Tuesday, December 16, 2003
Our Man in Pakistan
Musharraf murder bid shows flaw in war on terror
In case you hadn't heard, while our troops were not trying to kill dictator Saddam Hussein this weekend, insurgents in Pakistan were attempting to kill dictator Pervez Musharraf. A bomb was planted under a bridge over which the President/General/Divinely-Ordained-Savior was scheduled to travel, but did not detonate until he was safely over the bridge. Although Musharraf was not hurt, the attempt underscores the importance of building real relationships with strategic countries like Pakistan instead of relying on our friendships with their current leaders. Musharraf represented a minority in his country in supporting U.S. efforts to capture the terrorists responsible for the 9/11 attacks. So long as we're depending on Musharraf to keep peace in the region and be a voice for our interests, we're likely to be in trouble.
(link via Hit & Run)
||Link || |
Musharraf murder bid shows flaw in war on terror
In case you hadn't heard, while our troops were not trying to kill dictator Saddam Hussein this weekend, insurgents in Pakistan were attempting to kill dictator Pervez Musharraf. A bomb was planted under a bridge over which the President/General/Divinely-Ordained-Savior was scheduled to travel, but did not detonate until he was safely over the bridge. Although Musharraf was not hurt, the attempt underscores the importance of building real relationships with strategic countries like Pakistan instead of relying on our friendships with their current leaders. Musharraf represented a minority in his country in supporting U.S. efforts to capture the terrorists responsible for the 9/11 attacks. So long as we're depending on Musharraf to keep peace in the region and be a voice for our interests, we're likely to be in trouble.
(link via Hit & Run)
||Link || |
Monday, December 15, 2003
Prisoners of War Games
Saddam given POW status
A man who didn't fire a single shot as we fished him out of a hole in the ground seven months after we declared the end of major combat operations in Iraq is a prisoner or war. Hundreds of men who were captured actually fighting during combat operations in Afghanistan are not prisoners of war. Can anyone explain to me how people shooting at U.S. soldiers are "enemy combattants," but the despotic ruler who frequently urged his people to act outside the conventions of war to kill Americans is not? I'm not arguing that Saddam doesn't deserve human rights protections. But there's something odd about the fact that we're granting them to him without question, but our government refuses to entertain the notion that hundreds of other human beings working for the evil cause he championed deserve the protection of international law as well.
||Link || |
Saddam given POW status
A man who didn't fire a single shot as we fished him out of a hole in the ground seven months after we declared the end of major combat operations in Iraq is a prisoner or war. Hundreds of men who were captured actually fighting during combat operations in Afghanistan are not prisoners of war. Can anyone explain to me how people shooting at U.S. soldiers are "enemy combattants," but the despotic ruler who frequently urged his people to act outside the conventions of war to kill Americans is not? I'm not arguing that Saddam doesn't deserve human rights protections. But there's something odd about the fact that we're granting them to him without question, but our government refuses to entertain the notion that hundreds of other human beings working for the evil cause he championed deserve the protection of international law as well.
||Link || |
Money Doesn't Talk
Learning and Spending
A motto that seems to apply everywhere but in the bubble of Washington: it's not what you spend, it's how you spend it.
||Link || |
Learning and Spending
A motto that seems to apply everywhere but in the bubble of Washington: it's not what you spend, it's how you spend it.
||Link || |
Friday, December 12, 2003
A Year Ago, They Would Have Been Jailed and Tortured...
...Today, they're demonstrating for democracy.
I don't like the way we went about it, but I'm awfully pleased with the results. In a world where it often seems like there's so much evil and pain that we can never solve it all, it's wonderful to be reminded from time to time that freedom is triumphing over tyranny all over the world, even if it's not happening as fast as we might like.
(link via Dean's World)
||Link || |
...Today, they're demonstrating for democracy.
I don't like the way we went about it, but I'm awfully pleased with the results. In a world where it often seems like there's so much evil and pain that we can never solve it all, it's wonderful to be reminded from time to time that freedom is triumphing over tyranny all over the world, even if it's not happening as fast as we might like.
(link via Dean's World)
||Link || |
A Veiled Threat?
French President Jacques Chirac believes that your clothing can constitute an act of aggression against innocent bystanders. A coalition of prominent French women agree that the right to wear what one chooses propagates "the submission of women." What are they talking about? The right of Muslim women and girls in France to cover their heads with veils in public. And it looks as if the French government may indeed assert a right to dictate how women there should be allowed to dress.
Over the past several months, anti-Muslim sentiments in France have been growing, and the debate over the visible signs of Muslim women's religious convictions has escalated with it. Several girls as young as 12 have been expelled from state schools for refusal to take off the hijab in mixed company. Under a 1989 court ruling there, it is not illegal to wear religious garb in state schools, but the law forbids "ostentatious" religious symbols that "constitute an act of pressure, provocation, proselytism or propaganda." Many native French feel that a full ban is necessary to protect students from intolerance and polemic. In November, a woman was dismissed from a jury in a suburb of Paris because the French justice minister stated that he saw the veil as a sign that her decision as a juror could be influenced by her religious beliefs.
France is not alone in trying assimilate Muslim citizens by banning expressions of their beliefs. In Germany, the Bavarian government is proposing a ban on the hijab as well, but their ban covers only the Muslim religious symbol. Apparently, the headscarf is "increasingly used as a political symbol," and therefore, the majority of parents don't want their kids seeing a teacher or another student wearing one. They're afraid, it seems, that a girl with her hair covered could turn their children into terrorist sympathizers.
Lila Levy, 18, who was expelled from her French public school in October for wearing the hijab, understands the issue better than most government officials. "They claim that nobody should force a woman to wear the hijab... But how can they force us to remove it? If they really cared about our freedom, they should let us be free to decide whether we want to wear it or not." But if the French government gets its way, Lila and millions of other women like her won't have that choice. Instead, the government will tell them what is best for them, and if they don't like it, they'll just have to move to Saudi Arabia.
||Link || |
French President Jacques Chirac believes that your clothing can constitute an act of aggression against innocent bystanders. A coalition of prominent French women agree that the right to wear what one chooses propagates "the submission of women." What are they talking about? The right of Muslim women and girls in France to cover their heads with veils in public. And it looks as if the French government may indeed assert a right to dictate how women there should be allowed to dress.
Over the past several months, anti-Muslim sentiments in France have been growing, and the debate over the visible signs of Muslim women's religious convictions has escalated with it. Several girls as young as 12 have been expelled from state schools for refusal to take off the hijab in mixed company. Under a 1989 court ruling there, it is not illegal to wear religious garb in state schools, but the law forbids "ostentatious" religious symbols that "constitute an act of pressure, provocation, proselytism or propaganda." Many native French feel that a full ban is necessary to protect students from intolerance and polemic. In November, a woman was dismissed from a jury in a suburb of Paris because the French justice minister stated that he saw the veil as a sign that her decision as a juror could be influenced by her religious beliefs.
France is not alone in trying assimilate Muslim citizens by banning expressions of their beliefs. In Germany, the Bavarian government is proposing a ban on the hijab as well, but their ban covers only the Muslim religious symbol. Apparently, the headscarf is "increasingly used as a political symbol," and therefore, the majority of parents don't want their kids seeing a teacher or another student wearing one. They're afraid, it seems, that a girl with her hair covered could turn their children into terrorist sympathizers.
