It's the Software, not the Hardware

The Arrogance of the Articulate: Introduction

2010-01-17T19:30:00.000-08:00

Bush Derangement Syndrome. The Obama/Clinton foreign policy. Hoplophobia. The tendency (over time) for non-profit foundations to drift Leftwards. Admiration by our cultural elites for dictators like Fidel Castro and Cesar Chavez.

What do all these things have in common?

Many who write or speak well believe they deserve the power to rule everyone else.

It all goes back to the age-old question: "who shall rule?" In general, people naturally want power over others, so they justify that quest for power on the basis of some unique attribute they possess.

Greek philosophers argued that philosopher-kings would best lead society. Egyptian Pharaohs weren't just heads of government: they claimed actual godhood and required everyone to worship them too. In Iran today, the clergy claim ultimate civil power by appealing to divine scriptures, and by asserting the exclusive right to interpret and apply the writings of the prophet Muhammed. Similarly, the Christian Bishop of Rome claimed the right to appoint and depose civil authorities as the earthly "Vicar of Christ". The "divine right of kings" has a long history in Western civilization.

In this series of blog posts, I will try to show how this explanation fits with (and predicts) lots of things we see in contemporary American public life. My goal is to educate people so they can see this argument in its various forms, and appropriately evaluate claims to authority.

The Fallacy that Intellectuals Believe

2010-01-17T19:25:00.000-08:00

In a recent interview, Thomas Sowell describes what intellectuals believe:

That intellectuals should influence--if not control--the kinds of decisions made in society. More specially, they should promote the transfer of decisions from the masses to those who have 'more intellect'.

Throughout the interview, he goes on to explain that this assumes that the knowledge necessary to make those decisions can be collected and processed by the intellectual elite. But in reality, the knowledge necessary to make those decisions is distributed widely throughout society. He estimates that 99% of the knowledge is not available to would-be central planners, so top-down command-and-control strategies will inevitably fail.

Mike Rowe, host of Discovery Channel's Dirty Jobs television show, illustrates this point viscerally and memorably in this 20-minute talk:

Dr. Sowell and Mr. Rowe are right. Intellectuals do not (and can not!) know enough to organize society. We are better off when individuals make decisions based on their own local knowledge.

America's Unique Exceptionalism

2009-01-19T21:02:00.000-08:00

In a Forbes Magazine op-ed, Tunku Varadarajan writes:

The creed of American exceptionalism is distinctive because it is tied closely to the creed of American individualism. There are other societies or people that are adamant believers in their own exceptionalism: The Chinese have their conceit of the Middle Kingdom; the Jews hold that they are Chosen; Hindu Brahmins believe that they alone are born from the head of God; and the Britons have believed that they rule the waves, and that they never, never, never shall be slaves (and what is that if not exceptionalism?). But only the American brand of exceptionalism is not tribal; it allows Outsiders to become Insiders.

American exceptionalism is, paradoxically, all-inclusive, for it encourages salvation through assimilation. I speak, here, of a civic salvation, of a sense of joining a citizenry whose rules are the product of a bold and bracing experiment in perfectibility. This experiment, while yielding a most stirring result in the election of Obama, is as yet far from complete. And still the world watches it--watches it, I should say, with no small amount of awe.

Exactly right. I am unabashedly proud of my country, particularly because it doesn't mean putting anyone else down. Anyone can become an American in spirit, and millions of people have given up everything to do so.

Frosty Candy Mountain

2008-11-26T07:49:00.000-08:00

Camera: BLACKBERRY 9000
Taken on 2008:11:25 08:12:51
Exposure: 0.000s
No flash
46° 15' 28.62" N 119° 20' 42.54" W

Intellectuals

2008-11-11T06:11:00.000-08:00

Thomas Sowell nails it:

How have intellectuals managed to be so wrong, so often? By thinking that because they are knowledgeable-- or even expert-- within some narrow band out of the vast spectrum of human concerns, that makes them wise guides to the masses and to the rulers of the nation.

Rationalistic Politics: A Dangerous Pipe Dream

2008-11-10T20:07:00.000-08:00

Miklos Hollender's comment on a Dr. Helen article is the quote of the day:

Jim M,

You need a coherent rational philosophy.

No. That’s the whole point: currently we have so little scientific knowledge about the human mind and human society that any kind of rationalistic politics is a dangerous pipe dream, because we pretend to know stuff we do not know. This is why we have to rely on common sense, tradition etc. - generally, pattern recognition, as opposed to theoretization.

What he said.

Bill Whittle Explains Rights

2008-10-09T08:41:00.000-07:00

Go. Bill Whittle explains the difference between birthrights and the "rights" that socialists want to give us.

Absolute Evil

2008-09-21T01:01:00.000-07:00

Quote of the day:

The road to wisdom starts with acknowledgment that there is such a thing as absolute evil in the world and it does exist, and that it will always exist.

If you refuse to recognize that, and insist that everything is relative, well then, you’ll never find your way.

--Mike Myers, from a comment thread at Neptunus Lex

Whittle Writes

2008-09-19T22:13:00.000-07:00

Just to whet your appetite:

On February 9th, 1933, the ruling elite of the world’s great Civilization held a debate in the Oxford Union. With thunderclouds growing dark across the English Channel, at a time when resolute action could still have averted the worst catastrophe the world has ever known, these elites resolved that “This House will in no circumstances fight for its King and Country.”

The Resolution passed by a vote of 275 to 153. Needless to say, this vote did not avert the fight. It guaranteed it.

Go. Read.

Defensive Handgun Class (Day 2)

2008-09-19T20:51:00.000-07:00

As mentioned earlier, LovelyWife and I attended a Defensive Handgun class at the Firearms Academy of Seattle (FAS).

If you're considering a firearm for self-defense, training is critical. Not only do you need to learn the physical skills to operate a firearm safely and effectively, you must also learn how to conduct yourself before and after using the firearm.

FAS went over the Washington State statutes in detail. We learned the various types of homicides, and the conditions under which a homicide can be ruled justifiable. If you're protecting yourself you have certain affirmative defenses against murder and manslaughter. But if you're protecting someone else you must have overwhelming evidence that your use of deadly force is justified. (E.g., you don't want to shoot a 7-11 clerk who is holding a robber at gunpoint!)

The FAS instructors disagree with Professor James Duane and his colleague, Officer George Bruch of the Virginia Beach police department. (Click on their names for their very compelling Google Video talks.) Essentially, Duane and Bruch argue that there's nothing to be gained by cooperating with a police officer, so you should refuse to cooperate in order to secure your legal rights.

As police officers themselves, the FAS instructors explained that they must write a report about every incident. Part of that report is a form with places for the names of everyone involved. Each name has several boxes to check, including "victim", "witness", and "suspect". The FAS instructors argue that you want the officer to check "victim" by your name rather than "suspect", and that goal is worth the risk of cooperation.

The FAS instructors argue that after you've used deadly force in a self-defense situation, you should point out evidence and explain the "active dynamic" to the responding officers. Evidence might include the gun used by the perpetrator that got kicked under furniture and would otherwise be missed. The active dynamic is a simple explanation of what happened. "Officer, as I was walking down the street this man jumped out of that doorway, showed me a knife, and demanded my money. I pulled my lawfully licensed handgun and ordered him to back off. Instead of backing off he advanced towards me. Fearing for my life I had to shoot him. The knife is over there under the doorstep."

Do not try to talk your way out of being arrested. After explaining the active dynamic, you should go on to say something like "Officer, I intend to fully cooperate with your investigation. But as you know, situations like this are very stressful. I'm not feeling well; please take me to the hospital. And to protect everyone's legal rights, I want to talk to my attorney before making a formal statement."

Switching from the content to the pedagogical approach:

I've taken precisely two classes in the defensive use of firearms (Gunsite 250 and this one.) Three days into a five-day class (Gunsite) and 1.5 days into a two-day class (FAS) the instructor started berating the students. The instructor accused us of not paying attention, not working hard, and basically wasting his time. At Gunsite this happened after we shot at night for the first time. At FAS this happened after a block of instruction where we shot at moving targets for the first time. The plural of anecdote is not data, but both instructors did the same thing.

After the next block of instruction, the FAS instructor explained that he almost always yells at his students in order to motivate them to do their best. One of the students in the class confirmed that the instructor did the same thing at about the same time in a class taught a couple of weeks earlier.

For students to succeed they must take the things they learned on the first day and apply them on the second day. A student whose mind wanders won't learn as well, and may even make seriously unsafe mistakes. In contrast, a student unfairly accused of slacking off will often redouble her effort to prove the accuser wrong, achieving a higher standard of performance than she would otherwise.

Several times during the class I was chastised by the instructors for minor safety procedure violations. That was absolutely fair--and it pointed to something specific that I could change. Instructors noticed I was unnecessarily bouncing before drawing my handgun when the whistle blew to fire, or was moving the gun inefficiently from the holster to the firing stance. Again, I welcomed their criticism because it came with specific things I could do better.

I believe the motivation of the instructors was good, but I question the utility of this technique. The general chastisement of the class was very discouraging and demoralizing. I felt very frustrated that the instructor was accusing me of laziness, while not providing any specific criticism in terms of procedure or skill.

In defense of this technique, it did add mental and emotional stress to the learning experience. A real-life self-defense use of deadly force will also be very stressful. So perhaps it adds some value.

A colleague has also experienced similar group chastisements in other self-defense training classes. He calmly asked me whether I had been slacking off. I thought for a few moments and said no. In the future, he suggested, I should consider such undeserved criticism as static, and ignore it like I would ignore a harmless insect. Most excellent advice!

On balance, will we go back to FAS? Yes, I think so. The content was excellent, and I really appreciated the specific feedback and guidance on my shooting technique. But I will be prepared for seemingly unfair negative feedback. I will use it as an opportunity to exercise my self-confidence, and to exercise restraint and calm.

Yummy Sansar

2008-09-19T20:39:00.000-07:00

I had an opportunity to visit Sansar Indian Cuisine this week. If you ever find yourself in Livermore California then you really ought to stop by. Even though their menu suggests you wait 20-30 minutes for them to cook each entree to order, they delivered my Mutter Paneer almost immediately.

Our Indian restaurant options in Tri-Cities Washington are quite limited, particularly compared to our previous residence in the greater Chicago area. So I'm happy to go out of my way to enjoy a tasty Indian curry dish.

Quote of the Day

2008-09-09T09:31:00.000-07:00

Happily married gay couples with closets full of assault weapons. That's my vision for America, and it's a good one.

--Glenn Reynolds

Defensive Handgun Class (Day 1)

2008-09-06T20:45:00.000-07:00

Lovelywife and I recently picked up a couple of Kahr Arms handguns. She has an MP9 and I have a P40. We're used to shooting Kimber 1911-pattern handguns. The 1911 has a single-action trigger. The Kahrs have long-sweep double-action-only triggers. So we've decided to get some training before carrying the Kahrs for self defense.

Today was our first day at the Firearms Academy of Seattle (FAS). We're taking the Defensive Handgun two-day class. It's an entry-level class, but that's OK because it's been six years since our Gunsite 250 experience.

Some impressions from the first day:

Best practices have apparently changed in the last six years. For example, At Gunsite we learned the so-called "Mozambique" drill, where you shoot two rounds into center mass of the target and one round to the head of the target. The FAS instructors said that they don't teach that anymore; instead, they expect students in a deadly force situation to continually assess whether their shots are having the desired effect and shift fire appropriately. Lesson learned: training is perishable and things change, so it's a good idea to continue taking classes.
Gunsite is in the Arizona desert, much like Tri-Cities Washington. FAS is in the wetter part of Washington State. It's a lot greener than we're used to, but it's great to be in the wetter forest for a few days.
The Kahr is a lot harder to shoot than the Kimber. The long trigger sweep slows me down, and gives much more time for the sights to wobble off target. But both LovelyWife and I were able to put plenty of rounds on target. Our group sizes were quite competitive with other people in the class, even those shooting 1911-pattern guns. We're pretty pleased.
We need to consult with an attorney about the appropriate use of lethal force to protect our dog. Kiko's fight was a significant motivating factor for LovelyWife to get her Kahr in preparation to use her concealed carry permit. Our FAS instructors were quite clear about situations for the use of deadly force against humans, but weren't as sure about when it would be appropriate to shoot an attacking dog.

We're staying at the Morton Seasons Hotel, since we drove in from Tri-Cities Washington over White Pass on US Highway 12.

AT&T Wireless does not have 3G service available in Morton. I measured 178 kilobits/second download and 84 kilobits/second upload speeds to the Internet using the AT&T EDGE service. The hotel wireless provided 512 kilobits/second download and 270 kilobits/second upload, so that's what I'm using to post this blog entry.

We go back tomorrow for the second and final day. Unfortunately I won't be able to post any class pictures, because the legal release we signed included our agreement not to photograph anything.

UPDATE 19-September 2008: Day 2's post is now available!

Suicide Bomber Crash Dumps

2008-08-28T18:00:00.000-07:00

Someone who writes computer software for a living quickly learns to appreciate crash dumps. When something goes wrong inside a computer program, the basic operating system can write a file detailing the internal workings of the program--at the exact moment the problem is detected. Programmers examine those "crash dump" files, and work backward to find the programming error.

Psychologists and psychiatrists often deal with faulty thinking. Without realizing it, some women will hurt their husbands because of unresolved father issues. Kids will run screaming from a friendly dog because of a long-ago dog bite. Mental health professionals help people find their faulty internal "programming". Sometimes they ask patients to review horrible events, working out where the error lies. Then the doctor will help the patient change thought patterns to end the pain.

Death cults like Hamas and al Qaeda "reprogram" people to commit suicide attacks. In a perversion of the mental health healing process, they change their human weapon's thinking to override her natural drive of self-preservation, replacing it with motivation to kill herself in the name of some greater cause.

Ultimately defeating these death cults requires understanding this reprogramming process well enough to counteract it. By the time someone is programmed to blow herself up in a crowded market, it's too late. Eventually you must give people the mental tools and motivations to resist death cult recruitment and reprogramming. But understanding the reprogramming and recruitment process is very difficult, because the results of that programming is destroyed along with the life of the suicide bomber. There is no "crash dump" left over to examine.

Fox News reports on a female homicide bomber that was caught before completing her mission:

At this moment, Rania is precious. The size and gruesome effectiveness of the Al Qaeda female homicide bomber program in Iraq has surprised and appalled everyone here. There is a report that there are another four "on the loose" somewhere in Diyala province. For both Iraqi and American forces desperately working to crack the homicide network and find the ringleaders, any first-hand "lead" — and future witness — like Rania is extremely useful.

Yes, she is useful on a tactical basis. But she is also useful on a more strategic basis--to understand and counteract the threat posed by the twisted ideologies of the death cults.

Interviewing Rania is like examining a computer program crash dump. The interviewer can probe how she thinks, looking for ways to undo the programming and build up resistances to that programming in other potential human weapons.

I hope she gets the professional help she needs to undo the perversions visited upon her, and that eventually she can help other women resist the evil suicide bomber weaponization process.

How Silly

2008-08-16T17:42:00.000-07:00

Clayton Cramer writes:

The parallels between black pride and southern white pride have been obvious to me for many years--and with the same reason. You take pride in your race, ethnicity, culture, or gender because it is the one thing over which you have no control. There are things in which I take some pride: my ability to design and make products; my ability to develop software; my ability to write. But these are personal attributes that are primarily my doing--actions at which I have personally worked. I didn't choose to be white. I didn't choose to be an American. If you have nothing to be proud about that you have done--why, you can be proud of something that is an accident of birth. How silly.

You do have a choice about your culture. Culture is software; you can choose to reject self-destructive thoughts and behaviors. Some black kids get scorned for "acting white" when paying attention at school, working hard at jobs, and avoiding teenage pregnancy. Immigrants move to the United States from all over the world, most often for the opportunities denied them by their societies of birth. Native-born Americans choose to join the military or serve their communities in other ways.

We must celebrate those people who make wise choices and improve the culture around them.

Al Gore Killed Clean Energy

2008-07-18T18:50:00.000-07:00

Former Vice President Al Gore gave a speech yesterday. He said

The answer is to end our reliance on carbon-based fuels.

and

Today I challenge our nation to commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years.

Sounds good, maybe. But in the early 1990s, Al Gore denied us truly clean carbon-free nuclear power.

When hit by neutrons, uranium atoms either split (giving off energy, neutrons and fission products) or transmute into heavier elements (the transuranics). So reactors produce two kinds of nuclear waste: fission products and transuranic elements.

Fission products are only dangerous for a couple of hundred years. I've seen plenty of buildings in Europe and elsewhere that old, so I'm confident we can safely store fission product waste until it decays to harmless dirt.

Transuranic elements can be dangerous for tens or hundreds of thousands of years. Safely disposing that waste is a lot harder, particularly if you care about your great-great-great-great-grand kids.

But transuranic elements can be recycled. You chemically separate them from the fission products and put them back into reactors. Over time the transuranics "burn up", producing power while being converted into easily handled fission products.

One of the transuranic elements is plutonium. The Fat Man bomb that dropped on Nagasaki used a plutonium core.

Jimmy Carter decided that the risks of terrorist diversion of plutonium outweighed the benefits of recycling nuclear waste into new fuel. He feared shipments of reactor fuel could be hijacked by terrorists. Other presidents have upheld that policy. So the United States government refuses to allow industry to recycle nuclear reactor fuel. (France, Russia and Japan all recycle their nuclear reactor fuel, which is why they don't have a nuclear waste problem.)

15 years ago I was a new employee of Argonne National Laboratory. As a student I had worked with Argonne staff on the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) project. It aimed to demonstrate on-site fuel recycling, eliminating the possibility of hijacking shipments of spent fuel. It also demonstrated the inherent safety of a sodium coolant reactor.

The IFR project ended on September 30, 1994. Al Gore killed it.

When the Clinton administration took office in early 1993, they immediately decided to kill the IFR project. I think their constituents in the anti-nuke community saw that the IFR project answered most of their arguments against nuclear power. So Al Gore and Hazel O'Leary stripped all IFR funding out of the administration's Fiscal Year 1994 Federal budget request.

The nuclear industry and scientists lobbied Congress to preserve the IFR project. Congress added the funding back in to the FY1994 budget.

Word then came down from DOE headquarters to us at Argonne that if anyone so much as used a sheet of copier paper to write a letter to Congress or the media supporting IFR, that person would be criminally prosecuted for misappropriation of government property and other charges related to illegal lobbying activity. The administration (Al Gore and Hazel O'Leary) wanted IFR dead.

Through a combination of bullying the scientists and doing their own lobbying, the Clinton administration managed to keep IFR funding out of the FY1995 budget as passed by Congress. So the IFR project ended on September 30, 1994, the last day of the 1994 Fiscal Year.

