The Secular Foxhole Podcast and Website

Next month marks the start of the third year of my podcast, The Secular Foxhole. Hopefully in the next few days, I will have a website/domain all set up. That also will be announced here, though I may switch my blogging to the new domain site.

Supersonic Flight comes One Step Closer!

FAA issues new rules for supersonic flight 

Here's an excerpt from the article:

 The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has issued new final rules to help pave the way for the re-introduction of supersonic commercial flight. The U.S. airspace regulator's rules provide guidance for companies looking to gain approval for flight testing of supersonic aircraft under development, which includes startups like Boom Supersonic, which has just completed its sub-scale supersonic demonstrator aircraft and hopes to begin flight testing it this year.

Twelve Times the Advocates of Lockdowns Were Wrong

 Here's an article from AEIR.ORG by Phillip W. Magness

Twelve Times...

From the article linked below.

 "This has been a year of astonishing policy failure. We are surrounded by devastation conceived and cheered by intellectuals and their political handmaidens. The errors number in the thousands so please consider (these 12) to be little more than a first draft - 

Twelve-times-the-lockdowners-were-wrong/

Quote of the Week: Daniel Webster

 "I fear that they may place too implicit a confidence in their public servants, and fail properly to scrutinize their conduct; that in this way they may be made the dupes of designing men, and become the instruments of their own undoing. Make them intelligent, and they will be vigilant; give the the means of detecting the wrong, and they will apply the remedy." (1837)

WARNING! The Great Reset Is Upon Us.

The World Plato Wanted 

H/T: The Savvy Street

Excerpts:

About twenty-four hundred years ago, the Greek philosopher Plato came up with the idea of constructing the state and society according to an elaborate plan. Plato wanted “wise men” (philosophers) at the helm of the government, but he also made it clear that his kind of state would need a transformation of the humans. In modern times, the promoters of the omnipotent state want to substitute Plato’s philosopher with the expert and create the new man through eugenics, which is now called transhumanism. The United Nations and its various suborganizations play a pivotal role in this project which has reached its present stage in promoting initiatives such as Agenda 2030 and the Great Reset.

 

Use of the Climate Threat

The next decisive step toward the global economic transformation was taken with the first report of the Club of Rome. In 1968, the Club of Rome was initiated at the Rockefeller estate Bellagio in Italy. Its first report was published in 1972 under the title “The Limits to Growth.”

The horror scenario of global warming has been a useful tool in their hands to gain political influence and finally rule over public discourse.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: AYN RAND

 "IT IS YOUR MIND THAT THEY WANT YOU TO SURRENDER - ALL THOSE WHO PREACH THE CREED OF SACRIFICE, WHATEVER THEIR TAGS OR THEIR MOTIVES, WHETHER THEY DEMAND IT FOR THE SAKE OF YOUR SOUL OR OF YOUR BODY, WHETHER THEY PROMISE YOU ANOTHER LIFE IN HEAVEN OR A FULL STOMACH ON THIS EARTH. THOSE WHO START BY SAYING:"IT IS SELFISH TO PURSUE YOUR OWN WISHES, YOU MUST SACRIFICE THEM TO THE WISHES OF OTHERS" - END UP BY SAYING:"IT IS SELFISH TO UPHOLD YOUR CONVICTIONS, YOU MUST SACRIFICE THEM TO THE CONVICTIONS OF OTHERS."

GALT'S SPEECH

FOR THE NEW INTELLECTUAL

NEW PODCAST AVAILABLE. THE SECULAR FOXHOLE #6

HERE'S THE LINK:

THE SECULAR FOXHOLE

 

WHY TO VOTE AGAINST TRUMP

 Peter Schwartz has a blistering analysis of why American's should repudiate Trump. Don't Miss It.

Why Vote Against Trump

Quote of the Week: Ayn Rand

 In the absence of - intellectual - polarization, we are witnessing the growth of the ugliest kind of divisiveness or - existential - polarization, if you will; pressure-group warfare. The country is splitting into dozens of blind, deaf, but screaming camps, each drawn together not by loyalty to an idea, but by the accident of race, age, sex, religious creed, or the frantic whim of a given moment -- not by values held in common, but by a common hatred of some other group -- not by choice but by terror. 

Ayn Rand 1971

EPISODE 5 of The Secular Foxhole Podcast

The Secular Foxhole #5

 Our interview with Ayn Rand Institute Fellow, Ben Bayer:

Quote of the Week: Ayn Rand

 What objectivity and the study of philosophy require is not an "open mind" but an active mind - a mind able and eagerly willing to examine ideas, but to examine them critically. An active mind does not grant equal status to truth and falsehood; it does not remain floating forever in a stagnant vacuum of neutrality and uncertainty; by assuming the responsibility of judgement, it reaches firm convictions and holds to them. Since it is able to prove its convictions, an active mind achieves an unassailable certainty in confrontations with assailants - a certainty untainted by spots of blind faith, approximation, evasion and fear. 

From her essay, Philosophical Detection, in her book Philosophy: Who Needs It

Take Back Columbus Day

 Reposting this from the Ayn Rand Institute:

Take Back Columbus Day

Nowadays, however, an embarrassed, guilty silence descends on the nation each Columbus Day. We’ve been taught that Columbus opened the way for rapacious European settlers to unleash a stream of horrors on a virgin continent: slavery, racism, warfare, epidemic, and the cruel oppression of Indians.