Lila Levy, 18, who was expelled from her French public school in October for wearing the hijab, understands the issue better than most government officials. "They claim that nobody should force a woman to wear the hijab... But how can they force us to remove it? If they really cared about our freedom, they should let us be free to decide whether we want to wear it or not." But if the French government gets its way, Lila and millions of other women like her won't have that choice. Instead, the government will tell them what is best for them, and if they don't like it, they'll just have to move to Saudi Arabia.
||Link || |
Thursday, December 11, 2003
Movin' on Up
Posting may be sparse in the coming days. I'm moving, hopefully this weekend. I'm not going far, just down the street really, but I may not have reliable internet at home. There's always work, but that's where I, you know, have work to do, so it may not happen. In the meantime, here are some links to keep you occupied:
||Link || |
Posting may be sparse in the coming days. I'm moving, hopefully this weekend. I'm not going far, just down the street really, but I may not have reliable internet at home. There's always work, but that's where I, you know, have work to do, so it may not happen. In the meantime, here are some links to keep you occupied:
- Reason's Ronald Bailey takes on the Precautionary Principle and wins.
""The best way I can describe it is if you close your eyes and dream. You could never be hungry, never be sick, have all the energy you need, all the water, all the food and no diseases. There is no aspect in the world economy or your personal life that is not assumed to be transformed by this new technology."
They're making it too easy for us...
The speaker... Roy Pat Mooney... wants, at a minimum, to delay the arrival of [nano]technologies he himself believes could banish hunger, disease, and material want forever." - Anne Applebaum suggests that if Russia wants to be a player in the grown-up world of international politics, they'll have to learn that the rules apply to them too.
- Americans are upset that our high tech jobs are being "forced" overseas where labor is cheaper. But as one business owner discovered, the problem isn't that overseas laborers are cheaper, it's that we have inflated expectations about what we have to pay Americans to get them to do the work.
- Canada may soon have its first initial public offering of marijuana; not the drug, but stock in the company that supplies it to terminally ill patients. This may be a good investment opportunity, since we all know what a "growth" industry pot is.
||Link || |
Wednesday, December 10, 2003
We Are the Media
Gun Lobby Looking to Buy Media Outlet
The NRA wants to buy a TV or radio station so that it can be considered a news outlet, and therefore could spend as much money as it wanted promoting candidates, running ads, and generally participating in the political process. Under current law, only owners of media outlets have that freedom under the First Amendment. The rest of us have to be content with only the speech that $2000 can buy. It sounds assinine, and it is, that the NRA should get unlimited extra power simply by buying a radio station. But the problem isn't with the NRA; the problem is with the system of First Amendment regulation and campaign finance law that created the situation in the first place. The NRA is just doing what makes sense within that backwards system.
I don't consider myself a member of the media. Sure, I write a lot for public consumption, and I'd love it if someone would pay me to do that, but I'm not a member of the press. That means that if, say, I decided to turn my website into a shrine to Carol Moseley-Braun, or whoever, and use my writing to promote particular candidates, I'd be subject to campaign finance laws limiting the amount of speech I can publish. If my "Moseley-Braun for President" site became extremely popular, it's entirely plausible that my bandwidth, hosting, and other related costs for the year could exceed the amount I'm allowed to "donate" to a campaign, and then the Federal Election Commission could legally force me to shut down my website--or at least to stop paying for it, which would mean that it would no longer be available publicly. It's the same thing in practice. Campaign finance proponents may be right that money does not equal speech, but given the world we live in, the right to spend money is necessary to ensure the right to speak freely.
But say I had a little more disposable income than I do, and a little more free time than I do, and instead of buying a domain name and a hosting service, I bought myself a small radio station or cable channel. I could just paste the same stuff I currently post on my website onto the TV screen, or read my "Ron Paul for Congress" screeds over and over during drive time, but now, instead of being just some girl with a website, I'd be a "member of the press." All of a sudden, in virtue of being available on the airwaves instead of the internet, I'd be a media outlet, and my free speech rights would increase drastically. I could say whatever I wanted for as long as I wanted, and it could cost millions of dollars to provide the broadcasting, but the FEC couldn't stop me. All because I managed to get myself into the mythical, mysterious category of "media" instead of average citizen.
There's something very backwards about a law designed to reduce the influence of big, rich entities in politics that ends up giving more free speech to people and organizations that can afford to spend millions on their own TV station than to people who want to spend a few thousand bucks to speak their minds on the internet, in fliers or posters, in rallies and meetings, or in any of the millions of other ways that people have of communicating with one another. Like it or not, while speech may be free, getting other people to hear you costs money, and by arbitrarily declaring that some forms of spending on speech are protected under press freedom, while others are not, we've actually put the little guys, the grassroots, at a disadvantage. We've essentially made the rule that a person can either spend a very small amount of money participating in politics, or a very large amount of money that most individuals and organizations don't have access to, and made anything in between off limits. It seems bizarre to me that I can spend $1000 on my website, or I can spend a million dollars on a radio station, but I can't spend $10,000 on TV commercials or $5,000 on organizing rallies in support of my candidate.
I don't want to be a journalist. That's not what I do. But in the world of amazing technological growth and an increasingly connected world, people like me, individual people, have ways we never had before of making our voices heard. Restricting the speech of big media outlets, including NRA-TV if that's what they decide to do, isn't the answer. The answer is to declare that every American should have the same rights to speak, and to pay the associated costs of that speech, as any professional media outlet. The government shouldn't be in the business of deciding what is journalism and what isn't, especially if they make that distinction in order to restrict access to the public debate by those they deem not to be "real journalists." Like it or not, we are all the media now, or at least, we can be if we want to be. And our free speech rights shouldn't be abridged simply because we don't have enough money to have ourselves declared professionals.
||Link || |
Gun Lobby Looking to Buy Media Outlet
The NRA wants to buy a TV or radio station so that it can be considered a news outlet, and therefore could spend as much money as it wanted promoting candidates, running ads, and generally participating in the political process. Under current law, only owners of media outlets have that freedom under the First Amendment. The rest of us have to be content with only the speech that $2000 can buy. It sounds assinine, and it is, that the NRA should get unlimited extra power simply by buying a radio station. But the problem isn't with the NRA; the problem is with the system of First Amendment regulation and campaign finance law that created the situation in the first place. The NRA is just doing what makes sense within that backwards system.
I don't consider myself a member of the media. Sure, I write a lot for public consumption, and I'd love it if someone would pay me to do that, but I'm not a member of the press. That means that if, say, I decided to turn my website into a shrine to Carol Moseley-Braun, or whoever, and use my writing to promote particular candidates, I'd be subject to campaign finance laws limiting the amount of speech I can publish. If my "Moseley-Braun for President" site became extremely popular, it's entirely plausible that my bandwidth, hosting, and other related costs for the year could exceed the amount I'm allowed to "donate" to a campaign, and then the Federal Election Commission could legally force me to shut down my website--or at least to stop paying for it, which would mean that it would no longer be available publicly. It's the same thing in practice. Campaign finance proponents may be right that money does not equal speech, but given the world we live in, the right to spend money is necessary to ensure the right to speak freely.
But say I had a little more disposable income than I do, and a little more free time than I do, and instead of buying a domain name and a hosting service, I bought myself a small radio station or cable channel. I could just paste the same stuff I currently post on my website onto the TV screen, or read my "Ron Paul for Congress" screeds over and over during drive time, but now, instead of being just some girl with a website, I'd be a "member of the press." All of a sudden, in virtue of being available on the airwaves instead of the internet, I'd be a media outlet, and my free speech rights would increase drastically. I could say whatever I wanted for as long as I wanted, and it could cost millions of dollars to provide the broadcasting, but the FEC couldn't stop me. All because I managed to get myself into the mythical, mysterious category of "media" instead of average citizen.
