If it Quacks Like a Mutt

If it Quacks Like a Mutt…
© 2009 Ross Williams

The first thing needed before getting too deep into this subject is a very precise understanding of the semantics involved. Far too often people use terms – or hear terms used in front of them – and they translate in their heads, make assumptions about what others meant in using them or what others will understand you to mean in hearing them, and what ends up happening is that everyone talks past each other, no one understand anyone, and people end up leaving in a huff to go pout.

So let’s just start by saying Barack Obama is not an African-American.

Oh, he’s definitely of African descent: his father was Kenyan. And he’s definitely American: he was born here[1] and mostly raised here.

But the meaning of the term African-American, as it has been used academically for decades, signifies someone who is a black descendant of America’s past slave-class. And President Barama does not qualify. If we were to use the term African-American in its literal sense rather than in its academic shortcutting sense, then we might be able to suggest that President Barama is among the only true African-Americans in the country. But…

Gay literally means “happy”. The term, though, has been co-opted for so long to mean “homosexual” that finding any reference to its former meaning requires scouring the book shelves for items written at the turn of last century. Same with African-American. Whatever its literal meaning may be said to be, it has been confiscated to mean a black American descended from antebellum slaves. Therefore he doesn’t qualify.

President Barama is also not black. And this is where I will diverge from academic usage, for the academic usage here is fundamentally dishonest. Academia has a legitimate purpose in describing those descended from a slave-holding past, and African-American is as good as any term for that purpose; the purpose may have been beaten to death, run into the ground, and become otherwise trite, but it is necessary for certain discussions. However, the academic use of black – to the degree it is differentiable from African-American – is a term used for demographic purposes.

Demography is the scientific [sic] study of what types of people makes up a given population. The population of the United States is made up of many, many, many types of people; far more discreet types of people, with far more relative parity, than any other Western democracy, in fact. And it becomes anti-intellectual, anti-academic dishonesty to ignorantly or deliberately falsify or otherwise fail to distinguish between one person and another during the exercise of that field of study devoted to properly classifying and distinguishing people.

For decades, black has been inappropriately used to describe anyone who is, in any part, descended from native, melanin-rich Africans. And when the person is descended only from blacks it is fine. When it becomes dishonest is when the person so described is also descended from native, melanin-deficient Europeans. … or others, for that matter. President Barama is black and white; he is a mutt.

For that matter, Tiger Woods isn’t black, either. He is black and oriental. …and once again, it is properly oriental, not Asian. There is a distinct difference between a Han Chinese and a Syrian Arab that are important to understand; both are Asian, only the Han Chinese is oriental. Tiger is another type of mutt.[2]

Indeed, for demographers to fail to distinguish between the shades of ethnic mixture described in the two paragraphs immediately preceding means that those demographers are not merely failing in the job they claim to be doing, but they are also not internally consistent in how they do that job. They are doubly dishonest.

How can I say that? Because they differentiate between Hispanic and Amerind.

To a modern American – indeed, western – demographer, an Amerind is anyone descended from any of the many American Indian tribes. These are variously called “First Peoples” – a mincing term which apparently presupposes they fell off the turtle’s back before Adam and Eve split an order of ribs. It could not possibly be that the term “First Peoples” is suggesting that Amerinds are simply the first to explore and conquer a land, because that’s what “First Peoples” often complain about the Europeans having done: explored and conquered. It would be ironic[3] of them or their supporters to do so. And “First People” having done it first only means that might makes right – once. Which is how many times both the “First Peoples” and the Europeans conquered the New World. So no one would seem to have a moral leg up on the other.

Other terms sometimes used are one form or other of the word “Aboriginal” which is acceptable in the US but disreputable in Australia; also, some term involving “Native” or “Indigenous”, which has been rendered indistinguishing by double-digit generations of European-descended peoples also being native and indigenous. I prefer Amerind; it is differentiating even if it causes others ideological heartburn[4], and it doesn’t require reams of rationalization to explain away its inherent equivocations and other inconsistencies.

Amerind is disingenuously – like black – anyone who is, in any part, descended from the First Indigenous Aboriginoid Peoples. …except when the part of them which is not so descended is Spanish or black African. If a person is Amerind and English he is, to a demographer, all Amerind. Likewise, if a person is black African and French he is, to that demographer, all black. However, if a person is Amerind and Spanish or black African and Spanish … he is Hispanic. This means that demography accepts the concept of Mutt. And this means that demography is dishonest when it, later and when appropriate, does not.

…when it serves the purposes of the people who call themselves demographers.

Which is, after all, the reason they fail to distinguish between the various mixtures of ethnicity they currently fail to acknowledge, such as the ones given above: they have a vested interest in not distinguishing certain Mutts from other people.

This academic dishonesty may be perfectly understandable. Had the science [sic] of demography grown up in the middle of the 19th century instead of the middle of the 20th as it did, we might have seen similar failures to distinguish between those of mixed Irish lineage – once a mick, always a mick – whereas we would have had countless Mutt subcategories of semi-black, including mulatto, quadroon, and the ever-useful octoroon[5].

Demography is simply displaying the biases and prejudices native to the time of its own inception, while it searches for excuses to lambaste those who have different ones. Different biases are wrong biases whether those biases predate the orthodoxy of modern demographers – such as No Irish Need Apply – or biases which post-date the orthodoxy – such as those which strive to discern multiple forms of Mutt-ness.

Black, to put an end to this digression, is not an honest description for President Barama.

Racism also needs to be defined. And racist along with it, although a racist is simply one who displays racism. Here, though, I will revert to the academic understanding. Racism is the use of perceived racial differences, from the position of structural power and influence, to perpetuate those perceived differences, or perpetuate the benefits derived of those perceived differences. For decades we have been told that whites are racist when they insult blacks because only whites have the power to turn those insults into actual harm. For decades we have been told that blacks cannot be racists even though they frequently insult whites, not to mention causing harm to whites, because blacks do not act from a position of structural power – they aren’t in charge of anything.

Even when the power structure specifically directs benefits to blacks at the detriment of whites it is not considered racism because blacks were not in charge of the structure which directed the blacks’ benefits – whites were. Further, we are told these benefits are only a just compensation for being kept out of their proper share of power in the first place. Blacks can’t be racists because they have no power.

Make that had no power, for this is the issue in question:

Many believe that a black, an African-American, is now the President of the United States. It is that same president, Barack Obama, who is accused of being a racist[6].

Naturally, President Barama has many supporters who bristle as this description. Barama can’t be a racist, they have said, because he’s black. Blacks can’t be racists – it’s impossible.

No, no. It is only impossible for blacks and African-Americans to be racists so long as they don’t hold power. Remember?

The measure of blacks not holding power was originally in their exclusion from owning and operating their own businesses. …until blacks started owning and operating their own businesses. And then the measure of blacks not holding power became their not being allowed in white colleges and universities. … until blacks started going to white colleges en masse. At that point the measure of blacks not holding power became their not being hired for decent “white” jobs. … until they were. Then the measure of blacks not holding power became their not being in the government – lawyers, judges, legislators, governors. But they’ve been there for decades, at the will of the people.

The only thing left was President.

