More Proof That Sex Makes Conservatives Loony

Two different events hitting local media have underscored, for me, the bizarre love triangle between conservatives, freedom, and sex. In both cases, the typical reaction was "The country is ending because of those wanton Liberals." Both of them involved schools.

Up in Evanston, the "OMFS!" moment occurred at Northwestern University, one of the most selective and highly respected private universities in the country. In the psychology program is a course offering titled "Human Sexuality", which is very popular on campus for reasons I would characterize as "duh, they're college students". Professor John Bailey's class is known for being a bit risque, what with its topic and all. For a discussion on fetishes, the professor brought in a guest speaker, Ken Melvoin-Berg, who had a couple who assisted in the display of sex toys along with video depictions. The woman accompanying the guest speaker expressed the opinion that the orgasm depicted in the video was not realistic and -- here's where it starts getting strange -- offers to demonstrate the device herself.

You can see where this is going. And yes, it went there. The professor postponed the offer until after the class was over, made it clear that the demonstration was optional, and gave anyone alarmed by the idea ample opportunity to leave. To my surprise, some actually did. And then, in front of about 120 of the luckiest students on the North American continent, the woman demonstrated the device, a motorized phallus called a "Fucksaw", stimulating herself to orgasm.

The students who attended all said it was a worthwhile experience that added to the educational value of the course, which I know sounds fake, but they're sticking with their story. The professor admitted to being a little unsure how this was all going to play out, and the school administration was two or three different minds about the whole thing before finally settling on "we support our professors' academic freedom". As you might imagine, the response from the peanut gallery ranged from "awesomeness!" to "Liberals are murdering America with their dildos!"

Several people I saw posting to the article about it on Yahoo News were outraged to the point that they exclaimed if that happened at their children's school, they would pull them out immediately (I suppose suddenly forgetting that college students are typically adults -- legally if not emotionally). I asked a few of them what particularly upset them about the demonstration. None of them replied to me. I suppose the most likely reason they didn't is because they took my question as proof that I was mentally damaged. Some of the more reasoned responses seemed to object to the "animalization" of human beings. They compared the spectacle to studying the large intestine and colon in anatomy class by watching someone taking a dump. While I myself would not wish to witness such a thing, just as some students declined to attend the sex demonstration, I can imagine a plausible scenario where students might watch someone take a dump in the name of education.

In this incident, all of the attendees and participants were adults, 18 or over, who willingly attended and/or participated. Contrary to some critics, it wasn't public sex. A college classroom is not "the public". If you don't believe me, try wandering into one off the street. While the demonstration may have been startling, and was certainly explicit, nothing about it was illegal. Immoral, you say? Now we're crossing from science to religion, and let's face it, anyone who looks at it that way probably objects to the very existence of a course titled "Human Sexuality" anyway.

The other incident occurred closer to home. Here in St. Louis, a public school teacher essentially suspended herself (she requested to be placed on administrative leave) after being outed for the second time in her teaching career by her students for once having made pornographic movies. Even though she stopped making sex videos 15 years ago, she lost a job as a teacher in Padukah in 2006 once her students found out. She fought her termination, but teachers can be terminated without cause within their first few years of employment, so she lost, in spite of overwhelming support for her from the community. She changed her name, moved to St. Louis, and went to work for Parkway North in 2007. This time, when she got outed by her students, I suppose she chose not to fight it, knowing it was pointless.

Once again, the response from the public was mixed. Many responders to the news story on stltoday.com (the Post-Dispatch's web site) screeched at Parkway North for not vetting her properly on her background. Several writers applauded her firing, as if it was some small victory against the Liberal teachers unions. (Never mind the fact that in both cases, the union was unable to help her.) But a significant number of people said, "So what? She's not doing it anymore, she's worked hard to reform her life, and so she should be forgiven." At least in this case, more Christians seem to be speaking up for her. A few people have criticized Parkway North for being hamfisted and short-sighted about the whole thing, and feel that Parkway North should have kept her, or at least reassigned her.

This situation is even more tragic. Here is a woman who regrets what she did, got educated, found religion on top of it, and is trying to make the world a better place by being a teacher. The reaction against her is almost incomprehensible. And yet, there they are, trying to turn this into a "Liberal" thing, or dismissing her efforts with "actions have consequences, too bad she didn't know that". The only glimmer of hope for a just, compassionate community someday is that at least some Christians are willing to forgive her and rise to her defense.

Even if she didn't have regrets -- suppose instead she said "Yeah, I made pornos, so what? I'm not doing that anymore. I've moved on." -- why is this an issue? Making an adult movie is, in every state in America, a legal endeavor. Every sex act in an adult movie is, in every state in America (thanks to the Supreme Court ruling that struck down sodomy laws as unconstitutional), legal. Gateway North's background check didn't turn up anything because there was nothing to turn up. Background checks are for finding out about criminal activity, and there wasn't any. This woman is being persecuted for no good reason, period. Of course, now she has to leave anyway because she's "a distraction". That's a convenient excuse for the school district so they can take the spineless way out. For how long would her past film work be a distraction? Until the novelty wore off. By that standard, Kurt Warner or Rush Limbaugh teaching high school would have the same issue. Would they not be distractions until people got used to having them around?

This too would have passed, and Gateway North would have gotten to keep a good teacher, but they were too impatient and risk-averse. If only she had gotten past her probationary period and gotten tenure, at least she would have had a chance to defend herself, because then the school would have to show cause, and it's not necessarily a given that having made a porn film 15 years ago constitutes "cause". And then the conservatives would have held this up as yet another instance of the excess of teacher's unions. You all know the song by now.

The Solution to Wisconsin's Union Trouble is to Play Fair

Unionization is a complicated topic for libertarians. Usually, it's not really much our business, if the union in question is organizing workers in private industry. The First Amendment guarantees the right of free association, so there is nothing suspect about joining a union. One might argue that the company also has the right of free association, and thus has the freedom to not be associated with union members. The hedge against that is the unity of the union, the threat of striking and bringing the company to its knees.

I am generally pro-union. As a college student I was required to join the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers when I read electric meters for Union Electric. My father was a Teamster. My grandfather was a union activist with the Glass Worker's union. Back then, unions were necessary for several reasons. One, the legal fiction that is the corporation was growing larger, more powerful, and legally complicated. One person against a corporation is a hopeless cause in the case of a dispute. Two, conditions for workers were sometimes dangerous, and frequently unhealthy from a long-term perspective. If work was scarce, you made a choice of a living or your life. Third, the court system was expensive, and corporations had plenty of resources to fight any lawsuits an individual might bring.

When my grandfather began working for Pittsburgh Plate Glass (PPG Industries) in Crystal City, MO, in the '30s, he worked in the polishing room, where they use rouge (the same stuff they use for women's makeup) to polish glass to a high shine. This process produces a lot of glass dust, and the rouge is dusty as well. When he asked his management for a respirator to wear, they pretty much said, "hey, if you don't like your job, there are 100 men outside that gate who would love to have it." 40 years later, he would die of that glass dust and rouge at the relatively young age of 67.

When my father was a Teamster, it was a different era. Jimmy Hoffa's union was as powerful as the corporations the union members worked for. While many of the unions had already fallen to the lure of greed, the Teamsters continued to spend money on their own people. To combat this, the other unions colluded with the Kennedy and Johnson administrations to make all union benefits taxable. That made many Teamster benefits, such as poor houses, impractical and the programs ended. The suggestion that Hoffa and the Teamsters were in bed with the Mafia has been debated at length, but my grandfather doubted it. According to my father, he said, "The Teamsters didn't need the Mob. We were our own mob."

It could be said that throughout the '70s and '80s, the unions became their own worst enemy, falling victim to corruption, poorly picking their battles, forcing sclerotic work rules upon their employers, protecting seniority over merit, and various other sins. Their roles as support for their members have faded, as Federal agencies like OSHA and programs like unemployment insurance took over for everyone what the unions did for their members. Younger workers, never having seen the way things used to be, concluded that they didn't need unions anymore. The public's opinion of them became profoundly negative. Their power and influence declined. In 1945, about 33 percent of American workers had union representation. That figure had declined to less than 14 percent by 1998.

Whether or not unions are still necessary is debatable, but what isn't debatable is your right to associate with one. Collective bargaining, the central feature of unionization, is a product of that freedom of association combined with the corporation's respect for and fear of equal standing in negotiating the terms of employment association. Without a union, employment becomes a take-it-or-leave-it proposal of one against a gigantic legal fiction.

