De Officio; or, An Anatomy of the Civil Service

The cant of Semitic speech metaphorically extends physiological words and gives them a whole slew of applications. For example, the Akkadian word rēšum, Hebrew ראש Arabic رأس all mean head; in addition, these are frequently used to mean things like 'top', 'beginning' - and thus, Jews celebrate the Head-of-the-Year in September - 'person', 'the principle amount of a loan upon which interest is paid', 'slave', &c.

The present article is about another such word: išdum (dual: išdān; plural: išdātum). This word is Akkadian and the body part to which it refers is the buttocks. It is metaphorically extended by the ancient Semitic speakers of Mesopotamia to mean 'base', 'foundation', and, my favourite, 'administration', which might perhaps best be rendered by our present English 'civil service'. We, of course, have an English parallel; we may refer to power as having it's 'seat' somewhere. After all, assuming you are sitting down, it is your bottom which is propping the rest of you up. [You physiscists will likely be displeased with this; however, chairs are inanimate and as such are less apt to influence human speech habits than animate things like, say 'people' (and their bottoms).]

A king's administration (a government's civil service) is undoubtedly the foundation upon which gubernatory power is consolidated; without the ability to excecute policies, any office can be invested with whatever powers you will without being in any way effective. So, while I affirm the necessity of the civil service and am grateful for the fact that here in Canada, we have a pretty good one (go to Italy if you don't believe me), I do hope that I may be permitted to civilly remind said servants that it would behoove them to occasionally remember that they are naught but the government's ass.

De Barbarum Conundro

Since it is likely that my appearance will give the reader cause to suspect me of partiality in this matter, I will begin by offering the best defense for being clean shaven that I can.

The best argument against the whiskers is probably that which stems from natural rights; it is a classically liberal defense and runs, more or less, as follows: whiskers have the right to do what they please; they may choose to abide where they wish, they may practice what faith they will, they may engage in free enterprise if it suits them, &c. Of course, all this, provided that they do not infringe upon the rights of anyone else. The problem of course, is that when they choose to take up residence on a man's face, they violate the rights of that man in one very significant way viz. the right to bear children. Though it speaks to the irrational tastes of women that such a sign of virility is so thoroughly shunned, the fact remains that once whiskers begin to bivouac upon a man`s cheeks, his every attempt to procreate will be foiled. Thus, since an encamped army of whiskers upon a man`s face prevent him from sowing his seed, he has every right to attack with any arma (I can`t imagine any tela being effective) at hand. Of course, though the severity with which whiskers are commonly treated may be lamentable, retrograde, barbaric, or what you will, it seems that men are perfectly justified in dealing thusly with them.

Now, why then, should any man conceed large tracts of his face to such an (alleged) enemy? Because the complex ecosystem of a man's face can be much benefited by the presence of such creatures. Just as trees, as we all know, produce invaluable oxygen for our planet, so do whiskers produce esteemable virtus for our comportment. Especially given the inherantly feminine nature of intellectual and cultural activity (recall, it was Šamhat who first initiated Enkidu into human culture), it behooves men, particularly those who fancy themselves the slightest bit intelligent, to counteract this femininity with an equal or more potent dose of manliness. Men, reclaim your humanity, and engage with human civilization on your terms! Let not the sheath of a woman's body be the gateway through which you must crawl to touch and contemplate beauty! (Oh dear, how very Neoplatonic of me...)

The Cult of Modern Politics

Lately I've been reading a little bit of political science. Not super recent political science - because most of that is noobish, nescient (non-alliterative) nonsense - but perceptive stuff: Joseph Schumpeter, Michael Oakeshott, &c. I also read, a few months ago, a paper by Richard Hofstadter The Paranoid Style In American Politics

http://karws.gso.uri.edu/jfk/conspiracy_theory/the_paranoid_mentality/the_paranoid_style.html

What have I synthesized from the aforementioned readings? That Oakeshott's claim, that over the last few centuries European rationalism, on account of its very flawed tenets concerning the nature of human knowledge-aquisistion and customs, has occasioned a fragmentation in the both the left and the right's view of political events over time - and that this alters the nature of the very process of governing, is absolutely true. I will explain why this is even scarier than Oakeshott lets on:

Since governing cannot be viewed by a rationalist as an organic process that grows, adapts, and mutates over time, it fragments - each of the film's frames is viewed individually, as a photograph. The process of governing becomes a series of reactions to crises, real or imagined. The two-party democratic system (we may here include Canada) has very well adapted itself to this conception. Every election campaign is run with the following formula:

"My opponent, X, has not/is not/will not adequately dealt/deal with crises y,z, &c. I will. Vote for me, or doom impends"

The crises, may of course be real: the present recession, the war in Afganistan, the war in Iraq. The problem, of course, lies in the fact that modern political institutions would be unable to function without these. I doubt very much that there will ever be a pax Democratica; democracy needs war, disease, economic failure, injustice, &c.

