Ron Paul challenges liberals?

This is an interesting conversation. I'm not sure what to make of it, or even what parts to excerpt to give an overview of the story.

Why Ron Paul challenges liberals, by Matt Stoller
Progressives and the Ron Paul fallacies , by Glenn Greenwald
Debunking the “Ron Paul Cares About Civil Liberties” Myth
Glenn Greenwald is an asshat for his support of Ron Paul.
Democratic Party priorities, by Glenn Greenwald
Ron Paul has two problems: one is his, the other is ours, by Corey Robin
Naked Capitalism, “A Home for All Sorts of Bircher Nonsense”, by Matt Stoller
Ron Paul Challenges Liberals - or Maybe Not, at Angry Bear

Ohio parents plead guilty in son's cancer death

Ohio parents plead guilty in son's cancer death

The parents of an 8-year-old Ohio boy who died of cancer in 2008 have pleaded guilty to attempted involuntary manslaughter in his death.

Monica Hussing, 37, and William Robinson Sr., 40, face up to eight years in prison each; sentencing is scheduled for February 16.

"They thought the kid had swollen glands," John Luskin, Hussing's Cleveland-based attorney, told CNN on Tuesday.

From time to time, the boy's parents would notice a lump on his neck, but it would come and go and did not appear to bother him, Luskin said.

The parents never sought a diagnosis for their son, William, who was suffering from Hodgkin's lymphoma, CNN affiliate WJW reported.

They did not have much money, struggled to make ends meet and "were doing the best they could," Luskin said.

This is our world.

(via SouthernFriedInfidel)

Principles of democratic communism

Democratic communism begins with a truly democratic state*, with constitutional limitations on its power and checks and balances. The democratic communist state consists of three major institutions. The people and their delegates set policy. The civil service implements policy. The judiciary ensures that policy and its implementation is reasonable, lawful, and constitutional. Unlike the modern republican** state, there is no separate executive; although the civil service implements policy, it does not have the same policy-making powers employed by republican presidents and prime ministers.

*I mean "state" as those institutions with a collective monopoly on the legitimate use of violence.
**I mean "republican" in the sense of a state where the people elect trustee representatives; trustee representatives have the authority to act in secret, are not immediately accountable to the people, and can use their offices for economic, social, and political privilege.

The people comprise all citizens, as defined by the constitution. No citizen may be involuntarily excluded from participation except for medical incapacity and by due process of law. Where practical, the people set policy by direct democracy. Where direct democracy is impractical, the people appoint delegates to act on their behalf. Delegates must act transparently: they may not keep any secrets from the people. Delegates are immediately accountable: a majority of the people whom a delegate represents may at any time recall that delegate. Delegates cannot accumulate or exercise privilege: their pay is fixed by law and must not exceed ordinary workers' wages, and delegates cannot accept any other direct or indirect economic compensation during or after their services as delegates.

The civil service implements policy. The people cannot act directly; they must direct the civil service to implement a policy. The civil service cannot implement any new policies or procedures without explicit, public approval from the people. The civil service must act transparently: they cannot keep secrets from the people except where information affects a criminal investigation in progress (and the information must be made public when someone is charged, when the investigation is abandoned, or after a fixed period of time), or when the information would give immediate tactical advantage to a hostile or potentially hostile foreign state. The civil service must be independent of the people: the people cannot arbitrarily affect the promotion or retention of anyone in the civil service. The people can intervene in the civil service only when a member of the civil service is insubordinate, when he or she refuses to carry out the policy of the people when it is possible to do so. All of the people's interventions must be by due process of law. A member of the civil service can be internally fired, demoted, or have his or her pay reduced only by due process of law.

The police and the military are special branches of the civil service. The police are responsible for actually coercing people within the geographical boundaries of the country; the military is responsible for protecting the geographical boundaries of the country from foreign actors. All* citizens must serve, and only citizens may serve, as "on the ground" members of the police and/or the military (i.e. patrol officers and private soldiers), under the supervision of officers who are members of the police or military civil service. The person who actually holds the baton or the rifle must be a citizen. It must always be an affirmative defense for insubordination by a citizen than an order is illegal, unconstitutional, or immoral; if a citizen asserts such a defense, his or her case must be heard by the civil judiciary and in no case may an officer implement summary justice.

*Exceptions for religious or moral reasons are a topic for future debate.

The judiciary defines and implements due process of law. The state may exercise violence only with the specific assent of the judiciary: an individual, for example, may be arrested only with approval of a judge and imprisoned or otherwise coerced only after a judicial trial. Where prior approval of coercion is impractical (e.g. "exigent circumstances"), the judiciary must in every case exercise specific post hoc review. In general, "due process" must include the ordinary western standards: an impartial judge, a jury of citizens, an adversarial process with guaranteed competent legal representation of all parties, publicly declared and objectively determinable legal standards, general applicability of laws to all people, and the prohibition of ex post facto laws and "bills of attainder".

