Lou Olivera For President

Judge sentences Special Forces vet, spends night in jail with him

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. – A North Carolina judge sent a retired Special Forces sergeant to jail for violating probation — then spent the night in the cell with him.

News media outlets report Joe Serna, 41, who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder after three tours in Afghanistan, was diverted to Cumberland County Veterans Court after being charged with driving under the influence and other traffic offenses.

The court is designed to help troubled veterans avoid jail time and get the help they need. Serna was told to stay sober and return to the court every two weeks.

But when he appeared before Judge Lou Olivera, a Gulf War veteran, on April 12, Serna said he admitted that he had lied to the court and that his last urinalysis had been positive.

Olivera sentenced him to a night in jail and the next day drove him to nearby Lumberton to serve the time.

"When Joe first came to turn himself in, he was trembling," Olivera said. "I decided that I'd spend the night serving with him."

Serna said he was touched by the judge's action.

"They take me to the cell, and I'm sitting on my bunk. And, then, in walks the judge," he said. "I knew this was a very compassionate man."

He said the two spent the night talking about their military experiences.

"It was more of a father-son conversation as opposed to a judge talking to someone and sentencing them. It was personal," Serna said.

Olivera said he hopes the experience helps Serna.

"They have worn the uniform and we know they can be contributing members of society. We just want to get them back there," the judge said.

A Win For Sovereignty?

There "is no vote fraud" according to Democrats, except when there is. Proof-of-citizenship makes it harder to vote all those illegals; so the usual suspects fight it tooth and nail.

An Extraordinary Beat-Down for the DOJ

I attended a hearing on Monday afternoon before District of Columbia federal district court Judge Richard J. Leon that was one of the most “extraordinary” federal court hearings I have ever attended, to use Judge Leon’s description of the case. The hearing was over the temporary restraining order (TRO) and preliminary injunction (PI) being sought by the League of Women Voters and a host of other leftist groups to stop the recent decision of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) to allow Kansas, Georgia, Alabama, and Arizona to enforce their proof-of-citizenship voter-registration requirement.

The DOJ is Obama's enforcer arm for Leftist assault on the USA. It is amazing that this happened in D.C. court, though.

Fascinating. Read it all, THERE.

Why Would Anyone Be A Ferguson Cop?

Two police officers shot in Ferguson, Missouri, after chief quits

(Reuters) - Two police officers were shot during a protest outside Ferguson, Missouri, police headquarters early on Thursday, police said, just hours after the city's police chief quit following a damning U.S. Justice Department report into his force.

The shooting of the officers, who were in serious condition at a hospital, was the latest incident in months of turmoil in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, which has been at the center of an intense national debate over police use of force, particularly against black men, since a white officer killed an unarmed black teenager there in August.

St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar told reporters early on Thursday that a 41-year-old officer from his department was struck in the shoulder and a 32-year-old officer from the nearby Webster Groves Police Department was hit in the face about midnight as the crowd was starting to break up.

"These police officers were standing there and they were shot, just because they were police officers," Belmar said. "I have said all along that we cannot sustain this forever without problems."

He said the officers, whom he did not identify, were both conscious and hospitalized. The department planned to release more information at 9 a.m. CDT (0800 DST).

The entire demeanor of Ferguson, Missouri is that of inversion of logic and complete loss of rationality. If I were a Ferguson cop, I would long have been an ex-Ferguson cop. In Ferguson, "justice" is whatever the crowd demands; further, that is backed up by the racist US Department of Justice, which serves only to incite more insanity. Perhaps a Berlin-type wall should be built around that part of Ferguson which hates their own cops, and be left abandoned to their riot-type of "justice".

As for the USDOJ report, I don't believe anything that comes out of Holder's racist system. Holder et. al. have turned the DOJ into an arm of racist insurrection against actual justice, and like all of Obama's administration, they lie with every breath. If there is one thing that Obama has accomplished it is that it can be said with conviction that whatever any agency or agent claims, the opposite is the truth.

Does Anyone NOT Know the Race of Trayvon Martin?

