perfidy

Clayton Cramer is blogging a good series on how to manage your personal finances, based on his experiences. Now, I'm no financial wizard. My net worth right now is equivalent to a Zagnut and a cup of diner coffee. But, since I now am also responsible for Goodwife Two-Cents, and hope someday to be responsible for Increase Two-Cents, Mercy Two-Cents, and Fight-the-good-fight-of-faith Two-Cents, I need to get my Little Commonweal in order. As far as I can see, Cramer's series is full of practical advice and simple explanations of concepts that might help me do that. Good for me, as I have the internet attention span of a five-year-old.

The series parts are here, here, here, and in four more places that are linked from part III, so I shan't belabor the point. Besides, it's Friday afternoon and I need to get home so I can go to Target in our shitheap Pontiac. There's a section in the Cramer guide called "Cars: The Monkey On Your Budget Back." It really spoke to me, like the Beatles spoke to Charles Manson. Except not as murdery.

This was originally posted by Buckethead back in March, and I thought I'd toss it on the front page again. We need your entries like zombies need fresh brains. To live. Original post follows.... nnnnnnnnnow: 

Design your own constitutional amendment, and win the undying admiration of the ruling troika of this webpage. The entry picked as winner will recieve good karma in vast quantities, and a Chinese fortune cookie (only half eaten, fortune still included.) The rules: 

1. It can't be an amendment that is already in the Constitution.
2. Your amendment cannot change the laws of physics.
3. Try to solve a real problem with your amendment, and not guarantee plentiful dogfood for every canine in America, or annex Norway or something.
4. Write your amendment like you thought it might actually go in the Constitution with all the other clearly and beautifully written amendments. 

After entries are received, we will post interesting ones, and declare a winner. Tell your friends! Send your submissions to johnnytwocents at yahoo dot com or bookethead at yahoo dot com. Either one. Excelsior!
 

I've seen several sources hailing a new report by the State Department that indicates a marked decline in terror attacks in 2002.

Good news, right?

Well, would be. Except, as Calpundit observes, the worldwide decline is actually due to a huge decline in the number of Colombian oil pipeline bombings, nothing else. Seriously. There's a graph, you can check it out yourself. In fact, Middle-East-based terror attacks stayed steady, and Asian attacks rose.

So what does this mean? Hell if I know, but I can be sure of two things: this report tells us exactly nothing about how safe we are relative to one year ago; and the President will be making early campaign hay with this out the wazoo.

Side note: our President looked good on the aircraft carrier. As campaign appearances go, it can't be beat. Nevertheless, pretty don't make me agree with his policies. I hope he gets stomped like a narc at a biker rally in '04, unless Kerry is the candidate. Then I hope they both get stomped. A paradox!

Did you know that May 1 is Loyalty Day? It was decreed so yesterday by our President. Huh. Thanks to Matthew Yglesias and "Stentor Danielson" for the pointer and a little perspective on the matter. 

From what I can find, "Loyalty Day" started in the thirties as an anti-Communist counterpoint to Mayday, hence the positioning of both on May 1. Occasionally, the holiday has been exhumed by Presidents (Clinton, Kennedy, Truman) hoping to inspire an upwelling of patriotic fervor in the breasts of the teeming masses. 

Even though I am a spineless jellyfish of a centrist, I have some pretty clear and solid ideas about what America means. "Loyalty Day" is just about as American a concept as "Worship The Giant Stone Tiki Day" would be, if a day of Tiki-worship were foisted upon us by the government. 

Warning: hifalutin pompousness follows. Ridicule at will. Bill Whittle is better at this sort of thing. 

