Life, The Universe, and Everything: Turns Out the Answer is Actually Simpler than 42

In Counter-Friction Libertarian's proud tradition of insomnia-fueled-pissing-virtually-everyone-the-fuck-off (and that little "f" word probably did it for half of you), let's dive into the subject of the existence of God.

Like many people in the West, I used to be Christian. It was expected, traditional, and something to do on Sundays. I would have considered myself a good Christian; I even went so far as to read the Bible, something most Christians don't actually do.

When I say that, I'm not dissing Christians; I'm being honest. I love Christians, but it seems like every time I have a Biblical discussion with one they have no clue what I'm talking about. One of my best friends, a wonderful girl and extremely devoted Christian, probably knows roughly a quarter of what I do in regards to that particular script.

Ironically, I think it was my familiarity with the Bible that turned me off to Christianity. I've always been slightly uncomfortable with certain tenants, like original sin, self-denial, and stoning homosexuals (to name but a few).

After the Christian phase, I read a lot of Thoreau, and fancied myself a Transcendentalist. Thoreau remains, to this day, one of my favorite authors. His writing style is beautifully poetic, yet sturdy and practical, original in a way no other author has, to my knowledge, successfully replicated. However, Transcendentalism is, it must be admitted, a little sketchy. Heavily influenced by Hinduism, American Transcendentalism differentiates itself by its tenants, or rather, by not really having any tenants which can be concretely expressed.

After exhausting the works of Thoreau, I picked up another author whose works have influenced my philosophy rather heavily: Ayn Rand. Her views on life, economically, socially, and spiritually, are closest to what I believe; however, Rand is an atheist, and I cannot be classified as such. Whereas atheists believe very strongly in the non-existence of God, I simply don't know nor care whether or not God exists.

Let's be honest, you can say you know that God exists, but you can't actually prove it. The fact is, you don't know if He does or not. Frankly, this doesn't bother me.

My view of the world is that life is awesome; actually it's my favorite activity. Ever. So if God exists and we all get to go to heaven, that's cool. If he doesn't, and we die and get put in the ground and this is all we get, I'm okay with it, because I can't say as I'd want anything else really.

The thing is though, trying to figure out what happens when you die is a relatively gigantic waste of time if the possibility exists that life is all we get. I prefer to hedge my bets and live life to the fullest making my happiness the sole aim of the thing and hope God's okay with that if it turns out He's real.

And what if He isn't? Okay with it I mean. What if, as many religions claim, God wants us to suffer here so we get eternal glory in Heaven?

Here, the question becomes academic. If God is all He's cracked up to be, He's not the kind of asshole who would ask that sort of thing of his subjects, and if He is that kind of asshole, then I say, fuck God.

Go ahead, be shocked. I'm not the first one to say it, and I'm sure not going to rescind it. The fact of the matter is that I have ideas, and I think those ideas are right. If you believe in something, don't you believe in it? Isn't it true to you?

Where belief is concerned I respect conviction. I hate Nazis. With a passion. I think that if all Nazis were to suffer massive cardiac arrest, the world would be a far better place. But I respect even a Nazi, who believes with all his heart the sick teachings of the man who caused massive damage to two of my favorite countries and butchered millions of people, more than I respect a man who claims he believes nothing. Because it's the man who believes nothing that allows people like Hitler to come to power, and allows the butchery to occur.

To return to the point, however, I believe things. And one of the things I believe is that life is to be enjoyed, and may the glory go to those brave enough to enjoy it to the fullest. If God exists, and He disagrees, then, divine being and creator of the universe or no, He's dead wrong. I'm going to do what I want, as long as it's morally in order, no matter who disagrees with me.

This being the case, the existence of God has zero significance to my life. If God doesn't exist, it's better to enjoy life as much as possible, because it's all we've got. If God does exist, He's probably not the kind of person who'd want His people to suffer in this life, and if He does, what kind of God is that to follow?

In short, my life is mine to live, and I'm really too busy with that to care about trivial issues over which I have no control. The existence of God falls into this category, and, I'm willing to take any risks associated with agnosticism rather than the risk of wasting my life worrying about what happens if I die, especially if the answer, as it may be, is, in fact, nothing.

