Vandal With a Handle

Everybody has an opinion on marriage; some all business, some religious, some emotional, some defying description. Only a few take time to outline a careful and reasoned perspective based on history, principle and common sense. Donald Sensing has one worth reading.

If you are looking for an electronic copy of a classic document or literary work, you might save this link which will take you the University of Virginia ebook site. The 1800 or so documents there can be searched by author or subject. If you want to, you can search the text of ALL the documents for a word or phrase. The terms of use are generous for individual users or educators. You can't publish or use them for any commercial purpose, but that's not the idea anyway. I have been poking about and found a bunch of Beatrix Potter children's stories, Civil War documents such as Jefferson Davis' inauguration speech, the full text of the Bible in KJV and RSV, Shakespeare, Dickens--There's a lot of stuff here! By the way, more than one university has online facilities like this. See here.

When I was going to Sunday School in the Baptist church in the 50's and 60's we used to get periodic doses of "prophecy", meaning dispensational theology in the Scofield, Darby, and Larkin tradition. For those unfamiliar, this method involved large charts placed on the wall showing the dispensations, or periods of divine significance in history and a teacher with a pointer showing the class the path through the ages of time. I remember particularly the treatment of the Mark of the Beast and the warning that in the end times there would be a structure in place where the Beast, a horrible world ruler in opposition to God, would put a mark in the forehead and the palm of the hand of the people and nobody could buy or sell without the mark. At that time, they said, people would have to decide whether to take the mark allowing them to participate in the economy or to stay true to God. We used to titter and snort at the notion that a token like that mark could make that much difference. I no longer go to Sunday School and I no longer believe in the scheme on the charts, but I don't titter and snort at the notion of the Mark of the Beast any more.

Lew Rockwell has an article today about the profound influence the web has had on the interchange of ideas and how it has grown in unanticipated ways. A quote:


We have learned, for example, just how pent up was the demand for politically radical ideas. What is called mainstream and what is called radical turns out to be artificial, wholly dependent on the particular views held by the opinion elite. But it says nothing about what smart people really believe, what majority opinion is, or how far regular people are willing to go to question the status quo. It turns out that opinion which urges a complete rethinking of public affairs has a far vaster market than any of us believed.

I started, during the war on Serbia, to share interesting links with friends. But then my own personal email list became too long. It occurred to me that perhaps people I don't know might be interested in these links. Thus was born my public site, just an interface to display things I saw (this was pre-blog). Then I started publishing people's thoughts, my own thoughts, and the next thing I know, I'm the editor of one of the most trafficked centers of political and economic opinion in the world.

Add one more to the list of good things that arose out of people just being at liberty to follow the thread of a good thing even when nobody could say for sure just where it would lead. I read a quote from Hayek:

It may indeed prove to be far the most difficult and not the least important task for human reason rationally to comprehend its own limitations. It is essential for the growth of reason that as individuals we should bow to forces and obey principles which we cannot hope fully to understand, yet on which the advance and even the preservation of civilization depend.

For those who, like me, admire the new layout of Samizdata and would like to know more about Popper, the author of the book under the pistol in the headline graphic, I point to this site. Look around, particularly at the links section.

The Smallest Minority is on a roll with gun control news. Notes from Flushing, NY and the wilds of Australia give color to the failure of the state to understand that guns, cars, plastic buckets, four wheelers, and cigarettes have no moral content in themselves. When you try to regulate them, you may get what you wanted, but you will almost certainly get a bunch of stuff you didn't want.