Pragmatism... not Idealism

create your own visited states map
or write about it on the open travel guide

The search for truth seems to be something as natural to humans worldwide and breathing for air and eating to remain nourished. Some people try to overcome their flesh in order to achieve a level of enlightment. Others look to the state a source of truth. Some look To God especially in the incarnate Jesus Christ. While most would look to the gospels or their local parishes to find Jesus, my roommate does something much different. He looks under his blanket.

Last night I was writing a blog entry and Paul did one of his sleep talking things. This isn't all that uncommon, and usually they are pretty funny. I remember once he woke up and said, "junk mail, junk mail, junk mail, junk mail, junk mail, junk mail, junk mail, junk mail" and went back to bed. Anyhow, I can talk about those other instances later.

Like I was saying, I was just sitting there and Paul sat up, turned to me and asked, "Is Jesus here?" I turned around and he was lifting up his blanket trying to find the Son of God. After I laughed for a while he looked at me and said "What?"

"Are you serious? Are you looking for Jesus under your blanket?"

"Yeah, so?" (with a why are you so stupid look on his face)

"I don't think he's under there"

"What are you talking about?" (with his what planet are you from, of course Jesus is under my blanket look on his face)

"You said you're looking for Jesus, right?"

"Yeah. So? Jon, grunt, Jon, eeh, whatever." (with a why are you being so mean making me think about why Jesus would be sleeping under covers with me, I know i'm right you jerk look on his face"

On the family blog-

I started a family blog. There's just one small thing I didn't anticipate- that my family would actually remember what I wrote. It's a bit disconcerting when you come home and you don't get the standard questions you can just maneuvere out of by saying no one, nothing, fine or Paul isn't my lover.

Blogs tend to be conversational, and I usually just write what's on my mind as though I were having a one sided conversation with a friend. Well, my family doesn't quite get the whole statement in passing thing. Like Peter Cava said the other night, it's a bit troubling when something you say comes back to you. Once it's out there, it can always come back to haunt you, or in this case hound you.

I was having a good day until I found out I will have relationship problems for the next 10 years. I recieved a message today saying that I had to forward it to 15 people in 15 minutes or else I would be cursed. If I had only sent it to the people in the allotted time, my true love would have realized her love for me and something good would have happened to me tomorrow. Alas, I received the message too late and my love life is doomed.


And now I'll randomly change the subject. We were in the Rho bible study and we were taking turns reading verses about clothing. Paul read Genesis 3:21, "The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them." When asked to explain what this passage meant given the context Paul responded, "Well, God made skins for Adam and his wife." That response didn't quite satisfy the Bible study leader. When asked why Adam and Eve would need garments of skin Paul looked at him with his why the heck would you want me to explain something so obvious look and said, "So their organs wouldn't fall out." Apparently God created skin for mankind after the fall. Heck, I would want to clothe myself in fig leaves to if my intestine was about to fall out.

To Paul's benefit, he was really tired tonight.

On the monstrous regiment of sidewalk clearers. These guys take great pleasure in their work. They thoroughly enjoy pushing all the snow they possibly can where people have made paths through the snow.

I've been a little busy so far this semester so I haven't been able to update the old blog much. Extravaganza is taking up a lot of time along with a trillion other random things. But who cares, I got free CDs today. I got Sufjan Steven's Michingan and Liz Jane's Done Gone Fire which I've never heard of before.

I can't wait until extravaganza is done though. It's been more of a time commitment than i thought. I've been pretty busy so far this semester and I haven't done much school work at all. I hope this isn't a sign for the future.

I've been listening for great new music recently to put on WSAJ when we go on air. Here's what I've found. I think our ratings are going to go through the roof.

The Dean Song

Remake of the Carpenters' "Close To You"

The Phantom of the Opera

Republicans need to get their heads out of the sand. Seriously. Wake up. This guy is no Reagan.

I am become stress, the destroyer of good moods.

My nephew got some Teen-age Mutant Ninja Turtles stuff for Christmas. I found this to be a bit odd considering that I liked them when I was a kid and now they're suddenly back. I always liked their whimsical surfer-boy attitudes and strong fondness for pizza. The turtles I remembered said cowabunga and holy cow a lot and skate boarded all around the sewers. They chased after April, the original news babe (she came way before Heather Nauert ever hit Fox News as a Republican “strategist” and made men everywhere more aware of current events).