And this President, Barack Obama, used his power and influence to get charges of disorderly conduct [trivial small-potatoes] dropped against a legitimately black, African-American Harvard professor friend of his after the friend’s arrest in his own home on a mistaken identity issue. It was also, very likely, a bully-use of police power issue as well. But the charges were dropped after President Barama declared that the “cops acted stupidly” by targeting blacks for arrest rather than just generally acting like bullies to everyone -- which is the way cops actually operate. Which means that President Barama used racial differences to gain a black a benefit he wouldn’t otherwise have received. And he did it from a position of power and authority – the only position of power and authority in the country not filled, at some point, by blacks or African-Americans previously.

Which means that if I am right and others are wrong, and President Barama is neither black nor African-American but instead is a Mutt, he is not a racist; and it means that if others are right and I am wrong and President Barama is a black and an African-American … he is a racist.

I normally hold fast to my semantics, for semantics is what separates us from trained chimps. But I’m willing to dispense with semantics for the sake of getting along. So, is President Barama black? Is he African-American? Or is he, as I suggest, a Mutt?

Is racism the use of power and authority to perpetuate perceived racial differences and to derive benefits based on those perceived differences? Or is racism simply a means of pseudo-pious denunciation of certain people out of self-loathing and race-based group-guilt?

If President Barama is black or African-American, and racism is the unfair use of power based on race – both concepts consistent with how they’ve been used for decades or their appropriate and honest usage – then Barama is a racist, and the rest of America’s blacks are also fully capable of it themselves. They have become vested.

Some of the country’s best people have been racists; some of the worst, too, but this is essentially an audaciously hopeful essay, and I wish to stress the positive. Even more of the country’s best have simply been called racists. It should be considered, if not exactly a badge of honor, at least not a huge deal.

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[1] YES, people, he was born in the US. Quit trying to find loopholes to justify why you don’t like the guy; I get it. There’s enough legitimate reasons for disliking him and his policies – just as there was with Dubya – that you don’t have to go making up new ones. AWOL … foreign-born … get over it.
[2] I was going to say “A mutt of a different color” but the folks who I am bawling out for their dishonest lack of intellectual vigor are notoriously humorless and would probably soil two Depends® each at my use of the phrase for pun-making.
[3] I.e., hypocritical
[4] That’s just an added benefit.
[5] Hexideciroon, anyone?
[6] http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2009/07/glenn_beck_obama_racist_beer_t.html

Reacting Locally

Reacting Locally, Thinking Globally
© 2009 Ross Williams

There was a reorganization at work a few months ago. I won’t bore anyone with the details, but another layer of management was added into the organization, and the guy who makes up this new layer is more or less generally despised. His preferred method of management is by spreadsheet. Unless you can quantify what you do in ways that spreadsheets allow you to quantify, you didn’t do it.

…which leads to the modern existential ontology: if an analyst’s analysis doesn’t exist in Excel, did the analyst still think?

This new manager took over with a flourish last winter, and threatened everyone’s job within a week. Not content to endear himself to his new staff in that way, he also scheduled two all-day meetings for those of us not considered his star pupils so that we could learn everyone else’s job – presumably for when positions started opening up – and then publicly criticized the staff for being a few days behind on their own work … which may lead to job losses.

He has the knack of generating artificial sincerity, and playing favorites while insisting he does no such thing. As I mentioned, he is generally despised.

Earlier this week, his mother in law died.

And it’s not exactly like anyone wanted granny to kick the bucket – none of us even know her – it’s just that the measure of extended sympathy was somewhat subdued. The most common response I heard was, “Oh … so he’ll be out of the office the whole week? What a shame!” We didn’t actually wish ill, but since it showed up anyway … we’ll take whatever benefit we can derive from it. Our silver lining to his black cloud, as it were.

This morning, a sympathy card was circulated and lo! and behold! all the folks who dislike the guy and did the little happy-dance at him being out of the office have signed it. And next week, if the social pattern holds, most of us will engage him in superficial sympathies in the hall.

There’s some amount of hypocrisy in all this – and I would say this whether I signed the card or not [I didn’t] – though it’s not so much hypocrisy as to create a huge ethical dilemma. We can easily feel sympathy for the guy without actually having to like him afterwards. No one is compelled to be his best bud just because we signed a sympathy card for him.

And no one will be. He’s still pretty much despised. His style of leadership is still officious, hands-off micromanagement by proxy. He still gives off unctuous fake sincerity in great greasy dollops.

In short, nothing will change in the individual relationships any of his underlings will have with the guy because they’ve signed his sympathy card or muttered a “sorry for your loss” at the coffee maker. It’s just a social nicety and it means next to nothing.

I’ve gotten birthday cards at work signed by folks I don’t know, that I don’t work with, and sometimes by folks I wouldn’t [and don’t] give the time of day to and who return that favor with gusto. It’s just part of the social dance of the workplace. I know better than to think, “Oh, gosh, Betty Jones[1], who I despise and who despises me, signed my birthday card. She must like me after all; she wants to kiss and make up. We can probably get married next week…”.

When next week comes and goes and Betty Jones and I are back at each others’ throats, I also know better than to think to myself, “Oh dear, I’ve squandered all that good will she extended by signing my birthday card; I’m such a cad. It’s all my fault.”

These social dances occur all over the place, on stages large and small. Each and every one of us who has ever had any meaningful interaction with others has done this, or had this done to him. Fake sympathy and false friendliness in the interest of being polite. And I’d imagine that not many of us mistook the insincerity as genuine. We know better. We’re not stupid.

Yet how many of us didn’t know better and became genuinely stupid about 8 years ago? The platform was different, the stage [and the audience that went with it] was definitely larger, but the phenomenon was identical.

There are many, many nations which despise the United States. They don’t often pretend to be polite about it, either.

Still other nations merely dislike us and are secretly – or not-so secretly – pleased when the US slips on a banana peel and falls flat. As we do from time to time.

Nations which do not like us, just like the people in our office which don’t, will probably sympathize when something bad happens to us, like a Katrina. This does not mean that these nations suddenly like us, or that we are now Best Friends Forever, or anything of the sort. It simply means that someone started a sympathy card and they all signed it.

September 10th, 2001: many nations despised us and many more simply didn’t like us.

September 11th, 2001: some international delinquents knocked down a few of our buildings with a couple commandeered airplanes, and a sympathy card was passed around to be signed by all, including the nations which despised and disliked us.

September 12th, 2001: those nations which despised or disliked us went right back to despising and disliking us – because they’d never stopped.

September 13th, 2001: huge gobs of American self-loathers and other geopolitical neophytes claimed that the US, because of the president, “squandered all the good will” extended towards us, and otherwise advertised that they’ve got almost no familiarity with this planet or the human species dominating it.

November 2008: these neophytes used their voting rights to get themselves a different president who would not irk all those foreign countries which either despise or dislike us.

Currently: those nations which despise or dislike us still despise or dislike us, and the new president hasn’t changed anything. Nor will he. Nor can he. In some cases, those nations despise or dislike us even more.

I feel bad about this. I’ve started a sympathy card for the neophytes on the death of their innocence.

