I think it was a big mistake for California, Texas, and Vermont to give up their status as independent republics. What has it gotten them that a defensive alliance couldn’t have provided? If these states opt to go their own way, I would support that move wholeheartedly. If any state seceded, I would cheer them on.
I hope that Americans have advanced enough now not to fall for the “preserve the union” line of crap, that they would not support the use of force to keep a state in the US against the will of its people. Now that the whole campaign of oppression would be televised, could you really see the American people turning on Texans or Vermonters or whatever you call folks from Delaware?
Of course, if the secessionist movement could be reframed as advocacy of some pernicious cause, folks might be duped into suppressing it. Red Staters might be convinced to fight to “save the unborn” or “stop the homosexual agenda” or “win the culture war” or some such idiocy. Blue Staters might fight to “stop the hate” or some such thing. Secessionists should be careful to make it clear that their movement is not about any particular policy; rather, it is about self determination and freedom from centralized power.
The US is just too big now and is characterized by too much central power. Does it really make sense for New Yorkers to meddle in the affairs of Californians or for folks from Kansas to tell New Englanders what marriage should be like in their region? I don’t think so. I sure don’t want some fundamentalist nutbar from Wyoming dictating how I live here in New York, and I am sure the nutbar would not care much for my imposing my values on him either.
The state sovereignty card gets played too often in the case of some fairly illiberal causes. It’s hard to get behind a “states’ rights” argument when it is invoked to justify state sponsored discrimination or slavery or some such thing. Moreover, it is used in a hypocritical manner so much that folks may have become completely cynical whenever the card is played. If I’m for states’ rights on abortion, why wouldn’t I be for it in the case of marriage or medical marijuana or assisted suicide? Advocates of state sovereignty have got to be consistent across the board and to articulate why states’ rights are so important for freedom.
In terms of federal jurisprudence, state sovereignty is dead. The federals will never again acknowledge limitations on their power, and the Supreme Court will never again be manned by justices who give a rat’s patootie about federalism. Forget the Constitution in exile; it’s the Constitution in the trash heap now. Devolution through secession is about the only way Americans will ever see a return to decentralized, smaller government.
I don’t expect independent states to be especially liberty oriented, but I know that the huge, centralized US government is a threat to liberty in and of itself. And if there were 50 independent countries, I could vote with my feet and move to a state that was more free. The nannies could congregate in nanny states and regulate the crap out of themselves.
I am now a secessionist through and through, and I thank JL Wilson for his well reasoned arguments about this for my full conversion.
Friday, June 16, 2006
Thursday, June 15, 2006
What's the Difference Between an Unannounced Cop and a Home Invader?
Cops still have to knock and announce, but if they don’t the evidence will not be excluded. According to the Supreme Court, your remedy is a civil suit. Earlier courts who came up with the exclusionary rule realized how idiotic it is to think that a potential suit will deter a cop from wrongdoing. Of course, cops should keep in mind that some folks will shoot home invaders, and a cop who has not properly announced himself is a home invader. I wouldn’t convict anyone who shot a home invader if I were on a jury, would you?
Driving While Pregnant
Hit ‘n Run reports on Arkansas lawmakers’ discussions of outlawing “smoking while pregnant”: http://www.reason.com/hitandrun/2006/06/smokefree_womb.shtml#014325
Naturally, Arkansas will not stop there and will likely ban drinking while pregnant, bungee jumping while pregnant, and any activity that puts the fetus at risk.
On Countdown last night, it was reported that the US HHS has an interest in convincing women to breastfeed. In PSAs, not breastfeeding is likened to mechanical bull riding or log rolling in the late stages of pregnancy. HHS tells mothers that their children won’t be smart and healthy if they don’t get breast fed exclusively for six months. (Why stop at six months, HHS? Some folks go for four years. It’s the teeth thing, isn’t it?) If HHS wants women to breastfeed on demand for six months or more, maybe they should promote smaller government and lower taxes so that families can afford for mothers to stay at home until their children are weaned.
I don’t reckon that the state has any business in the womb or at the teat, and I see the concern for fetuses (feti?) and newborns as just another hook to meddle and oppress. Moreover, these are examples of health fascism.
When I prosecuted child abuse cases in Florida, the social workers were keen to snatch babies from women who had ingested any illegal substance during pregnancy or who had consumed alcohol. The theory was that the woman put drugs or alcohol into her baby’s bloodstream during the brief interval between birth and the severance of the umbilical cord. I declined the honor of pioneering this novel theory; however, I was willing to consider cases against women whose addiction to drugs could be shown by admissible evidence to put her children at eminent risk of abuse or neglect. The mere ingestion of drugs or booze was not enough in my view to warrant state meddling. Not that I had much in the way of scruples about state meddling in those days.
Perhaps the state should just take pregnant women and enclose them in bubbles until they give birth, then oversee six months of lactation, then take the weaned children off to boarding school. That’s the only sure way to protect fetuses and infants and children from families.
Naturally, Arkansas will not stop there and will likely ban drinking while pregnant, bungee jumping while pregnant, and any activity that puts the fetus at risk.
On Countdown last night, it was reported that the US HHS has an interest in convincing women to breastfeed. In PSAs, not breastfeeding is likened to mechanical bull riding or log rolling in the late stages of pregnancy. HHS tells mothers that their children won’t be smart and healthy if they don’t get breast fed exclusively for six months. (Why stop at six months, HHS? Some folks go for four years. It’s the teeth thing, isn’t it?) If HHS wants women to breastfeed on demand for six months or more, maybe they should promote smaller government and lower taxes so that families can afford for mothers to stay at home until their children are weaned.
I don’t reckon that the state has any business in the womb or at the teat, and I see the concern for fetuses (feti?) and newborns as just another hook to meddle and oppress. Moreover, these are examples of health fascism.
When I prosecuted child abuse cases in Florida, the social workers were keen to snatch babies from women who had ingested any illegal substance during pregnancy or who had consumed alcohol. The theory was that the woman put drugs or alcohol into her baby’s bloodstream during the brief interval between birth and the severance of the umbilical cord. I declined the honor of pioneering this novel theory; however, I was willing to consider cases against women whose addiction to drugs could be shown by admissible evidence to put her children at eminent risk of abuse or neglect. The mere ingestion of drugs or booze was not enough in my view to warrant state meddling. Not that I had much in the way of scruples about state meddling in those days.
Perhaps the state should just take pregnant women and enclose them in bubbles until they give birth, then oversee six months of lactation, then take the weaned children off to boarding school. That’s the only sure way to protect fetuses and infants and children from families.
Rebranding the State
Thomas “Next Six Months” Friedman was on The Daily Show the other night. He proposed that a solution to American dependency on oil would be to slap an additional dollar of tax on each gallon of gasoline. When Jon Stewart asked how that would fly politically, Friedman suggested that the tax be called the “Patriot Tax” and that revenues from it be earmarked for Social Security. Also, lower income folks would qualify for tax rebates.
This is brilliant! If you rename taxes, folks might be happy to pay them. The federal estate tax isn’t a “death tax”; it’s the “Honor Thy Father and Mother Tax”. Let’s have no more talk of “income taxes”; rather, let’s pay “Love the Children Taxes”. FICA can be the “We Love Grandma Tax”. We will get all warm and fuzzy thinking about writing those tax checks once we rename the taxes. Politicians will be able to run on raising taxes.
The same thing goes for government agencies and programs. If we rename them, maybe folks will be more supportive of them. Let’s be sure to call every piece of legislation “family friendly”, especially if it puts the screws to families. This makes it easier to sell to constituents and provides legislators with a good laugh. Even military conscription should be marketable if we name it right. Let’s call it the “Strengthening America’s Young People Act” or the “Young People’s Free Travel and Cultural Exchange Program”.
Military operation names have been, in my opinion, unimaginative and crappy. “Enduring Freedom” doesn’t work at all. There’s no feel good factor, and it is even possible to find it ironic; so we need something that makes folks feel good about it and which is unassailable even when reality bites us on the ass. “Operation Wonderama” works for me. Or how about “Operation John Jacob Jingleheimerschmidt” or “Operation Boy Howdy”?
The illegal NSA spying doesn’t go down any easier if you call it a “Terrorist Surveillance Program”. Are you calling us all terrorists? Let’s call it the “We’re Looking Out for You Program” or the “We’ve Got Your Back Program” or some such thing.
When we rename things, the state starts to seem like fun.
This is brilliant! If you rename taxes, folks might be happy to pay them. The federal estate tax isn’t a “death tax”; it’s the “Honor Thy Father and Mother Tax”. Let’s have no more talk of “income taxes”; rather, let’s pay “Love the Children Taxes”. FICA can be the “We Love Grandma Tax”. We will get all warm and fuzzy thinking about writing those tax checks once we rename the taxes. Politicians will be able to run on raising taxes.
The same thing goes for government agencies and programs. If we rename them, maybe folks will be more supportive of them. Let’s be sure to call every piece of legislation “family friendly”, especially if it puts the screws to families. This makes it easier to sell to constituents and provides legislators with a good laugh. Even military conscription should be marketable if we name it right. Let’s call it the “Strengthening America’s Young People Act” or the “Young People’s Free Travel and Cultural Exchange Program”.
Military operation names have been, in my opinion, unimaginative and crappy. “Enduring Freedom” doesn’t work at all. There’s no feel good factor, and it is even possible to find it ironic; so we need something that makes folks feel good about it and which is unassailable even when reality bites us on the ass. “Operation Wonderama” works for me. Or how about “Operation John Jacob Jingleheimerschmidt” or “Operation Boy Howdy”?
The illegal NSA spying doesn’t go down any easier if you call it a “Terrorist Surveillance Program”. Are you calling us all terrorists? Let’s call it the “We’re Looking Out for You Program” or the “We’ve Got Your Back Program” or some such thing.
When we rename things, the state starts to seem like fun.
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Why Do Democrats Hate Libertarians?
Tristero has me wondering whether there is any room for libertarianism in the Democratic Party: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_06_01_digbysblog_archive.html#115028771363775020
Tristero seems to suggest that Democrats should woo libertarian votes, but only as a cynical ploy:
Here’s another cynic that would treat libertarians the way the GOP treats the religious right:
I don’t know what to make of this one. Don’t libertarians reproduce?
This guy hates him some libertarians:
I learn from this guy that I also hate the earth:
Where do these folks get these impressions of libertarians? I know for a fact that we’re no more likely to be assholes than folks of other political bents. In fact, I reckon that we are less likely to be jerks because we aim to live and let live. It's time to fire the PR department.
Tristero seems to suggest that Democrats should woo libertarian votes, but only as a cynical ploy:
“If this kind of relabeling helps attract more voters, I'm all for it. Nevertheless, actual libertarianism - with its radical emphasis on the elimination of government regulation, coupled with a frankly naive attitude towards the obvious potential for such policies when implemented to create a profoundly illiberal society - remains a political philosophy which most liberal Democrats will find rather unhelpful. "
Some of the statements of the commentariat in this post and the previous post Tristero refers to make me think that libertarians are decidedly unwelcome in the Democratic Party. I was taken aback by the depth of the contempt and the complete misapprehension of libertarian ideas. This commenter, for example, equates libertarianism with authoritarianism in a series of logical gyrations that would not be out of place in the Cirque du Soleil:
"A libertarian is often someone who wants the power we now delegate to "government" to be concentrated in his own self. And it really is a power issue. But watch out. Once that libertarian actually has the power of government, s/he is likely to turn into quite the little authoritarian/totalitarian. The other thing is that to many libertarians, the "underlying problems" we seek to address through government (AA and SS as examples) are NOT problems that need addressing. Those underlying problems are "features not bugs." So of course government is interfering in the little libertarian shit's power trip, and that's a no-no.
Libertarianism relies on the fact that some people never outgrow adolescence. But most people do outgrow it, which is why libertarianism is always a radical fringe ideology at best.
Libertarianism relies on a deep misunderstanding of -- and contempt of -- democratic self-government. One reason why Democrats have been unable to mount a clearheaded opposition to the Bush regime is that they believe in the ultimate goodness of governmental institutions as constituted through our forms of democratic self government. So in that idealistic way of looking at things, Bushevism is a phase that will pass, not a fundamentally subversive seizure of power that's undermining the very foundations of democratic self-rule.A libertarian has no faith in governmental institutions to begin with, so the obvious subversion being carried out by the Busheviks is neither surprising nor particularly worrysome to the libertarian, at least not until the tipping point into totalitarianism is reached. That is where we may be now, and that is why some Libertarians are taking a second look at the Democrats as potential allies in reversing the slide toward totalitarianism, just as they might have looked to Republicans as allies when Roosevelt was thought to be dragging the nation to Dictatorship.”
Here’s someone who thinks libertarians hate freedom:“While the progressive movement can benefit from the votes of libertarians, it cannot benefit from libertarianism because the two positions have antithetical starting points. In libertarianism, negative rights are king, whereas progressives recognize the necessity of government intrusion and reorganization. Progressives = Rawls. Libertarians = Nozick.”
“Actually, many or most libertarians despise freedom; they think privileged ndividuals should be allowed to deny others freedom of access to land and other
natural resources, without any mitigating compensation.”
I don’t know what to make of this one. Don’t libertarians reproduce?
“I've never met a libertarian whose political convictions survived the birth of his or her first child.”
This guy hates him some libertarians:
This guy gets out his DSM to diagnose libertarians:Every Libertarian I've ever met fell into one of two categories.Weak, spineless republican that wanted to pretend they were something else, usually for a good reason.
or
Just plain selfish. Self-centered people who felt that neither party served them because the only rule of law should be whatever they liked and to hell with the rest.I flirted with the libs as a kid. An interesting idea conceptually but in practice, it's really just another version of "gimme mine now".
“The libertarians I've met all struck me as borderline sociopaths. They have no sense of community or altrusism. They remind me of spoiled babies who constantly cry to get their own way. As such libertarians will always be Republicans because they party, too, lacks a sense of community and altrusism”.
I learn from this guy that I also hate the earth:
“They are a self-destructive lot, seeking to exploit and destroy habitat and species with wild abandon in the name of personal "liberty" and absolute private property worship, damn the consequences.”
Where do these folks get these impressions of libertarians? I know for a fact that we’re no more likely to be assholes than folks of other political bents. In fact, I reckon that we are less likely to be jerks because we aim to live and let live. It's time to fire the PR department.
My Pit Bull May Have OCD
Jasper is seriously obsessed with frog hunting now. First thing in the morning, he runs to the pond and starts rousting frogs. He does this for an hour and a half straight until I drag him away to take a walk with Jesse down the road. As soon as we get back, he makes a beeline for the pond, and I have to drag him inside when I leave for work. Come evening, he’s right back at it, and if we don’t interrupt him, he will hunt frogs until we drag him in at night. Walks, car rides, kong chasing, monkey in the middle, food all come after frog hunting in Jasper’s hierarchy of priorities now. That boy ain’t right.
I’m not ready to diagnose him as having OCD, but if this keeps up I’m going to have Mrs Vache Folle take him to the animal behaviorist. We had good results last time we consulted him about Jesse’s anger management issues.
Our friend in Yonkers consulted an animal “communicator” when her rescue dog became distracted by deer during training sessions. According to the communicator, the dog wanted his owner to know that she failed to recognize that there were lots of deer that he did not chase, that he chased only a small percentage of deer. What might Jasper tell the communicator? “I like frogs! Frogs are great! I’m gonna get me a frog! Boy Howdy!”
The thing is he never catches a frog. They always get away. Yet he never tires of the chase. I get exhausted just watching him.
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Will the Democrats be Willing to Pretend to be Libertarian to Get Our Votes?
Tristero leads me to despair of libertarians’ finding common ground with Democrats: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_06_01_digbysblog_archive.html#115016467939408795
“What libertarians fail to understand - and it is what makes me characterize libertarianism as utopian and naive - is that essentially *all* political action is social engineering.
