by Craig Biddle at 8:23 PM

The religious tradition of saying grace before meals becomes especially popular around the holidays, when we all are reminded of how fortunate we are to have an abundance of life-sustaining goods and services at our disposal. But there is a grave injustice involved in this tradition. It is the injustice of thanking an alleged God for the productive accomplishments of actual men.

Where do the ideas, principles, constitutions, governments, and laws that protect our rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness come from? What is the source of the meals, medicines, homes, automobiles, and fighter jets that keep us alive and enable us to flourish? Who is responsible for our freedom, prosperity, and well-being?

Is freedom a gift from God? It is not. Freedom, the absence of physical coercion, is a political condition resulting from the rational, principled thought and action of men—men such as Aristotle, John Locke, the Founding Fathers, Frederick Douglass, and American soldiers.

Did God make the ambrosia that melts in your mouth, or the asthma medicine that keeps your child alive, or the plush recliner in which you relax, or the big-screen TV on which you watch your favorite show? Did God create the jetliners that bring friends and family from afar, or the stealth bombers that keep the barbarians at bay, or the music that warms your heart and fuels your soul?

Since God is responsible for none of the goods on which human life and happiness depend, why thank him for any such goods? More to the point: Why not thank those who actually are responsible for them? What would a just man do?

Justice is the virtue of judging people rationally—according to what they say, do, and produce—and treating them accordingly, granting to each man that which he deserves. If someone spends the day preparing a wonderful meal, justice demands that he, not God, be thanked for doing so. If someone provides his family with a warm, safe, comfortable home, justice demands that he, not God, be thanked for providing it. If a policeman or fireman or doctor saves someone’s life, justice demands that he, not God, be thanked. If a loving spouse or child or parent or friend provides you with great joy, justice demands that he, not God, be acknowledged accordingly. If a philosopher discovers the principles on which freedom depends—and if others put those principles into practice—justice demands that they, not God, be given credit.

To say grace is to give credit where none is due—and, worse, it is to withhold credit where it is due. To say grace is to commit an act of injustice.

Rational, productive people—whether philosophers, scientists, inventors, artists, businessmen, military strategists, friends, family, or yourself—are who deserve to be thanked for the goods on which your life, liberty, and happiness depend. This holiday season—and from now on—don’t say grace; say justice. Thank or acknowledge the people who actually provide the goods. Some of them may be sitting right there at the table with you. And if you find yourself at a table where people insist on saying grace, politely insist on saying justice when they’re through. It’s the right thing to do.

Everyday I catch myself thinking “I have to remember this…” Sam is growing up so fast, it’s hard to retain it all. I’m starting a list of phrases, images and thoughts that I want to make sure I retain. I’ll update it whenever something new comes to mind.

• Breathing through his nose when focused on a task…
• grasping my fingers when bottling down…
• his smile when he learned to stand…
• commando crawling…
• nite-nite taps…
• pointing at his guitar…
• giving sloppy kisses…
• standing while he nursed…
• last peek-a-boo shhhhhhh…
• where’s the ******?
• baby-bread position…
• coffee run naps…
• turtle, crabby and octopus…
• the mess we leave at Cracker Barrel…
• first ouchee with teeth on the bus…

Isn’t one that Obama can understand:

“The reason that we want to do this, change our tax code, is not because I have anything against the rich,” Obama said in Sarasota, Fla., yesterday. “I love rich people! I want all of you to be rich. Go for it. That’s the American dream, that’s the American way, that’s terrific.

“The point is, though, that — and it’s not just charity, it’s not just that I want to help the middle class and working people who are trying to get in the middle class — it’s that when we actually make sure that everybody’s got a shot – when young people can all go to college, when everybody’s got decent health care, when everybody’s got a little more money at the end of the month – then guess what? Everybody starts spending that money, they decide maybe I can afford a new car, maybe I can afford a computer for my child. They can buy the products and services that businesses are selling and everybody is better off. All boats rise. That’s what happened in the 1990s, that’s what we need to restore. And that’s what I’m gonna do as president of the United States of America.

“John McCain and Sarah Palin they call this socialistic,” Obama continued. “You know I don’t know when, when they decided they wanted to make a virtue out of selfishness.”

He gives his political opponents way too much credit. McPalin doesn’t understand selfishness as a virtue any more than Obama. Capitalism or Socialism, selfishness or selflessness, life or death - take your pick, you can’t have both.

With 27 pounds, 8 words, four teeth, and immeasurable joy to his parents accomplished, Sam is approaching his first birthday. I’m constantly surprised at how fast this is going.

To say his value to my life is unprecedented would be a pale understatement.

The brilliance of an uncluttered mind is so refreshing. His sense of life projects a contagious reminder of the world as it should and ought to be.  If only the high from him looking me square in the eyes and smiling could be bottled and sold.*

I wish every human could enjoy that perfectly seasoned mixture of life, joy, purity, honesty, and the sense of pride that connects it all. Doubtless the bonds we share with our spouse or family members are sacred and intense. On an entirely different level are the bonds held with a human whose expressions can be nearly felt, whose glance so resembles our other half, whose mannerisms are so acutely familiar, and who existence wholly depends on our rationality. In a sense I consider it me that I’m caring for, that it’s my legs learning to walk, or that it’s my security and comfort he clings for.  I protect his being with no less intensity than I protect my own - likely more.

His first year of life has been the most cherished, productive and memorable of my own.

* Too bad it would take 10 years and 80 million to slog through the FDA.

Unfortunately, my footprint seems to have gone down from 12.8 to 10.8.  I’m not certain, but It must be due to the fact that I work from home more lately.