This modern view of Columbus represents an unjust attack upon both our country and the civilization that made it possible. Western civilization did not originate slavery, racism, warfare, or disease — but with America as its exemplar, that civilization created the antidotes. How? By means of a set of core ideas that set Western civilization apart from all others: reason and individualism.

Quote of the Week: Leonard Peikoff

There is no future for the world except through a rebirth of the Aristotelian approach to philosophy. This would require an Aristotelian affirmation of the reality of existence, of the sovereignty of reason, of life on earth - and of the splendor of man.

Aristotle and Objectivism agree on fundamentals and, as a result, on this last point, also. Both hold that man can deal with reality, can achieve values, can live non-tragically.  Neither believes in man the worm or man the monster; each upholds man the thinker and therefore man the hero. Aristotle calls him "the great-souled man." Ayn Rand calls him Howard Roark or John Galt.

Leonard Peikoff

The Ominous Parallels

New Feature: Ayn Rand Quote of the Week

I thought of this driving into work today. It'll be a weekly quote from Ayn Rand or one of her associates. Sometimes I'll have where the quote is taken from and sometimes not.

Here's the first one:

Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men's protection and the base of moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values.

Episode #4 of The Secular Foxhole Podcast is now online!

The Secular Foxhole 4 

Martin and I did a bit of 'housecleaning' in this short episode. Still, we talk about shows to come and ideas we will talk about. Click the link above to listen. Any feedback or comments are welcome.

Minority View: Confirm Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court

 UPDATED: 10/5/2020

 There are much more serious and freedom affirming issues behind the pathetic circus that's about to descend on us October 12th when the hearings begin to confirm Justice Barrett to the Supreme Court.

I've recently been studying the horrifying apparatus known as the Administrative State. Plaguing us here in America. It has grown with unchecked power over all of us, for decades. Since it is populated with 99% leftist/progressive - and unelected - "goose-steppers," that answer only to Democratic operatives, is it any wonder there is any freedom's left for individual Americans?

I subscribe to the New Civil Liberties Alliance newsletter and in its latest issue, they produce a White Paper outlining her work defending the individual against the state. Of course, by no means is she perfect. Who is?

Speaking for myself, ANY rollback of state power over the individual is a step for genuine progress. I tentatively endorse her nomination.        

The Secular Foxhole Podcast is Here!

Hello Everyone!

  Martin and I have officially started podcasting. We have done a "teaser" episode and just finished an episode about great books.

   Find us on Apple Podcasts and many others... ( I will update how else you can find the podcast as soon as I can.)

Immigrants Are Far More Patriotic Than the Right Fears or the Left Hopes And it's up to American institutions to ensure that their children don't sour on the country.

Sometimes I will post an article or editorial I see that needs to be shared on a wider scale. This is one such article.

Immigrants are Far More Patriotic...

Why The Name Secular Foxhole?

Back in 2004, why did I choose The Secular Foxhole as the name for my blog, and possible (2020) future podcast?  Actually, I had two names jostling back and forth in my head back in 2004. The 'contest' was between this and Fish Wrap: What else are newspapers good for? Both, I thought, were apropos then, and sadly, even more so today.

I settled on TSF because at the time I felt it had more attraction to an audience, and because of my own thoughts and feelings concerning the state of our society/culture. In my mind I pictured myself looking through binoculars out at the world in the safety of a foxhole. I didn't choose it because I thought I was in a "war" with others or with society. Let's be clear about that.

I wanted to convey the frustration I feel when you know that the things you advocate puts you squarely in the minority and that what I consider irrational is flowing over all of us in waves. 

Fundamentally though, I am still optimistic about my journey. America is the greatest nation in human history and yes, American Exceptionalism is real and worth defending intellectually and morally. This probably puts me at odds with fellow secularists. So be it. 

Let's discuss...

P.S. I actually used the other name for a blog you'll find in the Blogroll at right - which will soon be cleaned up of old links. I haven't posted to it for at least seven years, though.

My Journey to Reason

I chose to capitalize the letter R in Reason. Not for any particular philosopher's ideas though. I want to emphasize Reason as man's tool of both survival and of knowledge.

As a boy I loathed going to church. I was around eight or nine years old when, being with both my parents and my older brother, I asked my mom why we had to go. You see, I was pretty put-out about getting up early on Sunday morning's and going to what I had already experienced as ritualized boredom. She replied, "What would our neighbors think if they didn't see us going to church?"

Being young and actually being a decent kid, I didn't say out loud, "Who cares?" But then and there, I decided religion was anathema to life. Certainly to my life!

Nevertheless and sadly, off to church we went. 

Yes. Now flash forward some eleven years and after sporadic church going and me becoming an acolyte and reciting scripture in front of the church, on my 18th birthday, I announced to my parents I was not setting foot in another church for the rest of my life. They took it rather well, actually.

Still, being young and without serious intellectual guidance, I struggled for years. I have a vivid memory of driving around the city, by myself, and saying-- I need to learn how to think.

That, is the crux of the matter, isn't it? Learn How To Think. How sad, that after twelve years of "public" education, millions of young adults are left without a clue on how to fend for themselves in the world. 

A few years after that, and not yet learning how to think, I find myself in a different city and different circumstance. Having found a job with a meager wage, I ventured into a local record store and met the manager who introduces me to someone who has now been my friend for over 40 years. 


That friend introduced me to a novel. He loaned me his copy of "The Fountainhead" by Ayn Rand. There are many words to describe what that gesture meant to me, but it was like tossing a lifeline to a drowning man.

Ever since that day in March of 1979, I've never looked back.