Skip forward 13 years. Al Gore presents a speech on the "climate crisis", calling for the end of carbon-based electricity generation. But his jeremiad omits the very mention of the word nuclear. He still thinks it's more important to keep the irrationally anti-nuke crowd happy than save the planet from carbon dioxide pollution.

I will believe Al Gore really cares about greenhouse gasses when he admits his mistakes in 1993 and 1994, or at least reverses himself on nuclear power.

Involuntary Servitude

2008-07-14T18:00:00.000-07:00

Today I must provide some unfree labor to the government. I knew this was going to happen, so I couldn't go on business travel for my employer. And the government isn't going to fairly compensate me for my time.

Technically, US Case Law (Butler vs. Perry, 1916) says that the 13th Amendment prohibition against involuntary servitude does not prohibit "enforcement of those duties which individuals owe to the state, such as services in the army, militia, on the jury, etc."

An individualist analysis of jury duty must balance two competing goods. On the one hand, jury duty is compulsory. I can't just opt out of the activity; the government ultimately makes me to do so through its monopoly on the first use of force. On the other hand, jury duty is an important check on the power of full-time government actors: a criminal or civil defendant's loss of life, freedom and/or property must be endorsed by ordinary citizens in her specific case, not just through rules and laws promulgated by the State.

Although it's a close call, I think it's reasonable to require otherwise uninterested ordinary citizens to serve on jury duty. The benefits to the individual (protection against government over-reach) outweigh the costs (time and inconvenience). That's why I will uncomplainingly report to the Benton County Justice Center this afternoon at 1:00 PM for jury duty.

6:00 PM update: The defendant failed to appear, so the judge issued a bench warrant for his arrest and dismissed the jury pool. I still have to check in twice more, but the jury room supervisor opined that it's unlikely our group will be called back again.

My Favorite Horror Movie

2008-07-11T19:21:00.000-07:00

This one's a classic:

Poor guy suffered a "catastrophic failure of the victim selection process." Heh.

Rush, Call Your Dermatologist

2008-07-10T17:40:00.000-07:00

Rush Limbaugh loves to say he knows liberals "like every square inch of [his] glorious naked body." Well if that's true he should visit his skin doctor immediately! He's missing something very important and very scary.

Lord Obama--the Democratic nominee--is "troubled" about contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan:

I'm not arguing that there are never going to be uses for private contractors in some circumstances. What I am saying is if you start building a military premised on the use of private contractors, and you start making decisions about armed engaged based on the availability of private contractors to fill holes in gaps, that over time you are, I believe, eroding the core of our military's relationship to the nation and how accountability is structured. You are privatizing something that is what essentially sets a nation state apart, which is the monopoly on -- on violence, uh, and to set those kinds of precedents I think will lead us over the long term into, uh, some troubled waters.

Rush said "[Obama] doesn't know what he is talking about now. He is strictly wandering aimlessly in vain search of a cogent thought. He wasn't even coherent there."

But Rush missed Obama's point. As I've written before, socialists want to restrict all capabilities for violence to government employees. Guns in private hands empower the individual at the expense of the collective will. A 110 pound woman rejects the unitary will of the collective by arming herself. This empowered individual becomes a "rival entity" and thus an enemy of the collective, even if she never uses the weapon.

Lord Obama's point is very clear: a nation state must have an absolute monopoly on the capacity for violence. He believes contractors can provide supplies and transportation, but capacity for violence must always remain in government hands. His statement is coherent and consistent with socialist theory and practice.

Tens of millions of people died when socialists achieved their political goals in Russia, Germany, China and Cambodia. The collective, in the form of the nation state, infringed on individual rights to the capacity for self defense. Once the state held the monopoly on violence, dissenting or dehumanized people died. It's that simple.

For the record, I reject the unitary will of the collective. Legitimate government is instituted to protect individual rights, not to hold a monopoly on violence.

A seemingly minor blemish can turn out to be life threatening skin cancer. Lord Obama's beliefs must be examined and treated with similar care and concern.

When Individual Rights Collide

2008-07-08T19:54:00.000-07:00

There's a legal fight on here in Washington State, with both sides claiming their rights are being infringed. Women want to protect their individual rights to control their reproduction, while some pharmacists have religious grounds to refuse to dispense the "Plan B" drug sold by Barr Labs.

At first glance it appears to fall under settled law and precedent. In the early 1960s we decided as a country to disallow commercial discrimination. The Greensboro Woolworth's lunch counter policy of not serving seated African Americans was protested by massive sit-ins. Those protests led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act, barring such discrimination.

But there's a key difference. The seated African American students weren't asking Woolworth's for some special food not offered on the menu. The problem was with discriminating which customers would be served, not which food would be served.

Civil Rights law does not dictate what food a given restaurant must serve. As a restaurant owner I can choose not to serve anything, or to limit my menu in any way I want. It's perfectly legal for me to open a vegetarian restaurant and refuse to serve meat, even if my reasons against serving meat are based on my religion--or if I'm running the only restaurant in town.

The same is true of the Washington pharmacists. They are quite willing to serve any customer, but they are not willing to dispense a particular medication.

Once someone has decided to do something, it's reasonable for government to regulate how that something will be done. Any real-world action could have consequences beyond the first actor, and so it's reasonable for government to intervene to protect the individual rights of others. Once a restaurateur decides to offer a given food she must comply with laws and regulations protecting her customers. Likewise, Civil Rights law requires her to serve that food to anyone who comes in the door with money.

The fundamental individual right of Liberty includes a strong presumption against government compulsion or coercion. With some very few exceptions (e.g. military draft, jury duty) the government should not have the power to force someone to do something they don't want to do.

The Washington women want to use the coercive power of government to force pharmacists to do something they don't want to do. The pharmacists' right not to do something at all necessarily overrides a woman's intent and desire to avoid the consequences of her choice to have sexual intercourse. The pharmacists should and must prevail in this legal matter.

More on Lord Phillips

2008-07-07T07:24:00.000-07:00

Over at the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler, people are misinterpreting Lord Phillips:

Now, far be it from us to impose our “un-nuanced” ways on anybody, but we simply can’t see the attraction of stonings, pre-teen marriage and forcing women to wear burlap bags. One would think that if the muslims, their women in particular, were so enamored with being treated slightly worse than livestock, they’d have stayed right at home.

My church teaches that premarital sex is wrong, based on our reading of the Christian Bible. So if I get a woman pregnant outside of marriage it’s perfectly legitimate for my church to say I can’t be a church officer, sing in the choir or preach from the pulpit.

Likewise it’s perfectly legitimate for Muslims in the West to arrange their private relationships in agreement with Sharia law.

The bright line we must not cross? My church can’t tell the government to put me in jail for premarital sex. The mosque can’t tell the government to fine a woman for not wearing her headscarf. In fact, the government must protect my individual right to sexual expression and the woman’s right to go around bare-headed--the church or mosque is not allowed to enforce any sanction beyond separation from the voluntary organization.

Both sources of authority (religion and state) are legitimate in their own sphere, but they must be kept separate.

Even Eisenhower and McArthur allowed the private practice of Shintoism in post-World War II Japan. They only forced it out of the government sphere.

From that perspective, Lord Phillips has it right. He made it very clear that any government sanctions must be based entirely on English and Welsh law, not on Sharia. But private individuals can voluntarily structure their lives and relationships following Christian church law or Sharia law.

Naming the Enemy

2008-07-06T10:19:00.000-07:00

Via Insty, now comes the Times of London reporting on the clearing of Al-Qaeda from Mosul Iraq.

But Glenn missed the money quote:

Al-Qaeda was also bleeding support as allied Iraqi insurgents accepted an amnesty. It did not apply to Al-Qaeda. “If you are fighting to install sharia [Islamic law] on this country, you are going to have to be killed,” said Colonel David Brown, an American adviser to 2nd Division.

There you have it. That's what the Americans and Iraqis are fighting and dying for--freedom from the imposition of religion-based law.

Two More Reasons

2008-07-05T13:07:00.000-07:00

A couple of days ago I explained why I'm an American Individualist, not an Anarchist. Unlike Eric S. Raymond, I believe the history of 1930s Germany and late 20th century America are different enough that we don't need to be Anarchists.

In my last post I articulated three reasons: First, advocating Anarchy is like advocating unilateral disarmament--your enemies will happily infringe your liberty if you stop protecting it. Second, the Feds got well and truly deterred in the 1990s by events at Ruby Ridge, Waco, and Oklahoma City. Their approach to the Montana Freemen bears that out. Third, Mr. Raymond misses a crucial difference between 1930s Germany and the American Republic: the Establishment cause of the 1st Amendment. The Nazis were able to neutralize criticism from the Catholic church in large part because Catholic church officers were confirmed and paid by the government.

Kim du Toit's 4th of July Geopoliticus blog posting was almost uncharacteristically optimistic. I commented that I agreed with his point that we Americans have kept faith with the Founders, protecting and preserving the gift they bequeathed us.

My comment seems to have motivated two other very interesting comments. Ken writes I was

missing one big historical victory for the freedom (i.e., 2nd Amendment side): the successful campaign against Smith & Wesson for its surrender to the Clinton administration over gun control.

It amazes me that this absolutely critical event in history should be so overlooked. This was the turning point in the gun control fight. It convinced both George W. Bush and Albert Gore, Jr., that the 2nd Amendment supporters were the “strong horse,” although both had previously backed gun control.

Ken makes the astute observation that the politicians and industry had their own wake up call after the Smith & Wesson "settlement" caused a measurable marketplace reaction. The politicians saw where the people were going, and any successful American politician must eventually run to the front of the crowd and yell "follow me!" The gun industry saw that their primary market--civilian weapon sales--could dry up in a hurry if a manufacturer accommodating people who wanted to give the state a monopoly on the tools of force.

Windy Wilson points out another key difference between the politics of 1930s Germany and the United States:

Parallel, another point of great divergence from the Weimar/Nazi transition is that during the Weimar period, many if not most of the Germans did not recognize the legitimacy of the Weimar government—not Hindenburg as president, but the entire government, and longed for a return to the pre-WW1 setup (Richard J. Evans, The Rise of the Nazis). That alone would make it easier for someone to overthrow the government as the Nazis essentially did. For all the crybaby “Stolen Election” drivel, I don’t see anyone contesting the legitimacy of the Federal government here in the US.

I think Windy Wilson is referring to this book:

I haven't read it yet, but I've just added it to my Amazon.com wishlist so I don't forget about it.

As an Individualist I'm concerned that the Federal government has too much legitimacy, particularly beyond its core purpose of protecting individual rights. Too many people want its scope of activity to extend much further; see (for example) my criticism of the National Endowment of the Arts. But Windy is right--all the calumny heaped upon George W. Bush was motivated by the perception he stole something important and valuable. The hue and cry would have been considerably less powerful if the prize--the Presidency--was itself considered illegitimate in some way.

Thanks Ken and Windy!

Lord Phillips Has it Right

2008-07-04T10:00:00.000-07:00

Now comes Lord Chief Justice, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, speaking to the London Muslim Centre in Whitechapel:

"There is no question of such [Sharia] courts sitting in this country or such sanctions being applied here.

“So far as the law is concerned, those who live in this country are governed by English and Welsh law and subject to the jurisdiction of the English and Welsh courts,” he said.

It's about time someone in Britain defended the legitimacy, supremacy and authority of national law over Sharia law. After all, people are free to vote with their feet:

“Those who come to live in this country and benefit from the rights enjoyed by all who live here also necessarily come under the same obligations that the law imposes on all who live here.”

Absolutely right. Legitimate government must equally protect the rights of all residents. If some people's rights are privileged, other people's rights are denigrated. Any government policy that fails to protect someone's individual rights is illegitimate and immoral.

I have several friends who immigrated to the United States from other countries. They came and played by the rules and are exemplary citizens. I have a special respect for people who give up the comforting familiarity of their early lives to become Americans. But I have nothing but disdain and condemnation for people who want to live in America and enjoy the benefits of America while disrespecting and disparaging the very values that make America great.

Good on you, Lord Phillips, for defending the British rule of law.

End the NEA

2008-07-03T20:34:00.000-07:00

The National Endowment for the Arts should go away.

Yesterday I explained why I think it's safe to be an American Individualist, and not an Anarchist. An important factor is that the government is prohibited by the Constitution from supporting religion. That keeps religious organizations free from worry that something they say will impact their government funding. Specifically, in contrast to 1930s Germany, American religious bodies don't have any government entanglements that compromise their ability to respond and criticize government speech.

Consider this paragraph from the Chairman's Statement in the 2006 NEA Annual Report:

Because we know the difference that availability to a thriving arts community can make to our youth and families, the NEA has made a priority of reaching every community. To be truly national, the National Endowment for the Arts has awarded at least one direct grant for every 760,000 Americans. Every member of Congress can return to his or her district and find at least one arts organization that is receiving catalytic support from the NEA.

In other words, arts organizations in every congressional district are compromised. They receive government funding. Government funding is always conditioned on something, either explicitly or implicitly.

Note that the Chairman is admitting that their funding decisions are not based entirely on merit. It's not a coincidence that the NEA funds organizations in every congressional district. Inevitably the merit-based evaluation process must be skewed to obtain this result.

It gets even worse. The Chairman goes on to write:

I say catalytic because for every dollar the NEA grants, seven to eight additional dollars are generated.

In other words, these Federal funding decisions have an impact above and beyond their base dollar amount. An organization receiving Federal arts funds can turn around and get seven or eight dollars in third party funds for each government dollar. The pernicious truth is that the converse is also true--if an art organization loses Federal funding, their third party funds dry up as well.

That's too much power for government. Government's purpose is to protect my liberty. Making decisions on the quality of art does not advance that narrow purpose. And as we've seen in history, government influence in the marketplace of ideas can lead to bloody ends.

Not an Anarchist

2008-07-02T18:41:00.000-07:00

I'm an Individualist, not an Anarchist.

Eric S. Raymond is an Anarchist. He reviews the history of the 20th Century, deciding that even the United States Constitution isn't enough protection for individual liberties:

The Founding Fathers of the United States thought they had found a way to successfully head off the degeneration of governments into pathological monstrosities: ensure that the people remain armed, and teach them that it is part of their duty as free citizens to check the arrogance of government — by threat of armed revolt or by actual revolution, if need be. Thomas Jefferson would have asked why the Jews and Gypsies of Germany allowed themselves to be disarmed by Nazi gun-confiscation laws without rising in revolt — and, more pointedly, why the soi-disant civilized nations of the world did not see the confiscation of civilian weapons as a sure harbinger of the Holocaust to come.

[....]

I am left with the bleak conclusion that no attempt to hold the arrogance of government in check will work — because a majority of the people themselves are too easily seduced into abandoning their own institutional protections against tyranny by the false promises and poisonous dreams of statist propaganda.

That is why I am an anarchist.

Mr. Raymond, I must respectfully dissent. I believe your analysis misses three important points.

First, a policy of Anarchism is national suicide, which will inevitably lead to denial of the individual rights we enjoy in America. Too many nation-states in the world today would be only too happy to conquer the United States by force. Some would be motivated to expropriate our wealth. Some would simply like to enslave the people, whether for economic or religious reasons. Others simply see American success as an unacceptable proof that their own philosophies and beliefs don't provide universal Truth in some way. We really do need "governments...to preserve...[our] rights."

Second, he doesn't put appropriate weight on four events in late 20th-Century American history: Ruby Ridge, the Waco Siege, the Oklahoma City bombing, and the Montana Freemen standoff. At Ruby Ridge, an assault by Federal agents on an isolationist family led to deaths on both sides, and the target of the raid (Randy Weaver) was eventually acquitted of the underlying charge by a jury. At Waco, Federal agents tried to raid the compound of a fanatic religious group--but the group stopped the assault by shooting and killing several agents. Federal agents eventually assaulted the compound with military vehicles and chemical weapons, but the resulting fire led to widespread criticism and outrage. Timothy McVeigh was motivated to bomb the Murrah Federal Building as revenge for Ruby Ridge and Waco.

But when they came to arrest the Montana Freemen, Federal agents took their time and managed to make the arrests without violence or deaths. Federal agents got the message; it's simply not a good idea to ride roughshod over Americans. Even though the Federal agent killer of Randy Weaver's wife didn't go to prison, and the surviving agents responsible for Waco didn't lose their jobs, Federal police tactics became much more respectful of American individuals--even obvious criminals.

Third, early-20th Century Germany did not separate church and state. Catholic church officials were nominated by the Vatican, but their names were approved by the German government and their salaries were supported by tax money. This structural collusion between the Vatican and the German government meant that the Church was dissuaded from criticizing government policy. It ensured that German government ideas and propaganda weren't easily challenged in the open marketplace of ideas.

In contrast, the Framers of the United States Constitution wanted to keep the government from concentrating either the power to shape public opinion (First Amendment) or the power to force public compliance (Second Amendment).

The First and Second Amendments are both necessary to restrain government: The First amendment makes sure there are competing voices in the marketplace of ideas, accessible to many individuals. The Second Amendment makes sure that once individuals make up their minds about a public policy, they can make their decisions stick in the face of raw government power--or at least greatly increase the cost in blood and treasure for the government to crush the individuals.

Bottom line: I believe it's safe and appropriate to be an Individualist in the United States.

Update 5 July 2008: please seetwo more reasons suggested by comments at Kim du Toit's Geopoliticus blog.

Dog-loving Individualist

2008-07-01T19:47:00.000-07:00

I've just changed the "about me" description to your left. It used to say

A mostly conservative computer security scientist type guy.

When I started this blog I thought I was a conservative. To me, a conservative is someone who agrees with Rush Limbaugh most of the time. The Republican party is the American political home of conservatism.

Right-wing, conservative politics are based on preserving or returning to some traditional authority. Left-wing politics are based on social change or progress. My fundamental values aren't based on returning to something old or trying something new.

So rather than a conservative I'm more of an individualist. From a very young age I was taught that each person is a unique, valuable individual. Everyone has God-given rights, and is worthy of respect. To respect someone as a person means respecting and allowing them to make their own choices.

For the past 3.5 years my wife and I have been blessed to share our home with Kiko. He thinks he's a black Labrador Retriever, even though his mother is half chocolate Lab and half pointer. As you can see in our picture, he loves his people--nothing more satisfying and fun than to lick my face.

So I'm changing my self-description. Individualism better describes my personal philosophy, and my love for dogs like Kiko is important too.

Dick Heller Wins!

2008-06-26T17:53:00.000-07:00

Go take a look at Dick Heller. It's OK; go ahead, we will wait.

See his smile? He's standing outside the United States Supreme Court. Today that Court agreed with him that the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees his individual right to keep and bear arms.

Dick Heller is a security guard. He carries a handgun at work, protecting government property and people within the District of Columbia. That's perfectly legal. But when Mr. Heller applied for a permit for a handgun at home, the DC government turned him down.