Neither conservatives nor the extreme right - neither of which is naive - make that mistake, even if, for polemical reasons, they reframe what they're up to as not social engineering. The argument between liberals, conservatives, and the extreme right revolves around what kind of social engineering is best. Tax breaks for corporations? Affirmative action? Coathangers? A strong FEMA? But the reality of government as social engineer is accepted as a given.
Libertarians were sold a bill of goods by Republicans. As all, repeat all, recent Republican history has shown, they are as much the party of Big Government as the Democrats. Before going blue, however, libertarians will need seriously to refine their notion of what government is. Make no mistake: Democrats do not loathe government. They recognize that there are some functions a government must do. And they are honest - unlike their red counterparts - about their belief that there are some things governments should do.”
I would rather Democrats discover liberty rather than having libertarians embrace the state. Tristero also suspects that libertarians’ advocacy of federalism is disguised racism rather than a commitment to decentralization as a check on government power. I fear that many liberals share this view, and it may be necessary for libertarians to allay these suspicions in order to win support for federalism. The most high profile appeals to states’ rights have involved states’ wanting the power to oppress people, and a lot of folks conflate the argument with the worst uses of it.
“What libertarians fail to understand - and it is what makes me characterize libertarianism as utopian and naive - is that essentially *all* political action is social engineering.
Neither conservatives nor the extreme right - neither of which is naive - make that mistake, even if, for polemical reasons, they reframe what they're up to as not social engineering. The argument between liberals, conservatives, and the extreme right revolves around what kind of social engineering is best. Tax breaks for corporations? Affirmative action? Coathangers? A strong FEMA? But the reality of government as social engineer is accepted as a given.
Libertarians were sold a bill of goods by Republicans. As all, repeat all, recent Republican history has shown, they are as much the party of Big Government as the Democrats. Before going blue, however, libertarians will need seriously to refine their notion of what government is. Make no mistake: Democrats do not loathe government. They recognize that there are some functions a government must do. And they are honest - unlike their red counterparts - about their belief that there are some things governments should do.”
I would rather Democrats discover liberty rather than having libertarians embrace the state. Tristero also suspects that libertarians’ advocacy of federalism is disguised racism rather than a commitment to decentralization as a check on government power. I fear that many liberals share this view, and it may be necessary for libertarians to allay these suspicions in order to win support for federalism. The most high profile appeals to states’ rights have involved states’ wanting the power to oppress people, and a lot of folks conflate the argument with the worst uses of it.
Change is Bad
Folks who live by the chase aren’t usually all that enthusiastic about becoming agriculturalists. They usually resist. You have to force them to make the change by taking away access to the hunting grounds, by killing the game, or by outright repression. Sometimes, you just have to kill every last one of the foragers if they cling to their way of life. You can’t have bushmen stalking game across your back yard. Essentially, hunter gatherers are just organized bands of homeless people, hobos if you will. Getting them to settle down is for their own good, you know.
And once you turn folks into farmers, they are not all that keen to leave their plows and take their places in the mills. Sure, they’ll work seasonally, or some of the family will work for extra cash, but it’s hard to subject them to harsh conditions because they’ll just quit and help out on the farm. As long as farming is an option, you have to pay more and treat folks better to keep them on the line. What you really want to do is drive folks off the land. Then they have to work for you or die. Human resource management is so much easier when you have the workers by the short and curlies.
And once you turn folks into farmers, they are not all that keen to leave their plows and take their places in the mills. Sure, they’ll work seasonally, or some of the family will work for extra cash, but it’s hard to subject them to harsh conditions because they’ll just quit and help out on the farm. As long as farming is an option, you have to pay more and treat folks better to keep them on the line. What you really want to do is drive folks off the land. Then they have to work for you or die. Human resource management is so much easier when you have the workers by the short and curlies.
Land Theft
I read the Stromberg article everyone has been raving about: http://praxeology.net/SEK3-AQ-3.htm
It was fascinating and touched on a subject with which I have long been fascinated, the enclosures of the commons. My ancestors, and more recently (early 19th century) the ancestors of Mrs Vache Folle were screwed by the enclosures. Some of Mrs VF’s other ancestors were serfs, and the discussion of how peasants are exploited by revolutionaries was quite interesting.
I was taken by the notion that no large estate in land was ever founded on honest labor, that they all had their origins in force and fraud. Every gentleman supported by an estate had a murderous ancestor or other predecessor to thank. I suppose a rich merchant who bought an estate with his honestly gotten wealth might be absolved of the guilt of the seller.
Inasmuch as it seems almost impossible, in a truly free society, to accumulate a great estate, I do not reckon that there is much need for concern about the possibility that someone might own land which he does not presently use. One might peaceably let his land without creating much risk of concentrating wealth. One might also pursue preservationist impulses peaceably by acquiring rights in land and leaving it fallow and undeveloped.
Suppose that a family did, in fact, accumulate a great estate through hard work, pooling resources, good luck, or what have you. I am not sure that I should be concerned about this. In fact, I reckon that they might be just the right kind of people to constitute a gentry. A gentry built on peaceful accumulation might be a marvelous thing. Such gentlemen will doubtless be such a rarity that they will be unable to work much mischief
Then again, I am not versed in the arguments concerning land tenure.
It was fascinating and touched on a subject with which I have long been fascinated, the enclosures of the commons. My ancestors, and more recently (early 19th century) the ancestors of Mrs Vache Folle were screwed by the enclosures. Some of Mrs VF’s other ancestors were serfs, and the discussion of how peasants are exploited by revolutionaries was quite interesting.
I was taken by the notion that no large estate in land was ever founded on honest labor, that they all had their origins in force and fraud. Every gentleman supported by an estate had a murderous ancestor or other predecessor to thank. I suppose a rich merchant who bought an estate with his honestly gotten wealth might be absolved of the guilt of the seller.
Inasmuch as it seems almost impossible, in a truly free society, to accumulate a great estate, I do not reckon that there is much need for concern about the possibility that someone might own land which he does not presently use. One might peaceably let his land without creating much risk of concentrating wealth. One might also pursue preservationist impulses peaceably by acquiring rights in land and leaving it fallow and undeveloped.
Suppose that a family did, in fact, accumulate a great estate through hard work, pooling resources, good luck, or what have you. I am not sure that I should be concerned about this. In fact, I reckon that they might be just the right kind of people to constitute a gentry. A gentry built on peaceful accumulation might be a marvelous thing. Such gentlemen will doubtless be such a rarity that they will be unable to work much mischief
Then again, I am not versed in the arguments concerning land tenure.
Monday, June 12, 2006
Charles Murray's Ponies for Everyone Plan
From Crooked Timber I learn that Charles Murray, putative libertarian, proposes a guaranteed basic income in lieu of the current entitlement structure: http://crookedtimber.org/2006/06/01/charles-murrays-in-our-hands-left-or-right/
In a nutshell, every citizen 21 and older would get $10,000 a year, of which $3,000 would be spent on a medical coverage program. All other programs, from welfare to social security, would be abolished. It does not appear that this is needs based, so even Donald Trump would get a check. This looks to me like it would cost a couple of trillion bucks a year at the outset and increase with the population. As the folks at CT point out, it is inevitable that politicians would run on increasing the amount of the guarantee.
I reckon we could do an end run on the politicians and set the basic income guarantee at $100,000 per year from the start.
In a nutshell, every citizen 21 and older would get $10,000 a year, of which $3,000 would be spent on a medical coverage program. All other programs, from welfare to social security, would be abolished. It does not appear that this is needs based, so even Donald Trump would get a check. This looks to me like it would cost a couple of trillion bucks a year at the outset and increase with the population. As the folks at CT point out, it is inevitable that politicians would run on increasing the amount of the guarantee.
I reckon we could do an end run on the politicians and set the basic income guarantee at $100,000 per year from the start.
Fun With Labels
Labels are susceptible to misuse. More often than not, they increase confusion rather than illuminating the situation.
Thomas Knapp sums up how I feel about Glenn Reynolds’ silly threats against opponents of war: http://knappster.blogspot.com/2006/06/seven-days-in-june.html . He also makes me think about my self-identification as a “pacifist”. I won’t initiate aggression, but I will defend myself and my loved ones and my property with lethal force, if necessary. I am not morally strong or courageous enough to obey the stricture to “resist not evil” in every case. In the right circumstances, I might even be willing to take up arms with like minded folks in furtherance of the cause of freedom or in defense of my community.
Despite my willingness, if cornered, to fight, I reckon that I am a “pacifist”, and I aim to increase my peacefulness as much as I can. Violence sickens me. Strife annoys me. I see so much untapped potential for cooperation and collaboration, and I celebrate the unheralded cooperation and collaboration that we engage in every day in peaceful commerce and relations in civil society.
I aim to love my neighbor, as my Lord commands, and the more I love my neighbor, the more committed I become to individual freedom. When I did not love him so much, I reckoned that my neighbor was not to be trusted with too much freedom, that he wanted watching and regulating lest his thieving, murderous true self become manifest. When I grew to love him a little more, I reckoned that my neighbor deserved solicitude and regulating for his own best interests since he probably was not as well positioned as his betters to judge what these interests might be. Now, I love my neighbor enough to let him alone to do as he pleases. The more I love my neighbor, the less I am able to contemplate the application of force of any kind against him.
BK Marcus has a good point about the label “extremist”: http://www.bkmarcus.com/blog/2006/06/i-extremist.html . The term extremist has come to have a pejorative connotation as if moderation for its own sake were the highest virtue. Like BK Marcus, I am a political extremist. I want as much freedom for myself and my fellow man as possible. I want an extreme amount of peace in the world, not a moderate amount.
But the term “extremist” is one of those conversation stoppers that help to suppress any ideas out of the “mainstream”. The charge of extremism is enough to preclude a discussion of the merits of the supposed extremist’s ideas. Can you imagine criticizing a dish because it was too delicious, extremely delicious? Extremely salty, yes, but food can never be too delicious. Or criticizing a work of art because it was extremely beautiful? Extremely loud, perhaps, but never extremely beautiful. Aren’t political ideas the same? It may be bad to be extremely stupid, but it is good to be extremely well reasoned. It’s not the extremely part that should concern us; it’s the adjective that is modified.
Thomas Knapp sums up how I feel about Glenn Reynolds’ silly threats against opponents of war: http://knappster.blogspot.com/2006/06/seven-days-in-june.html . He also makes me think about my self-identification as a “pacifist”. I won’t initiate aggression, but I will defend myself and my loved ones and my property with lethal force, if necessary. I am not morally strong or courageous enough to obey the stricture to “resist not evil” in every case. In the right circumstances, I might even be willing to take up arms with like minded folks in furtherance of the cause of freedom or in defense of my community.
Despite my willingness, if cornered, to fight, I reckon that I am a “pacifist”, and I aim to increase my peacefulness as much as I can. Violence sickens me. Strife annoys me. I see so much untapped potential for cooperation and collaboration, and I celebrate the unheralded cooperation and collaboration that we engage in every day in peaceful commerce and relations in civil society.
I aim to love my neighbor, as my Lord commands, and the more I love my neighbor, the more committed I become to individual freedom. When I did not love him so much, I reckoned that my neighbor was not to be trusted with too much freedom, that he wanted watching and regulating lest his thieving, murderous true self become manifest. When I grew to love him a little more, I reckoned that my neighbor deserved solicitude and regulating for his own best interests since he probably was not as well positioned as his betters to judge what these interests might be. Now, I love my neighbor enough to let him alone to do as he pleases. The more I love my neighbor, the less I am able to contemplate the application of force of any kind against him.
BK Marcus has a good point about the label “extremist”: http://www.bkmarcus.com/blog/2006/06/i-extremist.html . The term extremist has come to have a pejorative connotation as if moderation for its own sake were the highest virtue. Like BK Marcus, I am a political extremist. I want as much freedom for myself and my fellow man as possible. I want an extreme amount of peace in the world, not a moderate amount.
But the term “extremist” is one of those conversation stoppers that help to suppress any ideas out of the “mainstream”. The charge of extremism is enough to preclude a discussion of the merits of the supposed extremist’s ideas. Can you imagine criticizing a dish because it was too delicious, extremely delicious? Extremely salty, yes, but food can never be too delicious. Or criticizing a work of art because it was extremely beautiful? Extremely loud, perhaps, but never extremely beautiful. Aren’t political ideas the same? It may be bad to be extremely stupid, but it is good to be extremely well reasoned. It’s not the extremely part that should concern us; it’s the adjective that is modified.
Report from the Yard
Lately, some varmint has been stealing the woodpecker food. This comes in the form of a block of seed, nuts and suet that we put in wire mesh container hanging from a hook on the back fence. It’s too heavy for squirrels, so we reckon that it must be a coon or some such thing that is making off with it. The thief leaves the wire container behind and just takes off with the goodies.
This had happened three nights in a row, and Mrs Vache Folle suggested that we might want to bring the thing in at night. I proposed that we get some hooks and hasps and secure the heck out of the thing. I wrapped the chain around the lid a coupe of times in a kind of Gordian knot and figured that would stop the larceny until we came up with a more permanent solution. The next morning, not only was the woodpecker block gone, but the varmint had left a couple of turds on the wire container, as if to scoff at our feeble efforts to thwart him. I started bringing it in at night. The woodpecker food is not cheap.
We bought a few dozen shiners at a bait store over in Wappingers Falls and introduced them to the pond. A few hours later, I was convinced that they had all been eaten or had escaped over the weir. I could not see them anywhere. Later, when I wasn’t really looking, I glimpsed the school, and I realized that they are going to be hard to see except in full sun. After three days, the fish seem to be thriving.
Jasper has developed an obsession with the frogs. If we did not interrupt him, he would wade and walk around the edge of the pond trolling for them for hours on end. When he sees one, he leaps in the water after it. I wouldn’t care about this if he didn’t wreck the rock wall on the edge or trample the perennials. I aim to reinforce the wall and train Jasper to keep off the perennials (there’s no frogs by them anyway). He seems to enjoy his frog hunts a great deal.
This had happened three nights in a row, and Mrs Vache Folle suggested that we might want to bring the thing in at night. I proposed that we get some hooks and hasps and secure the heck out of the thing. I wrapped the chain around the lid a coupe of times in a kind of Gordian knot and figured that would stop the larceny until we came up with a more permanent solution. The next morning, not only was the woodpecker block gone, but the varmint had left a couple of turds on the wire container, as if to scoff at our feeble efforts to thwart him. I started bringing it in at night. The woodpecker food is not cheap.
We bought a few dozen shiners at a bait store over in Wappingers Falls and introduced them to the pond. A few hours later, I was convinced that they had all been eaten or had escaped over the weir. I could not see them anywhere. Later, when I wasn’t really looking, I glimpsed the school, and I realized that they are going to be hard to see except in full sun. After three days, the fish seem to be thriving.
Jasper has developed an obsession with the frogs. If we did not interrupt him, he would wade and walk around the edge of the pond trolling for them for hours on end. When he sees one, he leaps in the water after it. I wouldn’t care about this if he didn’t wreck the rock wall on the edge or trample the perennials. I aim to reinforce the wall and train Jasper to keep off the perennials (there’s no frogs by them anyway). He seems to enjoy his frog hunts a great deal.
Thursday, June 08, 2006
Victory in Iraq; Troops Can Come Home Winners!
I heard on the radio on the way in this morning that the head of “Al Qaeda in Iraq, Ltd.” was assassinated yesterday by US forces. Unfortunately, several other folks, including a woman and a child, were also whacked in the process.
I wonder how this will be played. For a while, the US was touting Zarqawi as a super villain in the mold of Lex Luthor or Professor Moriarty. Then, a few weeks ago, they showed a video of him and ridiculed him as a bumbling fool. Now that he’s been assassinated, it sounds like he is back to being an evil genius.