Unlike the ancient millenarian cults (Christian, Judaic, or whatever) of the ancient world, the cult of modern politics is not merely psychotic; it is destroying the world in order to create the very fear which enables its survival.

On Blasphemy

For years everyone's known that Anglicans are atheists. Or anyone either moderately literate or moderately intelligent could put it together on their own. There's nothing wrong with atheists; most religious people, after all, are atheists. But Anglicans - they are avowedly theologico-atheists. Feuerbach as much as tells us so in the first pages of Grundsätze der Philosophie der Zukunft (1843). In one of the first essays in MacIntyre's volume Against Self Images of Age we find a philosophical exposé of blatantly atheistic ideas in published theological writings of 20th c. Anglican clergymen. This should come as no shock to anyone.

But I don't intend here to deal with the theological redefinition of god in terms of the apogee of human desires, the highest fulfillment of human needs, &c.; I don't here intend to spell out how this makes the Anglican creed indistinguishable from the most vehement of atheisms. Nor am I going to rant about how little I like the Protestant faith in general. No, I am merely going to matter-of-factly state how absolutely disgusted I am by an Anglican parish in Montreal.

In one of those damnable commuter newspapers of the sort which is read by people merely in order to convince themselves that they are not entirely pissing away the 30 minutes they spend in the underground, I chanced across a photograph with a very small caption.



The caption read:

Alexa Nadeau recieves communion with her dog Christy at Christ's Anglican Church yesterday in Montreal. The parish is running a four-week pilot project that allows worshippers to bring their dogs to services.

One usually expects the most horribly blasphemous things to come from dedicated, ikonoclastic atheists; however, I am little surprised that this time, the infidels find themselves outdone by the faithful. It's bad enough when you're sitting in a pew (not something I do much these days) and somebody's kid is crying so loud it's droning out the 'word of God'; imagine a dog! Not just barking, but leg humping, wandering up and down the trancepts, sniffing at the lady-dogs' cunts? I don't even believe in God (and my friends will tell you that I positively delight in offending) and I'm absolutely offended by this. And you know what, if you Anglicans ever read that fucking Bible you fancy yourselves so much better than the Catholics at reading, maybe you'd realize that bringing your dog to church with you probably violates the entire book of Leviticus.

Of course, God does love animals. He loves the scent of their seared flesh wafting up to the heavens. He loves the scrumptious taste of all the delectable parts of an animal that are unsuited to human digestion. So, unless you're bringing little Sparky to sacrifice him to יהוה, leave him at home.

Just a thought: if we frankly admitted the fact that we are atheists, infidels, &c. instead of being such a damned lot of hypocritical Christians, perhaps the Arabs would not be as pissed-off-and-about-to-kill-us. Try it sometime.

De Catone Fraudatore

I cannot but wonder, as I lie here reading the hugely influential Cato letters (written 1720-1723), what would become of Mr. Trenchard and Mr. Gordon if they had the misfortune of being alive today, or the imprudence to write today. I doubt that the rest of the men who founded Liberalism would fare better. And I'm not here referring to the fact that they were probably all incorrigible racists. Yes, the 18th century, as well as nearly all of the men who forwarded liberal ideas were; but that's an old story. So, none of them much fancied black people. Big deal. Hardly blogworthy...

Rather, what interests me is today's liberal practices - and indoctrinations - seem to discourage, to say the very least, opinions held and actions defended by early liberals themselves. Compare, for instance, reactions occasioned by stock market catastrophies - a side note, for those of you who aren't aware: stock markets crash, economies receed. That is what they do. If any man be shocked by this, then he be a retard. When the recent recession occured, John Stwart got mad at Jim Cramer; that was about the extent of it. When the London stock market collapsed in 1720 on account, liberals, like the aformentioned authors, demanded the public execution of the executives of the South Sea Company who inflated stock prices and thus engineered the financial catastrophy. In fact, one of the Cato letters - probably my favourite - is written as a hangman's entreaty to the government for opportunities for the honest exercise of his trade; his little children going hungry, he begs for the work of putting to death the traitorious villains who orchestrated the economic ruin of thousands of Englishmen.

