perfidy

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

Battlefield Earth

Matrix
Bladerunner
Fifth Element
2001
Star Wars
Metropolis
Clockwork Orange
Terminator
Galaxy Quest
Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan (even though it rips off Run Silent, Run Deep)
Destination Moon
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
The Day the Earth Stood Still (Klaatu Barada Nikto! Gort!)
Casablanca

Casablanca belongs on any list of great movies, because it's so damn cool.

I'd start comparing Neuromancer to Pilgrim's Progress or Uncle Tom's Cabin

Another reason why Gibson is derivative. Sure, Neuromancer is a landmark book, and I very much enjoyed reading it. But Sterling and Williams are better writers. At least in their books that made the list. I'd rather read real Phillip K. Dick, or Raymond Chandler, than most Gibson. I think Shockwave Rider is better written than Neuromancer. Gibson has stylistic flair, but that's all he has. Sterling needs to write more sf, 'cause he has the mojo. 

I am willing to include Snow Crash on the list for one reason, though - by perfecting, inflating, lampooning and puncturing the cyberpunk sub-subgenre with one masterful novel, we no longer have to read stylistically derivative, politically uninformed, dystopic, carbon copy fantasies. We can ignore them. 
 

As a (low-ranking) member of the technocratic elite that rules the world, I write, among other things, software manuals, process documentation and other things that are never read by my company's clients. I have to constantly fight the temptation to introduce small inconsistencies, errors and jokes into my work. The most that I allow myself is extremely subtle irony. Maybe that temptation is similar to the need textile workers once felt to throw shoes into the apparatus.

Buckethead, fair enough. I haven't read the Brin on your list, and I will admit that the ending of The Postman, which used a deux ex machina, was not quite up to the rest of the book. I read I, Robot when I was about twelve, and it is what first kindled my inner fire of geek. So, propers are due there. 

As for abuse of cyberpunk concepts by Gibson and Sterling, you're just baiting the Johnny-bear. Shockwave Rider was a very good book indeed, and advanced many of the same ideas earlier, but Neuromancer especially is the better book. It's not everybody's cup of tea, to be sure, but the atmosphere, ideas, and details really killed me-- it's like "The Long Goodbye" as re-written by Philip K. Dick. I will admit though that Shockwave Rider does have a better plot. 

Regarding Fantasy novels: Dude, you are such a geek. Not that I'm any better. I really dug Katherine Kurtz' first Saint Camber trilogy. 
 

...Pretentious

I would agree to items #a, III and four of Johnny's list. I've already explained why Snow Crash didn't make it to my list, and the same applies to Brin's Postman. I thought I, Robot sucked, three stupid suggestions for automata notwithstanding. Never read Pynchon, so can't say. However, his list reminded me of a couple other books:

• Shockwave Rider, by John Brunner
• Voice of the Whirlwind, by Walter Jon Williams If I could establish a precedence in my list, Brunner's book would be near the top. An ur-cyberpunk novel that prefigures most of the concepts later abused by Gibson and Sterling. Whirlwind is a better novel than Neuromancer. On to fantasy - my top five fantasy novels/series:
• Lord of the Rings, by some guy, think his name begins with "D"
• Freedom and Necessity, by Emma Bull and Steven Brust
• Good Omens, by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
• Age of Unreason, by J. Gregory Keyes
• The Earthsea Trilogy, by Ursula K. Le Guin (and I do mean trilogy) 
   

I also enjoyed The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, by Stephen Donaldson; the Belgariad by David Eddings, Riftwar, by Raymond Feist; The Silmarillion, by Tolkien; and little else. American Gods would be on this list, were it not on the other one.

Since you asked, the most turgid and pretentious turd in Anglophone literature, bar none, is Infinite Jest, by that charlatan David Foster Wallace.

[pre-emptive update]: Speaking of David Eggers, you should all read this McSweeny's piece, which is a transcript of unused bonus audio commentary for the Fellowship Of The Ring DVD by Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky.

[further update] Lest I seem the philistine, I should point out that "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" is the only fiction book I have ever flung across a room in disgust. A library copy, too. Hey, at least I tried.

