Relapse

Today I have relapsed and I feel bad about it. I need to do my best.

Thanks

I am thankful to GOD for every instant of my life and know that I can better for Him.

Sorry

I've made a hard time for myself, but I hope to get better. I just need to put myself with GOD.

What Is This?

It is difficult for me to believe that my life is what it is. Nevertheless, I understand that not only is it GOD's choice if I will travel through time, but it is also GOD's choice to when I will travel through time. In my previous post, I discussed one event a few weeks before college, but I can think of many other incidents which would be good.

Time Travel

My life just seems silly. GOD has the power to let me travel through time, and I will do so if HE wants it. There is one date, several weeks before I started college, when I believe that my life started to become just silly. If I could awake back then, then I would be a great person. If GOD does not want that, then I will do my best here and now.

Liberalism and Political Correctness

Liberalism is basically the idea that human society is better when people have more liberty to do what they want without the interference of the government, of other institutions, of individual people, or even of nature.
Political correctness is basically the idea that human society is better when all people have the same ability to do what they want as a way of celebrating people having more liberty to do what they want. It is inside-out liberalism. Liberalism limits people's liberty, but it is with the goal of improving liberty for other people. Political correctness limits liberty because some people do not want other people to have what they do not have. Political correctness and liberalism blend together on class politics and ethnic politics, but in sexual politics political correctness has overwhelmed liberalism. I thought the Tyler Clementi- Dharun Ravi thing was weird. Tyler Clementi asked Ravi to leave the room, where Ravi had a right to be, so that Clementi could have sex with a men many years older whom he had met on-line. Ravi's reaction was very immature, but I think he was entirely within his rights to resent this intrusion on his liberty to stay in his room. More significantly, I was surprised at the wrath and lust for vengeance thrown at him because Tyler Clementi, in his mental weakness if not actual mental disability, eventually chose to jump off a bridge afterwards, resulting in his death. On the other hand, I do understand the plausibility of Ravi's video-ing (and attempted second video-ing after Clementi asked for a second time) being a (distant) cause to Clementi's death, and I do not approve of people dying before their time, so I can accept many of the reasons behind the anger against Ravi.
The Chick-Fil-A controversy, on the other hand, seems almost insane to me. Why would there be an organized boycott of a business because of the personal opinions of its leaders? I understand not eating there personally because you do not want to enrich those leaders, but an organized boycott on the basis of personal opinions seems to be motivated more by a desire to punish people for thinking differently than you than to support people who think or are like you as a way of expanding human liberty. It is "heavy-handed" and close-minded to the idea that you can benefit from people who think differently from you. Furthermore, I understand how support for same-sex marriage is related to expanding liberty, but I think it is indirect. A government that does not recognize same-sex marriage does not automatically oppress people for practicing homosexual acts. Instead, it does not extend the same legal privileges to their relationships which happen to be incapable of the natural generation of children, to opposite sex relationships, some of which can and do generate children naturally.
I have learned that I have been denied a job moving boxes in a warehouse. My resume does not indicate a lot of especially relevant experience, but I am English-literate, numerate, moral, and fit enough for physical labor, if not to win gold medals at the Olympics.

Family Research Council

I do not approve of the apparently non-fatal shooting recently at the offices of the Family Research Council in Washington, DC. I am uninterested in whether or not the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization whose abbreviated name SPLC was probably chosen to encourage confusion with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the organization with which Martin Luther King, Jr. was famously associated, but I will say that this seems to be an attack that was caused by the political beliefs of the perpetrator. I still consider the right-wing to be more dangerous and violent, but there is a clear strain of intolerance among liberals, especially on the issue of gay rights. It is not enough to say that you are "intolerant of intolerance," and so on the whole you support more tolerance, when so much of gay rights activism is yelling at people because of their personal beliefs, behavior and speech about issues which I believe deeply are different from issues of ethnic prejudice. I do not want to go into it in too much detail now, and I do want to travel through time to be a better person, but whatever.

GOD

GOD, let me love you. Let me get my life together, either now or in the past.

Ross Douthat on Mormonism

Ross Douthat has a predictably good article about Mormonism. I'm unhappy I haven't traveled through time, but what are you gonig to do?

Time Travel

I wish I had sinned less and that I were not so ridiculous.

My Enemies

1. Myself
2. The prejudiced
3. The politically correct
4. People who have told me to be who I am now, when I said that I knew that who I am was not going to get better, as opposed to continuing to get worse.
5. If I could go back to 2004, then the world would be a better place.

Paul Ryan

I am unsurprised that Mitt Romney chose Paul Ryan to run for Vice President. It has always seemed the most likely choice. He is politically conservative but also intelligent, polite and from a Blue State.