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[1] Her name is not Betty Jones, by the way.

Here's Mud in Yer Eye

Bottom’s Up
© 2009 Ross Williams

The wife and I, and my son and newly minted daughter-in-law, are leaving on a cruise next week.

Before cruising I go to a particular web site I know to discuss cruises with those who take cruises in order to find information I need to know about cruises. Like whether or not the coup in Honduras is going to prevent us from docking at Roatan, or whether the knee-jerk paranoia over swine flu is going to stop us from docking at Cozumel … or stop the galley from serving bacon for breakfast. Whatever. Things like that.

While at this web site I frequently run across people asking sometimes silly, sometimes leading, sometimes juvenile questions, or making silly, leading or juvenile statements. And because I’m an analyst and an essayist I sometimes give long, boring, professorial lectures upon their comments. I don’t do this always [which will surprise my wife], but often enough that I’ve gotten somewhat of a reputation for being long-winded and boring. I’ve also got a reputation for being useful and informative. It all depends, I suppose, on how my verbosity serves others’ purposes as to whether it is deemed useful or tedious.

At any rate, one of the bad penny topics came up the other day – right on schedule – and it is splitting the crowd into the same two camps of dead horse-beaters. Just another day at the office for me.

As I’ve mentioned, there are several topics that are the Politics and Religion of cruising, subjects broached only for the purpose of starting conflict. They are:
1. diapered babies in the pools
2. dinner attire[1]
3. smuggling alcohol aboard

My professorial lecture today will be upon alcohol sneakery.

It is my position that you don’t discuss breaking a cruise line’s rules on that cruise line’s own message board. It’s tacky and displays a teenaged sense of both entitlement and self-superiority. Having current teenagers myself, and having seen one through to the other side, I’ve got perhaps less patience with teenagerness than others do, but suffice it to say I don’t suffer self-superior entitlement all that politely.

And teenaged entitlement and self-superiority is an appropriate description of what’s going on here, in several ways.

But let’s back up a bit first.

In 1984 Congress passed a stupid law called the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984. This was another federal law which required states to enforce it. It was one of the many, many “unfunded mandates” which has received bad press in recent years.

The requirements of this law are that those under the age of 21 cannot possess alcohol and requires punishment for them; it also requires punishments for those who sell it to them or otherwise provide alcohol to minors.

…and let’s back up again.

If you want to stop a group of people from doing something, then you punish the people who do that thing when they do it. Punishing those around them doesn’t deter the undesired actions of those who commit the crime. This is Criminology 101.

For example, it is undesired for murderers to murder people with guns. When a murderer murders someone with a gun and it is the bullet manufacturer or the gun seller that is punished for it, it doesn’t do anything to deter the murderer. It may actually encourage the murderer. And the Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 doesn’t punish minors for drinking – which is what it purports to prohibit.

What happened instead is that the provisions of this idiotic law have encouraged underage drinking, which is a perverse incentive if ever there was one. Laws intending to discourage underage drinking but which punish retailers who sell alcohol to minors doesn’t discourage minors from attempting to buy alcohol and drink it; it discourages retailers from selling it … to everyone. Which has resulted in the annoying, time consuming and inefficient practice of “carding”. Not to mention that it also effectively deputizes millions of retail clerks around the nation and compels them to enforce laws they have no Constitutional authority to enforce on pain of being punished themselves[2].

Minors who are caught trying to buy alcohol are not punished; they are not punishable. Instead they simply go down the street to another retailer who may not be willing to “card hard” that night. This law has created the incentive to sneak alcohol among the generation-plus of youngsters who came of realistic drinking age under it.

Additionally, underage drinking is not a crime under the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984. Underage possession of alcohol is the crime. And if you can’t tell what perverse incentive this creates, it only demonstrates that you were never a teenager or that you aren’t capable of thinking like one.

A teenager who gets hold of alcohol is presumably going to drink it. Drinking it is not prohibited by law, holding it is. So the teenager is going to drink whatever alcohol he gets as quickly as possible to minimize his exposure to the crime of “possession”. Can you say “chug chug chug”? I knew you could! The law trains minors to be binge drinkers as well as sneak-thieves.

Sneaking alcohol and binge drinking are two of the most obvious signs of pre-addictive behavior there are. You show me a guy who needs to sneak alcohol somewhere, anywhere, and I’ll show you a guy who’s going to need a twelve-step program before too long. The Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 has created what is inarguably the world’s largest pool of budding alcoholics since Prohibition.

Congratulations, Congress; what a marvelous achievement! For an encore are you going to encourage laziness and dependence, effectively perpetuating citizen infantilism[3]? Or perhaps you could systematically delegitimize stable two-parent upbringing for those children in most desperate need of every advantage they can get[4]?

But I digress. We’re talking about people wanting to sneak alcohol aboard a cruise ship, in sometimes rather large amounts. And the public discussion which follows.

The individuals who declare that they’re going to flout the “don’t bring alcohol” rule don’t particularly like hearing me tell them that they are displaying twenty percent of alcoholism’s ten warning signs[5]. They sometimes get quite defensive about it, in fact, which means they’re now displaying thirty percent of the warning signs. I’m not their father, they tell me, nor am I the cruise police. I have no business being worried about their alcohol habits, I am loudly instructed whenever this subject comes up.

And they are very correct. I am not their father, nor am I the cruise police. And if their alcohol habits had no practical ability to affect me in my own selfish self-interest, then they’d be correct about whether or not it’s my business. But that isn’t the case, and so it is my business

Unfortunately, other peoples’ habits have been made public fodder for years, and for a wide array of reasons. I’ll give the top two.

The first reason is the inherent nosiness that comes from living in a democratic society. Majority Will is being, and has always been, used as an excuse to butt into others’ lives and command them how to conduct themselves in public and in private, both. Alcohol consumption is one of the more notorious examples of such, in fact.

Some people just don’t like alcohol. And that’s fine. Not all of us like the same things as everyone else. I don’t like the St Louis Cardinals, for example. And if I were to put my mind to it, I could come up with a list of things that the St Louis Cardinals cause others to do – like become horribly poor sports and self-centered assholes incapable of holding rational discussions about baseball without genuflecting before the likeness of Prince Albert Pujols. For example. The list goes on and on and on.

Prohibition was legislation based on the premise that because I don’t like the St Louis Cardinals and can rationalize my dislike, therefore no one else can go to their games. It was monumental self-righteousness made statutory. Some people don’t like pate du foie gras and they rationalized their dislike, and inspired the Chicago City Council to ban pate within city limits. Others don’t like the idea of slaughtering horses for sale as whinnyburger and dobbin chops to the Frogs – they think it “inhumane” – and so they inspired laws to ban horse slaughter for meat export.[6]

I don’t like alcohol, therefore you can’t drink any; I don’t like pate, therefore you can’t eat it; I don’t want to see your old gray mare become a Frenchman’s dinner, therefore you can’t get your old gray mare slaughtered … unless she’s really old or sick or something and you promise to have the carcass rendered into dog food and fertilizer rather than Frog food. Being nosy and getting into everyone else’s business is a very democratic activity. See the Tenth Amendment.

