This story from Venezuela is really sad. The article claims that about 150 people have been murdered as they try to cultivate land as directed by peoples Hero Hugo Chavez. So, they are out in the hot sun cultivating land, and a mercenary army comes up and shoots them. This story is supposed to show that the free market doesn't work and that we need a powerful dictator to save us.
The guy cultivating the land doesn't actually have title to the land. He was just out their bravely cultivating it. Apparently Venezuelan peasants are being encouraged to go out and cultivate fallow land in an effort to elimate poverty; So, people are running around cultivating land. The article says people are finding little pieces of state parks or private land that is fallow and going for it.
The article implies that landlords are doing the killing. Since this sounds like a free for all land grab. I wouldn't be surprised if a few of the peasants themselves are killing people who've grabbed the land that they want to grab. The murderers might even be drug lords or criminal elements who demand protection money for the people out cultivating fields.
The article states the opinion that the existence of undeveloped resources is a market failure. I find that odd, In the developed world, there is often a concerted effort to keep large sections of land undeveloped. People value nature. In a free market where people are able to use their resources as they deem fit, we find a large number of people buying easements and donating land to trusts like The Nature Conservancy. This donating an easement for nature conservancy is one of the sublime exercises of the free market.
It is elitist as all get out...but that elderly couple donating an easement on their land for openspace is, in my elitist opinion, and act of great beauty. On this little warming globe of ours, fallow land should be considered a good thing.
As an elitist prig, I also happen to love small organic farms. Yeah, I am willing to pay an extra 20 cents a pound for apples with spots. I go to the farmers market so taht the evil grocery stores get fewer of my consumer dollars.
I love small organic farms, but it seems to me that for small organic farms to do their magic of preserving the land, the small organic farmer needs to have title to the land. This thing where you cultivate land but don't own it leads to the tragedy of the commons. Since the equity of the land is not part of the equation, the people playing this land grab are less likely to do the things needed for long term sustainability.
It sounds to me like Venezuela has big problems with the distribution of capital. The land is tied up by just a few concerns that were good at grabbing the land in the past. I don't think Venezuela is going to solve its problems of past land grabbing with a new wave of land grabbing. In such systems, the person who is best at killing takes all. I think Hernando de Soto was on a better track with The Mystery of Capital. In this work, de Soto puts forward the thesis that it is in creating a process where people have clear title to land that they thrive.
I feel so bad for Jesus Guerrero who followed his bubbling populist leader's command and went forth to cultivate land. I am even sadder thinking that Senor Guerrero died on land that he did not own, nor would he ever end up owning in the peoples paradise of Venezuela.
Friday, January 19, 2007
Presidential Authority
Two interesting pieces of news. The peoples' number one enemy George W. Bush is being forced to back down from his surveillance program, while the Venezuelan legislature grants progressive hero Hugo Chevaz approval to rule by decree.
Don't worry. The fact that progressives are attacking Bush for wanting to rule by decree during a war, and progressives granting rule by decree to Chavez is not hypocracy. Since progressives have no beliefs beyond the single object of grabbing absolute power, they are incapable of hypocracy. In the material dialectic, words are weapons. Progressives are just using the same weapon in different ways in two different countries at the same time. Unfortunately, since progressives pretty much deny all of the underlying foundations of reason, it is impossible to talk about Chavez. We can, however, talk about Bush.
Quite frankly, I think Bush has completely mishandled the wire tapping issue. For some bizarre reason, Bush wants to relive the Watergate era. After Watergate, Congress demanded that a court be part of any wiretapping or surveylance program. This fits in quite well with the separation of powers mandated by the US Constitution. For some unfathomable reason, Bush has this weird notion that he can use the war in Iraq to cut the courts out of the process. His idea is that wiretapping should be done solely on the executive authority.
Bush is essentially playing a suicidal game of chicken with the courts and hoping to use the war to justify a questionable change in procedure.
On this issue, I have to concede that the stuff the Bush administration is doing is stuff that actually has to be done.
