Quotulatiousness

June 20, 2020

History-Makers: Confucius

Filed under: China, History, Humour, Religion — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

Overly Sarcastic Productions
Published 19 Jun 2020

Welcome to the challenge run of History-Makers, where I attempt to give insightful historical context to someone whose backstory is almost entirely blank.

SOURCES & Further Reading: Confucius: A Very Short Introduction by Gardner, China: A History by Keay, The Analects of Confucius, The Mencius.

This video was edited by Sophia Ricciardi AKA “Indigo”. https://www.sophiakricci.com/
Our content is intended for teenage audiences and up.

PATREON: https://www.Patreon.com/OSP

MERCH LINKS: https://www.redbubble.com/people/OSPY…

OUR WEBSITE: https://www.OverlySarcasticProductions.com
Find us on Twitter https://www.Twitter.com/OSPYouTube
Find us on Reddit https://www.Reddit.com/r/OSP/

“What did you do in the Wuhan Coronavirus war, Daddy?”

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Cancon, Government, Health — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

Chris Selley metaphorically dons the garb of a war correspondent to report on how the Canadian government systematically mishandled the epidemic “war”:

Toronto General Hospital.
Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

At first, comparisons to wartime seemed a bit silly. All we were being asked to do, after all, was stay indoors. As the World Health Organization was declaring a pandemic 100 days ago, the commanders had everything under control: the borders, the epidemiology, the strategy, support for shuttered businesses and their employees. Traditionally, wartime puts those of us left on the home front to work whether we like it or not. This was entirely the opposite: the worst we would have to put up with — in theory, assuming government aid was as advertised — was the indignity of idleness. Collective inaction would flatten the curve, the forces of COVID-19 would be beaten back, and summer would be saved. Peace in our time.

And then it instantly turned to quagmire. Canadians watched slack-jawed as COVID-19 breached our most fundamental defences. You don’t need Sun Tzu’s perspicacity to inform people arriving in Canada of their responsibility to self-isolate, and exactly what self-isolation means — go directly home, do not stop for groceries, do not receive visitors. I just did it, right there, in half a sentence. But we couldn’t manage it: Where information was distributed at all, it was excessively complex even as it failed to deliver the central message. Provincial forces threatened mutiny. Alberta Commander-in-Chief Jason Kenney stormed into the Edmonton airport demanding answers. It took weeks to sort out.

[…]

If it didn’t seem like a war before, it sure did once the real live army was drafted in to bail out long-term care homes in Ontario and Quebec that had descended into horrifying squalor. We learned the appalling details from leaked military reports. And now, in an almost poetic act of military pigheadedness, the Ottawa Citizen reports the Armed Forces are trying to hunt down and punish the leakers.

The war must go on. But sitting here in still-locked-down Toronto, stewing in my own bile, I cannot say this is filling me with patriotic fervour. I find myself simultaneously envious of other provinces that are in the process of reopening, and sympathetic to their residents: If it weren’t for the two sick men of the federation [Ontario and Quebec] dominating the narrative, they would likely have reopened much earlier.

Indeed, jealousies have bloomed as weeks turned to months. Apartment dwellers envy other apartment dwellers who have balconies. All apartment dwellers envy homeowners. Everyone envies cottage-owners. Some cottage-country mayors have told cottage-owners to stay put and keep their infestations to themselves. People cooped up with their kids sometimes envy those with time to themselves; singletons who have had enough alone time to last a decade occasionally envy those trying to juggle kids with working from home. The pleasant novelty of Zoom-based socializing faded ages ago, as everyone realized that Zoom-based socializing sucks.

More than 8,200 Canadians are dead, most having lived long lives but many having died in grim and lonely circumstances. In future, considerably more deaths and distress will be associated with the lockdown itself. The psychological effects of this will be studied for decades. If war isn’t quite the right analogy, it’s certainly closer to a war than anything that has been contested on Canadian soil in my or my parents’ lifetime, and it will come at a greater cost to the whole of society than any actual war that Canadian forces have fought over that time. It’s a terrible shame that as a nation, we didn’t win.

Soviet Gender Equality Was a Scam – WW2 – On the Homefront 004

Filed under: History, Russia, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

World War Two
Published 19 Jun 2020

The future looks bright for soviet women in the 1910s, they have the right to vote and they’re on track for social emancipation. Yet this doesn’t last long. Soon, the demands of the nation will rob them of these promises.

Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory
Or join The TimeGhost Army directly at: https://timeghost.tv

Follow WW2 day by day on Instagram @World_war_two_realtime https://www.instagram.com/world_war_two_realtime
Between 2 Wars: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…
Source list: http://bit.ly/WW2sources

Hosted by: Anna Deinhard
Written by: Isabel Wilson
Director: Astrid Deinhard
Producers: Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Executive Producers: Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson, Bodo Rittenauer
Creative Producer: Joram Appel
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Isabel Wilson
Edited by: Karolina Dołęga
Sound design: Marek Kamiński

Colorizations by:
Klimbim
Carlos Ortega Pereira, BlauColorizations, https://www.instagram.com/blaucoloriz…

Visual Sources:
Library of Congress
Adam Jones from Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/adam_jo…

Icons from The Noun Project: Sandhi Priyasmoro, Sarah Rudkin, Andrew Doane, Vectors Market, Adrien Coquet, ProSymbols, Luke Anthony Firth, Russia Woman & Gan Khoon Lay

