"So apparently Romney hired A Gay to spout insane shit about Iran, and some Family Research Majority Silent Council Organization of Concerned Women for American Enterprise were like WHOOOAAAAA, buddy; you can’t have a gay man mouth bellicose slogans about distant foreign countries. That would be immoral! Now one of my nice liberal friends said of this episode that he just can’t believe any gay could ever consider himself a Republican after this incident; she was incredulous. Meanwhile, the moral questions about slaughtering thousands of Iranians for some reason or other remains un-addressed."
—
Who Is IOZ?: Bombs A-gay
Update: See also, Reality Check: Yes, President Obama Is a Hawk
"Europe “made peace with democracy” by slaughtering two generations its youth."
—
Who Is IOZ?: Growing up Is Hard to Do
Take note Arabia.
"One of the verbal tics that’s most in evidence now is the catechismal insertion of the adjective senseless before the word violence. What kind of violence was it, Mister President? Sensless violence. You see, when you are the plenipotentiary of the world’s foremost death machine, when you are ordering, literally every day, the killing of human beings, the destruction of homes, the bombing of farms and factories, then obviously you can’t just go out and condemn violence. You have to condemn “senseless” violence. You can’t condemn killing. You have to condemn pointless killing."
— Who Is IOZ?: Purity of Essence
"The main danger to liberty here is not the TSA but rather a set of American attitudes which, at the same time, take our current “war” both far too seriously and also not nearly seriously enough."
— Marginal Revolution: Further thoughts on the TSA debates
Little remains of the rule of law precept to treat people equally. The exact same chemical combinations which are fine to serve rich old folks at cocktail receptions, are banned in cheap cans from convenience store coolers. Clearly the goal is to target particular vaguely-imagined classes of people, and regulators would be fine with having the law specify the color of the cans, the geographic locations, time of purchase, form of financing, whatever it took to get to “them” without overly bothering “us.”
And this is where the slippery slope of paternalism leads: naked classism. When we the good people notice that those distrusted others do things that don’t seem proper to us, well we should just pass whatever laws it takes to make them toe our line. Surely it wouldn’t be responsible to just let them do stuff we wouldn’t, right?
(Source: overcomingbias.com)
"[A] perspective that seems to have all bad things springing sui generis from the lunar face of Ronnie Reagan or the stroke-victim jaw of George W. Bush […] magnifies the manifold weaknesses of the progressive analysis. They see some bank taking a house without proper documentation, and it suggests to them that Barack Obama should call for a “moratorium on foreclosures.” But of course the issue isn’t foreclosure at all, which is merely a minor current symptom. The question is ownership. The question is who has a right to his possessions in general in this society. Who owns what? And more importantly, who, or what, owns whom?"
— Who Is IOZ?: Goodbye, click that, so and so, you’re an island and on your own.
