Glibertarians.com 2018 Archive

Category: Opinion

  • What Are We Reading – November 2018

    OMWC

    I haven’t had much fiction time this past year, but some travel allowed me to read The Bear and the Dragon, by Tom Clancy, which posits a future alliance with Russia and a shooting war with China (this was written before Putin had transformed the Russian government into a one-man Mafia). Ever find yourself at home and alone, and just vegged out on the couch finishing off bags of Doritos? This is the literary equivalent- absolutely no substance, but lots of fun if you don’t get caught. Like the usual Clancy novels, the characters would have to be fleshed out quite a bit more to even reach the level of cardboard, the plot is predictable, and the tech is more interesting than the prose. It sprawls, it badly needs editing, and Clancy’s verbal tics, particularly useless foreshadowing, pepper the pages (“He would soon find out how wrong he was.”). His sex scenes are cringe-worthy. But still… mindless fun.

    SugarFree

    Getting ready to read the new Laundry Files novel from Charles Stross, The Labyrinth Index. I say getting ready because my habit with The Laundry Files is to back up a few novels and hit the new one at a run with the last couple or so fresh in my mind. I went back to The Annihilation Score this time, the one everyone seems to hate and is the jump the shark point for the series, blah blah. I like that The Annihilation Score and The Nightmare Stacks are from different POVs than Bob–it keeps the series from going stale. I’m about halfway through The Delirium Brief, so I should start the newest one this weekend.

    I’ve been spending most of my reading time this month gorging on Dracula movies since I finished rereading the novel in October. The 1931 Bela Lugosi’s version is slower than I remember, but his performance is still fantastic. (It is an adaptation of a stage version of Dracula and its yap-yap-yap origins really drag it down.) I rewatched all the Hammer Draculas as well, and their pleasures are intact. Christopher Lee will always be Count Dracula to me: haughty, snide, sadistic and bloody-eyed. He doesn’t even have any dialogue in 1966’s Dracula, Prince of Darkness–he just snarls and growls and ends up the only thing on the screen.

    Blacula is so much better than it has any right to be and even the much-derided 1979 version with Frank Langella’s disco hair is better than I remembered. Dan Curtis’ 1973 version for American television has Jack Palance as the Count and it is really enjoyable. I still have the 1977 BBC production (supposedly the most faithful adaptation of the book ever made) and Coppola to go. It has been a very long time since I have subjected myself to Keanu Reeves’ whoa, like totally Jonathan Harker, bro, and I’m not looking forward to it.

    Riven

    Over Thanksgiving weekend I read the first two Dresden Files books by Jim Butcher: Storm Front and Fool Moon. They were both fun and easy reads, which was nice because two dogs and a toddler were a huge distraction in the living room in which I was reading. They were a little formulaic, but I was sufficiently pre-warned by SF and was expecting that. In fact, I expect the rest of the Dresden Files books will follow very similar formats. I’ll be finding out soon because Grave Peril is next on my reading list. Reading these books feels a little bit like homework, since reading them was sort of a prerequisite for my rpg group’s next adventure: Your Story. (Everyone wanted a Pathfinder break.) But it’s really easy homework, and they remind me a bit of The Hollows series that I enjoyed so much last summer. If you’re looking for entertaining urban fantasy that isn’t too challenging and builds a nice world, either series would be a good fit.

    mexicansharpshooter

    Recently I found an old book titled, Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss.  Its been gathering dust as a shim for the kitchen table for the past three months, I figured I might as well actually read it to my 4 year old.

    Its a harrowing tale of a missionary named Sam, sent to an unfortunate land where nobody speaks in complete sentences, or without a form of pentameter.  I imagine it might have taken him months to adapt to the local custom in order to converse with the locals, and the story focuses on his interaction with one nameless local.  I imagine Dr. Seuss was unable pronounce the local’s name, and to be honest I doubt I would remember it either—the man is vegan, as is the standard in his culture.  I imagine his B12 deficiency is the root cause of his demeanor throughout the entire story.

    Sam is a missionary from the Church of Carnivorous Kinship (COCK) and is charged with converting a single vegan to a meat eater, thus fulfulling his destiny, and securing his place in heaven by his alien Reptilian overlords.

    I assume it begins early in the morning as the story begins while the local is reading a newspaper, and Sam offers him a simple ham and eggs breakfast.  He first tries to convince the local to eat it with a both a rodent and cannine companion, offers him a consideably large piece of real estate, and even offers the local to eat it in the location of his choice.  Much to Sam’s charign, the local then violates NAP by pushing him into oncoming traffic on a major highway, even forcing Sam to dodge an oncoming  train—WITHIN A TUNNEL.  The local’s shocking refusal would shake the convictions of the average missionary, but Sam is no average missionary.  The local eventually forces both over a seaside cliff, where he finally submits to Sam’s simple request and tries the meal.

    He loved it.  Becasue ham and eggs are delicious.

    The local, now cured of his B12 deficiency, is a much more personalble fellow, and likely continues the COCK lifestyle to this day.  It wouldn’t surprise me if the local is the missionary in the sequel Go Dog Go.

    Tune in next month.

    SP

    More Bosch. (And I started watching the series on Prime, and have some thoughts, but this post isn’t about TV shows.) Also read Scott Pratt’s latest Joe Dillard, Due Process, number 9 in the series. Enjoyable, if predictable, mind candy. Robert Dugoni’s A Steep Price, the most recent Tracy Crosswhite installment, is now the fiction in rotation on my Kindle.

    I’ve just begun the non-fiction-ish Lincoln’s Last Trial: The Murder Case That Propelled Him to the Presidency. Too soon to have formed a real opinion.