Certain events in the recent past have changed how Americans approach freedom, liberty, and the rest of the world. Despite some people's fears, we do not yet live in a police state where dissent is met with brutality (that only happens in Leftist paradises like Cuba and China, and also some theocracies and dictatorships, but not here). Yet, in response to the threats we now know we face, concepts have arisen that don't belong in our national lexicon. Two such are the terms "Homeland" and "Loyalty". Both are fabulously alien to the American experience (in that they imply things the United States was founded as an alternative to), both are used too much these days, and neither should ever be common coin around Washington. I'd go so far as to call them un-American. ”

"Homeland" doesn't make much sense applied to the United States as a whole - it smacks of a European sense of place and obligation. If your family can trace its lineage in the Black Forest back to the time of Charlemagne, and it's fairly certain that someone in your bloodline repelled Roman legions and fought at Verdun, then you have a homeland. Hell, for that matter, if your family settled Saco, Maine in 1640 and stayed on through Algonquin raids, witch hysterians, and the various wars and famines, then Maine, if that's where you live, is your homeland. To a certain degree, northeastern Ohio is my homeland, in that it's where I was born, grew up, and learned about the world. I feel a kinship to the place and its people. Jim Traficant, sorry to say, is one of mine. 

In short, the word "homeland" implies the residency in and identity with a specific place, accompanied by a specific way of seeing the world, something akin to the French concept of terroir. The United States is too young, too big, and too diverse to warrant such a sweeping term. Furthermore, United States is a collection of people, whereas "homeland" places the emphasis on the place itself. Similarly, "Loyalty" implies an authority that flows the opposite way of that on which the United States is founded. "Allegiance" is more apt. Allegiance implies that you have considered your citizenship, weighed its benefits against the alternatives (such as living in France or a compound in upper Montana), and voluntarily chosen to participate in the ongoing project of the USA. Of course, nobody actually thinks about these things when taking the pledge, but that is nevertheless the underlying idea. Where "Allegiance" implies a pact freely entered, "Loyalty" suggests something demanded of a person by a superior. In cases such as swearing-in of new citizens, this language is appropriate (as is so for members of the Armed Forces). Such new Americans are taking an oath to cast off other ties they may have in order to affirm the solidity of their commitment to the United States. 

But oaths of loyalty are not required by the United States of its citizens. The word "union" appears ten times in the Constitution, "loyal*"” none. And, of course, the preamble has all that crap about "we the people" and "more perfect union." Everything is voluntary, open, and based upon the will of the people to bring themselves together. 

Ideas like an "Office of Homeland Security" and the revival of "Loyalty Day," though they might seem like good fixes to immediate crises, are in the long view not part of the American ideology at all. Problems like this happens from time to time in American history, and they are often far, far worse than those I'm discussing. A huge number of Native Americans are dead. Slavery wasn't addressed seriously until 1860. Lynchings happened all the way into the era of color photography. But we don't kill Indians any more (partly because there aren't many left, yes), nobody keeps slaves today like they did in 1820, and lynchings are now front-page horrors when they happen, not a dirty secret. Although far from perfect, at its best, America is a self-correcting system that finds its bedrock principles no matter what temporary diversions it encounters. I just hope that the current fetishes for "homeland" this and "secret courts" that are temporary, and over time the inertia, collective idealism, and ingrained teachings of the American people will make these things as curious in the future as debates over the Gold Standard are today. 

A final note. May is also "Masturbation Month." "Loyalty Day" or "Masturbation Month": the choice is yours. (Thanks, Matthew!)

From the NYT via talkleft:

The Alabama House voted against a bill Tuesday that would have removed a ban on sexual devices, such as vibrators, from the state's obscenity law. .... A federal district judge in Birmingham has twice ruled that the ban is unconstitutional. The first ruling was overturned by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals and the second ruling has been appealed to the appeals court.

....The sponsor of the bill, Rep. John Rogers, D-Birmingham, said because of the court ruling, the obscenity law is unenforceable as long as it contains the ban on sex toys....With little serious discussion, the House voted 37-28 to leave the sex toys ban in state law, leaving Rogers standing at the microphone shaking his head.
"What you just did is make our obscenity law illegal. You voted for obscenity,'' Rogers shouted at lawmakers.