There's something very backwards about a law designed to reduce the influence of big, rich entities in politics that ends up giving more free speech to people and organizations that can afford to spend millions on their own TV station than to people who want to spend a few thousand bucks to speak their minds on the internet, in fliers or posters, in rallies and meetings, or in any of the millions of other ways that people have of communicating with one another. Like it or not, while speech may be free, getting other people to hear you costs money, and by arbitrarily declaring that some forms of spending on speech are protected under press freedom, while others are not, we've actually put the little guys, the grassroots, at a disadvantage. We've essentially made the rule that a person can either spend a very small amount of money participating in politics, or a very large amount of money that most individuals and organizations don't have access to, and made anything in between off limits. It seems bizarre to me that I can spend $1000 on my website, or I can spend a million dollars on a radio station, but I can't spend $10,000 on TV commercials or $5,000 on organizing rallies in support of my candidate.
I don't want to be a journalist. That's not what I do. But in the world of amazing technological growth and an increasingly connected world, people like me, individual people, have ways we never had before of making our voices heard. Restricting the speech of big media outlets, including NRA-TV if that's what they decide to do, isn't the answer. The answer is to declare that every American should have the same rights to speak, and to pay the associated costs of that speech, as any professional media outlet. The government shouldn't be in the business of deciding what is journalism and what isn't, especially if they make that distinction in order to restrict access to the public debate by those they deem not to be "real journalists." Like it or not, we are all the media now, or at least, we can be if we want to be. And our free speech rights shouldn't be abridged simply because we don't have enough money to have ourselves declared professionals.
||Link || |
Monday, December 08, 2003
In Martha Burk We Trust
Martha Burk, of "men shouldn't be allowed private clubs" fame, has done it again. She is now telling readers of the Washington Post that women who don't experience discrimination in their lives aren't lucky or successful, they're misguided and unobservant. If we as women don't feel oppressed, we're apparently just falling for the tricks the man has tried to pull on us:
(link via The Agitator)
||Link || |
Martha Burk, of "men shouldn't be allowed private clubs" fame, has done it again. She is now telling readers of the Washington Post that women who don't experience discrimination in their lives aren't lucky or successful, they're misguided and unobservant. If we as women don't feel oppressed, we're apparently just falling for the tricks the man has tried to pull on us:
"I think it's a little bit sad that some women are not aware of what the women's movement in general does for them, and some of the ways they're experiencing discrimination. They've become so used to it that they don't even notice it anymore. It's my job to make them notice. "Ms. Burk is apparently under the impression that because she is female for a living, she speaks for all women and can declare that because she feels oppressed, that means that all of us who share her chromosomal combination are also oppressed. Below is a letter I've written to Ms. Burk to tell her that she doesn't speak for me, and that I'd feel much less oppressed if she'd shut up and let me speak for myself.
Dear Ms. Burk,While I have every confidence that my letter will be ignored, as usual, I feel better just having written it.
I think it's a little bit sad that you think that all women are discriminated against, and that those of us who don't feel oppressed shouldn't trust our own feelings. The women's movement was, and is, important to ensuring that women are able to make our own choices and have the same opportunities in the world that men do. However, it's also about giving women the confidence and skills they need to make those choices and go after those opportunities. How are women supposed to trust their instincts and assert themselves when women like you are telling them that the world is a scary place where people are out to get them, and that if they don't feel persecuted, they should believe you and not their own experiences of the world?
There are better things to do with your influence than to try to convince women like me that we have less power, less strength, and fewer opportunities than we see in the world. The next generation of girls should grow up hearing, ations.org/news/as I did from my mother, that a woman can do whatever she wants in her life and that no one can stand in her way. Rather than dedicating your career to speaking your opinions as though they are representative of all women, you should be looking for ways to give women their own voices. Telling them that discrimination is everywhere and they can't escape it is not going to help give women the self-assurance to succeed in the world. Your negative message that all women are experiencing discrimination and that we should be constantly on the lookout for barriers, not opportunities, has no place in the positive vision of the world that we real feminists are giving to the women of the future.
Sincerely,
Amy Phillips
(link via The Agitator)
||Link || |
Friday, December 05, 2003
The Red Menace
Fate of Nepalese Teacher Still Unknown
Many of those people who espouse socialist values and sympathize with Communist leaning groups around the world seem oblivious to the egregious abuses of human and civil rights that such philosophies so often entail. Obviously, this is less of a problem than it used to be. With the fall of the Soviet Union and the revelations of forced labor, "reeducation" of dissidents, innocent citizens being "disappeared" by government secret police, and massive corruption in government, there are fewer Communist sympathizers than there used to be. But still, I find it amazing the number of people who don't know that Stalin ordered the deaths of more than twice as many people as Hitler did, all in the name of Communism.
Modern Communist regimes and dissident groups kidnap civilians, shut down free speech and press, oppress women, murder political opponents, endorse infanticide and forced sterilization, draft children as young as six into armies, kill citizens to inspire fear, and wreak havoc in the lives of millions of people all over the world. And yet it's still considered acceptable in polite society to declare oneself a socialist.
In addition, worldwide inattention to the horrors of Communist regimes past and present has created a culture in which their crimes go unpunished. While a massive worldwide hunt for Nazi war criminals has resulted in dozens of prosecutions by international tribunals and hundreds of convictions, no effort has been made to get justice for the victims of Communist atrocities. In fact, we allow Communist criminals to live among us. The Holtzman Amendment of 1979 to the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 gives the U.S. government the power to deport persons found to have aided the Nazi genocide, but no law allows us to deport people who have committed torture and other atrocities elsewhere. There are currently concurrent resolutions pending in the House and Senate to rectify that legal loophole, but they have been introduced in the past three sessions of Congress with little progress, so I'm not hopeful that they will come to fruition. If you were itching for an excuse to write to your members of Congress, now's your chance.
Many left-leaning folks would point out that the mere fact that some groups have committed atrocities in the name of an ideology does not make that ideology in and of itself evil. Just as we're all aware that just because recent terrorists have been motivated by Islam, that doesn't make all Muslims terrorists, it is possible to be a socialist or a Communist without endorsing crimes against humanity. Of course, it's also possible to be a white separatist without advocating harm to racial minorities, but why would you want to? In that case, the reason for interracial violence is that there is something pernicious about the ideology itself that leads many of its members to be violent. Unlike with Islam, which has as calls to violence in its scripture as any other major religion, white supremacist ideology, while not always violent, has tenets that tend to lead towards violence or repression of the rights of others. That's what I believe to be the case about socialism. Yes, it's possible to be a non-violent, kind, gentle socialist, any ideology which advocates centralized control over so many aspects of the lives of citizens is inherently repressive. Giving the state oversight over economic transactions, and control of the sources of wealth, robs those living under the regime of their freedom whether the regime intends to be violent or not. When the people revolt, violence is the nearly inevitable result of trying to maintain such strict control. Socialist societies that didn't carefully control their people by force would eventually crumble as people refused to obey. So while socialism isn't necessarily inherently repressive, in practice, there's little alternative but for societies living under it to turn out that way.
In the end, it matters less whether Communism and the like are definitionally violent than it does that they have so often been violent, and that people are willing to gloss over that violence in order to retain their ideology. I find it perturbing that anyone would want to belong to a group, any group, in whose name so much brutality and barbarity have been committed. But then, I don't understand why anyone would want to be a socialist anyway...
||Link || |
Fate of Nepalese Teacher Still Unknown
Many of those people who espouse socialist values and sympathize with Communist leaning groups around the world seem oblivious to the egregious abuses of human and civil rights that such philosophies so often entail. Obviously, this is less of a problem than it used to be. With the fall of the Soviet Union and the revelations of forced labor, "reeducation" of dissidents, innocent citizens being "disappeared" by government secret police, and massive corruption in government, there are fewer Communist sympathizers than there used to be. But still, I find it amazing the number of people who don't know that Stalin ordered the deaths of more than twice as many people as Hitler did, all in the name of Communism.
