Wolfsheim

My girlfriend introduced me to this German synth-pop group called Wolfsheim. I have no idea what this song is about, but I love it. It reminds me quite a bit of Depeche Mode.

The song is called "Kein Zurück."
Enjoy!

"There are no atheists in foxholes"

Ummm, beg to differ:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14322117/site/newsweek/

Sex and Ideas in Developing Adults

When I was a teenager, the biggest fight I had with my mother was over the media I enjoyed. She disapproved of my Stephen King novels, heavy metal cassettes, and choice of movie and television watching. I wasn't allowed to see a movie with a higher than PG rating, and was disallowed from ever entering a friend's house again after seeing a film that contained a half-second of nudity. My mother's argument was that my choice of media would turn me into a bad human being. That view depends on the idea that media causes behavior, and that human choice is so limited as to be practically irrelevant. Apparently she is not alone in that belief.

The Rand Corporation recently released a study claiming that watching television with a high degree of sexual content leads to more and earlier sexual activity amongst adolescents. Studies like this always catch my attention because of my experience with my mother. I didn't believe it when she said it, explaining that demons that live in the music would go into my brain and take over my soul. But this study is "scientific," and I'm a proponent of science, so it deserves more attention.

The first thing that needs to be said is that this information, if true, is presented like it's a huge terrible thing. Hello? Teen-agers have been having sex... FOREVER! As to the lack of negative consequences portrayed on television--it's not the job of TV to educate people; that's the job of SCHOOLS or PARENTS! Further, the contra-dictory standards we hold in this country about sex are abominable. We combine sexual liberation (in both it's legitimate non-guilty form, and it's illegitimate free-love form) with sexual repression. As adults we watch "Sex in the City," and spend a lot of time and money thinking about and pursuing sex. But we tell teen-agers: "Sex is bad, m'kay? Don't have sex, m'kay?"

In the past I have estimated that over half the people I went to high-school with had had sex by the time they were 16 years old. The Rand corporation puts that figure closer to 46%. 15-16 seems to be the time when most people have sex. Maybe someone should do a study of people of all age groups asking when was the first time they had sex--and maybe that study should span countries around the world. I wonder if the answer would be any different. I hypothesize that it would not. The only such study a quick googling was able to find put the average age for first-time sex at 14.8 in California.

A Digression:

My great-great grandmother, Lizzie, was 15 when she got married. She came home (to her mother's) on her wedding night livid, but she would not talk about what had happened. It took 3 days for her mother to pry out of her what had happened. She finally exclaimed "He got fresh with me!"

On the surface, this story is funny. But it also shows the extent to which people were unwilling to discuss sex in my great-great-grandmother's day. She was 16 when my great-grandmother was born. My great-Grandmother was 17 when my grandmother was born. My grandmother was 17 when her first child was born. My mother was 16 when her first child (me) was born. Granted, this is not a scientific study--but it is a series of personal anecdotes spanning 5 generations that at least makes the question of "when do most people have sex" viable.

Making the digression relevant:

Don't we have to know what the normal age is for first-time-sex before we can start positing reasons that adolescents have sex earlier? Isn't the assumption that teens are having sex earlier based on some concept of what is normal?

The Study:

The study was conducted with two waves of phone interviews of 1792 adolescents between 12 and 17 years of age. The phone interviews were conducted a year apart. The interviews sought information from the teens on TV viewing habits, and sexual activity. They found that students that watched higher rates of sexual activity on tv, had more sex more often.

No shit, sherlock.

My first thought upon hearing this was that people who are more interested in having sex will seek out and watch more sex on television. The Rand Corporation responds to that argument thusly: "Relationships between viewing sexual content and advancing sexual behavior were not attributable to the effects of developing sexual behavior on selective viewing of sexual content. Our analyses controlled for adolescents’ level of sexual activity at baseline, rendering an explanation of reverse causality for our findings implausible."

