Runyon's expertise, does it know no bounds (Part II)?

I apologize for the long pause from blogging, but I'm afraid work and life, as they always do, interfered. However, I'm back now so let's dive right back into the completely credulous mind of Robert Runyon, Benton-area genius.

Let us begin with some developments that have occurred since my last post. In a submission to 30 Seconds, Prof. Lee pointed out that Runyon had largely plagiarized his legal argument from another source. Here is her post:

Had we any doubt about the competency of PV-Runyon to be a school board director, his 9/11 Op-Ed lays it to rest. Unable to distinguish between "the" and "thee," oblivious to the meaning of "in personam," making nonsense comparisons of "sow's ears" to "city halls," and confusing "god's law" with "common law," either he's writing to a secret audience (his UFO pals?), or he has no idea what he's talking about, or both. Plain truth? Runyon's Op-Ed is a poorly CRIBBED version of legal dilettante Howard Freeman's unintelligible take on Texas property law. No kidding. See www.landrights.com/UCC_1-207.htm and http://autarchic.tripod.com/dixon/chapter6.html.

Needless to say, I went to the websites to clarify that Runyon had indeed, stolen his argument from another author. The first URL she provides links you to the second URL, where a little exploration and a link to buy the author's book reveals this. I cannot say I am completely shocked that Runyon would plagiarize his legal argument from some theocratic wingnut who is not a lawyer and has never attended law school. But don't take my word for it, here is the description of the author from the same site above:

The author is from a small southern Christian Community where contracts were spoken aloud and hands were shaken in fellowship. Word is bond and few would dare transgress upon an agreement. This love of our Brother has been reduces to ‘summary’ contract.

The author failed the second grade in Louisiana and averaged out in several California High Schools. He did not get interested in any meaningful study until he attended college. He found a Constitutional Law class which taught Lawyers how to make elliptical, everyday words to mean whatever they presumed. He decided there was more to Law than “social engineering” and being a Reserve Deputy Sheriff.

He became an insurance agent in Tennessee and soon learned that he was up to his neck in Lawyers and Bankers. He decided to fall back on his limited resources and fled back to California. He is a self studied Administrative Law Consultant whom has found that words within the Bill of Rights are of God’s Law.

That's right, this brilliant legal mind has found "God's Law" in the Constitution, and I always innocently thought it was a completely secular document. Here's my most recent 30 Seconds entry, posted in today's Press Enterprise in response to Runyon's idiocy:

Theocrat and plagiarist (his Sept. 11 ltr. to the editor was taken from William Dixon's "Sovereign Covenant") Robert Runyon wrote that the Constitution was founded on God. Runyon is wrong. The Constitution is a secular document whose authority is derived from the consent of the governed. God is not in the Constitution. Moreover, the Free Exercise Clause directly conflicts with the First Commandment (Ex. 20:3), for which the punishment is stoning (Deut. 17:2-5). Historian Donald Lutz noted when the Federalists were defending the Constitution during the years 1787-88, they did not cite the Bible. The anti-Federalists, who opposed the Constitution, were the ones citing the Bible for support. Runyon should stick to plagiarizing his arguments.

Unfortunately, 30 Seconds is an extremely limited forum, only allowing for 700 character entries. However, I feel I accomplished my goal despite my normal verbosity. While Prof. Lee may have been wrong about the exact author Runyon plagiarized, she was certainly correct about the argument being taken wholesale from another, in this case, a man who is probably very much like Runyon - at least if his legal argument is any indication.

This post, like all my other posts, seems to be getting rather long. I'll end it here for now, and post the legal analysis in Part III, which will hopefully be posted either later tonight or sometime tomorrow (no promises though). However, if you are interested in actually reading a case that dealt with the constitutional issues Runyon was attempting to mention in his original argument, the name of it is Berwick Area Landlord Assn. v. Borough of Berwick. I apologize for not providing a link, but am afraid I was unable to find it available online for free.

Temporary pause in blogging . . . .

I wanted to apologize to anyone who has been reading this blog, but I'm afraid I've had to temporarily stop posting while I catch up on some work and do a few other things. I will hopefully be able to start posting again starting this weekend, perhaps earlier.