Robert Alt, writing for National Review Online, asks, "Is Federalism Conservative"? Good question. Though Alt is writing about attempts by lefties to block Bush judicial appointees on the grounds that they are Federalists ("for states' rights") and therefore Conservative, he addresses some larger issues adeptly.

If you're too lazy to click through and read the story, here's my short version: "NO, NOT NECESSARILY."

Comprehensive as it may be, I would like to add my two cents to buckethead's very potent 22-item top-five list.

• William Gibson-Neuromancer (plus Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive)
• Philip K. Dick- A Scanner Darkly
• Dick- The Man In The High Castle
• Bruce Sterling- Islands In The Net
• Thomas Pynchon- Gravity's Rainbow
• David Brin- The Postman
• Isaac Asimov- I, Robot
• also... Stephenson- Snow Crash. Just to be thorough.

Some might argue that Gravity's Rainbow is not science fiction, being instead a turgid and pretentious turd laid by the biggest charlatan in English-language writing in the years between Joyce and Eggers. Those some are stupid people. It's fiction about science, and it kicks ass besides, so I'm fine with it. The Sterling book, by the way, is touchingly dated in its details. It was written just as computers and faxes were beginning to make speedy communication easier, and the book displays a strange-seeming reverence for and love of the fax machine.

The Federal Trade Commission just released a study which finds that approximately 96% of business-offer spams make false claims.

Two thoughts immediately leap to mind. First across the line is sorrow at the notion that the US Government needed to spend money on a study that, in the year 2003, concludes "In one way or another, a great deal of [spam] appears to contain important information that is false or deceptive."

Well, no shit.

Stumbling across the finish line in second place is an ardent desire to determine exactly which 4% of the penis enlargers, Nigerian royals, and lonely college chicks are not making false claims, thereby ensuring me a legendary future career in pornography, philanthropy, and philandering.

Everybody knows you can never be too rich, too thin, or too well-hung.

[pre-emptive update] I'd imagine Goodwife Two-Cents would like to have some input on this point, so I will forestall her most obvious objections by pointing out that a) You said it was OK last time, b) no, c) no, d) never!, e) only with your approval, and f) any money gained from Nigerian royalty would go straight to those poor exhibitionist college girls, who would then be able to afford a proper dating service, and could also perhaps buy themselves some self-respect. I love you, schmoopie.

[the above with apologies to many people, first among them, Geek Lethal.]

Not literally, but figuratively. Spending three days in the presence of Buckethead is apparently like having your brain sucked out through a straw. Maybe it was the tequila. No, it was probably driving through Connecticut twice in four days.

Worse, I am feeling EXACTLY NO urge to opine, pontificate, conjecture, or fulminate. I know what a terrible burthen I do carry, to be the sole light in the darknefs in which ye readers live. But not to worry, ye unwashed, as I wait for my hortatorial and difsertative prowefs to return from the far reaches of nowhere in particular. Perhaps I can moralize in the interim.

On occasion, our troops may pause to wonder, "Who were those guys we just killed?" To help in that query, I'm starting a new feature where my crack research staff find all the important information you need to know about America's enemies. Our first subject: the Iraqi Republican Guard

FUN FACTS ABOUT THE IRAQI REPUBLICAN GUARD:

* The Republican Guard are so well trained, that, in a one-on-one fight with U.S. ground troops, they can last into the tens of seconds.

* The Republican Guard is supported by tanks and other hardware that, according to U.S. military experts, are fun to blow up.

* The Republican Guard are dangerous if encountered by civilians. If you see a Republican Guard, do not run; this only provokes him. Instead, stand your ground and wave your arms in the air while yelling to scare him away.

* In a fight between the Republican Guard and Aquaman, the Republican Guard would win... unless Aquaman could somehow trick them into following him into the sea.

* The Republican Guard's only natural predator is the camel. It will spit in the eyes of a Republican Guard to blind him and then swallow him whole. The shark would be another natural predator… if only Aquaman were somehow able to trick the Republican Guard into following him into the sea.