Why is it OK for the same man to carry a gun protecting government property and people, but not OK for him to protect himself and his family at home?

As I've written before, Dick Heller the security guard is working on behalf of a collective will--the government. But the District of Columbia sees Dick Heller the individual, separated from his protective role within the collective, as unqualified and unworthy to possess the same tools he uses at work.

In today's decision, Justice Antonin Scalia writes:

The first salient feature of the operative clause is that it codifies a “right of the people.” The unamended Constitution and the Bill of Rights use the phrase “right of the people” two other times, in the First Amendment’s Assembly-and-Petition Clause and in the Fourth Amendment’s Search-and-Seizure Clause. The Ninth Amendment uses very similar terminology (“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people”). All three of these instances unambiguously refer to individual rights, not “collective” rights, or rights that may be exercised only through participation in some
corporate body.

He goes on in the footnote:

JUSTICE STEVENS is of course correct, post, at 10, that the right to assemble cannot be exercised alone, but it is still an individual right, and not one conditioned upon membership in some defined “assembly,” as he contends the right to bear arms is conditioned upon membership in a defined militia. And JUSTICE STEVENS is dead wrong to think that the right to petition is “primarily collective in nature.”

Today's decision affirms what the Founders wrote in the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed[.]

That's right -- all men are created equal. Dick Heller is created the equal of any man, with all the natural rights of any man. His natural right to self protection, and the tools thereof, are equal to the rights available to any collective.

Winners and Losers

2008-06-18T17:23:00.000-07:00

I'm in Washington DC on business. My hotel provides free copies of The Wall Street Journal. Yesterday's front page story was based on an interview with Barack Obama:

FLINT, Mich. -- Sen. Barack Obama shed new light on his economic plans for the country, saying he would rely on a heavy dose of government spending to spur growth, use the tax code to narrow the widening gap between winners and losers in the U.S. economy, and possibly back a reduction in corporate tax rates.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, the Illinois Democrat said that he was trying to put together tax and spending policies that dealt with two challenges. One is the competition from rapidly growing developing countries, like India and China. The other: the U.S. becoming what he called a "winner-take-all" economy, where the gains from economic growth skew heavily toward the wealthy.

Sen. Obama cited new economic forces to explain what appears like a return to an older-style big-government Democratic platform skeptical of market forces. "Globalization and technology and automation all weaken the position of workers," he said, and a strong government hand is needed to assure that wealth is distributed more equitably. He spoke aboard his campaign bus, where a big-screen TV was tuned to the final holes of the U.S. Open golf tournament.

Augh! The man is appealing to one of the deadly seven sins: Envy. He wants poor people to vote for him because he is willing to use the coercive power of the state to stop wealthy people from getting more wealthy.

I much prefer Dave Ramsey's analysis. He says, in essence:

Yes, the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer. That's because the rich keep doing what got them rich, and the poor keep doing what got them poor.

The State can only narrow the divide between rich and poor by making the rich poorer. Individual poor people can narrow the divide between rich and poor by acting more like rich people. And it's no secret how to do that.

How do you keep from getting poorer? It's simple, really, as Andrew Klavan writes in City Journal:

Beating poverty in America nowadays is largely a matter of personal behavior. Get a high school diploma, don’t have kids until you’re married, don’t get married until you’re 21, and you probably won’t be poor. It also helps if you work hard, show up on time, act courteously, and avoid anything felonious.

Or read what Bill Cosby said to the NAACP in 2004:

I heard a prize fight manager say to his fellow who was losing badly, “David, listen to me. It’s not what’s he’s doing to you. It’s what you’re not doing."

....

Now, look, I’m telling you. It’s not what they’re doing to us. It’s what we’re not doing. 50 percent drop out. Look, we’re raising our own ingrown immigrants. These people are fighting hard to be ignorant. There’s no English being spoken, and they’re walking and they’re angry. Oh God, they’re angry and they have pistols and they shoot and they do stupid things. And after they kill somebody, they don’t have a plan. Just murder somebody. Boom. Over what? A pizza?

The United States president does not have the power to make poor people richer. Working through Congress he might be able to make rich people poorer. That's not the country I want. That's not something I hope for. That's definitely not the change I hope to see.

Vegetarianism

2008-06-12T08:12:00.001-07:00

There's an interesting comment thread over at Kim's place. He ran across a story of a child whose parents failed to provide proper nutrition, leaving her with rickets, a malformed spine, and several fractured bones. The parents kept her on a strict meat- and milk-free diet.

The general tone of the comment thread is that vegetarianism is prima facie evidence of child abuse. I must respectfully dissent. Here's what I wrote as my comment on the thread:

I grew up in Alaska, raised by my Seventh-day Adventist church pastor father and my registered nurse mother. Since birth I have eaten an ovo-lacto vegetarian diet. At 40 years old I still stick to that diet, through inertia more than anything else.

Just finished eating my standard breakfast of orange juice, Grape-Nuts with 2% milk, flax seed meal, multi-grain toast with butter, almond butter, and spreadable fruit. This breakfast will hold me all day; all I have to do is drink water until supper time. Last night my supper was a cup of brown rice (cooked) with half a can of Nalley’s vegetarian chili.

When I was a kid my family did a little set-net subsistence salmon fishing. Mom cooked the fish with oatmeal in pie pans, freezing them as a weekly dietary supplement for the dog. He loved it! To pay for my schooling I worked in the fishing industry, both out on the boats and in the fish processing plants. Vegetarianism is a choice we made for our health, not out of some belief in the inherent dignity of fish.

I’m convinced that I grew up just fine on an ovo-lacto vegetarian diet. Even in rural Alaska we ate plenty of milk, cheese, soy-based vegetable protein, grains, fruits and vegetables. I’m a knowledge worker and compete very nicely with my colleagues. This morning before breakfast I walked the dog for over 3 miles in less than an hour.

As a Seventh-day Adventist I believe my body is the temple of God, and that an ovo-lacto vegetarian diet rich in vegetables, nuts and fruits is the best diet to maintain that temple. However, if I accidentally scoop the beef-based spaghetti sauce onto my plate at the buffet I’ll go ahead and eat it. It’s a question of long-term choices, not doctrinaire absolutes.

Totalitarians and ethical vegetarians are two sides of the same coin. They both fail to properly appreciate the unique value of individual human lives. Totalitarians are wiling to sacrifice individuals to the greater good (see also Communism, Nazism, Environmentalism). Ethical vegetarians believe animals should be treated with the same respect as humans, which puts animals and humans at the same level. Many environmentalists believe humanity is a curse to the planet, and the fewer of us the better--putting human life below that of animal life.

How many pro-life vegan environmentalists do you know?

I Hope This Doesn't Happen

2008-06-08T15:27:00.000-07:00

Now comes David R. Stokes, writing on Townhall.com, drawing parallels between Bobby Kennedy's Presidential bid in 1968 and Barack Obama's candidacy 40 years later. He writes that some candidates

seem to transcend the race for a particular office and become, in fact, movements. That’s what was happening in 1968 with Robert Kennedy and it’s happening these days, for better or for worse, with Barack Obama.

Mr. Stokes recalls Richard Nixon's worried reaction to the the announcement of Kennedy's candidacy:

Richard Nixon was in Portland, Oregon on March 16th as he watched the New York Senator’s candidacy announcement. Already well on his way to the Republican nomination a few months later, he was facing the fact that he might indeed find himself running against the brother of the slain president who had beaten him eight years before. He told an aide as he watched, “very terrible forces have been unleashed. Something bad is going to come of this. God knows where this is going to lead.” Nixon understood something about politics, people, and the political milieu of the moment.

A few months ago I presented a candidate explanation of hoplophobia, the ailment suffered by those Jeff Cooper described as "people who are apparently haunted by a fixed and morbid aversion to our guns." That explanation covers why the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy in 1968 led directly to the Gun Control Act of the same year. Quoting myself:

Many American Progressives believed that Robert F. Kennedy was the perfect "national leader attuned to the will of the people." Sirhan Sirhan, an individual armed with a handgun, deprived the "people" of their "leader". In response, the Progressives targeted the instrument that the individual used--because it was unthinkable that a mere individual could alone subvert the collective will.

As in 1968, might the shooting of a populist presidential candidate lead to a backlash against self-defense tools? Would a shocked nation, eager to find a scapegoat, try to blame the instrument of the assassin rather than the choices and motives of the killer? Could an event of this political magnitude reverse two decades of progress on the rights of individuals to protect themselves against predators of all species?

I do not want my house to burn down, but I still carry homeowners insurance. I don't want to be involved in a car crash, but I still put on my seatbelt. I do not want Barack Obama to be injured or killed, but I'm worried about the consequences of that possibility. Far better that he be defeated at the polls in November--or even be elected President--than for his candidacy to be cut short by his untimely demise.

Al Qaeda's Vulnerability

2008-06-06T20:00:00.000-07:00

While on business travel a few weeks ago I bought this book:

Michael Yon has spent more time "embedded" with the United States Military in Iraq than any other journalist. As of 2008, he believes the United States is winning the war in Iraq:

We can win this war. And if we do, it will be a victory of the same magnitude as the fall of the Soviet Union. It will not be a victory for the Republican Party. It will not be a victory for America and Great Britain and others "against" Iraq. It will be a victory for freedom and justice. It will be a victory for Iraqis and the wold, and only then will it be a victory for us.

A stable, reasonably democratic, and friendly Arab country will have been established in the heart of the Middle East. Al Qaeda will have been defeated not only militarily but morally, rejected by the very Muslims they claim to represent.

--Moment of Truth In Iraq, p. 226

al Qaeda claims to be on a divine mission to set up a caliphate; a pan-Muslim government that will restore the glory of the fourteenth century. But when given the opportunity, they proved completely unwilling and unfit to govern:

For al Qaeda, Iraq as just one front in their battle to humiliate and exhaust America--their strategy in Iraq was to provoke a civil war between Sunni and Shia. It was a tempting strategy, but al Qaeda militants are not smart insurgents. They know how to kill people and break things, but that's where their skill sets end. Once they have gained control of and responsibility for a territory, they can only offer terror. They do not know or care how to run a village, much less a city or nation. The locals came to view al Qaeda as degenerates and less than swine--using drugs, laying up sloppy drunk, using prostitutes, raping women and boys, and cutting off heads--while at the same time they are imposing strict morality laws on the locals. In 2007 in Baghdad, an army intelligence officer told me that one of his best sources in their area as a gay al Qaeda member; when his al Qaeda lovers mistreated him, he would pass along intelligence to get them killed or captured.

--Moment of Truth in Iraq, pp. 89-90

How will we win in Iraq? Our military capacity is certainly necessary, but not sufficient:

Before the war, our people had no street credibility in Iraq. Iraqis thought American soldiers were soft and that body armor was a type of personal air conditioner. If the Iraqis had known back then...about American willingness to suffer and fight, it's doubtful that Saddam would have taunted us.

Of course we swept them off the mail battlefields quickly, but that could be and often was chalked up to our money and our machines. It was only after, when they saw that our people were better street fighters too, and that American combat soldiers would match our outlast them in the heat, that they began to understand.

--Moment of Truth in Iraq, pp. 161-162

Not only can the Americans fight, but they know how to build a society:

[The] job of kick-starting the government fell on the shoulders of the American commanders because most of the experienced local leaders [in Baqubah] were either living abroad or had been victims of al Qaeda. The new leaders had little experience, or lacked the natural instinct to solve the many problems their city faced. So our soldiers mentored Iraqi civil leaders. In meeting after meeting, American military leaders revealed an important yet hidden collective skill set: they know how to run a city.

How is it that a group of commanders seem to understand how to run a city? Because they do it all the time, even at home.

The American military governs city-states--bases--all over the world. A commander who runs an American military base in Iraq is referred to as the "Mayor", and he or she must understand the vital functions of a city and how it operates. This includes water, electricity, sewage, food distribution, police, courts, prisons, hospitals, fire, schools, airports, ports, trash control, vector control, communications, fuel, and fiscal budgeting, for example. Base commanders in the U.S. must deal with local political leaders; base commanders abroad must be international diplomats.

--Moment of Truth in Iraq, pp. 142-143

In this asymmetrical conflict, al Qaeda is attacking the weak link the United States ability to project force--our media-driven, opinion-based public decision making process. Al Qaeda knows they can never win a stand-up fight, but they hope to win like the North Vietnamese won in the 1970s--by simply convincing us to quit.

But unlike Vietnam, the United States Military has discovered how to asymmetrically attack al Qaeda. We know how to run a free, successful society--and are demonstrating to the Iraqis that we can teach the Iraqis to succeed too. More and more Iraqis are figuring out that the al Qaeda promises are false, and that the Americans really do want them to succeed.

That's how we will win.

Covey vs. Obama on Basic Humanity

2008-05-28T19:19:00.000-07:00

I've been listening to audio books while walking Kiko. I'm partway through The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change (Unabridged) by Stephen R. Covey.

In chapter 3, Covey recalls Victor Frankl, a psychologist who was sent to the Nazi death camps. Except for his sister, Dr. Frankl lost his entire family. But he realized an important truth:

In the midst of the most degrading circumstances imaginable, Frankl used the human endowment of self-awareness to discover a fundamental principle about the nature of man.

Between stimulus and response, man has the freedom to choose. Again, between stimulus--or what happens to us--or has ever happened to us--and our response, lies our power and freedom to choose. And in those choices lie our growth and our happiness.

Covey goes on:

Within that space between stimulus and response are four endowments that make us uniquely human. In addition to self awareness...we have imagination: the ability to create in our own minds beyond our present reality. We also have conscience, the deep inner awareness of right and wrong. Of the principles that govern our behavior, are a sense of whether our thoughts and actions are in harmony with them: that's our integrity. And finally and fourth, we have independent will: the ability to act based on our self-awareness, free of all other influences.

But then Covey digresses. He makes the point that humans uniquely possess self-awareness, which sets us apart from the rest of the animals:

Even the most intelligent animals have none of these endowments. It's not a matter of degree, it's a matter of kind. To use a computer metaphor, they are programmed by instinct and training. Animals can be trained to be responsible--but they can't take responsibility for that training! In other words, they can't direct it; they can't change the programming. They're not even aware of it. That's why they can't reinvent their lives the way people can.

But because of our unique human endowments, we can write new programs for ourselves totally apart from our instincts and/or training. This is why an animal's capacity is somewhat limited and man's is unlimited. But if we live like animals, out of our own instincts, and conditioning, and conditions, and out of our collective memory, we too will be limited.

It's the software! Our very humanity depends on our ability to rewrite our own software.

So when Barack Obama says that Jeremiah Wright was "bound to mature into his present angry anti-American, anti-Israel, anti-white mentality", Obama is denying Wright's humanity. He excuses Wright's behavior by relieving Wright of his responsibility--but simultaneously relieves Wright of that which differentiates Wright from base animals.

The basis of racism is to deny human status to its targets. That's why blacks were discriminated against: whites didn't believe blacks to be completely human. Many whites believed that blacks needed guidance and protection, just as a good horse or dog thrives best under human guidance and protection. In this view, slavery and Jim Crow legal and social constraints were for the benefit of blacks--literally for their own good.

Martin Luther King convinced the majority of whites that blacks are human, which was a necessary precondition to eliminate the legal and social constraints under which blacks suffered. He appealed to white peoples' conscience and integrity, asking them to rewrite their internal programming. That's why I believe in Dr. King's life work.

Obama's denial of the humanity of a black preacher goes against the core of Dr. King's message. He should be ashamed of himself.

Redefining Nationhood

2008-05-22T08:00:00.000-07:00

In City Journal, Andrew Klavan writes:

Our Founding redefined nationhood along social-contract lines that Europeans can still only theorize about. Our love of nation at its best was ethical, not ethnic. Our patriotism was loyalty not to race, or even to tradition, but to ideals of individual liberty and republican self-governance.

Most of his article is about how Hollywood's view of war has shifted. War is always brutal and inhuman, and that hasn't changed. But unlike the films made in the 1940s, Hollywood since Vietnam has chosen to portray America as unworthy of fighting for.

When you fight for America you're fighting for certain elements of software. It's the software that matters.

Kiko's Fight Part 4: Lessons Learned

2008-05-21T18:42:00.000-07:00

A week ago I posted the narrative of an altercation that my dog and I got mixed up in. Two other dogs met up with us and a fight ensued. Thursday's post described our injuries, treatment and healing process. Sunday's post included a picture of Kiko enjoying some snow and three others of his healing wounds. Later on Sunday I posted my analysis of what happened. Today's post, 10 days after the event, articulates the lessons I've learned from the incident and aftermath.

I'm blessed with friends and family who took the time to listen, read, consider what happened and share their counsel with me. Thank you all very much. From you I've learned four things:

First, I did two things right. I was walking Kiko, which is good for his health and mine. And I had him under control on a leash, so he wasn't a threat to other dogs or people. We will continue to walk together, connected by a leash.

Second, I underestimated the potential threat of the approaching loose dogs. I paid more attention to how Kiko was behaving than their breeds, sex, and body language. I only understood they were willing and able to injure Kiko after the fight started. Fortunately they weren't targeting me; this time I got lucky. Wagging tails all around is good; stiffening and baring of teeth is bad!

Security guards and police officers are trained on the use of force continuum. The goal is to use the minimum force necessary to achieve compliance. I should have faced the oncoming loose dogs, asserting my dominance towards them (rather than Kiko). When they kept approaching I could have blocked them with my body, keeping them away from Kiko. I could have used vocal commands to discourage their approach. Throwable rocks are always at hand in the desert. Several people suggested chemical options (water pistol filled with ammonia, pepper spray with UV dye, citrus spray). Further up the force continuum are options like a solid walking stick, an edged weapon, or a legally-permitted concealed firearm.

Third, I should not have been trying to put Kiko in a "down-stay" position. He was already at a disadvantage merely by being on a leash. When strange people are approaching it may be appropriate to have Kiko in a "sit-stay" position, but strange dogs need to see Kiko standing up. Depending on the situation it might even be appropriate to unclip his leash as the other dogs approach, so it's not such an easy "dominance win" for the other dogs.

Again, I should have looked carefully at how the other dogs were approaching. Because I was so focused on Kiko's compliance I don't remember if the other dogs' tails were wagging or if they were showing signs of aggression. I should also evaluate Kiko's body language; he is very well socialized with other dogs so if he starts showing fear there's probably a good reason for it.

Fourth, when the fight started I should have kept my hands clear. Many dog fights end quickly once dominance is established, perhaps with minor injuries but nothing serious or disfiguring. Rather than fighting bare-handed I should choose other options along the force continuum. If I'm not a target I can throw drinking water and escalate to chemical irritants. If I perceive myself a target of an unrestrained pack and I believe my life (or Kiko's life) is in danger, then I might have to use lethal force.