Thanks.

Runyon's expertise, does it know no bounds?

This post is going to be rather brief due partly to illness and partly to my workload. I simply wanted to present the brilliant legal mind of Benton genius, Robert Runyon. Here, he provides a clear and succinct argument to avoid a local landlord ordinance that has recently been passed in the area. For your enjoyment and without further ado:

How to recapture your flag

When I was a child growing up in Almedia, about four miles north of Bloomsburg, all the kids throughout the community used to get together in the fall and play a game called "Capture the Flag." We would divide into groups of five persons per flag, most times we would have four flags, sometimes enough kids showed up to have as many as 10 flags. Each group, or flag, elected a leader, whose job it was to remain with the flag to protect it against capture. The other four would go out to try to capture the opponents' flags and return them to hang from your flag pole. As a flag was captured, it lost its sovereignty and its players would serve its new master, under a new flag and became compelled to join in capturing other opponents' flags, bringing them under new sovereignty and the game ended when all flags flew under one sovereignty.

Kind of reminds me of WE THEE PEOPLE, born equally free and independent, with inalienable and indefeasible rights. Citizens of Article III jurisdiction, U.S. Constitution, and Article I, Pennsylvania Constitution, and upon closer inspection I must conclude WE THEE PEOPLE'S flag has been captured somewhere along the way.

Further study reveals that by THEE own hand with the final stroke of THEE pen we have set seal against our "Personam" and become "In Personam," as we have unwittingly placed ourselves and our children under a sow's ear; U.S. Constitution Article I and Article II jurisdiction and the inferior courts. Fear not! There is remedy and can be attained at "Without Prejudice" UCC 1- 207 and can be found in the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes, Uniform Commercial Code (Title 13) Chapter 12 § 1207 / performance or acceptance under reservation of rights.

Upon inspection of the new Landlord ordinance By the Borough Council of Berwick, I find it most funny if it weren't for reason that I see the horrible fact that more of THEE PEOPLE'S flags are being surrendered to the sow's ear (City Hall) by the simple fact of entering in and subjecting themselves to the unthinkable, without the protections of and securing for themselves their Article III rights by simply placing above their signature "Without Prejudice" UCC-1-207.

To the Landlords and tenants that hath any understanding, take note that becoming agents of the sow's ear (City Hall) or an agent thereof that acts in an inappropriate manner against an Article III jurisdiction citizen who has reserved his rights without prejudice will have the sow's ear at Title 18 law.

To those who wish to remain under the jurisdiction of the sow, go in peace as you have the right to do so. To those who wish to throw the chains of the sow and dwell in the land of Article III citizenship, where your inalienable and indefeasible rights are secured in the knowledge that the sow's ear will meet with God's Law (Common Law), where citizens are of right and not privilege and that the sow's ear to act can meet its fate at Title 18, I say welcome and learn to secure THEE flag!

"Without Prejudice UCC 1- 207"

ROBERT RUNYON

Nescopeck

The Patriot's Voice

Robert Runyon, Ltr. to the Ed., How to recapture your flag, The Press Enterprise (Sept. 11, 2007).

Armed with an unstoppable legal mind, I'm surprised this word-smith is not right now arguing cases before the Supreme Ct. for some objective, well-respected legal group, like the ADF, the ACLJ, or the Thomas More Law Center. I'll comment more on this later, but for now I will simply state that he did not completely butcher everything, though I would not trying appealing to the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) in any ct., since you instead have to check to ensure that those sections of the UCC that are being cited to have been ratified by the state in question. Thankfully (and surprisingly), Runyon did mention the correct statute that codifies this provision of the UCC, even if he butchered the citation. 13 Pa.C.S.A. section 1207 did ratify section 1-207 of the UCC.

I'll touch more on this tomorrow perhaps, needless to say there are certainly a few problems.

Local yokels and 30 seconds of fame.