* Though many Republican Guards dress up in burkas in the privacy of their own tents, that doesn't make them gay.

* The Republican Guard were a replacement for the less successful Iraqi Democrat Guard, who would try to whine and tax their enemies into submission. Eventually Saddam became too annoyed with them and had them executed.

From IMAO

This morning, I saw a man in a Hell's Angels jacket, using a walker.

A man in a very nice suit was standing outside a Starbucks with an empty cup. I put a quarter in his cup. He was sputtering when I turned the corner.

Overheard a small child pointing at some protestors and asking her mother, "What are the strange people doing?"

My mom asked me to give her a list of my favorite science fiction novels, so that she could read them. (Bless her. The only way my dad would read a science fiction novel is if I wrote it, and even then it's a toss up. (Too focused on history. Sheesh.)) So, here is the top five list I prepared for my mom:

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, by Robert Heinlein
Starship Troopers, by Robert Heinlein
Player of Games, by Iain Banks
The Stars My Destination, by Alfred Bester
Mote in God's Eye, by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
The Dosadi Experiment, by Frank Herbert
Dune, by Frank Herbert
A Fire Upon the Deep, by Vernor Vinge
A Deepness in the Sky, by Vernor Vinge
Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card
Diamond Age, by Neil Stephenson
Cryptonomicon, by Neil Stephenson
Sundiver, by David Brin
Startide Rising, by David Brin
Lest Darkness Fall, by L. Sprague de Camp
American Gods, by Neil Gaiman
Good Omens, by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
Mother of Storms, by John Barnes
Killing Star, by Charles Pellegrino and George Zebroski
Doorways in the Sand, by Roger Zelazny
The Greks Bring Gifts, by Murray Leinster
Pebble in the Sky, by Isaac Asimov
The City and the Stars, by Arthur C. Clark

There are probably a couple more, but that is the core of it. The two novels by Neil Gaiman are not strictly sf, but they are very, very good. I have never been able to narrow this list down, this is about as short as I can get it. My top five list, it is large, it contains multitudes.

[Update]

It was brought to my attention over the weekend that I had foolishly left a few deserving novels off the list:

Canticle for Liebowitz, by Walter Miller
Hyperion, by Dan Simmons
The Earth Abides, by George R. Stuart

I left Stephenson's Snow Crash off the list, despite the fact that I truly love the book, because I think the other two are better, and didn't want to load up too much on any one author.

PS, we are not luddites.

An old baseball joke: A manager says his team needs just two more players to become a pennant contender. But, he says, "The players are Ruth and Gehrig."

Iraq needs only four people to achieve post-Saddam success. Unfortunately they are George Washington, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Marshall.

Now that is a pessimistic conservative take on the possibilities in Iraq.

Our beer-soaked, all night "strategic planning" sessions will only be attended by two thirds of the ruling troika.

Light/no posting for several days. Buckethead, put the beer on ice, lock up the dog, and childproof the terlets: the Two-Centses are coming for a visit!

Apparently, this is not the first time Hitchens has had a run in with the police.

Hitchens' run-ins with the law have not been restricted to Sparta city limits. In May 2002, he was arrested for drunkenly singing 1930s union songs while driving a stolen riding lawnmower through the streets of Boston, where he was attending an international women's-rights conference. Hitchens accused police of "atavistic, morally reprehensible Stalinist scare tactics" before being bailed out by conference organizers the following morning.

Sounds like something A few people I know could do.

While Johno was right to point out that the paleo conservative segment of the right is unlikely to raise a ruckus about the Senator's comments, Lileks points out that the flipside is even more unlikely:

if anyone insists Santorum should suffer consequences for his speech, they are denying his First Amendment right to dissent! A chilling wind is blowing across America! If anyone disinvites him to an event, the black cloak of Ashcroftian Throat-Chokery has been draped across another dissenter! If you don't buy his book, Joe McCarthy cackles from his personal pit in hell!

Don't worry, Rick; Tim Robbins will be the first in line to support your right to speak your mind.