A judge may also act as an inquisitor (as both judge and prosecutor, without the presumption of innocence) against any delegate of the people or any member of the civil service reasonably suspected of illegal activity or official malfeasance.

Judges must be generally acceptable and independent. No single faction of the people may ever completely control the appointment or promotion of any judge. Judges may always sanctioned, punished, or impeached for illegal conduct, but no judge may be arbitrarily removed from any single case during its process. No judge may be arbitrarily sanctioned for his or her legal actions or decisions in any case. Judges responsible for the review of other judges' actions must serve fixed terms and cannot be arbitrarily removed from office during that term. Judges primarily responsible for evaluating the constitutionality of laws must serve lifetime appointments.

The constitution specifies the organization of the state, described above, and creates specific limitations on the actions of the state. The specific limitations should include those presently implemented in the Bill of Rights of the United States Constitution* and the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, with the specific exception that protection afforded property be construed as protection of physical objects in the immediate possession and use of an individual.

*If the constitution specifies a unitary state, then provisions of the Bill of Rights pertaining to the separation of powers between the federal and state governments would be inapplicable.

The people and their delegates, the civil service, and the judiciary, operating under the restrictions and with the legitimacy of the constitution, comprise the state.

The state may regulate the conduct of individuals using violent force. All regulation must take the form of generally applicable laws, with objectively determinable standards, acting forward in time. No law may explicitly or implicitly single out any individual or group of the people for applicability, except where membership in that group is voluntary. All coercion must have the primary purpose only of preventing recurrence of prohibited behavior by an individual (or guaranteeing future compliance of required behavior) or ensuring compliance in the future, and efficacy of these purposes must be objectively determinable.

The state is responsible for all monetary and fiscal policy, and may not delegate the creation or implementation of monetary and fiscal policy in any way, in whole or in part, outside the state. The civil service may reject monetary or fiscal policy if there is reason to believe that policy would result in any nominal deflation, or nominal inflation in excess of 50% per annum. The civil service may delay for additional review any monetary or fiscal policy that would result in excessive inflation less than 50% p.a., but must comply if the people or their delegates affirm the policy.

The state is also entirely responsible for the management of financial capital. Only the state may provide money, property or any other valuable consideration for any future consideration in excess of the nominal value of the consideration. In other words, only the state may loan money at interest or provide capital with an expected future dividend or value in excess of the original nominal value*. The state may arbitrarily loan or invest money to one or more citizens to facilitate economic activity. When the state provides for private economic production, the group of citizens must internally manage the production democratically, with all participants enfranchised. The state may also directly engage in economic activity. If the state directly engages in economic activity, it must reasonably capitalize private individuals to engage in the same activity, and ensure that private individuals can compete fairly with the state's operations.

*De minimus, the state does not care if one person lends another $20. For larger amounts, if, for example, one person lends another $1,000, the lender may demand only $1,000 in the future.

The state must employ any individual who requests employment, at wages sufficient to raise a family in civilized dignity and comfort, but without excessive luxury, if two individuals work full time. An individual may receive as many working hours as he or she requests, up to reasonable physical limitations. The state has arbitrary discretion over whether to provide employment less than the hours necessary to provide civilized dignity and comfort to a single individual.

The Stupid! It Burns! (kitchen sink edition)

In Atheism's DISTURBING Doctrines and tenets... plus videos!, P. P. Simmons offers everything in the realm of the stupid but the kitchen sink. Some highlights:

Atheists repeatedly deny that atheism is a religion. That is a classic delusion. ...

Since atheism teaches that humans are nothing more than animals, it would be completely acceptable for one human being to eat another if it was a matter of life and death. ...

At least one atheist with whom I had extensive conversations with, publicly lamented his own personal use of painkillers and antibiotics because he felt he was doing a disservice to the religious doctrine of evolution. By keeping himself alive he felt he was hindering the process of natural selection and he wished he could sacrifice himself to the process rather than artificially maintain his existence. ...

The apologists of Atheism use incredibly harsh tactics to put unbelievers in their place. They use their time in indoctrination mills to nurse from the breast of elitism and embrace the illusion of intellectual superiority while ingesting the talking points they will later use on people like me. ...

These apparent [atheist] victories are signs of the soon return of Jesus Christ to the earth. It is part of the "strong delusion" and "great falling away" that must happen before His coming. ...

The key word in that entire definition [of liberalism] is the word "unrestricted". Atheists want to live without moral or social boundaries dictated to them by a greater moral authority. In their defeated minds God doesn't exist so his statutes are meaningless. ...