Your Footprint 32.097	Country Average 20.4	World Target 2

An interesting note from the quiz - I was only one question into the quiz (the sq. footage of my home) before my footprint was too big for a single earth. The threshold that broke the one earth barrier was a home >2500 sq.ft. - very close to the US average home sq. footage according to 2007 standards.  That’s right, the average American home is too big for (purported) environmental sustenance.

According the the greens, the moral approach to life is to renounce the material benefits of centuries of thought and productivity.  They vary in their means to such end according to the negligible degree to which they enjoy life.  Those who hate life essentially want the utter destruction of technology and industry at best, the extinction of man at worse.  Those who cling to a remnant of joy in living want you to go through the motions of living without necessarily feeling alive.  These are the ones who promote “green living” as a necessary sacrifice that can be ‘fun for the whole family’.  Sacrifice, according to both camps is the underlying tenet.  To them, individuals are merely spokes in the wheel - regardless of whether the wheel is a town, a country, or a globe.

However, a rational man’s purpose is his own happiness in accordance with his rational values.

Value is an inherently human concept both by the fact that it presupposes choice (volition), which only man has, and courtesy of the notion that it is only human life that can be the basis of such judgment.  The earth has no value outside of its facilitation of mans needs.  Man must use natural resources to survive.  To insist that man live void of natural resources, or even to guilt man into sacrificing elements of his life where he finds value for the sake of non-living material objects, is to sacrifice the living to the non-living.  To hire a governing body to force man to do such is pure evil.

Contrary to the guilt that these nihilistic man-haters intend to conjure, I’m proud of my “footprint”.   A token of my productivity and a tribute to man’s mind - I intend to increase it to the extent of my existence.

I have no desire to live under their diet-life terms.

By Craig Biddle of The Objective Standard

Because Earth Day is intended to further the cause of environmentalism—and because environmentalism is an anti-human ideology—on April 22, those who care about human life should not celebrate Earth Day; they should celebrate Exploit-the-Earth Day.

Either man takes the Earth’s raw materials—such as trees, petroleum, aluminum, and atoms—and transforms them into the requirements of his life, or he dies. To live, man must produce the goods on which his life depends; he must produce homes, automobiles, computers, electricity, and the like; he must seize nature and use it to his advantage. There is no escaping this fact. Even the allegedly “noble” savage must pick or perish. Indeed, even if a person produces nothing, insofar as he remains alive he indirectly exploits the Earth by parasitically surviving off the exploitative efforts of others.

Exploiting the Earth—using the raw materials of nature for one’s life-serving purposes—is a basic requirement of human life. According to environmentalism, however, man should not use nature for his needs; he should keep his hands off “the goods”; he should leave nature alone, come what may.

Environmentalism is not concerned with human health and wellbeing—neither ours nor that of generations to come. If it were, it would advocate the one social system that ensures that the Earth and its elements are used in the most productive, life-serving manner possible: capitalism.

Capitalism is the only social system that recognizes and protects each individual’s right to act in accordance with his basic means of living: the judgment of his mind. Environmentalism, of course, does not and cannot advocate capitalism, because if people are free to act on their judgment, they will strive to produce and prosper; they will transform the raw materials of nature onto the requirements of human life; they will exploit the Earth and live.

Environmentalism rejects the basic moral premise of capitalism—the idea that people should be free to act on their judgment—because it rejects a more fundamental idea on which capitalism rests: the idea that the requirements of human life constitute the standard of moral value. While the standard of value underlying capitalism is human life (meaning, that which is necessary for human beings to live and prosper), the standard of value underlying environmentalism is nature untouched by man.

The basic principle of environmentalism is that nature (i.e., “the environment”) has intrinsic value—value in and of itself, value apart from and irrespective of the requirements of human life—and that this value must be protected from its only adversary: man. Rivers must be left free to flow unimpeded by human dams, which divert natural flows, alter natural landscapes, and disrupt wildlife habitats. Glaciers must be left free to grow or shrink according to natural causes, but any human activity that might affect their size must be prohibited. Naturally generated carbon dioxide (such as that emitted by oceans and volcanoes) and naturally generated methane (such as that emitted by swamps and termites) may contribute to the greenhouse effect, but such gasses must not be produced by man. The globe may warm or cool naturally (e.g., via increases or decreases in sunspot activity), but man must not do anything to affect its temperature. And so on.

In short, according to environmentalism, if nature affects nature, the effect is good; if man affects nature, the effect is evil.

Stating the essence of environmentalism in such stark terms raises some illuminating questions: If the good is nature untouched by man, how is man to live? What is he to eat? What is he to wear? Where is he to reside? How can man do anything his life requires without altering, harming, or destroying some aspect of nature? In order to nourish himself, man must consume meats, vegetables, fruits, and the like. In order to make clothing, he must skin animals, pick cotton, manufacture polyester, and the like. In order to build a house—or even a hut—he must cut down trees, dig up clay, make fires, bake bricks, and so forth. Each and every action man takes to support or sustain his life entails the exploitation of nature. Thus, on the premise of environmentalism, man has no right to exist.

It comes down to this: Each of us has a choice to make. Will I recognize that man’s life is the standard of moral value—that the good is that which sustains and furthers human life—and thus that people have a moral right to use the Earth and its elements for their life-serving needs? Or will I accept the notion that nature has “intrinsic” value—value in and of itself, value apart from and irrespective of human needs—and thus that people have no right to exist?

There is no middle ground here. Either human life is the standard of moral value, or it is not. Either nature has intrinsic value, or it does not.