That's the series. Right now Kiko is snoozing comfortably on his pillow by the fireplace. He's still wearing his "cone of shame", but hopefully we can take that off after his next vet appointment on Friday.

Kiko's Fight Part 3: Analysis

2008-05-18T20:00:00.000-07:00

On Thursday I posted the narrative of an altercation that my dog and I got mixed up in. Two other dogs met up with us and a fight ensued. Yesterday's post described our injuries, treatment and healing process. Today's post is my analysis of what happened.

Given Kiko’s relatively light wounds sustained on his neck, it appears that the Staffordshire terrier was merely holding Kiko down and not attempting to injure or kill him. However, the more serious wounds on his thigh are consistent with a more aggressive attack by the black Labrador mix.

Also given that Kiko was the only dog to bite me, it appears that the other two dogs did not see me as a threat or combatant. The white Staffordshire terrier accepted without protest my pinning him to the ground with my leg. Their post-altercation action of moving away is also consistent with this hypothesis.

Kiko’s excited frame of mind during the initial approach may have contributed to the altercation. By the time the white Staffordshire mounted him, he was already in a state of high excitement.

My reaction to the Staffordshire’s dominant behavior may also have contributed to the altercation. I shouted at the Staffordshire and tried to push him off of Kiko, which added energy to the situation. Simultaneously I was trying to return Kiko to his “down stay” position. The Staffordshire may have interpreted my energy and actions as a rebuke against Kiko’s excited state of mind, leading to the Staffordshire’s escalation of grabbing Kiko’s neck.

Another possibility is that the Staffordshire's bite was mitigated by the leather collar that Kiko was wearing, so the Staffordshire might have been trying to hurt him more than the injuries would otherwise seem to indicate.

Tomorrow's post will go over some lessons I've learned from the experience.

Kiko's Fight Part 2a: Pictures

2008-05-18T16:57:00.000-07:00

First the good news. Kiko and I visited Johnston Ridge Observatory near Mount St. Helens yesterday. (That's why I didn't put up my lessons-learned post yet.)

As you can see in this picture, he really enjoyed getting out of the car and running around in the snow!

As of Thursday (four days after the altercation), his neck is healing well:

But on Thursday his thigh wound was still draining a bit. That was the day we visited the vet for a follow-up, and she prescribed an additional course of antibiotics:

Today that wound is looking much better:

Kiko's Fight Part 2: Injuries and Treatment

2008-05-15T22:57:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I posted the narrative of a dog fight I had to break up. My dog Kiko and I were walking when two other dogs arrived and the situation devolved badly. Today's post describes the injuries that we sustained, the treatment we received, and how the healing process is coming along.

I sustained puncture and laceration wounds to my left forearm, left index and middle fingers, and my right thumb. On an outpatient basis, Kadlec Medical Center cleaned my wounds, applied dressings, administered oral antibiotics and a tetanus injection, and gave me a prescription for antibiotics and pain medication. They instructed me to report back to the Kadlec Medical Center on Tuesday afternoon, 13 May 2008 if my wounds are not healing well or appear inflamed. I was released at 16:23 PDT.

Kiko sustained puncture and laceration wounds on the inside of his left thigh, and mild abrasions to the right side of his neck. Mid-Columbia Pet Emergency Services anesthetized him, evaluated his neck wounds as not needing treatment, and repaired his left inside thigh wounds. They released him to me at 18:23 PDT with antibiotic, probiotic, and analgesic medication.

My wounds were healing satisfactorily on Tuesday, so I did not return to Kadlec Medical Center.

Kiko's wounds were also healing satisfactorily until Wednesday evening, when he started licking and worrying at the sutures on the wound to his inner left thigh. By Thursday morning he was clearly in distress, so I put an Elizabethan Collar on him and took him to our regular veterinarian at Desert Veterinary Clinic.

The veterinarian noted that a small amount of infection had set in and prescribed an additional antibiotic. She explained that dog bite injuries involve immediately visible punctures and lacerations, but that tissue crushing also occurs. Often the sutures that treat the laceration are made into crushed tissue, which compromises the repair. She prescribed an additional antibiotic, and asked us to return in a week for further evaluation.

Update 18 May 2008: see this new post for pictures.

Tomorrow's post will consist of my analysis of the events, trying to put the pieces together into a more organic whole.

Kiko's Fight Part 1: Narrative

2008-05-14T22:46:00.000-07:00

On Sunday I learned the literal meaning of "having a dog in the fight." While walking my dog on a leash, two other dogs approached and a fight developed. Everyone walked away, but my dog and I both received medical attention afterwards.

Finnish psychologist Antti Revonsuo argues that "the biological function of dreaming is to simulate threatening events, and to rehearse threat perception and threat avoidance." (See also a recent Psychology Today article.)

I've never served in the military, and haven't been involved in a physical fight in 20+ years. So as to head off nightmares about the dogfight, I decided to process the experience the best way I know how--writing about it, using the National Transportation Safety Board's Aircraft Accident Report format as a model. This article is my Narrative Statement: the events of Sunday afternoon as best I could recall them.

On Sunday, 11 May 2008 at 13:07 PDT I left my residence in West Richland, Washington. With me was my altered male dog Kiko, a black Labrador mix. Our intention was to walk to the summit of Candy Mountain. Kiko wore a red backpack containing water, a leather collar with metal tags, and a red cloth collar with his leash. I held the other end of his leash throughout the walk.

We approached Candy Mountain from the north, walking south on Candy Mountain Avenue. We turned left on Hershey Road and followed it around. Near the corner of Hershey Road and Starburst Court I noticed a [particular type of] vehicle parked partway up Candy Mountain. Near the [vehicle] I observed two people and two dogs.

As we continued up the trail towards the summit of Candy Mountain, Kiko was behaving excitedly--particularly so after noticing the two dogs above us on Candy Mountain. Specifically, he was pulling against his leash and collar. Given his excited state of mind I decided to take an indirect route up Candy Mountain rather than the most direct path.

We turned south at the end of the fence line, then followed it as it led south and curved west. This track intersected with another track that led northwest towards the summit of Candy Mountain. We started up that track towards the summit, not observing any dogs or people.

About a quarter of the way up the slope I observed two dogs ahead of us on the trail, walking down towards us. One dog was white and appeared to be a Staffordshire terrier. The other dog was black and appeared to be a Labrador mix.

Kiko also noticed the dogs and his excitement level appeared to increase; he again pulled against his leash. We stopped walking and I put Kiko in a “down-stay” position, which meant his hips, chest, and front legs were on the ground. I verbally commanded him to stay put, and may have stepped on his leash to further restrain him.

When the two other dogs arrived at our location Kiko stood up and faced the white dog. They sniffed each other excitedly. Then the white dog mounted Kiko from the side, putting his chest on Kiko’s shoulders.

I tried to push the white dog off Kiko’s shoulders, while again commanding Kiko to lie down and pushing him to the ground. Simultaneously, Kiko snapped at the white dog. The white dog grabbed Kiko on the right side of the neck and held on. Kiko started yelping and ended up on his back. As the white dog held on to Kiko’s neck, the black dog started biting Kiko on his back and left thigh.

As Kiko was on his back I tried to pull the white dog from Kiko’s neck. Kiko was screaming and snapping in apparent pain and panic. While I was trying to disengage the white dog from his neck, Kiko bit my left forearm, my left index and middle fingers, and my right thumb.

When the altercation ended, I had separated the three dogs. The white dog was subdued under my right thigh. I stood up and continued shouting at the white and black dogs. They made no more aggressive moves or noises. After a few minutes they moved away.

During the altercation I dropped my end of Kiko’s leash. After taking hold again I looked for injuries. I initially assessed Kiko and my wounds as not life-threatening. Blood was slowly oozing from my injuries. Kiko was walking without a significant limp, and I did not observe him leaving a blood trail.

Kiko and I returned the way we came. After walking about 300 yards I dialed 911 on my mobile telephone and explained what had just happened. As we rounded the base of Candy Mountain I observed the white and black dogs entering the [vehicle] along with their people. From a distance I watched the [vehicle] descend the mountain until it was stopped by a West Richland Police officer at the corner of Candy Mountain Boulevard and Kennedy Road.

While on the telephone with the 911 operator I re-assessed my wounds and declined emergency medical attention.

After returning to my home I spoke briefly with the responding officer. I reiterated that I did not desire medical attention, but that my first priority was to have Kiko’s injuries assessed. I informed him that neither Kiko nor I had any evidence of significant bleeding, so I knew I did not require immediate medical attention. But given my ignorance of veterinary first aid I wanted to get Kiko to a professional as soon as possible. [The officer] left me his business card and asked me to contact him when I had finished attending to Kiko and myself. A few minutes later I left the house with Kiko to seek veterinary and medical attention.

After returning home I received a call from the Benton County Sheriff’s Department. I informed [the deputy] that I did not wish to press any charges against the owners of the white and black dogs. He gave me the name and telephone number of the owner.

A few minutes later I contacted [the owner]. At his request I told him how much the veterinary service charged me for Kiko’s treatment. He said he was writing me a check for the full amount immediately.

Tomorrow: Our injuries and medical treatments.

The American Creed

2008-05-12T20:17:00.000-07:00

What does it take to be an American?

Having been born an American, I cannot go to China and become Chinese. I can't go to Germany and become German. I can't go to Japan and become Japanese. It just doesn't work that way.

But someone born in China can come to America and become an American. Someone born in Germany can come to America and become an American. Someone born in Japan can come to America and become an American.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed....

That's the American creed. If you're willing to accept those "self-evident" truths, as embodied in the United States Constitution, you're an American.

To be an American is to believe in America.

Crossing the Line

2008-05-07T07:00:00.000-07:00

Over a century ago, one Samuel Clemens (a.k.a. Mark Twain) protested against a war. As a satirist he was without peer:

Mine eyes have seen the orgy of the launching of the Sword;
He is searching out the hoardings where the stranger's wealth is stored;
He hath loosed his fateful lightnings, and with woe and death has scored;
His lust is marching on.

I have seen him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps;
They have builded him an altar in the Eastern dews and damps;
I have read his doomful mission by the dim and flaring lamps—
His night is marching on.

I have read his bandit gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:
"As ye deal with my pretensions, so with you my wrath shall deal;
Let the faithless son of Freedom crush the patriot with his heel;
Lo, Greed is marching on!"

We have legalized the strumpet and are guarding her retreat;
Greed is seeking out commercial souls before his judgement seat;
O, be swift, ye clods, to answer him! be jubilant my feet!
Our god is marching on!

In a sordid slime harmonious Greed was born in yonder ditch,
With a longing in his bosom—and for others' goods an itch.
As Christ died to make men holy, let men die to make us rich—
Our god is marching on.

Initially Twain was a supporter of the war to liberate the Philippines from Spain, but saw that the war aims morphed from those high ideals to something much uglier:

I left these shores, at Vancouver, a red-hot imperialist. I wanted the American eagle to go screaming into the Pacific. It seemed tiresome and tame for it to content itself with the Rockies. Why not spread its wings over the Philippines, I asked myself? And I thought it would be a real good thing to do.

I said to myself, here are a people who have suffered for three centuries. We can make them as free as ourselves, give them a government and country of their own, put a miniature of the American constitution afloat in the Pacific, start a brand new republic to take its place among the free nations of the world. It seemed to me a great task to which we had addressed ourselves.

But I have thought some more, since then, and I have read carefully the treaty of Paris, and I have seen that we do not intend to free, but to subjugate the people of the Philippines. We have gone there to conquer, not to redeem.

We have also pledged the power of this country to maintain and protect the abominable system established in the Philippines by the Friars.

It should, it seems to me, be our pleasure and duty to make those people free, and let them deal with their own domestic questions in their own way. And so I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land.

---Mark Twain Home, An Anti-Imperialist, New York Herald [New York, 10/15/1900]

Now comes Sol Stern, writing in the City Journal. He participated in a meeting with Viet Cong representatives in September 1967, led by Tom Hayden. After the meeting, Tom Hayden made a speech asking his fellow "Peace Movement" members to ally themselves with the enemy:

[I]t was clear that Hayden and some of his acolytes were trying to move our group toward a more “advanced” position than the one still maintained by the mainstream U.S. peace movement. Hayden wasn’t interested in ending the war so much as making an alliance with the other side. At one of the final plenary sessions, he gave a long speech summarizing the conference’s accomplishments and emphasizing our need to work together for the common objective: a Vietnam liberated and unified—by the Communists.

[...]

Sometime later, after the events of 1968, I would look back at Hayden’s Bratislava speech as a turning point not only in the short history of the New Left but also in the history of American radicalism. Protesting against America’s wars has an honorable tradition, running from Thoreau to Eugene V. Debs and Norman Thomas. But starting with Hayden and continuing in the turbulent outbursts of 1968, that tradition of legitimate democratic opposition morphed into outright collaboration with the enemy. It wasn’t just that Hayden was rooting for the other side—abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison had done the same during the Mexican War—but that he was proposing to sabotage the American war effort by all means necessary. Soon enough, as members of the once-idealistic New Left and SDS crossed the line from dissent to treason, it became clear that those means included deadly violence. Within 18 months, some of Hayden’s followers were bombing military installations and public buildings in solidarity with their Vietnamese allies.

As Mr. Stern says, it's perfectly natural to protest against a war your country is fighting. Western society is so deadly in warfare because it encourages internal dissent and criticism of how wars are prosecuted. Even leaders who successfully fight a war can be turned out by the electorate; see Winston Churchill for a perfect example.

But the anti-war Left during the late 1960s went way over the line. Unlike Mark Twain, they didn't just argue for an outcome more in line with American ideals of liberty and self-determination. Instead, they literally gave aid and comfort to the enemy. They were willing and eager to see America lose the war, and to sacrifice the freedoms and liberties of the Vietnamese people to do it.

Comrade J

2008-05-06T19:03:00.000-07:00

I was on business travel last week. Between flights I stopped at a bookstore and picked up this book:

In the Epilogue, Sergei Tretyakov explains what motivated him to defect to the United States:

As a professional intelligence officer who specialized in North American matters, I was studying U.S. history all the time and I could probably lecture as a part-time university professor about it. Yet it was a totally different feeling and meaning for me when I was refreshing my memory reading the Declaration of Independence before taking the [United States] citizenship test. I found its words of special importance.

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

I have tried to explain in this book the "causes" that made me separate myself from Russia. The Declaration continues:

...Whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive...it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it.... It is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government....

My wants and my desires were not much different from those early colonists'. In the end, I came to believe I was not betraying Russia. I felt its leaders had betrayed Russia and me.

If I attempted to return to Russia, I would be immediately arrested, sentenced to death, and executed. But I really don't care what they think about me in Russia.... I am now an American, and I consider myself--not a traitor nor a spy, but a new patriot.

--Comrade J, pp. 331-332.

As a native-born American I had the great fortune to grow up in this great land. I stand in awe of people like Sergei Tretyakov and my friends who gave up everything to immigrate to America.

God Bless America; let freedom ring!

What More Does Jeremiah Wright Want?

2008-05-01T08:00:00.000-07:00

Now comes Jeremiah Wright, speaking at the National Press Club. Fox News has the transcript.

Most of what he says I can agree with. Reconciliation is sorely needed in our country. But it's hard for me to read Wright's words and think that he's really trying to foster reconciliation:

What I said about and what I think about and what — again, until I can’t — until racism and slavery are confessed and asked for forgiveness — have we asked the Japanese to forgive us? We have never as a country, the policymakers — in fact, Clinton almost got in trouble because he almost apologized at Gorialan (ph). We have never apologized as a country.

Britain has apologized to Africans, but this country’s leaders have refused to apologize. So until that apology comes, I’m not going to keep stepping on your foot and asking you, “Does this hurt? Do you forgive me for stepping on your foot?” if I’m still stepping on your foot.

Understand that? Capiche?

Christian/Western civilization is unique: it holds that each individual has such intrinsic worth that it is worth fighting and dying to extirpate bondage and slavery. The British Navy was the most effective anti-slavery institution in history.

Closer to home, maybe the Reverend Wright should re-read Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address:

One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war.

[....]

Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

Not only did Lincoln apologize for slavery, the nation paid for it in blood. Over 360,000 Union soldiers died and 280,000 more were wounded in the American Civil War fighting to free the Negro slaves.

What more does Jeremiah Wright want as an apology?

Dangerous Old Men

2008-04-30T08:00:00.000-07:00

A classic blog comment by Grim still resonates. It starts to explain the apparent paradox of tranquil-yet-heavily-armed America:

The secret of social harmony is simple: Old men must be dangerous.

Very nearly all the violence that plagues, rather than protects, society is the work of young males between the ages of fourteen and thirty. A substantial amount of the violence that protects rather than plagues society is performed by other members of the same group. The reasons for this predisposition are generally rooted in biology, which is to say that they are not going anywhere, in spite of the current fashion that suggests doping half the young with Ritalin.

The question is how to move these young men from the first group (violent and predatory) into the second (violent, but protective). This is to ask: what is the difference between a street gang and the Marine Corps, or a thug and a policeman? In every case, we see that the good youths are guided and disciplined by old men.

Do read Grim's entire comment.

The author of yesterday's BBC article reports rarely seeing public drunkenness in America. Having a bunch of dangerous old men around is an excellent deterrent to feral young male drunken behavior like that. It also provides the role models that young males desperately need.

An Armed Society

2008-04-29T17:46:00.000-07:00

Now comes the British Broadcasting Service, commemorating the 1-year anniversary of the Virginia Tech killings.

But this Beeb article has a unique spin. It highlights the tranquility and civility of American life--even though there are more than 200 million guns in America.

Wait till you get to London Texas, or Glasgow Montana, or Oxford Mississippi or Virgin Utah, for that matter, where every household is required by local ordinance to possess a gun.

Folks will have guns in all of these places and if you break into their homes they will probably kill you.

They will occasionally kill each other in anger or by mistake, but you never feel as unsafe as you can feel in south London.

It is a paradox. Along with the guns there is a tranquillity and civility about American life of which most British people can only dream.

Heinlein was right: an armed society is a polite society.

A Scientist and a Christian

2008-04-24T17:34:00.001-07:00

A few years ago someone asked me a question that I couldn't answer: how can you be both a Christian and a scientist? It turns out not to be too difficult.

The purpose of science is to understand the universe for the purpose of predicting and controlling it. Why do we make observations, form hypotheses, design and execute experiments, and go back to making observations? Because we want to be able make something happen. Having the will to do something isn't necessarily sufficient; we need to know how to exercise that will in the physical realm.

Arthur C. Clarke's third law states that "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." In other words, if I don't understand the underlying scientific or engineering principles behind someone's ability to make something happen, I can't tell whether they are using some supernatural power.

Christopher Columbus was able to exploit just this sort of ignorance. He claimed his Christian God would "all but obliterate" the moon, making it appear "inflamed with wrath". This would frighten the Jamaicans into supplying him and his expedition with food.