If you knew me, Sir, you would own that I have valuable talents, and am worth your acquaintance. I am particularly possessed of a praiseworthy industry, and an ardent desire of business. In truth, I care not to be idle; and yet it cruelly happens, that I have but one busy day in six weeks, and even then I could do twice as much. Besides, having a tender heart, it really affects me with pity, to be obliged to strangle so many innocents every Sessions; poor harmless offenders, that only commit murders, and break open houses, and rob men of guineas and half crowns; while wholesale plunderers, and mighty rogues of prey, the avowed enemies and hangmen of honesty, trade and truth, the known promoters of villainy, and the merciless authors of misery, want, and general ruin, go on to ride in coaches and six, and to defy a people whom they have made poor and desperate; potent parricides, who have plundered more from this kingdom in six months than all the private thieves and highwaymen ever did, or could do, since the creation. - Letter No. 21 'A Letter from John Ketch, Esq. asserting his Right to the Necks of the over-grown Brokers' March 18, 1721.

Needless to say, such writings are not to be found in today's papers, liberal or otherwise. Why not? Because no one seriously believes any of the tenents of early liberalism, e.g. that the nation consists of a collection of individuals and that that the harming of individual constituents of a nation is in fact the harming of said nation itself? That is probably the case, but that is less along the lines of my thoughts this evening. My primary interest, at this moment, is in a little bit of logic:

Why don't liberals campaign for executions these days? Because it's migty unliberal
The fathers of liberalism campaigned for executions.
Therefore, the fathers of liberalism were mighty unliberal

We have two options: either modern liberalism is the very zenith of liberalism, and it grew up gradually from imperfect foundations or eighteenth-century liberalism was pure, and modern liberals are a bunch of commy-ass pansies.

Since it is unlikely that many people are going to go for the second option (after all, not everyone is as blessed with insight as the present writer: As this is one of those deep observations which very few readers can be supposed capable of making themselves, I have thought proper to lend them my assistance; but this is a favour rarely to be expected in the course of my work. Indeed, I shall seldom or never so indulge him, unless in such instances as this, where nothing but the inspiration with which we writers are gifted, can possibly enable any one to make the discovery. The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling Book I, chapter 5) we must deal with the former: liberalism, presently the very state of perfection, had to employ very unliberal means to get to it's present state. The problem, of course, with this is that liberals have always maintained that the good old 'ends justify the means' argument is no good. Prima facie, then, liberalism cannot justify its own existence. Now that inspires confidence...

Concerning The Consumption of Animals, or An Entreaty to Think Before Asserting Remarkably Stupid Things from the notes of a future vampire-vet part 2

Review: the only rights people have are those granted by a governing institution for it's own existence which relies on an enforced, socially or otherwise, pattern of property distribution and exchange; when people do have rights, it is usually only because their infringement would be destructive to a political institution, e.g. kingship, oligarchy, democracy, &c. The very nature of money then, the bare-bones of which is always the produce of animal labour, and the animals themselves, presupposes the following: if humans are to have rights (not natural rights: those are fairy tales - I mean legal rights, which are only as strong as the party, government, or faction enforcing the laws) then animals cannot. We cannot say: we make the sale, slavery, slaughter, and consumption of animals the foundation of economic transaction in order to consolidate political powers which are capable of granting us rights for ourselves, and once we have those, we will give rights to animals. We cannot say that because it undermines our very power to decree such things.

Animals, then, do not have rights; that's not to say that they cannot, however, have rights. What I mean here is that it is merely logically inconsistent for a person who fancies themselves to have rights to assert that animals do. Unfortunately, free speech is allowed, if not exactly encouraged in this country (I guess I shouldn't complain too much since that mere formality is keeping me out of jail...at least so far) so one can assert whatever they damn well like. It is therefore your right, Mr. Smelly Hippy-ass Animal Rights Activist, to assert that animals should have rights. That's fine; you may assert whatever damned retarded nonsesne you please; only, observe the consequences. If animals are to have rights, then everything after the agricultural revolution - say the last eight thousand years or so - and consequently all of human civilization becomes a violation of those rights. Therefore, Mr. Smelly Hippy-ass Animal Rights Activist, get your smelly, hippy, ass the hell out of the city, give up all your money (I'd be more than happy to recieve it) get thee to a forrest, and start pickin' berries. And shut the fuck up, or I'll kill you. Really. Your just obliterated your only defence; you no longer have rights because you just destroyed any political or economic institutions capable of enforcing laws to prevent me from terminating annoying people like you.

To clarify: there's nothing wrong with being a vegetarian. A lot of them are great people. Some of my best friends are vegetarians, and I cannot but admire their resolve. They, however, are not stupid; they will tell you it is a personal choice they have made, and they don't mind other people eating meat. You know why they will tell you that? Because eating meat isn't wrong!
Animals do not have rights so please, eat them - eat veal, eat chicken, eat horse. (Mad props to the Italians for a quarter million horses slaughtered for their meat in 2005. That's 48, 000 metric tons of pastissada!) Or don't eat any meat at all if you don't want to. Just think before you say stupid shit.