Secondly, the nation we live in has whorishly wide tort laws. You can sue anyone for virtually anything – and someone probably has. Anyone does something stupid that so much as annoys you, sue their pants off. And don’t forget to sue the horse they rode in on[7]. Or, in the case of a cruise ship, don’t forget to sue the cruise line they sailed in on.

This may seem odd to some people – and I say that because it seems to confuse those on the cruise line’s message boards who want to sneak large amounts of alcohol on board – but people who drink a lot tend to do stupid things. People who tend to do stupid things tend to cause property damage and hurt people around them. People who are hurt, or people whose property has been damaged by people doing stupid things tend to sue those people whether they were drunk or sober when they did the stupid things.

And they tend, also, to sue the deep pockets cruise line. When the cruise line gets sued, their liability insurance pays for the litigation or, most likely, the settlement in lieu of litigating. And when the liability insurance pays a claim, even if it’s a ridiculous claim, the insurance company needs to recoup their costs and so it raises liability insurance premiums – just like auto insurance companies do. And the insurance company doesn’t limit increases in premiums to the cruise line which got sued any more than it limits the increase in premium payments to the driver who keeps running into trees.

The insurance company will increase its insurance premiums for everyone who meets the same actuarial criteria. If Cruise Line A gets sued every week by passengers who get injured by drunken frat boys, then Cruise Line A’s insurance premiums will increase a lot. Cruise Line B’s insurance premiums will also increase, but by slightly less than a lot. When other people in my home zip code run into trees more frequently, my insurance rates increase right along with theirs. …and thanks ever so much for that.

This means that when a passenger wants to smuggle a bunch of alcohol aboard a ship he is advertising that he is not simply in danger of pickling his liver – which is between him and his doctor – but he is also declaring an intent to raise the cost for me to go on a cruise. For when the cruise line has to pay increased liability premiums to even operate, they need to increase their fares to cover that cost.

The guy who wants to sneak booze aboard a cruise ship, as if it’s nothing more sinister than spiking the punchbowl at the High School prom[8], is asking to pick my pocket. And then this guy wants me to sit there silently while he does it.

No, son, that ain’t gonna happen. Sorry. Not silently. If you are going to insist on costing me money, then I’m going to insist on giving you a lecture. Fair’s fair.

And the lecture boils down to this: The cruise line has a rule against alcohol smuggling; rules exist for a reason other than to ruin your day. If you can’t be grown up enough to follow their alcohol rules, even if you’ve been trained to be an immature drinker by idiotic laws passed by an idiotic Congress, do not compound your immaturity by discussing how to flout the cruise line’s alcohol rule on the cruise line’s own message board …in front of me.

It’s gauche. And it will get you scolded for the child you’re acting like.


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[1] http://dblyelloline.blogspot.com/2008/05/atmosphere-pollution.html
[2] http://dblyelloline.blogspot.com/2006/05/crime-fighting-by-proxy.html
[3] Thank god we don’t have endless entitlements, eh?
[4] AFDC anyone?
[5] http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/alcoholism/ds00340/dsection=symptoms
[6] Horses are still systematically slaughtered for “humane” reasons like extreme age, disease and lack of usefulness, and with the same slaughter methods … and that’s okay in the minds of the horse lovers – who are almost never horse owners. Not that it matters. Democracy doesn’t require actual working knowledge of a subject before pestering legislatures to do what we want them to do: witness how many ignoramuses demanded an end to a war they didn’t understand and cried over how we treated enemy combatants who didn’t follow the rules while playing soldier. If actual knowledge were required before blabbering on a subject, I’d have the stage to myself quite a lot. And that’s no fun.
[7] Just to add an ironic segue.
[8] …and it’s about as mature as spiking the punch bowl, as well.

My World, and Welcome To It

The History of My World, Part I
© 2009 Ross Williams

I don’t like to write about work, much. First, writing about work tends to remind me of work when the time I spend away from work is filled thinking about work, and I don’t like being reminded of work. Second, I’m reminded of work often enough whenever I hear any news about tinpot tyrants getting all bossy and petulant[1], not to mention whenever I catch wind of the millions upon millions of my fellow citizens who may be bang-up stock brokers, or CPAs, or financial analysts, or auto mechanics, or plumbers or whatever else they may be, who think that because they’ve got a sincere belief about how the US should be acting towards the rest of the world that they can do my job better than I can … that fifteen minutes of CNN-filtered information meets and exceeds nearly thirty years of experience and raw data.

Third, despite having done what I’m doing for most of thirty years and being fairly good at it, I don’t like my job; because of who I ultimately work for [DoD] being populated by, essentially, autocratic assholes, and the company I work for having a large number of its upper management-types being retired autocratic assholes, my capacity for autocratic assholery is very, very rapidly surpassed. It makes me grumpy rather quickly.

And fourth, others who have written about their own work – and were not polite and complimentary to their employer, and by name – have gotten into trouble over it. Seems many employers don’t like having their dirty laundry aired in public. It’s not so much that I blame them, but I view it sorta the same way I view any type of domestic squabble: if you don’t want the people you meet on the street calling you a wife-beater, then don’t let the cameras for Cops catch you slapping up the old lady; it’s not the camera’s fault.

If you don’t want negative things said about you, then don’t do the negative things that tend to get talked about in front of those liable to talk. A lot of problems can be solved, and future problems avoided, by being a decent company which does not try to pimp out its own employees. It’s not difficult.

Now, this all said, I’ll be as polite as I can be while still being honest and factually accurate. And I won’t name too many names.

I got into this field back when Carter was President. I joined the US Air Farce. This was the age when Reagan combined Carter’s unemployment rate with his prime rate and his inflation rate to create the Misery Index® Reagan used to get himself elected. I was being materially affected by each of the three rising rates.

I was out of high school and rapidly spending what little money I had on college tuition that my academic scholarship – which almost but didn’t quite pay for books – didn’t cover. I couldn’t get a job – Burger King, big whup; I even drove a cab for a day. Didn’t qualify for student loans. I needed both a job and a college degree, and found that the only place which would give me the first while providing the second was the military.

And the Air Farce was the one branch of the service where I, a skinny, geeky, nerdy intellectual, could be in the military without being shot at. Probably. That’s what I was all about … the not being shot at thing. The skinny, geeky, nerdy intellectual thing just sorta happened while I wasn’t paying attention.

Technically, I was “in computers” for the Air Farce; a programmer. But specifically, I was stationed at the organization which taught the theory of air war. While I was not in a class which taught the importance of barrel rolls in mach-I dogfights, or the benefits and drawbacks of saturation bombing versus precision bombing in gaining strategic control of a battle theater, I got basic familiarity with the theory of air war. And I collected my bachelors degree. “In computers”.[2]

Then, because the military was obviously not my ideal avocation, and because they weren’t going to promote me until well into a second enlistment [the Air Farce is popular among those not wanting to get shot at], I decided to stop playing the military game about halfway into my four year sentence, which got me yelled at quite a bit by officers I didn’t properly – like, at all – salute, or the haircuts I routine failed to get, the shaving I didn’t always do, the shoes I didn’t ever polish, yadda, blah blah. When the time came, I declined to take any promotion tests for the promotion I wasn’t going to get anyway.