The White House and the media made such a national fuss about the race of Trayvon vs. the race of George Zimmerman (originally presumed to be white in the media racist rants), that it can be properly presumed that the trial of George Zimmerman is a racial railroading. Had Trayvon been white or green there would be no media hysteria, Obama would not have prejudiced the populace, and the issue would have been purely local. Further, the findings of the original police investigation, the original prosecutor, and the original police chief would have been respected, and Zimmerman's self defense case would have resulted in his release.

But of course, the racial aspect, in an election year requiring racial outrage, was seized upon. Trayvon now has tee shirts and fan clubs as well as celebrity support and of course presidential recognition as "son" material. But here is what is actually happening according to legal insurrection:

"The way the trial has been conducted is an equal travesty.

The prosecution is throwing everything against the wall, including conflicting and inconsistent theories that Trayvon was on the bottom of the fight screaming and alternatively that Trayvon was on top pulling back.

Similarly the prosecution creates obsessive distractions such as whether Zimmerman “followed” Martin, even though that is legally irrelevant.

We have had the strange spectacle of the prosecution attacking its own police witnesses who had the temerity to believe George Zimmerman’s story and find it consistent and credible. The law enforcement world has been turned on its head in this prosecution, because it had to be turned on its head to justify the prosecution.

If you want to understand just how dirty this prosecution case has been, consider one bit of evidence which probably slipped by most viewers.

The prosecution elicited testimony from defense gun shot wound forensic expert Vincent DiMaio that he participated in studies of gunshot wounds on live animals (under a federally regulated and sanctioned program in which the animals were under anesthesia). What’s the relevance of that? Nothing. Except that the prosecution knew that there were animal owners on the jury, and this was an attempt to poison the jury on something having nothing to do with the guilt or innocence of George Zimmerman.

It’s all coming together in this case.

Racial politics supported by State power.

I hope the jury views the evidence with the dispassion of the original prosecutors. I fear it will not."

No Limits

When there is no obtaining morality, there are no limits. When the "mandated" vision is undefined “Change”, then what happens is indiscriminate behavior which will favor the “changers” and persecute the stabilizers.

The changers, i.e. Progressives, came into power fully armed with ideas of dealing with their enemies by using their Victimization list as the trigger. Their enemies are those who don’t believe as Progressives believe, to wit: that there are earth-bound messiahs whose only yet supreme moral position is to eradicate opposition to their aspirations of world-wide salvation:

one world + one thought process = universal happiness and flourishing.

If only the (immoral) opposition were eliminated, everyone would be morally happy.

Brought to the fore, then is the freshly opening view of the tactics being used by the Progressives in order to achieve their objectives. For example, the leader of the free world is now able to ignore all legislation with which he does not agree, and to issue presidential decrees which serve as legislation ex-congressio (to coin a much needed term). Abetted by the SCOTUS, the president is now nearly supreme in doing whatever he wishes to do, or not to do. And his vast executive organization is similarly enabled:

Under the U.S. president, his minions are able

(1) to define certain groups as terrorists; to ship weapons off to drug lords for their use in murdering both Mexicans and Americans;

(2) to use the full weight of the tax code to eliminate activity which might influence their re-election adversely;

(3) to give corporations to unions while stiffing actual investors, and then providing funds to the corporations to “pay back the loans”;

(4) to implement massive payouts to “black farmers” with no oversight;

(5) to use taxpayer cash to pay off bankers, environmental boondoggles, abortion providers, and election manipulators;

(6) to ignore pleas for help from diplomats under attack;

(7) to ignore border security with token changes while demanding citizenship for all who get into the country, forever.

Now it is revealed that the Justice Department has been instrumental in organizing demonstrations against George Zimmerman, who, at this moment, has not been convicted or exonerated of criminal activity in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. This is just one of the many racist actions implemented by the Justice Department. The president added to the racism when he declared that, if he’d had a son, he would look just like Trayvon, a seemingly deliberate poisoning of the well of fair justice, now tainted racially. It is highly likely that Trayvon was a pot smoking serial criminal, as shown in his email brags, but that information will not be accessible to the jury. And it will make no difference to the rioters, who are waiting in the wings to destroy whatever they come across as their own racial statement. Perhaps they will be funded or even led by the US Dept of Justice for whom there are no limits.