G'hyuk!

[update] Eugene Volokh thinks I and others are being to hard on the Alabama Legislature, pointing out that the Federal court decision only invalidated the sex toy section of the law, explicitly leaving the rest alone. Though Mr. Volokh may be correct, as usual, I stand by my derisive g'hyuk! analysis as the Alabama legislature has nevertheless voted to ban sex toys. How silly, I say!

For several months, some of my compatriots have been kicking around a discussion on ethnic problems in France. Bad Thoughts, who has actually spent time in France, and is an actual historian of French history and therefore knows many things I don't about the field, had some interesting insights. Follow the link and scroll down. He's a thoughtful and unique thinker anyway. 

Namely, he argues that France's foreign policy toward the Middle East is shaped by how the government thinks the large Muslim population would react. Fair enough. He also provides evidence for a parallel argument, that US foreign policy toward Africa is shaped by how the government thinks the African-American population would act. 

Excerpt: 

There is an article that has been making the rounds for several months that attempts to explain the degeneration (yes, that is the appropriate word) of the French nation by pointing out its problems with North African immigrants. In a nutshell, it explains that these immigrants are a major source of social problems in France that the government has no ability to solve. Instead, the government concedes. Whole neighborhoods go without proper policing, and law and order are effectively nullified. This reality extends into foreign policy, where the Quai d'Orsay cannot make moves that would anger the Muslim population of France. 

As I pointed out in my original response, this is hardly unique to France. The United States has been saddled with a racial problem that it has been unwilling to solve for several decades. There has been little help for the black America, whole sections of cities are under-policed as priorities are still shifting to protect property rather than to deal with crime, people are concentrating themselves in gated communities to keep out (racially-based) crime, and a major income gap is developing between whites and blacks.

This is an interesting point, but this section of the argument has a couple problems that don't necessarily affect the rest. Mainly, I think comparing France to the US on this issue doesn't quite work for three reasons. 

First among these is although the US has had a racial problem for several centuries, I'm not sure that the policing problem is endemic - that is, that across the board the emphasis has shifted to policing the property of the rich at the expense of entire minority neighborhoods. It undeniably happens, in California most notably. But this trend is balanced by efforts in other major cities to return policing to the neighborhood level. This brings up another struggle between competing philosophies of social order, that I have no expertise in whatsoever, so I shall digress. 

Second, the income gap that is developing so quickly in France has existed since the beginning in the USA. Obviously, I'm not saying this is a good thing! But, it hurts more acutely when the gap first opens than when it's been there a while. Therefore my sense is that the rapidly growing inequality in France is more dangerous to public order than the entrenched inequality in the USA. 

The third major difference between French racial troubles and US racial troubles is the question of dual allegiances. African-American families can generally trace their lineage in the US back for many generations. Now, the legacy of slavery and the reconstruction of a shared African past that has resulted in the African Consciousness movement does give the African American community as a whole an identity apart from others in the US. But despite that, most African-Americans were born here, are US citizens, and carry within them an ideal United States that, though it may be wildly different from the reality they see around them, is still a United States that includes them. They are Americans. Partly this is the result of time. But it is also the result of 150 years of concerted efforts to mend the abuses wrought by slavery. 

France, on the other hand, has yet to adequately address the needs of their immigrant population. The current tensions (please correct me if I'm wrong) arose fairly recently when enclaves of Islamic immigrants collect in council estates, and remained there without jobs to apply for and without mechanisms for integrating into the larger fabric of French culture. As a result, these immigrant populations remain closely identified with their enclave rather than with France as a whole. They self-identify as Muslims and as Pakistanis (for example). 