What if that employer is the government? Can the government itself indulge in the same abuses that a large corporation might? Of course. That is why we distrust large governments. Many would argue that without minimum wages, without protections, corporations would no longer barter fairly, an honest day's pay for an honest day's work. If you amass enough control, you can easily force upon a person a Devil's deal. Given enough mismatch between the power of the company and the power of the worker, the capitalism of labor fails to function properly. This is not always a problem, provided people have enough mobility and the economy is functioning properly. But this has been an issue, such as with the past phenomenon of "company towns", as well as serious economic downturns like the Great Depression, the moribund stagflation period of the '70s, and the bursting of the housing bubble last decade.

Both corporations and unions enjoy government protections that libertarians would disapprove of. If we strip those away, we do not strip away the rights that dwell behind both. The laws have simply been crafted to tilt the playing field one way or the other. Unions lobby for laws protecting them when economic conditions work against them. Corporations lobby for anti-union laws when economic conditions work against them. Corporations and unions usually don't get along.

Corporate policies don't carry the force of law. But what's going on in Wisconsin is different. There, the legislature is voting to pass a law that tilts the playing field strongly in favor of the employer, i.e. the state government of Wisconsin, and their "policy" does in fact carry the force of law. Furthermore, it explicitly abridges both the Union's free speech rights, and unfairly redraws the playing field by unilaterally placing its demands into law. We know that Scott Walker is trying to balance Wisconsin's budget. That is admirable and desirable. But you cannot run roughshod over people's rights to get there. Supposedly, the purportedly intractable unions have in fact agreed to the budget cuts Walker wants, but Walker has rejected their agreement. He wants to bust the union purely for political purposes. He is banking on the public's lingering dislike of unions to defend his effort. If this were a state legislature passing a law to strip workers of collective bargaining in the private sector, it should be roundly condemned by libertarians as an inexcusable interference in the internal affairs of a private entity. But when the employer is the government itself, and it is being paid for by tax money, and the budget is out of whack, does that make things different?

I cannot agree with that. Remember, union rights arise from two Constitutional guarantees, the right of free speech and the right of free association. If corporations can incorporate themselves, so can unions. If corporations have rights, then so do unions. You cannot pick one over the other. Either both have rights, or neither do. You can't pick just because the money situation is inconvenient. If we had a guaranteed-to-work plan in hand to balance all Federal and state budgets, eliminate the public debt, and insure economic prosperity, but it required eliminating freedom of religion (or the right to bear arms), would we as minarchists rush off the cliff to embrace it?

Corporations with unions are forced to negotiate in good faith or suffer the consequences of the union's power. Governments with unions can simply create laws that eliminate the need to negotiate in good faith.

I've read several articles saying that the elimination of collective bargaining rights is a lie, and that it's only about the budget and the cost of benefits. That is itself a lie, and a crafty, disingenuous one at that. The law eliminates all collective bargaining except for negotiating salaries. That leaves a kibble of collective bargaining so Walker can claim he hasn't eliminated it, but leaves the union the least desirable right in the public's eyes, playing to the public's assumption of unions as greed machines for their members. If this was about the budget, why leave the *most expensive part*? He could have stripped the unions of the right to negotiate benefits and salary and job security, and left them the right to negotiate for working conditions and due process rights. He didn't. So, it's apparently not about money or the budget.

I'm sure there are decent arguments you could throw against me. Was it legitimate to unionize government workers in the first place? How can we reduce the size of government with unions in place to oppose it? What about opposing legislators fleeing to deny a vote on the measure? Sure, we could debate that, but it won't change the immediate problem. Scott Walker needs to slow down, back off, and play fair. If the unions have agreed to your budget concessions, TAKE THEM. Balance your silly budget first. Then worry about your political vendetta against unions.

It's better than politics....it's baseball

I like politics, but I love baseball. Unlike the other major team sports in America -- football, basketball, soccer, hockey -- baseball has a linearity that makes it at once predictable, and not so much. It's a lopsided game, where half the time a player can carry the team, and the other half must depend on eight other guys to do their jobs. Those other sports are all very similar to each other: one bunch of guys getting the ball into a goal on the other end of the field in more or less a straight line, against another bunch of guys, all working simultaneously and in concert to achieve success. Not baseball. It is dominated by one mano a mano matchup after another, where everything else stops until their joust is complete. It goes in a circle, and the goal is where you started. It's the only sport where going out of bounds in the right direction is a grandiose event that cannot be responded to other than by standing and watching the opposing player make the circle unchallenged, basking in his greatness.

It is not a contact sport. When contact is made, it's usually an error on someone's part. It is not a particularly violent sport. It is the only major sport where men and women could plausibly play with or against each other. Athletic might doesn't mean as much as skill. In this game, right now in the Major Leagues, one person can throw a pitch 105 mph(1). Another person can throw 65 mph(2). Both are successful pitchers. One could be a short, wiry, fast person outsprinting ground balls(3), while another could be a hulk who gets on base by hitting the ball so far no one can retrieve it(4), or -- in many cases -- intimidate the opposing team so much they choose not to pitch to them at all(5). One could be a fresh face not even done with high school(6), while another can be within reach of their AARP membership card(7). It has been played by a man nearly 7 feet tall(8), and by a man less than 4 feet tall(9). It has been played by at least two men missing limbs(10).

It is America's pastime, the last great government-sanctioned monopoly, with the most visible labor union. Yet its operation reflects capitalism. Sure, baseball teams can't move at will like those in the other sports, but its lack of a salary cap makes sure nobody complains too loudly. Trading and free agency are much more influential on baseball than on the other sports. It's the only sport with a credible professional developmental process, the minor leagues. Yes, hockey has minor leagues, but to a much lesser extent. Football and basketball assume that college students will major in their sport, paying for the privilege, or at least not being paid (officially). This dichotomy serves to level the playing field. Money can buy you success(11), but skill at drafting players and developing them can lead you to success too(12).

It is a sport that lends itself to constant analysis. Because of its linear nature, it is easy to record statistics about it. It is slow enough that it can be sufficiently analyzed while the game is going on. It can, in fact, be more easily simulated by computers than any other sport. And yet, it is full of unpredictability. As Captain Ben Sisco told the wormhole aliens in the pilot episode of Star Trek: Deep Space 9, "It's linear! No one knows what's going to happen next. That's why we play the game."

It is a celebration of human ability, and human fallibility. Errors are an explicitly tracked statistic. A batter who fails only two-thirds of the time is considered a star. So ingrained in baseball is failure that perfection is an event that has happened for pitchers less than two dozen times in 125 years. Unlike every other sport, baseball has no time limit. It takes however long it takes to finish the game. That means no lead is insurmountable, ever, and complacency can still lead to loss(13). Unlikely heroes can appear at unlikely times, and then just as quickly vanish once again into obscurity(14). Errors can be introduced by the games judges, the umpires. It can extend a World Series to an unlikely outcome(15), or it can wipe out perfection(16).

For all of these reasons, I have never been able to really get into other sports. Sure, I follow hometown teams in other sports, but the only game I have passion for is this linear, lumpy, unpredictable combination of athletics, skill, and plain dumb luck.

That's why I tell people, it's better than politics....it's better than sports.....it's baseball!

Notes:

(1)Aroldis Chapman

(2)Tim Wakefield

(3)Rickey Henderson

(4)Babe Ruth

(5)Barry Bonds, Albert Pujols

(6)Joe Nuxhall

(7)Jack Quinn

(8)Jon Rauch

(9)All-time, Eddie Gaedel (3'7", played one game in 1944); among "serious" players, David Eckstein (5'6").

(10)Pete Gray(OF), Jim Abbott(P)

(11)New York Yankees

(12)Tampa Bay Rays

(13)In 2001, Cleveland beat Seattle by scoring 12 runs, going from losing 14-2 to winning 15-14; three times, teams scored 9 runs in the 9th inning to win

(14)Brian Doyle

(15)Don Denkenger

(16)Jim Joyce

"Who Is Ayn Rand?"

"Who is John Galt?" was Ayn Rand's failed attempt at a popular catchphrase. In her 4th and last novel, Atlas Shrugged, the question was contemporary slang for answering an important question with no (or no obvious) answer. It roughly translates as "What's the point?" or "Why bother?"