So I was excited when I saw my nephew walked in with some teen age mutant ninja turtle slippers on today. These weren’t the turtles I remembered though. These were extreme turtles.
Old Turtles

New Turtles


These turtles look like the bad guys. As my roommate pointed out, the change is all in the eyes. What is happening to my cartoons? Look at ghost busters:

I guess four crackers specialized in ghost hunting couldn’t cut it anymore, so they mixed together an African American, a Hispanic, a woman, and a physically handicapped person and the token white, gave them some weird haircuts, oddly shaped bodies and viola, the show is now EXTREME. It’s extreme enough to be politically correct in anyone’s book and product tested with young, hyper-active kiddos with the attention spans equal to that of the guy from Momento.
I don't have much of a point here.It just irks me.

BREAKING NEWS

This just in, Jon Roth has been charged with crimes against humanity. Because of him, wealth has decreased and the United States economy was irreparably harmed.

Jon, the pernicious destroyer of capital (further known as “the Destroyer”), was seen driving on I-76 when he hit a patch of ice coming up to a stop light and was unable to stop his vehicle before colliding with on poor hapless dutiful citizen. After the collision the proper authorities arrived to deal with his Insidiousness.

Some have tried to acclaim the Destroyer, saying because of his wanton disregard for all things valued in society, an auto body mechanic will now have more work and thus will take the money he’s earned and boost the economy. They say he should be lauded as a hero for increasing the nation’s GDP due to an increase in spending. This couldn’t be further from the truth

As a consequence of his very presence on earth, whatever damage done to either vehicle is money poorly spend. Had the Destroyer not been alive, the insurance company could have used their greater profits paying off the money they borrowed from reinsurance companies at idiotic interest rates in order to bolster surpluses for their AM Best review to keep their rating at A- or higher.

So then the insurance company goes out of business due to my irresponsibility. The AM Best reviewer comes around and looks at the companies debt load. My $1k claim tips the percentage from 8.4 to 8.5. The company is then forced to go on a frantic capital building campaign and is forced to sell it’s entire personal and auto lines to another company. As 80% of the company is laid off, those employees will have to frantically look for new employment in an already poor job market, all thanks to the Destroyer.

I said I would keep my mouth shut on Bush and politics in general because I'm sick of it. Well technically my mouth is shut, but you know what I mean. Consequently, I have had little material to talk about in past few days. Hmm.... I know.

Am I the only person out there that thinks Bush's spending habits make Paris Hilton's shopping sprees at Saks Fifth Avenue look frugile? Ah forget it. I was going to complain about Bush not really being a real fiscal conservative, but I've already hammered that drum and I hate being redundant. I just don't feel like talking about it anymore.

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen- proving protestants have been ticked off about anything and everything on television except violence and racism since the beginning. I've been watching EWTN (the catholic channel) a lot recently much to my parent's chagrin to put it lightly. This Archbishop guy is incredible. He's like a stage actor teaching Catholicism. His show came out in the 1950s and EWTN runs them now. It's hard to describe his stage presence. Of course this isn't to say that I agree with him completely, but nonetheless I'm a fan.

First came joy, tears quickly ensued
The Wrens are going on a pretty big US tour and they aren't coming anywhere close to Cleveland or Pittsburgh.

In other news, Bush decides to preemptively strike the moon and mars.

Sen. Joe Lieberman and other members of the democratic caucus announced today that stunning new photos of Iraqi children playing "killographic" video games help to explain how and why the Middle East has become the hotbed of terrorism that it is today.

"We can clearly see violent tendencies emerging from these youths even during their formative years. For example, look at the young fragile minds being warped in this game they call the "Counter-Strike." In it, terrorists attempt to infiltrate and bomb compounds or hold hostages captive against counter-terrorist units whom they frequently refer to as the infidels. These are the true Al Queda training camps that Bush should have been targeting. How can the war on terror be won if these young Iraqis are permitted to partake in such violence?"