You just ad hominemed him. I just thought the quote was funny. Didn't think that the article was quite that bad - and it is a normal thing to try and analyse what the opposing camp is thinking, from your own perspective. And do you deny that there are a lot of people in the world who are just batshit crazy? I think suicide bombers would fall into that subset of humanity.

And speaking of batshit crazy, Gov. Dean was asked if the Iraqi people are better off now than they were under Saddam. He said, "We don't know that yet. We don't know that yet, Wolf. We still have a country whose city is mostly without electricity. We have tumultuous occasions in the south where there is no clear governance. We have a major city without clear governance." Aside from the tortured english, how anyone can imagine that a nation might not be better off without someone like Saddam murdering, torturing, raping and oppressing them is beyond me. It is natural that immediately after occupation, and after the removal of an odious regime, there would be disorder. However, the power is coming back on, and order is being restored. I think Dean is a little to eager to jump on the "Oh sure, we won the war, I always knew we would. But now we're screwing up the peace" bandwagon. It is simply to early to tell.

Ah, another ad hominem shouter. Racist, too. Fine. If everybody just wants to shout at each other, describe what the opposing camp thinks without consulting them, and then call them stupid, go ahead. I tried. Now I'm giving up.

Not today, because I am working on a secret project.

"Joey is aware that there are a lot of people, especially in the Arab world, who are just batshit crazy. "

- From an article by David Brooks in the Weekly Standard

is interesting. In the latter part of the article, Goldblatt talks about his comment on America being the most benevolent world power in history. Apparently, this got a lot of people exercised. I had a similar (though smaller scale) experience. On another website, the Cocula Muffin Research Kitchen, I posted a poll asking, "what is the most ruthless empire in history?" I included "American Global Hegemony as an option. As of today, it has 21% of the vote. For quite some time, that number was closer to 50. I find this rather amazing, just as Goldblatt did, and for the same reasons.

John Walker Lindh and Jose Padilla committed acts, they didn't just say stuff, and their actions certainly open the door to a possible treason charge. It's up to the prosecutors and Grand Jury whether or not they want to charge them with treason.

It can be very difficult, though, to determine when treason is an appropriate charge. The first step is an act. Then there's intent. Was the act intended to overthrow the state or give aid and comfort to enemies in time of war? It's something that has to be taken on a case by case basis. In my view, the actions of Timothy McVeigh fall under treason because they were designed to overthrow the United States government.

A treason charge is not to be administered lightly. At most, I can say that Padilla and Lindh could maybe be charged with treason on the basis of actions, and Lindh could fall under the aid and comfort category, but I don't know enough about either to say for certain.

Fair enough. Heh.

I am not going to San Francisco. Therefore I will not wear flowers in my hair.

He may have something there... An excessive concern for secrecy on the part of the church certainly kept those kid-diddlin priests in parishes, where they could continue to do harm. The bishop's concerns for the privacy of the child molesting priests led to more molested children.

Santorum represents a significant fraction of the American population, one that believes that the family is the essential foundation of a good society. They believe that many recent legislative and judicial actions act to undermine that foundation. And, there is reason to believe that they may be correct. Lack of a two-parent family has the strongest correlation to crime, teenage pregnancy, and a host of other social pathologies. The structure of welfare for the first thirty years of its existence encouraged single parent families. While I do not agree with the good senator on outlawing homosexuality, on the other hand the government should not be going out of its way to hasten the demise of the traditional family.

This is a good article. Mackubin Thomas Owens teaches at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I.

Jacob Levy over at Volokh Conspiracy has more on Rick Santorum. He links the entire Santorum interview and rightly points out that, in context, the speech is unambiguous: Santorum is saying that homosexual sex is the same, morally, as doing Lassie, your sister, or a child, that it's filthy and wrong, and that it should be outlawed. His clutch argument is that privacy rights that protect homosexuals from prosecution are also what led to the priest-sex scandals currently plaguing the Boston Archdiocese and elsewhere. Wha...?

I have a feeling that this isn't going to lose Santorum any votes in Pennsylvania, by the way. I also don't think the Republican Party is going to jeopardize its far-right constituency at all, and will stay mute on this incident.