Modern Communist regimes and dissident groups kidnap civilians, shut down free speech and press, oppress women, murder political opponents, endorse infanticide and forced sterilization, draft children as young as six into armies, kill citizens to inspire fear, and wreak havoc in the lives of millions of people all over the world. And yet it's still considered acceptable in polite society to declare oneself a socialist.
In addition, worldwide inattention to the horrors of Communist regimes past and present has created a culture in which their crimes go unpunished. While a massive worldwide hunt for Nazi war criminals has resulted in dozens of prosecutions by international tribunals and hundreds of convictions, no effort has been made to get justice for the victims of Communist atrocities. In fact, we allow Communist criminals to live among us. The Holtzman Amendment of 1979 to the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 gives the U.S. government the power to deport persons found to have aided the Nazi genocide, but no law allows us to deport people who have committed torture and other atrocities elsewhere. There are currently concurrent resolutions pending in the House and Senate to rectify that legal loophole, but they have been introduced in the past three sessions of Congress with little progress, so I'm not hopeful that they will come to fruition. If you were itching for an excuse to write to your members of Congress, now's your chance.
Many left-leaning folks would point out that the mere fact that some groups have committed atrocities in the name of an ideology does not make that ideology in and of itself evil. Just as we're all aware that just because recent terrorists have been motivated by Islam, that doesn't make all Muslims terrorists, it is possible to be a socialist or a Communist without endorsing crimes against humanity. Of course, it's also possible to be a white separatist without advocating harm to racial minorities, but why would you want to? In that case, the reason for interracial violence is that there is something pernicious about the ideology itself that leads many of its members to be violent. Unlike with Islam, which has as calls to violence in its scripture as any other major religion, white supremacist ideology, while not always violent, has tenets that tend to lead towards violence or repression of the rights of others. That's what I believe to be the case about socialism. Yes, it's possible to be a non-violent, kind, gentle socialist, any ideology which advocates centralized control over so many aspects of the lives of citizens is inherently repressive. Giving the state oversight over economic transactions, and control of the sources of wealth, robs those living under the regime of their freedom whether the regime intends to be violent or not. When the people revolt, violence is the nearly inevitable result of trying to maintain such strict control. Socialist societies that didn't carefully control their people by force would eventually crumble as people refused to obey. So while socialism isn't necessarily inherently repressive, in practice, there's little alternative but for societies living under it to turn out that way.
In the end, it matters less whether Communism and the like are definitionally violent than it does that they have so often been violent, and that people are willing to gloss over that violence in order to retain their ideology. I find it perturbing that anyone would want to belong to a group, any group, in whose name so much brutality and barbarity have been committed. But then, I don't understand why anyone would want to be a socialist anyway...
||Link || |
Thursday, December 04, 2003
Use of This Washing Machine May Cause Obesity
'Tis the Silly Season
Duane Freese points out that the fat police really should be targeting both sides of the obesity equation. Currently, they want to force food manufacturers and restaurants to include warnings that eating too much fatty food will pack on the pounds. So if we're going to slide gently into absurdity, why not force the same labels onto all of the time and energy saving devices that make us more sedentary, thus leading to burning off less of that naughty, naughty fat? Freese suggests warnings for "washing machines, automobiles, dishwashers, elevators, escalators and electric can openers, spray painters, saws, drills, sanders and screwdrivers warning, along with the host of other accompanying well-read warnings in their direction manuals: 'Use of this device could lead to an energy imbalance and a depleted human energy usage.'" I also propose that, in the same vein as making restaurants put on the menu how many calories are in that slice of cheesecake, television manufacturers should have to label your remote control to tell you how many calories you would have burned if you got off your fat ass to change the channel instead of just clicking it.
Of course, as we all know, the number of calories an activity burns is dependent on the size and fitness level of the actor. So any labels like the ones jokingly proposed above would be largely useless except to that mythical "average American." But then, the same is true of nutrition labels. I know I don't need 2,000 calories a day, but I'm sure that a friend of mine who is 6'4", 250 pounds, and is a professional rower needs a lot more than that. As scientist Steven Millroy notes, "The recommended daily percentage requirements for fat, cholesterol, sodium, carbohydrate and protein are arbitrary in nature. They have not been scientifically determined to be what's best for any one person or class of persons, much less everyone." When the food nannies tell us that we need to watch the numbers, remember that those numbers don't tell the whole story.
||Link || |
'Tis the Silly Season
Duane Freese points out that the fat police really should be targeting both sides of the obesity equation. Currently, they want to force food manufacturers and restaurants to include warnings that eating too much fatty food will pack on the pounds. So if we're going to slide gently into absurdity, why not force the same labels onto all of the time and energy saving devices that make us more sedentary, thus leading to burning off less of that naughty, naughty fat? Freese suggests warnings for "washing machines, automobiles, dishwashers, elevators, escalators and electric can openers, spray painters, saws, drills, sanders and screwdrivers warning, along with the host of other accompanying well-read warnings in their direction manuals: 'Use of this device could lead to an energy imbalance and a depleted human energy usage.'" I also propose that, in the same vein as making restaurants put on the menu how many calories are in that slice of cheesecake, television manufacturers should have to label your remote control to tell you how many calories you would have burned if you got off your fat ass to change the channel instead of just clicking it.
Of course, as we all know, the number of calories an activity burns is dependent on the size and fitness level of the actor. So any labels like the ones jokingly proposed above would be largely useless except to that mythical "average American." But then, the same is true of nutrition labels. I know I don't need 2,000 calories a day, but I'm sure that a friend of mine who is 6'4", 250 pounds, and is a professional rower needs a lot more than that. As scientist Steven Millroy notes, "The recommended daily percentage requirements for fat, cholesterol, sodium, carbohydrate and protein are arbitrary in nature. They have not been scientifically determined to be what's best for any one person or class of persons, much less everyone." When the food nannies tell us that we need to watch the numbers, remember that those numbers don't tell the whole story.
||Link || |
Granting a privilege Doesn't Take Away the Right
News Analysis: Sudden Shift on Detainee
More concessions by the Bush administration in its stance on enemy combatants seem calculated to make the rights violations already perpetrated against them seem less egregious, and thus less in need of judicial intervention. On Monday, it was an announcement that nearly 20% of the Guantanamo detainees would be freed in the near future. Now, the Pentagon is planning to allow Yaser Esam Hamdi, an American citizen who has been detained for almost two years without any right to judicial relief, to meet with a lawyer for the first time. Apparently, the administration thinks that granting his request will wash away the months he has spent without counsel, in violation of his Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights.
The Bush administration still maintains that it has the right to hold Mr. Hamdi--and anyone else it chooses--without filing charges, without a warrant, and without access to counsel or communication with family and friends. The administration states that because of the nature of the War on Terrorism, it has the right to designate anyone it likes, without justification to anyone, an enemy combatant and hold them indefinitely without recourse to the U.S. Constitution or the conventions of international law. By saying that the government may hold someone without due process, but that in this case and a few others, they are choosing not to, the Bush administration is attempting to reduce our fundamental rights to mere privileges that the government may grant or revoke at will.
