s Law approaches 1. – McKeever’s Corollary

Still asleep, but on your feet?
Don’t know what to wear?
Pull some brown socks o’er your toes,
and carry on from there.

Sky pulls the wool over our eyes.
Wind pierces warm flesh with cold wet needles.
Spurned Sun takes other lovers as mischievous Earth introduces celestial siblings.
Good gravy! I’m ready to Fall.

Canada’s senate had approved C-15 only after amending it.  Of particular note: the Senate removed the mandatory imprisonment of those who grow more than five marijuana plants.  In amended form, mandatory minimum sentencing would apply only where a person grows over 200 cannabis plants.  Conservative Justice Minister Rob Nicholson exploded at news of the amendments.  The Harper government prorogued, and appointed more Conservatives to the Senate.  Clearly, the conservatives hope that they now have enough Conservative senators to pass S-10 in a form that imposes mandatory minimums for over 5 plants.

In his post at the Shotgun blog, MacIntyre writes:

…[policy learning]…is the process by which politicians or officials take ideas that are of interest in other jurisdictions, study it, discern its successes and failures, then try and apply its lessons to their own jurisdiction. It is a method that is full of potential and pitfalls, but it is something that anyone who is interested in public policy should be active in.

I agree that it is best to study the results of policies implemented elsewhere before implementing them at home.  I don’t take issue with that, or with what MacIntyre wrote.  However, on a daily basis, the media and the public all-too-frequently debate about whether a proposed policy “works” and, all-too-frequently, such debates leave entirely unmentioned the one thing that actually makes a debate worthwhile.  On the Shotgun blog, I explain as follows:

To say that a policy “works” is to say nothing at all.

Let me give you an example:

“Round-up works”. That statement is false if you are pouring Round-up on your lawn in the hope of thereby growing grass. The statement is true if you’re trying to kill every living bit of plant life on your lawn.

So it is with statements that “This policy works”.

If your aim is to create more jobs in the police force and in the prison system; or if your job is to prop-up the manufacturers of guns, helicopters, cars, bullet proof vests, and doughnuts; if your aim is to prevent people from ceasing to buy millions or billions of dollars worth of patented pain killers and mood elevators each month; if your aim is to ensure that lots of folks can make money via violence, and pay some of those ill-gotten gains into party coffers; if your aim is to get financial support from middle-class families who are buying houses across the country and turning them into moderately-well-earning grow houses; or if your aim is to secure the loyalty of “deliver us from evil” children in adult bodies, then: Bill S-10 will “work”.

In contrast, if you want a government that defends your life, liberty, and property; that uses force to ensure that nobody stops you from making choices concerning your own life, body, and property; if you want the laws concerning the production, sale, purchase and smoking of marijuana to be the same as the laws concerning the production, sale, purchase and drinking of gasoline (i.e., if you want PRINCIPLED, OBJECTIVE law) then: Bill S-10 will not “work”.

The problem is, however, for every such violation of life, liberty and property committed by the Conservatives, there is another in the minds of each of the other parties in Parliament right now, each of whom is desperate to prevent individual adults from making peaceful choices for themselves. All of them have forgotten that they are not our lords and masters, but our neighbours and servants.

In other words, the starting point for any worthwhile debate about a policy is an identification of the purpose of the policy; of the end one is hoping the policy will achieve.  The opening question in any worthwhile debate about a policy can be summed up in two words: “What for?”.

My status message read:

Paul McKeever is not an atheist. One cannot be identified by what one is not. And, no, atheism did not “cause” communism. A zero cannot “cause” anything.

The responses were as follows:

Me: To clarify: I’m not an aSanta-ist either.

C: Come on Paul. Atheist is Greek atheos, the A meaning “without”, and Theos “belief in gods”. Simply the absence of belief that deities exist.

The word Agnostic, was created by Thomas Henry Huxley, again Greek, the A meaning “without”, and Gnostic “Knowledge”.

Words are slippery things, and language is inexact.

“I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.” Stephen Roberts

“To clarify: I’m not an aSanta-ist either”

Well, of course you are not Without Belief in Santa. Saint Nicholas of Myra is the primary inspiration for the Christian figure of Santa Claus you have belief in. He was a 4th-century Greek Christian bishop of Myra (now Demre) in Lycia, a province of the Byzantine Anatolia, now in Turkey. The historical figure of gift giver Saint Nicholas may have been inspired himself by a nearly identical story attributed by Greek and Byzantine folklore to Basil of Caesarea.

G: I see nothing wrong with that term. An atheist is one who lacks a belief in god(s). When describing or explaining my view of religion or “God”, I describe myself as an atheist. It is a word that describes a position with regards to the supernatural (lack of god-belief) so I have no problem using it and properly defining it….even if others want to think therefore I’m a communist or satan-worshipper. Or even if a lot of self-described “atheists” are of the skeptic-Dawkins type.

Just as I call my self a capitalist in regards to my political beliefs, even if some people want to think that capitalism means “big business” or corporatism.

B: In the context of a mostly theist society, ‘atheist’ is a perfectly reasonably term (if contextually appropriate). I do agree w Rand that atheism is nothing to get excited about a la Richard Dawkins.