Occam's Razor is appropriate if your goal is to understand the universe well enough to predict and control it. The simplest explanation of something generally leads to the most efficient way of controlling or predicting it. It's easier to calculate what will happen to a rock when I drop it if I assume a standard gravity field, rather than trying to account for the goals, philosophy, intent, and relative strength of the rock gods.

In contrast with science, Christianity (or religion in general) explains the universe for the purpose of knowing what is good and righteous. The Creator has the natural right to determine the boundaries between good and evil, right and wrong. As a created being, I do not have the right to override the wishes or intent of the Creator, regardless of my desire or will to do so.

Occam's Razor is not an appropriate guide in the quest to understand good and evil. It doesn't tell me if a particular course of action is right or wrong. All it does is help me be successful in implementing whatever choices I make.

That's how I can be both a Christian and a scientist. I turn to my religion for questions of meaning and purpose, but rely on science and technology to execute those decisions.

Mark Steyn: Quote of the Day

2008-04-19T20:46:00.000-07:00

Mark Steyn writes:

I think a healthy society needs both God and guns: It benefits from a belief in some kind of higher purpose to life on Earth, and it requires a self-reliant citizenry.

Exactly right. That's my reading of the second amendment's prefatory clause "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State". We need to protect the rights of the self-reliant, and encourage more people to be that way.

Not all people are capable of self government. It's not because of their hardware--skin color and ancestry don't matter. What does matter is their software--the ideas and values they hold dear. Self-reliance is a very important part of that equation.

But Mark Steyn is also right that a healthy society needs God. Self-reliance is necessary--but not sufficient in and of itself--to guarantee a healthy society. These self-reliant individuals need to have optimism in the future, and a willingness to apply their God-given energies to their own betterment and that of their fellows.

While not a parent myself, I have great respect for people who are willing to knowingly take on the risks, challenges, and responsibility of bringing children into the world. Belief in God and His purposes encourages people to become parents, and helps them inculcate their children with values of right and wrong. A strong culture of self-reliance also helps parents expend the energy and do what is needed to give their children every chance to succeed.

Those who believe in God and guns form the backbone of this culture and society. You can't force people to believe in those things--you can't force people like that into anything. That's the way it should be.

What He Said: My Culture

2008-04-14T21:20:00.000-07:00

Doc Russia writes eloquently about the culture he believes in. After some prefatory remarks about his wife's experiences growing up in Soviet Russia, and her interpretation of a contemporary politician, he describes his culture and mine:

My culture judges a man by the content of his character not the color of his skin, which is why quotas are so hateful.

My culture believes that a man has a right to the fruits of his own labors, and he may feast or famine dependant upon how fat or hungry he wishes to be, which is why taxing the food out of my mouth and giving it to the lazy bum who cannot or will not take care of themselves pisses me off.

My culture believes that men should behave as gentlemen, and women should behave as ladies, which is why watching girls in Florida luring another girl into a beatdown while the men do not protect her is so offensive.

My culture believes that government is a necessary evil that should only do those things that the private citizens cannot, which is why our blood boils when the blue ribbon panel's solution to the staggering failure of FEMA in the wake of Katrina is to... wait for it... give them more power and a bigger budget.

My culture believes that a man's faith is between him and his God, and as long as it doesn't involve sacrificing puppies or molesting children, you can pretty much believe in whatever diety you like, but we also get pissed off when people try to enforce state supported atheism by obliterating any reference to any faith, and call believers backwards yokels.

My culture is being assaulted by multiculturalism, socialism, communism, islamic fundamentalism and a whole host of other "isms."

My culture believes that the individual is the first, last, and greatest defense against the "isms" of the world, and that he can, and should avail himself of every tool in the prosecution of this defense, from soap box, to ballot box, to ammunition box.

This culture is mine. This I shall defend.

What he said.

Killing Hardware is Genocide, Software Not So Much

2008-04-10T19:36:00.000-07:00

Now comes Jonah Golberg, commenting on a recent resolution by the Russian parliament. They want to make sure Russia isn't remembered for genocide.

Are they denying that the Russian government under Stalin deliberately starved millions of Ukranians? Well, no. They're insisting that "[t]here is no historical proof that the famine was organized along ethnic lines" and victims included "different peoples and nationalities living largely in agricultural areas of the country."

Mr. Goldberg goes on:

The United Nations defines genocide as the "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group." Left out of this definition are "modern" political labels for people: the poor, religious people, the middle class, etc.

The oversight was deliberate. The word "genocide" was coined by a Polish Jew, Raphael Lemkin, who was responding to Winston Churchill's 1941 lament that "we are in the presence of a crime without a name." Lemkin, a champion of human rights who lost 49 relatives in the Holocaust, gave it a name a few years later. But to get the U.N. to recognize genocide as a specific crime, he made compromises.

Pressured by the Soviets, Lemkin supported excluding efforts to murder "political" groups from the U.N.'s 1948 resolution on genocide. Under the more narrow official definition, it's genocide to try to wipe out Roma (formerly known as Gypsies), but it's not necessarily genocide to liquidate, say, people without permanent addresses. You can't slaughter "Catholics," but you can wipe out "religious people" and dodge the genocide charge.

So: it's genocide if you kill a bunch of people because of their ethnicity--in other words, you make decisions on who to kill based on their hardware. But if you kill a bunch of people because of their belief or behavior (their software), it's not genocide.

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest it's not good to kill a bunch of people. Maybe these sorts of definitional exercises are why I don't care much for the so-called "moral authority" of multinational organizations like the United Nations.

My Sources of Authority

2008-04-05T19:27:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday I posted a list of substances I choose not to consume, while making the point that legality is not a major factor. The process of writing and posting a blog article usually gives me peace: I can let the topic go and move on to other concerns.

That didn't happen on Tuesday. I still need to articulate why I've made these choices, which necessarily means describing the sources of authority I believe in.

Fugu is an easy call. This fish produces a powerful toxin. Even when prepared for human consumption with great attention to detail and caution, there remains a non-trivial chance of death. People in Japan routinely die from improperly prepared Fugu.

Bacon and Ham are less obvious. I believe God gave the Leviticus 11 instructions to Israel for their health and prosperity. Yes, properly prepared pork products are free from trichinosis, but why take the chance? In my 40 years I've never found myself in a situation where I was in danger of starvation unless I ate something prepared from "unclean" sources.

Beer, cigarettes, cigars, cocaine, crystal meth, heroin, marijuana, whiskey and wine? With the exception of 9th grade I went to church schools for my entire academic career. I remember Winner Magazine from as early as 2nd grade. Listen Magazine was added shortly thereafter. My parents also emphasized the danger of these drugs.

I can still remember a Winner/Listen article about a mother in denial who expressed relief to learn her child was "only" smoking cigarettes instead of taking (illegal) speed. The person giving her the bad news (teacher? doctor?) explained that even legal substances are still harmful, and that she needed to intervene in her child's life. (How's that for a radical idea to plant in a 2nd or 3rd-grade mind: even legal substances can still be harmful!)

As I matured I never came across any credible contrary evidence to the indoctrination I received as a youngster. Nobody I respected ever said that cigarettes were healthy. Instead, I lost a grandfather to lung cancer. I lost an aunt to a probably-intentional (prescription) drug overdose. The people in my family who drank alcohol were all alcoholics. So when I got peer pressure to consume these substances I was able to respond by saying my family was full of addicts and I was too afraid to start. I believed it then and I believe it now.

Family teachings. Faith. Experience of loved ones. Scientific studies. Personal philosophy and goals. Freely-entered commitments. These are my influences, the inputs to my decision making process. Please keep government confined to its role in protecting my rights, and let me choose other more appropriate sources of moral guidance.

Whence Hoplophobia, Revisited

2008-04-03T23:01:00.000-07:00

Via Kevin, now comes

Sociological Images: Seeing Is Believing: Equal Opportunity Gun Ownership

...which includes an excellent array of Oleg Volk images.

One of the first comments, by Gwen, includes these words:

The idea that the only way we think we can make a safer, better society is for everyone to carry a gun is incredibly sad. It's also individualistic--the answer to racism, rape, and gay bashing is to carry a gun, not have any form of social organizing.

Yes, it is individualistic. Remember Jonah Goldberg's working definition of fascism?

Fascism is a religion of the state. It assumes the organic unity of the body politic and longs for a national leader attuned to the will of the people. It is totalitarian in that it views everything as political and holds that any action by the state is justified to achieve the common good. It takes responsibility for all aspects of life, including our health and well-being, and seeks to impose uniformity of thought and action, whether by force or through regulation and social pressure. Everything, including the economy and religion, must be aligned with its objectives. Any rival identity is part of the "problem" and therefore defined as the enemy.
---Liberal Fascism, p. 23.

As I wrote earlier:

[G]uns, particularly handguns, are very empowering to the individual. A small hunk of Smith & Wesson-forged steel gives a 110 pound woman a fighting chance against an enraged 250 pound muscular man--or even a representative of the State. Guns in private hands empower the individual at the expense of the collective will.

[....]

A 110 pound woman rejects the unitary will of the collective by arming herself. This empowered individual becomes a "rival entity" and thus an enemy of the collective, even if she never uses the weapon.

Gwen is disappointed that individual action might be "the answer to racism, rape, and gay bashing". She goes on to write:

I grew up in rural Oklahoma, surrounded by guns. And I know what it's like to have one family member using guns as a way to control another. I don't think that my mom or us kids would have been "empowered"--or safer--if only she'd been willing to use a gun too.

The answer to the problem of abusive, domineering fathers is not to deny responsible, mature individuals the tools to enforce their inalienable rights to life and liberty.

I disagree with Gwen--Gwen's mother failed in her duty to protect the children. Mom is responsible for her choices, and one of those choices was to let Dad intimidate her with threats of violence. That's the truly sad part of this story.

Gwen is getting close; at least she assigns blame to the father for his evil use of guns to intimidate his family. But until Gwen accepts the lesson that Mom failed in her individual duty to her children, I'm afraid Gwen will be vulnerable to illusory promises of social engineers and professional hucksters.

Barney and Me

2008-04-01T21:00:00.000-07:00

I don't often find myself in agreement with a Democrat US Representative from Massachusetts, but I was pleased to hear Barney Frank's announcement that he would be sponsoring Federal legislation to decriminalize the possession and use of small amounts of marijuana.

Consider this list of consumables:

Bacon
Beer
Cigarettes
Cocaine
Crystal Meth
Cigars
Fugu
Ham
Heroin
Marijuana
Whiskey
Wine

I don't care about the legal status of anything on the above list. Why? Because I choose not to consume any of them. Even if they were all legal and free, I would still turn them down. I make these choices based on values instilled in me by my parents and the church schools they sent me to. I've seen friends and family suffer pain after consuming items on the above list. The official government position makes little or no difference to me.

Some might argue that legalization "sends the wrong message." Government is a very poor communications medium. (Government's role is to protect inalienable rights, not enforce morality.) If you want to discourage the consumption of something, you can always put up a website, buy ads in newspapers, yell at your kids, hire a skywriter, or whatever.

The unintended consequences of criminalizing possession and/or use of consumables do impact my life. I can't freely carry large sums of cash, because government agents can confiscate cash and will and then force me to prove the cash was not the proceeds from drug dealing.

Adam Smith will not be denied; so long as there is demand there will be supply. And if the buyers and sellers can't settle disputes in the legal arena, they will do so through physical violence.

My employer and I have an agreement that I will not consume certain substances. I entered into that agreement willingly, and that agreement includes a commitment on my part to periodically prove I'm holding up my end of the bargain. Again, the legality of those substances is irrelevant.

I believe that many of the items on the list will, in the long term, have a negative impact on my quality of life. By choosing to abstain I believe I will achieve better health and happiness. By the same token, pain is an excellent teacher--even when the pain happens to someone else!

Bottom line: let adult individuals make their own choices about what to consume, and let the individuals live with the inevitable results. Confine government to its role of protecting my inalienable rights, leaving moral advice to families, churches, and other voluntary organizations.

What happened to Lawrence Summers?

2008-03-26T14:26:00.000-07:00

Lawrence Summers served as the 27th president of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006. He resigned after a firestorm of controversy arose when he suggested that factors other than sexism might explain the predominance of men in the hard sciences (mathematics, engineering, physics, and so forth).

On January 14, 2005 he gave a speech and said (in part):

It does appear that on many, many different human attributes-height, weight, propensity for criminality, overall IQ, mathematical ability, scientific ability-there is relatively clear evidence that whatever the difference in means-which can be debated-there is a difference in the standard deviation, and variability of a male and a female population.

He went on to say:

If one supposes, as I think is reasonable, that if one is talking about physicists at a top twenty-five research university, one is not talking about people who are two standard deviations above the mean. And perhaps it's not even talking about somebody who is three standard deviations above the mean. But it's talking about people who are three and a half, four standard deviations above the mean in the one in 5,000, one in 10,000 class. Even small differences in the standard deviation will translate into very large differences in the available pool substantially out.

So what does all this mean?

Consider this graph, stolen from La Griffe du Lion:

Even without a statistical difference in mean intelligence scores between men and women, the variation in intelligence scores has a big impact out on the edges. If you're looking for people who are 4 to 5 standard deviations more intelligent than the mean, the difference in variability means you're going to be (inevitably and unintentionally) selecting for men.

La Griffe du Lion's interview subject points out that any randomly selected woman has at least a 45% chance of being more intelligent than any randomly selected man. So if you are looking for smart people, it's not very productive or helpful to simply look for men. But once you have selected your 4- or 5-sigma highly intelligent outliers, there's a strong probability this group will turn out to be dominated by men.

Let's say you are looking to staff a department with people having an I.Q. of 120 or higher. The pool of people with an I.Q. of 120 or higher is going to be about 63% men and 37% women. But you can't simply choose men randomly, because (again) any random woman has a 45% chance of being smarter than any other random man.

This counterintuitive result? A perfectly fair, sex-neutral screening process for people of high intelligence will result in a pool of people containing nearly 2 men for each woman.

This is what tripped up Dr. Summers. He was saying that the difference in result (the number of men versus women employed in the hard sciences) was not proof of systemic sexism. There was no conspiracy or false consciousness behind the easily measured sex ratios; instead, it was a natural outgrowth of the difference in statistical variability between the sexes.

He started his speech by saying:

To take a set of diverse examples, the data will, I am confident, reveal that Catholics are substantially underrepresented in investment banking, which is an enormously high-paying profession in our society; that white men are very substantially underrepresented in the National Basketball Association; and that Jews are very substantially underrepresented in farming and in agriculture.

This attack on the basic assumptions of radical feminism (that differences in result can be explained only by group oppression) was a step too far. He came under fire, apparently lost the confidence of the Harvard faculty and was eventually forced to resign.

Dr. Summers' point needs more study and consideration. Even if we assume society (government) should try to encourage fairness and justice, it's important to understand what, exactly, fairness actually looks like. If basic male/female biology leads to the natural result of more men than women at the high (and low) ends of the intelligence spectrum, is it truly fair to strive for a 50/50 balance?

Wright vs. Davis

2008-03-22T10:55:00.000-07:00

As the manifesto says, it's all about the software.

Everybody has a hardware platform challenge; whether it's something trivial like unruly hair, a correctable problem like nearsightedness, a manageable problem like diabetes, a physically debilitating problem like paralysis, or a first-impressions problem like skin shade.

More important is the software that a person chooses to run. Good software (worldview, ethics, knowledge, and choices) can overcome almost any hardware deficit.

Spook86 highlights the difference between the software distributed by Barack Obama's "pastor", Jeremiah Wright, and the software run by General Benjamin O. Davis Jr., "the first African-American to reach flag rank in the U.S. Air Force."

Obama tried to excuse Wright's words by highlighting the times in which Wright lived:

But as someone who grew up in the hate-filled and racist 1960s, it was understandable that he was bound to mature into his present angry anti-American, anti-Israel, anti-white mentality. [Emphasis added.]

Let's focus on that word bound. Obama is saying that Wright had no choice; given his circumstance, his hardware could only react in one way.

General Davis' success shows that's simply not true:

General Davis, who passed away on Independence Day 2002, was a product of the hate-filled and racist times that spawned Reverend Wright’s anger. But the obstacles of that era had a far different impact on General Davis; he not only overcame the evils of racism and segregation, he shattered them, opening doors of opportunity and equality for thousands who followed.

[....]

Entering West Point in 1932, the younger Davis was the only black member of his class. Expecting to be judged on ability and merit, his hopes were quickly dashed. Davis was “shunned” by his white classmates. Few of them spoke to him outside the line of duty. He never had a roommate. He ate his meals alone.

Rather than driving him from the academy (as some of his classmates hoped), the experience pushed Davis to excel. He graduated in 1936, 35th in a class of 276 cadets, and earning the respect of those who had ostracized him.

[....]

General Davis understood the dark side of America’s soul. But he also understood a nation that rewards perseverance, hard work and character. Rather than condemning his country with hate speech (or pressing for government paternalism disguised as reform), General Davis fought for—and achieved—lasting change.

Ultimately, Wright's view of America is wrong and should be condemned. He does have a choice; he has too many successful peers for him to escape responsibility for his beliefs and rhetoric. Obama missed an opportunity to condemn hatefulness and other maladaptive software.

Chicago Boys

2008-03-20T19:46:00.000-07:00

Via Kim, now comes Guy Sorman writing in the Winter 2008 City Journal. He contrasts the prosperity enjoyed by countries that follow individualist, free-market, capitalist economics versus those mired in collective, socialist policies:

There are now two South Americas,” says Chilean economist Rolf Lüders, a former prime minister under Augusto Pinochet. The old South America, which remains mired in populism and Marxist rhetoric, includes Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. The new South America is democratic and free-market-oriented, and includes Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay. Chile is undoubtedly the most prosperous and stable country in the group, with an annual real growth rate averaging 5.5 percent over the last 15 years and a per-capita annual income of $12,000, the highest in Latin America.

Interestingly, it's not the means by which the countries chose their policies, but what the policies actually are. Augusto Pinochet took over Chile's government by force, rather than by following the will of the people. But Milton Friedman found moral cover for working with Pinochet:

Harshly criticized in the U.S. for his “collaboration” with the dictator, Friedman responded by asking whether he should have let the patient—the Chilean economy—die instead.

The Chileans themselves believe that Pinochet was good for Chile. We don't have to approve of his brutal repressive methods of rule to recognize the lasting value of the policies he implemented.

James Lileks Worries:

2008-03-17T20:19:00.000-07:00

Speaking as an utter amateur, I’m worried less about a recession than inflation. I’m worried most about a recession, inflation AND a jolly round of trade wars, coupled with fragile banks, overcapacity, diminished consumer confidence and aggressive messianic collectivism. Something about that smells familiar. I love studying the thirties and forties, but not first hand.