    Another book that just landed on my doorstep is Gene Machine: The Race to Decipher the Secrets of the Ribosome, penned by Venki Ramakrishnan, who shared the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work with the ribosome.  I purchased this one in print, as is my habit for anything I think OMWC and/or various geeky houseguests might also be interested in reading (and why we have overflowing bookshelves in our library). Haven’t read more than the introduction, but I think it will be very interesting.

    As part of an ongoing personal project building a sort of online research aid website for family history in my hometown (yes, I’m a nerd), I am re-reading the history book the two local historical societies produced 30-odd years ago and indexing the people . It’s very interesting to revisit this collection of local history and local family histories submitted by the families. This makes the book something of a cross between oral history anecdotes, verifiable facts, supposition, and wishful thinking. My family joined this community just a few years before my birth, and even having spent my entire life before college there, I’m finding all sorts of new connections and gossipy details about the place. It’s quite fun.

    jesse.in.mb

    It’s been a trying two months and I haven’t gotten much reading done. I finally (and just in the nick of time) Finished James R. Walker’s Lakota Myth. It’s been on my shelf since I visited the Crazy Horse Memorial. The editor, Elaine Jahner does the unenviable job of balancing an academic understanding of ethnography and folklore, the context that Walker brought to the stories, and showcasing the work Walker did in trying to bridge the gap between oral story-telling and a literary cycle. Some of the stories are told multiple times in the book, with each telling revealing how differently shamans, converts and entertainers told familiar tales with different emphases. I’d picked it up expecting something more like Bulfinch’s Mythology, but was pleasantly stimulated by the explanations for why certain decisions were made about the presentation of a mythology that was not already rooted into an English-speaking audience’s popular consciousness.

    Web Dominatrix

    I am currently enjoying We The Corporations by Adam Winkler. I met the author randomly some years ago at a book festival. Truthfully the book caught my eye because I recognised the author’s name.

    Winkler is a constitutional law professor at UCLA, and We The Corporations explores the complex topic of corporate personhood, and how businesses have won constitutional protections. I’m not far enough into it to give a review, so I expect I will report back next month.

    Brett L

    My big read of the month was Charlie Stross’s latest Laundry Files book The Labyrinth Index. Let me start with the good: The premise — that a Cthulonic cult has worked a mass glamor on the USA to make everyone forget the President every time they sleep was actually excellent. The group of Secret Service agents on the Presidential detail basically sleep every 4th day so enough are awake to remember why they are guarding this guy. The rest of the book is shit. Everyone and his fucking brother who isn’t currently the Eater of Souls or cohabiting with him is basically a vampire by the end. I don’t know, Stross started out emulating the styles of spy novelists in his first 2 or 3 installments. Maybe he decided to emulate Robert Jordan with this one because basically nobody remotely important dies, and I was bored by the end.

    I also tried to read The Systems Thinker: Essential Thinking Skills For Solving Problems, Managing Chaos, and Creating Lasting Solutions in a Complex World. Maybe I’ll go back to it at some point but if you’ve ever had to take any sort of process engineering or electronics course, you’ll know the systems he’s talking about. And then take a not particularly imaginative person and have them try to explain through large, complex poorly defined systems in the real-world like schools. I don’t know, maybe its because the author started with a “nuanced” view of Norman Borlaug and I have a very un-nuanced view of Norman Borlaug. I’m sure this is a revelation for people who don’t have any formal systems training, but I found it not particularly insightful and his deep thoughts not particularly deep before I gave it up about 2/3 of the way through.

  • Liberty for Me, but Also for Thee

    Liberty for Me, but Also for Thee

    Philosophical consistency is an aspirational goal.  It is not, no matter how much we may want to believe in our own purity, something any of us will ever truly achieve.  Also, even if you drive a Prius your farts stink; you have to spring for a Tesla before they turn to perfume.

    It is easy to see the inconsistencies in the belief systems of people with whom we disagree (because they are all stupid and rude); it is much harder to recognize those in our own noble, and wise beliefs. Almost all of us here are small ‘l‘ libertarians.  I am a conservative leaning libertarian.  We yokels sometimes make jokes about capital “L” Libertarians being all about pot, Mexicans and ass sex which is our deliberately offensive shorthand for our belief that The Libertarian Party, (sorry I know it doesn’t really deserve a capital letter but how else do we distinguish between libertarians and Bill Weld?) campaigns exclusively on sexual liberation (which has been pretty completely achieved, and no you did not get a speck of credit from the progs), drug legalization (yay crony pot!), and open borders, to the exclusion of freedom of association, gun rights, and limiting the massive growth of government, which we see as the more significant issues.

    I set this all out as a starting point, because I am going to be examining one of my own prejudices and it helps to give some context about my belief structure.  In other words I studied law and philosophy and am now completely incapable of getting directly to the point.  Hell, just be glad I didn’t spend 5 pages defining every noun in this article.

    Up to this point you are probably thinking:  Pompous guy spouting above the fray platitudes, libertarian model II, Paulista edition, time to move to the comments, nothing interesting here.  But I am not writing this to signal virtue; I am writing this, and struggling with it, because I have realized (not for the first time) that I have a conflict in my beliefs, and one that I think quite a few people here share.  

    It has to do with everyone’s favorite non-acronym acronym.  That wonderful keyboard swipe that defines sexual politics, LGBTQ. I am not worried about the L, they take care of themselves just fine, the G, they aren’t even victims anymore, the B, doubled date chances and all, or even the Q (Hi Q thanks for the mammaries!), but I have a problem with the T.  Ok, I don’t really understand the Q, I mean literally, I do not understand what queer means if it is something not covered by the L, B, or G.  So back to that troublesome T.