Get into discussions of political theory, and few names rankle more hackles than that of Ayn Rand. Deified by some, vilified by many, Rand was and is a polarizing figure in politics and philosophy. There are good reasons for this, as Rand herself was a love-her-or-hate-her type of person. She had a reputation for being arrogant, self-aggrandizing, and dismissive of her critics. We seldom use phrases like "followers of Aristotle" or "followers of Kant" or "followers of Nietzsche" as if such things were abnormal, but "followers of Ayn Rand" immediately put to mind an image of a mindless sycophant spouting quotes from Atlas Shrugged and berating "looters and moochers". A major figure in philosophy from the '50s through the '70s, few people outside of libertarians and some feminists remember her. Should we? Or should we let her ideas remain in the past?

She was born as Alisa Rosenbaum in 1905 in St. Petersburg, Russia. A girl during the Russian Revolution, she saw her father's pharmacy business seized by the Bolsheviks. After a brief exile to the Crimea, her family returned and she was in the first group of girls permitted into Russian colleges. She got a degree in history (during which she was purged once), and also spent a year in film school. In the '20s, she emigrated to America, living in Chicago and Hollywood while doing film writing. She took Ayn Rand as a professional name and worked as a screenwriter in the '30s and began her career as a novelist with the autobiographical "We the Living" (1936) and the novella "Anthem" (1938). During the '40s she became a political activist for the Republicans and participated in several anti-Communist organizations. She finally found fame with her novel "The Fountainhead" (1943), a story about a successful architect seeking to free himself of the hangers-on that had attached themselves to him seeking a piece of his wealth. As her ideas about living a life based on rational thought developed, she undertook the multi-year writing effort that resulted in the book that concluded her literary career and launched her philosophical career, "Atlas Shrugged" (1957). She founded organizations based on her philosophy, which she called Objectivism, and wrote non-fiction and lectured for most of the rest of her life. She died in 1982.

Rand's early experiences in Russia influenced her thinking. The two early run-ins with the Bolsheviks set within her a strong anti-Communist attitude, and she also decided during her teens that she was an atheist. Her philosophy was most influenced by Nietzsche, and was based on the primacy of the creative human mind. Her biggest novels, "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged", outlined the struggle between people who create and people who take advantage of the creators. Her philosophy of Objectivism grew into a no-holds-barred attack on altruism and charity. She derided "looters", usually government entities and officials who claim the assets of creators to give to those who do not create, and "moochers", who live off the production of creators.

Her most notable contribution to philosophy is her concept of "Sanction of the Victim", which proposes that Good permits itself to suffer at the hands of Evil in a sacrificial role. Evil is a parasite on Good, and can only flourish if Good permits it. In the context of her idea of the primacy of individual, which she described as "rational self-interest", Evil became the parasitic individuals who feed off the produce of the Good. In Rand's world, the worst of the Seven Deadly Sins would be Sloth. This "rational self-interest", however, does not grant a person the right to take unfair advantage of other people. A person who takes something from someone else by force is a "looter". A person who defrauds someone else is a "moocher" of sorts. The morality in Objectivism arises, then, in Good dealing with Good on equal terms, and respecting each other as rational human beings.

It's a philosophy that does not lend itself to sentimentality. Rand proposed that people do not have an obligation to support anyone but themselves. In her mind, only laissez-faire capitalism served society's purpose. Many characterize her philosophy as a sort of social Darwinism, where the non-creators perish while the creators thrive.

Objectivism found little acceptance in academic philosophy initially, but gained more after her death (perhaps they just didn't want to stoke up her ego :-). Its biggest influence has been on politics, especially libertarianism. Those who claim Rand as an influence reads like a Who's Who of fiscal conservatism and libertarianism, including Fed chief Alan Greenspan, Libertarian Party co-founder David Nolan, Texas congressman Ron Paul, and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. While her admirers are overwhelmingly Right on the political spectrum, she has also drawn praise from feminists and atheists. Rand was fiercely pro-choice and was an early proponent of women as sexual equals to men.

Okay, so why all the bile aimed at her? The obvious is that most of her core ideas are anathema to both Liberals and devout Christians: A dismissal of supporting the weak and disadvantaged, the rejection of altruism and charity, and distaste over the appearance of her depiction of the advantaged as victim. Additionally, she consciously stoked a cult of personality, surrounded herself with the sycophants described earlier, and by most accounts was arrogant and obnoxious to be around. Rather than recognizing people could disagree with her philosophy in good conscience, Rand looked down on them as morally inferior.

There is also the issue that Objectivism as a societal ideal is, in many ways, impractical to implement. Rand's idea of oppression of creators is supposed to be more like a musician being taken advantage of by their record label, or the sort of governmental confiscation of small business she witnessed in revolutionary Russia. In the real world, her philosophy seems to give permission to big business to use people with impunity, to propose that up is in fact down by virtue of the wealthy being oppressed by the poor. This is exacerbated by Rand's own ardent support for laissez-faire capitalism, which most people associate with the abuses of the corporate world rather than the barter economy of the small town. She seems to make little distinction between earned wealth, inherited wealth, and exploited wealth.

She has also been dismissed by many as a hypocrite. While she enjoyed an affair with a younger man (with her husband's permission), she severed all contact with him when he had his own affair (albeit without her permission). While noisily anti-government and anti-welfare, she once accepted government medical assistance, rationalizing that she might as well take it, since the government took the money from her in the first place. She opposed anti-gay laws on one hand, but reviled gays on the other. She opposed the draft on one hand, but criticized draft dodgers on the other. While her philosophy included virtues of honesty and integrity, Rand publicly supported the taking of land from the Native Americans.

Ayn Rand and her philosophy of Objectivism will no doubt be evaluated and debated for decades to come. Even if you don't know or remember her name, her ideas are sure to influence a ballot box near you.

I Am a Libertarian

I am a libertarian. I used to be a Libertarian (that is, a member of the Libertarian Party) but since 2000 I have just been a libertarian. It's difficult being a libertarian in American society, and I am far from ideologically pure.

What does it mean to be a libertarian? The basis for the policies of the Libertarian Party is the Principle of Non-Aggression. When a person joins the Libertarian Party, they must sign a pledge disavowing the use of force and fraud to achieve social goals. On its surface, it sounds very difficult to argue against. Its power is in its simplicity. And yet, it has such far-reaching implications towards government policy that most people simply don't feel they can stay on for the entire ride.

There are different kinds of libertarians. The most common type is the minarchist. They advocate small and limited government, so as to maximize personal freedom and liberty. Usually, they use the US Constitution as their guide, since as government structural documents go, it is one of the most liberal in the world, and it is extremely difficult to modify, thereby making it an enduring touchstone. Minarchists will usually start any political discussion by asking, "Is it in the Constitution? Then you can't do it." They're usually fairly open-minded when it comes to social policies. If it doesn't hurt anyone, then the government can't ban it.

Another kind of libertarian is the anarcho-capitalist. They take the Non-Aggression Principle one step further by claiming that the government, being only based on force, cannot be permitted to exist, which is okay because anything the government does can also be done by the Free Market. While the theory is logically consistent, I don't subscribe to this school of thought because it kinda assumes people are inherently good, which I don't believe to be the case. Many of their proposals are trotted out by non-libertarians as proof that libertarians are crazy and should never be elected, with ideas such as privatizing the police and such. A short story by sci-fi author Vernor Vinge, "The Ungoverned", from his collection True Names, actually does a good job of describing some aspects of anarcho-capitalism.

Another, better known strain is the Objectivist. These folks usually cite the system of thought advocated by political philosopher Ayn Rand, also called Objectivism, that proposes that personal self-interest should motivate people's actions, and it includes an inherent mistrust of altruism. The idea seems to be that all self-interest is enlightened self-interest, and that individuals should be left free to pursue that interest. Rand's ideas are mainly articulated in two novels, The Fountainhead (1943) and the world-famous Atlas Shrugged (1957), which near the end features an extended, embedded essay on Objectivism presented as a speech broadcast by the book's secondary character John Galt. It should be noted that while Objectivism and libertarianism have much overlap, and because many Objectivists claim to be libertarians and vice versa, the two political philosophies are not the same, and one is not necessariy representative of the other.