After hearing the comments of Senator Lieberman, reporters asked Jerry Falwell, a well known leader of the Moral Majority, to comment on the situation. Apparently ignorant of the entire controversy (along with many other things), Mr. Falwell inquired why this was even an issue. "If there's no pornography or homosexual messages being conveyed, what's the big deal? I don't know why Lieberman is being such a nancyboy. A little violence never hurt anyone. He's such a friggin Jew. You know the anti-Christ is going to be a jew, right?"

Giving credit where its due

Bush did something I like!.

I like it when it snows. If there's snow on the ground when we get back to school, I want to have a big calvin and hobbes snowman building marathon on the quad. If you don't do it than I guess I'll know who my real friends are. :P

When my dad was on Vicodin, he hallucinated. It's not doing jack to me. I was looking forward to my first real drug experiance since I thought that it would make at least a part of the wisdom teeth thing entertaining.

I was sort of excited too. I really love Pink Floyd but I always felt like I wasn't gettin the full affect of the music because I've never smoked pot or have done illegal drugs of any sort for that matter. So when I got home, I ran upstairs and through in dark side of the moon. It did zip, zilch, nothing, nada. It sounded exactly the same.

I want some pink elephants to try jumping out of coffee cups or something so that i can have some cool stories to tell around my stoner friends. :(

They're taking my teeth out tomorrow morning. They always have you count down backwards so I'm memorizing a portion "Space Oddity" by David Bowie if I get all the way down to the bottom.

"Ten, Nine, Eight, Seven, Six, Five, Four, Three, Two, One, Liftoff

This is Ground Control to Major Tom
You've really made the grade
And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear
Now it's time to leave the capsule if you dare"

They'll probably charge us extra after listening to my singing.

I went to work on my brother-in-law's house the other day and I realized something after I looked in the mirror. I looked at my construction boots, ratty pants covered in tar, tree camouflage jacket and Carhartt hat and realized that I'm a redneck.

This was hammered home tonight. My brother-in-law needed my help again. He shot this deer and he wanted me to come over and help him drag it out of the woods. So I ran upstairs, threw on a trillion layers of clothes, and jumped into my mossy oak camouflage winter suit and grabbed my hunter orange shooting gloves. I hobbled down the steps because I could hardly move. I felt like Randy in a Christmas story except you couldn't see me because I blended in with the surroundings so well.


About the deer: Pat cut the thing open and ripped out the guts which was pretty cool until I caught a whiff of that thing. It was disgusting and I'll leave it at that. We dragged that stupid thing for over 300 yards at least. What was worse was that we were dragging it through a pasture with big frozen clumps of dirt everywhere. I went hunting a few times but it sort of sucked. There wasn't enough action, it was really cold, and I didn't have the right boots which made it pure misery. I did get some reading and sleeping done though. It's pretty easy to hear them when they're coming and I wasn't seeping too heavily at temperatures in the single digits. So that's my hunting story.

Actually, I have another one. When i was a boy (8-9?) I thought it would be fun to shoot some random bird with my BB gun. I didn't expect to hit it, but I did. I felt so bad because the thing was still alive with a broken wing. I tried picking it up but it bit me. I scooped it up into a box and tried to make a splint using popsicle sticks and tape. I tried digging up worms around the yard to feed to it but when I went back, the bird was gone.

Rock, disco, punk and now this?

Classical is dead. Long live Classical!

This proves that everyone from Washington really is crazy. Sorry Brennan and Kristin.

beep beep beep ba deep beep beep: An update on the ongoing bologna story.

Authorities say that the bologna was laced with pepporoni!

"I started out just experimenting, y'know. A little pastrami party on a weekend, or a vienna sausage now and then, stuff like that. Then I started on the bologna. It was just a slippery slope, a road to hell. I couldn't hold a job and I totally alienated my family. I’ve learned to say no to sausages of any sort, but unfortunately all these men in prison don’t know that no means no. But I now know that I can look forward to a bright future without bologna of any sort outside these walls as I go from one person to the next trying to find gainful employment with a sausage felony on my record."

beep beep beep ba deep beep beep: This also just in: the Government strikes another victory on the war against bologna

beep beep beep ba deep beep beep: this just in- some lawyers do have souls!