    I believe that there are three phenomena lumped into that T, and that due to deliberate conflating of these phenomena, a great deal of misery is being created.  First, there are the physically intersex individuals.  That tiny minority who are born with some ambiguity in their sexual characteristics.  Second, there are those suffering from gender dysphoria.  Also a small minority, but in this case with a psychological disconnect between their otherwise normal physiology and their self perception.  Finally, there are those I think of as the snowflakes.  Generally young people who I believe identify as transgender either in confusion about their sexual desires, a search for victimhood, or just to dramatize teen angst.

    For the intersex folk out there I have nothing but compassion.  My only wish for them is that they find whatever role and path to happiness they can.  If that means surgery, hormone treatments, and selection of a gender, great; if it means some other path, also great.  For those with actual gender dysphoria my thoughts are more complicated.  I personally think that treating a psychological disconnect by changing the body is the wrong path, but it isn’t my place to decide what path someone else should take, so who cares what I think?

    For the snowflakes, less sympathy, a lot less. As with many snowflake issues the answer is that growing up is hard, but worthwhile, and I suggest they give it a try.  No, occasionally having a stereotypical feminine feeling does not a dysphoria make. You are not a lesbian woman trapped in a man’s body.     You are just a straight dude, even if you get off on wearing women’s clothes. Equally, if you are ok with your body, but want to engage in sex with another dude that is called being gay, it does not require surgery, hormones, or switching restrooms.   Just do what makes you happy, don’t harm other people and stop being so dramatic.

    And now you are all thinking:  Ok, what’s so contradictory about all this?  These are pretty bland, basic viewpoints on this issue, and even the part where I diverge from the sjw narrative I admit is none of my business so why bother to spout off? Aren’t I just being an angsty snowflake myself with all my dramatic “philosophical contradiction” nonsense?  BUT I AM SPECIAL DAMMIT!

    Well, there is a more controversial part of all this.

    What about the kids?  Pretty much anyone who claims to be libertarian is going to eventually come around to the idea that adults can make their own choices about hormones and surgery.  There may be some waffling about bathrooms, and we may think prisons, sports leagues and other sex segregated venues should go by biology, but it’s very hard to claim to be pro individual liberty and at the same time deny adults the right to make their own decisions about their bodies.  Children are a different thing. (Why will no one ever think of them!)

    Children do not have full autonomy.  Obviously, you cannot let a toddler, or grade-schooler, or even a middle-schooler  make all, or even most, of their day to day decisions.  A diet of soda, candy, and ice cream is unhealthy.  Spending all day playing Fortnite or hunting Pokemon is less productive than school (ok, maybe the kids are right on this one).  Vaccinations are actually a good thing, even if shots sting.  And, no, the dog does not want to be dressed as your caparisoned stallion and ridden to battle with the forces of evil over at Mikey’s house.  So, we all accept that children can rightly be prevented from doing as they wish.  

    We accept the concept of parental authority, and the idea that children’s basic right to liberty is in abeyance until some degree of maturation has occurred. (Or at least until they get big enough to be useful as cannon fodder.)  Very young kids have effectively no liberty, and as they get older they gradually get more autonomy until at some magic point they morph into adults and become free to go to hell in their own way, just like all of us.

    I have voiced the opinion that encouraging, or even allowing, children to take puberty blockers, or cross sex hormone treatments, is blatant child abuse.  Puberty blockers have permanent effects and the idea that prepubescent kids are developed enough to make permanent decisions, or even to decide that they are transgendered, as opposed to simply homosexual, or just unsure about their sexuality, is nonsense.  

    By definition, prepubescent kids are not sexually developed.  It is the rankest prejudice to say, “Oh, I know little Johnny is gay, or straight, or transgendered,” when little Johnny hasn’t hit puberty.  Manifestly all you can be basing that belief on are your stereotypes about how gay people, or straight people act. You see, prepubescents aren’t supposed to be engaged in sexual behavior (sorry OMWC), and sexual behavior is what actually defines you as gay, straight, bi or whatever the hell, and no, playing with dolls doesn’t mean little Johnny is gay, or a woman.

    Now, child abuse is a tough subject for libertarians and conservatives.  We can accept that children don’t have full autonomy, and default to the idea that therefore their autonomy devolves to the parents.  Since that leaves the parents effectively owning the liberty right of the child, we are skeptical about government involvement, but what about abuse situations?  If libertarian belief followed all the way left us with no way to stop parents from torturing, raping, or killing their kids, then libertarians would really be as evil as Vox says.  Fortunately, libertarian philosophy doesn’t have to take us there.  

    I think what saves us is the concept of a fiduciary.  Parents do own their children’s liberty rights, but they own them as fiduciaries.  In other words, they hold the right for the benefit of the child, not the parent’s own benefit, and Mommy and Daddy have a corresponding obligation to act in little Johnny’s interest.  So, no problem right?  If using puberty blockers is a bad idea, poorly justified, by inadequate evidence, of, possibly nonsensical, gender confusion, with long term deleterious effects, then it is child abuse and should be illegal, just like any other permanent physical harm inflicted!

    That has been my belief and I have voiced it frequently.  Here is the problem:

    I support the right of crazy anti-vaxxers to refuse to get their kids shots.  I also got furious, along with most of the people here about Charlie Gard.  In other words I believe that medical decisions fall squarely within the parent’s role.  So, despite thinking transgender treatments for children are as stupid as the Flat Earth Society bragging that they now have chapters around the globe, and as evil as a Broward County election supervisor, I have to support the parent’s right to make this decision.  