Concerning The Consumption of Animals, or An Entreaty to Think Before Asserting Remarkably Stupid Things from the notes of a future vampire-vet part 1

I love animals. I also eat them. I have rather recently charted my course for the future, and one of my stops shall be a veterinary school (hopefully Auburn, Alabama). I intend to become a veterinarian (among other, more esoteric things) so naturally I must love animals? Indeed, that is the first thing which comes to people's minds when they hear of my new plan: "Oh, you'd like to be a vet? I didn't know that you loved animals." Firstly: most peoples love animals - or mammals at least - especially very young animals,who, after all, are biologically engineered to be terribly cute. The assumption that follows next is that I must have strong feelings about animals rights (I do, as you shall soon enough see; only, not exactly the feelings people fancy). Animals, I most vehemently assert, do not have rights. Further, there is no contradiction between on the one hand liking animals, yet also being exceptionally fond of eating their flesh.

A little lesson in history: the earliest human societies consisted of hunter gatherers. These bands followed wild animals around and threw stuff at them. On very lucky days, perhaps an animal would drop dead from old age, or maybe it couldn't get away fast enough (arthritis, after all, is by no means specific to humans. Paleopathological evidence of such chronic illnesses can be found in dinosaur skeletons) and our prehistoric people got to eat more than a few handfuls of (probably shitty tasting) berries. Meat, however, goes bad very quickly: if you don't believe me, kill your roommate (the one that sings show tunes in the shower at 3 am), leave him somewhere, and see how long it takes for people to notice the funny smell. This presents a problem to someone who wishes to eat meat regularly. Sure, you can smoke meat, or you can salt it and it will keep for a while; none of these methods, however, can touch any of my mother's freezer records.

The domestication of animal populations then was the ancient world equivalent of a freezer. Suddenly, by keeping your meat alive, you keep it from rotting. Then, when a suitable occasion arises e.g. the return of your son who wasted half of your money on wine and cheap hookers, the backyard barbeque to which you invited בעל‎ (Ba'al), &c all you have to do is fetch a priest (though, things become more complicated when the Israeli kingship tries to consolodate power over the countryside by making the Temple the only place animals can be sacrificed) and cut the animal's jugular, and just like that, fresh meat, and no freezerburn! [Note, this is an oversimplification of the process. cf. liber levitici for all the rules]

The domestication - and by domestication one may as well say abuse: the keeping of animals in placed they'd probably rather not be till a time comes when it is convenient for us to brutally kill them and eat them. I can't imagine free range chickens are all that thrilled about being killed - of animals brought about a radical change in human society. Most human societies shift from matriarchies to patriarchies, and livestock become the world's first currency. The Latin word pecunia - money - comes from pecus, pecudis, a word that refers to a single head of cattle. Animals were the first private property, the first currency.

Natural rights don't exist. Legal rights presuppose property. All laws that protect our rights as citizens of x country are usually only incidental to the laws which protect our property rights as land or livestock owners in x country. The bare-bones of any legal system is punishment for the destruction of property. While ancient law codices contain the usual prohibitions on killing, the bulk of them read similar to the following:

If a man had let an arable field to a(nother) man for cultivation, but he did not cultivate it, turning it into wasteland, he shall measure out three kur [measure of volume] of barley per iku [measure of area] of field. (Eshnuna 31)

If a man flooded the field of a man with water, he shall measure out three kur of barley per iku of field. (Eshnuna 32)

If any one hire an ox, and put out its eye, he shall pay the owner one-half of its value. (Hammurabi 249)

and my very favourite Babylonian inscriptions of all time:

If a veterinary surgeon perform a serious operation on an ass or an ox, and cure it, the owner shall pay the surgeon one-sixth of a shekel as a fee.

If he perform a serious operation on an ass or ox, and kill it, he shall pay the owner one-fourth of its value. (Hammurabi 224 & 225)

The principles at work here are purely economic. If I injure your property such that it is less capable of earning money for you, I must pay you dammages. The same properties are at work with men:

If any one steal the minor son of another, he shall be put to death. Not because sons should be reared by their fathers. Not because he might become a malajusted member of society or develop Stokholm-syndrome or any nonsense like that, but because as the head of a household, your son is a force, cleverer, but not otherwise much different from an ox, that you can set to work to earn you money.

Apologies and Explanations

First: I should probably apologize to anyone who feels cheated by the title of this blog - it has nothing to do with either a small agricultural community in southwestern Ontario or kinky sex. I had hoped the subtitle would make that clear. Please do stay a while though. You never know when I might touch upon your favourite subjects!

Now, about me: I'm a university student and I work part time loading large trucks with heavy boxes. You would imagine that I would do most of my thinking at school; not so, however. Some of my cleverest ideas have been thought out during escapist flights from my unbelievably unfulfulling, low-paying job.