The 21st century has started off as one with no limits, certainly no moral limitations and obviously no legal limitations either as the Progressives in government show with their disdain for law, the constitution, and in fact anything which stands between themselves and power, such as a robust nation full of individualists, entrepreneurs, and liberty seekers (as opposed to groupthinks, anti-capitalists, and libertines). What Progressives need is a nation full of fully dependent sycophants, willing to trade liberty (and votes) for government doles.

In the illegal immigrant, Progressives have found the mother lode of such chronically sycophants. Accordingly there are no limits on what the Progressives will do, including not deporting them, and turning many of them loose on the streets, of course, as well as prohibiting individual states from doing so, but also struggling to legitimize them as future voters. The law is no limiting factor to Progressives, for whom all new labels redefine their obstacles: "illegal" becomes "undocumented"; "abortion" becomes "choice" and "women;s healthcare"; "criticism" becomes "racism"; "homosexual becomes "gay"; "morality" becomes "hate".

When the government has no limits, it is violation of the Tenth Amendment to the US Constitution – not that anyone cares, it appears. The people of the United States of America are no longer the moral, free people of character of yore; and as always, the people deserve the government which they allow to exist over them.

Government Cheese; the Rainmakers:

”Give a man a free house and he'll bust out the windows
Put his family on food stamps, now he's a big spender
no food on the table and the bills ain't paid
'Cause he spent it on cigarettes and P.G.A.
They'll turn us all into beggars 'cause they're easier to please
They're feeding our people that Government Cheese

Give a man free food and he'll figure out a way
To steal more than he can eat 'cause he doesn't have to pay
Give a woman free kids and you'll find them in the dirt
Learning how to carry on the family line of work
It's the man in the White House, the man under the steeple
Passing out drugs to the American people
I don't believe in anything, nothing is free
They're feeding our people the Government Cheese

Decline and fall, fall down baby
Decline and fall, said fall way down now
Decline and fall, fall down little mama
Decline and fall, decline and fall

Give a man a free ticket on a dead end ride
And he'll climb in the back even though nobody's driving
Too ******* lazy to crawl out of the wreck
And he'll rot there while he waits for the welfare check
Going to hell in a handbag, can't you see
I ain't gonna eat no Government Cheese”

"Fast and Furious" is Studiously Ignored

The worst US Federal Administration scandal in memory, including involvement in the deaths of peace officers in two countries, is still unreported in much of the Leftist media. The LA Times is taking it to heart, though, and is pursuing the ATF and DOJ “Fast and Furious” program of giving guns to outlaws. Reported now is that some of the Mexican cartel members might be paid by the US government as informers. On last night's coverage, this deadly scandal was not reported by either NBC or PBS on their prime time news. I don’t know about the other news outlets. But imagine if this had been done under Bush…

If the Congressional investigations can force Holder to take responsibility for what was done under his auspices (and after all, Bush has been blamed for everything done under his administration, plus several years beyond…), then the national media will be forced to give it at least a head nod. Undoubtedly Obama will take zero responsibility for it, just as he has done with the economy. Perhaps even "Fast and Furious" can be blamed on Bush, too.

The Republicans should take this issue and run it to ground. It is actually not just an illegal action by the Feds, it is an insanely stupid and immoral, murderous action. But the highly morally sensitive Dems are taking this opportunity, albeit quietly, to foster an illegitimate case for increased gun control, even though no amount of gun legislation would have had any influence on what the Feds did in “Fast and Furious”. Once again it is the Leftist irrationality in positions of dangerous power that produced this bloody saga, not private citizens with guns.

Quote of the Day 04.27.11

”If there are no duties transcending the will, there really are no such things as either rights or duties – no such thing as morality at all, as that concept is understood by almost all people. There is only rational calculation of what will most efficiently gorge whatever appetites happen to occur to us. The calculation of optimally efficient gorging of appetites will often coincide with the constellation of traditional ethical injunctions not to kill, steal, lie, etc. But it will not do so always, and even if it did, that would not make efficiency in the gorging of appetites a moral virtue.”

Greg Forster, on Ayn Rand in the WSJ

The attendant problem with gorging appetites, of course, is that there are those whose appetites go to control of others. This is frequently in the name of some sort of “justice” which must be enforced to right a claimed wrong. And that masquerades as moral virtue under the name, Social Justice.

So taken backwards to the source it looks like this: Social Justice = moral virtue = enforced justice for a claimed wrong = gorging an appetite for controlling others = totalitarianism.