    So, that leaves me with three possibilities:

    1.  Medical decisions must be subject to some test and the parents only get to make the ‘right’ decisions.

    The problem here is obvious.  What test?  Who decides?  Doctors? Judges? Every single case of puberty blockers being given involved a doctor, as did the decision to kill Charlie, which was upheld by the British courts.  So going this route doesn’t get me EITHER side of what I want.  When an answer requires the right top men, it is not a libertarian idea

    2.  Puberty Blockers are up to the parents and child, hopefully in consultation with doctors across a decent spectrum of understanding of the consequences, and I can sit quietly disapproving but shut up about it.

    3.  My thought process sucks and you all will let me know why I am stupid in the comments.

    Much as it pisses me off, I have to go with 2 here.  The unexamined life may not be worth living; but examining it mostly leaves you feeling a bit dirty.

  • Do I live in a Blue State Now?

    Floating around the ether recently is the idea that Arizona is no longer what is known as a “Red State.”  This is not really a new concept, as the media has discussed this since Bill Clinton won Arizona’s electoral college votes when he was reelected in 1996.  Back then, they cited the state’s changing demographics. I touched on this a bit in my review of a Cream Ale, citing a study from the well regarded W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State, the majority of people moving to Arizona for better or worse are from California.

    This is my review of Dogfish Head Sea Quench Session Sour Ale

    So does the election of Krysten Sinema spell the beginning of the end?  Maybe, maybe not.

    A pretty good post-mortem of this election can be found on Ricochet.  Jon Gabriel makes a pretty good case that Sinema won primarily because she ran a more positive, aggressive campaign, and was better known in Phoenix.  While McSally being the representative from Discrict 2, which splits Tucson, was not as well known in Phoenix where the majority of the state lives.  She also focused on portraying Sinema as the annoying girl shrieking into a megaphone outside the student union—yes, well all knew that was her, thanks.  Simply put, when half the population of the state does not live in the metro area you represent, and over half of that metro area will not support you, you might be at a disadvantage.  

    You WILL turn in your guns, so I can play with them.

    I can see this being from Phoenix, because until somebody attempted to assassinate her, I didn’t much know anything about Gabrielle Giffords—other than the photo of her with an AR-15.

    Then there was the part that McSally reminded everyone of John McCain or if you are a conservative, worse than that,  Let’s face it, she’s also a retired fighter pilot, a squishy moderate, and neither endorsed or condemned Trump in 2016.  They both even have Mc in the name.

    Let’s look at the election numbers themselves.  As I wrote previously, while there are certainly a few shenanigans that I would like the state to investigate, these wouldn’t have affected the outcome all that much, therefore I still do not believe there is much evidence of voter fraud.  That said, as of 14 November, the statewide elections break down like this:

    The State Legislature and House Districts break down like this:

    First off, note the lack of a Team L candidate for any of these races.  The one that ran for governor, Kevin McCormick, did not get enough signatures to get a name on the ballot.  I reached out to his campaign in the summer, to see what he was about, ask a few questions, and distribute his answers appropriately for the lovely people of this site to tear him apart.  Sadly, he declined.

    Where we get to have some fun with the numbers is here:

    Feel free to tear apart my math

    One thing that initially popped into my head was perhaps a significant number of team red types voted Doug Ducey for governor and declined to vote at all in the Senate race.  This is wrong, as it only accounts for 691 voters. My next thought was the difference between Ducey’s total and McSally’s, just to get a grip on what the damage is. That is -185,978, a difference of 14.67%–okay fair enough.  If we divide the margin of the Senate race by the total number that voted for Ducey, we get a percentage. 3.13% to be exact. That is the percentage of voters, otherwise happy to vote for team red in the Governor race, McSally would ultimately fail to convince to vote for her.  

    Looking at the other statewide races we see when team red won, they won by a fairly comfortable margin.  Where team blue won, they won it by a nose. An average of 4.04%, to .77%, respectfully. The legislature did not flip either.  

    With regard to the house elections, it could be a combination of the typical increased turnout of the party opposite the one in power nationally, name recognition for Greg Stanton as he is the mayor of Phoenix and the district he won is primarily in Phoenix, and Anne Kirkpatrick being well-known from her failed attempt to unseat John McCain in 2016.  Plus District 2 is made up in part from a district Kirkpatrick formerly represented in Northern Arizona.

    For all this talk about changing demographics, one would think somebody would ride Sinema’s coattails.  While you might say Hobbs may have received a favorable bump, a team blue candidate winning a downballot seat is not that uncommon in Arizona either.  Personally, I voted for Hobbs, as I typically vote that candidate for secretary of state from the opposite party I vote for governor—gridlock is a good thing.  If it were turning blue, perhaps a few progressive measures have passed in the last ten to fifteen years?  None come to mind, but feel free to dig around and prove me wrong.

    But what has passed? Constitutional Carry, and Occupational Licensing reform are the first that come to mind.  There are even a few that come to mind where team red arguably went too far that I will not link to, but I bet you heard of them.

    So is Arizona a blue state?  Maybe, maybe not.

     

    Is this beer any good?  I actually tried this multiple times to try to be objective, it really isn’t.  Its salt and lime, like a margarita, but without the class.  If you like sours, I’m sure you will like it just fine.  Dogfish Head Sea Quench Session Sour:  1.5/5.

  • Poll: Carbonated soft drinks

    This evening I’ve got several related questions for you.