The driving problem behind the wiretapping issue is that changes in technology have made the old wiretapping methods obsolete. The wiretapping laws were established for analog communications in a day when there was a telecommunications monopoly. Analog telecommunications worked by creating a direct connection between two callers. Since it was relatively easy to identify a call, you could have a system where you gave a warrant to listen to a conversation from a particular group, and you could very easily indentify the connection and listen to the call by tapping the wire. (Hence the name wiretapping).
In the digital age, everything is packetized and often encrypted. There are thousands of more switches in play. Steams of data can change from switch to switch.
The other problem is that computers have made it childplay to hide messages inside other messages. For example, I could be varying the spaces between words in this brainfart blogpost to communicate to my terrorist cell to issue my diabolical commands. muuahaha!
Ooops, I didn't mean to mention my plans to take over the world in public.
Because everything is packetized, encrypted and mixed together, you can't just wire tap by tapping a wire. If you tap the fiber optic wire between here and Iran, you won't just get a series of discreet communications separated by frequency. You will get a whole jumble of data packets.
To reassemble the packets, you have to read the headers of every packet on the line. That is just the way that routing works. In many cases you have to look at the content of the packet to figure out what it is.
Since we can't just tap a wire, the best way to handle the problem is to write everything to a massive data warehouse then set down to reassemble communications, so that you can identify the ones that came from the people you have warrants to watch.
The idea of storing the data is somewhat problematic for the original thinking on privacy. Even if the intention is just to reassemble the data streams belonging to people identified in warrants, the method captures data from innocent third parties.
I have less problem with the storing data since technologies like email work by storing then moving data. IMHO, the CIA's effort to grab all data from foreign sources isn't the problem, the problem is on what they choose to listen too. The controls need to be on the process of turning raw data into information.
In my opinion, the way to handle this is to separate the snooping processing into two legal processes and three technical processes. The first legal process would indentify who we want to watch. In the case of war, the brush may be broad. We are intested in any Al Qaeda and Hezbollah communications to the US. The first technical process would simply concern gathering the data. The second technical process would analyze the data to isolate communications for the groups we are watching. This second group would pretty much have free reign on opening files to see what is in them. The second legal process would sit between this analytic team and the snoops to make sure the snoops only get the stuff warranted and that the data analysis team deletes the neutral stuff.
I think Bush is on the wrong track. He wants the folks using the information to have full control over gathering analyzing it with no court supervision.
On the political end, Bush's insistence on rehashing Watergate has been horrible for his party. Since Reagan, the Republican Party has been a mix between classical liberals and conservatives. The privacy issue is very important to the classical liberal. Groups like Cato are in a lather over the privacy issues. Bush and the Neoconservatives have systematically been driving the classical liberals out of the Republican Party, leaving them trapped between two extremes.
Progressives love the wiretapping issue. It is dividing their enemy. When progressives grab power, they will be able to use all of the bad precedences set by Bush to help them establish a Chavez style totalitarian regime in the US.
Don't worry. The fact that progressives are attacking Bush for wanting to rule by decree during a war, and progressives granting rule by decree to Chavez is not hypocracy. Since progressives have no beliefs beyond the single object of grabbing absolute power, they are incapable of hypocracy. In the material dialectic, words are weapons. Progressives are just using the same weapon in different ways in two different countries at the same time. Unfortunately, since progressives pretty much deny all of the underlying foundations of reason, it is impossible to talk about Chavez. We can, however, talk about Bush.
Quite frankly, I think Bush has completely mishandled the wire tapping issue. For some bizarre reason, Bush wants to relive the Watergate era. After Watergate, Congress demanded that a court be part of any wiretapping or surveylance program. This fits in quite well with the separation of powers mandated by the US Constitution. For some unfathomable reason, Bush has this weird notion that he can use the war in Iraq to cut the courts out of the process. His idea is that wiretapping should be done solely on the executive authority.
Bush is essentially playing a suicidal game of chicken with the courts and hoping to use the war to justify a questionable change in procedure.
On this issue, I have to concede that the stuff the Bush administration is doing is stuff that actually has to be done.