Because I didn’t take their irrelevant tests, the Air Farce declared that I was ineligible for re-enlistment. They wanted to get rid of as many of us “ineligible” folks as they could to make room for a new batch of geeky intellectuals who don’t like being shot at and for whom they could pay tuition; they “separated” me early. Akin to a parole for good behavior; “early separation for coming to one’s senses”.

But still, I had familiarity with the computer side of military theory. Now what sort of jobs might that prepare me for … I wonder …

I got a job for a defense contractor working the semi-theoretical, but mostly practical command/control aspects of war planning. Over the years, this contractor’s contracts have changed, and in addition to war planning, I’ve also worked for war execution programs, and war sustainment systems as well. At this point, I know more about how the US plans, executes and sustains wars than 99.9% of those who comment upon our wars, and I can safely say, without fear of meaningful contradiction, that the quibbles and whiny complaints put up that 99.9% of our country’s public commentators – including a great many of those in the media and Congress – are so full of shit that they constitute an environmental hazard[3].

At one point I even changed contractors entirely, but the second contractor dorked up their contract and lost it, then laid off half the staff [I told them and told them, but did they listen?] and that forced me into a temporary idle hiatus broken by consulting at a hospital, where I did such a good job automating their perpetually 5-months-behind budget process that they learned within days of month-end that they didn’t have enough money to employ consultants. E.g., me. I was thanked for saving them time, and shown the door thus saving them money.

By that time, though, the competitor to the defense contractor who had dorked up the contract was hiring people to work on the new contract, and I went to a third defense contractor only to learn that they were dorking it up even worse [they didn’t listen to me, either], and I ended up leaving to go back to the first place that hired me after the Air Farce.[4]

The preceding three paragraphs are not exactly a résumé-worthy rendition of the post-military portion of thirty years’ work – it’s not as self-promotional as it should be, and it’s way too vague – but it is nonetheless accurate.

What else is accurate is that I’ve seen, in those thirty years, one cure-all program after another claiming itself to be all the military [or its contractors] needs to do in order to ensure code that works, analysis that makes sense, and contracts that succeed. These notions leave the faint aroma of Clark Stanley’s Snake Oil Liniment on the air in much the same way that a skunk leaves putrid on same.

In any event, I’ve endured a dozen or more of these technological patent medicines, each hawked from the back ends of ass-drawn wagons. “Trade publications”, they call them today. Of this dozen or more, there were only a few real biggies that I’ll mention.

The first was while I was still in the Air Farce, coding happily[5] away for the war theory folks. It was called Top-Down Structured Programming. TDSP according to the abecedists so prevalent in the military. My upcoming criticism of the thing is not to say, nor even to suggest, that structure of any kind – top-down, or bottom-up, or even side to side – is not desirable in coding, but it is to say, explicitly, that the military’s way of implementing technological theories is heavy-handed, absolutist, and not amenable to reasonable qualification.

In a nutshell, TDSP was a command from On High to rid all code in the USAF of every goto statement. Not reduce goto statements as commercial data systems were doing, but eliminate them. Why? Because too many goto statements in computer programs made those programs difficult for others to modify later[6] when it was found the code didn’t work right, or when the requirements changed.

This makes as much sense as declaring that a driver may only drive on his side of the road. We all know – those of us who drive – that it is highly recommended to drive on our own side of the road virtually always, but if we’ve been paying attention we know very well that driving on our side of the road is not, and cannot be, an absolute requirement. It would lead to irretrievable traffic jams and accidents. What happens when a dead deer is lying in the road, in our lane? We wait for any oncoming traffic to pass and when it’s clear we pull into the other traffic lane and go around the deer. This is Driver’s Ed 101.

Want to know what happens when the military imposes traffic law the way they imposed TDSP? You turn off the engine, sit in your car … in the road … and wait for the god damned carcass to get scavenged by crows and turn into dust. Only then may you proceed, because you may never, ever, ever use the other traffic lane – a “go-around” as it were. Thus sayeth the regulations, … and you cannot disobey regulations without risking disciplinary action. Doesn’t matter if the regulation is stupid or not. That’s the way the military works.

Needless to say, without goto statements [or other such syntactic equivalent] a programmer cannot perform exception-processing[7] without standing on his head and flipping an endless series of inefficient and contrived back somersaults. It is bad coding technique – not to mention bad traffic law – to absolutely disqualify any maneuver at your disposal simply because of fashion or fiat. And the best part of military dictates such as these is that they’re both fashion and fiat: the choice to implement the policy is often because the guy in charge got a wild hair across his ass, and he imposes his wild ass hair absolutely.

The military’s faddish devotion to Top-Down Structured Programming ended quietly and disgracefully in the mid-1980s only to be replaced by their faddish and irrational devotion to the cure-all/do-all computer language known as Ada.[8]

Different computer languages were built to be good at doing different things. Fortran was built to be good at number-crunching. COBOL was built to be good at formatting business reports [before the invention of spreadsheets]. Basic was built to be good at teaching youngsters to talk to computers. C was built to be good at allowing geeks to wander around inside computers without having to use assembler to do it.

Ada was designed to be good at everything. Hence – as anyone with even the slightest cynicism can guess – it was good at nothing. Therefore – as anyone with any familiarity with the perverse priorities of the military mind can speculate – the military loved it.

Who didn’t love it were those who actually had to use it. And most resisted. Not because they didn’t know the language – they [which included me] were all given extensive training in Ada. It’s because using Ada to accomplish even a simple programming task is straight out of a Rube Goldberg[9] wet dream. Using Ada to write a complex programming task was virtually impossible, and is what ultimately cost Ada its lofty position as DoD’s Chosen Language: none of the systems selected for re-engineering could be completed; they all ran out of disk space.

Ada was rendered irrelevant by more than a decade of rampant non-use.

No sooner had Ada been diagnosed as dead a decade after the fact that the military caught wind of the notion of quality, and Total Quality Management was born. In other places this concept is known as a “quality circle”[10]. In any event, the idea originated in Japan, in their vertically-integrated manufacturing industries. The core element in this corporate philosophy is that the bottom-rung riveter on the shop floor with the high school equivalency diploma can halt a manufacturing production line at any moment if he sees something wrong with the thing being manufactured. His quibble will immediately be elevated to the cabal of multi-degreed engineers who designed the thing. The engineers will then redesign the thing, and keep redesigning the thing, until the weenie with the GED is satisfied.

And this may work wonders in Japan, where personal honor is a cultural trait, and disemboweling yourself for embarrassing your family during a game of Pictionary is a weekly event. The Japanese weenie with the GED won’t stop production lines unless something is actually wrong. But this is America, where honor has long been sold to Reality TV, and embarrassing yourself with scandal leads to Oprah and book deals and producing the movie of your own life which is broadcast on Lifetime Network.[11] Every self-obsessed retard – which is to say half of us – would stop the production line for no other reason than to bring attention to ourselves.

Not only was this implemented in America, but it was implemented in the American military.

Think about that for a second. …and a second is all you should need.