It’s hard to tell how a good propagandist should spin this. Any spin could backfire. And you have to take into account that the politicos back home will be spinning it for their own ends, war effort be damned. And then there’s the pesky truth to worry about rearing its ugly head. What’s a PsyOps pro to do?
I wonder how this will be played. For a while, the US was touting Zarqawi as a super villain in the mold of Lex Luthor or Professor Moriarty. Then, a few weeks ago, they showed a video of him and ridiculed him as a bumbling fool. Now that he’s been assassinated, it sounds like he is back to being an evil genius.
It’s hard to tell how a good propagandist should spin this. Any spin could backfire. And you have to take into account that the politicos back home will be spinning it for their own ends, war effort be damned. And then there’s the pesky truth to worry about rearing its ugly head. What’s a PsyOps pro to do?
If Gays Marry, Then My Marriage Will Suddenly Fall Apart? Is That How it Works?
I’m with Anthony Gregory (http://blog.lewrockwell.com/lewrw/archives/010718.html) and JL Wilson in favor of separation of marriage and state (http://independentcountry.blogspot.com/2006/06/separation-of-marriage-and-state.html).
Anthony and James are right, yet again. They set me to thinking whether I am obliged in the interests of avoiding hypocrisy to renounce the benefits that my own District of Columbia marriage license confers on me. Our situation is such that our marriage does not impose much in the way of obligations on unwilling third parties. I can sue anyone who sleeps with my wife for “criminal conversation”, but I don’t think I would ever do that anyway. I get to file my taxes jointly, but this actually costs me money. I get to own my house jointly with the wife, but we could have done this anyway.
We both have jobs and our own health benefits, but I am on the wife’s dental plan. I’m going to say that this couple of hundred bucks is cancelled out by the higher taxes. Moreover, it is conceivable that Mrs Vache Folle’s employers would pay for my cleanings as an inducement for her to stay on board. We don’t have to have wills because it is assumed that we would leave our stuff to each other, but we could make wills and bring about the same result. Other people are obliged to acknowledge our rights to visit one another in prisons or hospitals and to act on one another’s behalf in some cases, but we could arrange for most of these things by power of attorney if need be. So, we don't really get much in the way of state imposed benefits.
Have I rationalized my moral dilemma away sufficiently? I’m going to call it good for now.
Meanwhile, let me relate a conversation I had with a wingnut conspecific of mine:
ME: Why is it important to preserve marriage as it is rather than letting it evolve?
WC: Because marriage is so important to society. It is the basis of society and is a blessing to married people.
ME: Then why shouldn’t gay people be encouraged to marry if marriage is so great?
WC: Because that would undermine the institution of marriage and weaken it.
ME: How is your marriage damaged by a gay couple’s getting married?
WC: My marriage is not going to be damaged at all. It is strong. I’m worried about other people.
ME: What other people?
WC: Poor people are already avoiding marriage and having children out of wedlock at a record rate, and changing marriage will just make the situation worse.
ME: How so?
WC: It just will. Look what happened when divorce was liberalized.
ME: Maybe there was a big pent up demand for divorces and the divorce rate reflects what people want for themselves. Maybe poor people don’t get married sometimes because the marriage product as it is currently offered doesn’t work for them.
WC: People can’t just be allowed to do what they want.
Anthony and James are right, yet again. They set me to thinking whether I am obliged in the interests of avoiding hypocrisy to renounce the benefits that my own District of Columbia marriage license confers on me. Our situation is such that our marriage does not impose much in the way of obligations on unwilling third parties. I can sue anyone who sleeps with my wife for “criminal conversation”, but I don’t think I would ever do that anyway. I get to file my taxes jointly, but this actually costs me money. I get to own my house jointly with the wife, but we could have done this anyway.
We both have jobs and our own health benefits, but I am on the wife’s dental plan. I’m going to say that this couple of hundred bucks is cancelled out by the higher taxes. Moreover, it is conceivable that Mrs Vache Folle’s employers would pay for my cleanings as an inducement for her to stay on board. We don’t have to have wills because it is assumed that we would leave our stuff to each other, but we could make wills and bring about the same result. Other people are obliged to acknowledge our rights to visit one another in prisons or hospitals and to act on one another’s behalf in some cases, but we could arrange for most of these things by power of attorney if need be. So, we don't really get much in the way of state imposed benefits.
Have I rationalized my moral dilemma away sufficiently? I’m going to call it good for now.
Meanwhile, let me relate a conversation I had with a wingnut conspecific of mine:
ME: Why is it important to preserve marriage as it is rather than letting it evolve?
WC: Because marriage is so important to society. It is the basis of society and is a blessing to married people.
ME: Then why shouldn’t gay people be encouraged to marry if marriage is so great?
WC: Because that would undermine the institution of marriage and weaken it.
ME: How is your marriage damaged by a gay couple’s getting married?
WC: My marriage is not going to be damaged at all. It is strong. I’m worried about other people.
ME: What other people?
WC: Poor people are already avoiding marriage and having children out of wedlock at a record rate, and changing marriage will just make the situation worse.
ME: How so?
WC: It just will. Look what happened when divorce was liberalized.
ME: Maybe there was a big pent up demand for divorces and the divorce rate reflects what people want for themselves. Maybe poor people don’t get married sometimes because the marriage product as it is currently offered doesn’t work for them.
WC: People can’t just be allowed to do what they want.
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
Try Some Curry
Some of us at the office are going out for Indian food today for lunch, and I can’t think about much else. There’s a pretty good place with an eat all you can lunch buffet just down the road in Elmsford. I prefer the buffet to ordering from a menu because I am just not knowledgeable enough to pick what I like without seeing it. I am partial to chicken vindaloo, and I love curry and lager as much as Lister from Red Dwarf http://www.reddwarf.co.uk/ . I also love the vegetable dishes, especially the creamed spinach dish the name of which I cannot recall.
Some years ago, Mrs Vache Folle ordered a set of curries from Penzeys http://www.penzeys.com/cgi-bin/penzeys/shophome.html, and she has been cooking with them ever since. Various curries, Vindaloo, Rogan Josh, Maharajah, and sweet curry are staples in our kitchen, and we now order them in bulk. Mrs VF makes a mean curry dish with a variety of ingredients, including lamb, chicken, shrimp, and okra. She has taken to spicing up non-Indian dishes with curries now and then and uses them to make rubs and marinades for roasts and grilled meats. Mrs VF is a helluva cook, and I am honored to serve as her sous chef in charge of chopping and peeling stuff.
There are lots of curries to try out, and I recommend adding them to your spice rack.
Some years ago, Mrs Vache Folle ordered a set of curries from Penzeys http://www.penzeys.com/cgi-bin/penzeys/shophome.html, and she has been cooking with them ever since. Various curries, Vindaloo, Rogan Josh, Maharajah, and sweet curry are staples in our kitchen, and we now order them in bulk. Mrs VF makes a mean curry dish with a variety of ingredients, including lamb, chicken, shrimp, and okra. She has taken to spicing up non-Indian dishes with curries now and then and uses them to make rubs and marinades for roasts and grilled meats. Mrs VF is a helluva cook, and I am honored to serve as her sous chef in charge of chopping and peeling stuff.
There are lots of curries to try out, and I recommend adding them to your spice rack.
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Sarbanes-Oxley Not All Bad
Karen De Coster reports that the requirements of Sarbanes-Oxley are driving public companies to go private: http://www.karendecoster.com/blog/archives/002018.html.
If that’s the case, then it is fair to say that something good has come of Sarbanes-Oxley. Privately held companies are managed better and are more accountable to their shareholders than public companies. Public companies tend to be playgrounds for management, whereas private companies require management to add value.
If that’s the case, then it is fair to say that something good has come of Sarbanes-Oxley. Privately held companies are managed better and are more accountable to their shareholders than public companies. Public companies tend to be playgrounds for management, whereas private companies require management to add value.
Who Gets Custody of the Prussian Blue Twins? None of My Business.
Jennifer, guest blogging at Unqualified Offerings, posts about the custody battle over the little girls who comprise the white supremacist singing group Prussian Blue: http://highclearing.com/index.php/archives/2006/06/05/5169
I don’t know much about these girls, but apparently they are the Olson Twins of the neo-Nazi movement. Their mother’s political views and immersion of the girls in the movement will doubtless be raised as an issue in the custody case. Jennifer asks what a libertarian position on this would be, and the commentariat’s consensus is that using a parent’s nonconformity with mainstream opinions and lifestyles against her rubs them the wrong way.
The problem, as I see it through the lens of many years as a “family” lawyer, is that custody and visitation matters are decided on the basis of an amorphous standard: “the best interests of the child”. The parents in the case can make just about any argument and use just about any set of facts to make their cases for custody. In the end, the judge will decide on the basis of his or her gut reaction to all the information and mudslinging. The judge’s personal values, preconceptions and prejudices will play a huge factor as he or she determines what the child’s “best interests” might be. A parent’s political or religious views might very well factor into the decision, especially if they are seen to be repugnant.
I have heard of cases where Wiccans were deprived of custody because of their unusual religion, and I had to work hard as a prosecutor to dissuade the Florida child welfare thugs from snatching Wiccans’ children solely on the basis of their religion. If my client’s ex was a Nazi, you better believe that this fact would make it into the record and that the fitness of Nazi’s as parents would be called into question.
My objections to the situation as a libertarian is not so much that judges might use someone’s nonconformist politics or religion against them in a custody case; rather, I don’t think judges should decide these matters at all. In the first case, it is an imposition on the rest of us to maintain a family court system to resolve such issues which ought to be resolved by agreements between parents. Secondly, it is disturbing to me that the state assumes to have any legitimate interest and authority whatsoever in parenting and custody arrangements.
Since most folks will not be bothered to make contracts about custody and visitation in advance (assuming as most do that all will be well with the family forever), one solution may be to assume a default contract with uniform terms from which parents can deviate by mutual agreement but which judges may not alter except in the most egregious cases of danger to the child. This would spare us all the expense of maintaining the dispute resolution apparatus, the state would be less involved in private familial relations and arrangements, and folks would have an incentive to resolve conflicts amicably, something from which children would benefit greatly.
The default arrangement might well be joint custody, share and share alike, with joint financial responsibility. The details of holiday visitation, education, and what have you would also be provided for in the legislation so that no petty disputes might emerge.
An even simpler solution would be to provide that, absent an agreement in writing to the contrary or a finding by clear and convincing evidence of unfitness, custody belongs to the mother in all cases. Moreover, visitation would be at the discretion of the mother. Fathers would have no support obligation imposed by courts except in accordance with the agreement between the parents. This would get the rest of us out the dispute resolution game and would get the state out of families.
Whatever happens in their custody case, I predict that at least one of the girls in Prussian Blue will date a black man and have a mixed race baby out of wedlock.
I don’t know much about these girls, but apparently they are the Olson Twins of the neo-Nazi movement. Their mother’s political views and immersion of the girls in the movement will doubtless be raised as an issue in the custody case. Jennifer asks what a libertarian position on this would be, and the commentariat’s consensus is that using a parent’s nonconformity with mainstream opinions and lifestyles against her rubs them the wrong way.
The problem, as I see it through the lens of many years as a “family” lawyer, is that custody and visitation matters are decided on the basis of an amorphous standard: “the best interests of the child”. The parents in the case can make just about any argument and use just about any set of facts to make their cases for custody. In the end, the judge will decide on the basis of his or her gut reaction to all the information and mudslinging. The judge’s personal values, preconceptions and prejudices will play a huge factor as he or she determines what the child’s “best interests” might be. A parent’s political or religious views might very well factor into the decision, especially if they are seen to be repugnant.
I have heard of cases where Wiccans were deprived of custody because of their unusual religion, and I had to work hard as a prosecutor to dissuade the Florida child welfare thugs from snatching Wiccans’ children solely on the basis of their religion. If my client’s ex was a Nazi, you better believe that this fact would make it into the record and that the fitness of Nazi’s as parents would be called into question.
My objections to the situation as a libertarian is not so much that judges might use someone’s nonconformist politics or religion against them in a custody case; rather, I don’t think judges should decide these matters at all. In the first case, it is an imposition on the rest of us to maintain a family court system to resolve such issues which ought to be resolved by agreements between parents. Secondly, it is disturbing to me that the state assumes to have any legitimate interest and authority whatsoever in parenting and custody arrangements.
Since most folks will not be bothered to make contracts about custody and visitation in advance (assuming as most do that all will be well with the family forever), one solution may be to assume a default contract with uniform terms from which parents can deviate by mutual agreement but which judges may not alter except in the most egregious cases of danger to the child. This would spare us all the expense of maintaining the dispute resolution apparatus, the state would be less involved in private familial relations and arrangements, and folks would have an incentive to resolve conflicts amicably, something from which children would benefit greatly.
The default arrangement might well be joint custody, share and share alike, with joint financial responsibility. The details of holiday visitation, education, and what have you would also be provided for in the legislation so that no petty disputes might emerge.
An even simpler solution would be to provide that, absent an agreement in writing to the contrary or a finding by clear and convincing evidence of unfitness, custody belongs to the mother in all cases. Moreover, visitation would be at the discretion of the mother. Fathers would have no support obligation imposed by courts except in accordance with the agreement between the parents. This would get the rest of us out the dispute resolution game and would get the state out of families.
Whatever happens in their custody case, I predict that at least one of the girls in Prussian Blue will date a black man and have a mixed race baby out of wedlock.
Monday, June 05, 2006
They Died to Defend my Freedom in the War of 1812
We get an e-mail newsletter from our church at intervals. Before the Memorial Day weekend, the church administrator exhorted us to remember and pray for those who had “died defending our freedom”. I can’t think of a single person that I know of who died defending my freedom. None of the troops who died in Iraq or Afghanistan were involved in the defense of my freedom. The same goes for the Balkans or Somalia or the First Gulf War. I can go all the way back to the 1950s before it even becomes arguable that s soldier, sailor or airman died defending my freedom. I suppose that a service member who got killed while training could indirectly be said to have died defending my freedom since his service may have acted as a deterrent to an invasion by some foreign foe, but this is something of a stretch.
The Korean Conflict, in which my Pappy served, was supposedly meant to forestall the expansion of Communism so as to keep it from our shores. If that’s so, troops who died in Korea might be said to have died defending my freedom (or my future freedom, my having been born later). But what if that rationale was so much hooey, as it seemed to be in the case of Vietnam? I am not sure I buy that the North Koreans threatened our freedom or even the Red Chinese. I don’t think they could have pulled off an attack on the US. If anything, having to pay for the Cold War militarization and living under the supposed threat was more of an affront to American freedom than anything the Communists ever did.
I don’t necessarily buy that WW2, where many of my family members served, was to preserve American freedom. We fought two brutal dictatorships in Germany and Japan in order to replace them with just as brutal dictatorships in Russia and China. In what sense did any of the massive expenditure of lives and money and curtailment of liberty add to our freedom as a nation? If anything, we came out less free, permanently militarized and mobilized for war.
Don’t get me started on the interventions in Central America and the Caribbean. And nobody even argues WW1 was anything but a colossal waste all around. I don’t think Pancho Villa aimed to oppress us, and the insurgents in the Philippines seemed to want freedom for themselves, not to take ours away. Spain was no threat to American freedom. I suppose the Indians of the West were conspiring to impose their will on the rest of America? I don’t see any freedom defenders at the Little Big Horn other than the Sioux.
I seem to have gotten all the way back to the War Between the States without a credible defense of freedom. I don’t know how to call this one. The Yankees aimed to deprive the Rebels of freedom and did their best to destroy the Constitutional Republic that the founders had constructed. But I reckon the Confederates were no lovers of liberty, what with conscription and slavery, and I have no confidence that a South Victorious would have been any more freedom oriented.