Our president saying that his administration has the purview to choose who gets to exercise their rights, and hoping that the American people will ignore the gross violations of our Constitution if they are benevolent in granting privileges. We cannot, and should not allow this administration to conditionalize our rights, no matter how many concessions they make in their conditions. The U.S. Supreme Court should see these recent actions as what they are: ploys to distract us from a years-long power grab. Mr. Hamdi and other "enemy combatants" must be designated prisoners of war and treated as such, or they must be given the right to avail themselves of our court system. Merely the possibility that the Executive may deign to recognize their rights is simply not good enough.
||Link || |
News Analysis: Sudden Shift on Detainee
More concessions by the Bush administration in its stance on enemy combatants seem calculated to make the rights violations already perpetrated against them seem less egregious, and thus less in need of judicial intervention. On Monday, it was an announcement that nearly 20% of the Guantanamo detainees would be freed in the near future. Now, the Pentagon is planning to allow Yaser Esam Hamdi, an American citizen who has been detained for almost two years without any right to judicial relief, to meet with a lawyer for the first time. Apparently, the administration thinks that granting his request will wash away the months he has spent without counsel, in violation of his Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights.
The Bush administration still maintains that it has the right to hold Mr. Hamdi--and anyone else it chooses--without filing charges, without a warrant, and without access to counsel or communication with family and friends. The administration states that because of the nature of the War on Terrorism, it has the right to designate anyone it likes, without justification to anyone, an enemy combatant and hold them indefinitely without recourse to the U.S. Constitution or the conventions of international law. By saying that the government may hold someone without due process, but that in this case and a few others, they are choosing not to, the Bush administration is attempting to reduce our fundamental rights to mere privileges that the government may grant or revoke at will.
Our president saying that his administration has the purview to choose who gets to exercise their rights, and hoping that the American people will ignore the gross violations of our Constitution if they are benevolent in granting privileges. We cannot, and should not allow this administration to conditionalize our rights, no matter how many concessions they make in their conditions. The U.S. Supreme Court should see these recent actions as what they are: ploys to distract us from a years-long power grab. Mr. Hamdi and other "enemy combatants" must be designated prisoners of war and treated as such, or they must be given the right to avail themselves of our court system. Merely the possibility that the Executive may deign to recognize their rights is simply not good enough.
||Link || |
Wednesday, December 03, 2003
Why Libertarians Should Fear Howard Dean
Hardball with Chris Matthews for December 1, 2003
He believes that some people and companies have too much power over the media, but he wants to use the force of government to limit those people's access to the media, but he refuses outright to say which ones or how, other than to say that he thinks media outlets ideologically opposed to him are dangerous:
He believes that the key to ensuring the safety of the free world lies with a country that no longer exists. Of course, that's really a reason for everyone to fear him, but presumably, libertarians should also fear nuclear war:
||Link || |
Hardball with Chris Matthews for December 1, 2003
He believes that some people and companies have too much power over the media, but he wants to use the force of government to limit those people's access to the media, but he refuses outright to say which ones or how, other than to say that he thinks media outlets ideologically opposed to him are dangerous:
MATTHEWS: Travel, the Democrats’ Ted Kennedy was part of that deregulation, the deregulation of radio. There are so many things that have been deregulated. Is that wrong trend and would you reverse it?He believes that people do not have a right to work without joining a union with whose values they may disagree:
DEAN: I would reverse in some areas.
First of all, 11 companies in this country control 90 percent of what ordinary people are able to read and watch on their television. That’s wrong. We need to have a wide variety of opinions in every community. We don’t have that because of Michael Powell and what George Bush has tried to do to the FCC.
MATTHEWS: Would you break up Fox?
(LAUGHTER)
MATTHEWS: I’m serious.
DEAN: I’m keeping a...
MATTHEWS: Would you break it up? Rupert Murdoch has “The Weekly Standard.” It has got a lot of other interests. It has got “The New York Post.” Would you break it up?
DEAN: On ideological grounds, absolutely yes, but...
(LAUGHTER)
MATTHEWS: No, seriously. As a public policy, would you bring industrial policy to bear and break up these conglomerations of power?
DEAN: I don’t want to answer whether I would break up Fox or not,
because, obviously
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Well, how about large media enterprises?
DEAN: Let me-yes, let me get...
(LAUGHTER)
DEAN: The answer to that is yes.
I would say that there is too much penetration by single corporations in media markets all over this country. We need locally-owned radio stations. There are only two or three radio stations left in the state of Vermont where you can get local news anymore. The rest of it is read and ripped from the AP.
MATTHEWS: So what are you going to do about it? You’re going to be president of the United States, what are you going to do?
DEAN: What I’m going to do is appoint people to the FCC that believe democracy depends on getting information from all portions of the political spectrum, not just one.
MATTHEWS: Well, would you break up GE?
(APPLAUSE)
DEAN: I can’t-you...
MATTHEWS: GE just buys Universal. Would you do something there about that? Would you stop that from happening?
DEAN: You can’t say-you can’t ask me right now and get an answer, would I break up X corp...
MATTHEWS: We’ve got to do it now, because now is the only chance we can ask you, because, once you are in, we have got to live with you.
(LAUGHTER)
DEAN: No.
MATTHEWS: So, if you are going to do it, you have got to tell us now.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Are you going to break up the giant media enterprises in this country?
DEAN: Yes, we’re going to break up giant media enterprises. That doesn’t mean we’re going to break up all of GE.
What we’re going to do is say that media enterprises can’t be as big as they are today. I don’t think we actually have to break them up, which Teddy Roosevelt had to do with the leftovers from the McKinley administration.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: ... regulate them.
DEAN: You have got to say that there has to be a limit as to how-if the state has an interest, which it does, in preserving democracy, then there has to be a limitation on how deeply the media companies can penetrate every single community. To the extent of even having two or three or four outlets in a single community, that kind of information control is not compatible with democracy.
MATTHEWS: How-how far would you go in terms of public policy?
(APPLAUSE)
MATTHEWS: This is not-what you describe is not laissez-faire.
It’s not capitalism.
DEAN: It is capitalism.
MATTHEWS: How would you-what would you call it?
DEAN: I am absolutely a capitalist. Capitalism is the greatest system that people have ever invented, because it takes advantage of bad traits, as well as our good traits, and turns them into productivity.
But the essence of capitalism, which the right-wing never understands
” it always baffles me-is, you got to have some rules. Imagine a hockey game with no rules.
MATTHEWS: Well, let me ask it-let me ask it totally open. Do you think a person has a right to work somewhere if they don’t want to join a union?
DEAN: I do.
No, wait a minute. I don’t.
(LAUGHTER)
MATTHEWS: Why not? What’s wrong with an open shop where you can...
DEAN: I’ll tell you what’s the matter with it. Here is the problem with open-and, look, there’s obviously arguments to be made on...
MATTHEWS: A lot of states have right-to-work laws. You would get rid of them?
DEAN: I don’t like-well, I very much believe that states ought to have the right to recognize-to organize their own laws. So I’m not likely as president to-even though I don’t like right-to-work laws, I’m unlikely to order states to change them.
MATTHEWS: So you wouldn’t repeal 14B?
DEAN: No, I would not, but...
MATTHEWS: So you are different than Gephardt. He is with the unions.
You are not.
(LAUGHTER)
MATTHEWS: I’m serious.
DEAN: All right...
MATTHEWS: I hate it. It’s called HARDBALL. This isn’t “Success” magazine, OK?
(APPLAUSE)
DEAN: Let me tell you what-I actually believe in card check. I believe you shouldn’t have to have an election, that people who want to join a union should just be able to sign a card and join it. Let me tell you where I am on...
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: You are against-you do not believe in repealing 14B?
You’re not going to accept the challenge from Gephardt to do that?
DEAN: If I got a bill on my desk that repealed 14B, I’d sign it in an instant. I’m just not going to push it hard...
MATTHEWS: OK.
DEAN: Because I do believe states have to have make their own judgments of that.
MATTHEWS: OK.
DEAN: I hate right-to-work laws.