The driving problem behind the wiretapping issue is that changes in technology have made the old wiretapping methods obsolete. The wiretapping laws were established for analog communications in a day when there was a telecommunications monopoly. Analog telecommunications worked by creating a direct connection between two callers. Since it was relatively easy to identify a call, you could have a system where you gave a warrant to listen to a conversation from a particular group, and you could very easily indentify the connection and listen to the call by tapping the wire. (Hence the name wiretapping).
In the digital age, everything is packetized and often encrypted. There are thousands of more switches in play. Steams of data can change from switch to switch.
The other problem is that computers have made it childplay to hide messages inside other messages. For example, I could be varying the spaces between words in this brainfart blogpost to communicate to my terrorist cell to issue my diabolical commands. muuahaha!
Ooops, I didn't mean to mention my plans to take over the world in public.
Because everything is packetized, encrypted and mixed together, you can't just wire tap by tapping a wire. If you tap the fiber optic wire between here and Iran, you won't just get a series of discreet communications separated by frequency. You will get a whole jumble of data packets.
To reassemble the packets, you have to read the headers of every packet on the line. That is just the way that routing works. In many cases you have to look at the content of the packet to figure out what it is.
Since we can't just tap a wire, the best way to handle the problem is to write everything to a massive data warehouse then set down to reassemble communications, so that you can identify the ones that came from the people you have warrants to watch.
The idea of storing the data is somewhat problematic for the original thinking on privacy. Even if the intention is just to reassemble the data streams belonging to people identified in warrants, the method captures data from innocent third parties.
I have less problem with the storing data since technologies like email work by storing then moving data. IMHO, the CIA's effort to grab all data from foreign sources isn't the problem, the problem is on what they choose to listen too. The controls need to be on the process of turning raw data into information.
In my opinion, the way to handle this is to separate the snooping processing into two legal processes and three technical processes. The first legal process would indentify who we want to watch. In the case of war, the brush may be broad. We are intested in any Al Qaeda and Hezbollah communications to the US. The first technical process would simply concern gathering the data. The second technical process would analyze the data to isolate communications for the groups we are watching. This second group would pretty much have free reign on opening files to see what is in them. The second legal process would sit between this analytic team and the snoops to make sure the snoops only get the stuff warranted and that the data analysis team deletes the neutral stuff.
I think Bush is on the wrong track. He wants the folks using the information to have full control over gathering analyzing it with no court supervision.
On the political end, Bush's insistence on rehashing Watergate has been horrible for his party. Since Reagan, the Republican Party has been a mix between classical liberals and conservatives. The privacy issue is very important to the classical liberal. Groups like Cato are in a lather over the privacy issues. Bush and the Neoconservatives have systematically been driving the classical liberals out of the Republican Party, leaving them trapped between two extremes.
Progressives love the wiretapping issue. It is dividing their enemy. When progressives grab power, they will be able to use all of the bad precedences set by Bush to help them establish a Chavez style totalitarian regime in the US.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
The Disease of Free Thought
This is spiffy: A left leaning professor has just figured out that the people who do not respond in the politically correct fashion to the brainwashing techniques used by the left have a mental disorder. That's right. It is now a scientific fact that conservatism is a disease! IronShrink.com examines this exciting new finding.
A Time For Debate
The United States needs to be able to debate the war. The Founders of the United States put the power to declare war in the hands of the legislature (not the president). The founders realized that a legislature cannot conduct war. However, I suspect that they wanted a structure that gave the legislature a great deal of control over the shape of the war.
It seems to me that the best way to structure a war effort that allows debate and input by the legislation with unified control of the executive would be to adopt a strategy similar to the interative design methodology used in agile programming and other computer architectural paradigms. The iterative method goes through cycles. The methodology has very distinct steps. You go through a stage of taking requirements, planning, design and implementation, the evaluation which brings the world back to the planning and design phase.
When you are in a planning and design phase, there would be a great deal of debate and input from the legislature. When in the implementation phase, the legislature needs to shut up and the executive put up. One's behavior in such an environment is driven by the stage of the process.
The founders gave the United States something similar to this iterative design methodology. The general election are a period when the government is going through the evaluation process and takes requirements from the people. The legislative session is a period where the legislature works with the executive on design. We then go through a period of implementation. This happens within the regular election cycle.