    I know there are some among us who do not drink carbonated beverages, but for the rest of us, they can be a refreshing drink. Some here might even be what one could call psychologically addicted to them, perhaps even physically addicted to various components of them.

    1. Where you grew up, what did folks call carbonated soft drinks as a general type of beverage? Soda? Pop? Soda pop? Coke? Soft drinks? Something else?
    2. Were you allowed to drink it?
    3. Do you prefer diet or regular?
    4. What’s your favorite cola?
    5. What’s your overall favorite?

     

    I’ll start.

    1. We grew up calling it pop. (Upstate NY) When I went off to college, I learned to call it soda, and I still do.
    2. We were only allowed to have it for special occasions when we were small, but by the time we were teenagers, my Mom was buying 2 liter bottles of (mostly) house brand sodas, and we could have it anytime we wanted. However, she would say, “Remember, that’s all we have until payday. You might want to make it last.”
    3. I find regular sodas to be way too sweet, so stick to diet.
    4. My favorite cola was Diet Cherry Coke. However, they discontinued it so they could switch in their new “millennial” flavors. Which all suck. (Millennials are ruining everything! And they need to get off my lawn while doing so!) So, now I drink Coca-Cola Cherry Zero. And I absolutely will not drink Pepsi. It’s disgusting. Fight me!
    5. Favorite soda of all time: my grandfather’s homemade root beer.

     

    Your turn!

     

     

     

     

  • Is there evidence of voter fraud?

    The last few days following the election saw a couple accusations of voter fraud in FL and AZ.  While the evidence seems stronger in FL, that has not stopped speculation about the senate race in AZ.

    Where the race in AZ to fill the vacancy left by Jeff Flake currently stands, is Sinema with a lead around 32,000 votes.

    There have been a few questionable things that occurred on election day, such as the foreclosure of a polling center in Chandler, AZ (part of a conservative area of the SE Phoenix area), and standing up emergency polling locations where no such emergency occurred.  The only thing that does look fishy was Maricopa County continued verifying signatures  on mail in/early ballots past election day, when other counties stopped.  This is an odd practice that typically doesn’t matter because most of the time statewide races are not this close.  These also represent the majority of ballots.  AZ allows vote by mail and the state even pays postage, making it easy to vote.  Upon a lawsuit filed by Republicans, all counties will continue to verify signatures until November 14.  Theoretically this helps McSally, as she has far greater support thus far in the rural parts of the state.  Maricopa County encompases Phoenix, and the surrounding area, with about half of the state’s population.

    Another thing to mention is there are other statewide races that have seen some growth in the lead  or closing the gap or even taking the lead of a Republican candidate.  Nobody in the national media has paid any attention to these.

    As far as the horse race goes, in the first link there is discussion of where the latest batch came from, and that is mostly from Pima county.  That county is Tucson and the surrounding area and tends to vote blue in federal and local elections.  The local business community often accuses the city government of hostility to business on a variety of issues— it is not Phoenix by a long shot.

    McSally represented a district that included Tucson, and she won that district by under 200 votes in the last election, she is an unpopular candidate in that part of the state, which means the votes that came last couple days were votes she was not going to get anyway.  Sinema represents a district that encompasses part of Maricopa county, mainly S. Phoenix, Tempe and part of Mesa.  It stands to reason she was going to get votes from these areas.

    The remainder are almost all from Maricopa county.  Phoenix itself may be blue but many surrounding cities are not.  Mesa, Gilbert, Scottsdale, Surprise, and Glendale in particular vote red.  Many believe these cities, coupled with the northern part of the state are why AZ has not turned into CO, but that’s a discussion for another day.

    Bottom line, this race is still ridiculously close, and if it is going to change leads again, its going to have to happen soon.  If there is fraud, there needs to be more than accusations from partisan hacks.  We just spent the last month defending Brett Kavanaugh over accusations without evidence, we need to approach this the same way.  Where is the evidence?

     

  • Fall BIF Special

    Once again our Beer it Forward (BIF) QB (Nephilium) did us all a solid and set up another BIF in honor of the change of season.  Okay, maybe it has to do with bottles exploding in the winter so if we were going to do it, we’ll have to do it now.

    I do plan on running reviews from other Glibs in the near future, once we can confirm everyone gets their beer.  FOr now, you will just have to deal with me talking about mine.  First up, what did I sent to Hyperion The Hyperbole?  That’s a good question–a damn good question…well:

    You can see a few that might be familiar, others that you haven’t seen.  If The Hyperbole want to chime in and tell my how much of an asshole I am for conflating him with Hyperion good guy I am, I’ll let him tell you what he thinks.

    As for what I received (H/T Trials and Trippelations):

    These come with a bit of backstory.  One thing I noticed when I was stationed in the south is they all had, what I considered to be, screwy liquor laws.  There were dry Sundays and the like but one that stands out, and likely keeps a lot of craft brewers down is a self distribution law they are lobbying to repeal:

    For the second time in as many years, a 20-year-old “secret agreement” between Anheuser-Busch and a North Carolina wholesaler is being highlighted as a key piece of evidence as Tar Heel State brewers look to change a decades-old distribution law. The document, first reported last year by NC media, is part of a franchise agreement between AB and Raleigh-based R. A. Jeffreys that encouraged the distributor to give priority to Anheuser-Busch products above others, which itself would be illegal under a 1989 state law, says a lawyer representing North Carolina breweries suing the state.

    According to the Charlotte Business Journal, ABC Commission Administrator Bob Hamilton agreed in the assessment. Last year, distributors noted that “the kind of favoritism suggested in the 1997 franchise agreement is barred by a 2012 state law involving franchisers,” according to the Charlotte Observer.

