The New Humanism

I think that Dawkins and his peeps were foolish to take out those bus ads. It makes them look unserious, because they draw exactly the wrong conclusion from the fact that there “probably is no god.” Roger Scruton writes in the American Spectator about the contrast between this new humanism and the old.

The British Humanist Association is currently running a campaign against religious faith. It has bought advertising space on our city buses, which now patrol the streets declaring that “There probably is no God; so stop worrying and enjoy life.” My parents would have been appalled at such a declaration. From a true premise, they would have said, it derives a false and pernicious conclusion. Had they wished to announce their beliefs—and it was part of their humanism to think that you don’t announce your beliefs but live them—they would have expressed them thus: “There probably is no God; so start worrying, and remember that self-discipline is up to you.”

and

Like so many modern ideologies, the new humanism seeks to define itself through what it is against rather than what it is for. It is for nothing, or at any rate for nothing in particular. Ever since the Enlightenment there has been a tendency to adopt this negative approach to the human condition, rather than to live out the exacting demands of the Enlightenment morality, which tells us to take responsibility for ourselves and to cease our snivelling.

If Dawkins wants to win converts he needs to offer something positive, not just be against something.

Do You Want to Raise Corporate Taxes?

If so, you need to listen to professor Williams.

If there’s an imposition of a property tax on your land, who pays the tax? I guarantee you that land does not pay taxes; only people pay taxes. That means a tax on your land is a tax on you. You say, “Williams, that’s pretty elementary, isn’t it?” But what do you say to a politician or news media people who propose increasing corporate taxes as means to get rich corporations to pay their rightful share of government? They should be told that they speak nonsense because corporations, like land, do not pay taxes; only people pay taxes.

If a tax is levied on a corporation, and if it is to survive, it must raise the price of its product, or lower dividends or lay off workers. In each case, it is people, not some legal fiction called a corporation, who bear the burden of any tax levied on the corporation. An important subject area in economics called tax incidence says that the entity upon whom a tax is levied does not necessarily bear the burden of the tax. Some of the tax burden can be shifted to another party. That’s precisely what corporations do and as such they are merely government tax collectors.

Read the whole thing.

There Was No World War II

It was just a multinational contingency operation.

It’s not that “Global War on Terror” was ever anything but a stupid name for the global war against radical Islam, but at least it had the word war in it. Not calling a war a war is part of losing it.

Perhaps Not What the Photographer Intended

This is brilliant photography, because it works no matter what you think of The Annointed One. (But it works better if you think of Him as I do.)

Bush Left Us In A Deep Hole

But nothing like the one The One is digging.

Zobama Tonight

Heh.

Working Hard

Or hardly working.