Me: C: no, no, I understand the etymology of the word. That’s not what I’m driving at. I suppose its not only the amateur philosopher in me, but also the social tactician.

We don’t go around calling people who don’t believe in Satan “Asatanists”. We don’t call people who do not believe in evolution “Aevolutionists”.

For similar reasons, we don’t go about calling women “penis-less” men (though, arguably, there are a few alleged males who might rightly be called “dickless”…most of them, in office). A homosexual is not an “unheterosexual”. A “black” person is not an “unwhite” person. A tall person is not “unshort”, and a fat person is not “unslim”.

We normally identify people by what they DO believe, by what sexual organs they DO have, by the sexual orientation they DO have, by the amount of melanin they DO have in their skin, by the height they ARE, by the amount of fatty weight they DO have, etc. In order: rational, evolutionist, woman (or “having female sexual organs”), homosexual/gay/lesbian/bi, black/African-American/Canadian, tall, and fat.

The purpose of a Theist, in calling someone an Atheist, is to suggest a LACK of something that one SHOULD have. To speak of a lack is to speak of something that is missing, lost, stolen, gone, broken, etc.. It is to speak of a nothing, of an absence, of a zero. The Theist/Atheist dichotomy is, by its very nature, one that STARTS with the root concept – a god – and then categorizes everyone according to the god’s absence of presence.

But, here’s the KEY point: the Theist/Atheist dichotomy is an attempt not merely to separate the “haves” (of a believe in god) from the “have nots”, but – more importantly – to raise belief in the non-existent to the status of HAVING something. When “atheists” agree to identify themselves as people NOT HAVING a belief in god, they sanction the false notion that those who HAVE a belief in god HAVE something.

Put another way: A person who “has” a pocket chock full of no thing does not have some thing in his pocket. So it is with having a belief in any thing for the existence of which there is absolutely no physical evidence.

J: So what you’re saying is that it’s not enough for someone to just describe themselves as an atheist because it doesn’t define what drives them to act and choose?

Me: J: well, more precisely, for someone to describe themselves as an atheist is for someone NOT to describe THEMSELVES at all.

Imagine that you’re in the crowd at Disneyland. I say “Jason is the word we give to refer to the non-green thing”. Nobody – on the basis solely of your colour – will ever identify you.

But that’s not the essential problem with respect to the word “atheist”. The fact is that a theist is a person who believes an arbitrary assertion or a falsehood (depending upon the physical plausibility of the god in which the person believes). Arbitrary assertions and falsehoods, being false, are nothing; zero. To “hold” a zero is to hold nothing; to “hold” zero is NOT to hold. One who believes a falsehood does not HAVE something…he LACKS something: a connection to reality.

(Truths now lie in parentheses).

Erroneous praise versus thoughtless condemnation or avoidance. The latter alone is inexcusable.

Music to the Hegelians: one hand clapping.

Godly fire never shone
For brilliant spark fell but on stone.
Where hid paper, where slid pen?
What distraction stunted ken?
What grand wonders failed to be
For lack of mark or memory?

The Folly of the Tax Department: in many jurisdictions, the penalty for keeping the wealth that you produce peacefully is worse than the penalty for turning yourself in for mass murder.

O Beard
It’s not so plain to see.
Do I hide you or do you hide me?
Are you this man’s soul, in manifested form?
Or does my soul shine only when you’re shorn?
Fine blades
drawn across my face:
Virtuous slice or bloody disgrace?
If I take you off, what then may one infer?
That I’ve not to hide, or cherub mask prefer?
O Beard
Let’s make it plain to see.
Sometimes show you, always show just me.
So I’ll groom you now, and leave me as I be,
But we’ll sever relations in a month or three.

Eat of my need, drink of my want. – Man’s last supper

It is illegal to obtain or destroy a free man’s values without his consent.

Another rich man lost his shirt.
A holy roller’s name’s now dirt.
Cold and rain clouds on the run:
Ten percent chance of heat and sun.
The fix was in for the gold medal winner.
The diet you failed don’t make one thinner.
That poor woman’s child can’t walk,
Can’t swallow, can’t hear, can’t even talk.
The sold out show was a giant flop.
The fat plain singer came out on top.
A bowl of sweet lemons and sour grapes:
The yummy daily diet of irrational apes.

“God only knows…”
I know it ain’t so.
Nobody knows nothing,
and nothing don’t know.

Live for a what, not for a when.

The day wore on and, one after another, freed of the need to pull the wagon, they happily rode upon it, until, at sunset, it ground to a halt. It would be a long, cold, night. – A Brief History of America

“I think…”, it thought, as He popped into existence and it popped out.

ymj umnqtxtumjw nx ijfi. qtsl qnAj Ymj umNqtxtumjw.

Keep the icons, replace their meanings, provoke the irrational, expose their falsehoods, let their memes shrivel in the hot light of reason.

Any sufficiently rational individual is indistinguishable from a wizard.

A kindness paid to the worthy kills none, but to the unworthy kills all.

While raising the flag of freedom, be willing and prepared to see it at half-mast.