And pretty good ones at that. Well, as far as I know, the big ordeal is over. My Dad and his lawyers have struck and agreeement with the hospitals insurance company for what I assume is an undisclosed amount (more than we hoped for) and an agreeement not to bill us for the second surgery that they did to remove the sponge that they left in there.

My parents contacted a lawyer who gave us tons of free legal advise, helped us deal with the insurance company, helped us negotiate, and even got a second of his lawyer buddies who specialized in medical malpractice to come in and help negotiate. All of this was F R E E.

He even advised us to settle out of court to avoid the expensive lawyer bills and headaches that would result. Let me repeat that, he advised us against using his services. He basically gave up a nice profitable business opportunity.

Good thing we called the lawyers because the hospital was planning on really screwing us. They never gave us anything in writing that they wouldn't make us pay for the second surgery. As I said a while ago, they had 5 years to bill us and we only had 1 year to sue, meaning they could have waited exactly one year a sent us a big old bill for who knows how much and we would have been stuck with it.

My Dad went with the lawyers to meet with some reps from the hospital. He asked them how he could be sure they wouldn't bill him after Jan 31st. The hospital lady said, "Oh, we would never do something like that" at which point my Dad's lawyers started laughing histarically. She said, "I'm making a verbal agreement!" which then caused my Dad's lawyers to ROTFLTA, i mean B,O.

Anyhow, my point is that these lawyers were nice which makes me think other lawyers out there just might be nice too.

The basic gist of this essay in case you don’t want to read all of it is this- imposition as part of a belief system is unreasonable. To try and come to this conclusion I will try to answer two questions. First, is imposition mandatory to any belief? And second, does my theory impose a belief?

I’m not ready to give up my theory yet. In response to Nick’s, are you saying that you believe you should have the right to impose your beliefs on others even though you can’t empirically prove that you’re correct just because you wouldn't be able to carry our your beliefs? Can you honestly say that you can’t act on your belief system without using the government’s coercive power to make everyone else do the same (i.e. you have a conviction that drinking Coke is wrong and so you try to force everyone else to only drink other soft drinks)? Clearly we already accept a certain level of restraint in the imposition of beliefs, which I’m sure, frustrates some people who feel they can’t adequately impose their belief system as elitist theocrats.

I have a belief system even though it may seem irrational and unreasonable to many of you. I do not want to impose anything. Therefore I conclude that my belief system is non-coercive thus disproving that all belief systems are impositional. I'll try to back this up now.

I’m a Christian but I don’t feel the need to make other people out there behave like me. I believe drug use, sex before marriage and many other acts are wrong. However, I don’t feel the need to run around Washington lobbying for a bunch of laws to make everyone conform to my belief system. I think we can agree on that since you’re at least partially libertarian. I just want to take it a step further. If you can’t prove empirically why what you believe is true and should be coercively enforced, then how could you possibly say the government should do such and such because it is right? First you would have to prove it is right, and second you would have to prove that you have the right to use the government to impose that belief on others, neither of which you can do.

To put it another way, a guy may think that income redistribution is the only way to achieve justice in the world. Ok, prove it. Since he’s making a truth claim on what is just, he would have to make a comprehensive argument using philosophy, ethics, economics and all sorts of other fields of study to prove he’s right. From what little philosophy I’ve read, I learned this- you can’t prove anything. While some don’t realize it, we all live by faith in our beliefs system. This might be a somewhat reasoned faith, but you can’t empirically prove any of it.

And that is why I say that a freer a society is, the more people can create meaning for themselves or accept meaning from a higher power by faith. This is not to say all belief systems are equal or that we shouldn’t try to share our belief systems with others. I just happen to think that is unreasonable for me to impose my belief system on another without empirical evidence, and since I don’t see how I could ever prove that certain forms of drug use are immoral while others are, I conclude that I should try to appeal to the drug user’s mind and heart rather than using a gun. I know that last statement seems about the gun seems a bit dramatic, but to use Rittenour, they take you to prison at gunpoint and if you try to regain your freedom, you just get shot.
This is why a system of non-imposition seems best to me. Is a system of non-imposition an imposition? I don’t think so. The only thing it does is guarantee the preservation of private property rights.