Some political positions are similar to libertarianism without being libertarian per se. Fiscal conservatives, sometimes referred to as paleo-conservatives, are frequently labeled "libertarian", especially if they do not espouse the conservative Christian social policies of Neo-Conservatism. This is the case with many prominent economists, such as Milton Freedman, and a handful of politicians, such as Texas congressman Ron Paul***, former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson, and to a lesser extend former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura. Many fiscal conservatives are concerned primarily with the level of governmental spending and its undue influence on capitalistic systems, and seldom take interest in social policies beyond that.

On the other side we have left-libertarians, the vast majority of which are anti-Drug-War activists. They champion individual rights as epitomized in the Bill of Rights, and generally sympathize with anti-Federal ideas, but have a deep distrust of organizational power, especially corporate power, and so usually cannot bring themselves to be thorough-going fiscal conservatives. They will champion many positions that assume the primacy of the individual, such as legalization of drugs, prostitution, sexual activity, and religious rights, but see use of economic force as interchangeable with government force. Many self-identify as Liberal but will not usually involve themselves with traditionally liberal positions such as poverty assistance or workers' rights.

Who isn't a libertarian? In a nutshell, anyone who insists that the government must do something to assist some segment of society, or to take positive action to achieve a societal goal, cannot be considered a libertarian. Taxation is one of the biggest bugaboos in libertarianism, alongside regulation of business activities and regulation of consensual activities on moral grounds. I would not say it is inherently bad to take a political position that is Liberal or Conservative, but from my perspective I find a lot of people holding those views to willfully ignore the undesirable consequences or side effects of those positions. There tends to be a lot of emotion imbued in most political positions.

Libertarianism is unemotional to a fault. For so many positions, any given position is the result of a cold calculus. To be a moderate libertarian -- a phrase many people believe to be an oxymoron -- one must recognize that we did not get to where we are now overnight, and to attempt to get to where we wish to be overnight would be needlessly destructive. One must recognize that other people take their political positions earnestly. They usually aren't stupid or evil or powermongering. They may not even be ignorant, the next most common conclusion. They may simply disagree with the Non-Aggression principle, or see shades of grey where libertarians see black and white. One must accept that only incremental persuasion, followed by proof of non-destructive results, will create a more libertarian society.

A society where individual freedom and personal responsibility continues to demonstrate why America is the nation that people around the rest of the world aspire to emulating.

David V


*** While it is true that Ron Paul is a social conservative by personal belief, his voting record in Congress has been mostly libertarian, which is why so many pro-choice supporters overlook his personal beliefs in supporting him, and why so many Libertarians felt betrayed when he endorsed Chuck Baldwin, the Constitution Party candidate (a strongly Neo-Conservative political party) in 2008.

What Won't Republicans Cut?

[Originally posted to Facebook on February 18, 2011]

So far, what the press has told us is that Republicans are doing what they always do when they get into office, which is turn into paleo-social crusaders. Cut Head First? Sure, those little bastards should be home with mommy, who should be married anyway. That's not an exaggeration, as these amazing comments from county administrators in Maryland cringetastically went on the record for earlier this week (http://www.gazette.net/stories/02092011/frednew175041_32611.php) . Cut funding for PBS and NPR, because the media should be privately funded (or at least, corporately funded). You gotta figure that Republicans will gleefully cut anything that smells Liberal, since That Is Not The Role Of The Government And Not In the Constitution.

Now, in a previous life, I would have agreed with the cuts (but not the ridiculous justifications that frequently accompany them because I actually like and respect women) and in theory, I still would, except that it's plain that Republicans and Conservatives are always very selective in what cuts they propose. Let's brainstorm and see what things Republicans will leave in the budget.

* They won't cut military spending. Now, this is presently dicey because after two wars, we're a tad depleted, so there is a certain argument that we need to spend enough to stay ready. But there's no real desire to rein in the American Empire from places that can plainly support themselves, such as Japan, the UK, and Germany. We have a whole navy fleet based in Bahrain. But nobody is proposing cuts to those programs.

* They won't cut spending on law enforcement or domestic surveillance. Certainly, we need the FBI, and we need national and international intelligence. But we don't need the continually raging War on Drugs, and we don't need specific funding to crack down on Driving While Black in a White Neighborhood, or for that matter, Driving While Hispanic Anywhere. It's not a matter of not needing law enforcement, but rather where to spend the money and what social priorities we need to focus on.

* They won't cut Faith-Based programs, even though they provide social services, since that serves their back-door attempts to undermine the separation of Church and State (which, like gun ownership, IS in the Constitution, despite their pitifully rationalized bleating to the contrary) and thus bolster their Christian-centric worldviews.

* They won't cut Corporate Welfare. By this, I do NOT mean they won't "cut" corporate tax cuts. I mean, the programs that actually give money to corporations (beyond military and law enforcement contracts). Things like farm subsidies, that's the best and most notorious example. They began as protections for famiy farms, but since famiy farms are increasingly rare, being replaced by corporate farms, it's now protections for corporate farms, which don't really need protection.

I kinda would have liked this list to be longer, to be honest. It makes things look a bit unfairly tilted toward the Liberals as being responsible for the burgeoning Federal government. But it does show that Republicans in general, and the Tea Partiers in particular, are not the disciplined minarchists they claim to be.

Emerson Epitomizes the American Business Paradox

[Originally posted to Facebook on February 13, 2011]

When people on the right say they want government to "get out of the way", what exactly do they mean by that? Here in St. Louis, the Post announced David Farr, CEO of Emerson Electric, to be Citizen of the Year. I found that curious, given Farr's comments in the recent past about America and American workers.

Many of you probably have no idea what Emerson is. They make electrical equipment that other heavy industry buys and uses. They're as important as GE in that regard. Oh, they also lend their name to ultra-low-end consumer electronics in some markets (sitting next to companies like Yorx and Hinyo and stuff). If you operate an electrical power plant, you know about Emerson. They're probably the largest company whose corporate HQ remains in St. Louis. That's important to the city, given how many we've lost over the years.

But Farr is far from popular, after telling shareholders in 2008 that he's "not going to hire anybody in the United States. I'm moving." He hasn't stuck to that, and he admits he's hired Americans, but he has a tendency to exaggerate to make a point: Americans are expensive and against the interests of shareholders.

His proclamation as Citizen of the Year is for his charitable contributions and donations and support to various causes around St. Louis. He is a generous contributor to the arts, sitting on the board of many venerable organizations in town, such as the Muny Opera. But it also strikes many people as ironic that a person who thinks Americans aren't worth hiring are worth donating to help out. Or perhaps that's just pragmatic.....people without jobs need help, and he won't help them with jobs.

He, like many business leaders, ask the Federal and state governments to "just get out of the way" of business. That brings me back to my opening question, because I think the majority political view -- what can the government do for me? -- means different things to different people. I've told people before, from the perspective of a moderate libertarian, that government regulation usually doesn't just exist in a vacuum of the desire for power, as so many loud Conservatives assert frequently. Neither is the government totally in the pocket of Big Business, like many loud Liberals assert.

The truth lies somewhere in between, and in between lies the trench warfare of force politics. I'm sure many businesses would like government to get out of the way, so they can get back to the business of dumping waste into rivers and the air, killing their employees with unsafe working conditions, and owning communities as indentured servants. Such things are why unions came about, and why the government does in fact regulate things. Most government regulations come about because of bad behavior.

On the other hand, business could make good arguments that they are not, in fact, tax collectors or welfare agencies. The tethering of health care to employment is one of the big cultural failures of the last century. The perspective that Liberals have of deeming "unfair" the fact that rich people have stuff and poor people don't is one of the primary motivators for businesses to flee America. Government regulation frequently goes far beyond protecting people, and into using business as a bank account for funding social policy change.

So honestly, Conservatives, what parts of the Federal government are in your way? What would it take for you to bring your jobs back to America? And Liberals, at what level of control over business will you be satisfied? Let me know in the comments.

Living Everyday Life as a Libertarian

[Originally posted to Facebook on February 6, 2011]

It is incredibly difficult to be credible as a libertarian these days. It's easy to chant the mantra, "government bad, government bad" when one receives a fair amount of government support just by sitting still. As a Big-L libertarian in the '90s, I could certainly talk the talk. My Libertarian Party of Oregon compatriots typically found it difficult to walk the walk, and it's not hard to see why.