Frohe Weihnachten von Ostberlin!

So it's a tradition in my household and social circle to watch Rankin Bass claymations. One of my favorites is Santa Claus is Coming to Town, a 1970 animation which depicts the early years of the Santa character. It can also, without much effort, be seen as a social commentary about communism in East Germany.

What surprises me is not the glaring propaganda built into a Cold War era children's cartoon, but the fact that apparently no one else seems to notice it. The internet has no information on the comparison, and only one person I've talked to has ever realized what the cartoon is actually about.

Well internet, I'm here to help.

First, let's examine the setting. There's Sombertown, a dull, gray village where everyone works and no one is allowed to have any toys or fun, whose Burghermeister (mayor) is the aptly named "Burghermeister Meisterburgher," the antagonist of the story. Sombertown is separated from the next town over by a tall mountain.

Tell me this isn't about Germany.
Look at this guy's helmet!

Given the clearly German setting (Santa calls his aunt "Tante" for Christ's sake), Sombertown's separation by a mountain becomes an analog for the separation of Berlin by the wall which stood in that city from 1961 to 1989.

The composition of the animation supports this view. Sombertown is flat and gray; all the children look the same. The town over the mountain is inhabited by Santa's family, and is bright, cheerful, and industrious.

However, what really makes the film suspect is the continuation of the plot, which involves Santa flying over the mountain into Sombertown delivering toys. I mean, really...

Berliner Luftbrücke anyone?

Santa's flight over the mountain to deliver toys can easily be looked at as a reference to the Berlin Airlift, but even disregarding that, the film has already made its intentions obvious. However, I'm okay with that, because I'm a dirty capitalist pig.

In any case, I could probably write this post better, but I won't right now, because Year Without a Santa Claus is on. Either way, now that the idea's out there on the internet, other people might pick up on it eventually. Until then, keep the commie bastards at bay, and Frohe Weihnachten!

More Shooting the .357 Magnum

So last time I was at the range a bunch of guys with a ridiculous amount of assault weapons randomly gave me this target, which I decided to use to test my .357's sights. Excepting the headshot (which was from five yards and strictly for fun), here are the results from 25 yards. I've never really done this before, so feedback is appreciated.

To me, it looks like either my stance or my weapon's sights cause the impact points to fall mostly to the right, but as I hit the blue torso every time from a distance much longer than any home defense situation would normally require, I feel pretty safe with the magnum as a home defense gun.

Some other cool things: here's a Pringles can I shot execution style. You can see either the burned powder or a crapton of salt all around the hole. I think it's the first, because it's one the outside of the can and all. Taste tests were inconclusive...


After shooting the can, I found the bullet nearby. I thought it was an old bullet someone else had fired until I picked it up and burned my fingers.


As an added bonus, I found six WWII era 7.92 mm Mauser shells and two stripper clips lying on the ground. The shells are marked 7.9 FS 1944 TC, indicating, to the best of my knowledge, that they are Turkish-made surplus rounds from 1944.

Shooting the .357 Magnum

That's my new toy. It's a S&W 686P, a seven-shot revolver chambered in .357 Magnum. I fired it for the first time today, putting 50 magnum rounds through the weapon.

The pistol is a 6" Combat model, which helps keep the felt recoil down considerably; it is almost comparable to a 4" automatic firing .40 S&W. The muzzle blast and noise, however, are considerably higher than .40, and, if one may say so, far more satisfying. This can be seen in the following video, in which I fire my last six cartridges, three in single action, three in double.

This was my first cartridge revolver, and I am quite satisfied with the results. The 686P has the option to fire in either single or double-action mode. In double action the trigger pull is relatively heavy, but not unmanageable, and in single-action mode pull is negligible. Loading is easy and quicker than might be expected. Ejection is extremely satisfying. A light push of the ejector rod drops seven empty magnum cases. This rain of brass is far more enjoyable, in my experience than the shell-per-shot ejection of automatics.

