P&T: the Unreview

Three years since last post?  Yeah, I've been.... um.... busy.  I know the world weeps for my wisdom.

If you're looking for a review of the travelling Penn & Teller magic show, you're probably in the wrong place.  What you're more likely to find here is just me being a big kiss ass toward the dynamic duo.  It's not really fair for me to ask if I liked the show.  That's like asking if I like ice cream.  Or steak.  Or bacon.  You see: I've been a fan since my late teens (and I'm an old fart).  But I never knew how much of a fan I was back then... I just knew their humor and style appealed to me.

What I came to discover -- and hope to impart here -- is that their magic matters.  Oh, sure, it is a silly show full of all sorts of chuckles, lies and trickery.  But it is more than that as well.  It is true art.  And it's art with a purpose.

To really understand their impact, you'd have to understand the town I grew up in.  When I was a child, it was a sleepy little town fully entrenched and ruled by Baptists.  And I mean seriously ruled.  It was "made safe" by continuing alcohol prohibition well up until 2013.  I remember the religious leaders up in arms protesting -- successfully I might add -- to keep the heretic ideas in Monty Python's "Life of Brian" out of the cinema.  I remember city ordinances that shuttered dangerous pornography like Playboy magazine and kept it safely outside the city walls.  And all I could think at the time was how bassackwards the town was and how much I wanted to escape it.

And escape I did.  Roughly about the same time I first saw P&T's blood and cockroach infested appearances on Letterman -- I also was dabbling in that evil that we know of as Rock and Roll.  In particular: Rush -- which also had quite an influence on my young mind.  I found their intriguing ideas on art, self interest and philosophy really melded with my own forming opinions.  When I found a one-liner in their liner notes: "with acknowledgement to the genius of Ayn Rand"... I dug through bookshelves and started reading.

It was probably about 10 years ago I realized that Penn & Teller were outspoken libertarians and atheists -- well, one of them was outspoken anyway.  I stumbled upon their Bullshit! series and was hooked immediately.  And it was just a little more than a year ago that Ellie May pulled out her phone with Penn's podcast loaded and said "Spork: you've GOT to listen to this."  Just like that, I became a member of Penn's congregation.

So why do silly magic tricks matter?  They matter because I saw a room full of old Baptist geezers listen while Penn trivializes religious thought -- and they laughed and applauded.  They matter because many of these same people patiently waited 45 minutes for a 10 second photo op with them, grinning with insane childish joy.  You can tell the magic tricks matter when you hear a stranger in the crowd say "I really don't like their world view, but MAN that part with the Constitution was powerful!"

They matter because men can express their love of individual rights and their distaste for religion all wrapped in laughter and wonder.  A group that's usually thought of as lunatic fringe is the star attraction for 2 whole hours.

And maybe most of all it matters because they somehow symbolize that the backwards town where I felt oddly out of place seems to have grown up -- just a little.

Lessons from the middle: The conservative's guide

As a serious proponent of capitalism, I read my handful of conservative blogs. Conservatives think they are capitalists. They're not. Anyone that can make any apology or excuse for Bush Jr. is not even close. Being a true capitalist, I also read my share of blogs that are pretty liberal. Liberals don't seem to understand economic freedom and conservatives don't seem to understand personal freedom. But I can't bitch about both of them in one rant. I've already ranted about Lessons from the middle for liberals so this time the bitchiness is awarded to: the conservatives.

What has my ire up is the total failure of conservativism. In fact, the term is no longer even meaningful. They don't conserve anything. At least "liberal" is still correct -- they are liberal with the use of public funds. What the hell does conservatism conserve? Even amongst the conservatives that consider themselves skeptical, capitalist and politically centrist -- they are none of these. Zip. Zero. Zilch.

And if you look at the trends, the party is shrinking. It may be in the minority now, but you just wait. The downward curve is pretty steep and if you want to ride that curve to the bottom, then feel free. But if you want to fix the problem, listen up. If there is one key divisive issue it's religion. I am not saying you have to abandon it in your personal life. I am saying that if you want to grow your numbers or even have a chance in your hell of winning, you'd better listen up and get it out of your policy.

Conservatives pride themselves on being the party of "freedom." Put your party planks where your mouth is.

• Quit arguing over endorsing religion by trying to put the Christian Protestant version of the ten commandments in public places. Put them in your churches where they belong and will be revered properly. You know you don't want some icon of Islam in your courthouse (even though there is an extremely similar set of Islamic commandments) and you don't want some silly atheist "there is no god" plaque either. We also know you don't want the Catholic or the Jewish versions -- and yes they are different. The reason you don't know about them is that you're too busy nailing up your own version.
• Stop your arguing over abortion. And yes, this is a religious issue. You don't have to change your opinions. You don't have to stop peacefully protesting. Just stop trying to legislate. This is an individual rights issue and if you think the rights of the fetus are in conflict with the rights of the mother: check your premise. Individual rights do not conflict. (I actually have some ideas here... I just don't have the science background to back them up. Maybe someday...)
• Stop trying to outlaw gay marriage. It's contract law. You make the same silly stupid arguments here that you made in the sixties about mixed race marriage. Tradition is not a logical reason for anything. We all damn well know you have no legal argument against this and it is all about what you've read in Leviticus. But we all also know you're picking and choosing your Leviticus references. When you have a Defense of Edible Crustaceans Act alongside your Defense of Marriage Act, I'll start to believe you endorse the whole book.
• Don't argue over endorsing religion on your currency. Don't try to appeal to tradition and pretend it's been there all along. It hasn't.
• Don't argue over endorsing religion in some silly pledge of allegiance. Don't pretend that religion has been there all along either. It hasn't.
• Quit the war on drugs. Prohibition has never worked and never will. Criminalizing something stupid just creates a dangerous industry of organized crime. Don't play into that. Will smart people do stupid things and do drugs? Will innocent people die? Probably, but those things are happening now when it's criminalized. It's odd that you whould outlaw drugs because they are dangerous, but would defend your guns to your death. (And no, I am not arguing for gun control.)
• Stop trying to insinuate religion into public schools. If you want to start a private school and teach it there -- go for it. But don't use the tax base to support it. This applies to prayer and it applies to teaching the "theory" of intelligent design. ID is not a theory. It's barely even a hypothesis. And if you say "it's only a theory" one more time about evolution then I'm going to require you say the same about Newtonion physics. "Theory" means something specific in science, and apparently not what you think it means.
• Don't ever ever ever try to rationalize or apologize for Bush or anyone in his empire. (I know this doesn't apply to religion, but golly gee whiz, this is still so frickin common that I cannot ignore it.) His economic policies that got us into this mess and his economic rescue plans are philosophic equivalents for Obama's plans. Sticking up for Bush while you bash Obama makes you look foolish.
• Fully and completely understand that separation of church and state protects both the church and the state. Christians cannot even fully agree how to interpret their own bible. (Wikipedia lists some 37 distinct different sects and sub-religions.) Just remember that yours may not always be the one on top making the laws. Maybe that's why some smart folk wanted them separated so long ago.