Yesterday, shortly after finishing my previous post of this title, I ran across this interesting article on the blog of Wendy Lynne Lee, PhD., a professor of philosophy at Bloomsburg University. As usual, she put the case a little more succinctly than I think myself possible of doing. However, I'll do my best to be brief as there are several fresh gems of genius to be gleaned from today's 30 Seconds. First, I'll repost Runyon's argument:

Law is a rule of conduct or procedure recognized by a community as binding or enforceable by authority. Law is also a statement of scientific truth, a mathematical principle and above all carries undeniable self evident truths. Law is a manifestation of conditions recognized in and by all things. Law was present long before the assent of man and can be traced back to a point of singularity. For law to exist it must have authority. It must have and set conditions, purpose and direction with intent and must be in harmony. All of which infers that law itself could not exist without reason and reason cannot exist without intelligence. Therefore, law stands with self evident truth that GOD does in fact exist! Robert Runyon, 30 Seconds. The Press Enterprise 11 (Sept. 10, 2007).

Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, Plantinga, Swinburne, Craig, and Runyon as the geniuses of apologetics? Unfortunately for Runyon, I do not think he is quite ready to take his place among the heavyweights that have preceded him. As I mentioned yesterday, Runyon has committed a fallacy of equivocation. As can be witnessed at Dictionary.com, the word "law" can certainly be ambiguous when stripped of any context due to the many meanings the word has gathered over its long history. Runyon, however, helpfully defines the word for us in his first sentence.

"Law is a rule of conduct or procedure recognized by a community as binding or enforceable by authority." This seems correct, and would agree with the first few definitions provided at Dictionary.com. Unfortunately for Runyon, this definition completely neglects to inform us where the "law" originates from, whether the community recognizes the law as authoritative because of this mysterious origin or because of their consent, etc. However, given its vagueness, Runyon's definition certainly seems reminiscent of the law we see passed by legislatures and other political entities, the type of "law" that is normally discussed in the philosophy of law.

Runyon then goes on to say, "Law is also a statement of scientific truth, a mathematical principle and above all carries undeniable self evident truths." While, we know that there is the type of "law" that is discussed in the philosophy of law (which Runyon seems to be discussing in his first sentence) and then Runyon mentions a type of "law" that is "a statement of scientific truth." This seems awfully reminiscent of the type of "law" we see in the philosophy of science, laws of nature.

So now we have a problem, and a major one, for Runyon. He seems to simply assume that these two types of "law" are the same thing despite the disagreement of the rest of the philosophical community. Unfortunately for him, the community is right. He goes back and forth between these two types of "law," ascribing characteristics of both types to his singular concept of "law."

For instance, Runyon states "It must have and set conditions, purpose and direction with intent and must be in harmony." However, laws of nature as described in the philosophy of science lack purpose or intent, and harmony is a concept that is highly relative to the observer. (Are low-energy states more harmonic than agitated high-energy states, is this the harmony described in music, can Runyon employ a word non-ambiguously?) And Runyon fails to offer any explanation as to why we should ascribe these characteristics to both types of "law."

"All of which infers that law itself could not exist without reason and reason cannot exist without intelligence." While, no, that really depends on the type of "law" being discussed. As noted before, the laws of nature as discussed in the philosophy of science certainly seem to exist independently of human intelligence or any intelligence and did so for billions of years prior to our existence and will, if modern science is correct, probably do so for billions of years afterward.

Finally, with undeserved arrogance, Runyon triumphantly declares "[t]herefore, law stands with self evident truth that GOD does in fact exist!" Poor Runyon, he even failed to state the sentence correctly. From his statement, we can only assume that "law" and "self evident (sic) truth" stand together, "[proving] (sic) that GOD does in fact exist!" (Is there some reason that fundamentalist minds employ capitalization with rampant, haphazard wanton?) What Runyon was probably attempt to say, "Therefore, law stands as self-evident truth that God does, in fact, exist!" Unfortunately, since Runyon's entire argument is almost a textbook case of the fallacy of equivocation, it does not stand as self-evident truth that "GOD" (is he more powerful than God? is this YHWH?) exists. Sorry Runyon, I'm still waiting for someone to provide a rational argument for belief in a "god."

Now on some truly wonderful gems from today. First, I'd like to congratulate the editor, who I do not usually see eye-to-eye with, for his response to the post below (editor's comment is provided in parantheses after the call-in comment):

I'm very disappointed in you people for the little write-up about the minister, James Kennedy. You put in a big write-up about Jerry Falwell. Now there's going to be a big write-up about that Pavarotti guy. Why don't you put more in the paper about Pastor Kennedy in your paper?