Mexican War? Freedom was not implicated. Earlier Indian Wars? Again, I’m not aware of a threat to American freedom from Indians. War of 1812? Eureka! If the US had lost the War of 1812, it might have been reabsorbed in to Great Britain; therefore, this was a fight in defense of freedom, albeit unnecessarily provoked by the US government. Not quite 200 years did it take to get back to a freedom defender.
Certainly, folks in later wars may have been led to believe that they were defending freedom, and this doubtless motivated many of them in their fighting. But they were wrong.
The Korean Conflict, in which my Pappy served, was supposedly meant to forestall the expansion of Communism so as to keep it from our shores. If that’s so, troops who died in Korea might be said to have died defending my freedom (or my future freedom, my having been born later). But what if that rationale was so much hooey, as it seemed to be in the case of Vietnam? I am not sure I buy that the North Koreans threatened our freedom or even the Red Chinese. I don’t think they could have pulled off an attack on the US. If anything, having to pay for the Cold War militarization and living under the supposed threat was more of an affront to American freedom than anything the Communists ever did.
I don’t necessarily buy that WW2, where many of my family members served, was to preserve American freedom. We fought two brutal dictatorships in Germany and Japan in order to replace them with just as brutal dictatorships in Russia and China. In what sense did any of the massive expenditure of lives and money and curtailment of liberty add to our freedom as a nation? If anything, we came out less free, permanently militarized and mobilized for war.
Don’t get me started on the interventions in Central America and the Caribbean. And nobody even argues WW1 was anything but a colossal waste all around. I don’t think Pancho Villa aimed to oppress us, and the insurgents in the Philippines seemed to want freedom for themselves, not to take ours away. Spain was no threat to American freedom. I suppose the Indians of the West were conspiring to impose their will on the rest of America? I don’t see any freedom defenders at the Little Big Horn other than the Sioux.
I seem to have gotten all the way back to the War Between the States without a credible defense of freedom. I don’t know how to call this one. The Yankees aimed to deprive the Rebels of freedom and did their best to destroy the Constitutional Republic that the founders had constructed. But I reckon the Confederates were no lovers of liberty, what with conscription and slavery, and I have no confidence that a South Victorious would have been any more freedom oriented.
Mexican War? Freedom was not implicated. Earlier Indian Wars? Again, I’m not aware of a threat to American freedom from Indians. War of 1812? Eureka! If the US had lost the War of 1812, it might have been reabsorbed in to Great Britain; therefore, this was a fight in defense of freedom, albeit unnecessarily provoked by the US government. Not quite 200 years did it take to get back to a freedom defender.
Certainly, folks in later wars may have been led to believe that they were defending freedom, and this doubtless motivated many of them in their fighting. But they were wrong.
Arguing with Health Fascists
I have been following Karen de Coster’s work on health fascists and how it does not make any sense to fight health fascism by deliberately being unhealthy or advocating unhealthy choices: http://www.karendecoster.com/blog/archives/002013.html. She is dead on.
If you don’t like health fascists’ bullying on obesity, it is not really helpful to come out with the “morbid obesity is delightful” argument. You don’t get far arguing against public schools by arguing that education itself is harmful or arguing against drug laws by overdosing on some narcotic. Instead, we might be better off to admit that obesity is problematic while offering non-coercive solutions.
Karen goes off on statin drugs and what a scam they are. In doing so, she does not claim that high cholesterol should be a goal, that you should not be concerned about your cholesterol level. Rather, she advocates that folks become more educated about cholesterol and statin drugs and take other steps to get their cholesterol under control. She advocates personal responsibility, not more deep fat fried foods! Libertarians don’t win if they die young just to spite the health fascists.
(I’ve been on statin drugs since my 30s and Vytorin, the latest I have tried, has me in the normal readings for the first time in my life. My family has hypercholesterolemia and cannot control it with diet and exercise. Even Uncle “Zero Percent Body Fat” Wayne, the marathon runner, has to take statins. My father refused them for years and has had all the bypasses he can have (there is nothing left to graft to) and now has a built in pacemaker/defibrillator. I don’t want to end up with a bum ticker like Dad, and I am pretty paranoid about it.)
How is it that health fascists reckon they have a legitimate interest in the health of perfect strangers? They argue from the perspective that poor health lowers productivity and costs “society” and they argue that, since they might have to pay the costs for treating the results of unhealthy choices, they ought to have a say in those choices. Coming out in favor of unhealthy choices for their own sake does nothing to confront these arguments. In a sense, the contrarian arguments that “fat is good”, that “smoking is cool”, and what have you are concessions to the fascists’ perspectives. You are already surrendering ground by tacitly admitting that the fascists’ interest in your health is legitimate.
If you don’t like health fascists’ bullying on obesity, it is not really helpful to come out with the “morbid obesity is delightful” argument. You don’t get far arguing against public schools by arguing that education itself is harmful or arguing against drug laws by overdosing on some narcotic. Instead, we might be better off to admit that obesity is problematic while offering non-coercive solutions.
Karen goes off on statin drugs and what a scam they are. In doing so, she does not claim that high cholesterol should be a goal, that you should not be concerned about your cholesterol level. Rather, she advocates that folks become more educated about cholesterol and statin drugs and take other steps to get their cholesterol under control. She advocates personal responsibility, not more deep fat fried foods! Libertarians don’t win if they die young just to spite the health fascists.
(I’ve been on statin drugs since my 30s and Vytorin, the latest I have tried, has me in the normal readings for the first time in my life. My family has hypercholesterolemia and cannot control it with diet and exercise. Even Uncle “Zero Percent Body Fat” Wayne, the marathon runner, has to take statins. My father refused them for years and has had all the bypasses he can have (there is nothing left to graft to) and now has a built in pacemaker/defibrillator. I don’t want to end up with a bum ticker like Dad, and I am pretty paranoid about it.)
How is it that health fascists reckon they have a legitimate interest in the health of perfect strangers? They argue from the perspective that poor health lowers productivity and costs “society” and they argue that, since they might have to pay the costs for treating the results of unhealthy choices, they ought to have a say in those choices. Coming out in favor of unhealthy choices for their own sake does nothing to confront these arguments. In a sense, the contrarian arguments that “fat is good”, that “smoking is cool”, and what have you are concessions to the fascists’ perspectives. You are already surrendering ground by tacitly admitting that the fascists’ interest in your health is legitimate.
We Don't Need No Domestication
I have been reading Nicholas Wade’s Before the Dawn
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594200793//102-5709153-3956937
Wade gives a fascinating account of developments in the study of the evolution of “behaviorally modern humans” in the last 50,000 years. It seems that “anatomically modern humans” did not make the transition to “behaviorally modern” until about 50,000 years before the present, and this change coincided with human’s migration out of Africa. Much of the book is devoted to genetics and inferences from genetic diversity in living populations, and this has added an interesting new dimension to paleoanthropology.
I’m an amateur anthropologist myself. I have a BA, an MA, and a good deal of work toward a doctorate in that field, and even though I don’t work in anthropology I am nonetheless an enthusiastic hobbyist. One aspect of Wade’s book and recent revelations from the genetic record that captures my imagination is its rather thoroughgoing debunking of anthropology’s mythos of the peaceful savage. In point of fact, our foraging ancestors were a bloodthirsty lot who experienced high rates of mortality due to homicide, estimated to be as much as 30% of all fatalities. One of the principal narrative lines of modern human evolution over the last fifty millennia has been the gracilization and domestication of humanity. We have been becoming less physically robust and more socially cooperative during this period and are now murdered by our conspecifics at a greatly reduced rate.
I have long been skeptical of claims about the pacific nature of foragers and even sedentary peoples, mainly because this flies in the face of the ethnographic record of nearly perpetual warfare among such people. The Cherokee, for example, made frequent murderous raids on their neighbors and were raided in turn in a cycle of retribution. Tribesmen of New Guinea warred frequently with their neighbors. The dawn raid has always been a favorite murdering technique, and Wade speculates that dogs were tamed mainly because of their bark and vigilance.
Although Wade does not cite him, being preoccupied with physical anthropologists and geneticists, the sociologist Norbert Elias decades ago proposed his theory of the “civilizing process”. He noted that rates of homicide had been falling over the last millennium and that this coincided with states’ monopolization of violence. He credited states and elites within societies with “civilizing” their conspecifics, or as Wade would put it “domesticating” them. Recent work in genetics and paleontology seem to bear out Elias’s ideas.
Another interesting point is that our genes suggest that cannibalism was once widespread. Mad Cow Disease in the United Kingdom didn’t kill as many people as expected because so many Britons have genes which protect them from the prions that cause the disease. These genes would have been selected for in an environment in which cannibalism was widely practiced. Nowadays, aside from the occasional Jeffrey Dahmer or Andean plane crash, we eat our conspecifics very rarely.
It seems to me that states and domestication developed hand in hand in a kind of feedback loop. As men became more governable, they got more government, and so on. We were once wolves; now we are Labrador retrievers, eager to please our masters and get along with the pack. But I reckon it is our very governability that makes the government obsolete. We are now sufficiently pacific and cooperative that we no longer need overlords to keep us from murdering one another willy nilly. We are, however, gullible and can be made to believe that our conspecifics would be at our throats if it weren’t for the “thin blue line”.
Indeed, we govern ourselves quite well most of the time and really want nothing in the way of supervision in this regard from the state. I don’t mind being a dog instead of a wolf, but I would rather be feral all the same.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594200793//102-5709153-3956937
Wade gives a fascinating account of developments in the study of the evolution of “behaviorally modern humans” in the last 50,000 years. It seems that “anatomically modern humans” did not make the transition to “behaviorally modern” until about 50,000 years before the present, and this change coincided with human’s migration out of Africa. Much of the book is devoted to genetics and inferences from genetic diversity in living populations, and this has added an interesting new dimension to paleoanthropology.
I’m an amateur anthropologist myself. I have a BA, an MA, and a good deal of work toward a doctorate in that field, and even though I don’t work in anthropology I am nonetheless an enthusiastic hobbyist. One aspect of Wade’s book and recent revelations from the genetic record that captures my imagination is its rather thoroughgoing debunking of anthropology’s mythos of the peaceful savage. In point of fact, our foraging ancestors were a bloodthirsty lot who experienced high rates of mortality due to homicide, estimated to be as much as 30% of all fatalities. One of the principal narrative lines of modern human evolution over the last fifty millennia has been the gracilization and domestication of humanity. We have been becoming less physically robust and more socially cooperative during this period and are now murdered by our conspecifics at a greatly reduced rate.
I have long been skeptical of claims about the pacific nature of foragers and even sedentary peoples, mainly because this flies in the face of the ethnographic record of nearly perpetual warfare among such people. The Cherokee, for example, made frequent murderous raids on their neighbors and were raided in turn in a cycle of retribution. Tribesmen of New Guinea warred frequently with their neighbors. The dawn raid has always been a favorite murdering technique, and Wade speculates that dogs were tamed mainly because of their bark and vigilance.
Although Wade does not cite him, being preoccupied with physical anthropologists and geneticists, the sociologist Norbert Elias decades ago proposed his theory of the “civilizing process”. He noted that rates of homicide had been falling over the last millennium and that this coincided with states’ monopolization of violence. He credited states and elites within societies with “civilizing” their conspecifics, or as Wade would put it “domesticating” them. Recent work in genetics and paleontology seem to bear out Elias’s ideas.
Another interesting point is that our genes suggest that cannibalism was once widespread. Mad Cow Disease in the United Kingdom didn’t kill as many people as expected because so many Britons have genes which protect them from the prions that cause the disease. These genes would have been selected for in an environment in which cannibalism was widely practiced. Nowadays, aside from the occasional Jeffrey Dahmer or Andean plane crash, we eat our conspecifics very rarely.
It seems to me that states and domestication developed hand in hand in a kind of feedback loop. As men became more governable, they got more government, and so on. We were once wolves; now we are Labrador retrievers, eager to please our masters and get along with the pack. But I reckon it is our very governability that makes the government obsolete. We are now sufficiently pacific and cooperative that we no longer need overlords to keep us from murdering one another willy nilly. We are, however, gullible and can be made to believe that our conspecifics would be at our throats if it weren’t for the “thin blue line”.
Indeed, we govern ourselves quite well most of the time and really want nothing in the way of supervision in this regard from the state. I don’t mind being a dog instead of a wolf, but I would rather be feral all the same.
Friday, June 02, 2006
Convene Courts Martial for Murderers
I am still disgusted about the “core values training” in response to the Haditha massacre. What is really wanted are some high profile courts martial and harsh punishments. When you have soldiers who deliberately murder prisoners by suffocating them getting light prison sentences or no prison time at all, that sends the message that murdering prisoners is not so bad after all. When you don’t even prosecute the soldier caught on tape murdering a wounded man, that sends the message that murdering folks who are no longer combatants is alright with Uncle Sam. When you condone deliberately killing noncombatants in air strikes because it might be inconvenient to have to work around them, you’re telling the soldiers that the noncombatants aren’t even people, that killing them is not murder.
The military should try its murderers and imprison them all forever. I would say shoot them, but I have a serious scruple about capital punishment. And their officers as far up the line as necessary should be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law. If they ordered murder, they are murderers themselves under the Code of Military Justice. If they covered up murder, they are accessories after the fact. If they failed to inculcate in their men an aversion to murder, they are simply not fit to serve as officers.
Sadly, I reckon that the officer corps is rotten and that there are none with honor enough to do the right thing. Certainly, men of honor will not have advanced under the present regime.
The military should try its murderers and imprison them all forever. I would say shoot them, but I have a serious scruple about capital punishment. And their officers as far up the line as necessary should be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law. If they ordered murder, they are murderers themselves under the Code of Military Justice. If they covered up murder, they are accessories after the fact. If they failed to inculcate in their men an aversion to murder, they are simply not fit to serve as officers.
Sadly, I reckon that the officer corps is rotten and that there are none with honor enough to do the right thing. Certainly, men of honor will not have advanced under the present regime.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
In Search of the Best Fried Oysters Ever
When I lived in the Pacific Northwest, I went on a quest to find the best fried oysters in the area. Fried oysters are the food of the gods in my book and have been since I first had them at Captain Dee’s when I was a kid, and Washington has about the best crop of oysters on earth. After years of searching and trying oysters at various eateries, I determined that the second best fried oysters on earth were to be had at Jack’s Fish Spot in the Sanitary Market across from the Pike Place Market in Seattle. Jack’s was mainly a fishmongering stall, but they made fried fish and French fries in a small booth to the side. The place was usually filthy, but the food was to die for.
When I moved to Bellingham, I found a dodgy shack of a place down on the waterfront that sold fried fish through a walk up window. Good stuff, but not up to the Jack’s Fish Spot standards to which I had grown accustomed. I switched to oysters on the half shell at one of the bars in Fairhaven, but I occasionally visited the dive on the waterfront when I was jonesing for the fried variety.
The best fried oysters in the world were to be had at a little roadside shop on the Hood Canal. The name escapes me. We passed this on our way to and from the Olympics and always made a point of stopping for seafood. There were oyster beds right out back, and you could pay to harvest your own. You had to shuck them on site, though, and I hate shucking oysters, so I just ordered up some fried ones.
Once we were back east in New York, I had to start over looking for good fried oysters. They are few and far between, let me tell you. You can get them at Legal Seafood, but they’re nothing to write home about, and I hate restaurants in malls. At long last, I discovered the Oyster Bar in Grand Central Station, and this will be where I eat whenever I find myself in Manhattan from now on. I rarely get to New York City, though, and I need to find a place up by me in the Hudson Valley. Oddly enough, the Price Chopper supermarket in Poughkeepsie sells fried oysters in its fish department, and they are not bad at all. I’m still looking for some higher quality, though, and I have taken to buying oysters and frying them up at home.