Free Will, Naturalism and Social Justice

I have been reading two books, one on Naturalism and one on Free Will. The Naturalism book is by Thomas W. Clark of the Center for Naturalism, “Encountering Naturalism; A Worldview and Its Uses”. The book on Free Will is by Cris Evatt, “The Myth of Free Will”, a book that is largely quote-mined, including from Clark’s book. Both books are very short, barely a hundred pages. Neither uses footnotes nor gives full references for the quotations which are used. I will footnote here. Clark’s book gives a broader view than Evatt’s, so I will mostly refer to his book.

First let’s discuss Naturalism. Naturalism is a philosophy, a worldview, which consists of a primary concept: all that exists is material; and a secondary concept: all knowledge must be evidence based, with science and empiricism being the source of all knowledge.

Clark’s introduction to Naturalism is this:

“It’s important to acknowledge upfront that naturalism depends on taking rational, evidence-based empiricism, epitomized by science, as our way of knowing about what ultimately exists. This is the basic commitment naturalists make about knowledge, and it explains why the see the world as of a piece, not split into the natural vs. the supernatural.” [note 1]

Naturalism is accepted, then, because of science; supernatural existence is not disproved, it is locked out by definition, a definition made by Naturalism, not by science. Science merely admits that it is restricted by its abilities to observe and measure, which are material limits; it does not, cannot, say that nothing exists beyond those limits. So Naturalism goes beyond the bounds of science (and logic) in its claims.

An example of Naturalism is Bertrand Russell’s famous statement:

“While it is true that science cannot decide questions of value, that is because they cannot be intellectually decided at all, and lie outside the realm of truth and falsehood. Whatever knowledge is attainable, must be attained by scientific methods; and what science cannot discover, mankind cannot know. “
Bertrand Russell; Religion and Science (1935), ch. IX: Science of Ethics.

Ignoring Russell’s faulty understanding of truth and falsehood [note 2], both of his statements first concerning knowledge and then concerning what mankind cannot know are not scientific statements. So if his statements are true, then they also are false, classic failures of coherence. Both statements are self-refuting, paradoxes, logical failures.

Returning to the first two concepts of Naturalism: the first observation we can make is this: what is the evidence for either of those positions? Is there material, empirical evidence that “all existence is material”? Is there material, empirical evidence that there is no knowledge outside of the knowledge of material existence provided by empirical science? Of course not. But not to be deterred, Naturalists both make the claim and then later rescind it in order to preserve it.

The claim for full causality is fundamental to Naturalism; however, Naturalists are quick to admit that some things – although fully caused – are too complex to submit to causal analysis, so we will never understand them. This covers a lot of ground with faux determinism, things like the mind, and even portions of the free will argument. The free will denial appears to encompass the main issues of Naturalism, so I will focus on that for the remainder of this article.

Naturalists like to present a dichotomy, which they then dismantle in favor of determinism over free will, or what they present as free will.

Hume's Fork

"Either our actions are determined,
in which case we are not responsible for them,
or they are the result of random events,
in which case we are not responsible for them."
Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, quoted in "The Myth of Free Will".

The Free Will Dichotomy
The dichotomy seems to be this: fully causal (determinate) human actions, v.s. radical contra-causal freewill.

Fully causal, determinate human action is the Naturalist position, predicated on the unproven proposition that there is nothing within the universe that is not material and therefore subject to cause and effect, which in turn is a first principle and an axiomatic proposition of empirical science. Thus, nothing can exist (materially) that is not a material effect produced by a prior material cause. So, in an all-material universe, all human actions are material effects which require material causes, and therefore, all human actions are completely pre-determined by those material causes. These material causes are said to be genetic and environmental, and are inescapable since at birth we enter into an ongoing series of caused events. We are born into an unfolding pre-determined narrative, sporting a pre-determined set of causes for our behavior. A fully materially caused human action leaves no room for individual freedom to determine the action, hence free will is an illusion.