    It all surrounds an ongoing fight to overturn a state law that prohibits self-distribution when a business surpasses 25,000 barrels of production. Two Charlotte-area breweries, NoDa Brewing and Olde Mecklenburg, have helped lead the legal battle for their in-state peers.

    Which is something I is something I was surprised to learn Arizona once did, until recently.  They may be wrong, but at least they fixed it, right?  Many have issues with the InBev distribution deals, but I am ambivalent about it.  On one hand it means InBev is fully aware of its inferior product but banks on it’s ability to distribute, and on the other hand it allows a smaller player to quickly gain a bigger footprint.  InBev is not making the beer, and they are not making other brewers change their product.  If they did, it wouldn’t sell.  In the end both sides win, that’s how the market works.

    So I picked up my package and was informed by T&T it arrived during the last week of October.  Which was good timing because I was out of beer and the World Series was on at the time.  The artwork on a few of them as you can tell is much nicer than what I am used to here.  There are three IPAs in the package and I drank all of them over the course of the marathon 8 hour game that I totally shouldn’t have stayed up for.  But I am a petty sports fan and mainly wanted to see the Dodger loose, so I was disappointed that night.  The three IPAs are all in the solid 3-4 range:

    • Burial Brewery Asheville, NC  Surf Wax IPA  3.1/5
    • Catawba Brewery Asheville, NC Hopness Monster IPA 3.5/5  (SEA SMITH APPROVED)
    • NoDa Brewing Charlotte, NC  Hop Drop and Roll IPA 3.5/5

    My beef with IPA is how many of them often taste the same.  Your mileage may vary.  As for the others:

    • Durty Bull Durham, NC Lager .  They get extra points because Bull Durham is one of my favorite movies.  3.8/5
    • Southern Pines Brewing Southern Pines, NC Malty by Nature Scottish Export Ale.  Reminds me of Kiltlifter, in a good way.  3.5/5
    • Holy City Brewing Charleston, SC  Pluff Mud Porter.  Charleston is an awesome city and if you have never been there, you are wrong.  This is a nice balance between dark malty beer, while keeping it light.  I feel like I can drink dozens of these.  3.8/5
    • Ponysaurus Durham, NC Rye Pale Ale.  Definitely my pick of this bunch as I have mentioned my affinity for the use of Rye in beverage making.  Take that German MEDIEVAL.TOP.MEN. 4.0/5

    Specials thanks to Trials and Trippelations for the awesome beer, and Nephilium for putting this on!

  • Poll: Most Influential Book(s) You’ve Read

    A while back, somewhere in comments, a Glib remarked this would be a great poll topic. I’d give a H/T, but I can’t remember who it was. Thank you, anyway!

    But, how about it? What book (or books) have you read that influenced your life direction, thoughts about liberty, or had some other profound effect on you?

  • Election Day 2018

    Sadly, my darkest fears for poor SugarFree have come to pass. He’s walled himself into a cave to escape the horror of this election cycle. Not even he can indefinitely maintain his peace against it all.

    Hopefully, he’ll emerge and return to us soon.

    In the meantime, I’ve got a few questions for all my dear US citizen Glibs.

    1. Did you vote (or are you planning to)?

    2. Mind sharing for what parties and/or candidates you pulled the lever?

    3. Have any rationale that goes along with your choices?

    I plan on heading over to our polling station mid-afternoon. Try as they may to convince me, I definitely do not trust voting by mail AT ALL. The postal service routinely misplaces more important documents, so how can I trust them to actually deliver my ballot? Not to mention how simplistic it would be to “lose” a few hundred thousand of them. (I know, I know, it’s also easy to lose them when recorded any other way.)

    And…now that the day is finally here, can we move past this crap?

    HAHAHAHA, I crack myself up.

  • Trailing Clouds of Glory

    Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
    The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Start,
    Hath had elsewhere its setting,
    And cometh from afar:
    Not in entire forgetfulness,
    And not in utter nakedness,
    But trailing clouds of glory do we come
    From God, who is our home:
    Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

    William Wordsworth[i]

     

    This is the second in a three-part sub-series on the Plan of Salvation.


    Welcome to the World

     

    “Color is good, and …” the sound of the baby’s first wail echoes through the room, “a good strong cry.” The midwife puts a swaddled bundle on Alice’s chest. “Here she is, Alice. Say hello to your daughter.”

    Alice opens her eyes, takes hold of the infant, and looks at the small head poking out of the bundle. She smiles, and speaks in an exhausted voice. “Hello, Jennifer. Welcome to the world.”

    We come into this world naked and screaming. Our autonomic reflexes kick in and keep us breathing and our hearts beating. We start learning things almost instantly. We learn that Mom is the source of food and love. We learn that Dad is the transport vehicle to take us to Mom.

    By the time we’re two we’ve started to talk, and the word constantly on our lips is “Why.” Why is water wet? Why is the sky blue? Why is Daddy so tall? As we grow older, our questions begin to include the spiritual and philosophical as well as the physical. At some point, “Why am I here?” becomes the question of the day.

    Why am I here?

    In the previous article[ii], we discussed our pre-mortal development and touched on the plan to take us from spirit children of godly Parents to gods in our own right. Part of that plan sent us down into mortality with no recollection of pre-mortality.

    Why did the path lead through forgetful mortality? Because there are some lessons you only learn when you are on your own. We come here to gain a body and learn to control it, learn to exercise our agency by being tempted and making choices, and to be tested. Additionally, there are specific ordinances which are required in order to return to our Heavenly Parents. All of this is designed to give us the instruction we need to be able to realize our divine potential.