As Libertarians, we certainly understood that if one of our number were actually elected to office, they would be single term public servants only, for two reasons. One, both of the entrenched parties would be gunning for us, and they have lots and lots of money. Two, if we were to actually implement our policies, nearly everybody would be pissed off. After all, the unofficial slogan of the Libertarian Party was, "the party with something to offend everyone". Imagine if in an insanely serendipitous world, the Libertarian agenda was implemented. Within the course of a single term, chaos would ensue. Let's see, we repealed Medicaid and legalized marijuana. So people can't afford any health care but they can smoke weed. Imagine the re-election campaign races that would come out of that.

If the Tea Party Republicans are earnest in their election claims (of which I am highly dubious), we should see a reduction in government budgets. Is that good? Well, it depends. People seldom vote for what hurts them but is otherwise "responsible". The knee-jerk assumption that all government regulation is bad, leads to a festival of irresponsible behavior. I want to ask a question, and I want you to be completely honest in your answer:

Why are industries regulated?

Your answer says more about you than you think. On the one hand, Libertarians can certainly trot out all sorts of examples that things like licensure and other barriers to market entry exist purely to protect the profits of the established players. Sure, that's the case in a great many cases. But if you think a primary motivation of "the government" is its thirst for control of as many parts of society as possible, you've obviously drunk the Kool-Aid of conspiracy nutjobs. As one who has worked for "the government" a couple of times, I can tell you that "the government" isn't nearly as unified as that to pull it off. That's a favorite of Obama critics right now: "He doesn't care about America. He hates America and wants to destroy it and expand its POWER(power power power)." (Read that as if you were hearing the announcer for a monster truck rally at the local arena next weekend....you know, SUNDAYsundaysundaysunday....!)

True, some regulations are proffered by overzealous do-gooders who will lie in order to get what they want (which is authority over you, because you're too stupid and greedy to do the right thing) but what is more likely is that the industry in question acted so stupidly and selfishly and unethically that it DEMANDED REGULATION. That was true of timber companies in the '80s (I know this because I worked for one), it was true of the banks and Wall Street companies this decade, and its undoubtedly going to inspire government intervention in the future.

One thing that all Libertarians agree on is the Principle of Non-aggression. Most of you probably aren't aware of this, but it is the bedrock upon which the Libertarian Party's platform is based. It goes like this: "I oppose the initiation of force and/or fraud in order to achieve societal goals." Quite simple, actually. One would actually find it hard to find someone who would, on its face, oppose it. It drives the entire rest of the party's ideas. It's powerful stuff.

It leads to rather surprising policy stances. It actually interfaces quite nicely with a quote from someone on the other end of the political spectrum, Mao-Tse Tung: "Political power grows from the barrel of a gun." Many Libertarians will gleefully explain to you how this comes from just about every portion of Federal, state, or local government. Many people, when confronted with this, don't know how to react. Then Libertarians act all smug and tell you to vote for their obvious political truth in the next election, which no more than 2 percent ever typically do.

This is one reason why the Tea Party should be taken with a heavy grain of salt. If they're earnest, they'll accomplish precisely dick in office, because everyone else is arrayed against them. If they're not, then they'll pursue the typical ultra-conservative agenda of Christian totalitarianism.

The best thing to do is to make a conscious decision that you will do what you can for yourself and your family, initiate force against no one, and hope for the best. A libertarian society will only emerge if a critical mass of people do this. The problem is, both "conservatives" and "liberals" have a vision of their perfect society and are perfectly comfortable with initiating force to achieve this. "Liberals" can be forgiven for this more because, I think, they make the mistake of thinking emotionally, which is where their cracked economic ideas come from. They feel bad that some people have stuff and others don't, and want to "help people" and "make the world a better place", which inevitably involves initiating force on everyone to achieve this. The far more virulent form of profligate denial is on the part of "conservatives". They have convinced themselves that forcing Christian asceticism on everyone is the ideal, while at the same time clothing themselves with "freedom". Uh huh. Freedom to obey the Christian god, which involves the freedom to be punished for thinking otherwise. Freedom to be a good, docile employee. Freedom to suffer nobly. Freedom to think like they do.

Am I wrong? Argue with me in the comments.

Just Say NO to Orchestrated Outrage

[Originally posted to Facebook on January 24, 2011]

Regardless of what is eventually discovered about Jared Loughner and the Tucson Massacre, the only good thing to come of all this is the discussion of why the state of our politics and media is what it is. It is neither a "right wing" problem nor a "left wing" problem. It is the fact that neither the politicians, nor the media who cover them, have any motivation to be civil, because we've turned outrage into a form of entertainment. WE are the problem. As soon as we add, "...but The Right/Left is more to blame", we've undone any good we tried to do.

Jon Stewart said, "As I watched the political pundit world, many are reflecting and grieving and trying to figure things out. But it's definitely true that others are working feverishly to find the tidbit or two that will exonerate their side from blame or implicate the other, and watching that is as predictable, I think, as it is dispiriting."

http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2011/01/11/jon-stewarts-moving-monologue-on-the-tucson-shootings/

Where were you on September 11, 2001?

[Originally posted to Facebook on September 11, 2010]

I remember I was at home, in our rented house in Lemay. It was a morning during the week, and I had been at my new job at ITT for about three months. Ann was working for MSD. Early in the morning, she called me and asked if I could get on-line, because the network connection was very very slow, and there were an unusual number of planes flying overhead. I couldn't get on-line either, so I went upstairs and turned on the television to CNN.

The first thing I saw was the first replay of a plane hitting one of the World Trade Center towers, about halfway up. The other tower was already on fire near the top. At the crawl at the bottom of the television display, there was a news update reporting a possible fire at the Pentagon. Soon it was reported that it was a third plane that had crashed there. I wondered how bad this was going to get. I sat down and watched for the next four hours, thinking to myself, "This is when everything changes. We're going to war."

This heinous crime was committed by religious zealots, and all people of faith, of all religions, should take affirmative steps to condemn these infamous actions and ensure that nothing like this is ever perpetrated again in the name of anyone's God.

Ruminations on an Election

[Originally posted on 11/10/2008]

I originally wrote this for an e-mail list of personal friends and acquaintances.  I have decided to repost it here.

This election was a difficult one.

I'm continually surprised by the venom elections bring out in people. At work, I had people earnestly confiding in me that they would move to Canada if Obama won.  Since these folks are obviously conservatives, given when I know of Canadians, I wonder if they really thought this through.  I mean, I wasn't aware that Canada was made up of war-hawk homophobes who hate socialized medicine.

(I had to pause for a moment....I'm mildly amused that the spellchecker in my Thunderbird e-mail client doesn't know about the word "homophobe".  Perhaps some programmer at Mozilla is an optimist.  Then again, it apparently doesn't know about the word "spellchecker" either, which explains the state of Internet message forums....)

It's interesting that an election can make a moderate Republican known for facing down his own party every so often become in the national psyche a warmongering wingnut who is the very embodiment of evil social conservatives and a virtual genetic clone of the Dictator-in-Chief.  Of course, McCain apparently suffered a stroke over the summer, because he decided a totally unknown, less-than-one-term social conservative state governor with a poorly vetted background was somehow a good choice of runningmate, and then decided to go so disgustingly negative in the last month of the campaign as to poison his own well.

It's interesting that an election can make a nearly unknown freshman senator from Chicago known for little else than one speech a leader for the 21st century.  He had is own stroke over the summer, but it was a stroke of genius, forgoing the obviously politically expedient, and historically trumping, choice of a woman running mate and instead picking one of the most astute politicians in recent memory, and risking alienating a big chunk of his own party in the process.  This writer was duly impressed with his ability and determination to not go totally negative.  Not that he didn't tell his share of campaign ad fibs, but better to fudge your opponent's policy stances than some make hay of social connections that even this libertarian can see are tenuous at best.

For the first time since 1988, I did not vote for the Libertarian candidate for president.  This was an extremely difficult choice for me.  People seem to take personal pleasure in informing me that I'm throwing my vote away, or that I'm really casting a vote for the person they're against.  But there was something oddly comforting about my votes.  I could warmly snuggle into the down comforter of voting my conscience, or at least, not voting for anyone who would be part of prolonging the country's problems.  But instead, I did my due diligence, checking as many facts and counter-facts as I could, examining political rhetoric, attempting to filter said rhetoric through the polarizing sunglasses of election year distortions, and trying, in earnest, to vote for the person I thought would be best for the country in the long term.  Should or should not their choices for vice-president be taken into account?  What would *really* happen if they were in office?  What would *really* happen if they died in office and their running-mates took the office?  Who is more likely to do things that coincide with my beliefs?  Who is more likely to actually attempt to do what they say?  And *what* ARE they really saying?