Surprisingly, the best oyster po’ boy I have had was at Funck’s, a family restaurant right outside the gates of Fort Indiantown Gap in Pennsylvania Dutch country. Then again, I have not been to the Big Easy where I am told the oyster sandwiches are quite excellent.
I became spoiled when I lived in Maryland and had acess to Chesapeake Bay oysters. Baltimore has no shortage of great oyster places, and I sometimes think it would be worth moving there just to be near them.
When I moved to Bellingham, I found a dodgy shack of a place down on the waterfront that sold fried fish through a walk up window. Good stuff, but not up to the Jack’s Fish Spot standards to which I had grown accustomed. I switched to oysters on the half shell at one of the bars in Fairhaven, but I occasionally visited the dive on the waterfront when I was jonesing for the fried variety.
The best fried oysters in the world were to be had at a little roadside shop on the Hood Canal. The name escapes me. We passed this on our way to and from the Olympics and always made a point of stopping for seafood. There were oyster beds right out back, and you could pay to harvest your own. You had to shuck them on site, though, and I hate shucking oysters, so I just ordered up some fried ones.
Once we were back east in New York, I had to start over looking for good fried oysters. They are few and far between, let me tell you. You can get them at Legal Seafood, but they’re nothing to write home about, and I hate restaurants in malls. At long last, I discovered the Oyster Bar in Grand Central Station, and this will be where I eat whenever I find myself in Manhattan from now on. I rarely get to New York City, though, and I need to find a place up by me in the Hudson Valley. Oddly enough, the Price Chopper supermarket in Poughkeepsie sells fried oysters in its fish department, and they are not bad at all. I’m still looking for some higher quality, though, and I have taken to buying oysters and frying them up at home.
Surprisingly, the best oyster po’ boy I have had was at Funck’s, a family restaurant right outside the gates of Fort Indiantown Gap in Pennsylvania Dutch country. Then again, I have not been to the Big Easy where I am told the oyster sandwiches are quite excellent.
I became spoiled when I lived in Maryland and had acess to Chesapeake Bay oysters. Baltimore has no shortage of great oyster places, and I sometimes think it would be worth moving there just to be near them.
JL Wilson Rocks
JL Wilson’s latest at the Partial Observer makes a lot of sense: http://partialobserver.com/article.cfm?id=1851
He proposes that candidates run on a promise to cut the federal budget by 10% across the board. Surely, anyone would concede that there is at least 10% of the budget that is wasted or that shouldn’t be a priority. Is there anyone who thinks the budget is not big enough? OK, anybody but Congress?
He proposes that candidates run on a promise to cut the federal budget by 10% across the board. Surely, anyone would concede that there is at least 10% of the budget that is wasted or that shouldn’t be a priority. Is there anyone who thinks the budget is not big enough? OK, anybody but Congress?
The Main Impact of Terrorism is Terror
Daniel Nexon has an interesting post at Lawyers, Guns and Money: http://lefarkins.blogspot.com/2006/06/john-mueller-on-terrorism-we-have.html
He cites, links to and discusses an article by John Mueller the gist of which is that terrorism itself is less problematic or dangerous than the irrational overreaction to it. The risk of being a victim of a terrorist attack is miniscule, but the terror generated by attacks leads to loss of freedom and greatly increased anxiety. A better approach to terrorism would be to work to minimize the fear of it. Unless of course, you are just using fear for some political purpose of your own. Then you’d want to elevate it all out of proportion to the risk.
He cites, links to and discusses an article by John Mueller the gist of which is that terrorism itself is less problematic or dangerous than the irrational overreaction to it. The risk of being a victim of a terrorist attack is miniscule, but the terror generated by attacks leads to loss of freedom and greatly increased anxiety. A better approach to terrorism would be to work to minimize the fear of it. Unless of course, you are just using fear for some political purpose of your own. Then you’d want to elevate it all out of proportion to the risk.
The US Military's Core Values Preclude Murdering Children Except From a Distance
BW Richardson doesn’t reckon that “core values” training will do much good: http://bwrmontag.blogspot.com/2006/06/core-values-training-wont-erase-stain.html
I agree. Based on my experience instructing soldiers in the Law of Land Warfare and as a soldier myself, I don’t hold out much hope for core values training. Many of the soldiers I taught had very dismissive attitudes about limitations on their right to kill people. They figured that the rationale for the instruction was to help them know what killings to cover up so they would keep out of trouble. They were going to kill anything that moved anyway, and it was helpful to them to know how they should spin the situation if they were ever investigated for war crimes.
These ideas came in part from movies and stories about Vietnam. It was also the case that a lot of the soldiers I knew were downright bloodthirsty and keen to kill people. They had no moral scruples whatsoever about killing people in a combat zone, especially funny looking foreigners who weren’t even really human in their estimation.
I don’t think soldiers will believe for a minute that the military’s core values are to protect noncombatants. The military kills noncombatants all the time and chalks it up as “collateral damage”. The military incinerates entire cities on purpose. Rather, the troops are going to take any such training with a nudge, nudge, wink, wink attitude. They are going to learn to write better reports, make better statements to investigators and cover up incidents better. It is hard to get soldiers to turn in guys from their outfits for war crimes since loyalty to one’s comrades is so strong and since you might get killed if you seem like somebody who might snitch.
I agree. Based on my experience instructing soldiers in the Law of Land Warfare and as a soldier myself, I don’t hold out much hope for core values training. Many of the soldiers I taught had very dismissive attitudes about limitations on their right to kill people. They figured that the rationale for the instruction was to help them know what killings to cover up so they would keep out of trouble. They were going to kill anything that moved anyway, and it was helpful to them to know how they should spin the situation if they were ever investigated for war crimes.
These ideas came in part from movies and stories about Vietnam. It was also the case that a lot of the soldiers I knew were downright bloodthirsty and keen to kill people. They had no moral scruples whatsoever about killing people in a combat zone, especially funny looking foreigners who weren’t even really human in their estimation.
I don’t think soldiers will believe for a minute that the military’s core values are to protect noncombatants. The military kills noncombatants all the time and chalks it up as “collateral damage”. The military incinerates entire cities on purpose. Rather, the troops are going to take any such training with a nudge, nudge, wink, wink attitude. They are going to learn to write better reports, make better statements to investigators and cover up incidents better. It is hard to get soldiers to turn in guys from their outfits for war crimes since loyalty to one’s comrades is so strong and since you might get killed if you seem like somebody who might snitch.
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Carbon Offsets for Sale
The guy at Max Speak doesn’t care much for carbon offsets: http://maxspeak.org/mt/archives/002246.html
But this outfit that sells offsets thinks they’re great: http://www.climatecare.org/
The idea is simple enough. I can help fund projects that reduce other people’s carbon footprints in order to offset my own. I would feel a lot better about tooling around in my SUV if I knew that some peasants in Africa weren’t wasting so much firewood because I helped buy them efficient propane stoves.
Better yet, I reckon I could sell offsets. If enough people send me money, I can quit my job and stay home and use the car a lot less. Also, I can cut down on other uses of energy and raise my own vegetables and such what with all the free time I would have.
But this outfit that sells offsets thinks they’re great: http://www.climatecare.org/
The idea is simple enough. I can help fund projects that reduce other people’s carbon footprints in order to offset my own. I would feel a lot better about tooling around in my SUV if I knew that some peasants in Africa weren’t wasting so much firewood because I helped buy them efficient propane stoves.
Better yet, I reckon I could sell offsets. If enough people send me money, I can quit my job and stay home and use the car a lot less. Also, I can cut down on other uses of energy and raise my own vegetables and such what with all the free time I would have.
Complaining is a Job Benefit
Kevin Carson takes on the Fish! Philosophy: http://mutualist.blogspot.com/2006/05/fish-philosophy-beatings-will-continue.html#links He posts a reader’s experience with it in the workplace.
I am lucky in that I have never worked anywhere where there was an organized effort to improve morale by making workers pretend to be happy. Most places I have worked tolerated grousing, even expected it, and anti-grousing directives were made only on the authority of individual supervisors rather than as an organization-wide policy.
I got a lesson in anti-grousing in one of the worst jobs I ever had. I was a staff attorney at the Board of Veterans Appeals in DC, the entity to which veterans appealed decisions by VA regional offices. There were about 200 lawyers doing the work of twenty, and everything was regimented and measured and micromanaged down to the last detail.
At some point, some efficiency expert had decided how long it should take a staff attorney to work up a particular kind of case. Service connected death? 480 minutes. Disability rating dispute? 240 minutes. Waiver of overpayment? 320 minutes. Each staff attorney was evaluated for efficiency on the basis of hours worked divided by total minute values of cases worked up. I always hit 120% about two months into the quarter and had to twiddle my thumbs the rest of the time or get in trouble for doing too many cases. We were judged on quality based on errors that a special error finding section found in our work. These were spelling and grammar errors, not legal errors, mind you, and I always got 100%. I had nothing better to do than make sure every decision I authored was perfect. That and make a paper clip chain a hundred yards long.
You had to be an idiot to fail to make the grade in that job, but quite a few of the staff attorneys and Board members were barely competent. Every decision on an issue was pretty much the same as every other decision on that issue, so you were just rewriting the same crap over and over again. Service connected death cases really only took an hour to do, not 8 hours. Since the Board almost always denied appeals, you couldn’t go wrong writing up denials all the time. Nobody counted it against you if the Board sent a decision back for edits; it was only the final draft that counted. Sure, doing lots of rewrites slowed you down a little, but if you followed the Board’s rewrite instructions to the letter, you were safe.
The Board members, once staff lawyers like us, hated it whenever we showed any initiative or creativity or looked at cases from an unusual angle, but I was bored enough to try this from time to time and to advocate my point of view with some zeal. The Board members would belittle me and tell me to shut up and write cases up like usual. If I was so smart, why was I working at the BVA? After all, Board members were the folks who had thrived in the soul destroying environment of the BVA, and any sign that you still had a soul was like an unconscious canary in a coal mine.
The mindlessness, boredom, and lack of respect eventually got to anyone who was not completely brain dead, and it was common practice to complain about the system and the Board and what have you. If you didn’t complain, you would go nuts, like my alien abductee office mate, or become devoid of all self esteem. One guy actually had cards printed up with the title United States Attorney and explained that he was technically an attorney who worked for the United States, so self esteem bereft had he become.
I was in my second year at the BVA when my section got a new senior attorney, Wayne, who was also an “Acting Board Member” and next on the list to become a Board member for real. This guy never complained about anything, and if any of the rest of us complained he would say “Nobody’s stopping you from leaving” and point at the door. The BVA was perfect as far as he was concerned, and he was challenged by the requirements of the job and did not understand our discontent at all. To him, discontent was threatening the environment that he had mastered and in which he was succeeding.
After several months of this crap from Wayne, I took him up on his advice and abruptly quit by walking out the door, down the hall and into the section chief’s office to resign. I had been planning to leave the BVA in any event and was waiting for one of Wayne’s invitations to leave so I could screw with him. Since I was the highest rated staff attorney in the entire agency (equivalent to being the smartest moron on the short bus), this caused some consternation, and I was asked by the Chairman, my section chief and a personnel officer why I was leaving when I was doing so well. I told everyone that it was Wayne’s suggestion that inspired me to leave, that his squelching complaints was the last straw. He tried to deny it and to get me to stop saying that my leaving was his fault during my two weeks’ notice period.
I don’t know if Wayne’s career was impacted by my leaving, but I sure hope so.
I am lucky in that I have never worked anywhere where there was an organized effort to improve morale by making workers pretend to be happy. Most places I have worked tolerated grousing, even expected it, and anti-grousing directives were made only on the authority of individual supervisors rather than as an organization-wide policy.
I got a lesson in anti-grousing in one of the worst jobs I ever had. I was a staff attorney at the Board of Veterans Appeals in DC, the entity to which veterans appealed decisions by VA regional offices. There were about 200 lawyers doing the work of twenty, and everything was regimented and measured and micromanaged down to the last detail.
At some point, some efficiency expert had decided how long it should take a staff attorney to work up a particular kind of case. Service connected death? 480 minutes. Disability rating dispute? 240 minutes. Waiver of overpayment? 320 minutes. Each staff attorney was evaluated for efficiency on the basis of hours worked divided by total minute values of cases worked up. I always hit 120% about two months into the quarter and had to twiddle my thumbs the rest of the time or get in trouble for doing too many cases. We were judged on quality based on errors that a special error finding section found in our work. These were spelling and grammar errors, not legal errors, mind you, and I always got 100%. I had nothing better to do than make sure every decision I authored was perfect. That and make a paper clip chain a hundred yards long.
You had to be an idiot to fail to make the grade in that job, but quite a few of the staff attorneys and Board members were barely competent. Every decision on an issue was pretty much the same as every other decision on that issue, so you were just rewriting the same crap over and over again. Service connected death cases really only took an hour to do, not 8 hours. Since the Board almost always denied appeals, you couldn’t go wrong writing up denials all the time. Nobody counted it against you if the Board sent a decision back for edits; it was only the final draft that counted. Sure, doing lots of rewrites slowed you down a little, but if you followed the Board’s rewrite instructions to the letter, you were safe.
The Board members, once staff lawyers like us, hated it whenever we showed any initiative or creativity or looked at cases from an unusual angle, but I was bored enough to try this from time to time and to advocate my point of view with some zeal. The Board members would belittle me and tell me to shut up and write cases up like usual. If I was so smart, why was I working at the BVA? After all, Board members were the folks who had thrived in the soul destroying environment of the BVA, and any sign that you still had a soul was like an unconscious canary in a coal mine.
The mindlessness, boredom, and lack of respect eventually got to anyone who was not completely brain dead, and it was common practice to complain about the system and the Board and what have you. If you didn’t complain, you would go nuts, like my alien abductee office mate, or become devoid of all self esteem. One guy actually had cards printed up with the title United States Attorney and explained that he was technically an attorney who worked for the United States, so self esteem bereft had he become.
I was in my second year at the BVA when my section got a new senior attorney, Wayne, who was also an “Acting Board Member” and next on the list to become a Board member for real. This guy never complained about anything, and if any of the rest of us complained he would say “Nobody’s stopping you from leaving” and point at the door. The BVA was perfect as far as he was concerned, and he was challenged by the requirements of the job and did not understand our discontent at all. To him, discontent was threatening the environment that he had mastered and in which he was succeeding.
After several months of this crap from Wayne, I took him up on his advice and abruptly quit by walking out the door, down the hall and into the section chief’s office to resign. I had been planning to leave the BVA in any event and was waiting for one of Wayne’s invitations to leave so I could screw with him. Since I was the highest rated staff attorney in the entire agency (equivalent to being the smartest moron on the short bus), this caused some consternation, and I was asked by the Chairman, my section chief and a personnel officer why I was leaving when I was doing so well. I told everyone that it was Wayne’s suggestion that inspired me to leave, that his squelching complaints was the last straw. He tried to deny it and to get me to stop saying that my leaving was his fault during my two weeks’ notice period.
I don’t know if Wayne’s career was impacted by my leaving, but I sure hope so.
Report from the Yard
We share our home in the warm seasons with a small flock of brown headed cowbirds. They appear every spring just about the time the juncos leave and are a sure sign that winter is at an end. They eat bugs as well as seeds from the feeders we keep around the place. Lately, they have been pairing off with the black bodied and brown headed males strutting and fluffing their wings at the drab brownish females.
These birds used to be known as buffalo birds because they were first observed following herds of bison on the Great Plains. With human settlement and deforestation, their range has expanded over the years to both coasts of North America. Where we live, the cowbirds appear to conform to ordinary migration patterns of other migratory species, although I have no idea where they spend winter. In any event, while in Stormville they don’t follow any herds of ruminants even though a herd of belted Galloway cattle is located conveniently about a mile to the north of us.