This situation is deepened by a high crime rate, organized youth gangs, massive unemployment, and the policing tactics in these areas used by the French authorities. Ultimately, rather than being/becoming French citizens with a sense of ownership in the place where they live, they identify themselves as strangers in a strange land. In this day and age, a population of highly dissatisfied and alienated young male Muslims with strong ties to the nations from which they came is a worrying proposition. It is not merely a domestic issue but a potentially international problem as well, and one that the French approach is not currently solving. Not that the USA could necessarily do any better, but France is having a bit of a rough go, there. 

It does seem that France is reluctant to act in the Middle East due to these internal pressures. I'm not sure the same is true for the US and Africa - I'm going to have to look into this further. 

I would argue that major US involvement in Africa is guided less by what various administrations think it will do for their political prospects among black voters, and more by when there's huge political capital to be gained among all voters. That is, Bad Thoughts is arguing a positive correlation between pleasing black voters and not libervading African nations, and I am arguing a positive correlation between pleasing all voters and not libervading African nations. I can't remember the last time I heard a policy speech about Africa. It's not in too many peoples' consciousnesses, and the first step toward building approval for a military action is to start cultivating outrage. 

I notice that I'm wandering into all kinds of thickets I don't have maps to, so I'm going to leave it for now and return to my usual bitching about free speech and privacy rights. And rock music. Rock music is good.

this comment thread (from my comment on Pilgrim's Progress and Uncle Tom's Cabin) and haul it onto the main page:

Two-Cents:
Why is that a bad thing? UTC was the best-selling novel in American history. Be careful. You might own the fields of politics, political philosophy, military history, space, technology, and modern jurisprudence, but if you're talking about women in 19th century US culture, you're in MY house.

Buckethead:

The weekly world news is the eighth largest circulating newspaper in the world.

Two-Cents:

What is your problem with Uncle Tom's Cabin? Not to pull a moral-relativism move here, but it was hot shit back in the day. I've read it. I see the problems with it, seen from today's perspective. But honestly, why is it a not-great book?

I mention its sales figures, not by way of measuring its worth as literature, but as a way of measuring its effect on the world, and its success in encapsulating the key debates of its time.

Remember what Lincoln said to Harriet Beecher Stowe when he met her: "So you're the little lady who's caused all these big problems." More than being a literary triumph, UTC was an important cultural landmark. It better have been, because as a piece of writing it's not so hot. Talk about turgid! Innocent blonde babies, a Christ like black protagonist, the evil slaveowners! Everyone's a cartoon.

But, as I say, it was a cultural watershed. Stowe, who was obviously an abolitionist, took all the polemics of Garrison and his group and fit them into the acceptable framework of a suitably dewy romantic novel. It's not the writing that made this book great-- it was that Stowe in one fell swoop collected and restated all the tenets of radical abolitionism, with the internal contradictions nicely papered over, in a way that was eminently palatable for nineteenth-century audiences.

Moral 'suason wasn't generally as effective as people think. But, this is one instance in which it was a thundering success. Regardless of its dated-ness and its shortcomings, it's a "great novel," even more so because it can teach an alert reader so much about the United States in the pre-Civil War era.

Buckethead:

But, as I say, it was a cultural watershed. Gibson, who was obviously a dystopian, took all the ideas of Bester, Brunner and their group and fit them into the acceptable framework of a suitably dewy sf novel. It's not the writing that made this book great-- it was that Gibson in one fell swoop collected and restated all the tenets of radical futurists, with the internal contradictions nicely papered over, in a way that was eminently palatable for late twentieth-century audiences.

This relates to an earlier conversation, the difference between importance and greatness. Neuromancer was fun, but I don't think it was a great novel. As the first cyberpunk novel, it is important, at least within the genre. UTC was important to America and the world, and it is a useful source for studying early nineteenth century America. But it isn't a great novel. It's an important novel. It's a cultural watershed.
Most novels teach us a lot about the time that they were written - manners and mores, fears and hopes, misconceptions, the whole deal. But only a few are great.

Thousands of dollars? Were you attacked by the scientologists as well?

And I've spent thousands of dollars finding that out.

The Communist Manifesto/Das Kapital duology