Of course, I've tried to discuss the pros and cons of both the Democratic and Republican candidates, and no matter who I bring up, I've been the subject of no small amount of abuse by people whose idea of political discourse is a harpy's scream at 120dB.  The Internet has become both the best and worst thing to ever happen to American elections.  Truths are available at the touch of a button, and so are lies.  Truths are declared lies and lies are declared truths and there's absolutely no filter whatsoever, so an earnest, sincere search for information on the candidates becomes a bit like being stuck between two squabbling children shouting "am not!" "are too!".

The answers are only obvious to those who have predetermined the questions, and they are self-appointed.  To them, there are no reasonable decisions.  You pick their candidate if you want to be Right.  If, for some reason, through an honest attempt at sorting through everything, you conclude that the other candidate might in fact be a better choice, then you are (a) a moron, (b) a sheep, (c) either a Socialist or a Racist Hater.

So for those people who are so smugly secure in their choice of presidential candidate, just know that not everyone shared your sense of self-satisfied confidence.

And I will never, ever not vote Libertarian again.  It's just been too traumatic.  It's safer to just throw my vote away.

Beijing 2008 ~= Berlin 1936

[Originally posted on 3/16/2008]

Red China really wants you to watch the Olympics.  Really really badly.  They want to prove to you that they are a happy, peaceful, unified country.  They're not really bad, they're just misunderstood.  The Olympics will show just how happy their big happy family is.  Right?

Um....

Apparently, the many areas of Asia conquered by the Communists -- and let's not forget, in spite of the end of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, China is a Communist country -- haven't been brainwashed into the ChiCom's Big Happy Family (R) (after all, they're now "capitalist" and so I guess they're supposed to be okay) thoroughly enough.  Turns out the nation of Tibet has never really been happy being held at gunpoint to be (a) officially atheist and (b) happily Chinese, and they're picking now to take another shot at calling the world's attention to it.  And it's working. 

For all the noise China makes about how good they are, they're still a Communist dictatorship, attempting to shoehorn in a token amount of free economic activity into a society that is effectively under a Soviet-style dictatorship. 

In a Reuter's news story:

Kang Xiaoguang, a political scientist at the People's University of China who has long studied social stability, said there was very little chance of the Tibetan protests sparking a chain reaction in broader China.
"I think the chances are minimal," he said of the possibility of copycat protests. "This is a localized problem. In the Han Chinese regions there's virtually zero sympathy for the Tibetan rioters, and so virtually zero chance that this will spread."

Why is that?  Because they're not Chinese.  Duh.  Of course, even if they had sympathy, I'm sure they're not aching to be shot at.

The Federal government is either in utter denial, are totally scared out of the minds by them, or are secretly on the take from them.  We know they launch constant, concerted hacker attacks on our nation's computer systems, especially government and military systems.  We know they want to squash the legitimately capitalist and democratic Republic of China (we call it Taiwan mostly for convenience), which we can't bother to have diplomatic relations with.  They're totally useless in influencing the rogue nations they're supposedly friends with (e.g. North Korea, Burma, Sudan).  They control the Port of Los Angeles.  And huge chunks of our manufacturing has been shipped there, where they thank us by poisoning our children with lead in their toys.

But they have the Olympics, so that makes them okay.  How deeply into denial we've all fallen.

More Proof Religion Creates Nutjobs, or Something More Basic?

The world had its weekly WTF moment earlier when a British schoolteacher working at a private high school in Sudan was arrested and threatened with death for permitting 20 of her 23 charges to name a stuffed teddy bear "Mohammad", a name which is also the most popular boy's name in the country.  On cue, religious nutjobs took to the street demanding that Gillian Gibbons be killed on the grounds of "insulting Islam".

Perhaps I should not be continually surprised by the ability of religion to turn civilized, sentient people into murderous knucklewalkers.  But I still am.  This case makes no sense, and makes you wonder what the motives for demanding the death of Gibbons really are.  We are all aware of how viciously misogynous Islam is -- most Judeo-Christian religions are, for that matter.  Nobody demanded the death of any of the students, who were raised in Islam and so should know better, and presumably male, since most Muslim countries pretty much proclaim women to be anathema upon puberty.  The fact that the teacher was female and Western likely also whetted their taste for blood.  I'm inclined to think that had the teacher been American she would be dead already (though I would hope that any American woman would have far more intelligence than to choose to work in a country like Sudan).

So is this really a case of Muslim overreaction, or are there people in Sudan who just want an excuse to kill? 

Supreme Court Clubs Free Speech in "Bong Hits" Case

In recent years, the Supreme Court has been making some interesting decisions. Most of them have been, I feel, correct for the most part, but everyone has been holding their breath over the first boneheaded ruling of the freshly-right-leaning Court. Here it is.

The Supreme Court upheld a school principal's right to confiscate a banner put up by a student solely because it appeared to advocate drug use. The court case out of Juneau, Alaska, upheld the actions of high school principal Deborah Roberts, which included confiscating the banner, which read "Bong Hits 4 Jesus", and suspending the student Joseph Frederick for violating a school policy banning the advocacy of illegal drug use.

According to the Reuters article of the ruling, Frederick claimed the banner's language was meant to be nonsensical and funny, a prank to get on television as the Winter Olympic torch relay passed by the school in January 2002. But school officials say the phrase "bong hits" refers to smoking marijuana, and Morse suspended Frederick for 10 days because she said the banner advocated or promoted illegal drug use in violation of school policy.

I think we all understand that laws and court cases, especially free speech cases, are usually decided at the fringes of generally accepted behavior.  But this ruling appears to run blatantly into the mundane.  Now, any school official can silence a student for any speech concerning drug use.  This is far too broad a ruling to be reasonable.  Could a principal discipline a student for writing a research paper supporting the legalization of drugs?  After this ruling, it appears so.

What bugs me is not just the ruling, which is absurd.  If the Supreme Court had ruled that the Federal government had no jurisdiction in what is really a state case and is leaving well enough alone, that would at least show a bit of thought put into it.  But instead, the War on Drugs rears its ugly head, as the majority opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts actually said a principal may restrict student speech at a school event when it is reasonably viewed as promoting illegal drug use.

The 1st Amendment is one of those concepts in American law where usually it is totally obvious to everyone, in both political parties and on both ends of the political spectrum, that only the most agregious of expression may be restricted.  But this ruling suggests that any Constitutional right may be curtailed if it does not come down on the side of the War on Drugs that the Neo-Cons are on.

This is a scary ruling, boys and girls.

Ron Paul for the Republican nomination for President (for as long as it lasts, anyway)

It's stunning -- bordering on embarassing -- that the 2008 Presidential Campaign is already underway, and it's only June of 2007.  Perhaps this is a reflection of the country's total loss of patience with George W. Bush, though more likely it's a side effect of the presidential primary oneupmanship that could possibly have the first votes cast in December.  Absurd, but I guess that's states' jealousy of New Hampshire more than anything else.  I suppose, though, that this is the closest America gets to an "opposition leader", which most countries seem to have and whose existence they take for granted.

In what looks to be a record-sized candidate field, even more, I think, than the 62 candidates appearing on the ballot in New Hampshire in 1992 -- 25 Republicans, 36 Democrats and one Libertarian -- there are many angles, views, approaches, and proposals for future policy.  Nobody is bulletproof, and nearly everyone has a significant flaw of some type.  The great thing about that is it produces some wonderful political space opera.

One candidate raising far more than their fair share of eyebrows is Ron Paul.  His political career is singularly unique.  Although a 10 term Republican representative, he is not a Party Man.  His nickname amongst his comrades is "Dr. No" -- a reference to his still-active obstetrics practice (he's delivered over 4000 babies) combined with his unflinching willingness to vote against any bill that does not meet his strict standards for constitutionality.  If you call him a Conservative, think less George Bush and more Barry Goldwater.  It would be more accurate to call him a Libertarian (and in 1988, we did -- officially -- in his only previous presidential bid) because his voting record matches that adjective very well.  His own party has no love for him -- in the '90s the party gerrymandered his district to elect a *Democrat* just to get him out of office, but no Democrat would dare face him.