And let me tell you why it’s OK to be forced to join a union. The union is out there negotiating for your wage increases. Why should you get a free ride? Why should you should be able to go to work for that company, get the same benefits as everybody else who paid their union dues and you paid nothing? That’s why I’m against right-to-work laws.
MATTHEWS: OK.
DEAN: But I do believe it’s important for states to be able to make their own laws.
MATTHEWS: You understand why a libertarian would disagree with you, right? A libertarian would think they had a right, he or she, to work where they can do the job.
DEAN: Yes, but why should they-but why should they get the benefits of everybody else who is paying dues and get a free ride?
MATTHEWS: Because it’s a free country.
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
He believes that the key to ensuring the safety of the free world lies with a country that no longer exists. Of course, that's really a reason for everyone to fear him, but presumably, libertarians should also fear nuclear war:
DEAN: Iran is a more complex problem because the problem support as clearly verifiable as it is in North Korea. Also, we have less-fewer levers much the key, I believe, to Iran is pressure through the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union is supplying much of the equipment that Iran, I believe, most likely is using to set itself along the path of developing nuclear weapons. We need to use that leverage with the Soviet Union and it may require us to buying the equipment the Soviet Union was ultimately going to sell to Iran to prevent Iran from them developing nuclear weapons. That is also a country that must not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons much the key to all this is foresight. Let’s act now so we don’t have to have a confrontation which may result in force, which would be very disastrous in the case of North Korea and might be disastrous in the case of Iran.This is the danger for libertarians of selling out to the candidate they think is least likely to do anything too bad: those candidates oppose our fundamental values, and when push comes to shove, they'll sell us out every time.
||Link || |
Your Family is Bad
Boy punished for talking about gay mom
Seven year old Marcus McLaurin was asked a question by a classmate about his mom and dad. Marcus told the classmate that he has two moms because his mom is gay, and when asked for more explanation, said that " "Gay is when a girl likes another girl." When a teacher heard the remark, she told Marcus that "gay" is a "bad word." Principal Virginia Bonvillain spoke to Marcus during what would have been his recess period, Assistant Principal Nicholas Thomas called Marcus' mother and told her that her son had said "a word so bad that he didn't want to repeat it over the phone." Marcus was later forced to come to school at 6:45 AM the following week to attend a "behavioral clinic," during which he had to write over and over again "I will never use the word ‘gay’ in school again."
Sharon Huff, Marcus' mother, was shocked to hear that her son was being punished in his public school for talking about his family, and she was especially appalled that a formerly trusted teacher had told her son that "his family is a dirty word. No child should ever hear that..." She has contacted the ACLU and begun proceedings against the school to ensure that her son's record is not marred by this incident, and that he can feel safe talking about his family and his home life at school, as other children routinely do.
A question I haven't yet been able to find the answer to is this: what, precisely, was the reason that the school officials believe "gay" to be a bad word? Was it, as the ACLU and others seem to assume, because they believe that homosexuality is immoral? Or could it be that they believe they're stepping into line with the political correctness police? When a child yells on the playground that another kid is "gay," or when a kid says "playing Harry Potter is gay," most of the time, they don't know precisely what "gay" means, they simply mean to express something negative. Schools have been cracking down on those sorts of uses of the word and punishing students for using "gay" in that way because if they don't, they have reason to fear protests from gay parents, parents of gay students, gay faculty members, and the larger gay political community. It wouldn't surprise me to hear that many schools have banned the word entirely and instituted a "zero tolerance" policy against it because it is "hate speech." So just like we often hear stories about kids being suspended for taking Tylenol under "zero tolerance" anti-drug policies, I expect that we will hear more of these sorts of incidents as schools ban certain words that can, in context, be normal descriptions of children's lives.
In the end, the school's motivation is irrelevant. Marcus has a constitutional right to answer questions about his family, and so long as he isn't hurting anyone, the school has no business punishing him. Those who would side with the school's decision to punish Marcus seem to believe that it's inappropriate for a child to learn about homosexuality from another child at school, and that schools should forcibly prevent such discussions from taking place. But the problem is that while a public school should be a safe haven for students, it's also in the real world, and children come to it with different experiences. Many of the same people who say that Marcus should be punished for talking about his gay family would be (and are) furious over rules that prohibit Christian children from discussing their religious beliefs, or punishing a child for telling a classmate that Jesus loves him. If we want our kids to grow up well adjusted and ready to face the world, we have to let them talk to one another using the words they understand. It's not a parent's job to shield a child from such experiences; a parent is there to explain and interpret those experiences through the lense of the values the family wants to instill. If the kid Marcus was talking to told his parents about their conversation, his parents have every right to say, "some families have two mommies, but we believe every child should have a mommy and a daddy." I don't think they should because I think that view is incorrect, but they have every right to say it. But parents can't demand that the real world, of which school is a part, conform to the rules and values they would prefer their child experience.
If a student says something hurtful to another student, tell them to stop being mean and punish them if it continues. But no word should be banned from a child's vocabulary, especially not under pain of punishment at school. Moreover, no school should ever tell a child that a word he has used to describe his own family is bad, because a child will hear that and believe that his family is bad. School is a place to learn, and kids should learn, in age-appropriate ways, what words mean. Parents should be in charge of interpreting morality for their kids, but just because a teacher or a principal thinks that something is bad, that doesn't give them the right to punish a child who uses the word that describes it.
(via Dean's World)
||Link || |
Boy punished for talking about gay mom
Seven year old Marcus McLaurin was asked a question by a classmate about his mom and dad. Marcus told the classmate that he has two moms because his mom is gay, and when asked for more explanation, said that " "Gay is when a girl likes another girl." When a teacher heard the remark, she told Marcus that "gay" is a "bad word." Principal Virginia Bonvillain spoke to Marcus during what would have been his recess period, Assistant Principal Nicholas Thomas called Marcus' mother and told her that her son had said "a word so bad that he didn't want to repeat it over the phone." Marcus was later forced to come to school at 6:45 AM the following week to attend a "behavioral clinic," during which he had to write over and over again "I will never use the word ‘gay’ in school again."
Sharon Huff, Marcus' mother, was shocked to hear that her son was being punished in his public school for talking about his family, and she was especially appalled that a formerly trusted teacher had told her son that "his family is a dirty word. No child should ever hear that..." She has contacted the ACLU and begun proceedings against the school to ensure that her son's record is not marred by this incident, and that he can feel safe talking about his family and his home life at school, as other children routinely do.
A question I haven't yet been able to find the answer to is this: what, precisely, was the reason that the school officials believe "gay" to be a bad word? Was it, as the ACLU and others seem to assume, because they believe that homosexuality is immoral? Or could it be that they believe they're stepping into line with the political correctness police? When a child yells on the playground that another kid is "gay," or when a kid says "playing Harry Potter is gay," most of the time, they don't know precisely what "gay" means, they simply mean to express something negative. Schools have been cracking down on those sorts of uses of the word and punishing students for using "gay" in that way because if they don't, they have reason to fear protests from gay parents, parents of gay students, gay faculty members, and the larger gay political community. It wouldn't surprise me to hear that many schools have banned the word entirely and instituted a "zero tolerance" policy against it because it is "hate speech." So just like we often hear stories about kids being suspended for taking Tylenol under "zero tolerance" anti-drug policies, I expect that we will hear more of these sorts of incidents as schools ban certain words that can, in context, be normal descriptions of children's lives.