The cowbirds evolved a breeding strategy that took into account their pastoral lifestyle. They didn’t stay in the same place long, so they took to laying their eggs in the nests of other birds much like cuckoos do. I worry a little that they will have an impact on the other songbirds around my house by laying eggs in their nests, but this has not been the case in the 3 years we have been in this house. Will the cowbirds on the coasts evolve to tend their own nests now that they stay put all season?
Meanwhile, our other principal harbingers of spring, the hummingbirds, have been making themselves scarce the past week and visit the feeder very infrequently. We see them around the property more than we see them on the feeder. I hope we have not offended them with Mrs Vache Folle’s frugality inspired home made nectar. There’s store bought nectar now, so perhaps we will be forgiven.
The water snake appears to have a harem of sorts. We saw him basking by the branch with three smaller snakes wrapped around him. He goes from branch to pond and back again by crossing the meadow a couple of times a day, and it has been a challenge to keep him and Jasper apart.
A lot of the tadpoles have matured into frogs, and their twilight chorus is becoming more impressive by the day. Still, many egg sacks have yet to hatch, so I anticipate a bumper crop of frogs this summer despite the water snake’s predations.
Last year’s poison ivy eradication project seems to have been 95% successful in the front and back yards. We will set our sights on the poison ivy on the forest trail this year. This is a priority in view of the reports of increased toxicity due to global warming. No wonder I have been getting rashes where I once enjoyed immunity.
Mrs Vache Folle has caught the gardening bug this year and seems quite enthusiastic about replacing the weeds around the pond with perennials even though perennials cost money. Her English heritage is showing through in her love of order in the garden. She made me move my wildflower bed to a corner of the yard by the fence and have the old bed by the house mown for walking and fetch playing. Next thing you know she’ll want to plant a maze.
We have been working on the troublesome swampy spot this year yet again. We put in the silt and leaf litter from the pond over some river rock, covered this with soil, and put the turf from my new wildflower bed on top of this. Even with settling, this added a foot, and drainage should improve. We have done this with only a third of the swampy region and have decided to put in raised beds next spring over the rest. This is one of the sunniest spots in the yard, and it is too wet for any other use.
Bastards and Bastardy
Some of my conspecifics seem to worry a great deal about bastardy. They see bastardy as a leading indicator of moral and cultural decline. It may very well have a spurious relationship with moral and cultural shifts, but I don’t reckon that bastardy in and of itself should concern anyone. My conspecifics don’t see it that way, though, and seem to take the Dan Quayle view that Murphy Brown’s bearing a child without a husband was immoral per se (although, unlike Quayle, my acquaintances at least seem to be aware that Murphy Brown was a fictional character).
I am pro-bastard and pro-bastardy, so I like to take on the issue from time to time. Sometimes I frame the question to the anti-bastardists by asking if it is the state issued marriage license that removes the taint of immorality from childbearing. So far, almost nobody has admitted to me that they think that it is within the power of the state to decree what is or is not moral, and they inevitably move to arguing about the deleterious consequences of bastardy. They concede that a man and woman might form a family without permission from the state and raise up children just fine, but they imagine that most bastards in the real world belong to single mothers. Single mothers sometimes cannot provide for a child as well as a two parent family can. Even Murphy Brown’s child would suffer from want of a father, and the anti-bastardist reckons that he would be better off if he had never been born even taking into account the presence of Eldon the housepainter.
This leads me to another reframe of the issue. Should a person put off having children until conditions are perfect for childrearing? Children with nannies do better than children without them by almost any measure; therefore, it might be selfish to have children until you can afford a nanny. Nobody admits that they think conditions have to be perfect, but they claim that a two parent nuclear family is the least that a child should expect. Their authority for this assertion is weak, and it is generally conceded at some point that it is an arbitrary metaphysical assumption. The bottom line is that it is believed that a bastard will likely be harmed by the absence of a father in the home and that, as a consequence, the child will grow up all twisted and antisocial and beget bastards of his or her own in an endless cycle of moral decline.
Pretend I am a woman. Suppose I want a child but am not all that marriageable or can’t find a marriageable man. Must I give up mothering altogether? I don’t reckon it’s any of their business, but the anti-bastardist wants me to stay childless until I meet their standards. They lie awake at night worrying that I might reproduce and ruin my life, the child’s life, and society. Please stop pretending I am a woman now.
Most anti-bastardists whom I have known would not advocate the use of force to discourage or punish bastardy, nor would they like to see a bastard stigmatized in any way because of his or her parents’ choices. They just like to broadcast their disapproval of bastardy in the hope that it will catch on and slow down the hellward progress of society. I can live with that even though I have a distrust of anyone who displays such an unhealthy interest in the private choices of strangers.
Some are such zealous anti-bastardists that they advocate stern measures, including removal of bastards from their parents and placement in foster homes, presumably two parent foster homes. I seem to recall Newt Gingrich suggesting this at one time back when he was riding high. That’s harsh and far too costly to put in place, but the zealot reckons that the social costs of bastardy will be mitigated enough to make it worthwhile to pay for fosterage on a large scale. I can’t abide the notion that anyone has a legitimate interest in regulating the reproduction of another human being or interfering in his or her childrearing practices. But there are erstwhile social engineers on both the right who aim to create a Daddy State and on the left who aim to create a Nanny State. They are the real bastards.
I am pro-bastard and pro-bastardy, so I like to take on the issue from time to time. Sometimes I frame the question to the anti-bastardists by asking if it is the state issued marriage license that removes the taint of immorality from childbearing. So far, almost nobody has admitted to me that they think that it is within the power of the state to decree what is or is not moral, and they inevitably move to arguing about the deleterious consequences of bastardy. They concede that a man and woman might form a family without permission from the state and raise up children just fine, but they imagine that most bastards in the real world belong to single mothers. Single mothers sometimes cannot provide for a child as well as a two parent family can. Even Murphy Brown’s child would suffer from want of a father, and the anti-bastardist reckons that he would be better off if he had never been born even taking into account the presence of Eldon the housepainter.
This leads me to another reframe of the issue. Should a person put off having children until conditions are perfect for childrearing? Children with nannies do better than children without them by almost any measure; therefore, it might be selfish to have children until you can afford a nanny. Nobody admits that they think conditions have to be perfect, but they claim that a two parent nuclear family is the least that a child should expect. Their authority for this assertion is weak, and it is generally conceded at some point that it is an arbitrary metaphysical assumption. The bottom line is that it is believed that a bastard will likely be harmed by the absence of a father in the home and that, as a consequence, the child will grow up all twisted and antisocial and beget bastards of his or her own in an endless cycle of moral decline.
Pretend I am a woman. Suppose I want a child but am not all that marriageable or can’t find a marriageable man. Must I give up mothering altogether? I don’t reckon it’s any of their business, but the anti-bastardist wants me to stay childless until I meet their standards. They lie awake at night worrying that I might reproduce and ruin my life, the child’s life, and society. Please stop pretending I am a woman now.
Most anti-bastardists whom I have known would not advocate the use of force to discourage or punish bastardy, nor would they like to see a bastard stigmatized in any way because of his or her parents’ choices. They just like to broadcast their disapproval of bastardy in the hope that it will catch on and slow down the hellward progress of society. I can live with that even though I have a distrust of anyone who displays such an unhealthy interest in the private choices of strangers.
Some are such zealous anti-bastardists that they advocate stern measures, including removal of bastards from their parents and placement in foster homes, presumably two parent foster homes. I seem to recall Newt Gingrich suggesting this at one time back when he was riding high. That’s harsh and far too costly to put in place, but the zealot reckons that the social costs of bastardy will be mitigated enough to make it worthwhile to pay for fosterage on a large scale. I can’t abide the notion that anyone has a legitimate interest in regulating the reproduction of another human being or interfering in his or her childrearing practices. But there are erstwhile social engineers on both the right who aim to create a Daddy State and on the left who aim to create a Nanny State. They are the real bastards.
Bastards and Bastardy
Some of my conspecifics seem to worry a great deal about bastardy. They see bastardy as a leading indicator of moral and cultural decline. It may very well have a spurious relationship with moral and cultural shifts, but I don’t reckon that bastardy in and of itself should concern anyone. My conspecifics don’t see it that way, though, and seem to take the Dan Quayle view that Murphy Brown’s bearing a child without a husband was immoral per se (although, unlike Quayle, my acquaintances at least seem to be aware that Murphy Brown was a fictional character).
I am pro-bastard and pro-bastardy, so I like to take on the issue from time to time. Sometimes I frame the question to the anti-bastardists by asking if it is the state issued marriage license that removes the taint of immorality from childbearing. So far, almost nobody has admitted to me that they think that it is within the power of the state to decree what is or is not moral, and they inevitably move to arguing about the deleterious consequences of bastardy. They concede that a man and woman might form a family without permission from the state and raise up children just fine, but they imagine that most bastards in the real world belong to single mothers. Single mothers sometimes cannot provide for a child as well as a two parent family can. Even Murphy Brown’s child would suffer from want of a father, and the anti-bastardist reckons that he would be better off if he had never been born even taking into account the presence of Eldon the housepainter.
This leads me to another reframe of the issue. Should a person put off having children until conditions are perfect for childrearing? Children with nannies do better than children without them by almost any measure; therefore, it might be selfish to have children until you can afford a nanny. Nobody admits that they think conditions have to be perfect, but they claim that a two parent nuclear family is the least that a child should expect. Their authority for this assertion is weak, and it is generally conceded at some point that it is an arbitrary metaphysical assumption. The bottom line is that it is believed that a bastard will likely be harmed by the absence of a father in the home and that, as a consequence, the child will grow up all twisted and antisocial and beget bastards of his or her own in an endless cycle of moral decline.
Pretend I am a woman. Suppose I want a child but am not all that marriageable or can’t find a marriageable man. Must I give up mothering altogether? I don’t reckon it’s any of their business, but the anti-bastardist wants me to stay childless until I meet their standards. They lie awake at night worrying that I might reproduce and ruin my life, the child’s life, and society. Stop pretending that I am a woman now.
Most anti-bastardists whom I have known would not advocate the use of force to discourage or punish bastardy, nor would they like to see a bastard stigmatized in any way because of his or her parents’ choices. They just like to broadcast their disapproval of bastardy in the hope that it will catch on and slow down the hellward progress of society. I can live with that even though I have a distrust of anyone who displays such an unhealthy interest in the private choices of strangers.
Some are such zealous anti-bastardists that they advocate stern measures, including removal of bastards from their parents and placement in foster homes, presumably two parent foster homes. I seem to recall Newt Gingrich suggesting this at one time back when he was riding high. That’s harsh and far too costly to put in place, but the zealot reckons that the social costs of bastardy will be mitigated enough to make it worthwhile to pay for fosterage on a large scale. I can’t abide the notion that anyone has a legitimate interest in regulating the reproduction of another human being or interfering in his or her childrearing practices. But there are legions of erstwhile social engineers on both the right who aim to create a Daddy State and on the left who aim to create a Nanny State. They are the real bastards.
I am pro-bastard and pro-bastardy, so I like to take on the issue from time to time. Sometimes I frame the question to the anti-bastardists by asking if it is the state issued marriage license that removes the taint of immorality from childbearing. So far, almost nobody has admitted to me that they think that it is within the power of the state to decree what is or is not moral, and they inevitably move to arguing about the deleterious consequences of bastardy. They concede that a man and woman might form a family without permission from the state and raise up children just fine, but they imagine that most bastards in the real world belong to single mothers. Single mothers sometimes cannot provide for a child as well as a two parent family can. Even Murphy Brown’s child would suffer from want of a father, and the anti-bastardist reckons that he would be better off if he had never been born even taking into account the presence of Eldon the housepainter.
This leads me to another reframe of the issue. Should a person put off having children until conditions are perfect for childrearing? Children with nannies do better than children without them by almost any measure; therefore, it might be selfish to have children until you can afford a nanny. Nobody admits that they think conditions have to be perfect, but they claim that a two parent nuclear family is the least that a child should expect. Their authority for this assertion is weak, and it is generally conceded at some point that it is an arbitrary metaphysical assumption. The bottom line is that it is believed that a bastard will likely be harmed by the absence of a father in the home and that, as a consequence, the child will grow up all twisted and antisocial and beget bastards of his or her own in an endless cycle of moral decline.
Pretend I am a woman. Suppose I want a child but am not all that marriageable or can’t find a marriageable man. Must I give up mothering altogether? I don’t reckon it’s any of their business, but the anti-bastardist wants me to stay childless until I meet their standards. They lie awake at night worrying that I might reproduce and ruin my life, the child’s life, and society. Stop pretending that I am a woman now.
Most anti-bastardists whom I have known would not advocate the use of force to discourage or punish bastardy, nor would they like to see a bastard stigmatized in any way because of his or her parents’ choices. They just like to broadcast their disapproval of bastardy in the hope that it will catch on and slow down the hellward progress of society. I can live with that even though I have a distrust of anyone who displays such an unhealthy interest in the private choices of strangers.
Some are such zealous anti-bastardists that they advocate stern measures, including removal of bastards from their parents and placement in foster homes, presumably two parent foster homes. I seem to recall Newt Gingrich suggesting this at one time back when he was riding high. That’s harsh and far too costly to put in place, but the zealot reckons that the social costs of bastardy will be mitigated enough to make it worthwhile to pay for fosterage on a large scale. I can’t abide the notion that anyone has a legitimate interest in regulating the reproduction of another human being or interfering in his or her childrearing practices. But there are legions of erstwhile social engineers on both the right who aim to create a Daddy State and on the left who aim to create a Nanny State. They are the real bastards.
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Inculcating Shame
I recall some years ago that some wingnuts were harping about how we had a dearth of “shame” in America, that inculcating a sense of shame in folks would go a long way to restoring their version of morality. I reckoned at the time that this was about the stupidest thing anyone had ever said, and it still ranks pretty high. First off, shame just means you try hard not to get caught. Guilt is what they’re really after. Guilt keeps folks in line even when the risk of discovery is low. Or in my case, guilt makes me feel bad about the thing I did anyway even knowing that I would feel guilty about it. (That’s what comes of being made to feel guilty about everything; it loses its punch, much like the expression “see you in hell” loses its power if you use it at the end of every conversation).
Secondly, if a thing is shameful within a particular cultural milieu, it will produce shame. You can’t start with the shame and work backwards to effect cultural change. You have to change the culture first. And nobody can control the culture.
Culture is the sum of ideas, values, strategies, and what have you as expressed by individuals. All anyone should really do about culture, besides whining about it all the time, is to put his ideas and values out in the cultural marketplace and hope that they can compete. Unfortunately, many folks realize that they probably cannot compete in that marketplace (otherwise the culture would already reflect their ideals), or in any event, they don’t want to take any chances. They frequently advocate legislation to advance their values through coercion.
Whenever anybody tut tuts and tsk tsks about some aspect of culture, I always suspect that they are advocating coercion to privilege their favored viewpoint over all others.
Secondly, if a thing is shameful within a particular cultural milieu, it will produce shame. You can’t start with the shame and work backwards to effect cultural change. You have to change the culture first. And nobody can control the culture.
Culture is the sum of ideas, values, strategies, and what have you as expressed by individuals. All anyone should really do about culture, besides whining about it all the time, is to put his ideas and values out in the cultural marketplace and hope that they can compete. Unfortunately, many folks realize that they probably cannot compete in that marketplace (otherwise the culture would already reflect their ideals), or in any event, they don’t want to take any chances. They frequently advocate legislation to advance their values through coercion.
Whenever anybody tut tuts and tsk tsks about some aspect of culture, I always suspect that they are advocating coercion to privilege their favored viewpoint over all others.
