Given the state of the world, and how religious fanaticism lends its hand to violent extremism – it’s a relief to find that Stephen Hawking has finally come to the conclusion that a God is not necessary in the earthly or cosmological scheme of things: Why God Did Not Create The Universe
A fascinating article by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard – Obama could kill fossil fuels overnight with a nuclear dash for thorium - looks at the idea of using thorium instead of uranium as fuel for nuclear power stations. Sounds like real breakthrough technology – if vested interests can get out of the way.
One of the hallmarks of Chinese culture is the need to “save face”. I’ve seen this close up – by actually traveling to, and living in, China over a number of years. To a westerner this can seem counter-productive. And it is.
In fact, I recall hearing a true story of a Chinese man in Malaysia. He had a tough life, but he worked hard. He even started his own business. But when it failed, he felt so ashamed as to his loss of “face” that he felt compelled to emigrate with his young family to New Zealand – where he started a new life and learned a new language. The story ends well, because this man fulfilled his dreams on faraway shores.
One of the reasons America has been so successful at business is because there is no shame in failing at business. In fact, successful business men and women take great pride in wearing past failure as a badge of honour. This healthy attitude to failure – as a lesson to be learned, rather than a death sentence – is perhaps one of the most important ingredients for a culture that encourages, celebrates and reward success.
It’s a pity such an “anti-face-saving” attitude cannot also be applied to war. Take the war in Afghanistan (if you can call it war). Here you have a situation where defeat is the obvious future outcome. Foreign forces are attempting to force democracy on a nation and culture that is fiercely independent, and who are fighting a war of resistance against foreign occupiers. No one has beaten the Afghanis – neither the British or the Soviets before, nor the US-Nato alliance this time.
But this war is not about victory any more – if it ever was – but about saving face. It’s about not having to admit it was a mistake. It seems our “dear leaders”, those non-participating “warriors” of the political class, are incapable of saying they screwed up, and would rather send more men and women to risk their lives for a hopeless cause – rather than simply pull the plug and go home .
Brendan O’Neill makes this point forcefully in his essay: Dying For a PR Win in Afghanistan
P.S. I think it would make good public policy if, in any war, the political class were forced to participate, by either enlisting themselves (if young enough) or sending at least one of their own children into battle. I think this small change in the “rules” would go a long way to ensuring war was only ever a policy of last resort. Such a change in policy could even be termed “Leading From The Front!”
As someone who has travelled to and lived in many countries over the years – including Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, New Caledonia, Japan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, China, Singapore, United States, Bahamas, Costa Rica, United Kingdom, France, Turkey – I know that when you get past the “image” of what you think a country and its people are like, in fact they are very much like “us”.
What do I mean? I mean that when you strip away the facade of race, nationality, religion and culture, you find some basic human traits which all humans appear to share. And theses include such things as simply wanting to lead a happy life, to fall in love, to bring up a family, to want the best for one’s children, to enjoy the company of good friends, to be successful – and any number of other common human goals.
And it is in this way that travel broadens the mind. When you travel you get to meet people in other countries first hand – not through the eyes of some magazine, news report, or political utterance. You find that when you get past the official “image”, and understand where such people are coming from, you come to the realisation that if only we could remove the barriers of misunderstanding between people of different nations, then perhaps we could have true peace.
I was reminded of this fact when watching this video – which is a delightful account of an American travel writer who visited Iran to see how ordinary people live and to mix with them.
Watch the video, then ask yourself if you would want to bomb Iranians.
I don’t think anyone can have not noticed the irony explicit in the sudden chilling in so much of the world – while in the midst of so-called global warming.
I take delight in this reality – precisely because it shows the limits of human understanding regarding the weather. And more to the point, it exposes those politiscientists and their camp followers who have been trying to hoodwink us into allowing the state to tax us even more – in response to doomsday scenarios about the weather.
Right from the beginning I was a global warming skeptic. Not just because I believed such overreaching predictions were unreliable, but because of the political connections with the concept.
You see, I have one overriding rule when considering such predictions: does the government have anything to do with this? Does it have anything to gain? Is there a political element to this “science”.
And when you look at global warming (or climate change as it’s become known, probably since some in that camp feared global warming may not eventuate!), it not difficult to discern the hand of politicians and their lackeys – scientists who are paid by politicians.
In other words, don’t trust any scientist whose pay check comes from the state!
Common wisdom is everywhere – as people from all over the planet are debunking the global warming theory as “nuts” – as they try to cope with the unexpected freeze – even in Florida!!!!
When talking of freedom one cannot avoid the issue of individual rights. However, those who oppose freedom (although they do not admit to such) have a very different concept of rights. And they usually obfuscate the issue by referring to “human” rights – and attempt to sneak in things which are not rights at all.
Ayn Rand defined the issue of rights with her usual clarity:
The concept of a “right” pertains only to action—specifically, to freedom of action. It means freedom from physical compulsion, coercion or interference by other men.
This is a far cry from the “rights” typical socialists and fascists (which includes all governments everywhere) are on about.
Take the issue of health care – which President Obama has made his own moral crusade. What is not discussed is this question: Why on earth does the government have anything to do with providing or funding health care?
Well, to your typical socialist/fascist the government has every intention of meddling in this issue because health care is a human right.
But is it? Of course not. Any “human” or individual right cannot impose an obligation on another individual human. You do not have a right to brand name jeans which involves you stealing mine. You do not have a right to food which involves you stealing from your local supermarket. And you do not have a right to money which involves you picking other people’s pockets!
Same with health care. You do not have a right to something which obviously has to be provided by someone else – in this case a doctor – either by forcing the doctor give of his time for free, or by paying the doctor using funds taken off me by force (via taxation).
This issue of rights – valid or not – is at the core of so much conflict in our society that it is way past time we got this debate out in the open. Instead of Obama jousting with his fellow politicians as to the best way to fund universal health care, they should instead by arguing about the nature of rights and whether they have any right to be discussing health care at all!
Health care is a “good”, just like food and shelter and a myriad of other things we want. But it is not a right.
Andrew Napolitano has written a hard-hitting essay on this very issue which is well worth reading – What is a Right.
I’m constantly amused by the way we in the west are fooled by our leaders and politicians in general. For example:
It’s common parlance to say that than the Iranian leadership is mad – mad enough to start a war in fact. That’s the common wisdom. We hear about “mad mullahs” and fundamentalist regimes. And I agree, I am constantly concerned by regimes with fundamentalist religious foundations.
Trouble is, this type of name-calling by western politicians is supposed to assure us that while those mullahs are mad and untrustworthy – our own “dear leaders” are sane and trustworthy.
Well, I beg to differ. Previously I would have quickly said “look at George Bush and Tony Blair, and tell me if you really trust them?”.
Now I’m saying it about the hack called Obama. I cannot think of a more despicable type of politician – one who talks one way and consistently acts another. Obama is the equivalent of a smooth talking con-man. At least with Iran’s Ahmadinejad you know what you are getting and that he’s more likely to act on his words.
And if doing what you say and acting on what you believe is a measure of personal integrity – then ask yourself this difficult question: Would you trust Obama more than Ahmadinejad to put his rhetoric into practice and to do as he says?
Think about it.