The doctrine of liberalism has led to the modern holocaust of abortion, the destruction of the traditional family, the enslavement of the entire western world due to liberal governing practices leading to unfair taxation, and the degradation of the human condition due to the removal of the restrictions that kept us intact. ...

What would I do if I was faced with the choice of starvation or cannibalism*? That choice will never be a part of my life. In my existential paradigm, there is always the God option. I would pray. I would expect one of three or more or a combination of things to happen. Either God would rescue me out of the predicament or He would provide me with food to eat or probably a combination of both. A third option would be a supernatural sustaining of the body until help arrives. Let me make one thing perfectly clear. Death for the Christian is a sweet release. [emphasis added]

*Simmons seems to have a big hangup about cannibalism.

And just when you thought it couldn't get stupider, along come commenter Piltdown Superman with this gem: Atheists, according to Piltdown, "pretend that they are the brightest bulbs in the cutlery drawer."

(via Alex B.)

The Conservative Reaction

The Conservative Reaction, by Corey Robin (you should be reading his blog too):

Conservatism is the theoretical voice of this animus against the agency of the subordinate classes. It provides the most consistent and profound argument for why the lower orders should not be allowed to exercise their independent will, to govern themselves or the polity. Submission is their first duty; agency, the prerogative of elites. Such was the threat Edmund Burke saw in the French Revolution: not merely an expropriation of property or explosion of violence but an inversion of the obligations of deference and command. "The levelers," he claimed, "only change and pervert the natural order of things."

The Stupid! It Burns! (temporary edition)

Poor Temporary Atheists

According to the Bible, atheists go to hell when they die to wait in torment for the Judgment of the Great White Throne and the Lake of Fire. In hell the atheist knows that the God of the Bible is real and that he is accountable to him for his angry rejection of Christ. A man who knows that God has put him in hell for his sins is no longer an atheist. He may still hate God and rail against Him, but he can no longer deny the existence of God! ...

Poor temporary atheists. Voltaire, Robert Ingersoll, Christopher Hitchens, and a host of others called themselves atheists while they were alive, but the moment they died, they ceased being atheists. We Christians should put markers on their graves that say, ‘No longer an atheist!’

Santorum

Santorum? Santorum. Santorum!

Democracy and ideology

The sine qua non of democracy as an ideology is the principle that the majority, just because it is a majority, sometimes has the right to coerce* the minority, and a minority never has the right to coerce the majority. We can then distinguish democracy from ideologies that hold the majority qua majority never has the right to coerce the minority, and from ideologies that hold that some minorities sometimes have the right to coerce the majority.

*Or "initiate" coercion, even though adding the concept of initiation creates more problems than it solves.

What makes ethics and political science interesting is that we can consider many different questions at different meta-levels, i.e. levels of generality and different levels of abstraction. The concept of free speech makes a particularly clear example. Suppose Andrew (a minority of one) is saying something that most people (the majority) dislike (e.g. "Kill all the redheads!"). We can look at the specific person and his specific speech, or we can look at people in general and speech in general. The question, "Should we permit Andrew to say, 'Kill all the redeads!'?" is a special case of "Under what circumstances should we tell people not to say what they please?" The majority may have very different opinions without contradiction at different meta-levels. At the specific, concrete level, the majority might have the opinion that Andrew's speech is objectionable, but at the general, abstract level, the majority might have the opinion that people should say what they please, even if it is specifically objectionable. Thus we can conclude that even if there were some institutional arrangement that prevented the majority from coercing Andrew (or even coerced the majority into giving Andrew some sort of platform for his speech), it would not be a case of the minority (the members of the institution) coercing the majority, but rather the majority at the abstract coercing itself at the concrete level.

Obviously, ethics and politics gets a lot more complicated when we try to reconcile our abstract opinions with our concrete opinions, especially when some of the abstract opinions take generations to construct. C'est la vie. We have seven billion people on this Earth, in a complex, interdependent technological society. If you want to kill five or six billion of them, and revert to a simple, agrarian society, feel free to try... and I'll feel free to try and stop you. Hard problems are indeed hard, but I have no patience for simplistic, moralistic ideologies.

At the ideological, theoretical level, democracy defines legitimacy as being grounded in some majority opinion. At the practical level, however, all societies can be viewed in some sense as "democratic". If, for example, the majority of the people were to assent to being ruled by an emperor with near-absolute power, then we could say that the emperor's decisions were fundamentally grounded in some majority decision. The emperor obviously cannot rule without an army, and the people must be willing to join, feed and socialize with the army. The emperor must have substantial popular support to rule. Thus "democracy" acts not to differentiate actual societies, but rather to differentiate between the underlying narratives of different societies. In two different hypothetical societies, we might have the same emperor, the same laws, the same army and police, the same territory, but one society has a democratic narrative and another a non-democratic narrative: in the former, the emperor rules because the people want to be ruled by an emperor, that emperor; in the latter, the emperor rules because e.g. the god(s) have chosen him to rule.