Bloomsburg man

(Religious hucksters — my definition of televangelists — are a dime a dozen. Pavarotti had a voice that made him one in a billion.)

Kennedy, like Falwell, was a religious huckster, bigot, and utterly contemptible human-being. I, like many others, will not shed a tear for their loss. The next entry is from Pan-American Man, who knows that homosexuality is a travesty against God!

The weakness of the homophile arguments cited to legitimize homosexuality defines the weakness of their position in general. For example, "Jesus did not say anything against homosexuality," (assuming we know every word He uttered). Strong's Concordance to the Bible lists no entries for rape, incest, pederasty, or polygamy. Does logic dictate that Christians must accept all of the above, based upon the assent of silence? If homosexuality existed in ancient Greece, why did they have no word for it? Wouldn't an advanced and sophisticated civilization have words for actions and practices that were observable? The Greeks accepted slavery. Should follow their example?

PanAmeric Man, e-mail

That's right, homosexuality did not occur in ancient Greece, or any other civilization for that matter. As for slavery, didn't we practice that? Oh wait, we did. The Bible and Jesus fail to say anything about that either. Finally, to finish on a truly crazy note:

From Our Brother/Comrade John Lennon(One of The Enlightened Teachers!):"WE ALL SHINE ON!!!...Like the Moon, and the Stars, and the Sun!...What on Earth are you trying to do? It's up to you! Better get yourself together! Join the Human Race! Why in the world are we here? Surely not to live in pain and fear!...Better recognize your Brother-Everyone you met! Why on Earth are you there-when your everywhere! Who in Earth do you think you are??? A SUPERSTAR??? WELL,RIGHT YOU ARE!!!... FOR WE ALL SHINE ON!!!...Like the Moon, and the Stars, and Sun!...Everyone Come On!-ON!+ON!+ON!+ON!" We are all Immortals, Infinite Spiritual Beings!!! WE ARE EACH A PERFECT CHILD OF "DIVINE LOVE" GOD!!!

Bloomsburg New Age

Unity Christian Man, e-mail

I love Bloomsburg.

Local yokels and 30 seconds of fame.

I was raised in a small, college town in rural Pennsylvania. That scenic venue actually happens to be "[t]he only town in Pennsylvania," Bloomsburg. (It is, as the Wikipedia article notes, no longer the actual, only town in Pennsylvania, but certainly still claims the title.) Yes, my hometown hosts such wonderful events as the sophisticated Bloomsburg Fair and the infamous Bloomsburg U. block party. While I no longer live in Bloomsburg, I am still rather attached to the area due to family and friends who remain in the area. I try to keep up with events by reading the local paper, The Press Enterprise.

While growing up, my friends and I often read one section of the paper that seemed to be created solely for our personal amusement. The paper offers a section called 30 Seconds where area residents can either call in a message they want published provided it is under thirty seconds in duration or can write in via email or normal postage. The paper does it to serve the noble purpose of providing a generally promulgated forum where people can anonymously voice their opinions on various topics, from national politics to local sports; however, the section often is dominated by local crazies, ignoramuses, and fundamentalists eager to make their "truth" known. Inevitability, the yokels fail to do anything but establish their own ignorance, craziness, or level of delusion. Thankfully, this is a foolproof recipe for hilarity.

I plan to showcase the hilarity here, occasionally responding to particularly ignorant or vapid posts as well as arguments that are, despite having been continually proven fallacious or unsound, repeated ad nauseam. I am unsure how often I will do this though and am debating either doing it daily (yes, there is almost something unbelievable everyday) or simply compiling the best of the entries over the week and then addressing them in one larger entry. I'm open to suggestions (if I actually get any readers).