Stuff White People Like and Stuff Other White People Like

I am sort of interested in differences in culture and ethnicity, although I do not have any serious prejudices or hatred to cultures or ethnicities that are different from my own. Anyway, I have read parts of Stuff White People Like and noted the distinction between White People and Other White People. Is this just city mouse- country mouse? Is it bourgeois-proletariate? Is it liberal-conservative? Maybe it is based on if an area has more Catholics than either Mainstream Protestants or Evangelical Protestants according to the Association of Religious Data Archives, with cultural Catholics being White People and cultural Protestants being Other White People. There are tensions in this, but it may work. An alternative is to use college education, but that is too closely related to class to indicate two different cultures. Maybe I should think about this a bit more, like comparing Catholics to Evangelical Protestants (or Mormons) and ignoring Mainstream Protestants.
I am angry with my life because IT IS A BAD PERSON'S LIFE. I made mistakes as a child and youth, but it became bad when I started college. When I could not make my self-importance work, then I became self-pitying. I realize that many people start as self-pitying and then gradually become self-important, but for me it has been the other way around. I want to travel through time and to be good!

Tom Friedman

Just read his column. Am I the only person who perceives that past his patriotic humanitarianism there is a deep and nasty self-satisfaction? Am I the only person who is bothered by that? I don't really have a problem with Tom Friedman's politics per se. The New York Times already employs Roger Cohen to write essays that are essentially the same as Tom Friedman's, except that Cohen's essays are both frank about reality and sensitive about the people who live in reality at the same time, as opposed to Friedman's, which like I said before, have a barely concealed self-satisfation.
My life is below average in many ways. Impressing Tom Friedman is unimportant to me, but I would still like to be better than I am now by being and having been more moral and more employed...

Losers and Sinners

It bothers me less that I am a loser than that I am a sinner.

What Am I Doing?

I would very much like to travel through time. I do not have a lot happening in my life now, but if I were to travel through time to August 7, 2004, then I would avoid my quasi-poverty and its challenges.

Prejudice and Stupidity

Prejudice and stupidity are related in four ways.

1. Lack of context. People who are prejudiced refuse to understand the many different factors that combine to make some groups of people different from other groups of people.

2. Lack of perspective. People who are prejudiced think that the slightest inconveniences or absurdities that affect them are great injustices, while serious oppression of people who are not like them are either indifferent or good.

3. Lack of restraint. People who are prejudiced start with the idea that some groups are different from other groups, and then move to the idea that some groups are better than other groups, and then move to the idea that being in one group is not wrong like being in another group, and then move to the idea that it is right to want to hurt people in the other group.

4. Lack of creativity. People who are prejudiced are not easily able to interact with people who are different from them.

Wasting Time

I have wasted too much time arguing with cruel and stupid people on the internet. I need to try to accept what my life is and let go of my unhappiness, especially because it appears as if I will not have the ability to travel through time.

The Shooting at the Sikh Temple in Wisconsin

1. The murders at the Sikh Temple in Wisconsin are a tragedy. They make me sad.2. I do not know a lot about what the motives are.
3. Many people will not think it is a tragedy because they hate Sikhs; that is to say that they want to hurt Sikhs. This is more extreme than anti-Sikh-ism, which is the belief that Sikhs are bad, as individuals and as a group. Anti-Sikh-ism itself is more extreme than realism, which may identify the ways in which Sikhs as a group are different from other religious groups. It is wrong to say that racism is only the belief that it is bad to be a member of another race. Firstly because that does not conform to the usual dictionary definitions based on common use. Secondly, because the belief that one group of people is worse than another group of people still hurts the feelings of people in that group, and still enables the racial hatred of that group by people who are outside of it, even if they profess neutrality or even admiration for a handful of people within the hated group.

Maureen Dowd on Marilyn Monroe

Maureen Dowd's column on Marilyn Monroe is very boring indeed.

A Better Version

David Brooks writes about the connection between personal responsibility and social and natural responsibility for a person's success or failure.