As pure a fiscal conservative as was ever cast, non-interventionist in his foreign policy to the point that his opponents pose him as "isolationist", yet an ardent opponent of the War on Drugs, the PATRIOT Act, and the only Republican to vote against war against Iraq in 2002.  In the 2nd Republican debate, he sent Rudolph Giuliani into an apoplectic fit for stating that the 9/11 attacks were the result of 50 years of interventionist and imperialist foreign policy in the middle east, the Iraq War being only the latest insult.  The statement so incensed the rest of the Republican Party that some aparatchiks actually wanted to ban him from future debates (which in itself is quite telling about the Republicans in general and neo-cons specifically).  They backpedaled after they realized just how bad they were making themselves look.

He ardently supports limited government, privacy, free speech, free association, free trade, property rights, and gun rights.  He opposes eminent domain, warrantless searches, the anti-flag burning amendment, the national ID card, and secret wiretapping of Americans.  He supports a defensive military, preferring to conquer the world with trade and ideas instead of building an empire, but opposes the UN and the WTO.  He opposes centralization of government power, for whatever reason.  On all of these things, I'm solidly with him.

He's not huge on the separation of church and state, but not because he's a Christian zealot, but rather because he views suppressing all religious expression in public life to be contrary to free speech, expression, and religion. 

His pro-life stance is based on his career as an obstetrician, and although he personally opposes abortion, he has voted against many anti-abortion bills that would curtail other liberties, such as interstate travel of minors to states that permit abortions, and he opposes the death penalty (unusual among Republicans and downright rare among Protestants).  He may oppose federal funds for embryonic stem cell research, but he also opposes the Federal government's attempts to stop states from legalizing assisted suicide.  He opposes Roe v. Wade on the basis that it's bad constitutional politics, and that it's a states' rights issue, not because he seeks to ban abortions nationwide on a religious basis.  He has written, in fact, that "while Roe v Wade is invalid, a Federal law banning abortion across all 50 states would be equally invalid."  He writes frequently and eloquently from the pro-life perspective, but never proposes to use Federal power to impose it on the country.  While I would prefer a pro-choice presidential candidate, at least he doesn't seem bent on forcing his beliefs on the country.

Every election cycle, I vote Libertarian, because that is where my political beliefs dwell.  I don't see it as throwing away my vote, but as voting my conscience.  Ron Paul gives me, for perhaps one brief flicker of a moment, a chance to cast a ballot for someone with a chance of winning, however remote.  I don't think he could possibly get the Republican nomination, because the neo-con imperialist hawks and the lunatic fringe fundamentalist Christians have a shared stranglehold on the party, but I'll enjoy the Ron Paul spectacle while it lasts.

Warriors for Ignorance

It's very interesting to see the drama playing out over LiveJournal's hamfisted handling of their mass deletion of blogs and communities this week. It's always curious when usually well-meaning Internet companies get played by extremist elements. The one "activist group" that is cited in C|Net's coverage of the debacle, is Warriors for Innocence. You would think, as I did, that this group is a watchdog group by concerned people about the real scourge of pedophilia, a condition that truly mentally disturbed people of our society are afflicted with.

But if you look more closely, you find that this organization is, in fact, not an organization at all, and by the writings of their principals, isn't really even all that concerned about pedophilia. What really gets their ire up, apparently, is homosexuality. You would think that a company as savvy as Six Apart (LiveJournal's parent company) would have done its due diligence before taking an action that was totally unnecessary from a legal standpoint and had huge potential to harm their company under the best circumstances. But C|Net had no trouble turning up this tidbit:

"A representative from the group (Warriors for Innocence), who gave her name only as "Sues," said in an e-mail Thursday that "we did not knowingly report any 'fandom' communities or role-playing journals." In posts to her personal blog, Sues describes herself as an ardent conservative who views homosexuality as "sick" and a "twisted agenda" and lumps gays and lesbians into the same category as pedophiles and rapists.

That last part is particularly telling, since many of the purged communities had little, if anything, to do with pedophilia, though did contain references to homosexual practices.  If "Sues" equates homosexuality with pedophilia, it's not surprising they would not shed many tears over missing their supposed target.   "Sues"'s first statement is also disingenuous: One need not lodge complaints about specific blogs, they simply must structure their complaint in such a manner as to ensure they were caught up in the purge.  It also appears that, far from being "a representative of the groups", "Sues" is in fact the principal of the organization, which is made up of no more than a few individuals who apparently share this extreme bigotry against people whose sexual orientation differs from the norm.  There is also apparently evidence linking Warriors for Innocence to the Dominionist movement.

This whole event seems to reinforce my view of extremist Christians, who consider sexual orientation to be equivalent with violence against children and women, in spite of all evidence to the contrary.  That view is that these people, who call themselves Christians but are in fact truly evil, will lie to people, and harm bystanders, in their headlong rush to power over us.  I would propose that companies such as Six Apart take greater care before heeding the advice of seemingly well-meaning "activists".

To All Christians Waving Their Belief in My Face

[Originally posted on 1/8/2007]

Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.

So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

This, then, is how you should pray:

'Our Father in heaven,

hallowed be your name,

your kingdom come,

your will be done

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread.

Forgive us our debts,

as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from the evil one.'

For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

Matthew 6:1-8

Funny that a "pagan" has to remind you all of this.

Prove to Me Your Lack of Faith

Got wrapped up in a tangent on one of my previous articles.

I've always been fascinated by Christian scientists (people who are Christians who are trained to be scientists, not the Christian denomination founded by Mary Baker Eddy) who feel compelled to "prove" the historical factualness of events in the Bible. I suppose the logic goes, "this happened, because the Bible says so, but no one believes it because they doubt the Bible, therefore if I can find objective proof that this occurred, people will have no choice but to accept Jesus Christ and the country will become a Christian nation."

These people are misguided, and miss a fundamental point of Christianity, which is Faith. By attempting to scientifically prove that things in the Bible occurred, they are in fact demonstrating their lack of faith in God. Usually these poor louts are folks who have been brainwashed into believing that the Bible is literally true.

In order for the Bible to be literally true, one must ignore (a) its source, which is written in Aramaic, Greek, etc., and thus suspect in translations, and (b) most established scientific knowledge. Bible Literalism, then, plays to those in our society who are the least educated.

So "scientists" who attempt to, for example, find Noah's Ark, or dedicate their lives to Intelligent Design, are doing nothing more than proving they have no faith in God. Which is exactly what their religion tells them is the worst thing they can do.

In addition, they are guilty of the Deadly Sin of Pride, since they feel so certain that they are Right and Correct that their beliefs are the One True Religion that they generally consider themselves to be smarter and -- well, just overall "better" than the rest of us -- that they must expend resources to demonstrate to us just how Right and Correct they are. We will see this, and therefore their particular brand of The Light, and then cave to all of their political demands.

End result: Christian scientists are going to Hell, for God will judge them and punish them for their Pride and lack of faith in Him.

I'm gonna love seeing how a Christian responds to this argument. :-)

Use Your Right Hand or I'll Beat the Shit Out of You

From time to time, for reasons that are vague and probably just the product of a mind naturally prone to wandering, I wonder about the whole argument about homosexuality and heterosexuality, and how we get to become one or the other. If we were to find an answer to that question, it would have profound consequences on our world.


It is one of the issues at the crux of a problem that psychology has been wrestling with for decades, that of the "Nature vs. Nurture" argument. The Nature argument says that we are a product of our genes and biology. All behavior is a consequence of the construction of our bodies. The Nurture argument says that we are born tabula rasa (or as Rush Limbaugh would put it, little skulls full of mush) and we are taught to be everything we are. Without experience, we are no better than animals.

Of course, every psychologist worth their diplomas will admit that it's not an either/or question. We are a subtle, exquisite blend of our genes and our experiences. A third argument suggests that we are a perfect blend or balance of both. Our behavior is equal parts Nature and Nurture, that a traumatic event can strongly influence our subsequent behavior, even if our genetics lean against it, but such an event cannot ultimately make us go totally against our nature.

Some traits of ours are more Nature than Nurture, and others are vice versa. The third argument is just as unreasonable as the first two because, as Carl Sagan once said, "real life is lumpy".