The low-level grunt gets to push the ‘off’ button on a project. How many buck privates sitting up to their ‘nads in murky foxhole water haven’t wanted to push the ‘off’ button on the offensive that would get them shot at and possibly killed? …besides all of them?

With TQM, they can do it.

“No, General, I’m not satisfied that you’ve thought your battle plan through thoroughly. See, I’m being put in mortal danger, here, and until you revise your plan to where I’ll be as safe and comfy as if I were playing ‘Mortal Kombat’ on my Playstation, I’m afraid I’ll just have to say no.”

Oh, but see, the guys in charge of the military had already thought of that. For being dim-witted, they’re very good at protecting their power. Commanders who issued the orders being quibble-dicked had the authority, under TQM, to determine which quibbles against their orders were going to be allowed to actually stop those orders from being carried out.

It shouldn’t be too hard to guess what happened. Every quibble was immediately denied, and anyone who quibbled more than once – if my experience was anything to go by – was reprimanded for being insubordinate. Quibbling stopped almost as soon as it started … with few notable exceptions.

TQM died its ignominious death at just about the same time as the vertically-integrated Japanese economy tanked … seems their rate of “honorable’ disembowelments dropped like a stone. And, perhaps not surprisingly or coincidentally, Reality TV is a major industry in Japan today. I have no clue if they have their own version of Oprah Winfrey yet.

No sooner had TQM stopped twitching than it was replaced by CMM. This is the abecedism[12] for a meaningless group of words which were jammed together by a similarly meaningless group of PhDs at Carnegie-Mellon University: Capability Maturity Model. These eggheads asked the rhetorical and axiomatic question: “How can we tell when software works?” and rather than accept the self-evident answer – the computer does something more than blink blandly back at them – they devised a byzantine, not to mention ontological, manner of determining, by use of documentary “artifacts”, that something they could hold in their hands or run on their computers actually existed independently of holding it or running the program.

If the tree falls in the forest and someone is there to hear it, it only makes a sound – under CMM – if there is a paper trail describing the event.

A million angels could be dancing on the head of a pin, but unless they signed in and the sign-in sheet is filed away in a manila folder in a filing cabinet somewhere, the angels are all wallflowers and the hoe down never occurred.

The eggheads at Carnegie-Mellon sold this paradigm to the US Military for several million dollars, plus annual consulting fees with a few commas in the price. But it’s the $250 toilet seat that always gets the headlines. …which says more about the headline writers and the public who reads the headlines than it does anything else.

The most recent $250 toilet seat to come down the pike is called Security+. Identity theft and phishing scams and malware are all bad things, and the military, understandably, wants its computers to have no part of any of them. I don’t blame them.

But as we recall, the manner by which the military imposes its policies is heavy-handed, absolutist and not amenable to reasonable qualification. Network security is – rationally – a matter for computer network weenies, the comm guys, to deal with. The folks who deal with actual traffic into and out of the military’s computer systems have the knowledge, expertise and – critically – job description to do that function. “Need to know” and “access” are critical pieces of security, particularly in the military, and despite the infomercial sales pitches being lobbed around, security of this type is not, and cannot be, “everyone’s job”. Security+, therefore, to the degree it actually addresses network security, is pertinent only to those who work with network security.

But the military is requiring Security+ training for everyone who uses military computers.

Which is sorta like requiring automotive engineering training for everyone who drives a car. Or nuclear engineering training for anyone who turns on a light switch when the electricity comes from a nuclear power plant.

This is, suffice it to say, a waste of time. Because time is money it is also a waste of that as well. Perhaps the most ironic part of the Security+ sales pitch is that it helps an organization identify costly computer scams before they happen.

Here, though, the military is a step ahead of the curve: it’s not their money this time. They didn’t pay for this heavy-handed policy like they paid Carnegie-Mellon for CMM, or whomever for TQM, or the salaries of their own compu-wonks who created Ada; they are, instead, requiring every contractor to pay for it themselves – as a contract requirement – by whichever means that contractor deems appropriate[13].

New contracts are being written that require the contractor to provide something of value – the time and effort of the contractor’s employees – to the contracting agency in return for … nothing. Or in return for winning the contract, which is much the same thing, legally. In other parts of the world this is called a kickback, and if the governor of Illinois does it, it gets followed by federal indictments of the governor[14], everyone who looks like him[15], and the horses at least one of them rode in on[16]. Not to mention the permanent stains it leaves on the Senate appointment filling Barama’s seat.

But the US Military isn’t the governor of Illinois and his bionic hair; it is instead an arm of the federal government, and so all bets are off. Federal laws, as we should all be aware by now, are meant for other people to follow. The government itself is exempt.

It’s good to be the king.


*********************************************************************



[1] http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,522103,00.html
[2] I had enough credits for two degrees, actually, the second being History. But on the enlisted pay scale, and with a pregnant wife, and only enough cash to apply to just one department for the necessary certifications to get a sheepskin, I weighed the benefits and drawbacks of a BS in CompSci versus a BS in History, and determined that I’d rather be a computer geek than the night manager of Denny’s.
[3] This explains why I find it so annoying when people on the street start to lecture me, even if they aren’t specifically talking to me, on US foreign affairs and the military portion of the subject: they are almost never more than coincidentally correct about more than one or two details, and they always insist upon creating vast oceans of false “fact” derived from those one or two points or, more commonly, from the non-facts they invented on the spot, by which they seek to explain why up is down, black is white, and 2+2=5. Don’t quit your day jobs, bozos.
[4] This place doesn’t listen to me nearly as much as they should, for what it’s worth.
[5] Or not so happily. I spent nearly three years counting down the days I had left in the mind-numbing hell that was – and is – military service to anyone with an IQ above day-old buttered toast.
[6] See “spaghetti code”
[7] “exception processing” is the computer lingo for the method we are trained to use on the road in Driver’s Ed and every road safety class ever constructed. Without roadway exception processing we would be compelled to back up in our lane to the last intersection and seek a detour – or come to a dead stop – every time we encountered a dead deer, a pothole, a blinky-light barricade, a construction flagman, et cetera ahead of us. Imagine the mess we’d have. That was similar to the mess the military created for itself with the idiotic “no goto” edict.
[8] In a piece of writing started while in the Air Farce, and owing much inspiration to Ambrose Bierce’s Devil’s Dictionary, I defined an elephant to be a mouse designed by a government committee. Ada is C designed by same.
[9] http://www.rubegoldberg.com/
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/rube%20goldberg
[10] quality circle jerk, in some quarters.
[11] Starring, in my case, Hugh Laurie.
[12] An acronym must be pronounceable as a word, like scuba – self-contained underwater breathing apparatus; an acronym which cannot be pronounced is an abecedism. Not that I’m pedantic, or anything.
[13] You may refer, here, back to the paragraph at the front of this essay in which I talk about an employer pimping out its own employees, and how that negative action tends to get talked about negatively by those negatively affected.
[14] Rod Blagojevich
[15] His brother, Rob
[16] Was Rod’s horse-faced wife, Patty, indicted? I honestly forget.