What, pray tell, makes wisdom teeth so wise? In my mind they're nothing less than stupid useless pieces of enamel and dentin. If something is stupid, I think it can safely be called unwise, which in turn makes my teeth not wise but foolish. Perhaps they call them wisdom teeth to make people feel better when they drop a small fortune on getting their teeth out because somehow having wisdom teeth makes them wise. I suppose I should thank the oral surgeon in 2 days for removing 4 teeth that weren't bothering me in the first place because I'll come away enlightened, as though through adversity one gains wisdom. Although I guess one could say wisdom teeth create wisdom if they put the fear of the Lord in you.

According to the video I watched today, people have to get rid of their wisdom teeth because the human jaw became shorter due to an evolutionary process caused by a change in people's dieting habits. So I guess they're trying to tell me I'm nature's mistake, the guy who's teeth couldn't keep up with the times. I'm at the bottom of the totem pole when it comes to being fit (in more ways than one).

And I'm still waiting for Amy's New Years resolution. It must be pretty profound if it's taking her 5 days to write about it. Of course there is that extreme cartoon post I wrote a while ago that I never published.

It's a boy

There's something Jesus said that I never quite understood. The Pharisees approached Jesus and condemed him for spending time with 'sinners' (i.e. prostitutes) and tax collecters. Then Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

Ok, I grew up in a hardcore fundimentalist/Calvinist home. I was taught to believe in total depravity and that all need salvation, etc. And then when I got to Jesus' statement, I didn't know what to make of it. Everyone in the world is sick so they all need a Doctor. Does he just mean that he hasn't come to call the self-righteous? If you're righteous, doesn't that mean you were called, and if so, why does he say that he hasn't come to call the righteous, when you can only be righteous if he calls you?

I think I've accepted way too much as a child without questioning it adaquately. Calvinism doesn't explain everything. It seems to me that if you accept Calvinism, you're ignoring certain parts of the Bible. If you accept Universalism, you ignoring other parts of the Bible. What's left? Catholicism and cults like the Jehovas Witness?

I'm really confused about all this right now. Reading the second to last chapter of Mere Christianity didn't help clear things up either.

I've been really busy lately with family and such, so I didn't get to finish my NYC story thing. It wasn't that interesting anyhow so it's probably for the better.

My sister had a sonogram done today. It's one of those 3-d ultrasound things that shows you what the baby looks like while it's in the womb. It's official now, she's having a boy. They both wanted a boy first although they were expecting a girl.

My brother and his fiance Danielle came out to Ohio which was good fun. For some reason I get agitated and reclusive around the holidays which is when Danielle always sees me so she probably thinks I'm always that way. I just have problems handling all the kids and constant interaction that goes on for long periods of time several days in a row. I love my nieces and nephews but I wish I could just spend time with them one-on-one; it's so much easier that way. Same thing with siblings, parents, and for that matter almost everyone. I guess that's just the introverted side of my personality.

Speaking of personalities, I found this personality test to be quite accurate. It would be interesting to hear what you all are.

This is a long post, sorry. And it is also a bit of a political rant, not too much though. I felt “inspired” to write this after reading Jordan’s blog. Since it’s so long, the main paragraphs have stars in front of them. Also, it’s nearly 4am as I write this and I don’t feel like editing.

I’ve noticed lately that libertarianism has become the new “cool” ideology on college campuses. It seems that way from my limited experience at least. Yesteryear the cool thing was socialism or communism, but now people are turning pro-liberty. Why?
I have a theory. Number one communism sucked. Also, the United States has shown the governments that hamper the economies of a country less do better. My third theory probably hasn’t made much of a difference to most people but it does make a difference to me, and I haven’t heard this theory from anyone else so I think it just might be a Jon Roth original.