From the interview come this priceless exchange

And if the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything. Does that undermine the fabric of our society? I would argue yes, it does. It all comes from, I would argue, this right to privacy that doesn't exist in my opinion in the United States Constitution, this right that was created, it was created in Griswold -- Griswold was the contraceptive case -- and abortion. And now we're just extending it out. And the further you extend it out, the more you -- this freedom actually intervenes and affects the family. You say, well, it's my individual freedom. Yes, but it destroys the basic unit of our society because it condones behavior that's antithetical to strong, healthy families. Whether it's polygamy, whether it's adultery, where it's sodomy, all of those things, are antithetical to a healthy, stable, traditional family.

Every society in the history of man has upheld the institution of marriage as a bond between a man and a woman. Why? Because society is based on one thing: that society is based on the future of the society. And that's what? Children. Monogamous relationships. In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That's not to pick on homosexuality. It's not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be. It is one thing. And when you destroy that you have a dramatic impact on the quality --

AP: I'm sorry, I didn't think I was going to talk about "man on dog" with a United States senator, it's sort of freaking me out.

SANTORUM: And that's sort of where we are in today's world, unfortunately. The idea is that the state doesn't have rights to limit individuals' wants and passions. I disagree with that. I think we absolutely have rights because there are consequences to letting people live out whatever wants or passions they desire. And we're seeing it in our society.

AP: Sorry, I just never expected to talk about that when I came over here to interview you. . . .

Unambiguous, disturbing, and funny to boot!! Woo HOO!!
[update] Over at Matthew Yglesias' discussion, Chris Lawrence comments: "I love a two-party system where one wants to take all my money and the other wants to make sure I don't get laid. No wonder nobody votes..."

The other day, Mavra Stark, the head of the Morris County, CA NOW branch announced, in regard to the double murder charge against Scott Peterson, "If this is murder, well, then any time a late-term fetus is aborted, they could call it murder." Later the national organization distanced itself from these comments, "out of respect for (Peterson's) family and what they're going through."

Apparently, Stark and other pro abortion figures believe that fetal homicide statutes will give anti-abortion advocates ammunition for their fight to overturn Roe v. Wade. At least 23 states have passed fetal homicide laws, all of which exempt more traditional abortion techniques.

I have a few thoughts about this.

One, in light of my earlier posts about constitutionalism, is that there is no right to abortion in the constitution. It ain't there. And given the text of the tenth amendment, that means that the power to legislate on this issue is reserved to the states, or to the people. Even many supporters of Roe agree that it is bad law. Roe is an unwarranted imposition of federal power on a matter that should be regulated by the states.

Two, the body of a "fetus" washed up on the shore. That doesn't sound right, does it? Laci Peterson and her unborn son disappeared on Christmas Eve. Two bodies are discovered months later. All Mavra Stark can think about is how this will give ammunition to her political opponents. Laci Peterson had chosen a name, Connor, for the fetus; but Stark said, "He was wanted and expected, and (Laci Peterson) had a name for him, but if he wasn't born, he wasn't born. It sets a kind of precedent," adding that the issue was "just something I've been ruminating on." This is heartless.

Three, if a baby is born prematurely, even by months, that child is "viable" and can survive with the aid of incubators and other medical technology. Connor Peterson was about as old as my unborn son John Christian when he and his mother disappeared. I know personally, as I have felt him move, that my son is not a lump of tissue. He is not something that can be disposed of on a whim, or because a baby would represent an inconvenience to someone's lifestyle. Connor Peterson would have survived if he had been delivered by c-section last Christmas Eve, so it is right that his death be the cause of a murder charge.

Johno has accused me of being a strict constructionist, and to an extent this is true. I am even somewhat of an originalist when it comes to matters constitutional. This does not mean that I think that there is no place for interpretation - the constitution is an awfully short document considering that it is the operating manual for a nation of almost 300 million people. The authors of the constitution could not have imagined every situation that would arise in the future, and they designed flexibility and even some careful ambiguity into their work.