You want to be the party of freedom? Then embrace freedom -- all of it. Freedom includes the freedom to be stupid and the freedom to do things someone else doesn't agree with. If you want to waggle your tongues about freedom then drop religion from the party and try to bring the moderates and the libertarians back into the fold. If you don't want to do this, then drop out and get out of the way so the libertarians can make something of themselves.

Random quotes from the past

I came across a couple of quotes that really ring true... even though they were from many years ago.

One of the methods used by statists to destroy capitalism consists in establishing controls that tie a given industry hand and foot, making it unable to solve its problems, then declaring that freedom has failed and stronger controls are necessary. —Ayn Rand, 1975

Sound familiar?

What about this one:

The excess credit which the Fed pumped into the economy spilled over into the stock market--triggering a fantastic speculative boom. —Alan Greenspan on the cause of the Great Depression

Shame on you Mr Greenspan

It is quite possible that there is nothing in this world more pointless than a Senate or Congressional hearing. It is the ultimate example of the futility of a committee. The same has to be said for the "Why is our Economy going to Hell in a Handbasket" hearings... but at least they are not talking to professional baseball players. [As an aside, I'd love it if someone could pull out their copy of the constitution and point me to where Congress has the authority over the rules of professional sporting events. I used to have a sticky on that page and I just cannot find it now.]

First off: Congress has some nerve asking "why" to the SEC and the Fed. "Congress" is why. And if they didn't know the answer to "why" then why the hell are they in congress in a position of "Economic Policy"?

But the real thing that makes me mad here is Mr. Greenspan himself. In a ridiculous move, Mr. Greenspan, in effect, said that his past history of pushing for deregulation of the economy -- he made a mistake. What? I know the world sees Mr. Greenspan as the chief proponent of the free market. I do not. I hold him to a much higher standard. Mr. Greenspan knows better. Calling himself an opponent of regulation, while holding the position of regulator-in-chief is such a tremendous contradiction that it is likely to make my head asplode. It's like some guy spouting the virtues of vegetarianism while eating a bacon wrapped celery stick. Mmmm. Bacon.

It was the Fed, Mr. Greenspan that set interest rates. Set. Interest. Rates. What bigger control over a lending debacle is there? If you set them too low, then too many people get loans. Some people that can't afford to get loans get them. Some people that can afford to get a smaller loan decide to get a bigger one they cannot afford. The self-regulating businesses [his words] cannot self regulate. What bank can compete with other banks rationally if other banks are loaning out cheaper loans because of the interest rate the Fed sets. The only way to compete with those banks is to lower your lending standards.

I said I hold Mr. Greenspan to a higher standard. This isn't your average idiot economist. First off, the guy is brilliant. Secondly, I have actually read the ideas he held in the 60's -- the very ideas he claims to be rethinking now -- and the very ideas that his job at the Fed was intent on destroying. If you are just starting to rethink these ideas now, then what made you work so hard to destroy them for the past 20 years?

[Later edit: Not that I am the one that gave them the idea, but a couple of hours after I wrote this aynrand.org published something very similar.]

Okay, this takes a little setup explanation for those of you that dont live in my neck of the woods. You may think there are lots of nutto religious extremists where ever you live, but if you don't live in Warren Jeff's compound, I think I may have you beat.

There is this one vet's office we drive by almost every single day on the way to/from town. And instead of something "normal" on his marquee like "Merry Catmas and a Barky new year" or "Vet Techs needed, apply inside" -- he has really really bizzarro religious nutty stuff. In many cases, the sign doesnt even make syntactical sense -- almost like written by Yoda it was.

I almost peed myself with fits and giggles over his current sign:

Now there are multitudes of reasons why this is funny... and it mostly is because this sign is so absolutely true.

• The logically implied corollary of this is "Love that IS based on love of god first is self loathing in disguise".
• Not so implied, but more explicit is the idea that love of self is evil and wrong. Any local shrink could pull in the big bucks trying to cure this sort of self esteem problem. It's going to take more than a couple of hours on the couch.
• This could have almost been a line from a Francisco d'Anconia or Hank Rearden speech on the true meaning of romantic love.

Just a random thought here: As if Gia were not enough to convince us, I think I should point out that Angelina Jolie is officially Hollywood's sexiest woman. (There are a couple of scenes in Gia where she wears clothes, but you can skip past those.) The reason for this new nomination? She has been signed to play my fantasy girl from fiction: Dagny Taggart.