***Few philosophers make truth claims anymore. Since the God of Christianity has been abandoned as a moral reference point it’s become extremely problematic to make truth claims. Some have adopted pragmatism, the belief that a belief should be evaluated based on its practical consequences. The problem is tracing all the consequences of an action; it’s quite impossible. When a politician says some policy ought to be put in place, he points to statistics and gets an economist to back up what he’s saying. Since economic effects of policies have been greatly emphasized by politicians in recent history, I’ll deal with an economic example. The basic gist of this example is to demonstrate we can’t know the consequences of a policy decision so if you accept this, just skip over the next really long paragraph.
Take farm subsidies. A congressman from a rural district finds that corn growers are having problems making ends meet. An economist from some corn growers association says they need parity prices, this will stimulate the economy in the given region, foreigners are destroying the market etc. So they resort to price supports like price floors, subsidies, loans, etc. What does this do for corn growers? First more of them can afford to stay in business and so they keep producing too much corn, the reason why their prices are low in the first place. So the least capable sellers stay in the market using resources that could have and would have been used elsewhere had the government not so benevolently intervened. This encourages overproduction since farmers are paid for what they produce thus increasing instability in prices and necessitating (in their eyes) the need for more price supports. Now this is just what happens to the farmer. Meanwhile a portion of your income is being taken away from you and given to the farmer. He spends it on stuff that he wouldn’t have been able to buy otherwise. In an unhampered market these financial resources would have been used to attain certain valued ends on the part of the person being taxed. He could have saved and invested, or paid for part of his house. It doesn’t matter. The point is that people are being taxed and that their satisfaction has decreased because they couldn’t get things they value higher. If they really valued corn that much, it would be reflected in the price for corn since more people would demand it and would be more willing to pay higher prices for it. So what’s the result? We now have the misallocation of resources, decreased satisfaction and less wealth. Never mind the farmers in Africa who can’t afford to grow corn anymore because the prices are artificially low. They go out of business and not only are the countries unable to sustain themselves as well, one of the vital parts of any successful society around which civilizations are built, namely agriculture, is unable to grow and flourish thus retarding the nations prosperity. Actually, I can’t really prove that last sentence because I don’t know if that theory is still applicable anymore. My point is that consequences are wide and unquantifiable thus making policy decision based on economist’s formulas problematic, unverifiable and ultimately inaccurate.

***The point here is that we can’t know how much or how little our policy decisions will help or hurt others. Wealth is subjective to the person and there's no way we can tell if people are happier, welathier etc. based on a formula Now let’s apply this. When someone wants to use the government to force something on everyone (these decisions even affect people who don’t pay taxes), the burden of proof is on their hands. They can’t prove it; therefore they shouldn’t use the government to do it. Since we can’t know what we know for sure, I think it would be unethical to force that viewpoint on others. That isn't a fully proven truth claim I’m making here, but give me one that is.

***This is where the argument gets really unique (I’m sure someone’s argued this before, I just haven’t heard it yet). I have been told that it’s ok to believe something (pacifism, libertarianism, the evils of taxation), just as long as I don’t push it on others through the government, the very thing I detest. But I object. I’m the one being affected by other’s unsound arguments. My argument may be unsound, but it isn’t forcing anyone to do anything. I’m not taking jack from anyone through the government and using it to support some inefficient organization.

***In this respect, anarchism (the logical conclusion to my arguments that really don’t want to accept) is the ultimate pragmatic/existentialist political philosophy. If you want to make a blind leap of faith and try to interpret everything to create your own meaning, that’s fine (in th respect of being intellectually free, not being right). Just keep it personal. Don’t throw your fickle belief system on anyone else through coercive power. Would the anarchist be throwing his beliefs on someone else by eradicating the government? I don’t think so. Just because something doesn’t exist through an act of will by other individuals doesn’t mean another’s viewpoint has been forced on you. If someone believes there should be just one church in a given region and others through an act of will prevent this from occurring (i.e. they start different churches) does not mean that anything has been forced on him. By maximizing liberty, people are free to create meaning for themselves that they couldn’t have done legally before.
***Perhaps this idea of “you can believe what you want but just don’t force it on me” has transferred into a pro-liberty stance as the newer generations realize the logical implications of that argument- that the government does force ideas on other people and should therefore be stopped.
Or perhaps this is just wishful thinking. Perhaps the surge of interest in libertarianism is due to its stance on legalizing drugs. A lot of college kids dig that.

speaking of Steve Irwin