This does not mean that the constitution is a "living document" subject to reinterpretation like Hamlet to every new generation. The constitution is not merely a text to be deconstructed, it is law, the law. When the constitution plainly states, for example, that "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people" it means that the government cannot do anything not specifically granted the power to do in the constitution. In this and in other cases, I am a strict constructionist.

Mike, it's remarkable to see you embracing life in this manner. You should put a daisy behind your ear before the feeling passes. heh.

"I'm invincible!"

"You're a loony."

Mike, Johno: Shut the hell up you stupid wankers! I'm right and you're going to hell!

As Mike sort of was pointing out, I was describing Ad Hominem discourse on the left with the welfare thingie. I could have included examples of the right doing this in regards to the Drug War, but instead just described how stupid the policy was.

Coulter is, indeed, a meatsack for advocating the murder of 3000 Muslims (now she might say Mohammedans). One of the things that I thought while watching the war on TV was this: our moral superiority was evident in the way that Iraqi forces planned their actions. They put civilians near military targets because they knew that we would not intentionally cause the deaths of innocents. They marched women and children in front of them, because they counted on our restraint. They could depend on our sense of jus in bello and attempted to use it against us. Happily, it availed them not. Despite the claims of some, the world is aware that we are not a loose cannon, cowboy nation - that we attempt to deal fairly and justly even with our enemies.

I agree with Mike (and the courts) that speaking is not treason. But what do you think about Taliban Johnny and Jose Padilla? These two are accused of doing more than protest. They, so to speak, had Saddam on their living room futon. If they are guilty, I think they should hang from the neck until dead, dead, dead.

This is my character. Disturbingly appropriate. 

Here is a site devoted to disagreeing with Ann Coulter. Apparently, the site will soon be no more, but is available at the moment. Decide for yourself if it's just more shouting or a promotion of discourse. I'm finding evidence for both.

On a related tangent to my last post, I'd like to offer a few thoughts on discourse. The way I see it, there are two ways to argue. One is through fair debate. The other is through vicious ad hominem shouting matches. I've noticed lately that the ad hominem shouting matches are becoming many people's preferred method of disagreement. May I say, here in the little corner of the world where Mr. Two-Cents and Mr. Head have graciously allowed me some semi-public statement space, that ad hominem shouting doesn't get us anywhere.

I've been watching Bill Maher's HBO television program, Real Time, regularly lately. Maher, in his new HBO format, often has intelligent guests who present well-reasoned arguments, or at least thoughtful, usually with a cross section of left, right, and center. Some of his guests, however, quickly abandon the notion of discourse and go right to the ad hominem with a psychotic glean in their eye. Recently, he had a writer named Ann Coulter on his show. In my opinion, Ms. Coulter is a strong proponent of ad hominem shouting.

Here's my thing. Ms. Coulter has advocated the murder of 3,000+ Muslims to avenge the attacks of 11 September 2001. Few people in the United States, with the exception of looney tunes wackos (thus I'm going ad hominem over discourse) would argue that there was any thing positive about those attacks. People died. For no reason. It was horrible. There's another one of those events that toss moral relativism out the window. But how in the hell can the murder of thousands more innocents improve the situation?Isn't it better if no one else dies because of that shit? I'm sure few people have taken this seriously, but it's still not a good suggestion.

Ms. Coulter is also at work on a new book arguing that people who protested the war with Iraq are traitors. That is not the case. The Supreme Court long ago determined that treason was an act, not a statement. A person has to attempt to overthrow the government or give aid and comfort to enemies in time of war to be guilty of treason. I believed the war was unjustified, and I said so, publicly. A tiny little statement of protest. It doesn't mean I'm a traitor. If Hussein was sleeping on the futon in my living room and I harbored him, then it can go to court.