The revolver fired 50 rounds in a row with no misfires; it is a revolver, so this is to be expected. There was fair amount of lead buildup in and around the cylinder and barrel, and I have not, at this time, purchased a .357 caliber bore brush. After today, it is most definitely on my list of items to purchase.

The best aspect of the 686 is the power of the .357 Magnum cartridge. I fired it from a concrete platform into the ground downrange, causing chunks of dirt to fly literally ten feet into the air. During another fun test, the .357 completely destroyed a water bottle. (The camera jumps at first, as my brother was startled by the initial blast. I apologize on his behalf.)

All-in-all, the .357 is easily my new favorite firearm. That doesn't mean, however there wasn't time to experiment with old favorites, like the Remington 1858, a .44 caliber blackpowder revolver; a bullet fired from this weapon lodged in a block of wood, resulting in this interesting photo.





The only downside to the .357 is the cost. I fired 50 rounds at a cost of $22, and that ammo was difficult to find, with the recent ammo shortage in full effect. Together with the cost of the gun, the total cost was almost $800. This was unfortunate, but, I feel, with a government as devoted to the taking of property, particularly firearms, as ours, an expenditure worth every penny.

Who is John Galt?

Today, the government nationalized a major U.S. automaker. CNN covered it, and on that channel, a commercial was featured which urged voters to vote for universal healthcare and "blow away the competition."

I am reminded of Ayn Rand's classic novel, Atlas Shrugged. The novel depicts a United States in which the government slowly eliminates competition, to the delight of big business, and eventually nationalizes those businesses, when the lack of competition has caused them to fail. As a result, the economy crashes, a process quickened by the capitalist industrialists, who withhold their gift of production from the world, thereby hastening the inevitable end.

The results of the economic crash, of course, are violence and terror in the streets. CNN reported today, in addition to the bankruptcy of GM, three people killed. One, a late-term abortion activist, the others two recruitment officers. These events, seemingly unrelated, are the inevitable result of a people losing faith in their government to solve social problems, and seek to solve the problems themselves.

Atlas Shrugged, written in the 1950s, is happening now, but with one exception. We have no John Galt. We have no Ellis Wyatt, Dagny Taggart, Henry Rearden.

I am a capitalist, a position I never dreamed I would have to defend. However, with General Motors turning into Government Motors, and blatant commercials calling for the abolition of competition, it seems I must take the unnecessary action of defending what amounts to the perfect system of economics.

Capitalism is, first and foremost, the absence of force. It is a system in which people are free to enter into voluntary exchange with others for their mutual benefit. Put simply, everyone is free, and everyone wins.

It is said that capitalism is at fault for our economic problem. It is said that the current situation is a "failure of capitalism." But, have you ever examined what it is that has failed?

Under capitalism, bad companies are allowed to fail, without aid from the government. Is is capitalism that has failed when the government bailouts do not save a company?

Under capitalism, a company belongs to an individual, or individuals, not the government. When auto parts from a certain company, recently nationalized, are expected to become less accessible, and those cars are expected to devalue faster than if they had remained private, is it a failure of capitalism?

Under capitalism, force or fraud is prohibited by the nature of the system. Companies who attempt to use force or fraud in their endeavors will fail, as customers will not stand to be treated in this manner, and will withhold the lifeblood of any business: money. When a company uses an entity which states that your wealth is subject to confiscation to fund failing businesses, is it a failure of capitalism?

Or is it capitalism at all?

In one sense, of course, it is the failure of capitalism, or, more accurately, the failure of the capitalists by conceding, negotiating or compromising with government force. Capitalism failed because it strayed away from itself.

Democrats are at fault for the so-called failure of capitalism, by their naive belief in "good government," as if any entity whose sole function is theft could ever be good, no matter what its intentions. Republicans are at fault for the so-called failure of capitalism, by their refusal to buy the best product at the lowest price, instead embracing the mantra, "buy American," as if the fact that a product was made within the borders of a certain state made it an objectively better deal.