The start of this legislative session should have been a time for debate about the directions that we would take with the Mideast crisis over the next two years. I think Bush was brilliant for coming into the session with a proposal for a troop increase. However, since he presented it as a done deal that was beyond debate, he stifled the design process. By stifling the design debate, the Congress was left with no option except partisan bickering and posturing.
In software design, you often see projects failing because people behave inapropriately at the wrong times in the design cycle.
The 2006 elections showed that there was a mandate by the people for a re-evulation and new design for our engagement in Iraq. Bush was brilliant to put a troop surge on the table. However, since he presented the troop surge as a done deal and not as a proposal, he effectively destroyed the mandated and much needed cycle of debate.
If we were having a politically healthy go at our engagement in the middle east, we would be engaged in a healthy debate about how to accomplish the goals of peace, freedom and democracy in the middle east. Instead we have a president taking a last ditch gamble on a troop surge, while his opponents (both at home and abroad) grumble at being left out of the process.
Putting it another way. Context is important. A healthy political system will go through incremental design process. Whether or not a argument is helpful or counter productive depends on where you are in the cycle. When in the evaluation period, there should be wild ideas flying from every quarter. In the planning process you trim down to the ideas that you want to work on (the debate narrows). During implementation people should shut up, until you are ready to enter the evaluation state again.
Eventhough I agree with Bush's actions. The start of the legislative session was a time of debate. The debate mandated by the people was stifled. This is sad because we had good quality ideas coming from unsuspected quarters like Hilary Clinton's criticism that the troop surge was diverting needed resources from Afghanistan, where we are receiving cooperation.
When evaluating arguments, you must consider context. A statement that is constructive in the design phase may be destructive in the implementation phase. Conversely, arguments or actions that are apropriate during implementation are not apropriate during design. A nasty way to destroy discourse is simply to put forward good arguments at the wrong time.
It seems to me that the best way to structure a war effort that allows debate and input by the legislation with unified control of the executive would be to adopt a strategy similar to the interative design methodology used in agile programming and other computer architectural paradigms. The iterative method goes through cycles. The methodology has very distinct steps. You go through a stage of taking requirements, planning, design and implementation, the evaluation which brings the world back to the planning and design phase.
When you are in a planning and design phase, there would be a great deal of debate and input from the legislature. When in the implementation phase, the legislature needs to shut up and the executive put up. One's behavior in such an environment is driven by the stage of the process.
The founders gave the United States something similar to this iterative design methodology. The general election are a period when the government is going through the evaluation process and takes requirements from the people. The legislative session is a period where the legislature works with the executive on design. We then go through a period of implementation. This happens within the regular election cycle.
The start of this legislative session should have been a time for debate about the directions that we would take with the Mideast crisis over the next two years. I think Bush was brilliant for coming into the session with a proposal for a troop increase. However, since he presented it as a done deal that was beyond debate, he stifled the design process. By stifling the design debate, the Congress was left with no option except partisan bickering and posturing.
In software design, you often see projects failing because people behave inapropriately at the wrong times in the design cycle.
The 2006 elections showed that there was a mandate by the people for a re-evulation and new design for our engagement in Iraq. Bush was brilliant to put a troop surge on the table. However, since he presented the troop surge as a done deal and not as a proposal, he effectively destroyed the mandated and much needed cycle of debate.
If we were having a politically healthy go at our engagement in the middle east, we would be engaged in a healthy debate about how to accomplish the goals of peace, freedom and democracy in the middle east. Instead we have a president taking a last ditch gamble on a troop surge, while his opponents (both at home and abroad) grumble at being left out of the process.
Putting it another way. Context is important. A healthy political system will go through incremental design process. Whether or not a argument is helpful or counter productive depends on where you are in the cycle. When in the evaluation period, there should be wild ideas flying from every quarter. In the planning process you trim down to the ideas that you want to work on (the debate narrows). During implementation people should shut up, until you are ready to enter the evaluation state again.
Eventhough I agree with Bush's actions. The start of the legislative session was a time of debate. The debate mandated by the people was stifled. This is sad because we had good quality ideas coming from unsuspected quarters like Hilary Clinton's criticism that the troop surge was diverting needed resources from Afghanistan, where we are receiving cooperation.
