Specifically, it's William Gibson cyberpunk, which is deliberately dystopian and creepy, albeit with these odd finding-beauty-in-the-decay moments. I daresay that if you want cyberpunk written with a right-libertarian-eh-conservative slant, the only example I can think of is Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash," in which electronically-enhanced "Gargoyles" are clearly presented as just too much, an L. Ron Hubbardesque villain is attempting to enslave the human race, and our hero protagonist (whose name, by the way, is "Hiro Protagonist") with his on-again-off-again rational-Catholic girlfriend and skate-courier-chick friend save us all.

If this sounds half-hilarious, half-loopy, that's because it is. And that's Neal Stephenson's genius. One warning: there's a, yes, sex scene with the 15-year-old courier that's quite graphic. No, not with Hiro. Worse, in some ways. So I guess sex is too much when the kid's 15 and you're not quite sure she'll live through it.

112, huh? Longer than Ken Follett can usually manage. Like Aleister Crowley, he was raised Plymouth Bretheren. Left it all behind in the sexual revolution.

Is there any creature more tediously tendentious than the hyperlibertine reactionary to a hyperrepressive religious upbringing? Scratch Anton LaVey, find a Catholic priest. At least Crowley had the grace to say you had to understand Bretheren theology to understand his work.

I'll also add that just as a proliferation of horror movies is a trailing indicator of tough economic times (making 1979 one of the best years for horror in US film history), so is kinky porn. If you're going to feel powerless, you might as well enjoy it.

Note that this doesn't contradict the theses of either "Brave New World" or "Amusing Ourselves to Death," as both posit a mass psychology susceptible to the forces I'm describing, which people in positions of power can, and do, exploit.

"Brave New World" or "Amusing Ourselves to Death?" I can't quite decide which we're in.

Andrea, please tell her I miss her as well.

And your name has been high on the "Where'd she go?" list, for that matter.

I don't see nearly as much of FeliciaB as I'd like.

I'd pay significantly more to the site to have Claire back, particularly but not necessarily if she brought her father with her.

You're in spectacularly good company.

*sigh*

It's not untestable. It's trivially true. Quantum computation wouldn't work if it weren't.

Denise: have some gasoline for that fire.

Sincerely, your friendly local Christian materialist realist.

This Lutheran doesn't know what he'd do if not for his Catholic brothers and sisters. And anyone who doesn't know Pope John Paul II was one of the greatest blessings God ever gave to Christendom or, for that matter, the world... must not have come of age in the 80's. :-)

We didn't execute John Walker Lindh, so references to how the US deals with "traitors" are just... quaint.

What are they and why do we have them? This needs explaining, not assuming.

Renegotiated out of, yes.

To be clear: I'm not saying "drop everything and bring everyone home tomorrow." I'm talking about an orderly process over some years so everyone has time to adjust.

But to me, part of the problem is very much needing to do this at all. It's as if George Washington never delivered his farewell address warning against foreign entanglements. To me, part of the point of the "libertarian position" is to quit justifying the way we are in the world on the basis of having exercised poor judgment in the past, especially when we were warned about that judgment by the Founding Fathers.

So to the shock and horror of some of you, yes, I am explicitly advocating Fortress America. Bring all of our forces home to do their actual job: defending the United States of America. End all foreign aid, subsidies, tax breaks, duties, tarifs, military stations, etc. If a war breaks out overseas, we brace ourselves in case anyone is actually dumb enough to bring it to our shores. If anyone actually is dumb enough to bring it to our shores, we retaliate immediately and without warning of any kind.

And retaliation has one single goal: to end the conflict. In the case of 9/11, that would mean turning Riyadh into a glass parking lot. The point is that if anyone is dumb enough to attack us, the consequence is that the survivors' great-great-great-great grandchildren's knees quake at the mere thought of ever doing anything that mind-numbingly idiotic ever again.

In short: we demand the right to live in peace, on our own soil, with zero interference in or from the rest of the world.

And we enforce it.

...

America is the third most populous nation on the planet, a third of a billion people, on 3,794,083 square miles (including water). Less than 3% of the population farms for a living and we feed everyone in the US who wants to be fed (yes, there are hungry people in the US; that's a distribution issue, not a production issue). We have more than enough raw materials, on a sustainable basis, to house each and every citizen comfortably. If we're allowed to.

Cont'd...

Serious question:

What's wrong with the "Bring home American troops from foreign bases and stations" position? And please, don't bring the same old "the rest of the world is a bad place!" arguments. Not only have I heard them before, I agree with them. My question is:

So what?

America was founded on the realization that the rest of the world was broken. So horribly, irretrievably broken that for those of us of pre-19th-century ancestry, our forebears were willing to spend months at sea, risking disease, piracy, assault from within, storms, you name it, to escape here.

Conservatives are constantly reminding each other not to allow the Left to frame the debate, but have completely let the Left frame the debate on geopolitics. We act as if the rest of the world isn't such a bad place, and maybe we owe them our economic and military support.

We don't.

Continued...

In this context, am I the only one who wondered: AA, D, or 9-volt? :-)

HaShem loaned us one of His Chosen People for a time to help in tikkun olam and has now called him home. Baruch Atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech Ha’Olam Dayan Ha'Emet indeed.