But back to my original point. On Maher's show, Coulter stated, to paraphrase, that liberals (current American sense) are a bunch of whiners. In one of her books, Coulter argued that liberals tell lies about conservatives and that liberals suck. Well, we all let our passions and beliefs get the better of us and we engage in this sort of ad hominem shouting match strategy. I've done it. Two paragraphs ago. But to offer a bit of unsolicited constructive criticism, Buckethead did it in writing that, "When Congress passed the welfare reform act back in 96, the left was having fits of apoplexy, crying and whining that we would have children starving to death because of the callousness and heartlessness of Republicans." He simultaneously pointed out that the left (though I will state that this is a very broad stroke, as I am okay with welfare reform since it is supposed to provide assistance and then get people back on their feet and working) was engaging in the same sort of ad hominem shouting. One more clarification, those members of the left who said what Buckethead correctly said they said, were some members of America's left-of-center aggregate. Not the whole goup. One more more clarification, to be fair, Buckethead was probably doing so for the sake of brevity.

But back to the main point, one of my professors at Duquesne, where I got my MA, argued that in a two party system, the parties are often defined by their opposition to each other. Shouting matches become the primary method of disagreement. That's where we are in America. We're just screaming at each other. "You're stupid!" one side says. "You're stupider!" insists the other side. "Oh yeah, well you're stupiderer!" responds the first. That needs to change. No good can come of it. Buckethead, you make good points about welfare reform and social security. Those programs need to be reconfigured to work better. Let me offer an apology for those times I engaged in the ad hominem shouting method. That was wrong.

Many thanks to my friend Tim Lacy, who with a very brief statement helped me fine tune this thought that's been running around my head.

Rick Santorum's comments viz-a-viz the Texas sodomy laws are at best misguided. But, as my blog-mates have indicated, it does open a question of the legislation of morality. I raised this during part of my lecture this evening, which covered reform movements in the U.S. in the 1820s and 1830s. Now, I think that broad issues of moral relativism went out with the Holocaust, despite postmodernist attempts to argue in favor of it. As I told my students, there are some issues of morality present in every culture. No matter who you talk to, killing someone in cold blood is immoral. 

The problem comes with moral issues upon which we cannot agree. For Santorum, and many others, homosexual relations are immoral practices. For others, it makes no nevermind. I believe that homosexual relations between two (or more) consenting adults pose no moral problems whatever. It's perfectly fine for two consenting adults to have whatever kind of sex they like. It's none of my business. Santorum, however, believes it's an erosion of what he calls family values. So the question is, does the government have a right to legislate morality on behalf of the people they represent?

The response is equally problematic. In some cases yes, in some cases no. As Buckethead argued well, the government legislates morality by prohibiting theft and murder. These things are bad. Case closed. But what about sexual behavior? Well, provided it is between the two or more aforementioned consenting adults and no one gets hurt, the government has no basis to step in. The government, as our elected representatives, can legislate to keep people from hurting one another. That's part of the social contract and leaving the state of nature, allowing the government to protect our lives, liberty, and property by sacrificing our ability to bash each other's skulls in for shits and giggles. But if two guys, or two women, want to get each other off, then what's the harm? This is where our republic does not need government intervention. 

Santorum doesn't see it that way. He believes that the government should promote his vision of morality, upon which everyone does not agree. The recourse against people like Santorum, as Buckethead would point out, is to vote against him or those who also try to legislate morality that doesn't fall under the we're all for it category. I could also write to him and tell him I disagree, but that's less effective than casting a vote for other representatives who think that the government does not need to uphold laws against homosexual intercourse. 

All that being said, I think we just need to keep talking, and permit the legislation of morality when it pertains to matters of don't kill, steal, or key someone's car just because they parked in front of your house. Other than that, we need to figure out what's a sheer judgement call and what isn't. That happens through discourse. I realize that I'm being uncharacteristically optimistic about all this. These things happen

There have been some articles floating around lately announcing that the French are in serious trouble. (Loyal reader #00008, Aziz Poonawalla has a list of them here.) Some of this may be wish fulfillment, seeing as how we all want the perfidious French to suffer for their weasely backstabbing. But there are some indications that the French do have some serious problems.

However, all of that segues into the other thing I wanted to write, about the upcoming EU constitution. So it will all wait for tomorrow, because I have to go to an Red Cross Infant First Aid and CPR class. Ciao til tomorra.

Ah Love! could you and I with Him conspire
To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,
Would not we shatter it to bits---and then
Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire!

Gotta love Omar.

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it