1. He comes down on the side of social and natural responsibility as a matter of fact but largely on the side of personal responsibility as a matter of values. I, however, would say that society and nature give people tools, but every person has the power to use the tools that they are given in their own way. For that reason, I would say that people are responsible for their own success or failure, but there are four important factors that go against this.
a. Every society should and does place limits on how responsible people are for their specific success or failures through laws. For example, if a person beats you up and steals your property, then you may be able to sue that person for the damages suffered by yourself and your property while the government may prosecute that same person for crimes against society itself for beating you up and taking your property.
b. Every society should and does place limits on how responsible people are for their general success or failures. If you do not have a job, then you may be eligible for welfare.
c. Both (a) and (b) exist because as people we need to work for each other. We need to work for each other because although we are usually considered responsible for our own success or failure, as a matter of fact, that is only a simplification of the truth (so that the economy and society may work better for all of us), which is that all of our successes or failures have causes that we cannot control.
d. All of our successes or failures have causes that we cannot easily control. To deny or resent this is stupidity and prideful-ness. (I would also point out that people who insist on personal responsibility are among the whiniest when somebody else has something that they want.)

2. Brooks gives people a guide for how we think about the relationships between personal responsibility and environmental causes. He says that in their 20s, people should think of themselves as being entirely in charge of their lives. Autobiographically, I am in my 20s. Autobiographically, I can look forward to a future where I do my best in the low-status life that I hope to assume. Autobiographically, I am aware of my responsibility for my failures and I have an unusual interest in time travel so that I can go back in time and be a good person, starting not with my 20s but even before then when I started college. I will do this because I know that GOD is the greatest of all causes and His will will be done for the person who has faith.

My Life Is a Catastrophe

My most recent post had unclear parts because I was not concentrating because my life is a catastrophe. I hope to travel through time and to be a better person.

Responsibility and Causation

David Brooks writes about the connection between personal responsibility and social and natural responsibility for a person's success or failure.

1. He comes down on the side of social and natural responsibility as a matter of fact but largely on the side of personal responsibility as a matter of values. I, however, would say that society and nature give people tools, but every person has the power to use the tools that they are given in their own way. For that reason, I would say that people are responsible for their own success or failure, but there are three important factors that go against this.
a. Every society should and does place limits on how responsible people are for their specific success or failures through laws. For example, if a person beats you up and steals your property, then you may be able to sue that person for the damages sufferred by yourself and your property while the government may prosecdute that same person for crimes against society itself for beating you up and taking your property.
b. Every society should and does place limits on how responsible people are for their general success or failures. If you do not have a job, then you may be eligible for welfare.
c. Both (a) and (b) exist because as people we need to work for each other. We need to work for each other because although we are usually considered responsible for our own success or failure, as a matter of fact, that is only a simplification of the truth (so that the economy and society may work better for all of us), which is that all of our successes or failures have causes that we cannot control.
d. All of our successes or failures have causes that we cannot easily control. To deny or resent this is stupidity and prideful-ness. (I would also point out that people who insist on personal responsibility are among the whiniest when somebody else has something that they want.)

2. Brooks gives people a guide for how we think about the relationships between personal responsibility and environmental causes. He says that in their 20s, people should think of themselves as being entirely in charge of their lives. Autobiographically, I am in my 20s. Autobiographically, I can look forward to a future where I do my best in the low-status life that I hope to assume. Autobiographically, I am aware of my responsibility for my failures and I have an unusual interest in time travel so that I can go back in time and be a good person, starting not with my 20s but even before then when I started college. I will do this because I know that GOD is the greatest of all causes and His will will be done for the person who has faith.

The Big Picture

Jared Diamond does as good a job as he can in explaining that there are many causes that affect the wealth of nations in an essay that is critical of Mitt Romney's criticism of him.

Mainstream

1. I am linking to Maureen Dowd's column mostly out of spiteful astonishment that something this inane would be published in the New York Times.
2. I am linking to Tom Friedman's column for more substantive reasons. Tom Friedman's columns about the Middle East are more readable than his columns about economics which have a nasty self-satisfaction behind their superficial patriotic optimism. Nevertheless, I still think they are dumbed-down Roger Cohen columns. In this column, Friedman criticizes Romney for pointing out Israeli entrepeneurship while neglecting to mention Palestinian Arab entrepeneurship. In response, I would point out that Israelis are more accomplished than Palestinian Arabs, but this does not mean that (1) Israelis should be preferred to Palestinian Arabs, human rights are not a prize in a competition to enforce hierarchy but are something that belong to all of us unless there are specific reasons for taking them away. Only the most beligerently hierarchical conservative would state this, or that (2) Israelis are better than Palestinian Arabs. Palestinian Arabs as a group have their own skills that Israelis as a group do not have, or that (3) any individual Israeli is better than any individual Palestinian Arab. These are three rational definitions of racism, which I oppose with passion. I do not believe that it is inconsistent to be against racism for rational reasons with passion. Passion is a tool of the intellect. Many of the most beligerent hierarchical conservatives act with coolness but not warmth because they are not actually interested in the ideas they claim to support but are only interested in themselves.
I am feeling better being who I am, but still want to travel through time.