In Some Parts of America, This Passes For Genius

Stumbled upon this quote, prominently featured on a curmudgeonly blog:

‎"Profits may be the most misconceived subject in economics...To many people, even today, high profits are often attributed to high prices charged by those motivated by 'greed.' In reality, most of the great fortunes in American history have resulted from someone's figuring out how to reduce costs, so as to be able to charge lower prices and gain a mass market for the product." - Thomas Sowell, Basic Economics

I am not an economist, and not an entrepreneur, but it takes a pretty special economist to imagine that "high profits are often attributed to high prices" that stem from greed, as if it were a commonly accepted piece of knowledge.

There are obviously different ways of making a fortune: you can mass produce and mass market a product or service so that you can extract the highest possible price (even if it's fairly low in absolute terms) that most people can afford to spend for it; or you can design, produce, and market an exclusive product, for an exclusive and small crowd of people for whom money is no object. Or perhaps you are a corporation (or a person, as Mitt Romney would say) run by the kind or people Thomas Sowell would extol for their hard work, creativity, and success, and you decide to buy yourself a government and to overcharge it for the goods and services that you produce or render (and sometimes even for things that never see the light of day).

In any case, no one would deny that good business sense and greed can coexist, as they seem to do more and more these days all over the globe, just as no one would deny that they can live on never-intersecting planes.

It should go without saying, and it shouldn't take a professor or two to figure it out, that there are various motivating factors behind the success of many rich entrepreneurs, and that not everybody who ever made anything that was popular and made them a lot of money was motivated by greed. Some people actually achieved great success while in pursuit of a higher goal, of a positive change for society. (In words that Sowell can understand, not everybody is a lying, cheating, and greedy banker or hedge fund manager.)

That's why I find Sowell's quote, and the prominence it was given on the particular blog where I found it, quite puzzling. I wonder what kind of person it takes to read such trifling thoughts and see great and profound wisdom in them. Bah.

A Brilliant Takedown of Dinesh D'Souza's Views On President Obama

I stumbled across this beautiful, spirited, and witty analysis of Dinesh D'Souza's "The Roots of Obama's Rage", one of the many insanity-filled screeds against the current President of the USA. Read it, and pass it along to your sanity-deprived conservative friends.

Rush Limbaugh, Brilliant Political Analyst

"Rush Limbaugh is a brilliant political analyst. I say this after years of study and listening to him."

This hilarious quote can be attributed without fear of denial to a person with a much higher opinion of his cleverness than his sane readers will ever grant him. I wonder if he still stands by his assessment of the brilliant political analyst whose work he studied and listened to after said analyst said this:

"[Obama] hates this country."

[Insane] opinion stated as fact: just what you would expect from a big fat lying idiot and the Christian philosophers who follow him ardently.

No Surprise, Continued

Isn'it perfectly fitting that the day after Doug Groothuis endorses Rush Limbaugh's radio show on one of his many blogs, Rush Limbaugh makes this unsurprising statement: "When women got the right to vote is when it all went down hill".

Really, Rush Limbaugh and Dougie Groothuis are a match made in heaven: one gives human beings a bad name, the other one does the same for Christianity and philosophy.

No Surprise

If great minds think alike, what's this?

"I have wanted to say this for a long time: Despite his sometimes caustic humor, Rush Limbaugh is a brilliant political analyst. I say this after years of study and listening to him. He cuts through the garbage and gets to the root issues. Listen to this man."

(No link, because I don't want to advertise the post's author, but the post's label says it all.)

Yes, that's exactly what I think on those occasions when I subject myself to the rants of Rush Lintball. A brilliant political analyst who cuts through the garbage and gets to the root issues. Thruthful, too. And poised. A philosopher, really. Which puts him in appropriate company.

America Is Too Young To Die? WTF?!?

"If you are desperately concerned about the fate of America, and believe Obama is undermining our Constitutional Republic through his authoritarianism, please, for God's sake, pray and contribute to the Romney campaign.

America is too young die."

Really, Doug, get a hold of yourself. These pleas reek of paranoia. Oh, yes, I'd like some money, too. Wanna contribute to The Daily Fuel? Jeebus!

Scattered Thoughts

Thoughts are scattered because life is a bit of a mess these days. Hence the long, long silence between posts.

However, here are a few considerations that are interesting to me:

- In the mouths of certain conservative politicians and Supreme Court Justices, the phrase "States Right" is a gigantic piece of bullshit. Read the following post on the topic, States' rights only count when we feel like it, by Hunter on Daily Kos. (And since I am not writing much these days, make a note to yourselves to follow Hunter's posts on the Daily Kos with devotion: They are goldmines of wisdom dressed with the right amounts of humor and disbelief.)

- Douglas Groothuis's blog on electing Mitt Romney is the expected ragbag of misinformed opinions, laden with hatred and deprived of true substance. When I visit it I don't know whether I should laugh at him or cry at the thought of the harm he is doing to the minds of the people who read him with devotion (but maybe if you see wisdom in Groothuis's political views your mind has already passed the point of no return).