When evaluating arguments, you must consider context. A statement that is constructive in the design phase may be destructive in the implementation phase. Conversely, arguments or actions that are apropriate during implementation are not apropriate during design. A nasty way to destroy discourse is simply to put forward good arguments at the wrong time.
The Deseret Spectacle: NRA Cartoon
This is kind of funny. The Deseret Spectacle still believes that the ACLU goal is to defend civil liberties. The ACLU's goal is to define civil rights within a secular progressive agenda. Libertarians and ACLU goals sometimes mesh up as the Libertarian Party notes, and sometimes diverges.
An interview on Reason finds that the ACLU is for gun control, and only interested in the parts or interpretations of the Constitution that align with its agenda. The ACLU often uses groups that it disagrees with when it argues cases. They have a long history of agreeing with groups that are a tad scary.
The fact that a civil rights group has an agenda isn't really bad; so long as the group is not taken as the group that defines civil rights. There are other civil rights organizations such as the Rutherford Institute that supports the rights of the people outside the ACLU agenda.
Anyway, The Deseret Spectacle thinks it amusing that the NRA is diminishing now that gun control is not a major agenda of the Democratic Party. I am not a fan at all of the NRA (I don't like to associate with unpopular groups). However, the fact that the group is diminishing shows that it NRA is an authentic organization that was interested in defending gun owner's rights and not a hidden agenda. The cartoon shows the NRA as just a bunch of thugs. That is just media bias.
It is a little bit strange that the cartoon shows the NRA as big thugs attacking the poor little Democratic donkey, when it seems to me that gun control legislation was actually the case of a powerful political organization trying to take away the rights of gun owners.
An interview on Reason finds that the ACLU is for gun control, and only interested in the parts or interpretations of the Constitution that align with its agenda. The ACLU often uses groups that it disagrees with when it argues cases. They have a long history of agreeing with groups that are a tad scary.
The fact that a civil rights group has an agenda isn't really bad; so long as the group is not taken as the group that defines civil rights. There are other civil rights organizations such as the Rutherford Institute that supports the rights of the people outside the ACLU agenda.
Anyway, The Deseret Spectacle thinks it amusing that the NRA is diminishing now that gun control is not a major agenda of the Democratic Party. I am not a fan at all of the NRA (I don't like to associate with unpopular groups). However, the fact that the group is diminishing shows that it NRA is an authentic organization that was interested in defending gun owner's rights and not a hidden agenda. The cartoon shows the NRA as just a bunch of thugs. That is just media bias.
It is a little bit strange that the cartoon shows the NRA as big thugs attacking the poor little Democratic donkey, when it seems to me that gun control legislation was actually the case of a powerful political organization trying to take away the rights of gun owners.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
HRC, and Bayh Comments on Afghanistan
I spend too much time pointing out bad arguments on the net. All the kneejerk articles that labeled Bush's call for increasing troops and "escalation of war" were just propaganda pieces aimed at increasing division.
I saw part of Hillary Rodham Clinton's comments on the issue. Her arguments were very well reasoned. She countered Bush's demands for increasing troops in Iraq with the argument that Afghanistan is at greater risk. These statements follow a fact finding mission to the midest. This is the type of quality discourse that we need if we are ever to untangle the mess that the last years of political division have created.
I saw part of Hillary Rodham Clinton's comments on the issue. Her arguments were very well reasoned. She countered Bush's demands for increasing troops in Iraq with the argument that Afghanistan is at greater risk. These statements follow a fact finding mission to the midest. This is the type of quality discourse that we need if we are ever to untangle the mess that the last years of political division have created.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Utah Centralist: Another DUI tragedy....
In the article Another DUI tragedy.... UtahCentralist slammed "extreme libertarians" for their stance against drunk driving laws with the quote:
Few of the libertarians I know would argue in favor of drunk drivers. Unfortately, there appear to be some wanks like Llewellyn Rockfeller, Jr. who do want to Legalize Drunk Driving. Poor Von Mises must be rolling in his grave.