(emphasis added)

The Constitution

2008-03-15T22:22:00.001-07:00

Now comes David Mamet, writing in the Village Voice, with an excellent description of why we have three branches of government:

For the Constitution, rather than suggesting that all behave in a godlike manner, recognizes that, to the contrary, people are swine and will take any opportunity to subvert any agreement in order to pursue what they consider to be their proper interests.

To that end, the Constitution separates the power of the state into those three branches which are for most of us (I include myself) the only thing we remember from 12 years of schooling.

The Constitution, written by men with some experience of actual government, assumes that the chief executive will work to be king, the Parliament will scheme to sell off the silverware, and the judiciary will consider itself Olympian and do everything it can to much improve (destroy) the work of the other two branches. So the Constitution pits them against each other, in the attempt not to achieve stasis, but rather to allow for the constant corrections necessary to prevent one branch from getting too much power for too long.

Rather brilliant. For, in the abstract, we may envision an Olympian perfection of perfect beings in Washington doing the business of their employers, the people, but any of us who has ever been at a zoning meeting with our property at stake is aware of the urge to cut through all the pernicious bullshit and go straight to firearms.

I would only add that we were amazingly lucky / divinely blessed to have a man of character, George Washington, as our first president. He really could have been king; after liberating the colonies from England he could do no wrong in the site of the people.

But after two Presidential terms Washington stepped down from the office and went home. It took nearly 150 years for another president to stay in office more than three terms, violating Washington's precedent. A Constitutional amendment made sure that wouldn't happen again.

Mamet goes on to write:

What about the role of government? Well, in the abstract, coming from my time and background, I thought it was a rather good thing, but tallying up the ledger in those things which affect me and in those things I observe, I am hard-pressed to see an instance where the intervention of the government led to much beyond sorrow.

But if the government is not to intervene, how will we, mere human beings, work it all out?

[....]

Strand unacquainted bus travelers in the middle of the night, and what do you get? A lot of bad drama, and a shake-and-bake Mayflower Compact. Each, instantly, adds what he or she can to the solution. Why? Each wants, and in fact needs, to contribute—to throw into the pot what gifts each has in order to achieve the overall goal, as well as status in the new-formed community. And so they work it out.

See also that most magnificent of schools, the jury system, where, again, each brings nothing into the room save his or her own prejudices, and, through the course of deliberation, comes not to a perfect solution, but a solution acceptable to the community—a solution the community can live with.

Society works best when Government, the organization claiming a monopoly on the lawful use of force, is limited to the smallest scope possible. Far better to let individuals make their own choices in life, following their own interests.

Candy, Red and Rattlesnake Mountains

2008-03-15T17:49:00.001-07:00

Took the dog for a walk today up Badger Mountain. Badger is part of the Horse Heavens range of extinct volcanoes. Here you see Candy Mountain in the foreground, Red Mountain just behind it and to the left, and Rattlesnake Mountain in the background.

Camera: CANON POWERSHOT G5
Taken on 2008:03:15 17:45:42
Exposure: 0.005s (1/200)
Focal Length: 28.81mm
F/Stop: f/5.600

46º 14' 10.21" N 119º 19' 50.31" W

Candy Mountain at Sunrise

2008-03-12T23:59:00.000-07:00

Camera: Canon PowerShot G5
Exposure Time: 1/80 sec.
Lens Aperture: F/5.6
Focal Length: 7 mm
Date: 3/12/2008 7:51 AM

46º 14' 33.10" N 119º 20' 13.37" W

Sane Parties

2008-03-12T21:05:00.000-07:00

Now comes Orson Scott Card, contemplating the presidential primaries, and grumbling that "there's not one candidate who comes close to representing my positions on all the issues I care about." He goes on to write:

Here's the source of our problems. The best candidates rarely run because they are too moderate to be chosen by either party.

And the parties have now become so dominated by their lunatic fringes that you have to accept an insane melange of doctrines in order to be considered a true conservative or a real progressive.

His "insane melange" of doctrines sorts itself out when you consider each doctrine in terms of progressivism versus individualism. Recall that progressive philosophy is "totalitarian in that it views everything as political" and wants the state to take "responsibility for all aspects of life." An individualist identity rivals the "organic unity of the body politic" and is "therefore defined as the enemy."

Mr. Card asks

Let's say you think abortion should be restricted to only those cases where the fetus is nonviable, and only when the pregnancy resulted from rape or incest, or when the life of the mother is at stake. That would be my position, too.

So what rule of logic, what great universal principle then requires you also to think it's a great idea for assault weapons to be available to the general public, or for any clown to carry a handgun concealed on his person? How do these topics overlap?

The individualist holds the right to life as the most fundamental individual right possible. When the right to life of an unborn individual conflicts with the convenience rights of a mother, then the right to life must inevitably prevail.

The individualist also believes that the individual is primarily responsible for self-protection. That means accepting the fact that some predators have more brute strength than others, celebrating the fact that humans are naturally tool users, and shunning the mental parasite of hoplophobia.

Mr Card goes on:

It goes the other way. Suppose you absolutely oppose the death penalty -- which, by the way, I do, though only because I believe that there have been too many miscarriages of justice to entrust our police and prosecutors to tell the whole truth to juries. Still, by what remote logic should this mean that I must also be in favor of erasing the privileged position of marriage (i.e., a permanent heterosexual union recognized by the community) under our laws?

Yet if you're running for President as a Democrat, you have to be "right" on the death penalty and on "gay marriage" or you might as well not run. And this year, opposition to protecting the world from insane jihadists has been added to the Democratic Party's list.

Many progressives oppose the death penalty because they don't want to accept the individual responsibility of the criminal. Either society failed to protect the victim, or the criminal himself is a victim. No individual is held accountable; instead, society (the collective "organic unity of the body politic") has failed.

Some progressive "gay rights" activists want to change marriage law as a shortcut to acceptance of their choices. Today they suffer from the fact that their lifestyles do not mesh with traditional morality. They think that denying the privileged status of heterosexuals will eliminate disapproval of homosexuals.

(Of course, as an individualist, the legal status of homosexual unions doesn't matter at all to my opinion of the morality of homosexuality.)

Progressives may dimly perceive the threat from "insane jihadists," but they are more interested in dealing with the enemy close to home--those individualists who threaten the unity of the body politic. Besides, their worldview isn't completely incompatible with the Islamofascists--they both strive for a unified society where the individual submits to the authority of the collective. The details of that society can be worked out later.

I'm a conservative because I stand for the classical liberal notion of the primacy of the individual over the Crown (or collective). Maybe that puts me on the "lunatic fringe" of today's conservative movement, but that's where I'm at.

Badger Mountain

2008-03-09T19:02:00.001-07:00

Camera: CANON POWERSHOT A410
Taken on 2008:03:07 18:44:25
Exposure: 0.020s (1/50)
Focal Length: 5.40mm
F/Stop: f/2.800

46º 15' 56.74" N 119º 17' 56.41" W

Harvard's Non-Mistake

2008-03-09T18:00:00.000-07:00

Via Insty, now comes Ali Eteraz saying that Harvard made a mistake. I must humbly disagree. As I wrote earlier, Harvard is accommodating a reasonable request made on behalf of individual women.

Reasonable requests should be accommodated, even if they're motivated by individual religious belief. So that brings up the obvious question -- what's reasonable?

A reasonable request for accommodation asks for a peripheral change in the situation. In other words, it's reasonable to ask for changes that don't undercut basic principles or fundamental aspects of an activity.

By this standard, reasonable requests might include:

Ethical vegetarians--those who avoid consuming animal products--could reasonably ask for vegan menu selections at a dormitory dining hall.
Jews could reasonably ask for their exams to be scheduled outside their Saturday Sabbath hours.
Sikhs could reasonably ask to carry symbolic Kirpans (daggers) in school--assuming they're unsharpened, kept concealed, and no more useful as a weapon than a set of keys or plastic butter knife.

We cross the line into unreasonableness when the request clearly infringes on the rights of others, or when the request eviscerates the core of the activity. Unreasonable requests might include:

Ethical vegetarians demanding that the dormitory dining hall stop serving all animal products.
Jews demanding that no exams be scheduled on Sabbath, even if no Jews are impacted.
Sikhs demanding to carry sharp, weapon-effective Kirpans.
Muslim women asking to skip core medical hygiene procedures in a hospital setting.

In my earlier post I should probably have mentioned my personal interest in this question.

I've a Seventh-day Adventist. We believe in observing the Jewish Sabbath from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. If I were attending Harvard and a test was scheduled on Saturday afternoon, I would ask to take the test either before or after the Sabbath hours.

On the other hand, certain jobs in society require working every day. People must monitor electric generating stations on Saturday. Police, fire fighters, doctors, nurses and other critical services need to be staffed on Sabbath. If I were to choose careers in those critical industries I would expect to pull my Saturday shifts like everyone else.

Sunset over Rattlesnake Mountain

2008-03-04T22:17:00.000-08:00

Camera: CANON POWERSHOT A410
Taken on 2008:03:04 18:45:36
Exposure: 0.002s (1/500)
Focal Length: 5.40mm
F/Stop: f/2.800

46º 21' 4.31" N 119º 16' 24.12" W

Reasonable Accommodation

2008-03-02T19:45:00.000-08:00

Now comes Harvard University, accommodating a request by Muslim women for sex-segregated exercise hours.

In response to a request by female Muslim students, Harvard University has created women-only workout hours at one of its campus gyms. [....]

Since Jan. 28, the Quadrangle Recreational Athletic Center has been open only to women from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Mondays.

The change was prompted by a request from the Harvard College Women's Center, which was approached by six female Muslim students, said Robert Mitchell, communications director of Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

Unlike other accommodations with Islam, I think Harvard made the right call.

While inspired by Muslim sensitivities, the women-only hours were not limited to Muslim women.

"It was done for religious purposes, but it's not closed to other women who may want to participate," [Mitchell] said.

Each individual woman is still free to exercise in a co-ed environment if she chooses. Harvard is not enforcing Muslim morality on non-believers.

Harvard isn't displacing men at popular, high-traffic times.

"Rather than a genuine attempt to provide comfortable workout hours for women and religious observers who might be uncomfortable working out around men, this policy beats around the bush by offering the least utilized and the most inconvenient hours and gym space," [Nicholas Wells, Harvard Junior] said. "No one benefits from women’s only hours."

The accommodation is being made on a trial basis; it will be re-evaluated at the end of the semester. My guess is that the women-only hours will only continue if the facilities are actually utilized by women during those hours.
Women and men do not have to exercise together in order to benefit from that exercise. Contrast that with the request of women medical students to not wash or expose their forearms; hygiene is a fundamental part of medical care.

Individual choice is preserved and Muslim women are free to exercise in a comfortable context. Everyone wins.

OK, maybe not everyone wins. It sounds to me like Nicholas Wells is disappointed that he can no longer ogle his favorite Muslim exercising hottie. Ah well, nothing is ever perfect in this world.

Judaic Feminism

2008-03-02T14:28:00.000-08:00

Here's another example of what Rowan Williams should be saying. God has given women inheritance, property, and rights of self-determination.

Shortly after the Exodus, the daughters of a recently-deceased Jew came to Moses. We read the story in Numbers 27:1-11:

1 The daughters of Zelophehad son of Hepher, the son of Gilead, the son of Makir, the son of Manasseh, belonged to the clans of Manasseh son of Joseph. The names of the daughters were Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah and Tirzah. They approached 2 the entrance to the Tent of Meeting and stood before Moses, Eleazar the priest, the leaders and the whole assembly, and said, 3 "Our father died in the desert. He was not among Korah's followers, who banded together against the LORD, but he died for his own sin and left no sons. 4 Why should our father's name disappear from his clan because he had no son? Give us property among our father's relatives."

Here are four women who are about to be dispossessed because they're female. Yes, there had been a recent rebellion where people died and forfeited their children's legacies, but this wasn't relevant to the current case.

5 So Moses brought their case before the LORD 6 and the LORD said to him, 7 "What Zelophehad's daughters are saying is right. You must certainly give them property as an inheritance among their father's relatives and turn their father's inheritance over to them.

Unlike other founders of religions we could name, Moses didn't make a snap decision. He took the question to God. And God sided with the women! More than that, He laid out a series of inheritance contingencies:

8 "Say to the Israelites, 'If a man dies and leaves no son, turn his inheritance over to his daughter. 9 If he has no daughter, give his inheritance to his brothers. 10 If he has no brothers, give his inheritance to his father's brothers. 11 If his father had no brothers, give his inheritance to the nearest relative in his clan, that he may possess it. This is to be a legal requirement for the Israelites, as the LORD commanded Moses.' "

Those instructions are pretty clear. God Himself is saying that some estates are to be turned over to the daughters--the females. He could have said to turn the estates over to the husbands of the daughters, but He didn't. He clearly said that the estates should go to the daughters if they had no brothers.

Even married women can be involved in the public marketplace. In Proverbs 31:10-31 we read about a "wife of noble character". She buys a vineyard with her own money:

16 She considers a field and buys it; out of her earnings she plants a vineyard.

She is a shrewd businesswoman:

18 She sees that her trading is profitable, and her lamp does not go out at night.

She sells what she makes to the merchants:

24 She makes linen garments and sells them, and supplies the merchants with sashes.

This doesn't sound to me like a woman who can only interact with the world through her male relatives or guardians!

Bottom line: in Judaism (and later Christianity) women are people too. They're not property, to be used and disposed of at the whim of men.

Sunset over Mt. Saint Helens

2008-03-01T21:57:00.000-08:00

Camera: CANON POWERSHOT A410
Taken on 2006:10:12 17:49:21
Exposure: 0.001s (1/1000)
Focal Length: 9.77mm
F/Stop: f/5.600
46º 13' 47.28" N 121º 59' 36.96" W

Programming Entrepreneurial Kids

2008-02-29T18:21:00.000-08:00

Now comes Troy Dunn, discussing his new book Young Bucks: How to Raise a Future Millionaire on The Glenn and Helen Show. I listened to the podcast this morning while walking the dog.

Mr. Dunn believes that parents should teach their kids entrepreneurship rather than giving them allowances. To teach kids to manage money, they actually have to earn it. If you give them money, the kids aren't managing their money, they're really only managing some of your money.

Troy, Glenn and Helen discussed several excellent ways kids can earn money. Some examples from memory:

Troy's 8-year-old son sells cookies at public events like high school ball games. He has learned to take $8 to the grocery store, buy ingredients like oatmeal and cocoa, turn those ingredients into no-bake cookies, package them in ziplock bags with little labels, and walk up and down the stands selling them. He easily makes $50 every time he does this.
Troy's 6-year-old son picks up pine cones from neighbors' yards. They live in a southern US state like Florida where yard mowing is a year-round activity. Professional mowers don't like pine cones because they chew up mowing blades. So Troy walks with his son over to the neighbors' houses where his son gathers the pine cones in his wagon. Troy keeps an eye on his son while going through his Blackberry e-mail. His son earns $20-30 per lawn.
A mother complained to Troy that her 12-year old daughter was spending all her time on MySpace. Troy suggested that the daughter offer to "baby sit" the MySpace pages for local businesses. The daughter sets up the MySpace page for each local business and updates it with pictures and text they e-mail her. This 12-year-old girl has eleven local businesses paying her $100/month for this service. Everyone wins--the daughter still spends all her free time on MySpace, but the mother loves it because the daughter is earning over $1000 per month!

What excellent software to inculcate in children! Rather than training kids to expect parental handouts, they learn the rewards associated with work, risk, effort, and sales. I've added Young Bucks to my Amazon Wish List.

Armed... and Dangerous?

2008-02-26T22:51:00.001-08:00

About seven years ago I carried a concealed handgun for the first time. An essay I wrote about that experience was published at the Keep and Bear Arms website.

Here's that essay in full, as I wrote it in 2001.

Armed… and Dangerous?

It’s 10:00 PM. My wife and I are stopped at a gas station along I-65 between Chicago and Indianapolis. While she goes in to use the restroom I walk to the back of the hatchback and open it. Nervously looking around, I’m reassured that nobody is looking at me. I quietly open the gun case and remove my Makarov .380 pistol and slide in a clip of ammunition, all the while keeping my hands below the level of the car windows. Trying to control my breath, I slide the now-loaded handgun into my Bianchi Top Secret fanny pack holster. Strapping it around my waist I sense everything around me in great detail—the slight breeze, the sound of traffic on the Interstate, and the sweet/pungent smell of gasoline vapor. I walk quickly back to my car and sit in the drivers seat, waiting for my wife to return, all the while shaking from the adrenaline rush of the past three minutes.

So why was I so nervously strapping on heat along an Indiana highway? Me, the son of a minister and nurse, now 33 years old, married, and without so much as a traffic citation in my police record? A computer networking engineer/researcher who works at a government research laboratory?

While I was growing up my parents refused to buy their three children (all sons) toy guns of any sort, and forbade so much as pointing fingers at each other and saying “bang you’re dead.” Instead, they promised us that when we were old enough we could have real guns. One of my favorite memories of that time was when Dad took me out of elementary school for a day to spend with him. Part of the day we spent together was at a gravel pit, he teaching me to shoot his single-shot bolt-action .22 rifle.

Somehow I don’t think my parents were quite ready when, in 7th grade, I came home from my after-school job (fixing tires) with a Ruger Mini-14 rifle the owner gave me in lieu of a month’s wages. They were sort of trapped by their earlier promises and didn’t complain much.

I was already used to carrying a potential weapon. Hunting knives in belt holsters were the fashion for grade school boys in rural Alaska. I routinely drove a snowmobile to school, with enough tools on hand to fix the head gasket if it blew (again). The hunting knife on my belt was just another tool.

Fast-forward a few years. I’ve finished grade school, high school, and college. I’ve gotten a job and married. I have applied for and received an Illinois Firearms Owners Identification Card so I can bring my Mini-14 into our new Illinois home. I start going to the shooting range for fun, and end up buying a Makarov. I put about 200 rounds downrange with the Makarov every week or so.

Then I learn that Texas allows non-residents to get concealed handgun permits. I look over the requirements and realize that I qualify. When on a business trip to Dallas I take the required class, with the written and shooting test. I also apply for and receive a Florida concealed handgun permit, using the certificate from the Dallas class as proof of training. Both of these states required fingerprinting and an FBI background check.

Every year my extended family meets in Georgia for a vacation. My route to Georgia goes through Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee. My research convinces me that all of these states recognize the Florida concealed handgun permit. Now I have to decide: do I really believe in the citizen’s right to carry a weapon? If so, do I trust myself to do so? Why would I do such a thing, anyway?

I was surprised at a few things during the time I was carrying a weapon on vacation.

Nobody I came in contact with seemed to care. That may seem obvious, because the weapon was concealed, but somehow I expected people to have x-ray vision, see the pistol, and scream in terror for the police.