Clark says,

“There’s no causally privileged agent who could have done otherwise in the circumstances of your life as it unfolded; all your decisions, food and bad, arose without the benefit of a supernatural self that made things happen as they did. This rather startling realization, so contrary to the Western assumption that individuals can (and should) transcend their circumstances, releases us from the regret, protest, shame and guilt wrapped up in the supposition that we could have done otherwise as a situation develops”. [Note 3]

As we shall see, Naturalists dither around the issue of agency within the narrative. Clark’s earlier assertion was this:

“Human persons don’t disappear under Naturalism, even though we can explain how they originate and develop. Without contra-causal freedom, we remain complex, autonomous creatures, who act for reasons and motives that are legitimately ours, not anyone else’s. You don’t stop being a locus of rational, effective behavior just because you were caused to be that way. Your will –expressed in your passions, plans, and actions – is just as strong as ever. And your thoughts and actions feed back into the further development of your character and motives, giving you a significant (but of course not contra-causal) role in shaping yourself.” [Note 4].

but then again, Clark emphasizes:

”Naturalism denies that we have this sort of leverage [contra-causal] since it holds that everything about us, including our capacities for memory, enticipation, thought, deliberation and planning, ultimately comes from somewhere else via our genes or our environment or both. The moment-to-moment expression of these capacities, including our conscious thoughts and actions, and indeed our very selves in every respect, are fully caused phenomena”. [Note 5]

And later he quotes B.F.Skinner:

”Nothing about the position taken in this book [‘About Behaviorism’] questions the uniqueness of each member of the human species, but the uniqueness is in the sources [genetics/environmental history]. There is no place in the scientific position for a self as a true generator or initiator of action” [Note 6]

But Clark then takes this tack in order to salvage human agency despite lacking any free will:

”Even thought our actions are caused, that doesn’t mean they don’t have effects. It simply is not the case that no matter what we did, the future would have happened as it did. Without making efforts we don’t get what we want, therefore the future depends on us to a great extent. So Naturalism does not entail fatalism.” [Note 7]

These quotes should be sufficient to illuminate the logic shuffling that goes on in the anti-free will world. Again, the fight against free will is couched in terms of contra-causal free will, a position no one takes. The concept of radical contra-causal freewill seems to presume that such a decision environment requires an existence where there is no intellect, no discernment, no judgment, as well as no sensory inputs, because all those things are fully materially caused, and could not be part of contra-causal free will. So an exercise of contra-causal free will would be to make a choice without either a mind or a concept of existence.

So is radical contra-causal freewill as Naturalists define it truly the thesis which is being defeated by the antithesis, which is fully causal human action? Who, exactly, has proposed such a thing? It appears that radical contra-causal free will is a straw man, irrational in its conception in order to be easily destroyed. The dichotomy as presented, is false.

The actual thesis proposal of dualism is not contra-causal free will at all. The proposal is that free will is another aspect of life, and life is not caused by the deterministic assembly of molecules, but is caused by an undetectable or at least undetected source. It is clear that assembling molecules into the exact form of a human being will not produce life in that assembly; it is for this reason that the term “life” is bent into ambiguity by those defending Naturalism, Philosophical Materialism and Atheism. Life is observable, but not material. And that cannot be, because “Naturalism is True”, remember? For the Naturalist, Naturalism is a first principle upon which everything else must depend. It’s true because it is defined as Truth. Yet even the most rabid evolutionist will agree that all life “comes only from prior life”, and is not assembled from deterministic elements, ad hoc. (Otherwise evolution is out the window).

Evolution, in fact, requires a First Life in order to maintain its position of common descent. The cause of First Life, if the cause is necessarily material, fails the empirical criteria of the principle of Cause and Effect. The failure consists of creating something deterministically that is outside and beyond the capacities and limitations of the cause. A cause is not seen, ever, to create an effect that is greater than the cause itself. But under Naturalism, a purposeful cooperative of molecules and cells is created (caused) from deterministic, non-cooperative individual molecules. This failure is a fatal failure of Naturalism. But there is more.

The naturalist approach for dealing with the Common Sense issues of free will is another logical fatality. If the individual empirical finding is that he, the individual, has the capacity to choose, has the capacity to change himself and become something beyond his genetics and environment, this Common Sense empirical understanding comes to have logical standing if it is universally held or nearly so. Thus Naturalism needs to find a way to cope with this Common Sense empirical understanding of personal agency, and resulting “personhood”. So the Naturalist claims that the illusion of free will works, but it is still an illusion under the determinism required by Naturalism, which is presumed True. So while we appear to have it, and we use it to our benefit, it does not exist. Another failure of logic.