    Gain a Body

    In our pre-mortal life, we were spirits. We saw that our Heavenly Parents had bodies, and wanted to be like them. To obtain a body, we came to earth. Once here, we need to learn to control our bodies. This means not only learning to walk and talk and control our bodily functions, but it also means learning to control the urges our mortal body is prone to in its natural state. This isn’t just referring to biological urges. Our mortal bodies attempt to dominate our spirits, tempting us towards less spiritual destinations than we are aiming for.

    “For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been since the Fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man”[iii]

    A god cannot be swept along by passions. He or she must be in control, and make proper choices.

    Exercise Agency

    We are here to learn to make those choices. The underpinning of the Plan of Salvation is personal agency. We chose to follow Christ rather than Lucifer in our pre-mortal lives. Once here, we are constantly confronted with the same choice on a regular basis. Not every choice we are confronted with is between good and evil, but many are – if on a smaller scale than the one which triggered the war in heaven. The cumulative effect of these choices, however, is just as important. The choices we make here help determine what will happen after we leave mortality. The goal is to be like the people in this story:

    John Taylor, the third President of the Church, reported: “Some years ago, in Nauvoo, a gentleman in my hearing, a member of the Legislature, asked Joseph Smith how it was that he was enabled to govern so many people, and to preserve such perfect order; remarking at the same time that it was impossible for them to do it anywhere else. Mr. Smith remarked that it was very easy to do that. ‘How?’ responded the gentleman; ‘to us it is very difficult.’ Mr. Smith replied, ‘I teach them correct principles, and they govern themselves.’”[iv]

    Temptation

    Both God and Satan tempt us. God, through his Holy Spirit, tempts us to do good, and make choices which will enable us to return to him. Satan tempts us to do the opposite. Satan’s goal is to make “all men … miserable like himself.”[v]

    So, if Satan’s goal is to frustrate God’s plan, why does God tolerate his interference? There are a couple of reasons. First, if you don’t have multiple options, it’s not a choice. The Book of Mormon prophet Lehi knew this when he said: “For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things.”[vi] Second, God “give[s] the Devil benefit of the law,”[vii] and the law is that judgement cannot be rendered prematurely. As with all of us, judgement will be rendered on Satan at the final judgement, and he will be sent to his … reward.

    Through trial and error, and based on instruction from parents and other respected adults, we learn to distinguish right from wrong and make correct choices. When we sin, and later repent, we learn about the costs of sin, and what forgiveness feels like. All of these things teach us to make correct decisions based on correct principles.

    Testing and Obedience

    “And we will prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things the Lord their God shall command them.”[viii]

    This life is a test. How will we use our agency? Can we be trusted to control ourselves? When faced with trials will we stick to our beliefs or will we abandon them if it looks like we can get out of our troubles by doing so? This leads us back to my earlier question about why we had to have our memory blocked. If we could remember the ages we lived in the presence of our Heavenly Parents, it would invalidate the test. The Devil’s temptations would be of no effect because we would remember what we had left behind, and would know the way back.

    Trials

    One of the age-old questions is “Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people?” The answer is that He doesn’t interfere. Our Heavenly Parents are not helicopter parents. They allow us to make our choices, and then expect us to deal with the consequences of those choices. This doesn’t mean that when someone finds themselves in unfortunate circumstances they’ve made bad decisions, much less are evil. Sometimes, people get caught up in the consequences of other people’s decisions. For example:

    During rush hour, a tractor-trailer driver misjudges the curve on a freeway on-ramp and winds up tipping over on an SUV in the next lane. The on-ramp is completely blocked. The SUV is totaled. The driver of the SUV escapes with minor injuries, and the truck driver walks away unharmed. Traffic in that part the city is snarled for eight hours, until they can get the truck off the on-ramp.

    The only bad decision was made by the truck driver. Everyone else simply decided to be on that on-ramp at that time.

    Ordinances & Covenants

    An ordinance is a religious ceremony in which the participant makes a sacred promise, and God promises blessings in return. This promise is called a covenant. To achieve exaltation, a person must receive certain ordinances and make the covenants which go along with them. The specific ordinances are baptism and confirmation,[ix] the temple endowment,[x] and temple marriage.[xi]

    Baptism is the familiar ordinance whereby the participant symbolically dies and is reborn. Baptism cleanses the participant of their sins, and prepares them to start a new life as a follower of Christ. In the Church, baptism is done by immersion, and not until the person being baptized has reached the age of accountability (the age at which they are responsible for their own actions) – defined as eight years old.[xii]

    The confirmation is a blessing in which the recipient is confirmed as a member of the Church and has the gift of the Holy Ghost conferred upon them. The gift of the Holy Ghost is the privilege of having the influence of the Holy Ghost with you always, on condition of worthiness.

    The temple endowment is a ceremony where members of the Church make a number of covenants with the Lord. “These covenants include obeying God and keeping His commandments, living the gospel of Jesus Christ, keeping yourself morally pure and virtuous, and dedicating your time and talents to the Lord’s service. In return, God promises wonderful blessings in this life and the opportunity to return to live with Him forever.”[xiii]

    The temple marriage ceremony is similar to a normal marriage ceremony, but instead of being “till death do you part,” marriages performed in the temple are for “time and all eternity.” This is because the temple marriage ordinance also seals the bride and groom together in the eyes of God.[xiv]

    Vicarious Work

    As I mentioned above, these ordinances are required in order to return to live with our Heavenly Parents. That would seem to leave the billions of people who have lived on the earth without the benefit of the gospel out in the cold. This is accounted for in our Parents’ Plan for us as well. You may have noticed that the Church obsesses over genealogy and family history. The genealogical information is used as documentation for the vicarious work members do in the temples.