Sayanora, Total Army
The concept of the Total Army was developed and put into place after the debacle in Vietnam for a variety of reasons. This concept, in which reserve and national guard units comprised an integral and significant part of overall forces, was put in place, in part, so that it would be unavoidable to deploy “citizen soldiers” in major conflicts. This, in turn, would help to insure that such military action had broad public support. In short, the Total Army concept served as a deterrent to military adventurism.
The neo-con regime which came to power in 2001 is fueled by perpetual war, and the Total Army concept is an obstacle to the foreign adventurism on which the neo-cons pin their hopes. The neo-cons determined that they could undermine the reserve and national guard components of the army through extended overseas deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan before those conflicts became unpopular. By the time popularity for these military actions waned, the reserve and guard components would be “broken”, and this would pave the way for a reorganization of the army with greater reliance on professional active duty personnel. Back up functions could be performed by mercenaries, if need be, and the “citizen soldier” could be dispensed with. This would leave an army much less susceptible to political pressure and more readily deployable at the whim of the executive.
The neo-con regime which came to power in 2001 is fueled by perpetual war, and the Total Army concept is an obstacle to the foreign adventurism on which the neo-cons pin their hopes. The neo-cons determined that they could undermine the reserve and national guard components of the army through extended overseas deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan before those conflicts became unpopular. By the time popularity for these military actions waned, the reserve and guard components would be “broken”, and this would pave the way for a reorganization of the army with greater reliance on professional active duty personnel. Back up functions could be performed by mercenaries, if need be, and the “citizen soldier” could be dispensed with. This would leave an army much less susceptible to political pressure and more readily deployable at the whim of the executive.
Patriotism Free Memorial Day Weekend
We spent the Memorial Day weekend honoring the fallen by grilling steaks and working in the garden. We had an interesting encounter between Jasper and a water snake, but nobody was injured. It turns out that there are no fewer than five water snakes on the property, all solemnly meditating on the war dead, of course. I found this out when I went looking for my water hyacinths that washed away in Friday’s storm. Alas, the hyacinths were lost, and someone downstream is going to wonder where they came from later this summer when they grow exponentially.
Mrs Vache Folle spent Thursday and Friday at her mom’s place on the shore. Her mom’s current husband is a disabled WW2 veteran who had a lot of parades and other doings scheduled over the weekend. Being a WW2 veteran iseems to be his full time occupation nowadays. Note to stepfather-in-law: this weekend is about dead people, not survivors. If you didn’t die in the war, you have to wait until November to get recognized. But you can’t do enough to honor WW2 vets. Seriously, it’s never enough. They will parade to the last man.
We don’t participate in any patriotic mumbo jumbo on Memorial Day. We’re sorry all those millions died for the state, and we don’t want to encourage anyone else to die by acting as if those combat deaths were anything other than a colossal waste of lives. They all died senseless deaths, and the standard Memorial Day fare is an attempt to make sense of the senselessness and to encourage folks to sign up as cannon fodder. Also, politicians are always involved in the hope of having some of that glorious combat deadness rub off on them.
Some folks went around this weekend putting little flags on the graves of dead veterans, whether or not they died in a war. Who does this? Do they think they are doing good? My great grandpappy, Paul Landen Winstead, served in WW1, and somebody usually sticks a Memorial Day flag on his grave, even though he died in 1963. For some reason, his WW1 service is featured on his gravestone. His being a husband, father and productive member of the community were all deemed less noteworthy than his brief military adventure in France. Ironically, someone actually sticks US flags on the graves of the Confederate dead in the graveyard in my hometown. They died in battle fighting the very state symbolized by an iteration of that flag, but some flag distributing patriot reckons that they would have wanted to be “honored” with the red, white and blue emblem of their enemy all the same.
Mrs Vache Folle spent Thursday and Friday at her mom’s place on the shore. Her mom’s current husband is a disabled WW2 veteran who had a lot of parades and other doings scheduled over the weekend. Being a WW2 veteran iseems to be his full time occupation nowadays. Note to stepfather-in-law: this weekend is about dead people, not survivors. If you didn’t die in the war, you have to wait until November to get recognized. But you can’t do enough to honor WW2 vets. Seriously, it’s never enough. They will parade to the last man.
We don’t participate in any patriotic mumbo jumbo on Memorial Day. We’re sorry all those millions died for the state, and we don’t want to encourage anyone else to die by acting as if those combat deaths were anything other than a colossal waste of lives. They all died senseless deaths, and the standard Memorial Day fare is an attempt to make sense of the senselessness and to encourage folks to sign up as cannon fodder. Also, politicians are always involved in the hope of having some of that glorious combat deadness rub off on them.
Some folks went around this weekend putting little flags on the graves of dead veterans, whether or not they died in a war. Who does this? Do they think they are doing good? My great grandpappy, Paul Landen Winstead, served in WW1, and somebody usually sticks a Memorial Day flag on his grave, even though he died in 1963. For some reason, his WW1 service is featured on his gravestone. His being a husband, father and productive member of the community were all deemed less noteworthy than his brief military adventure in France. Ironically, someone actually sticks US flags on the graves of the Confederate dead in the graveyard in my hometown. They died in battle fighting the very state symbolized by an iteration of that flag, but some flag distributing patriot reckons that they would have wanted to be “honored” with the red, white and blue emblem of their enemy all the same.
Friday, May 26, 2006
Mental Eminence as Sign of Progress
The men in my family have a distinguishing feature. Each of us, almost without exception, has a highly prominent mental eminence. One uncle has such a powerful mental eminence that he is known affectionately as the “man in the moon”. This gives us an edge in changing pillow cases, but it confers no other social advantage. I submit, however, that prominence of the mental eminence is a hallmark of an advanced evolutionary state. Look at the chins, or absence thereof, on our hominid precursors.
The australopithecines were chinless.
Homo habilis could not change a pillow case if his life depended on it.
I scoff at the puny chin of Homo erectus. He tamed fire, but he was helpless in the face of an uncovered pillow.
The australopithecines were chinless.
Homo habilis could not change a pillow case if his life depended on it.I scoff at the puny chin of Homo erectus. He tamed fire, but he was helpless in the face of an uncovered pillow.
Neanderthal was an evolutionary dead end. I blame the weak chin.
Cro-magnon had a chin you could rest a spoon on.
See the clear trend.
The more prominent the mental eminence, the greater the mental acuity. I predict that the men of my family will one day be recognized as the next step in human evolution: Homo bigchinensis.
Activist Judges
I am sometimes confused by what is meant by an “activist” judge. Sometimes, when wingnuts use that expression, they mean judges who strike down legislation as unconstitutional and beyond the power of the legislature. These judges are said to have substituted their own judgment for that of the elected representatives of the people. In a system of limited government, there are, in fact, areas where legislators may not tread, and it seems to me to be a perfectly cromulent exercise of judicial power to check legislative usurpations. I rejoice whenever a court tells the legislature that it cannot do something. Otherwise, you end up with straight majoritarian tyranny.
In my view, inappropriate judicial “activism” consists of those cases where judges craft remedies that require the state to do something affirmatively that it has not chosen to do. For example, court designed busing of schoolchildren was, in my opinion, overreaching. It was proper to strike down de jure segregation, but the courts need not have crafted a specific solution to the problem. And attacking de facto segregation went over the line since this involved courts’ ordering state action to address a problem that was not a creature of the state. It is one thing to rule that the state cannot require segregation; it is altogether different to order that the state cannot tolerate segregation.
A court may properly rule that a municipality may not take a subject’s property, but I have a hard time imagining a situation in which a court could properly decide that a municipality must take someone’s property by eminent domain. Likewise, a court may strike down a smoking ban, but it should not be able to impose a smoking ban where the legislature has not chosen to do so.
In sum, there are circumstances where I want judges to be active and to challenge legislative overreaching. In other cases, I want judges to defer to the legislature. The former generally involves matters where the legislature has spoken, while the former involves matters where the legislature has not.
In my view, inappropriate judicial “activism” consists of those cases where judges craft remedies that require the state to do something affirmatively that it has not chosen to do. For example, court designed busing of schoolchildren was, in my opinion, overreaching. It was proper to strike down de jure segregation, but the courts need not have crafted a specific solution to the problem. And attacking de facto segregation went over the line since this involved courts’ ordering state action to address a problem that was not a creature of the state. It is one thing to rule that the state cannot require segregation; it is altogether different to order that the state cannot tolerate segregation.
A court may properly rule that a municipality may not take a subject’s property, but I have a hard time imagining a situation in which a court could properly decide that a municipality must take someone’s property by eminent domain. Likewise, a court may strike down a smoking ban, but it should not be able to impose a smoking ban where the legislature has not chosen to do so.
In sum, there are circumstances where I want judges to be active and to challenge legislative overreaching. In other cases, I want judges to defer to the legislature. The former generally involves matters where the legislature has spoken, while the former involves matters where the legislature has not.
The Islamofascistpanhispanicists are Coming!
I am having a hard time finding out whether there really is a conspiracy to restore the long lost caliphate or create an even bigger caliphate encompassing all Muslim territories. This does not seem at all feasible, and I can’t really decide whether I would even care if there were such an entity and a viable group of conspirators set on bringing it about. The same goes for Aztlan. Is it the policy of Mexico to recover territory stolen from it by the US in the 1840s? Or is it simply a fantasy of some individuals who are ill equipped to bring it about? Should I care if some states decide to leave the US and become part of Mexico if I don’t live in any of those states? Or even if I do?
How about this for a conspiracy? Latin America once belonged to Spain and Portugal. Before that, the whole Iberian peninsula was in Muslim control. The caliphate should encompass Spain, Portugal and all of Latin America, plus the part of the US stolen from Mexico. Uh, Oh. Now that I’ve put it out there, someone might pick up on it and decide that this would be desirable. Now we have a whole new threat to fret about: Islamofascistpanhispanicism. Can it be stopped or even contained?
I have sometimes advocated the restoration of the Crusader States as a solution to the crisis in the Levant. As far as I know, I am the only person who advocates this, and I currently lack the means to bring the region under the sway of a Christian king. Should Israelis and Palestinians worry about my proposal? I reckon that they should embrace it, but even if they oppose it out of some misguided reasoning, giving it any credence as a threat would serve only to publicize it and possibly recruit new adherents.
How about this for a conspiracy? Latin America once belonged to Spain and Portugal. Before that, the whole Iberian peninsula was in Muslim control. The caliphate should encompass Spain, Portugal and all of Latin America, plus the part of the US stolen from Mexico. Uh, Oh. Now that I’ve put it out there, someone might pick up on it and decide that this would be desirable. Now we have a whole new threat to fret about: Islamofascistpanhispanicism. Can it be stopped or even contained?
I have sometimes advocated the restoration of the Crusader States as a solution to the crisis in the Levant. As far as I know, I am the only person who advocates this, and I currently lack the means to bring the region under the sway of a Christian king. Should Israelis and Palestinians worry about my proposal? I reckon that they should embrace it, but even if they oppose it out of some misguided reasoning, giving it any credence as a threat would serve only to publicize it and possibly recruit new adherents.
Thursday, May 25, 2006
You Don't Have to Piss on the Grave of his Ancestor to Point Out that Jeff Sessions is a Wanker
Radley Balko reckons Jeff Sessions is a boob: http://www.theagitator.com/archives/026606.php#026606. I agree with almost everyone Radley says. Sessions is a boob, and he deserves any harsh criticism he gets. However, Radley goes too far when he writes:
“If Sessions is still whining about how Lincoln killed one of his relatives at Antietam, an ancestor who was fighting for the right to keep black people in chains, I don't think it's out of bounds to point out that the guy has a warped sense of what's important, and tends to nurse unhealthy grudges.”
I would be pissed at Lincoln, too, if he killed my ancestor. He did, and I am. I don’t spend as much time as Jeff Sessions talking about it , though. He seems to work it into speeches where it is a completely gratuitous reference as was the case when he spoke about helping Colombia in its drug enforcement efforts. But that said, it is a big deal when a politician is responsible for the death of a kinsman.
I’m still ticked off at Thomas Jefferson because he, as Governor of Virginia, wouldn’t arrange a prisoner exchange for my ancestor Lieutenant Colonel Frederick Warnack when he was captured by Benedict Arnold at the Westham Foundry. And Andrew Jackson had it in for my uncle Colonel Robert Love after my uncle beat him in a horse race. But I reserve the most anger for Lincoln because he killed several of my kinsmen, including my ancestor Benjamin Burgess, and he tried to burn down my hometown. It sticks in your craw, I tell you. It’s not an unhealthy grudge since you can’t ever get revenge on long dead Presidents, and we ought to be reminded of presidential misdeeds to balance out their apotheosis.
Secondly, Radley assumes too much when he attributes to Jonathan Sessions, CSA, killed in action, the motive of protecting the right to enslave black people. It does not appear that the Confederate soldier Sessions had slaves himself, although some members of his family may have had a few slaves (does having only a handful of house servants somehow make it less egregious?). He may well have been motivated by a desire to defend his homeland from Yankee aggression, to preserve the idea of limited government, to impress his friends and family or any other of the multitude of reasons that led men to fight in the War Between the States. Would you say of a soldier in Iraq that he is fighting to enrich oilmen, even if you reckoned the principal focus of the war was to do so? Why piss on the graves of all those Confederate veterans just to make a point about what a wanker Jeff Sessions is?
Even if Sessions never complained about his murdered ancestor, it would still be fair game to call him on comparisons of undocumented workers to slaves. That’s just stupid in all on its own.
“If Sessions is still whining about how Lincoln killed one of his relatives at Antietam, an ancestor who was fighting for the right to keep black people in chains, I don't think it's out of bounds to point out that the guy has a warped sense of what's important, and tends to nurse unhealthy grudges.”
I would be pissed at Lincoln, too, if he killed my ancestor. He did, and I am. I don’t spend as much time as Jeff Sessions talking about it , though. He seems to work it into speeches where it is a completely gratuitous reference as was the case when he spoke about helping Colombia in its drug enforcement efforts. But that said, it is a big deal when a politician is responsible for the death of a kinsman.
I’m still ticked off at Thomas Jefferson because he, as Governor of Virginia, wouldn’t arrange a prisoner exchange for my ancestor Lieutenant Colonel Frederick Warnack when he was captured by Benedict Arnold at the Westham Foundry. And Andrew Jackson had it in for my uncle Colonel Robert Love after my uncle beat him in a horse race. But I reserve the most anger for Lincoln because he killed several of my kinsmen, including my ancestor Benjamin Burgess, and he tried to burn down my hometown. It sticks in your craw, I tell you. It’s not an unhealthy grudge since you can’t ever get revenge on long dead Presidents, and we ought to be reminded of presidential misdeeds to balance out their apotheosis.
Secondly, Radley assumes too much when he attributes to Jonathan Sessions, CSA, killed in action, the motive of protecting the right to enslave black people. It does not appear that the Confederate soldier Sessions had slaves himself, although some members of his family may have had a few slaves (does having only a handful of house servants somehow make it less egregious?). He may well have been motivated by a desire to defend his homeland from Yankee aggression, to preserve the idea of limited government, to impress his friends and family or any other of the multitude of reasons that led men to fight in the War Between the States. Would you say of a soldier in Iraq that he is fighting to enrich oilmen, even if you reckoned the principal focus of the war was to do so? Why piss on the graves of all those Confederate veterans just to make a point about what a wanker Jeff Sessions is?
Even if Sessions never complained about his murdered ancestor, it would still be fair game to call him on comparisons of undocumented workers to slaves. That’s just stupid in all on its own.
Emotional Investments in Baseball and Politics
I am a baseball fan. I used to be a huge baseball fan and would catch every game my favorite team played on TV, on radio or in person. I felt as if I knew the players and that they were my friends. I wanted them to do well and really pulled for them with all my psychic energy. When the team wasn’t playing, I read about them and listened to sports radio shows about them and talked interminably about them.
