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.

I think in Canada, therefore, he is.

Objectivism: The flower of freedom springs only from the soil of reality.
Libertarianism: The flower of freedom is cut from silk.

It’s never the economy, stupid.

The hollowing of trees follows the hollowing of heads.

Praise to hate, condemn to love, refrain from judgment to feel nothing at all.

Every mind is a woman, every truth is a man.