    In the temples, members who have received their own ordinances perform those same ordinances as proxy for the dead[xv]. This does not force the dead into the Church. Force is not part of our Parents’ Plan. The work in the temple gives the dead the opportunity to live with our Parents again. The temple work in this life is paired with an ongoing missionary work in the next.[xvi] Those who never had the opportunity to hear the gospel (or heard it and rejected it), in this life will have the opportunity to hear and accept it in the next. Since they no longer have bodies, however, they cannot receive the required ordinances directly. Because of the proxy work being done in the temples by members of the Church, the dead will be able to accept the ordinances done in their names.

    Exit … Stage Left

    We enter this world naked and screaming, but we leave it in an infinite number of ways from the sublime to the ridiculous to the horrifying. At the end of the day, however, we all leave our mortal bodies and fortunes behind and enter the next world exactly as we left the pre-mortal world – with just our spirits.

     

    [i] William Wordsworth, “Ode: Intimations of Immortality”

    [ii] And God Stepped out on Space

    [iii] Mosiah 3:19

    [iv] Teachings of the Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith p 284

    [v] 2 Nephi 2:27

    [vi] 2 Nephi 2:11

    [vii] A Man for all Seasons, Act I

    [viii] Abraham 3:25

    [ix] John 3:5

    [x] LDS.org About the Temple Endowment

    [xi] D&C 131:2

    [xii] D&C 68:25-27

    [xiii] LDS.org About the Temple Endowment

    [xiv] Helaman 10:7

    [xv] 1 Corinthians 15:29

    [xvi] 1 Peter 3:18–20, 1 Peter 4:6, D&C 138:28-31

  • Everybody here is uninvited

    Today I wanted to talk about a local news story.  I thought it would be nice to cover a local story.  No story here is too local.

    This is my review of Deschutes The Abyss 2017 Release  (H/T:  Riven)

    This story starts when a boy from Tucson turned 6 years old.  He wanted to throw a party, and his mom thought it would be nice. The problem?  Nobody showed up so she did the sensible thing and shamed everyone invited on social media.  No seriously.*

    RANT ON

    I am not going to put a caption here to make fun of a child. BUT I WILL NOT STOP YOU FROM MAKING FUN OF A CHILD

    – My first problem with this:

    The reason the entire class was shamed on social media is because the entire class was invited.  Now this is a practice I encountered and I don’t particularly care for it.  It forces parents to invite children their child doesn’t like to parties because it may hurt the uninvited child’s feelings.  Okay, fine.  So I have to invite the snowflakes too.  Here’s an issue I had–planning around the idea that 30 kids will be attending this party meant financially allocating funds for a 30 person party.  Granted only 10 showed, after they RSVP.  If my kid wants to invite other people in his or her class to a party, everyone in the class must be invited.  Including the smelly one.

    I thought part of the reason we have schools is social immersion?  Lets be real, that’s what most people got out of school, it certainly wasn’t reading.  By doing this, it eliminates the possibility that a child can grow up knowing there are people out there they won’t get along with, or how to deal with these people.  After all, if you don’t want somebody’s company you don’t invite them over.  For a parent of a child that has few friends, this might seem challenging but I found a way around this by inviting a few relatives that had kids of their own.

    Otherwise if nobody wants to be around you, eventually you figure it out.  It makes you wonder if people act the way they do today is the result of poor adjustment to social interactions.  Say what you want about social media, but perhaps another issue is nobody ever learned to handle things like confrontation, dissapointment, or failure. When encountered by such things they simply resort to their lowest level of social training.

    – My other problem with this:

    Another problem I have with this is the kid’s mother went and posted this to social media.  Really Lady?  Your kid is having a terrible day, so lets take a picture and show the entire world how much you think other people suck.  Immortalize it forever.  Let me ask a question, is there perhaps a reason nobody showed up?  Perhaps the class is mostly girls and had no interest in going to a boy’s party?  Perhaps enough people in the class got sick and stayed home?  Perhaps your kid is the smelly kid?  Perhaps coddling your child is not going to do him any good once you are no longer there to protect him from the world?  Am I going to hear from Andrew Napolitano for imitating his writing style?

    “Hey everyone.  Check out how much this kid’s mom thinks he’s a loser.”  I am sorry, but that’s what I got out of your post.

    – The silver lining:

    If there is a winner in all of this, its the Phoenix Suns.  Yes, I know they suck but lets be real, they aren’t going to get too many real wins.  Somebody affiliated with the team saw this, pulled a few strings, and got the kid courtside tickets–to the Suns vs. Lakers game.  Pretty nice of them considering somebody would have paid real money for courtside seats to see LeBron play.

    RANT END

    So how is this beer?  I gotta hand it to them, I didn’t think tequila would go well with an imperial stout, but I admit I am wrong.  Tequila you see, is not aged nearly as long as whiskey (Anejo is only aged 1-2 years) so it doesn’t take on the properties of the oak barrel like whiskey.  This beer is more “woody” rather than “whiskey soaked.”  The stout is neutral, without overpowering chocolate or coffee notes.  Standard dry Irish style.  Good luck finding it.  Deschutes The Abyss 2017 Release: 4.2/5

    *The possibility of this story being a hoax was pointed out by the stellar editing staff at Glibertarians.com.  Should this be a hoax, it does not improve my opinion of these people.  Not only would they be liars, they got free courtside tickets to the Suns game and thus were rewarded for lying.  Screw that.