I loved the Mariners when I lived in the Pacific Northwest, and whenever the Blue Jays were in town, I had a choice of tuning in to the Vancouver broadcast or the Seattle broadcast. This permitted me to contrast the perspectives of the broadcasters from both teams. When a Blue Jay batsman came to the plate, the Mariner broadcasters would talk about what a dangerous hitter he was and a threat as a base runner and such, whereas the Blue Jay announcers would fret about how crafty the pitcher was and how apt the batsman was to ground into a double play.
This mirrored how I felt as a fan. No lead was too large for my team to squander, but a slight lead in the late innings by the other team was probably insurmountable. The opposing team’s closer was unhittable, but our closer might just blow the save. That Norm Charlton, in fact, blew his share of saves was a factor, but not the entire story. I expected my team to choke for some reason, and this protected me somewhat from the heartbreak of baseball. Being a huge fan was emotionally draining and more than a little psychotic.
When we moved to New York, I never got attached to either the Yankees or the Mets, and I have gradually cut way back on my investment in baseball. I might watch the Braves, my first love after all, from time to time on TBS, but I don’t go out of my way to do so. I find that I am a more dispassionate viewer and can enjoy games for their own sake rather than for the sake of partisanship. I savor good playing on either side, and I don’t really care which team wins. On the other hand, as I said, I don’t follow the game nearly as closely. I reckon partisanship is more of a key to salience than competence in the sport alone.
I find that following politics closely in the news and rooting against the GOP are similar to my experiences as a baseball fan. Because I hate the GOP, I am rooting for the Democrats. This causes me to see the GOP as stronger than it probably really is. I fully expect that the GOP’s base will stick with it and that the GOP will pull something out of its hat to rally in the late innings. I see the Democrats as error-prone and having poor judgment at the plate. They’re playing not to lose and nursing a two run lead when they know they don’t have a solid closer. Worse yet, the umpire is squeezing the Democratic pitchers. The manager puts on the hit and run, but the batter takes the pitch! Add more baseball metaphors here if you like.
I wish that I could treat politics like baseball and invest less psychic energy in it. The trouble is that I genuinely believe that the GOP might just get us all killed. I don’t have to worry so much about the New York Yankees’ starting a nuclear war or setting up a police state, but the Yankees in Washington might do both.
I loved the Mariners when I lived in the Pacific Northwest, and whenever the Blue Jays were in town, I had a choice of tuning in to the Vancouver broadcast or the Seattle broadcast. This permitted me to contrast the perspectives of the broadcasters from both teams. When a Blue Jay batsman came to the plate, the Mariner broadcasters would talk about what a dangerous hitter he was and a threat as a base runner and such, whereas the Blue Jay announcers would fret about how crafty the pitcher was and how apt the batsman was to ground into a double play.
This mirrored how I felt as a fan. No lead was too large for my team to squander, but a slight lead in the late innings by the other team was probably insurmountable. The opposing team’s closer was unhittable, but our closer might just blow the save. That Norm Charlton, in fact, blew his share of saves was a factor, but not the entire story. I expected my team to choke for some reason, and this protected me somewhat from the heartbreak of baseball. Being a huge fan was emotionally draining and more than a little psychotic.
When we moved to New York, I never got attached to either the Yankees or the Mets, and I have gradually cut way back on my investment in baseball. I might watch the Braves, my first love after all, from time to time on TBS, but I don’t go out of my way to do so. I find that I am a more dispassionate viewer and can enjoy games for their own sake rather than for the sake of partisanship. I savor good playing on either side, and I don’t really care which team wins. On the other hand, as I said, I don’t follow the game nearly as closely. I reckon partisanship is more of a key to salience than competence in the sport alone.
I find that following politics closely in the news and rooting against the GOP are similar to my experiences as a baseball fan. Because I hate the GOP, I am rooting for the Democrats. This causes me to see the GOP as stronger than it probably really is. I fully expect that the GOP’s base will stick with it and that the GOP will pull something out of its hat to rally in the late innings. I see the Democrats as error-prone and having poor judgment at the plate. They’re playing not to lose and nursing a two run lead when they know they don’t have a solid closer. Worse yet, the umpire is squeezing the Democratic pitchers. The manager puts on the hit and run, but the batter takes the pitch! Add more baseball metaphors here if you like.
I wish that I could treat politics like baseball and invest less psychic energy in it. The trouble is that I genuinely believe that the GOP might just get us all killed. I don’t have to worry so much about the New York Yankees’ starting a nuclear war or setting up a police state, but the Yankees in Washington might do both.
If We Work Hard Enough, We Can Get Oil Up to $100 a Barrel in no Time
The government’s program to increase oil prices has stalled at the $70 a barrel level for some time now, and it is time for decisive action to try to kick prices up to $100 a barrel during the summer season of high demand for gasoline. We all know that there are very important reasons, besides the important goal of enriching domestic oil producers, for working to raise prices: higher prices provide incentives to develop alternative fuels, higher prices keep Americans pissed off at foreigners with oil and bolster flagging support for military adventurism. It’s time to use saber rattling and military action to shut off supplies from Iran and Venezuela. All to the better if we alienate Russia in the process.
But, you might argue, won’t the government be risking a political backlash? The regime can’t get any more unpopular, and the GOP base of wingnuts will stick by the regime no matter what it does. Their “leaders” will make noises about staying home come November, but they won’t. They’ll be motivated by some GOP trickery and come out to vote just like they always do. The religious right is in the bag for the GOP. In addition, the Democrats are so timid and afraid of rocking the boat that they can’t seem to get any advantage from GOP unpopularity. They’re hoping the GOP implodes from the sheer weight of its corruption and incompetence. Also, the regime can blame the oil price increase on hostile foreigners and whip the proletariat up into a frenzy of flag waving and enemy hating and magnetic ribbon displaying. All will be forgiven, since the people will be scared out of their wits and hoping the regime will save them.
But, you might argue, won’t the government be risking a political backlash? The regime can’t get any more unpopular, and the GOP base of wingnuts will stick by the regime no matter what it does. Their “leaders” will make noises about staying home come November, but they won’t. They’ll be motivated by some GOP trickery and come out to vote just like they always do. The religious right is in the bag for the GOP. In addition, the Democrats are so timid and afraid of rocking the boat that they can’t seem to get any advantage from GOP unpopularity. They’re hoping the GOP implodes from the sheer weight of its corruption and incompetence. Also, the regime can blame the oil price increase on hostile foreigners and whip the proletariat up into a frenzy of flag waving and enemy hating and magnetic ribbon displaying. All will be forgiven, since the people will be scared out of their wits and hoping the regime will save them.
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
We're All Angles Now
I hear English is the official language of the US now. I propose that as long as we’re making things official and all, let’s have an official dialect. Naturally, I favor the south midlands dialect from my hometown, and I reckon that the “y’all” version is preferable to the “y’uns” version spoken to the east of Fort Mountain. All you dipthong deprived Midwesterners would have to give up your linguistic assault on your countrymen. And grating New York accents would be replaced by a mellifluous mountain twang. Instead of “fuhgeddaboudid”, they’ll be saying “I’ll tell you whut!”
And let’s put an end to neologisms once and for all. The official English language is English as it was spoken in my hometown on the effective date of the designation of an official language. If we don’t insist on this, it is possible that Spanish lexical inputs will infect the language such that we might as well have learned Spanish in the first place. We’ll need one of those committees like the French have to preserve the purity of the mother tongue.
Maybe this is not going far enough. Maybe we should purify the language of all the foreign borrowings that have sullied it since we brought it from the motherland. Let’s get rid of all those cowboy borrowings from the Mexicans, all those French and Indian words, and anything from the Philippines (boondocks is all I can think of at the moment). What the heck. Let’s take the language back to 1066 before the Normans polluted it with their sissified French frippery. Instead of asking for beef or pork, from now on I will be ordering a nice slab of cow or pig. I’m still not satisfied. Let’s go all the way to the language as spoken by the Angles before it became a pidgin for Saxons, Angles, and Danes. That’ll bring us together as a nation.
And let’s put an end to neologisms once and for all. The official English language is English as it was spoken in my hometown on the effective date of the designation of an official language. If we don’t insist on this, it is possible that Spanish lexical inputs will infect the language such that we might as well have learned Spanish in the first place. We’ll need one of those committees like the French have to preserve the purity of the mother tongue.
Maybe this is not going far enough. Maybe we should purify the language of all the foreign borrowings that have sullied it since we brought it from the motherland. Let’s get rid of all those cowboy borrowings from the Mexicans, all those French and Indian words, and anything from the Philippines (boondocks is all I can think of at the moment). What the heck. Let’s take the language back to 1066 before the Normans polluted it with their sissified French frippery. Instead of asking for beef or pork, from now on I will be ordering a nice slab of cow or pig. I’m still not satisfied. Let’s go all the way to the language as spoken by the Angles before it became a pidgin for Saxons, Angles, and Danes. That’ll bring us together as a nation.
How Many Folks Can We Imprison? We Don't Know Yet.
I was appalled to learn that 1 in every 136 people in America is behind bars. Is this the optimum number, or can we do better?
Let us assume for the sake of argument that it is undesirable to imprison everyone (except for the guards and rulers) and make them into slaves. Productivity would suffer, and the cost of maintaining the prisons would be prohibitive. Moreover, this would doubtless result in a crisis of legitimacy for the regime.
At some point, the number of prisoners will become disturbing to the “free” population, but this may be forestalled indefinitely by gradual increases in the prison population and demonizing deviants. One important limiting factor will be the burden of taxation on the not currently incarcerated portion of the population. At some point, they may chafe under the yoke and become unduly expensive to control. Long before then, however, the burden of taxation will result in decreased productivity and loss of revenue.
It will probably be necessary to divert funds from other programs into the criminal justice enterprise. Resources now spent on public schooling could go to prisons, and the schoolchildren could be put to work in the private sector jobs vacated by incarcerated subjects and by prison guards. Or we could just imprison them. Basic education could be provided in the prisons, and since most subjects will spend time in prison eventually, education will continue to be almost universally provided.
With a reshuffling of priorities and some serious brainwashing, we could possibly achieve the incarceration of 1 in 3 adult Americans. All old people could be incarcerated, so there would be no need for Social Security and Medicare. Anyone unemployed or on welfare would automatically report to prison. All homeless people could be imprisoned.
In the end, most prisoners would only be slightly deviant, and their prisons would not even need guards or walls. In fact, these prisoners could be permitted to move about freely and to maintain jobs and pay taxes. Their homes could be designated as prison cells and they would be considered on parole subject to their good behavior and tax paying.
Ultimately, everyone will be either pre-incarcerated, incarcerated or formerly incarcerated. That is, if we pull together and make the necessary sacrifices.
Let us assume for the sake of argument that it is undesirable to imprison everyone (except for the guards and rulers) and make them into slaves. Productivity would suffer, and the cost of maintaining the prisons would be prohibitive. Moreover, this would doubtless result in a crisis of legitimacy for the regime.
At some point, the number of prisoners will become disturbing to the “free” population, but this may be forestalled indefinitely by gradual increases in the prison population and demonizing deviants. One important limiting factor will be the burden of taxation on the not currently incarcerated portion of the population. At some point, they may chafe under the yoke and become unduly expensive to control. Long before then, however, the burden of taxation will result in decreased productivity and loss of revenue.
It will probably be necessary to divert funds from other programs into the criminal justice enterprise. Resources now spent on public schooling could go to prisons, and the schoolchildren could be put to work in the private sector jobs vacated by incarcerated subjects and by prison guards. Or we could just imprison them. Basic education could be provided in the prisons, and since most subjects will spend time in prison eventually, education will continue to be almost universally provided.
With a reshuffling of priorities and some serious brainwashing, we could possibly achieve the incarceration of 1 in 3 adult Americans. All old people could be incarcerated, so there would be no need for Social Security and Medicare. Anyone unemployed or on welfare would automatically report to prison. All homeless people could be imprisoned.
In the end, most prisoners would only be slightly deviant, and their prisons would not even need guards or walls. In fact, these prisoners could be permitted to move about freely and to maintain jobs and pay taxes. Their homes could be designated as prison cells and they would be considered on parole subject to their good behavior and tax paying.
Ultimately, everyone will be either pre-incarcerated, incarcerated or formerly incarcerated. That is, if we pull together and make the necessary sacrifices.
Fun With Ideal Types 2
If I wanted to generate problems for sociological inquiry (and who doesn’t?), I would use the time tested Weberian method of constructing ideal types. In a nutshell, Weber’s method consisted of imagining what perfectly rational people would do in a given situation and organization and then focusing on those areas which inevitably deviate from the type. Of course, you also have to generate assumptions about the objects and goals of the people under study in order to decide whether their actions are rationally calculated to lead to the desired outcomes. This approach should work for journalists looking for stories and angles. A journalist might imagine how a rational person would organize reconstruction in Iraq or the response to Katrina and then investigate those areas where rationality seems to have failed.
An alternative approach is to assume that the results achieved were intended and that the actions that led to them were, in fact, calculated to achieve them. In this manner, you might point to the disproportionate number of black people convicted of drug offenses and conclude that drug enforcement programs are designed to oppress and terrorize black people. In this kind of analysis, there are no unintended consequences. You might point to the instability in Iraq and the Middle East and conclude that the policy of the US has been to destabilize the region and to bring about sectarian violence in Iraq. This would be a good way for journalists to question politicians. “Mr. President, how did you arrive at the decision to abrogate the Geneva Convention?” “What is your next step in your plan to obtain dictatorial powers?” “Mr Speaker, will the House of Representatives dissolve itself, or will you wait for the President to dissolve it by decree?”
Another possibility is to add yet another dimension to the construction of the ideal type. In addition to rationality, assume that your subjects are evil or sublimely selfish. This works well in politics. You really can't go wrong by attributing to politicians the meanest, most self centered goals imaginable. Assume that every legislator has only two goals: staying in office and getting richer by the minute. Assume that every President secretly, or not so secretly, yearns to wear a crown. The Founding Fathers did.
I also like to imagine that my subjects' goals are grander than their achievements. Only 1 in 136 Americans is behind bars? What would be the best way to double that accomplishment? I know! Let's criminalize dealing with undocumented aliens. Criminalizing tobacco would be a big boost to the criminal justice industry.
An alternative approach is to assume that the results achieved were intended and that the actions that led to them were, in fact, calculated to achieve them. In this manner, you might point to the disproportionate number of black people convicted of drug offenses and conclude that drug enforcement programs are designed to oppress and terrorize black people. In this kind of analysis, there are no unintended consequences. You might point to the instability in Iraq and the Middle East and conclude that the policy of the US has been to destabilize the region and to bring about sectarian violence in Iraq. This would be a good way for journalists to question politicians. “Mr. President, how did you arrive at the decision to abrogate the Geneva Convention?” “What is your next step in your plan to obtain dictatorial powers?” “Mr Speaker, will the House of Representatives dissolve itself, or will you wait for the President to dissolve it by decree?”
Another possibility is to add yet another dimension to the construction of the ideal type. In addition to rationality, assume that your subjects are evil or sublimely selfish. This works well in politics. You really can't go wrong by attributing to politicians the meanest, most self centered goals imaginable. Assume that every legislator has only two goals: staying in office and getting richer by the minute. Assume that every President secretly, or not so secretly, yearns to wear a crown. The Founding Fathers did.
I also like to imagine that my subjects' goals are grander than their achievements. Only 1 in 136 Americans is behind bars? What would be the best way to double that accomplishment? I know! Let's criminalize dealing with undocumented aliens. Criminalizing tobacco would be a big boost to the criminal justice industry.
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