In the end, the school's motivation is irrelevant. Marcus has a constitutional right to answer questions about his family, and so long as he isn't hurting anyone, the school has no business punishing him. Those who would side with the school's decision to punish Marcus seem to believe that it's inappropriate for a child to learn about homosexuality from another child at school, and that schools should forcibly prevent such discussions from taking place. But the problem is that while a public school should be a safe haven for students, it's also in the real world, and children come to it with different experiences. Many of the same people who say that Marcus should be punished for talking about his gay family would be (and are) furious over rules that prohibit Christian children from discussing their religious beliefs, or punishing a child for telling a classmate that Jesus loves him. If we want our kids to grow up well adjusted and ready to face the world, we have to let them talk to one another using the words they understand. It's not a parent's job to shield a child from such experiences; a parent is there to explain and interpret those experiences through the lense of the values the family wants to instill. If the kid Marcus was talking to told his parents about their conversation, his parents have every right to say, "some families have two mommies, but we believe every child should have a mommy and a daddy." I don't think they should because I think that view is incorrect, but they have every right to say it. But parents can't demand that the real world, of which school is a part, conform to the rules and values they would prefer their child experience.
If a student says something hurtful to another student, tell them to stop being mean and punish them if it continues. But no word should be banned from a child's vocabulary, especially not under pain of punishment at school. Moreover, no school should ever tell a child that a word he has used to describe his own family is bad, because a child will hear that and believe that his family is bad. School is a place to learn, and kids should learn, in age-appropriate ways, what words mean. Parents should be in charge of interpreting morality for their kids, but just because a teacher or a principal thinks that something is bad, that doesn't give them the right to punish a child who uses the word that describes it.
(via Dean's World)
||Link || |
So did he get to keep the weed?
Montel's Marijuana Mishap
I missed this story when it happened about a month ago, but I thought it was significant enough to bring up now. First, because it shows once again that the rules are different for celebrities; there are plenty of non-famous people who have faced jail time for attempting to transport marijuana, medicinal or otherwise, across state lines. But I think the more important facet of this story is one of the ongoing struggle between state and local officials who recognize the cruelty of jailing a sick person for doing what it takes to stop the pain, and the federal government, which explicitly does not. The police in Detroit could have turned him over to the feds, and he would have faced a year in prison. But like many other state and local officials, they decided to let him go with a small fine rather than subject him to more pain than his disease already inflicts upon him. When individual people within the system realize that the law is wrong and choose not to mete out the harshest punishments it mandates, that can be a first step towards getting rid of the law altogether. Medical decisions should be between a patient and his doctors and advisors. I guess Detroit airport security is smarter than the federal government when it comes to realizing that.
||Link || |
Montel's Marijuana Mishap
I missed this story when it happened about a month ago, but I thought it was significant enough to bring up now. First, because it shows once again that the rules are different for celebrities; there are plenty of non-famous people who have faced jail time for attempting to transport marijuana, medicinal or otherwise, across state lines. But I think the more important facet of this story is one of the ongoing struggle between state and local officials who recognize the cruelty of jailing a sick person for doing what it takes to stop the pain, and the federal government, which explicitly does not. The police in Detroit could have turned him over to the feds, and he would have faced a year in prison. But like many other state and local officials, they decided to let him go with a small fine rather than subject him to more pain than his disease already inflicts upon him. When individual people within the system realize that the law is wrong and choose not to mete out the harshest punishments it mandates, that can be a first step towards getting rid of the law altogether. Medical decisions should be between a patient and his doctors and advisors. I guess Detroit airport security is smarter than the federal government when it comes to realizing that.
||Link || |
NPR Exempt from Media Regulations?
NPR ONDCP ID
Jacob Sullum has the scoop at Reason's Hit & Run on how the Office of National Drug Control Policy is trying to sneak its message onto National Public Radio without disclosing who they are. The most amusing part of the exchange is when NPR claims they're exempt from an FCC ruling mandating that anti-drug commercials sponsored by ONDCP must carry the tag line, "sponsored by the Office of National Drug Control Policy," because they are non-commercial. So apparently, you don't have to follow the government's rules if you're a government entity making deals with a government agency.
||Link || |
NPR ONDCP ID
Jacob Sullum has the scoop at Reason's Hit & Run on how the Office of National Drug Control Policy is trying to sneak its message onto National Public Radio without disclosing who they are. The most amusing part of the exchange is when NPR claims they're exempt from an FCC ruling mandating that anti-drug commercials sponsored by ONDCP must carry the tag line, "sponsored by the Office of National Drug Control Policy," because they are non-commercial. So apparently, you don't have to follow the government's rules if you're a government entity making deals with a government agency.
||Link || |
Holiness is Irrelevant
Lovers Under the Skin
Nicholas Kristoff makes a good point that religious conservatives should reconsider their belief that homosexuality goes against God in light of evidence that being gay is innate, not a choice. But really, whether or not certain religious groups believe it's wrong or evil to be gay is irrelevant. I tend to be something of a libertine, but even where I'm not, I recognize that my belief that something is wrong is not a reason to make it illegal, or even to treat people differently because they engage in acts of which I disapprove.
I believe, for example, that eating meat is wrong, that it's evil, and that those who do it are committing a moral wrong. But that doesn't lead me to conclude that it ought to be against the law. Hell, it doesn't even lead me to stop sharing meals with those people. If my carnivorous dining companions ask me why I don't eat meat or why I think it's wrong, I'm happy to explain and try to convince them to mend their errant ways. But if they don't ask, I keep my mouth shut, eat my tofu, and let everyone enjoy their lives.
Opponents of homosexuality are welcome to write treatises on why God hates fags. If any gay people ask them to, they should explain their reasons and, if requested, try to convince their homosexual brethren to stop having sex with partners of the same gender. They can open "treatment" programs, give speeches, quote the Bible, and spread the word that homos are going to hell. But that doesn't give them the right to say that others who believe differently than they do should be punished for living their lives. If you don't like same sex marriage, don't get married to someone of the same sex. But the mere fact that something is immoral in the opinion of some Americans is not a reason it should be illegal for all Americans.
||Link || |
Lovers Under the Skin
Nicholas Kristoff makes a good point that religious conservatives should reconsider their belief that homosexuality goes against God in light of evidence that being gay is innate, not a choice. But really, whether or not certain religious groups believe it's wrong or evil to be gay is irrelevant. I tend to be something of a libertine, but even where I'm not, I recognize that my belief that something is wrong is not a reason to make it illegal, or even to treat people differently because they engage in acts of which I disapprove.
I believe, for example, that eating meat is wrong, that it's evil, and that those who do it are committing a moral wrong. But that doesn't lead me to conclude that it ought to be against the law. Hell, it doesn't even lead me to stop sharing meals with those people. If my carnivorous dining companions ask me why I don't eat meat or why I think it's wrong, I'm happy to explain and try to convince them to mend their errant ways. But if they don't ask, I keep my mouth shut, eat my tofu, and let everyone enjoy their lives.
Opponents of homosexuality are welcome to write treatises on why God hates fags. If any gay people ask them to, they should explain their reasons and, if requested, try to convince their homosexual brethren to stop having sex with partners of the same gender. They can open "treatment" programs, give speeches, quote the Bible, and spread the word that homos are going to hell. But that doesn't give them the right to say that others who believe differently than they do should be punished for living their lives. If you don't like same sex marriage, don't get married to someone of the same sex. But the mere fact that something is immoral in the opinion of some Americans is not a reason it should be illegal for all Americans.
||Link || |
Monday, December 01, 2003
Releasing the Innocent Doesn't Negate the Rights of the Guilty
U.S. to free 140 Guantanamo prisoners
Unnamed "military officials" are claiming that the U.S. is speeding up the release of about 140 of the prisoners being held at the Guantanamo Bay prison camps in hopes of garnering a favorable decision in the Supreme Court next year. The idea, it seems, is that if prisoners are being released as they are found to be innocent of any crime, there's no need for additional oversight of activities at Guantanamo. But if up to 20% of the Guantanamo prisoners were innocent, doesn't that reinforce even more the need for due process for all suspected criminals, terrorist or otherwise?
||Link || |
U.S. to free 140 Guantanamo prisoners
Unnamed "military officials" are claiming that the U.S. is speeding up the release of about 140 of the prisoners being held at the Guantanamo Bay prison camps in hopes of garnering a favorable decision in the Supreme Court next year. The idea, it seems, is that if prisoners are being released as they are found to be innocent of any crime, there's no need for additional oversight of activities at Guantanamo. But if up to 20% of the Guantanamo prisoners were innocent, doesn't that reinforce even more the need for due process for all suspected criminals, terrorist or otherwise?
||Link || |
If you love the Family Guy...