By the end of the vacation I was as used to putting the Makarov in my fanny pack as I was putting the cell phone on my belt. The extra weight wasn’t even noticeable given the wallet, digital camera, flashlight, cell phone, and Leatherman tool that I already carry everywhere.

I never needed to use the “self defense tool”. This is the fifth year we’ve vacationed to the same place. Like every other year, we had good time and weren’t victimized by any criminals—or bears. But given the stories I’ve read about armed citizens resisting attacks, it was a relief to learn that the attacks don’t automatically come your way when you’re prepared to resist them!

I was able to see strangers as people, rather than potential threats. Somehow I didn’t feel the need to worry that the big, scary guy buying gas was going to ask me for money or worse. So when I looked across the parking lot I just saw people going about their daily lives—people who deserved my respect and courtesy.

Going through the mental preparation to carry a handgun for self-defense has led me to do a lot of thinking. Here are some thoughts along the way:

It’s no longer safe for me to get truly angry with people. When you have weapons readily available—and know how to use them—you need to realize that your unchecked emotions might have serious, permanent consequences! Also, when people know that I own and carry weapons, they may be more easily frightened of any (seemingly) erratic or out-of-control behavior.

Being a teetotaler already is good. Consuming alcohol while carrying a weapon is very much a bad idea.

If I ever start feeling depressed, it’s important for me to see a doctor or counselor. That’s obviously the right thing to do anyway, but a depressive episode could be fatal to someone with weapons around.

As a citizen of the United States, whose government is founded on the principle of the consent of the people, it is my responsibility to be politically aware and to vote. I may be naïve, but I figure that if the government respects my right to a weapon then the government is more likely to respect my other rights as a citizen. I learn the names of my local, state and national representatives, and communicate with them as I see fit. I join state and national political associations, and donate money to them as I can.

This leads to another reason I decided to get a permit and carry a concealed weapon. I know where my ethical and moral frameworks come from, and believe that society (the people all around) can trust me to responsibly carry a weapon. I also know that the right to keep and bear arms is continually under attack. By exercising my right to keep and bear arms, and doing so within the framework of the law, I am increasing (by one) the number of people who safely and responsibly do so. This strengthens the arguments of statisticians and other policy experts who fight on our behalf for this right.

Many otherwise trivial criminal offenses can lead to much graver consequences when a gun is involved, or can lead to lifelong loss of my right to keep and bear arms. Thus, I put forth an additional, special effort to observe the law. I really do try to come to a full stop at a stop sign, observe the speed limit, and pay my taxes.

Many stories I read about people who have engaged in combat with the government have gone out of their way to attract the attention of law enforcement and the criminal justice system, and/or have fallen prey to sting operations. Objectively speaking, these people may have the truth and right on their side. But the actions that got these people into their situations are often on the hairy edge of legality, and their speech can be nothing short of incendiary. Again, I want to be a person who is unambiguously responsible and law-abiding. At this time I see no need to gamble with my life, liberty, or property to prove a point about my natural or constitutional rights.

It has taken me quite a while to get up the courage to let people know that I’m a gun owner and enthusiast. The first time I put a Sturm, Ruger & Company sticker on my laptop computer, or wore a gun logo shirt in public, was very scary. I was afraid that even these low-key statements would cost me professional credibility.

In reality I had nothing to fear. I’ve been able to connect with colleagues who I never would have guessed enjoyed the shooting sports. Eric S. Raymond has been a big encouragement. A vocal, visible, and respected advocate of Open Source, he routinely arranges trips to shooting ranges from technical conferences.

When a school shooting occurs and is reported in the media, some of my colleagues inevitably talk it around our virtual water cooler. Within the past year I’ve begun to feel safe enough to speak up and suggest that guns aren’t necessarily the problem, and that banning the guns won’t even help to stop the violence. There are other, deeper problems in our society causing these tragedies.

I’m probably unlikely to dissuade the local proponents of stricter gun control. But what I can do is clearly articulate my point of view, calmly and rationally. Pretty much everyone I work with knows my position on gun rights. They also know whom the vocal gun control advocates are. I’m satisfied when my views are available in the local “marketplace of ideas.” Some of my colleagues have even gone with me to the range.

Five days after I first strapped on heat at a gas station in Indiana, I found myself driving back towards home, heading north on I-65. At the last Indiana rest area I calmly, almost sadly, unloaded the Makarov and put it in its locked case. Driving on into Illinois I thought about this year’s failed “shall issue” concealed handgun proposal, and considered how I could influence my Illinois state representatives to enact one next year.

(Essay ends)

Life has continued since I wrote the essay. It was published in 2001, before September 11th. LovelyWife and I spent the first anniversary of 9/11 taking the Gunsite 250 Defensive Pistol class. (We also considered it our 10-year wedding anniversary gift to ourselves.) In 2004 we moved to southeastern Washington State, where the town welcome flier includes instructions for getting a concealed weapons permit alongside information on telephone service and dog licenses.

But I still like the essay as I wrote it in 2001.

Tribal Culture vs. Islamofascism

2008-02-24T19:04:00.000-08:00

Now comes Wretchard, suggesting that:

The great strategic weakness of radical Islam is that it must rule. By definition theocracy means the subordination of the tribes to its overarching authority and the repeal of its ancient usages under the comprehensive new ideology.

Countering that:

In contrast, the great strategic strength of the United States, which may astound its critics but which nonetheless remains true is its flexibility; its freedom from the Imperial model. America doesn't care a fig who your relatives are so long as you do well and don't trouble your neighbors. It gets rich by trading with successful societies and obtains far more wealth from Japan and Europe than it ever could get from Africa. Al-Qaeda's relationship with the tribes would tend to dominance. America's structural advantage is that it could deal with others as partners.

Wretchard is keying off a pamphlet by William McAllister from the Small Wars Journal. McAllister's fascinating work contrasts the basic operating system run by Westerners versus that run by members of tribal societies like Iraq. He quotes Sun Tzu:

Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be
defeated.

...then goes on to write:

According to T.E. Lawrence, “irregular warfare is far more intellectual than a bayonet charge”. This assertion certainly includes counterinsurgency warfare. All intellectual endeavors therefore must start with how we think about the problem.

a. A mental model is an explanation of someone's thought process for how something works in the real world and based on culture, attitudes, emotions, values, authority, persuasion and or coercion.

b. Each soldier and Marine must recognize and appreciate the fact that we see the world based on our own unique culture, attitudes, emotions, values and authority. As a member of an expeditionary force you will encounter people and cultures that differ markedly from our own. The hardest task is to lay our cultural lenses aside and to gain an appreciation of the “others” cultural operating environment.

Software is critical! Who'da thunk it?

Clearwater Overlook

2008-02-23T11:58:00.001-08:00

Camera: CANON POWERSHOT A410
Taken on 2006:10:12 17:43:34
Exposure: 0.005s (1/200)
Focal Length: 5.40mm
F/Stop: f/2.800

46º 13' 47.28" N 121º 59' 36.96" W

King David and the Rule of Law

2008-02-21T07:12:00.000-08:00

Given Rowan Williams' failure to advocate Judeo-Christian values, let me step into the breach to explain how the Rule of Law is firmly based in Scripture.

The story is told in 2 Samuel 11 and 12.

It was springtime, the season of war. King David sent his army out to attack the Ammonites. But for some reason, he stayed home in his capital city Jerusalem. While waiting for war news, he took a walk on the roof of his palace.

2 One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, 3 and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, "Isn't this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite?" 4 Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her. (She had purified herself from her uncleanness.) Then she went back home. 5 The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, "I am pregnant."

He's the king--the ultimate alpha male. She's gorgeous. Sleeping with gorgeous women is a perk of being king. But Uriah the Hittite was one of David's best fighters--not a man to trifle with.

So David, being a politician, decided to cover it all up. He invited Uriah back to town to report on the ongoing battle. He figured Uriah would go home, sleep with his wife, and would never suspect the kid wasn't his own. Unfortunately Uriah was too focused on the fighting, and wouldn't even go inside his house. So much for that plan.

You don't get to be king if you give up easily. So David wrote a letter, instructing his General Joab to expose Uriah in battle to Uriah would be killed. He had the gall to send this letter to Joab with Uriah himself. Joab did what he was told, Uriah died, and David married Bathsheba.

All pretty standard royal politics and intrigue--except that God did not approve. He sent Nathan the prophet to David with a story:

1 The LORD sent Nathan to David. When he came to him, he said, "There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor. 2 The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, 3 but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him.

4 "Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him."

What a jerk! David reacted appropriately:

5 David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, "As surely as the LORD lives, the man who did this deserves to die! 6 He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity."

Here's where we learn about the Rule of Law. You can see Nathan raising a finger and pointing it straight at David.

7 Then Nathan said to David, "You are the man! This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: 'I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. 8 I gave your master's house to you, and your master's wives into your arms. I gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more. 9 Why did you despise the word of the LORD by doing what is evil in his eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. 10 Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.'

11 "This is what the LORD says: 'Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity upon you. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight. 12 You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all Israel.' "

God is telling David that David has been given his position and authority. David isn't king because of some hereditary right or earned privilege. Sure, David has worked hard, but God has saved David's life several times and protected him on his journey to the throne. David owes God everything. Even though he is king of Israel, David is still subject to God's laws.

And that includes the law of cause and effect and the law of unintended consequences. David gets the message, but it's too late for the immediate consequences.

13 Then David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the LORD."

Nathan replied, "The LORD has taken away your sin. You are not going to die. 14 But because by doing this you have made the enemies of the LORD show utter contempt, the son born to you will die."

This mistake cost David dearly. He and Bathsheba lost their first son. He would later lose another son, Absalom, when Absalom figured it was his turn to be king and tried to take the throne by force from his father. Absalom would be the one to sleep with David's concubines, but ultimately he would be killed running away from the losing battle.

Everyone is constrained by right and wrong, and everyone has obligations to his or her fellow humans. Nobody is above the law of the Creator. Not rulers who have reached the pinnacle of power, or even founders of world religions.

Reasonable Expectations

2008-02-20T19:57:00.000-08:00

OK, so maybe it's not the end of the world if some people still disagree with me.

Christianity = Individualism

2008-02-19T20:18:00.000-08:00

Does Christianity say anything about Individualism versus Collectivism? I believe so.

John 3:16:

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

By Jesus' own words, people are not saved by their membership in a group. God did give his Son to save the world (collective), but salvation is an individual choice and belief.

Something to keep in mind when evaluating the politics of so-called religious leaders.

Oh yeah!

2008-02-18T07:05:00.000-08:00

A 6:45 AM walk on a 22 degree F day. Who could ask for anything more wonderful than that?

Japanese American Internment during WWII (Part 2)

2008-02-17T13:38:00.000-08:00

In Part 1, I discussed the context of the decision to intern Japanese Americans during World War II. Today we mostly all agree it was a bad decision, but that wasn't clear at the time. What did make it clear?

The performance of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team.

This unit was formed from Hawaiian residents of Japanese descent who couldn't otherwise enlist, along with volunteers from the mainland relocation/internment camps. Rather than run the risk of having Americans of Japanese descent fight their relatives in the Japanese military, the 442nd fought in North Africa and Europe.

It was the most decorated unit in U.S. military history for its size and length of service. 9,486 Purple Hearts were awarded to a unit that started with 3,000 personnel, giving an informal casualty rate of 314%. The official casualty rate was 93%, but I guess that didn't count injured people more than once.

Injuries are not the most important measure of combat unit success, of course. The men were recognized as outstanding fighters, never leaving anyone behind. Probably their most famous action was the rescue of the 1st Battalion, 141st Infrantry. The 442nd took over 800 casualties to rescue 211 soldiers from the "Lost Battalion".

Before they were inducted, more than 75% of the interned Japanese Americans on the mainland answered yes to this loyalty questionnaire question:

Will you swear unqualified allegiance to the United States of America and faithfully defend the United States from any or all attack by foreign or domestic forces, and forswear any form of allegiance or obedience to the Japanese emperor, or any other foreign government, power or organization?

Their performance in the service proved they were telling the truth.

From the perspective of 60+ years later, it's easy for us to condemn General John L. DeWitt for his decisions in 1942. But he was only acting on the belief, common at the time, that people's future actions could be predicted based on external indicators like race and ancestry. The record of the 442nd proved him wrong.

About twenty years later, Martin Luther King Jr. would ask to be judged by the content of his character rather than the color of his skin. The brave men of the 442nd helped prove that it's the software--not the hardware--that really matters.

Scratch Beginnings

2008-02-17T12:40:00.000-08:00

Just added Scratch Beginnings: Me, $25, and the Search for the American Dream to my Amazon.com Wish List.

Last month I discussed a misguided list of so-called "privilege indicators". Scratch Beginnings is an excellent rebuttal to that list.

Adam Shepard decided to empirically test whether success is based on privilege or individual choices. He moved to a new city where he didn't know anyone. He only took $25 and the clothes on his back. He checked himself in to a homeless shelter. His goals were modest: have a place to live, a car, and $2,500 in the bank within a year. Yes, he was college educated, but he chose not to mention that to anyone.

He terminated his experiment two months shy of a year, after learning of an illness in his family. Not only had he rented an apartment and purchased a pick-up truck, he had nearly $5,000 in the bank.

At the end of an interview with the Christian Science Monitor, he says:

This isn't a "rags-to-riches million-dollar" story. This is very realistic. I truly believe, based on what I saw at the shelter ...that anyone can do that.

By any external measure, Adam Shepard gave up all his so-called "privileges" to test the American Dream. But within the constraints of the experiment, he made excellent choices: living simply, only purchasing what he could afford, and working hard. Or, put another way, he gave up all his "hardware" advantages but continued to run healthy "software".

What an wonderfully encouraging story!

Deterrence Failure

2008-02-17T12:32:00.000-08:00

Looks like another victim disarmament zone took its toll.

As discussed before, it only takes a few armed potential victims to deter goblin attacks. Even goblins that plan on suicide can be deterred--or at least stopped before they commit harm.

If potential victims are armed, heroes like Jeanne Assam will stop them. If victims are disarmed, heroes like Liviu Librescu get killed trying to save others.

UPDATE & BUMP: via Insty comes a Newsweek interview with W. Scott Lewis of Students for Concealed Carry on Campus. Read the whole thing.

Closet MDF

2008-02-17T09:45:00.001-08:00

My apologies for the radio silence. We changed Internet Service Providers, so I took the opportunity to clean up the bedroom closet where all the telephone wires terminate.

This closet is in the far corner of the house. The WiFi signal was undesirably low in the master bedroom, so I leveraged the house Cat-5 wiring to move the Access Point to the kitchen.

Is it just me, or do you think I went a little beyond the Verizon DSL Self Install Kit instructions?

On Leadership (Failure)

2008-02-13T21:27:00.000-08:00

Now comes Anne Applebaum, summarizing the controversy around a recent speech by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams.

Organizations are created and sustained by people sharing a common interest. The mission of the organization is to advance that common interest. Consider how the founders of the United States articulated the mission of government:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

Leaders of an organization must be true to the mission. A good leader advances the interests for which the organization is created. She must continually convince the members of the organization that those interests are still relevant and important. Successful leaders cast a vision of how people can work together, making more of a difference together than each could do individually.

By this standard, Archbishop Williams fails. Rather than advocate the Enlightenment values that flow from the Judeo-Christian tradition of the very Church he heads, he says they are

not adequate to deal with the realities of complex societies: it is not enough to say that citizenship as an abstract form of equal access and equal accountability is either the basis or the entirety of social identity and personal motivation. Where this has been enforced, it has proved a weak vehicle for the life of a society and has often brought violent injustice in its wake (think of the various attempts to reduce citizenship to rational equality in the France of the 1790's or the China of the 1970's).

Archbishop Williams should resign. The leader of the Anglican Communion must be a forceful advocate of Judeo-Christian Enlightenment values, not someone seeking compromise with advocates of sharia law. If he wants to advocate a legal system where people of different faiths are treated differently under the law, let him do so as Mr. Rowan Williams, private citizen.

Choosing Not to Carry

2008-02-12T06:58:00.000-08:00

Kevin Baker responds to a commenter, who asks:

[W]hat if guns were allowed in schools and people chose not to carry one? Would that person be a moron? Is anyone that choses not to arm themselves stupid?

Earlier, I wrote (in agreement with LawDog) that carrying a weapon should be a societal obligation for the mature, responsible person. At first blush, Kevin seems to disagree:

"Most Americans," Mark, don't think about it. Many do, and weigh the odds of needing a firearm against the irritation and responsibility of actually carrying one, and decide that they like their chances. (And carrying a firearm is a pain in the ass.) I'm OK with that. It's called rational decision-making. You pays your money and you takes your chances.

But that's not Kevin's point:

Some people are...terrified of the responsibility and convinced that they are not mature and competent enough to be trusted with a firearm. I'm OK with that, too so long as they do not work to deny me the right to choose for myself.

Fortunately, the herd immunity threshold for critter deterrence is quite low. Even critters learn when their colleagues are injured or killed by armed targets. Remember: the goal isn't to kill all the critters. The goal is to deter potential critters.

Quote of the Day

2008-02-10T15:44:00.001-08:00

You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.

— Winston Churchill

Competing Goods

2008-02-09T18:12:00.000-08:00

Via Kim, now comes this story from the London Telegraph:

Women training in several hospitals in England have raised objections to removing their arm coverings in theatre [operating rooms --ed] and to rolling up their sleeves when washing their hands, because it is regarded as immodest in Islam.

What are these women objecting to?

...[N]ew Department of Health guidance, introduced this month, which stipulates that all doctors must be "bare below the elbow".

The measure is deemed necessary to stop the spread of infections such as MRSA and Clostridium difficile, which have killed hundreds.

This is a classic example of competing goods. We're not talking good versus evil, nor even shades of gray between a terrible black and a praiseworthy white. Both sides of the controversy are acting in good faith, trying to do what they believe is right.

A brain-dead bureaucrat might decide between these competing goods by simply looking to the rulebook. The rule says doctors must have bare forearms, so anyone out of compliance must leave.

But that ducks the question. After all, someone must write the rulebook. And it doesn't really help the women decide what to do about that rule.

Each person should be free to make a choice. (Yes, I'm an Individualist.) Just as ideas matter, choices have consequences. Each of the Muslim women is free to decide whether to continue her medical training or cover her arms.

Again with the etymology. The word decide comes to us from

Latin decidere, literally, to cut off, from de- + caedere to cut

When you make a decision, you are "cutting off" alternatives. If I spend $10 on lunch, I can't spend that same $10 on a music album from iTunes. When I married LovelyWife, one of the vows included the phrase "forsaking all others," meaning I was promising to not have sex with any other woman. I was publicly declaring myself "off the market"!

Medical professionals must often make decisions. This is an excellent opportunity to screen out people who can't be effective in medicine because they can't choose wisely.

