Oh Deer

Posted June 28, 2009, 11:52 p.m.

I’ve been a total post-slacker this weekend. I was in a conference for work pretty much all day Friday and Saturday, and Melissa’s parents and brother were visiting most of the weekend too. On top of all that I’ve been doing my monthly computer maintenance, getting some chores done, going to Mass, and going on a 20-mile ride on my mountain bike. Enough for one weekend?

On my bike ride, I finally finished the last little bit of Fairfax County’s Cross County Trail. I had done about 3/4 of it (in smaller chunks) last year, but didn’t finish before winter set in. This year it’s been so wet and rainy that I’ve gotten very little riding in on the mountain bike (though I have been doing regular rides on my hybrid on paved trails, which dry out quicker). Today was my first real mountain bike ride of any length this year.

For a county that is so well known as a suburban, over-developed, vibrant region, many are surprised to learn that Fairfax County has a ton on undeveloped parkland and rural areas, even close-in to DC. This undeveloped parkland even has wildlife in it, like the deer at right which I spied on my ride today.

Bear in mind that my phone’s camera doesn’t have zoom, so the deer is as close to me as it looks. It didn’t seem to be particularly bothered by my presence, and went about its business.

Scott Bradford is a writer and technologist who has been putting his opinions online since 1995. He believes in three inviolable human rights: life, liberty, and property. He is a Catholic Christian who worships the trinitarian God described in the Nicene Creed. Scott is a husband, nerd, pet lover, and AMC/Jeep enthusiast with a B.S. degree in public administration from George Mason University.

Quotes

They say we offer simple answers to complex problems. Well, perhaps there is a simple answer—not an easy answer—but simple.

To know is not to be wise. Many men know a great deal, and are all the greater fools for it.

Human societies, like human beings, live by faith and die when faith dies.

Faith and reason are indeed interdependent. One of the great secrets of the universe is that reason leans on faith every bit as much as faith leans on reason.

The very idea of converting what was formerly a confederation to a consolidated government is totally subversive of every principle which has hitherto governed.

Science doesn’t purvey absolute truth. Science is a mechanism. . . . It’s a system for testing your thoughts against the universe and seeing whether they match.

The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them.

Totalitarians are fond of saying that Christianity is the enemy of the State—a euphemistic way of saying an enemy of themselves.

Just exactly what happened in the twentieth century, anyway? How was it that so many tens of millions had to die, sacrificed to the new dogmas and ideologies? How was it that we discovered something worse, much worse, than the aristocracy and corrupt religious beliefs that communism and fascism sought so rationally to supplant?

I can become quite angry and burning in anger, but I have never been bitter. Bitterness is a corrosive, terrible acid. It just eats you and makes you sick.

Now we are masters in respect of to act and not to act, to will and not to will.

That’s one thing about a little education. It spoils you for actual work. The more you know the more you think somebody owes you a living.

Some religions draw by force of arms; [Jesus Christ] would draw by force of love.

Universal evidence unmistakably shows that the best results are always obtained in healthful commercial competition.

[Einstein] said, in effect, that everything should be as simple as it can be but not simpler!

Mass formation blinds both intelligent and less intelligent people to the same extent. People really don’t have to be part of a conspiracy to systematically make the most foolish mistakes.

But you can be certain, you want-to-be tyrants, that your slaves will take their revenge where they can, even if that means merely being much less than they could be.

Let us be neither dogs that do not bark nor silent onlookers nor paid servants who run away before the wolf. Instead let us be careful shepherds watching over Christ’s flock.

Those who deny that a tendency toward evil is basic to human nature cannot make sense of history, which becomes merely endless, incomprehensible tragedy.

It is loserthink to attack an opponent by acting as dumb as they act. It might feel good, but it isn’t a winning strategy.