For the inaugural entry into this series, I'm going to post a 30 Seconds entry from a wonderfully erudite man, a local bastion of conservative politics, an expert on conspiracy theories and the ACLU, and a ufologist, Robert Runyon. A regular renaissance man, Runyon took on the role of apologist and clearly established the existence of a "god," a feat other apologists have been trying for centuries, in a mere 123 words. I know that by this point you are waiting with baited breadth for what can only be the greatest argument to grace the philosophy of religion ever (greater than even the inaccurately labeled "victorious" modal ontological argument of Plantinga). Without further ado, the argument:

Law is a rule of conduct or procedure recognized by a community as binding or enforceable by authority. Law is also a statement of scientific truth, a mathematical principle and above all carries undeniable self evident truths. Law is a manifestation of conditions recognized in and by all things. Law was present long before the assent of man and can be traced back to a point of singularity. For law to exist it must have authority. It must have and set conditions, purpose and direction with intent and must be in harmony. All of which infers that law itself could not exist without reason and reason cannot exist without intelligence. Therefore, law stands with self evident truth that GOD does in fact exist! Robert Runyon, 30 Seconds. The Press Enterprise 11 (Sept. 10, 2007).

I know, you are all speechless right? I was too - at least until I drew air back into my lungs after the initial guffaw and the subsequent resulting guffaws. What's the most obvious logical fallacy here? I'm going to have to go with fallacy of equivocation and note a particular disjoint between legislative law as discussed in the philosophy of law and scientific law, a technical term employed in the philosophy of science - a disjoint that Runyon clearly ignores.

I'll touch more on this tomorrow though, even I have to sleep after all.

An agenda full of agendum.

As I'm sure people will quickly learn while reading my entries, I am a logophile, a lover of words. Neither brevity or simplicity have ever been a natural part of my diction, though I do attempt to force them occasionally. The title of this post, as well as the title of this blog, also illustrate my love for the etymological history of words and obsolete words respectively.

Agenda was originally plural in its Latin form, while each item on an agenda as we know it was called an agendum. As noted at Dictionary.com, and cited from the American Heritage Dictionary:

It is true that Cicero would have used agendum to refer to a single item of business before the Roman Senate, with agenda as its plural. But in Modern English a phrase such as item on the agenda expresses the sense of agendum, and agenda is used as a singular noun to denote the set or list of such items, as in The agenda for the meeting has not yet been set. If a plural of agenda is required, the form should be agendas: The agendas of both meetings are exceptionally varied.

Meanwhile, the title of this blog, Atheotatous, means "the most atheist ones"! It was an insult pagan philosophers employed against Christian apologists during the formative years of Christianity and on into the fourth century. The label had also been applied to the Jews, with Julian the Apostate noting that Christians had inherited their atheism from the Jews. The pagans saw both religions as atheistic due to their lack of temples and statues dedicated to different deities. Jan N. Bremmer, Atheism in Antiquity, in The Cambridge Companion to Atheism 11, 21 (Michael Martin, Cambridge U. Press 2007). (When information that is drawn from somewhere else cannot be directly linked to, I will cite the source using the ALWD manual, 3d edition.)

I found it humorous to think that a word that was once used against Christians and other monotheists would now, if it was not obsolete, be slung as an aspersion against me. Hence, I decided to use the word as my title, to accept the label not as an insult but rather as an honorific.

I am an atheist, and lack belief in any god. I will openly argue the impossibility of some gods existing depending on how one defines the term "god." Many of my posts here will undoubtedly touch on atheism and religion and the culture clash that has resulted as society has become secularized, whether it involves the evolution-creationism debate, the old Earth-YEC debate, stem cell research, abortion, homosexual rights, gender equality, et cetera.

However, I promise that not all my posts will deal with atheism. Some will deal with politics, law, philosophy, anime, video games, and other areas listed under my interests in my Blogger profile. I am sure, given my general, avid love of video games and World of Warcraft (WoW) in particular, I will at some point blog about my adventures in that world as well as the frustrations I've encountered - like trying to configure the perfect user interface (UI). I am also a giant fan of the old Robert E. Howard Conan stories, one who has been continually forlorn fan due to the repetitive postponements of the new massively multiplayer online game (MMO), Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures. If I do not get to play that particular game by next spring, I may be blogging about the evils of the video game industry.