I respect the struggle these women face. But eventually they must make a decision between the competing goods--and accept the consequences of that decision.

History of Western Ideas

2008-02-08T18:46:00.000-08:00

A few years ago Hugh Hewitt recorded a most excellent 6-part interview with Dr. Larry Arnn, president of Hillsdale College.

This is a great survey of evolution of Western, Individualist, classic Liberal thought on rights and government. Here are links to all six parts:

Part 1 (Day 1 Hour 1)
Part 2 (Day 1 Hour 2)
Part 3 (Day 1 Hour 3)
Part 4 (Day 2 Hour 1)
Part 5 (Day 2 Hour 2)
Part 6 (Day 2 Hour 3)

Each part represents an hour of Hugh's show. But since there aren't any commercials, each part only runs about 35 minutes.

Excellent. Highly recommended. I really enjoyed listening to this series while walking the dog. But more importantly, it put the various "dead white males" into context, showing how their individual contributions fit into the larger whole.

Male vs. Female Software

2008-02-05T20:06:00.000-08:00

I'm a guy, and this speaker has me cold:

My favorite box is my "do nothing" box, just like he said!

Hegemony versus Empire

2008-02-05T10:20:00.000-08:00

Imperialist. Hegemon. In today's American political conversation, these are bad words.

Is there a difference between an empire and a hegemony? Are they equally as bad? Is America both, either, or neither?

Let's look at the etymology of the two words. First, the word empire comes from

Middle English, from Anglo-French empire, empirie, from Latin imperium absolute authority, empire, from imperare to command

On the other hand, the word hegemony comes from

Greek hēgemonia, from hēgemōn leader, from hēgeisthai to lead

Yes, it's a hardware versus software thing!

Strictly speaking, an emperor leads by force. A hegemon leads by influence. An emperor forces your hardware to comply, whereas a hegemon spreads ideas and norms that get into your software.

Arnold Kling argues that the right kind of hegemony is beneficial to all. I agree; unless people are running compatible software, disputes inevitably boil over into the physical world as violence.

So is America a hegemon? I certainly hope so. The deeply individualist founding ideals like "all men are created equal," as worked out through the American Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement, are empirically (heh) the best way for groups of people to organize themselves and work together for the common good.

Is America an imperial power? Not so much. We do not exercise sovereign authority over other nations. Just one small example: a true empire would have simply appropriated the Kuwaiti oil wealth after defeating the Iraqi military. Instead, we returned that wealth to the Kuwaiti people (or at least their government).

So consider this little essay my contribution to the American Hegemony. May the best ideas and values of the American Way be spread as far and wide as possible.

The War by Ken Burns

2008-02-04T23:07:00.000-08:00

Netflix has been delivering The War by Ken Burns. Very powerful series; shows impact of the war on people you can easily identify with.

Japanese American Internment during WWII (Part 1)

2008-02-02T21:17:00.000-08:00

Today we all agree that it was wrong to intern US citizens and residents of Japanese heritage during World War II. But why was it wrong? More to the point, how did it happen? And what did it take for society to learn the lesson that it was a mistake?

Following Hanlon's Razor, we must not "assume malice when stupidity will suffice." Or, as Sir Bernard Ingham said,

"Many journalists have fallen for the conspiracy theory of government. I do assure you that they would produce more accurate work if they adhered to the cock-up theory."

The bad decision makes more sense in a historical context.

During World War I, even before the United States officially entered the war against Germany, the Germans in America committed sabotage against munitions industries. Probably the most famous example is the Black Tom explosion. On Sunday morning, 30 July 1916, a fire broke out on the Black Tom island near Jersey City. Over 2 million pounds of explosives and ammunition were involved. The explosion caused an earthquake measuring over 5.0 on the Richter scale.

The term "fifth column" had just been coined during the Spanish Civil War. Emilio Mola announced that his four military columns would be joined by a so-called fifth column of supporters inside the city. These supporters would be subverting the society under attack from the inside.

The prefatory text of Executive Order 9066 explicitly states this perceived necessity:

Whereas the successful prosecution of the war requires every possible protection against espionage and against sabotage to national-defense material, national-defense premises, and national-defense utilities[....]

The Niihau Incident was a real-life example of what Executive Order 9066 was trying to prevent. Native-born Japanese-Americans on this small Hawaiian island did their best to help a Japanese Navy pilot who crash-landed after attacking Pearl Harbor.

Fundamentally, this was a software versus hardware category error. U.S. authorities couldn't tell what software a person was running in his head. But they did remember that people from enemy nation ethnic groups had caused significant damage to the war efforts in the past. So the U.S. authorities decided to take action against the perceived threat by isolating people based on their Japanese looks and parentage.

There was a certain symmetry and commonality to this move. The Japanese interned Americans in the Philippines and elsewhere, for much the same reason. It was the normal thing to do under these circumstances.

It took something extraordinary to show us the injustice of this decision. Absent that extraordinary factor, we might still be hailing the wisdom of Executive Order 9066 and continue to intern suspected enemy ethnicities during wartime today. But we don't, and just about everyone rightly condemns Executive Order 9066 in retrospect. In Part 2 I will discuss the extraordinary factor that changed our minds.

RX-8 and Mount Saint Helens

2008-02-02T21:01:00.001-08:00

Camera: CANON POWERSHOT A410
Taken on 2006:10:12 16:29:35
Exposure: 0.003s (1/400)
Focal Length: 5.40mm
F/Stop: f/4.5
0046º 9' 33.50" N 122º 5' 44.13" W

Herd Immunity and Fighting Back

2008-01-30T18:35:00.000-08:00

Lawdog posted some Meditations on Sunday. I would like to build on that posting by tying in the concept of "herd immunity".

First, what is herd immunity?

Germs succeed when they infect lots of people. People succeed when they don't get infected. Germs spread from one person to another. Vaccination stops germs from infecting individuals, benefiting each vaccinated individual. But if enough people get vaccinated, the benefit extends beyond the individual. That's because vaccinated people don't get infected and thus can't spread germs to other people. If an individual is completely surrounded by vaccinated people who don't spread germs, then that individual probably won't get infected either--even without the vaccination.

Herd immunity kicks in when a certain percentage of the population is vaccinated. Below that percentage, enough unvaccinated people come in contact with each other for germs to spread. Above that percentage, germs mostly encounter vaccinated people so they can't spread. The germs are effectively stopped from spreading.

That magic percentage (the "herd immunity threshold") depends on how many so-called "secondary infections" an infected person can cause. Mumps usually spreads from an infected person to between 4 and 7 others, and the herd immunity threshold is between 75% and 86%. Measles usually spreads to somewhere between 12 and 17 others, so the herd immunity threshold also goes up to between 83% and 94%.

How does that tie in with self defense -- fighting back against bad guys?

Well, Lawdog points out that even bad guys operate on a risk/reward basis:

All creatures on this little green dirtball operate on a Reward/Risk system: is the potential reward of this action worth the risk of this action? If so, you do the thing -- if not, you do something else.

But most of them (the "critters") only understand immediate consequences, not delayed consequences:

The possibility of getting caught by the police next week, or next month, has very little influence on the average critters Risk/Reward calculations.

Getting caught, injured or killed during the crime? Yes. Getting caught, injured or killed after committing the crime? Not so much.

Just like germs, the critters succeed when they encounter a victim who doesn't fight back. And just like germs, the victims succeed when they do fight back.

[S]uppose Joe Critter is in a place where self-defence is expected and encouraged. He figures the reward of wallet money is worth the risk of Rehabilitation Through Reincarnation, or Bodily Injury and attempts a mugging. The victim defends him or her self, and let us postulate that Joe scrambles away with powder burns and a bloody furrow along the ribs.
[....]
This time -- self-defence being expected and encouraged by this society -- Joe crawls to the nearest trauma centre with a .38-calibre lead slug in his belly. Pretty sodding quickly, the Risk (Death or Serious Bodily Injury) is going to outweigh the Reward (wallet funds), and Joe is going to turn to an activity with a lower Risk variable.

But just as with vaccination, the benefits extend beyond the individual victim. Just as a germ can't tell whether a potential infectee is vaccinated or not, it's hard for a critter to predict whether a potential victim will fight back. If enough potential victims tend to fight back, the potential critters won't bother even trying. So even the potential victims who wouldn't actually fight back don't get attacked.

What is the "herd immunity threshold" for fighting back? This time the math works backwards in favor of the good guys. Instead of infectees spreading germs, the fighters spread protection. Would you attack someone if you estimated a 50% chance of instant death? How about 20%? 10%? 5%? Critters do the same math. Their threshold may be higher, but most of them still don't want to die.

That's why it's so important to fight back. Not only do you stop your own victimization, you protect other people from attacks who wouldn't otherwise fight back.

You can even do it "for the children"!

Why settle....

2008-01-29T22:38:00.000-08:00

Hat tip: Kevin Baker. And Sean's comment is priceless:

I like Cthulhu's foreign policy of killing everyone and consuming everything, but I don't agree with his domestic policy of killing everyone and consuming everything. Still better than Hillary.

Heh.

Sunny Lucas for President!

2008-01-28T09:52:00.001-08:00

As you can tell from my profile picture, I'm a dog person. So I was quite interested to read Sunny Lucas' announcement for President.

Her platform is particularly good. Some highlights:

TERRORISM: “Kill them all.”
ABORTION: “Mandatory sterilization, just like at the pound.”
EDUCATION: “You only get a treat if you do the trick properly.”

Go read the whole thing. This is just the right software for a President to be running!

Sunrise over Columbia

2008-01-26T12:13:00.001-08:00

Camera: CANON POWERSHOT A410
Taken on 2006:08:28 06:18:53
Exposure: 0.006s (1/160)
Focal Length: 5.40mm
F/Stop: f/2.800

46º 14' 26.78" N 119º 19' 21.04" W

Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin... and Cornelius Fudge?

2008-01-25T21:06:00.000-08:00

So I finally finished Jonah Goldberg's book. As quoted before, fascism "is a religion of the state. It assumes the organic unity of the body politic and longs for a national leader attuned to the will of the people." Examples cited include Woodrow Wilson, Benito Mussolini, and Adolph Hitler. Stalin wasn't a national socialist, but he and Mao definitely built cults of personality.

Netflix delivered the latest Harry Potter movie, Order of the Phoenix. This view, early in the movie, is what Harry Potter sees when he enters the Ministry of Magic:

Wow -- a four-story high poster of Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic. Like all photographs in the Wizarding World, Fudge moves just enough to tell he's alive.

A few minutes later, Harry is dragged before the highest Wizarding court. Here again we see Minister Fudge as the personification of authority:

Unfortunately, Fudge is in denial. He would rather destroy Harry (and his mentor Dumbledore) publicly than acknowledge that Lord Voldemort has returned. Fudge wants to think that Harry and Dumbledore are the big threats to his authority and position, because Voldemort is far too scary to even contemplate. Better to believe Voldemort's return is a fiction, created by Dumbledore as part of a plot to overthrow Fudge's rule, than to face the truth.

Inevitably there's a big showdown. In the middle of a duel, Voldemort shatters all the Ministry windows and shreds Fudge's banner:

And then, just as the fighting ends, Fudge himself shows up and comes face to face with his biggest fear:

Harry and Dumbledore were right.

What a delightful subtextual commentary on government! J. K. Rowling certainly has no illusions about the state being the source of morals, right and wrong, good and evil. More often than not, the people who ascend to the heights of power are compromised in the process. They forget about their responsibility to the people, focusing only on perceived threats to their authority.

Good on ya, J.K. Thanks!

nonick.org

2008-01-24T19:54:00.000-08:00

The other day I told a friend about the wonderful video posted earlier. He asked me to tell him the name of this blog again, because it has such a long name. Then he suggested I make it something simple, like blog.nonick.org.

Back in 1992 I moved to Illinois. You can buy vanity license plates for $14, so long as they have a number at the end. The maximum number of letters in such a license plate is seven. My last name has eight characters, so that didn't work. Instead, I chose to use NONICK.

Later, when Internet domain names became popular, I grabbed nonick.org. For a long time my web presence at http://www.nonick.org has been quite minimalist, if not faintly hostile.

A few years later, my wife and I got high-speed Internet service at home. The ISP provided free e-mail accounts, so we signed up. But then the inevitable corporate changes occurred. Over a period of about six months we were forced to change our e-mail addresses three times. Since we had to change our e-mail addresses anyway, LovelyWife and I changed started using nonick.org domain. We've been paying about $100/year for e-mail and minimal web hosting from pair.com, but it's been well worth the cost. It was sure nice to have a constant e-mail address during the move from Illinois out here to Eastern Washington.

That's the story of nonick.org. Thanks again to my friend for suggesting I rename this blog to blog.nonick.org; hopefully it will be easier to remember and tell people about!

Fasces

2008-01-23T07:43:00.000-08:00

Jonah Goldberg's new book Liberal Fascism is missing a crucial definition. His thesis (as discussed earlier) is that fascism is fundamentally a statist, non-individualist political philosophy. But as he discusses fascism, he doesn't describe what fasces are.

According to Wikipedia:

The traditional Roman fasces consisted of a bundle of birch rods, tied together with a red ribbon into a cylinder, and including an axe amongst the rods.

Symbolically, the bundle of rods represents unity. More to the point, a single birch rod is easy to break, but are very strong when bound together.

The axe represents government power, particularly the power to punish through the taking of life.

Taken to an extreme, the fasces represent a symbolic argument against Individualism. The fasces literally come apart if the cords binding the rods are loosened.

53 Seconds

2008-01-22T01:16:00.000-08:00

11 years old. Way cool!

(Hat Tip: Tamara K.)

I Have A Dream

2008-01-21T06:10:00.000-08:00

Today, 21 January 2008, we celebrate what would have been Martin Luther King, Jr.'s 79th birthday. Let's focus a little on his most famous speech, delivered on 28 August 1963. Dr. King argued that it was time for the United States to live up to its best nature, its founding ideals.

He called on our better natures, and indeed on the very foundations of legitimacy for the American Experiment. "[U]naliable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Twice he used the phrase "all of God's children," a gender-neutral paraphrase of the Declaration's statement that "all men are created equal" and that their rights are "endowed by their Creator."

He said:

In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men - yes, black men as well as white men - would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check that has come back marked "insufficient funds."

This was not a man who believed in the innate superiority of any race or color. Instead, he understood that it's the content of someone's character and heart--their beliefs, creeds, and ways of acting. He asked not to be judged on the basis of birth, but on his and his family's behavior:

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

Character. That's another way of describing the base operating system that each person runs. Their ideas of truth, fairness, right and wrong.

It's the software, not the hardware.

Cornered Cat

2008-01-20T14:46:00.000-08:00

It's a cold, blustery, gray, snowy day outside. A perfect day for staying inside with a cat:

She's cuddly, she's cozy, she likes to curl up next to a crackling fire on a cold winter's day. She's great company.

That being said, don't get between a cornered cat and an open door:

Some folks say the most dangerous place in the world is between a Mama Bear and her cubs. It may be so. I've never met a Mama Bear, myself.

The most dangerous place I ever stood was between a cornered cat and an open door.

When a cat feels threatened, she gets away from the danger as quickly as she can. She doesn't care what damage she inflicts on her way to safety, but she's not interested in fighting for fighting's sake. She does only as much as she needs to do in order to escape. She doesn't deal in revenge. If she feels threatened, she simply leaves. Efficiently.

I'm a dog person myself (see my profile to the left). But we can still learn a lot from cats. In particular, we can learn that it's OK for women to arm themselves and fight efficiently when necessary. That's why I'm adding The Cornered Cat to my blogroll today:

This site is about women and guns, not about cats. But in a way, it's about the cornered cat in all of us. It's about the determination to get away from an attacker if you need to. It's about making the decision to say, "Not me. Not mine. Not today." And it's about the tools to make that decision stick.

Go. Read. Learn.

West Richland Sunset

2008-01-19T08:47:00.000-08:00

Camera: CANON POWERSHOT A410
Taken on 2006:07:02 20:46:05
Exposure: 0.017s (1/60)
Focal Length: 17.30mm
F/Stop: f/5.100

46º 15' 32.50" N 119º 21' 12.19" W

Whence Hoplophobia?

2008-01-17T19:47:00.000-08:00

Why do people fear guns? Particularly, why do people seem to fear guns held in private hands?

Jeff Cooper coined the term hoplophobia to describe "people who are apparently haunted by a fixed and morbid aversion to our guns." He suggests those people suffer an organic psychiatric problem rather than an aversion based on ideology or experience. But if that were true, why are so many apparent hoplophobes completely unconcerned about guns in the hands of government? Why do handguns tend to draw the most concern, rather than hunting rifles or shotguns?

Let me suggest an alternative explanation: guns, particularly handguns, are very empowering to the individual. A small hunk of Smith & Wesson-forged steel gives a 110 pound woman a fighting chance against an enraged 250 pound muscular man--or even a representative of the State. Guns in private hands empower the individual at the expense of the collective will.

In an earlier post I referred to Jonah Goldberg's working definition of fascism as expressed in American Progressivism. Mr. Goldberg says that fascists/Progressives believe "[a]ny rival identity [beyond the State collective] is part of the 'problem' and therefore defined as the enemy." A 110 pound woman rejects the unitary will of the collective by arming herself. This empowered individual becomes a "rival entity" and thus an enemy of the collective, even if she never uses the weapon.

Jonah also writes that this worldview "assumes the organic unity of the body politic and longs for a national leader attuned to the will of the people." Recall the history of the Gun Control Act of 1968: Robert F. Kennedy, the charismatic brother of slain President John F. Kennedy, was himself assassinated on June 5th of that year by a man using a handgun. Immediately the political class and country reacted:

With the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy on June 5, 1968, the groundswell of support for tough gun control laws reached unprecedented levels. [...] President Johnson, who had proposed gun control measures every year since becoming president, appeared on national television imploring Congress to pass a new and tougher gun control law that banned mail-order and out-of-state sales of long guns and ammunition. Reading a letter he sent to Congress, Johnson pleaded to Congress "in the name of sanity... in the name of safety and in the name of an aroused nation to give America the gun-control law it needs." --Answers.com: Gun Control Act of 1968

Many American Progressives believed that Robert F. Kennedy was the perfect "national leader attuned to the will of the people." Sirhan Sirhan, an individual armed with a handgun, deprived the "people" of their "leader". In response, the Progressives targeted the instrument that the individual used--because it was unthinkable that a mere individual could alone subvert the collective will.

Bottom line: hoplophobia is indeed irrational. Guns empower individuals, and empowered individuals are an unacceptable threat to the primacy of the collective will. Belief in the collective is taken on faith, and nothing is so threatening to a person than that which threatens his faith.

On the other hand, guns held by representatives of the State do not threaten faith in the collective--because the representative is part of the collective rather than a mere individual. Thus, these guns aren't really empowering an individual--instead, they help empower the collective.