But later they say: "A limitation of this research was our inability to control for adolescent interest in sex or sexual readiness before TV viewing. Youths who are considering coital or noncoital activities that they have not yet enacted may watch more sex on TV (eg, to get information or to satisfy desires). They may subsequently engage in these sexual activities sooner but as a result of their higher levels of interest, not as a result of their TV exposure. It was not possible for us to test for this alternative interpretation of our results with only 2 waves of data. "

I'm no statistician, and I'll admit that there's a lot in this study that I just flat don't understand, but I think the above is pretty damn clear.

Conclusions:

Look people, it's really simple. Teen-agers have sex. Maybe you don't like to think about little-Johnny or Susie in the back seat of a car, but it happens. Instead 0f blaming television, music, books, or whatnot--put the blame where it belongs: on biology and personal choice; or if you're religious--blame GOD since he made you the way you are (joking, there is no god). This study by Rand is just another "demons in your brain" explanation of human behavior. Human beings have the faculty of choice, and do not have to accept by osmosis everything they're exposed to on television. Each person is responsible for their own ideas and their own actions.

Sex isn't bad. Let's drop the puritanical sexual morality most of us have subconsciously adopted and spend more time teaching teen-agers how to have sex in a responsible manner instead of trying to hide it from them. This means sex-education that does mention prophylactics, whether it's in a classroom or at home. Follow-up: in light of the fact that most people (at least in California) are having sex at 14.8, aren't age-of-consent laws lower than 15 just plain stupid?

When Free Speech is under attack...

... by it's supposed defenders, it just gets stuck in my craw!

Leftists fancy themselves the protectors of free speech--often comparing themselves favorably against conservatives who often wish to censor books, music, video games, and any other source of potentially ideological content that exists in the marketplace. However, environmentalist leftists have recently shown unity with conservatives on an issue of great importance: just as the conservatives are at root against science (consider George Bush's recent veto regarding stem cell research, not to mention the attempts to put religionist-creationist-magic-man-in-the-sky "theories" on par with natural selection), and now several major environmentalist groups are joining with the State of California to "force auto makers to disclose all documents and communications between the companies and the so-called 'climate-skeptics'"

The context of this request filed in federal court is a case in which auto makers are "challenging the state's greenhouse gas emissions limits for new cars." Apparently California believes that climate skeptics play a "major role in spreading disinformation about global warming." Notice that California is not seeking communications between auto-makers and any outside interested party regardless of their stand on global warming--they are singling out a group of people based on a position they take on a controversial issue.

"Free speech" to California and the Sierra Club seems to mean the right only to agree with them on issues of ecology. This motion is only a first step toward establishing a legal precedent for illegalizing "the spread of disinformation"--by which is meant the spreading of any information that amounts to disagreement with the currently entrenched State. Ironic that a movement born of fighting against the Establishment has now become the Establishment; Ironic that a movement claiming the right to speak the truth in opposition to the Party Line now wishes to deprive others of the same right.

I grant that California is not (yet) seeking to penalize or otherwise criminally charge the "climate skeptics"--but one should always take note when the state begins segregating people by their ideas. The fact that California has listed certain very prominent syndicated columnists is scary enough.

I predict that it won't be long before someone invents some new buzzword indicating an emotionally pleasing (to some) but still invalid exemption to the First Amendment. There's already precedent for it on the subject of "Hate Speech." If the eco-terrorists have their way, it will soon become a crime to hurt the "feelings" of the earth-minded just as it is now a crime to hurt the feelings of minority groups. Note too that "Hate Speech" laws are most commonly favored by leftists.

Any takers on what the new buzzword will be? There are rules about this you know--buzzwords have to be easy to say, so "Industrial Speech" is right out. They also have to disguise the thing they're hiding, so "Speech that doesn't agree with eco-terrorists" and "Anti-Green" speech is right out also. Maybe something like "Dangerous Speech"--no, that's too long. But we could shorten it--"Danger Speech?" Maybe it could be done in two stages. Maybe there could first be a campaign against "anthropomorphic values" and then when "anthropomorhpic" is part of the mainstream political vocabulary, the new buzzword could be "Anthro Speech." Nah, sounds too complicated. It's there... somewhere. Some whacko will find it.