We can look at any ethical or political ideology as a "lens", as the underlying theme of the narrative we use to justify the use of coercion. We can construct a narrative of any society using any ideological theme. The narrative might be... strained... but it can be made logically coherent. (If Christianity can be made logically coherent, and it can, anything can be made logically coherent.) That we can narrate any society in terms of any ideology does not, however, mean that ideology is entirely useless. We can, most obviously, look for the strains in the narrative. If some ideological justification for an institution or social practice appears rococo, over-complicated, or just plain weird, narrating a society in terms of that ideology makes that strain explicit and a candidate for amendment. Alternatively, an ideological narrative will highlight areas where the ideology itself seems undesirable or absurd; it is, for example, absurd to construct Libertarianism to the extreme of permitting a person to sell himself into chattel slavery*. Ideology is not useful for distinguishing between societies, but ideology is very useful for directing the future evolution of a society.

*I want to be clear: I think that most self-identified Libertarians would not take Libertarianism to the extreme of permitting slavery (at least not publicly). The objection that the "purest" form of Libertarianism would permit slavery is a weak political objection; it is an objection only to claims of the absolute, objective truth of Libertarianism.

Assuming all societies construct a democratic narrative (and almost every human society in the 21st century does so), we can use democratic ideology to differentiate between societies in practice by determining to what degree the will of the majority directly influences public policy, i.e. the legitimate exercise of coercion. We can construct a completely democratic narrative for an emperor or monarch, but it is of course a very indirect form of democracy: the will of the people does not have any direct effect on public policy, and the acceptance of a particular monarch is infrequent and passive. A republic (such as the United States) is more directly democratic than a monarchy: the government is chosen more frequently and more actively than in a monarchy, and chosen more directly on the promised policies of the candidates. But a republic still interposes the will of the electors between the people and actual public policy. An Athenian* or town hall democracy is about as direct as possible.

*Ignoring, of course, women, slaves, and immigrants.

More democracy is not necessarily better. We intuitively feel, as in the example of free speech above, that simply putting every individual decision to a simple majority vote would not result in a society that we want to live in. An intellectual must I think, not advocate the purest form of any political ideology, but carefully and intelligently examine the ideological narrative of various societies to identify strains and absurdities; her task is to make not a "purer" society, but a better society. Indeed, I myself identify as a communist precisely and only because I (presently) believe that communism is not the purest but the best way to institutionalize a democracy.

The Stupid! It Burns! (missing piece edition)

Atheists have a piece missing

Most people who believe in God don’t do so because they have been convinced by the cosmological – or any other – argument for his existence. They simply believe, using the same faculty of belief that allows them to believe in such things as the reality of the material world around them, the reality of the past, and the fact that minds exist other than their own. It is an a priori knowledge founded on evidence that is internal to the believer. ...

That is the bit that is missing or deliberately suppressed in atheists: the ability to know God exists. It’s a shame, really.

The Stupid! It Burns! (peer-reviewed edition)

Where’s the Evidence? Why the New Atheists Fail to Prove their Case

One of the most widespread claims amongst new atheists is that all religion is harmful. ... Given that these sorts of claims are backed up by appeals to science, reason and logic it behooves us to hold these conclusions to very high standards when analyzing them. ... Yet, there have been no scientific findings concluding that all religion is poisonous, that belief in supernatural entities leads to harm or that it infects people like a virus. ...

Case and point: How can Dawkins, Greta Christina or Sam Harris claim that the Dinka tradition of Africa is harmful? They’ve probably never heard of it, let alone conducted any sort of anthropological or sociological studies to determine the degree of harmfulness it poses to its members or others. Dawkins claims “I believe not because of reading a holy book but because I have studied the evidence.” I’d love to see the data and research he’s gathered to reach such monumental conclusions about religion. Has he investigated the Japanese religion Tenrikyo? The Korean tradition Wonbulgyo? Have any of these atheists been to Iraq or Iran to interview any Mandeans? Do these atheists ‘know’ in some scientific way that the traditional mythological beliefs of the Inuit of the polar regions were harmful or led to more harm? Is Native American spirituality really child abuse? I can just see it now: “Atheists Launch New Campaign to Eradicate Native American Religion.” Oh, wait that campaign has already been tried.

Update 5 Jan 2012: Scofield has apparently deleted his essay. Google has it cached for now, and I have my own copy.