Music:
“March Of The Brave 10” – Rannar Sillard
“Disciples of Sun Tzu” – Christian Andersen
“Deviation In Time” – Johannes Bornlof
“Other Sides of Glory” – Fabien Tell
“The Inspector 4” – Johannes Bornlöf
“Sailing for Gold” – Howard Harper-Barnes
“London” – Howard Harper-Barnes
“Split Decision” – Rannar Sillar

Research sources:
– Lenin On the Emancipation of Women (1965), pp. 63–4. First Published July 1919, as a pamphlet
– Selected Writings of Alexandra Kollontai, Allison & Busby, 1977, First Published 1921, as a pamphlet, trans Alix Holt.
– Wendy Goldman, “Recasting the vision: The resurrection of the family”. In Women, the State and Revolution: Soviet Family Policy and Social Life, 1917–1936, (Cambridge Russian, Soviet, and Post-Soviet Studies, (1993) pp. 296-336), p.310

Archive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.com.

A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.

Opposition to home schooling is merely a side-issue for those who want government to control everything

Filed under: Education, Government, Liberty, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Kerry McDonald recently took part in a debate with a Harvard academic who has called upon governments to ban homeschooling. She’s written up some of the things she took away from the discussion and from the many questions submitted before the event:

While this event was framed as a discussion about homeschooling, including whether and how to regulate the practice, it is clear that homeschooling is just a strawman. The real issue focuses on the role of government in people’s lives, and in particular in the lives of families and children. In her 80-page Arizona Law Review article that sparked this controversy, Professor Bartholet makes it clear that she is seeking a reinterpretation of the US Constitution, which she calls “outdated and inadequate,” to move from its existing focus on negative rights, or individuals being free from state intervention, to positive rights where the state takes a much more active role in citizens’ lives.

During Monday’s discussion, Professor Bartholet explained that “some parents can’t be trusted to not abuse and neglect their children,” and that is why “kids are going to be way better off if both parent and state are involved.” She said her argument focuses on “the state having the right to assert the rights of the child to both education and protection.” Finally, Professor Bartholet said that it’s important to “have the state have some say in protecting children and in trying to raise them so that the children have a decent chance at a future and also are likely to participate in some positive, meaningful ways in the larger society.”

It’s true that the state has a role in protecting children from harm, but does it really have a role in “trying to raise them”? And if the state does have a role in raising children to be competent adults, then the fact that two-thirds of US schoolchildren are not reading proficiently, and more than three-quarters are not proficient in civics, should cause us to be skeptical about the state’s ability to ensure competence.

I made the point on Monday that we already have an established government system to protect children from abuse and neglect. The mission of Child Protective Services (CPS) is to investigate suspected child abuse and punish perpetrators. CPS is plagued with problems and must be dramatically reformed, but the key is to improve the current government system meant to protect children rather than singling out homeschoolers for additional regulation and government oversight. This is particularly true when there is no compelling evidence that homeschooling parents are more likely to abuse their children than non-homeschooling parents, and some research to suggest that homeschooling parents are actually less likely to abuse their children.

Additionally, and perhaps most disturbingly, this argument for more state involvement in the lives of homeschoolers ignores the fact that children are routinely abused in government schools by government educators, as well as by school peers. If the government can’t even protect children enrolled in its own heavily regulated and surveilled schools, then how can it possibly argue for the right to regulate and monitor those families who opt out?

Two books on WW2 – which is the memoir and which the novel?

Filed under: Books, Britain, Germany, History, Military, Weapons, WW2 — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Lindybeige
Published 4 Mar 2018

Two books I have read recently. When is a book a memoir and when is it a novel? WW2 from two different perspectives.

Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Lindybeige

The books:
From the City, From the Plough by Alexander Baron (Bernstein)
The Last Panther by Wolfgang Faust (Chris Ziedler)

Buy the music – the music played at the end of my videos is now available here: https://lindybeige.bandcamp.com/track…

Lindybeige: a channel of archaeology, ancient and medieval warfare, rants, swing dance, travelogues, evolution, and whatever else occurs to me to make.

▼ Follow me…

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Lindybeige I may have some drivel to contribute to the Twittersphere, plus you get notice of uploads.

website: http://www.LloydianAspects.co.uk

QotD: Morality and the government

Filed under: Government, Law, Quotations, USA — Tags: — Nicholas @ 01:00

If an action is immoral for me and you, it is also immoral for others, including those who constitute the government. Election to public office is not a licence to lie, defraud, extort, rob, kidnap, or murder. Those who believe that government officials, employees, and contractors may morally do what other individuals may not do are morally bankrupt. The government has the power to act immorally — and does so as its standard operating procedure — but power and just right are completely different things. To affirm that might makes right in a moral sense is to affirm that one has simply chosen to abandon all pretense of taking morality seriously.

Gaze upon the members of Congress, the president and his lieutenants, the justices of the Supreme Court, and the leading figures of the government bureaucracies. As I do so, I cannot help but wonder: Who are these people? I am not personally acquainted with a single one of them; they are complete strangers to me. I have not contracted with them for the provision of any services, nor have I agreed to support them financially. Why then do these strangers presume to dictate to me what I must do and not do, and to threaten me with violence if I do not obey? They might as well be alien invaders from outer space.

Robert Higgs, “A Straightforward View of Morality and the Government”, The Beacon, 2018-03-06.

Powered by WordPress