How much is too much?

Big government versus small government and social Liberalism versus social Conservativism

This ought to be a rather controversial post, I imagine.  As such, I am going to write it over the course of a few days to ensure that I have all of my ideas laid out as clearly as I can.

I tied these two ideas together into one post, since I believe that they are somewhat inextricably tied together.  One cannot consider the ideas of liberalism versus conservativism without considering the arguments for and against big government.

In my experience, it seems to be that liberalism is often tied to idealism and conservativism is oft tied into realism.  Each of those two go hand-in-hand.

The liberal movement wants to ensure that everyone is treated fairly, and that no one goes hungry or dies of illness or is cheated, stolen from, or lied to.

Oddly enough, the conservative movement has basically the same goal.

Financial meltdown

Everyone and their brother is discussing the topic of financial meltdown, so I figure I will throw my perspective in there too.

Before one can even talk about a meltdown of any kind, we need to have a standard set of definitions.  These are the definitions according to my current understanding of them.

A Story of Hope

I watched last night as the Chilean authorities began extracting miners from the San Jose mine in Copiapo, Chile.  They very gingerly lowered the seemingly delicate capsule from the surface down a 28-inch diameter shaft down through over 2,000 feet of dirt and solid rock.

Capsule being lowered into the shaft

I can only begin to imagine what must be going through the minds of the miners and their families as they ride up in the coffin-like conditions on the way up the rescue shaft.  Fortunately, the Chilean rescue team has taken every precaution against varying issues that they foresaw the miners facing from extreme light damage to their eyes to all of the varying psychological and physiological problems associated with extracting a human being from 2,000 feet below the earth.

I, for one, would have gone crazy and killed myself and/or everyone in that mining chamber deep underground before even the 17 days to find them was up.  Perhaps this is why I am not a miner...

Regardless though, it is really heartening to see people from various countries, including the US, come together and work as one group to effect the rescue of these unfortunate individuals.  It is a testament to the willingness to work together in spite of cultural and economic differences and a hope for future peace, and perhaps even prosperity.

More than once, I heard and saw people both on the news broadcasts and in the images shown seeking God for blessing on the rescue efforts.  I think this is the most interesting element of all of this; that when life is in jeopardy and all control seems to disintegrate, people inherently turn to the only source of control that offers lasting peace.

We can all take a lesson from this.  When life hangs in the balance, the truly important things in life become self-evident: acknowledgment and reverence for God; love for family, country and self; and the will to live.

Second Chilean miner celebrates his freedom

"Your life feels different on you, once you greet death and understand your heart's position. You wear your life like a garment from the mission bundle sale ever after -- lightly because you realize you paid nothing for it, cherishing because you know you won't ever come by such a bargain again."

- Louise Erdrich

Idealism versus Realism

There are two ways to live life.  The scale of idealism possesses two mutually exclusive and diametrically opposed endpoints that very strongly influence the way that you think about everything in life.  Everyone falls somewhere on this scale, and it seems advantageous to me to know where you fall and where everyone that you know falls.

There are some advantages and disadvantages to both end points, but I believe that realism is the superior position to hold, assuming you can hold purely to realistic thought.

Wikipedia describes idealism as "the philosophical theory which maintains that the ultimate nature of reality is based on the mind or ideas."  A more practical definition of idealism is that it is a philosophy that the world exists as I want it to be. Idealism is a currently prevailing philosophical underline in almost every single person that I know today.  You can generally tell the idealist by how they view the world and treat other people.

Likewise, realism is defined in the Wikipedia as, "the belief that our reality is completely ontologically independent of our conceptual schemes, linguistic practices, beliefs, etc."  Realism stands in opposition to idealism and is the philosophy that the world exists, and I must perceive it as it is.

A Grievous Evil

In my reading of the news today, I came across something so absurd and unfathomable as to not match any wickedness that I have found upon this earth to date.

And to see that it comes from a group claiming to profess to the very same name of Jesus that I do is at best abhorrent and at worst a sin of unspeakable evil.  They slander the very love that offers eternal salvation and forgiveness from sins.

Picard Perfume

One cannot go wrong where one has never gone before.

One of my guildmates in my Lord of the Rings Online kinship found this image.  Good stuff.

"Oh, I don't do investing."

One of the people that I worked with at the Air Force said this to me after I was trying to strike up a conversation about economics with him.  I was talking about inflation and how the current actions of the Fed were likely to devalue the dollar (which has already happened since this conversation took place), and he replied to me, "Oh, I don't do investing."  Initially, I thought, "Okay, whatever;" but on further thought, this struck me as odd.

Changed: Commenting permissions

Anyone is now allowed to comment on my blog without registering for Google.

However, any disrespectful, rude, ignoramus comments will be severely scolded and deleted.  Don't do it.

Any rational (and even some irrational) comments will be replied to in as thorough and thoughtful a manner as I can muster.  I may disagree with you, but I will do so as respectfully as I can.  I expect the same from you.

The Death of the American Democracy

The rule of law and governing has been around for nearly as long as the human race has existed.  It began with forms of pagan shamanism and religious dictatorships and evolved into monarchies, the rule of the nobles and land holders and Imperial thrones passed from one strong man to the next.  These traditions of the rule of one or few continued until the ancient Greeks began to conceptualize something different.  Something new and more balanced than before: a rule by the governed.

Modern monetary theory and the value of money, Oh my!

I have been reading a lot lately, lately being over the past few weeks, from various authors and commenters on the financial news and opinion website, Seeking Alpha, and a great many people are terribly concerned about the economy (myself included) and are terrified that the leadership of our country has no clue.

Obama most certainly has no clue about our economy, that much is certain from some of the things that he does.  Granted, one does not have to be an economic genius to run for president, but I have to question the people that he has chosen to advise him on economic matters, the so-called experts in the field.  If effects be something to judge by (and I cannot fathom anything better to judge by), then these "experts" are failing spectacularly.

New Earth-like planet discovered

Being an aerospace engineer, I still believe that space travel is the final destiny, the final frontier, of our humble race.  The first nation to begin dragging in resources from the asteroids, gold, cobalt, iron, manganese, molybdenum, nickel, osmium, palladium, platinum, rhenium, rhodium and ruthenium, will be the solar superpower of the next age.  There are enough resources in the asteroids to fuel a whole new generation of growth, but if we were to discover a new planet, that would yield a new horizon for humanity offering a fresh start with the knowledge that we have learned over the past several hundred years. 

Scientists from the University of Southern California and Carnegie Institution of Washington discovered a new planet said to be in the habitable zone of a red dwarf star about 20 light years from our solar system.


This is a truly monumental discovery that, I hope will energize our efforts to open space travel up to humanity.  It is the new manifest destiny to find and colonize new worlds and to learn more about the universe in which we reside.


Tally ho!

Game Development

Game Development theory is a subject of interest to me because it fuses a story with competition, understanding a tier-layered system, and a person's desire to kill things.

Gaming

Create/test gaming label.

Religion

Create/test religion label.

Politics

Create/test politics label.

Science/Technology

Post to create/test the Sci/tech label.

Economics

This is my first post to test the economics label.

Holy moly, I have a blog.

As a severe opponent of the "flippant" online media push (namely Twitter and unfettered Facebook), it is a bit peculiar that I would publish a web log, but it seems that this is a suitable method for cataloging, categorizing, and organizing my thoughts on specific issues together into some coherent form.

So, cheers to inaugurating my first and hopefully only public blog.