I will also occasionally blog about different animes I'm currently watching or have watched, movies I've enjoyed, or books I am currently reading. I will also comment on and link to stories that appear in blogs I frequent (which can be found linked to on the right side of the page) as time allows.

I will try to post often. Hopefully daily posts will be the minimum while multiple posts per day will become the standard. However, I make no promises. Posting may be intermittently suspended due to different important events, such as video games, movies, books, work, et cetera. Most of my posts for the day will be posted during the evenings, when I actually have some free time to write and comment on the day's events. They will not all be posted at once, but rather randomly added as my mood and time allows me to write them.

Comments will go largely uncensored. I am a strong proponent of freedom of speech and will allow heated argument that stay within the realm of good taste (this, in my opinion, includes profanity when used effectively). That noted, I will censor comments that are violent and physically threatening to others. I will also censor trolls that continually post the same argument while failing to respond to relevant criticisms or who copy and paste others arguments without citation. Additionally, simply to throw in some legalese, I take no responsibility for the comments posted by others, blah blah blah . . . .

And that, ladies and gentleman, I believe covers every agendum on the agenda.

"Allow myself to introduce . . . myself!"

I hope that at least some of those who read this will recognize the reference above. For those who do not, it is a reference to an amazing comedy, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. While I realize the quote may be culturally obsolete, the reason I began with it is because it is reflective of my sense of healthy, self-deprecating and often bitingly sarcastic humor as well as because of a past experience I had with the quote.

During my freshman year in college (I realize this story may vaguely date me), I took the mandatory introductory speech-class required by most liberal arts colleges. The first speech we were to deliver was an informal, non-graded speech meant to serve a dual function as an icebreaker to giving speeches in front of the class while also allowing each student to introduce himself to the class at large. We were informed during our first day of class about the speech and had to deliver it on that same day after a few minutes of preparation, which included practicing it in front of one of our fellow students.

I wanted to inject humor into my speech, and was willing to be the butt of the joke, so I immediately thought of the quote above. It played well with the student I was practicing with and I felt confident that it would also be well-received by the class. The movie was, after all, a rather popular movie and a large part of informal college discussion, at least during the time and place of my attendance, involved spouting off movie quotes in response to different, typically humorous situations.

I approached the podium with confidence and began my speech with the quote, "Allow myself to introduce . . . myself!" I even made sure to give the necessary pause and the awkward facial expression that Mike Myers gave in the movie to illustrate that the character, while trying to be suave, had stumbled into an awkward phrase.

I was greeted with laughter from only three people in the crowd of twenty-five (needless to say, I attended a small college for my undergraduate degrees), all of whom were male. The females, thinking I had genuinely stumbled into the accident, looked on at me with pity and at those who laughed reproachingly, while the professor immediately went to chastise the students.

I quickly stopped the professor and explained the quote and that laughter had been the intended consequence, and then managed to save the speech by making a crack about how my horrible failure with the line clearly illustrated why Myers was making so much money for these roles and I never would.

So why, after my horrible failure with the line in the past, start my journey into the blogosphere with it now? First, because I'm somewhat hopeful that the line will play better to this audience. Second, because my sense of humor pervades my life and will certainly come out in my writing here. I will warn people now, I often laugh at situations that others may consider insensitive. Humor, like taste, is a highly subjective field and I apologize in advance to those I offend; however, if you are that incensed by my writings you can always simply avoid the blog.

One example of a situation I laughed at that others may not have: A trailer park was hit by a tornado - who would have thought right? However, that same week another trailer in a trailer park was destroyed, but this time it was by a flaming hot air balloon that fell on it from above. Now, while I feel horrible for the families involved and those that lost their lives in the hot air balloon, I could not help but laugh when I pictured the scene in my head. Now that I have provided an example, you have been properly forewarned and should have no reason to complain.

Finally, I began with the quote because I realize my humor can often be deprecating, even harsh, and while I often aim it at others I want those of you who read this blog to understand I also often aim it at myself. I'm willing to accept criticism and even deprecating humor when offered in a good-natured and equitable manner and hope to learn as much from my readers as I hope they will learn from reading this blog.

I'll address other issues, such as post topics, timing, and frequency, comments and censorship, in another post to be . . . posted later this evening.