21 August 2018

Constitution Day and Supporting our Founding Liberties


I have often been hard to pin down politically over the years.  My family is stuffed full of conservative-leaning folk and, on a personal level, I also hold many fiscally and socially conservative views. If you have read any of my writings at all, that should be clear enough to see. I often have a unique take on things, but I end up coming to a pretty conservative stance, usually because our founding fathers chose to enshrine some very important ideals long ago that I find wise.

I am a priest of God twice over and I work to espouse his aims as I see them. I also don't want some theocracy where people are forced to do God's will. God wants you to be free to act in your own way and, as one of his servants, I want the same thing for each of us.  When I tell you what I think a good person should do, I want your behavior to be exercised in an environment where you don't have to do what God and his servants say.

I am an enemy of big government. The deep state is evil and I applaud Donald Trump in his efforts to "drain the swamp". Our constitution was designed to limit the power of government in our lives and I stand four-square for a Bill of Rights that gives everyone liberty from coercion, even coercion that may seem to lead to a good end. I want to stop government from dictating what toilet I can sit on, what light bulbs I am permitted to use, what words I can say, or who I can associate with.  I want real liberty!

I am often a registered libertarian and I typically vote that way when I am given the option. I don't want you to become a slave to deviancy or drugs or to make other silly choices, but the principles of liberty are more important than legislating to command obedience through an intrusive government. I prefer to preach freedom toward better choices rather than to demand that you do what I say through force!

In a modern day when both leaders and voters reward the cunning way that political operatives evade and outright attack the principles enshrined in the Constitution and Bill of Rights, I am always happy to meet others who would rather support liberty than destroy it.

12 August 2018

Moving to the Owned Server

There have been a lot of changes to the online world and the security and privacy requirements for public vendors of content are getting more and more difficult to meet. Some services have chosen to be shuttered rather than take the risk of losing money in the new environment.

I have run my own web server for many years and put essay collections there among other things, but usually put newer essays meant for general consumption on Blogger and lately advertised each through Facebook.  It has worked well, but I have been feeling the need (call it inspiration) to publish upcoming essays alongside the collections on a server that I control and maintain. If a vendor like Blogger or Facebook chose to walk away from the services that I use right now, I may lose the ability to get essays to you fine readers.

I suppose I could move to other vendors when my present circumstances fall apart, but I would rather take control of the situation now before I get pushed against some wall.  In the future, my new content will be available at http://ruach.quix.us and still be advertised through Facebook and other venues.
 
My server has some interesting abilities that Blogger lacks, so I intend to take better advantage of those, especially ones that keep you reading! I hope you spend more time reading even if you aren't responding to a Facebook post.

As always, I thank all of you for being such loyal readers!

10 August 2018

The Deserved Death of the Child-Centered Life

Parents let their kids run the family. Education panders to the desires of students and their despised and dismissed parent-lackeys. Governments coddle childishness for their own political ends. The immature majority lust for the irresponsibility of socialism and the lure of "free stuff" stolen from others through police-state democracy.

Disclosure:  I work for a college and make a living from tuition and state education funding.

Let's see an example that I know something about:  college education.

College tends to care too much about the student and too little about their actual training. How a person feels about their educational experience isn't germane to what college should be doing, which is inculcating a body of knowledge and practice that produces success along a specific professional path. Your professors should know more than you do about the proper way to shape you for a chosen path and a student should submit to their training. That is the relationship and the student's attitude about it is irrelevant - either conform to the training path or leave it.

The original and proper role of the college has always been training toward specialized professions. There was a need for proper physicians, lawyers, clerics, scribes, courtiers, captains, and so forth. Colleges of various stripes were conceived to train up such people. A promising person entered college, submitted to the training of professors, and (if they survived) exited as a trained professional, ready to practice. Once upon a time, if you went to the Harvard Law School with its rigorous training, you were heavily sought-after because it had a reputation for graduating excellent lawyers. That was how the institution of college was meant to function.

Sadly, college are transitioning from making students competent into encouraging incompetent and unthinking behavior for institutional profit.
Children and other immature people often make very foolish choices, typically because they ignore the counsel of wiser and more experienced people or blindly put their trust in silly, pandering, and greedy societies. Consequently, there are many, many people who really have no business being in college, yet they do it anyway with the full encouragement of everyone.  The sad fact is that colleges keep recruiting such naive people and twisting the institution into irrelevancy to try and keep such people attending, mostly for the money.

The greatest travesty is giving students a large voice in their training when they have no legitimate feedback to give other than their childish "feelings". The only useful feedback comes from successful practitioners further along the professional path that consumed the training and know if it is useful or not. The only input from a student should be which path to take, knowing that even if they only get that one choice, they will still sometimes choose the wrong path for silly reasons. Most colleges are perfectly willing to let a person make the wrong choice because it is far more interesting to extract the money that comes with a student than to help them make wise choices, often away from college attendance.  Pandering to the silly dreams and desires of children is just too profitable to be ignored (though it should be)!

Adults are supposed to prepare children for their future life as adults.  What we see far more often are old children demanding the unlimited extension of childhood while parents and other former adults simply take the easy path of abdication.  It might be seen as some sinister plot toward easy domination, but more likely, just laziness and weakness in those of greater age (but not maturity).

We cannot let children and the childish run things. They are inherently irresponsible, waste precious resources like mad, and cannot be treated with reason.  Experienced and wise adults must be in charge of things and assert their earned authority, knowing better what children really need!

05 August 2018

The Perpetual Computer Buyer's Guide

The posts have been a little heavy-handed of late, probably because I am actually a very heavy-handed guy!  To lighten up things a bit, how about my perennial favorite, The Perpetual Computer Buyer's Guide?  I haven't changed a word in it in over ten years and it is still really good advice for getting your next computer, if I say so myself (which I do).  Enjoy!