It appears that Mr. Rockefellers mind fart style argument was written in response to new laws that were forced by the federal government to define intoxication at extremely low blood alcohol levels (0.08 percent). The laws also promised to put up road blocks hither, thither and yon to check people's blood alcohol level. His argument was that the new tough laws were aimed at the wrong issue:
The current laws are not addressing the problems of poor driving by distracted drivers. The laws are driven by moral judgments on drinking. Cyclists know that cellphone users are as bad as drunks.
As I understand, libertarians do not want to see the road full of drunks. They are questioning the methods to acheive safer roads. They think the best way to clear the road of bad drivers is tough civil lawsuits and criminal punishment for the havoc that such drivers wreak. Rockefeller would want the drunk driver who kills others to be punished for the "murder" and not for a substance in his body. Here is Rockefeller's quote: "it is perverse to punish a murderer not because of his crime but because of some biological consideration."
The first big hole in Rockefeller's argument is that killing a person in an accident is manslaughter and not murder. Murder involves malice aforethought. Drunk driving fatalities are the result negligence and lack of thought. The second is that the damages of the accident generally get picked up by insurance.
The biggest hole in Rockefeller's argument is that the act of neglect associated with drunk driving occurs when the drunk gets behind the wheel with impaired judgment.
Quite frankly, I think most libertarians (at least of the classical liberal variety) agree with the current structure that sees driving as a privilege. DUI is cause to revoke that privilege.
When a person intentionally sits down and plans a night out of drinking (followed by driving), or when people plan an umpteen hour marathon drive, they are being negligent. The police are within their duty to challenge such negligence. Driving a vehicle is a privilege and not a right.
There are, of course, issues about how aggressively the police should pursue DUI. Llewelyn Rockefeller was writing in response to legislation by Clinton which was overriding state laws and forcing us ever closer to a nanny state. It seems to me that the correct context of Rockefeller's argument was to juxtapose one extreme with another.
I agree for the most part with the libertarian sentiment. The nanny state tends to get out of hand. Rather than depending on the state to protect us, we should focus our efforts on promoting individual responsibility.
Speaking of individual responsibility. The drunk driving incident that started UtahCentralist on his rant involved an undocumented alien who did not have a driving license. So that rant was pretty much a moot point. A person with zero respect for immigration law is not going to be all that big on thinking that driving is a privilege.
There are some out there, mainly extreme libertarians and road warriors who say that drunk driving laws out to be abolished. They say that if someone is driving impaired they should only be ticketed for what they did wrong and that they should not be prosecuted for drunk driving because its in their rights to drink.
Few of the libertarians I know would argue in favor of drunk drivers. Unfortately, there appear to be some wanks like Llewellyn Rockfeller, Jr. who do want to Legalize Drunk Driving. Poor Von Mises must be rolling in his grave.
It appears that Mr. Rockefellers mind fart style argument was written in response to new laws that were forced by the federal government to define intoxication at extremely low blood alcohol levels (0.08 percent). The laws also promised to put up road blocks hither, thither and yon to check people's blood alcohol level. His argument was that the new tough laws were aimed at the wrong issue:
But there's a more fundamental point. What precisely is being criminalized? Not bad driving. Not destruction of property. Not the taking of human life or reckless endangerment. The crime is having the wrong substance in your blood.
The current laws are not addressing the problems of poor driving by distracted drivers. The laws are driven by moral judgments on drinking. Cyclists know that cellphone users are as bad as drunks.
[[ Thump ]]
ooopsie, I think I just hit a bike ... and you were saying ...
As I understand, libertarians do not want to see the road full of drunks. They are questioning the methods to acheive safer roads. They think the best way to clear the road of bad drivers is tough civil lawsuits and criminal punishment for the havoc that such drivers wreak. Rockefeller would want the drunk driver who kills others to be punished for the "murder" and not for a substance in his body. Here is Rockefeller's quote: "it is perverse to punish a murderer not because of his crime but because of some biological consideration."
The first big hole in Rockefeller's argument is that killing a person in an accident is manslaughter and not murder. Murder involves malice aforethought. Drunk driving fatalities are the result negligence and lack of thought. The second is that the damages of the accident generally get picked up by insurance.