Hogan’s Heroes, Revisited

Hogan’s Heroes, Revisited
© 2009 Ross Williams

With the change of Administration came a renewed call for trials and charges and habeas corpus and Due Process for the Detainees [incorrectly termed “Prisoners of War”] at Guantanamo Bay Naval Station. Those making these renewed calls are those who wish to advertise that they know nothing about the applicable international conventions which apply, and wish to do so as loudly as possible in public.

Typically, this would serve only to embarrass themselves to a wide audience. However – and unfortunately – the audience in question knows no more about it than the intellectual ninnies calling for civil rights to be lain at the feet of those who, until captured, were trying to kill US soldiers in a war zone.

Several things have been going on with this subject and it’s painfully obvious that no one – particularly none of those in authority or claiming authority – is willing to acknowledge anything outside their own narrow agenda. Perhaps this is not so surprising, but it is still annoying as hell. I’m getting more than a little tired of having to point out how not only is the emperor naked, but so are those who have ever sought to replace him.

Get some clothes on, all-a yuz. It’s chilly. And hit the gym, wujja?

At any rate. We embarked on a war in Afghanistan in late ’01 in response to the paramilitary agents calling themselves Al Qaida and residing in Afghanistan who undertook acts of war and quasi-war against us on 9-11-01. Because the putative government of Afghanistan – the Taliban – would not assist the rest of the world in locating and detaining those residents of Afghanistan responsible for the acts of war as would otherwise be required, the system of recognized international protocols commonly called International Law defined those al Qaida agents to be the responsibility of, and effectively agents of, the nation of Afghanistan.

Ergo, because Afghanistan was the refuge for a paramilitary group who undertook trans-national acts of war, and because Afghanistan refused to help find and prosecute that paramilitary group, the government of Afghanistan is assumed responsible for that paramilitary group and became complicit in their actions[1].

So we invaded Afghanistan.

The next thing that happened is – not surprisingly – the folks in charge of Afghanistan and the paramilitary group they helped fought back. The Taliban and al Qaida were not going to go quietly into that good night, and they shot back at us. When cornered, or when they ran out of bullets and RPGs, though, they gave up. Quit. Raised their hands and turned themselves in. They became our prisoners.

Just one wrinkle, though. According to the internationally recognized protocols – which are, once again, what we call International Law – the folks who fought back against our invasion were not, by and large, following the rules of how to play soldier. Those rules require that if you’re going to play soldier, you either:
1. Wear the uniform of your formal military force, or
2. If you are not part of a formal military force but wish to play soldier anyway, you must either [among other things] wear a badge or marking “recognizable at a distance” to indicate that you are not a civilian, or you must be part of a spontaneously formed invasion resistance force which carries its weapons “openly”.

The wrinkle is that neither the Taliban nor the al Qaida combatants did either one of those things.

…and it should probably be described here why these particular international protocols – in this specific case, the Geneva Conventions – were written in the first place. The reason was to make war somewhat more civilized, by making it easier to tell soldier [and those playing soldier] from civilian and thus make it a little safer for civilians caught in a war zone. If you were a civilian playing soldier and you didn’t follow the rules requiring you to identify yourself, then you are instead making it more dangerous for civilians in the war zone – for soldiers have the right to shoot at anyone shooting at them, soldier or otherwise. And if you make it more dangerous for civilians by refusing to follow the rules for playing soldier, the Geneva Conventions were written to discourage the practice be excluding those persons from the safeguards and protections that the Geneva Conventions otherwise guaranteed.

In other words, the Geneva Conventions themselves say that if you don’t play war properly, the rules of “fair” and “humane” treatment do not apply to you.

The Taliban and al Qaida combatants were caught fighting out of uniform and, because their existence predated the start of the war and could not therefore be considered a “spontaneous” militia, they were also caught out of required marking “recognizable at a distance”. This means they were indistinguishable from civilians in the war zone. This means they made it more dangerous for legitimate Afghan civilians. And then we captured some of them.

Let’s read the actual GenCon[2] that applies here, the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War. Article 4 of this GenCon describes who qualifies for the protections under this convention and, by exclusion, those who do not. The highlights:
· Para. A, subpar. 1: uniformed armed forces
· A 2: militias: “… having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance”
· A 3: armed forces even of nations not officially recognized
· A 4: military contractors [i.e., me]
· A 5: air or maritime crews not covered under other treaties
· A 6: spontaneously-formed militias which carry their arms openly

Additionally:
· B 1: ex-military who have tried or may try to rejoin the military
· B 2: any of the above who seek neutral country to escape the war

That’s it.

Nowhere in these critical definitions is the inclusion of pre-existing paramilitary groups who fail to identify themselves as civilians playing soldier. According to this Geneva Convention, the protections granted by it do not apply to them. They are making armed conflict more dangerous for civilians caught in the war zone and the protocols of International Law actively try to discourage this behavior by excluding them from humane treatment.

The standard rebuttal to this is to cite the third paragraph of Article 2, which says: “Although one of the Powers in conflict may not be a party to the present Convention, the Powers who are parties thereto shall remain bound by it in their mutual relations.” Which means that the United States is still required to abide by the terms of the Convention regardless of whether its enemies do or not.

…to which: we were. The Convention defines only certain types of combatants to have the protections guaranteed, and we were following the Convention by denying protections to those who do not meet the qualifications for Prisoner of War. With specific reference to the war in Afghanistan: Taliban and al Qaida combatants are not “prisoners of war” and we are under no obligation – according to the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War – to treat them as if they were.

In point of fact, we would, instead, be acting contrary to this GenCon were we to apply POW protections to those who don’t qualify.

The second quibble commonly made[3] is that Article 3 states: “…Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely … the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever…: Violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture; … Outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment; The passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.”

Phwew! This, to these imbeciles, means that irrespective of who can be classified a proper POW by the terms of the Convention, the protections of POW must be applied despite the wording of the Convention itself which says otherwise.

That is simply preposterous. This idiotic interpretation of the GenCon is based, in no small part, upon the willful and deliberate elimination of the first sentence of the Article[4] cited: “In the case of armed conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties, each party to the conflict shall be bound to apply, as a minimum, the following provisions:…”

Article 3 applies to civil wars and civil wars only … in nations which have signed onto the Geneva Conventions. The US invasion of Afghanistan is not a civil war. “Common Article 3” does not apply. Article 4 definitions declare that the combatants captured in the Afghan War are not POWs and not, therefore, granted protections.

So, if they don’t qualify as legitimate Prisoners of War, what is their International Law disposition properly to be?

Technically, the IntLaw definition which most closely describes these people is mercenary:[5]
Article 47.-Mercenaries
1. A mercenary shall not have the right to be a combatant or a prisoner of war.
2. A mercenary is any person who:
(a) Is specially recruited locally or abroad in order to fight in an armed conflict;
(b) Does, in fact, take a direct part in the hostilities;
(c) Is motivated to take part in the hostilities essentially by the desire for private gain and, in fact, is promised, by or on behalf of a Party to the conflict, material compensation substantially in excess of that promised or paid to combatants of similar ranks and functions in the armed forces of that Party;
(d) Is neither a national of a Party to the conflict nor a resident of territory controlled by a Party to the conflict;
(e) Is not a member of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict; and
(f) Has not been sent by a State which is not a Party to the conflict on official duty as a member of its armed forces.