Under times such as these, when capitalism is failing not from any inherent flaw, but from not being capitalism any longer, the divide must not be between Democrats and Republicans, but between capitalists and socialists. There are those that think a compromise between these ideals is possible. They are wrong. What we are now witnessing is the result of a compromise. Socialism, being an inferior system, benefits most from such a compromise, tainting the purity of capitalism and slowly leeching its health and vitality, like a parasite on an otherwise healthy human being.

The economy will not reverse itself through any means but unbridled capitalism. Unfortunately, the intellectual leaders of today are not willing to adhere to those ideals. The flaw in Ayn Rand's classic is that it fails to take into account a situation in which there are no John Galts. In order to combat socialism and the failure of American society, it is up to us, the capitalists, to be John Galts.

In these times, when the perfect system of economics is being corrupted, and denounced as a failure by those who have corrupted it, some must stand in defense of our economic system. We, who believe in freedom and wealth for all who are willing to pursue it by their own means, and not on the backs of their neighbors, cannot compromise. We must support capitalism as it should be, or not at all.

Capitalism is the perfect economic system. It is the system of economic and civil freedom. Forces which seek to destroy it are parasites, and like, parasites, must be dealt with before they become too dangerous. I do not know by what means these parasites must be destroyed; I know only that they must, before it becomes impossible to buy a quality product, before it becomes impossible to earn a living, before there is violence in the streets, before it becomes impossible to speak out against government oppression, before it becomes illegal to say what I am now saying.

It can happen. It happened in Russia, in Cuba, in North Korea, in China. It happened in a novel once, a novel whose content is quickly becoming true. If we do not wish to see the plot carried any further, we must reverse the trend we see in America today, by defending capitalism to our last breath, a figure of speech which, if we do not do so, might become literally necessary.

Who among you will stand in defense of capitalism? Who is John Galt?

Gun Control: Legalized Theft

I'm doing something unusual today in that I'm linking to another post, specifically, A 3 Percenter Tells It Like It Is, by the Conservative UAW Guy.

Said post, in turn, links to a letter to the Attorney General of the United States government, which you can read at your leisure.

It's an interesting letter, with some controversial points. In today's world, the sender could probably be, and probably already is, labeled a domestic terrorist.

So, do I agree with it? Well, yeah. Why not?

I own a gun, and I'm saving up for two more. If you think I feel even a little bit creepy, ashamed, or socially unacceptable saying that you are completely, 100% wrong.

Let me be clear here. I love guns. I love firing guns. Firearms are precise, accurate, well-designed machines, and when I have one in my hands I feel competent, comfortable, and self-assured, not because of the gun, but because of my own skill with it.

I'm capable of hitting a stationary target with relative ease, and am familiar with the operation of a variety of firearms, including revolvers, muzzle-loaders, bolt actions, pump-actions, break-actions, semi-automatics, machine guns, and assault weapons.

In terms of practical knowledge I've fired a bolt-action .22 rifle, a .45 blackpowder revolver, a .22 semi-automatic rifle, and three semi-automatic handguns in .22, .40, and 9mm, and I intend to buy a 20 gauge double-barreled blackpowder pistol and a .52 Sharps blackpowder rifle in the near future.

I've also never hunted, or, in fact, shot at any living thing whatsoever. I don't believe in the use of force except defensive force, and I've never had a gun-related accident.

Once again, if you think I feel even a little bit creepy or socially unacceptable relating that, think again. I know guns, so I know how safe they are, and how responsible gun owners act. The ones that clamor loudest for gun control are often those who have never fired a gun, and have never learned, and yet, they're the ones that think they know best for my safety when it comes to firearms.

Let us examine exactly what gun control is. It is the use of force by a group through a more powerful entity to take the property of another group. Ironically, the entity used for this purpose, the government, uses a variety of the world's most advanced firearms, from high-quality Italian pistols to advanced German submachine guns. Unlike their victims, however, the government uses the threat of these weapons aggressively, to take weapons from those who use them only defensively. Simplified, gun control activists believe that guns should be solely in the hands of those who use firearms aggressively, instead of those who use them in defense only.

Such a concept cannot possibly be conducive with a free country. The government, however, has a weakness, which is simply that it operates on the fear of its citizens. Therefore, the government is helpless against those, such as the author of this letter, who refuse to be afraid of it.