The biggest hole in Rockefeller's argument is that the act of neglect associated with drunk driving occurs when the drunk gets behind the wheel with impaired judgment.
Quite frankly, I think most libertarians (at least of the classical liberal variety) agree with the current structure that sees driving as a privilege. DUI is cause to revoke that privilege.
When a person intentionally sits down and plans a night out of drinking (followed by driving), or when people plan an umpteen hour marathon drive, they are being negligent. The police are within their duty to challenge such negligence. Driving a vehicle is a privilege and not a right.
There are, of course, issues about how aggressively the police should pursue DUI. Llewelyn Rockefeller was writing in response to legislation by Clinton which was overriding state laws and forcing us ever closer to a nanny state. It seems to me that the correct context of Rockefeller's argument was to juxtapose one extreme with another.
I agree for the most part with the libertarian sentiment. The nanny state tends to get out of hand. Rather than depending on the state to protect us, we should focus our efforts on promoting individual responsibility.
Speaking of individual responsibility. The drunk driving incident that started UtahCentralist on his rant involved an undocumented alien who did not have a driving license. So that rant was pretty much a moot point. A person with zero respect for immigration law is not going to be all that big on thinking that driving is a privilege.
Monday, January 15, 2007
Merry MLK Day
Ooops, my mind was thinking it was Sunday.
I hope everyone is having and or had a happy Martin Luther King Day.
My mind is running off track because I've been thinking about those things which cause division in our society. In previous posts, I pointed out that you can structure holidays and temples in ways that are divisive. This type of game gets played on both sides of the "culture war". It is even possible for culture warriors to make days that we all love (like Christmas) divisive.
On of the challenges in life is to resist people who want to divide and conquer. King saw the divide and conquer mantiality as a force that leads to chaos, not community.
Martin Luther King played an important role in the debate about division in our society. There were some who had studied revolutionary theory and who wanted to see the civil rights movement be more violent than it was. Some wanted it to be part of larger social revolutions. Martin Luther King resisted the violence and escalation. Instead he focused on the aim of eliminating blatant wrongs within our society.
The social challenges of today really are not as deep as the racial divide that had existed in the deep South (and throughout all America) in the bad-old-days of Jim Crow. I hope people reflecting on MLK realize that real progress gets made when we find ways to solve problems. We only achieve regress when we divide people off into us-v-them encampments.
To conclude this MLK day, I wish everyone well. If there happens be a group you dislike, think positive thoughts about that group. If there is an issue you see that is oppressing people, think of positive ways to remove the oppression, but do not hate the oppressor.
I hope everyone is having and or had a happy Martin Luther King Day.
My mind is running off track because I've been thinking about those things which cause division in our society. In previous posts, I pointed out that you can structure holidays and temples in ways that are divisive. This type of game gets played on both sides of the "culture war". It is even possible for culture warriors to make days that we all love (like Christmas) divisive.
On of the challenges in life is to resist people who want to divide and conquer. King saw the divide and conquer mantiality as a force that leads to chaos, not community.
Martin Luther King played an important role in the debate about division in our society. There were some who had studied revolutionary theory and who wanted to see the civil rights movement be more violent than it was. Some wanted it to be part of larger social revolutions. Martin Luther King resisted the violence and escalation. Instead he focused on the aim of eliminating blatant wrongs within our society.
The social challenges of today really are not as deep as the racial divide that had existed in the deep South (and throughout all America) in the bad-old-days of Jim Crow. I hope people reflecting on MLK realize that real progress gets made when we find ways to solve problems. We only achieve regress when we divide people off into us-v-them encampments.
To conclude this MLK day, I wish everyone well. If there happens be a group you dislike, think positive thoughts about that group. If there is an issue you see that is oppressing people, think of positive ways to remove the oppression, but do not hate the oppressor.
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Political Blunder
In the post titled escalation, I countered the rhetoric that the proposed troop surge is an escalation of the Iraq conflict. It may be an escalation. It may also be, as Bush seems to be claiming, an effort to solidfy gains that we had made during the war; so that we can transfer control to Iraqi forces without creating a power. The point of my post is that we do not know at this moment, which is a great frustration.