When these ideas collide with axioms from other sources, we have the makings for a fiercely combustible situation. No topic tests this more severely than sexuality. We can see examples where learned behavior goes to an extreme to counteract natural tendencies. In Islam, the Koran teaches that women are responsible for inflaming the sexual passions of men, and therefore must be isolated in society and covered up so that men can lead with a clear head. Women and men are taught this, and accept it for the most part, in a large part of the Muslim world. Part of the beliefs of Western decadence comes from the fact that our women aren't forced to do that. In Western society, of course, we view this belief as ludicrous. Men are responsible for tempering their own passions, and women aren't obliged to hide themselves just because men aren't strong enough to deal with it. The flip side of the Muslim view of women is that Muslim men are so weak-willed that only by arranging their entire society to essentially enslave or imprison half their population can they deal with their lives without becoming uncontrollable sexual ogres.

Our challenge in the Western world, especially the United States, has to do with homosexuality. Here again, Nature and Nurture collide head on. Ask any devout, or at least conservative, Christian about homosexuality, and they will tell you that it is evil and disgusting, a violation of the sanctity of God. Christians are burning up non-trivial amounts of money to counter efforts to allow gay people to marry, because it's an attack on marriage. *How* this is an attack on marriage they're never quite clear about except that letting gay people do anything is apparently an attack on something.

Why do we expend such effort? Because Christianity dictates that it is wrong, and it is unacceptable to them for society to tolerate it. It's not just that they object to society saying it's not wrong, but they object to society not saying it's wrong. In other words, silence on the topic isn't enough. To be a society they're willing to participate in, the law must actively work against homosexuality.

They do attempt to trot out any number of "societal ills" to justify this bigotry -- including that by accepting it we're telling our children that homosexuality is okay. This is a pure Nurture argument. The argument goes something like this: In order to be gay, you have to choose to do so. You have to choose actions that are despicable to society, and therefore you must be evil if you would actually *want* to do that. And since people don't like to be alone, they have to "recruit" new gay people, since nobody would ever naturally be gay.

There's just one problem with this argument. It's been proven that there is a genetic component to homosexuality. How can this be?!? After all, how would gay people pass on their gay genes? It makes no logical sense. Well see, that's where the influence of nurture comes along. For centuries, gay people repressed their preference. They married. They had children. They passed along the genetic tendency for homosexuality. Oh, and they had gay affairs when they thought it was safe. Only in rare moments in world history has homosexuality been considered not unacceptable -- ancient Greece, imperial Rome, occasional enlightened enclaves of Renaissance and Industrial Europe, and in some Modern American and European communities. Famous people in history have turned out to be gay -- some secretly, a precious few out. I personally have heard gay people discuss over and over and over again, that they did not choose to be gay. They simply were. The only decision was in whether to do something about it or not.

Sexual impulses are stronger than we give them credit for. Throughout history, gay men have fled to the Catholic priesthood in the hopes of escaping their sexuality. In modern times we are seeing how effective that has been. A boy who is straight and is molested by a gay man may be emotionally damaged by the encounter, but will it make the child gay? It is unlikely, anymore than a girl who is molested by a straight man becomes straight from the experience. In fact, an argument could be made that it would have the opposite effect, if it in fact could have an effect on sexuality at all. A young gay man will no sooner become straight by being bedded by a perfect female specimen than a young straight man will become gay by the ministrations of a skilled gay lover. There's basic nature at work here.

How can homosexuality persist when, in theory, it works against procreation? First it helps to state the obvious, that humans have more uses for sexuality than reproduction. It's not common in the animal world, but there are a handful of species that use sex for social purposes. Actually, they tend to be the most intelligent: chimpanzees and dolphins have both been observed using sex as part of socialization and not a response to a reproductive instinct. But since sexuality is viewed overwhelmingly in our religious belief systems as an animalistic, and therefore not of God, and since Judeo-Christian belief claims we are made in God's image, sexuality is viewed, at best, as a necessary evil, and at worst, a surrender to animal behavior and thus estrangement from God. It's primarily for this reason that there are celibate religious orders, especially in Christianity. (quick note: Yes, there are celibate Buddhists but they tend to be celibate for totally different and unrelated reasons.) But the discovery of chimps and dolphins getting it on just to say "I'm sorry" (apparently humans didn't invent the "sympathy fuck") just blew the basis for that belief into smithereens.

What about arguing it from the other way, that homosexuality is not normal? We tend to use the word "normal" in an abstract sense rather than a literal one. We equate "normal" with "typical". Homosexuality persists in the human population at a rate of somewhere in the span of 2 to 10 percent, depending on how we define "homosexuality", so the numbers alone say that homosexuality is atypical. But there are all sorts of atypical traits, from immense IQ to athletic ability to penis size, to which we attribute high value. We attribute high IQ to high achievement, which we value. We attribute high athletic ability to achievement (in modern times) or military might (in ancient ones), which we value. We have mixed feelings about penis size, since it's sexual, but since every straight male seems to equate penis size with the ability to provide pleasure to a woman (direct evidence from women to the contrary), we value it. Nobody ever gets penis reduction surgery, at least that I've ever heard.

Psychologist have a somewhat different view of "normal", or at least of "abnormal". A trait is undesirable if it interferes with a person's effective execution of life. We characterize "the blues" as normal but clinical depression as abnormal by this definition. Is homosexuality abnormal? Up until the 1950's, the psychological and psychiatric community thought it was. One of the more controversial decisions they made was to rescind that judgment. Why? Because homosexuality in fact did not interfere with a person's life in and of itself, though other people's behaviors in response to it could.

So if homosexuality occurs naturally in humans, and doesn't directly interfere with a person's existence, it can't be "abnormal" per se. And if it's a small portion of the population, it can't be "normal" by that definition. So where does that leave us? Is there something in our human condition that can be said to occupy a similar position, something that is psychologically normal, statistically atypical, and tends to not be learned? As a matter of fact we do.

People have also been left-handed for millienia. The origin of hand preference in humanity, and its impact on society, is the closest analogy we have, and once straight people get past their incredulous initial reaction, I think you'll see it makes perfect sense. We have only recently decided to not view left-handedness as abnormal, though in the past it was also considered "evil" and parents went to great effort to try to make their children right-handed. Left-handed people can operate in a right-handed mode for short periods of time, but once given the chance, will go back to being left-handed with nary a thought. Nobody decides to be left-handed. I know this because when I was a kid, I resolved to be left-handed. I tried for weeks. It simply didn't work. True, left-handed people have a greater tendency toward ambidexterity, but only because it's a right-handed world, and some right-hand skill is necessary to get by from time to time. Measure this against the fairly pitiful performance right-handed people display when presented with the rare left-hand-only situation.

So why are there no nationwide movements against left-handedness? Why no state laws banning left-handed paraphernalia? No religious movements against the evil influence of left-handed people? Oh sure, there are vestiges of such prejudice -- most device are still arranged for righties, and we have expressions like "left-handed compliment". (Neo-Pagans refer to Satanism sometimes as the "left-handed path".) Because being left-handed is not related to sexuality. Well maybe in the case of masturbation, but I'm pretty sure that's not what we mean.

We would not tolerate someone being beaten to death for picking up a bottle with the wrong hand, and yet there are people out there who, if not outwardly then in secret corners of their mind, think that gay people who get the snot kicked out of them that they somehow had it coming. Perhaps by seeing gay people as left-handed in a different sense, maybe the world can become just a little less vicious.

Epilogue to Black Tuesday

Just thought I'd update you on the election and how it came out here....

U. S. Senate.  Claire McCaskill won, helping the Dems take over Congress.  Feh.  My candidate, Libertarian Frank Gilmour, got 2.2% of the vote.

Amendment 2, the Stem Cell initiative.  Passed by a narrow margin, 51.2%.  Oh well, but no biggie.

Amendment 3, the Tobacco Tax Increase.  Failed by a narrow margin, 48.5%.  Yea!!

Amendment 6, Tax Exemption for Non-profits and Veterans groups.  Passed by a wide margin, 61.3%.  Yea!!

Amendment 7, State official pension cut-off (if impeached, convicted of a crime, or removed from office for misconduct, cuts them off from the state pension).  Passed by a gigantic margin, 84.1%.  Yea!!

Proposition B, Increase in state minimum wage.  Passed by a wide margin, 75.9%.  Oh well.


All told, not a bad election for my votes.  As for the Democrats in charge of the Congress, we'll see I suppose.  At least it will be different.