Gun control is legalized theft, and I admire and support those who refuse to pretend it is anything else. For this reason, I see little fault with the letter mentioned here, and, if anything, feel as if such a response to government force was a long time in coming.

Back in the PRC

What if I told you I no longer saw a difference between this flag:

and this one?

Fact is, I don't.  Not after today.  And here's the reason why.

Shortly before the Beijing Olympics in 2008, the government of the "People's" Republic of China decided they needed more buildings for the coming games.  Unfortunately for the Chinese government, the land they wanted to build it on happened to belong to citizens of the "People's" Republic.

The government, however, decided that it needed the land more.  It was for the glory of China that that land be used not for housing, but as a stadium.  To achieve the greater good of the nation, the "People's" Republic, therefore, took over the land, forced those who owned it out, and built a stadium over their homes.

To the Chinese government, the property rights of its citizens held no value, because it was in the interest of the nation that the stadium be built.  The Chinese government refused to acknowledge the property rights of its citizens, and took their land against their will, forcefully and without remorse, because their purpose was, in their eyes, great enough to do so.

Such is the nature of the communist Chinese government.  And such also is the nature of the government of the United States.

If you, reader, think such a travesty cannot happen here, think, as they say, again.  The Federal government of this country, the United States of America, is planning to "condemn" the land of private landowners, and build a memorial to the passengers of Flight 93.  It does not matter to "our" government, government of, by and for the "people" that that land happens to belong to someone else.  The greater good of the memorial, according to the people's republic of the United States, overshadows the property rights of its citizens.

"We always prefer to get that land from a willing seller. And sometimes you can just not come to an agreement on certain things," said park service spokesman Phil Sheridan.

In this, of course, Mr. Sheridan is perfectly correct.  Sometimes, you just can't agree on certain things. (Like when one is being mugged, for instance.  The mugger would, of course, prefer to get the money from a willing donor, but sometimes the mugger and the man being mugged just can't come to an agreement.)  Of course, what Mr. Sheridan chooses to omit is that when the government and the owner of a property can't agree, the government chooses to take the land by force.

I'm almost certain it was difficult for the citizens of China to come to an agreement when their government wanted their land as well.  However, the decision was made there the same way it is being made here - at the barrel of a gun.

The Chinese government, however, was at least direct.  They simply kicked the citizens off their land without any kind of a trial.  Why bother?  The government of the PRC viewed this as a simple matter.  They wanted the land, others owned the land, so the government forcibly took the land away from its rightful owners.

The government of the PRUSA, however, is a bit squeamish about this kind of thing.  It is not yet so desensitized to the evil it is committing that it simply commits it.  Instead, it must appease itself, and convince itself that what it does is just and proper - though its knows full well the nature of its action.  To achieve this goal, to achieve an uneasy guiltlessness for itself, the government of this country files a "complaint," against the landowners, in its own courts of course, and then forcibly removes the land.

The government files a complaint.  A complaint!  About what is it complaining?  About someone daring to own land it wants?  About someone daring to own personal property where it wishes to build?  When a government is allowed to use its own systems to file a complaint about its citizens owning their rightful property under what kind of system do those citizens actually live?

Not a free one.

No free system on Earth could ever deny the right of a citizen to his land, any more than it could deny him a right to his life, or his freedom.  No free system does this - but ours does.

It is for this reason that I see no difference between the Chinese flag and the American flag.  They are symbols of a despotic and oppressive government, basically the same in nature.  Government is force legitimized, and I do not believe that force used not in defense of one's rights can ever be legitimized, no matter what name we give it.

I write this now using my laptop, sitting on my bed.  I write it with my hands, transposing the thoughts of my mind.  Is there a difference between my laptop, my bed, my hands or my mind?  When a government takes one's physical property, the taking of one's body and mind are surely the next to go.

The government draws no distinction between what it wants, and what is mine.  But I do.  My property belongs to me, no matter who wants it how badly or for what reason.  One thing which is not mine, however, and never will be, is that government which seeks to take what is mine, the government of the People's Republic of the United States of America.