Dream I had last night

Last night I had a dream I'm calling the 'libertarian dream'.

Various thing happened that I can't quite remember (something involving a mime... what does that mean?), but where it becomes clear is when I went to go pick up my backpack from somewhere in a park where I'd left it earlier in the dream. The problem was that the place I left it was apparently a historical protected place. It was alright to hang out there, (as many people were doing), but if you left anything there it would be marked by the police. Marked by yellow dye flung all over it.

Apparently that was a warning. If you did it again you'd get a $300 dollar ticket. I complained about dye staining my backpack, but the people around didn't understand what I was so upset about. I was lucky they didn't give me a ticket, besides the dye was supposed to wash out eventually. "But it's not fair!" I complained. "There's no signs saying you can't leave your stuff here for a little while. If the government is going to out-law that, they need to tell you. Besides why is that a law anyway? Don't the police have better things to do? This is just a government scam to make money."

But the people continued to not see my point. "You left it in the shade", the people said. "Don't you know that you're not allowed to leave things in the shade? Doesn't matter if there's a sign or not."

I take my backpack and walk across the park and continue to fume until I come to a woman sitting on a bench with a group of young children at her feet. She's explaining some astronomy concept to them and I'm admiring how clear she's being and how all the children are so enthralled with what she's telling them. Then a man sits down next to her and interrupts. "So", he says, "How do you explain 'blah' [some slightly complicated science concept I can't remember] to them?" "Well", the woman says, "first, I tell them about 'blahdee-blah' [some slightly less complicated, related science concept], and then when they understand that I can explain 'blah' to them and they'll understand.

The man immediately whips out a ticket book and the woman and I realize with shock that he's a plainclothes policeman. "Explaining one thing to build up to another constitutes a lesson plan", he says "and having a lesson plan means you must have a government issued certificate saying that you're allowed to teach these children. I'm going to have to write you up for this".

Well, on top of the yellow dye all over my backpack and the bad day I was apparently having earlier in the dream, (something about that mime. I don't know...), this was just too much for me. I took a running tackle at the guy and started kicking his ass while shouting, "Let them learn! Let them learn!" until he was just a bloody piece of plastic. (Yes, plastic. I don't understand either. Dreams are weird.)

If I hadn't woken up then I probably would have ended up getting arrested and sent to Siberia.

Anyway. I was pretty amused when I woke up and thought you guys would get a kick out of it too.



Maybe I should call it the 'libertarian nightmare'.

On Missing the Obvious

Over this last weekend a bunch of important talking heads descended upon the quaint and conservative college campus here in Claremont, California. I say the quaint and conservative campus because it's the only one here at the 5-C's, which includes Pomona, Pitzer, Scripps, Harvery Mudd, and Claremont Mckenna, this last being the college I refer to.

The fact that Claremont Mckenna College (CMC) is (perceived to be) conservative is a little surprising for two reasons: 1) Most colleges aren't and 2) Everyone knows that most colleges aren't.

Now before you chalk my rhetoric up to clever hyperbole, if indeed it can even be considered clever, reflect seriously on the two points above for just a minute. I need to site no statistics, books, or specialists; nor do I have to appeal to personal experience, either yours or mine; and I really don't have to argue the point with anyone: College curricula, world-view, and life-style is predominantly liberal, period.

And now back to the talking heads. Half Blues and half Reds, which rather nicely sums up many things, these specialists came to share their thougts concerning the future of America's parties, that is, the future of the Democratic and the Republican party. This means, of course, that the conference was a polite way to envision what political party would usher in the dark age of the apocalypse in the waning years to come?

Well, I think that I already answered that question.

Yay for Ayn

Justice does exist in the world, whether people choose to practice it or not. The men of ability are being avenged. The avenger is reality. Its weapon is slow, silent, invisible, and men perceive it only by its consequences - by the gutted ruins and the moans of agony it leaves in its wake. The name of the weapon is: inflation.

-- Ayn Rand, "Egalitarianism And Inflation," Philosophy: Who Needs It