On listening to Conservative commentators on the troop surge. My gut instinct is telling me that the in-your-face style announcement made by Bush has the military beginning a good strategic move with a big political blunder. Things would be so much better if Bush had spent a week or so during the opening of the political season to build consensus for the troop surge.
Peace is an illusive goal. One of the primary keys to achieving peace is consensus. An announcement that lacks consensus runs the risk of making American troops the target. Yes, a troop surge could help solidify gains to help us ease into a draw down. If, however, the opposition escalates their activity in response to the surge, it will become the divisive escalation that Democrats fear. The timing of the announcement was so off, that our enemies have a better chance of turning a good strategy into a blunder.
On listening to Conservative commentators on the troop surge. My gut instinct is telling me that the in-your-face style announcement made by Bush has the military beginning a good strategic move with a big political blunder. Things would be so much better if Bush had spent a week or so during the opening of the political season to build consensus for the troop surge.
Peace is an illusive goal. One of the primary keys to achieving peace is consensus. An announcement that lacks consensus runs the risk of making American troops the target. Yes, a troop surge could help solidify gains to help us ease into a draw down. If, however, the opposition escalates their activity in response to the surge, it will become the divisive escalation that Democrats fear. The timing of the announcement was so off, that our enemies have a better chance of turning a good strategy into a blunder.
Divine Blunder
In my last post, I countered Paul Kurtz's supposition that science has an agenda! Science is a method of inquiry. Scientists may have agendas, science itself does not.
On this note, I thought I would look at a stupidity called Divine Strake. In this program the Defense Threat Reduction Agency will detonate 700 tons of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil (equivalent to 593 tons of TNT) in the Nevada Test Range. The purpose of the test is to gather data for computer models on bunker busting technology. This will be a big test to gather data for computer models. I suspect that the experiment will gather some interesting data on the propagation of seismic waves through the earth that could be used for fundamental research.
Opponents to Divine Strake contend that this experiment will kick up all sorts of radioactive and toxic dust left from the nuclear tests of yesteryear. This dust will fall on downwinder locations like Saint George, Utah and Moab.
So, we have a scientific agency that wants to do a big test to gather fundamental data, and a group of downwinders who've been irradiated in the past and found that they did not care for the experience. Add this a political structure divided between secular progressives and right wing kooks.
What does Paul Kurtz's mythical scientific agenda tell us? Should we proceded with the test or nix it?
I reject the idea that science has an agenda. Scientists can show us the risk and rewards of proceding with the experiment. Whether or not we proceed with the experiment is a political one.
Personally, I think DTRA has created for itself a public relations nightmare. Whoever named this thing Divine Strake should be canned. I think the data gleened from this experiment is probably not worth the risk and the political divisions being caused by the experiment.
On this note, I thought I would look at a stupidity called Divine Strake. In this program the Defense Threat Reduction Agency will detonate 700 tons of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil (equivalent to 593 tons of TNT) in the Nevada Test Range. The purpose of the test is to gather data for computer models on bunker busting technology. This will be a big test to gather data for computer models. I suspect that the experiment will gather some interesting data on the propagation of seismic waves through the earth that could be used for fundamental research.
Opponents to Divine Strake contend that this experiment will kick up all sorts of radioactive and toxic dust left from the nuclear tests of yesteryear. This dust will fall on downwinder locations like Saint George, Utah and Moab.
So, we have a scientific agency that wants to do a big test to gather fundamental data, and a group of downwinders who've been irradiated in the past and found that they did not care for the experience. Add this a political structure divided between secular progressives and right wing kooks.
What does Paul Kurtz's mythical scientific agenda tell us? Should we proceded with the test or nix it?
I reject the idea that science has an agenda. Scientists can show us the risk and rewards of proceding with the experiment. Whether or not we proceed with the experiment is a political one.
Personally, I think DTRA has created for itself a public relations nightmare. Whoever named this thing Divine Strake should be canned. I think the data gleened from this experiment is probably not worth the risk and the political divisions being caused by the experiment.
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