My girlfriend Erin and I have put together a Christmas Playlist for 2011 of better than average to pretty good Christmas music.
If you enjoy it, you might want to checkout last years. A little poorer for not having Erin’s help but still pretty solid.
Recently someone challenged me after I said one of my favorite quotes “You can’t legislate morality” (I’m not sure who said it first but Barry Goldwater and Jesse Ventura both said it at some point) to explain what I meant by that and that I should consider the validity of that statement. I tried to give an answer but I do not think I did a very good job. So I have thought about it a lot since then and I’m going to try to summarize what I mean when I say “You can’t legislate morality”.
First a couple of definitions:
Violence: Using force or the threat of force to do something to someone else against their will.
Immoral: Something is immoral if it makes life worse.
These are not a perfect definitions but hopefully they help to describe what I mean.
For starters I have to admit that the quote “You can’t legislate morality” is a bit vague and easy to misunderstand, but that’s almost always a problem with these easy to say/remember axioms.
A longer, less ambiguous way to say what I mean would be:
Just because something is immoral does not mean there should be a law making it illegal.
Another way to put it would be:
If you want to justify a law to make X illegal you need a better argument then just demonstrating that X is immoral.
And:
You should not try to legislate morality.
And:
The standard for having a law to make X illegal (and punishing people who are guilty of X) should be that X is an act of violence not just that it is immoral.
Here’s a picture that might help too.
So all the stuff in the big circle is immoral stuff (stuff I do not want people to do). However in order for me to think we need a law to make any given immoral act illegal it also need to be a violent act.
Why? I’m glad you asked. There are lots of reasons. However this is the main one.
It is bad to be the aggressor. So the first person to resort to violence is the bad person.
If someone is doing something immoral but is not being violent and someone else uses violence to stop them from doing it they become the aggressor and are now also acting immorally.
This is what’s called the Non-agression-principle.
The non-aggression principle is an important part of my moral framework and it should be a part of yours.
Carol made it to 200,000 miles on Sunday night (July 31, 2011) around 10:30pm, around 31801 Palm St. NW, Cambridge MN.
I’m really glad Erin was with me. Aside from her being good company, I was kinda tired from all the fun I had, had over the weekend and I may have just have spaced it out, driving right through the milestone without the recognition it deserved, but she reminded me with a couple of miles to spare (we also used her camera for these pictures).
200,000 Miles for Carol
Carol's Dashboard when she hit 200,000 Miles
Mail Boxes Next to the Spot Where Carol hit 200,000 Miles.
This was a very fitting trip for Carol to hit 200,000 miles on. I probably wracked up most of the 80,000 or so miles I’ve rode with Carol over the last 6 years going back and forth between Ely and the Twin Cities (when ever possible detouring through Cambridge to hang out with the Selins).
Me and Erin Extra Excited About Carol Making it to 200,000 Miles.
I got Carol back after almost a month at the shop. She’s got a new water pump, timing belt, plus a few other miscellaneous seals.
Just 587 more miles to go. I’ll be putting at least another 250+ miles this weekend on account of a trip up to Ely so we should be there pretty soon.
I’m not sure best to celebrate.
My (mostly) faithful car is close to the big 200,000 miles. That’s kinda been my goal for the car for the last few years. I had a little bit of a scare yesterday when I saw the temperature all the way to the up. I drove home… slowly… maybe a mistake. I called my mechanic and he suggested I check the coolant. I should have thought of that. It looked pretty dry. I borrowed some from my roommate. We’ll if is stays. Hopefully there’s not a big leak.
She’s at 199293. That’s just 707 miles to go.
I figure a couple of trips to Ely and some regular driving around and we’ll be there in about a month (maybe two).
I guess it’s time to start saving for a new car.
Speaking of millage, my brother and two of his friends are taking their first (of hopefully many) big sailing trips down the east coast. Here’s a video of them leaving New York. Hopefully he will have more videos up soon.
They left on Friday. Here’s where they were at a little after 7:00am this morning.
Derek's Location Monday June 20th, 7:23am