- You should try to adjust your goals in life around what you are passionate about. In other words, do what you are passionate about and build a lifestyle that will allow you to continue doing it, cutting superfluous habits if necessary. If you do the opposite, i.e. pick a career based on what its earnings will  enable you to afford, you are doomed to fall into a life of misery sooner or later.

10-4.

Why He, A Principled-Conservative, Bible-Believing Protestant, and Counter-cult Expert, Will Vote for Mitt Romney

As the election season approaches, the Constructive Curmudgeon regales us with the reasons why he, a principled blah blah blah, will vote for Willard Mitt Romney in the November elections. The real reasons? The Curmudgeon enthusiastically welcomed Sarah Palin as the VP candidate of the last Republican presidential ticket, he supported Michele Bachmann this time around. In other words, in spite of all claims of logic in support of his choices, the guy votes Republican because he hates Democrats, which he is entitled to.

He'd never vote for a Democrat, like I would never vote for a Republican, and he rationalizes his distaste for Democrats and cloaks it in a smokescreen of alleged good reasons when, in fact, he offers really none (unless you consider lines like "the alternative to Romney is [...] the end of America as it was founded and as we know it" an example of a good reason, in which case you have bigger problems than agreeing with the Curmudgeon.

If the choice were between a Democrat and an orangutan in Republican garb, the Curmudgeon would come up with a list of "good" reasons why the orangutan would make a better president for America. Lucky for him, many Republicans reason just as well as orangutans do.

(P.S. If you want to read his official reasons, complete with factual inaccuracies and simply made up stuff like [Obama supports] "the federal takeover of health care, leading to rationing, inefficiency, and a loss of personal freedom. You will be paying for abortions. Some would rather go to jail than do this", "A growing and perhaps insurmountable debt, mortgaging our future, and making us like Greece", and the completely fantastic "Further evisceration of our military and cut backs in military benefits" you can read the whole sorry post here.)

Outrageous and Sad.

I was going to post this as a comment on Douglas Groothuis's Facebook page, but I decided against it. Not because I am afraid of the consequences, but because I did not want to start a long, pointless tirade against me by a few of Douglas's hundreds of friends. While I have no ambition and no delusion to pose as a teacher or a professor, I do hope that Douglas finds this post here and that he learns something good from it.

On his Facebook page, Groothuis-- who is a professor of philosophy at Denver Seminary--recommended Mark Levin article with the following title: Mark Levin on Occupy: ‘What are these pieces of crap contributing to society?’ Levin is known for his hateful commentaries against all things liberal and I am not linking to his post because I do not want to foster undeserved publicity for him and his hateful thoughts. 

Occupy, of course, is short for Occupy Wall Street, the protest movement which for the last two months has brought the issue of how big financial institutions have brought economies all around the world to their knees, without any of them paying the price for their actions. One of his Facebook friends posted the following response: "My son, a gainfully employed New Yorker, marched on Thursday. We are all made in the image of God and we've all have fallen short. People are not pieces of crap." Another wrote ‎"Pieces of crap, huh That's not what my theological anthropology says." And I wrote: "Merry Christmas to Doug and Mark Levin, too." That's it. On the other hand, Groothuis's recommendation earned 3 "Likes", but I am sure that number will rise before long.

The fact that Groothuis has chosen to recommend the link without so much as a disclaimer about the title can only be taken to mean that he endorses not only Levin's message but the way it was phrased as well. And that would be no surprise, since Groothuis is not new to these attacks on OWS protesters. A few weeks ago he made a comment to the effect that Tea Partiers are better dressed and smell better than OWS protesters.

Since the birth of OWS, Groothuis has not missed a chance to take the worst possible examples offered by protesters and build negative generalization upon generalization of the movement's participants and their, admittedly, varied goals. At the same time, Groothuis likes to post about Christian apologetics and often quotes passages from the Bible on his page. What a curious mix of Christianity and contempt for fellow human beings.

Unfortunately Groothuis has some influence in Evangelical circles, often talks at Churches and public fora around Denver, and has a loyal following on Facebook, so his frequent posts decrying all opponents of conservative politics, and particularly President Obama, as socialists, un-American, unintelligent, hypocritical, deceitful, etc, carry some weight.

What never ceases to amaze me is that very few people call him out on the dissonance that exists between his avowed love of Christ and Christianity and his pedestrian rhetoric about anyone who has a different point of view. In doing what he does, and in how he does it, Groothuis trespasses the line that separates Christian advocacy and political indoctrination. You can be a credible advocate for Christianity or you can be a mouthpiece of the worst elements on the Right, but you cannot be both.

It is a shame that only few of his followers on Facebook attempt to show Groothuis what a sad, outrageous, and indefensible example of Christianity he offers, and that many of them choose to laud him and encourage him instead of calling him to use better judgement. Well, I am glad to be one who is willing to call him on the madness of his words, with the hope he will see the error of his ways.