Based on astonishingly high sales of the DVD sets of the three existing seasons of Family Guy, Fox is considering renewing the cancelled show for as many as 35 episodes beginning in 2005. If you love Family Guy, or if you're just sick of only seeing crappy shows on TV, stop putting off buying the DVD sets of the existing episodes, and write to Fox in support of renewing the series. I have strong objections to plans for a mass boycott of Fox, its subsidiaries, and advertisers until they renew the series, since it seems counterproductive to punish a company that has announced that it is considering doing what you want it to do. Instead, we should show our support for Fox, and for Family Guy, in the hopes that if enough dedicated viewers weigh in, they'll listen to us. Feel free to use this letter, which I'm sending to Fox today:
FOX Broadcasting Company
P.O. Box 900
Beverly Hills, CA 90213
||Link || |
Based on astonishingly high sales of the DVD sets of the three existing seasons of Family Guy, Fox is considering renewing the cancelled show for as many as 35 episodes beginning in 2005. If you love Family Guy, or if you're just sick of only seeing crappy shows on TV, stop putting off buying the DVD sets of the existing episodes, and write to Fox in support of renewing the series. I have strong objections to plans for a mass boycott of Fox, its subsidiaries, and advertisers until they renew the series, since it seems counterproductive to punish a company that has announced that it is considering doing what you want it to do. Instead, we should show our support for Fox, and for Family Guy, in the hopes that if enough dedicated viewers weigh in, they'll listen to us. Feel free to use this letter, which I'm sending to Fox today:
To Whom It May Concern:UPDATE: If you're having trouble finding an address, the one I used was:
I am writing today to express my support for any plans to produce more new episodes of your hit cartoon Family Guy. Family Guy stands apart from most other shows on television for its edgy comedy and satire of social issues. It is among the funniest shows in the history of television, and millions of fans like me would eagerly watch any new episodes you broadcast.
I am a long time viewer of Fox, and I have always appreciated the cutting edge comedy of many of your original series. I have loved watching The Simpsons, Futurama, and many others of your shows over the years, and I look forward to seeing what you will do in the future. I also watch reruns of many of your shows, like the syndication of Family Guy on Cartoon Network. I have bought the Family Guy DVDs for myself and given them as gifts to friends, many of whom have become avid fans and now watch the show themselves.
I and other fans hope you will see from our outpouring of support for the show that any new episodes will be very popular and will boost the ratings of your network. We hope you will heed our appeals to bring back the freshest, funniest show on television, Family Guy.
Thank you,
Amy Phillips
FOX Broadcasting Company
P.O. Box 900
Beverly Hills, CA 90213
||Link || |
Freedom for All Iraq
Must Iraq Be Whole to Be Free?
I have the third letter in Sunday's NYT responses to Les Gelb's article on Iraq last week. I actually missed it looking over the weekend, but there it is.
||Link || |
Must Iraq Be Whole to Be Free?
I have the third letter in Sunday's NYT responses to Les Gelb's article on Iraq last week. I actually missed it looking over the weekend, but there it is.
To the Editor:
I can see the appeal of Leslie H. Gelb's "Three-State Solution" for Iraq (Op-Ed, Nov. 25): stop the fighting by separating the combatants. But when the United States invaded Iraq, it promised the world that we would bring democracy and freedom to that country.
The very basis for democracy is the vision that people with differing opinions can compromise and respect one another without resorting to violence or power grabs.
I don't want to believe that any group of people on earth needs to be separated from other groups for its own safety. I don't want to believe that peaceful coexistence is impossible. How we can claim to bring freedom to Iraq without bringing the pluralism, the respect for the marketplace of ideas and the openness that go with it?
AMY PHILLIPS
New York, Nov. 25, 2003
||Link || |
Friday, November 28, 2003
Patriotism in Advertising Backfires
Whenever I've needed a car service, I've relished using Carmel Car & Limousine Service because their telephone number is 212-666-6666. I get a small kick out of dialing those Satanic digits; I'm not really sure why, but I like it.
In any case, after viewing a commercial for Carmel this morning, I'm switching services. The commercial went something like this:
I'm sending a version of this post as a letter to the Carmel company, just to let them know that their ad campaign may not be sending the message they want to send. I urge all of you to give feedback to companies whose actions have struck you in some way, good or bad. The only way to make business respond to consumers is for consumers to respond to business.
||Link || |
Whenever I've needed a car service, I've relished using Carmel Car & Limousine Service because their telephone number is 212-666-6666. I get a small kick out of dialing those Satanic digits; I'm not really sure why, but I like it.
In any case, after viewing a commercial for Carmel this morning, I'm switching services. The commercial went something like this:
(Image is a cheesy cartoon of a paintbrush painting an American flag) "The situation in Iraq is a new challenge to our nation's future." (Paintbrush is writing "We'll be there for you!") "Now that Iraq is liberated, we hope to see democracy, peace, and prosperity take root in the entire region. Carmel supports our men and women in uniform, and wishes for their speedy return. (Flag background reading "We'll be there for you, New York.") "We encourage our fellow New Yorkers to once again stand tall. Continue to patronize our fine theaters, great restaurants, and keep up with your travel plans." (Cars driving on various cartoon patriotic backgrounds, fading to yellow) "And if you need a lift around town, or to the airport, give Carmel a call. We'll be there for you." (Carmel 666-6666)I understand that it's meant to be a patriotic message and to express that the people in charge of the company are good people, but it just felt cheap and exploitative. It felt disrespectful to the continuing struggles of the "now... liberated" people of Iraq, as well as to the hundreds of them who have died in the struggle to free them. It felt self-serving of them to shamelessly use the deaths of American soldiers who have selflessly given their lives in service of their country, misguided as many of us think the task they were called to perform may have been. And it seemed vulgar to remind New Yorkers, and all Americans, of our loss of innocence and our sense of personal safety, and then use that memory to try to sell limo rides. It's not a profound sense of outrage or anything, but it just doesn't seem quite right to me. So given that there are lots of other car services not trying to make money out of the emotional appeal of the American flag, I'm going to choose someone else the next time I need a car.
I'm sending a version of this post as a letter to the Carmel company, just to let them know that their ad campaign may not be sending the message they want to send. I urge all of you to give feedback to companies whose actions have struck you in some way, good or bad. The only way to make business respond to consumers is for consumers to respond to business.
||Link || |
Daily Reads
Blogroll Me!
"Real" Media
The New York Times
Reason
Salon
The Wall Street Journal
Interested in a link exchange?
Send me an email.
All letters regarding this site are considered subject to publication unless specifically marked as private. Requests for anonymity will be honored.
< LibertyLoggers >
< < APDA WebRing > >
< # NYUblogs ? >
< ? six degrees # >
< < 1% Bloggers > >
:: i will not be silenced ::
All materials © Amy Phillips
For permission to reprint, problems, or questions, please contact mail@50minutehour.net