I'm not sure--these things are hard to predict. What's not hard to predict is that the assault on the First Amendment will continue from both liberals and conservatives, and that those of use that know what free speech is must stand against them all. Men have only two ways of dealing with one another--persuasion, and force. The First Amendment protects our right to persuade. When it falls, there will be no other way to change things but violence.

So, if you care about the integrity of your own mind, "SPEAK NOW OR YOU WILL FOREVER HOLD YOUR PEACE!"

We forget so soon...

Cox and Forkum have a nice reminder of just how much of an enemy Hezbollah really is to us.
Check the July 23 post.
Remember that when you hear people calling for a "proportionate" response.

Cool!

Star Wars Theme ...
Played on the banjo ....
and not by Bela Fleck.

TOS is hitting them out of the park today.

This is the clearest discussion of the "net neutrality" issue that I've seen. The whole thing smells strongly of the Tragedy of the Commons (TotC). The problem with the TotC is the "commons." Let all land (or internet bandwidth) be privately owned, and let each person pay for what he uses, and the TotC disappears.

Argh!

A Nice Article from TOS

The Objective Standard published a nice editorial about our so-called "addiction" to oil. To this I would simply add that I do not accept any part of the premise that American's should have to sacrifice anything at all for the sake of our enemies.

The Hairy Leg Principle

I have a post on a relationship skill in mind, but it is in part logically dependent upon what I call the Hairy Leg Principle. The Hairy Leg Principle has been a part of my intellectual repertoire long enough that I thought it deserved its own post.

The Hairy Leg Principle Defined: The notion that the value of another's love for you is proportional to how you understand and respect their reason's for loving you.

To place the Hairy Leg Principle in context, consider how love is often described as "unconditional." But is it really? And would you want it to be?

Which would you rather hear: "Although there is nothing about you that I respect and admire, enjoy or otherwise consider to be of value, I love you." Or: "You are a [wo]man of unsurpassed character, intelligence, and wisdom. Because of that, I love you." I think most people would rather hear the second--and would be insulted by the first.

So, the Hairy Leg Principle presumes that love is conditionally based--but it goes further than that. For you to value the other person's love, you must understand and respect their reason's for loving you. This understanding does not necessarily have to be explicit (although I find it much more exciting when it is), but there does have to be understanding nonetheless.

Respect is also a key component. If someone claims to love you for reasons that you find silly or non-essential, their love will have no value to you. In my own case, if someone told me they loved me because I had hairy legs, I would not be able to respect or enjoy their affection at all. The amount of hair I have on my legs is inessential to my hierarchy of values. Thus the named "Hairy Leg Principle." When my grandmother tells me she loves me because I am her grandson, she's basically telling me that she loves me because we happen to share some DNA. Hello? I share 98% of my DNA with a chimpanzee! How irrelevant can you get?! But, when she calls me to tell me about an idea that she heard, that she thought I would appreciate--she doesn't even have to say she loves me--the fact that she recognizes an idea that I would appreciate, and bothers to call me and tell me about it registers that fact far more clearly than "because I'm her grandson." Incidentally, that phone call, which I received several months ago, is the first time in my adult life that I've felt that she had real esteem for me. It was the first time that her actions fit her words.

In my own case, I consider it silly to love me or anyone else for any reason that is beyond their choice. Sure, you may "love" their hair-color, or eye-color or something--but those things are not primaries. That's not to say that don't have their own importance--there is no mind-body dichotomy--attraction is in part physical--but they are not primaries.

So, love me for my rationality, my interest in ideas, or my zest for life. Or love me not.

On this day...

... let us remember the men and women that pledged their lives and fortunes to the cause of individual rights.

I salute you.

Let us remember all the men and women that fought to protect the security of this country from would-be invaders and oppressors.

I salute you.

Let us remember ourselves--those of us that are pledged to fight for the cause of individual rights in the modern era both at home and abroad.

I salute you.

Happy Independence Day!