But still another logical failure mode is this: the distinction between the fully deterministic atom and molecule, and the human “person” is made circularly: the human is a person because we can see that the human is a person. Thus there is no need to think that determinism at the molecular level necessarily forces determinism at the person level. Why not? Because we can see that it is not so; humans do make plans and accomplish goals. This is a major failure of Naturalism; the Naturalist belief system refuses to acknowledge simple empirical observations of a universal faculty which is inherent in all humans. Instead Naturalists insist that it is an illusion. Why? Because Naturalism is declared true, and free will violates Naturalism. There is no thought of rejecting Naturalism in the face of empirical facts which contradict it.

And that destroys the logic of full determinism and fully caused actions of humans. We easily can see that it is not valid.

Next, let’s examine Clark’s position on spirituality, which he attempts to co-op for Naturalism. He presents several quotes, including these:

“To understand that we are structurally no different from the rest of the cosmos is let ourselves expand into infinity”.
Chet Raymo, ”Skeptics and True Believers” [Note 8]

“The realization that I needn’t have answers to the Big Questions has served as an epiphany. I lie on my back under the stars and the unseen galaxies and I let their enormity wash over me. I assimilate the vastness of the distances, the impermanence, the fact of it all. I go all the way and then I go all the way down, to the fact of photons without mass and gauge bosons that become massless at high temperatures. I take in the abstractions about forces and symmetries and thy caress me like Gregorian chants, the meaning of the words not mattering because the words are so haunting”
Ursula Goodenough, ”The Sacred Depths of Nature”[Note 9]

It is clear that Naturalism is a religion, one that is to be believed despite any contradictory evidence, one that inspires awe in its believers, one that has “sacred depths” where words are meaningless yet haunting.

And now for Progressivism as emergent from Naturalism. Clark devotes an entire chapter to Progressivism, and begins to justify it in the first paragraph of that chapter:

”Appreciating that persons are not self-made, but completely a function of environmental and genetic circumstances, lends support to humanistic, progressive and effective policies”. [Note 10]

It will be no surprise then, that criminals are not responsible for their actions, because we are responsible for their defective environments. But then, on to Social Justice, wherein he remarks,

”There are no literally self-made men or women that deeply deserve their fortunes”. [Note 11]

He quotes John Rawls, “A Theory of Justice”:

”It seems to be one of the fixed points of our considered judgments that no one deserves his place in the distribution of native endowments, any more than one deserves one’s initial starting place in society. The assertion that a man deserves the superior character that enables him to make the effort to cultivate his abilities is equally problematic; for his character depends in large part on the fortunate family and social circumstances for which he can claim no credit.” [Note 12]

Clark summarizes thus:

”A naturalism that accepts causality will help shift the justification for having a reasonable standard of living from getting what you deserve on the basis of self-caused merit, to getting what you need to live a fulfilled, satisfying life.” [Note 13]

Is there any remaining question about either the attachment of Naturalism, Philosophical Materialism, and Atheism to Progressivism and Leftism, or the siren song of classist, redistributionist, communism? And consider who it would be that would decide exactly what you deserve, and what sort of life you should lead in order to be fulfilled. Because you have no free will, it won’t be you. Naturalism is not merely misguided; it is logically wrong and if taken to its conclusion, it is dangerous.

Coming soon:
Naturalism and Personhood - who is and who is not a person; also, Morality under Naturalism, and the exceptionalism of Naturalists.

Notes:
Note 1: Clark; Encountering Naturalism; Center for Naturalism; 2007; pg 6.

Note 2: Science does not produce truth, it produces contingent factoids that are
subject to further findings to establish their degree of validity or non-validity.

Note 3: Clark: EN, pg 31.

Note 4. Clark: EN, pg 19.

Note 5. Clark: EN, pg 78.

Note 6. Clark: EN, pg 87.

Note 7. Clark: EN, pg 78/79.

Note 8. Clark: EN, pg 56.

Note 9. Clark: EN, pg 57.

Note 10. Clark: EN, pg 39.

Note 11. Clark: EN, pg 42.

Note 12. Clark: EN, pg 43.

Note 13. Clark: EN, pg 43