A mercenary does not have the right to be a POW. …interesting…

And going down through the list of requirements of mercenary-dom:

Both the Taliban and al Qaida were recruited locally and abroad to fight in armed conflict; the Taliban, to fight against the “Northern Alliance”, al Qaida to fight against American-led crusading.

Both Taliban and al Qaida combatants actually participated in that [eventually merged] conflict.

Both are motivated by private gain – 72 virgins in paradise is, to their worldview, every bit as material as a paycheck; and since there were no legitimate armed forces of Afghanistan in the first place, any non-theological remuneration is more than a comparable uniformed combatant would get – anything is more than nothing.

The Taliban and al Qaida both are largely foreign transplants into Afghanistan; Taliban coming in following the evacuation of the Soviet forces to take advantage of the power vacuum in order to install a fundamentalist Islamic regime, and al Qaida arrived in the years after that because the territory suddenly became a safe haven from which to plan and plot anti-western, anti-US paramilitary activities.

Neither are members of any state military.

Neither were sent by another state.

They are mercenaries. They are “illegal” combatants insofar as this protocol of International Law says they “do not have the right” to be combatants, and if captured, they do not have the right to be POWs.

If they do not have the right to be POWs, and are not rightful combatants, then why is there so much fuss about us treating them impolitely?

Because most of what we know about International Law comes from Hogan’s Heroes reruns.[6] Hogan could always stymie the Nazis by waggling his finger and invoking the Geneva Convention, thus causing the Gestapo Major Hochstetter’s blood pressure to skyrocket and Klink to issue his withering and weary cry of exasperation, “Colonel Hoga-a-an…”

Ultimately though, on the point at specific issue here – these captured combatants are “illegal” combatants and were called “detainees” instead of prisoners of war – the United States was entirely correct in its initial claims. Using the very plain[7] interpretation of the applicable pieces of International Law, the vast majority of those captured in the Afghan war and sent to Guantanamo were outside the protections of the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War; they were more properly defined as mercenaries and thus not “rightful” combatants in the first place – which also denies them POW protections; and the criticisms of US policy over the terminology and treatment are baseless, requiring whole sections of international treaties to be voided.

On other issues, though, the official US position was based upon moral grandstanding and upon no legal footing whatsoever: the desire to charge these captured combatants with US crimes.

At issue here is a very basic requisite of US and International Law: no ex post facto laws are allowed. The crime of “terrorism” was created by an outraged Congress after these people were captured and sent to Cuba. They were then to be tried for committing these crimes for actions they took prior to being captured. This is both an IntLaw foul as well as US law foul. Can’t do that.

Yes, yes, I know. We were all so very indignant that the world’s most visible and damaging acts of terrorism to date were taken against us on our own soil; that is enough to make anyone’s blood boil. But you gotsta follow the rules. It is enough that we have captured a whole bunch of mercenaries to whom we owe, under International Law, no particular politeness.

That wasn’t good enough, though. The Administration wanted to rub salt into their wounds, add the insult of war-criminal conviction to the injury of being captured in a holy war against crusaders and, by being captured, denied martyrdom. So Congress back-dated a brand new law to try the “illegal combatant” detainees using procedures which no US or international legal authority would support.[8]

…and the Administration was surprised as all get-out that the perennially tear-stained sympathy-fops among us, decked out in their self-loathing hair shirts, would object in every legal forum in the country until they found a judge who knew as little about international rules of war as they themselves did[9].

The perennially tear-stained sympathy-fops tried every manner of “legal” argument as well, in attempt to find any kind of story that would resonate with an ignorant judge. Among the arguments used were:

1] The Administration tried to sidestep American Constitutional protections of those in its custody by placing the “prisoners of war” in a non-US territory so as to escape US jurisdiction. Sorry, guys; Guantanamo Bay Naval Station on the island of Cuba is US territory. Stop listening to Castro.

2] The fake “prisoners of war” are entitled to have charges filed against them, and legal representation to dispute those changes, and just because they were captured – it says so in the Constitution. Sorry, guys; hostile actions between nations [or pseudo-nations, in the case of al Qaida] are governed by international law, and international law only. The international law which we signed onto and agreed to abide by says so. Further, no charges are necessary in order to detain a combatant, and any legal representation is only warranted if they would be charged with specific crimes committed “as a prisoner of war”.[10]

3] These pseudo-POWs are to be tried in civilian courts with legal rights afforded to US citizens … by virtue of the fact that it is the US which captured and is now holding them. Sorry, guys; International Law says otherwise.[11] Those captured in hostile action are subject to the capturing nation’s Military Law.

4] Sadly, et cetera.

Even more sadly, not one of the legal arguments made against the Administration’s proceedings were based on the only sustainable legal argument available: neither applicable international law nor US law support the concept of writing a law against terrorism after the fact with which to charge paramilitarist combatants.

In any event, the wet panties at the ACLU eventually found a judge as dim and ignorant as they were, and got a federal court to stop the legal proceedings against the detainees based on their potpourri of boiled gasbag assertions. The Administration, naturally, appealed the decision and the USSC put their political thumbs in the pie.

The most notable plum the High Nine pulled out of this nursery rhyme case relied upon a grossly distorted, dishonest and legally insupportable reading of Article 3 of the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War. They completely removed the qualification that Article 3 applies only to “armed conflict not of an international character”, which very clearly does not apply in this case, and thereupon wildly extrapolated the whole range of Convention protections to those the Convention excludes from protection, and to whom other conventions specifically deny those protections.

In other words: the USSC ruled that International Law is subordinate to US Law, and required us to treat as POWs those which International Law says are not POWs. The US acting high-n-mighty and self-superior. Who’d-a thunk it?[12]

Well, they are the USSC, after all; they have the authority to define how the US interprets its obligations under international treaties … irrespective of how logically strained or legally insupportable those interpretations may be.

So … fine. The “detainees” at Gitmo are now POWs. Which means that the US’s formal obligations to them are defined by post-Article 4 provisions of the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, which include the following:
· The POWs cannot be charged with crimes not defined at the time “said act” was committed – article 99.
· Absent criminal charge for judicial proceeding, the POWs do not need, as they are not otherwise entitled to, lawyers – article 105.
· The POWs can be held for an indefinite length of time, the end point of which is “the cessation of active hostilities” – article 118.

To say that this whole thing has been bungled from the beginning by every stooge involved is an insult to stooges. And we are now seeking the extremely myopic policy of releasing the Prisoners of War [previously and properly termed “detainees”] under the false notion that a nation – specifically the US – cannot detain those who tried to kill their soldiers during a war.

Arguably, this whole thing came about in the first place because the US tried to backdoor its collective righteous indignation into the crime of painting a target on America, and how dare anyone do that. When professional panty-wetters took exception to prosecution of this crime being used in the name of the United States, instead of arguing that the new “crime” was anti-procedural gimcrackery, they scatter-gunned a legal response which threw the whole thing into spiraling nonsense.

At this point, little can bring it back to a sound legal footing except those who untracked it in the first place with their “crime of terrorism” lunacy; they need to throw up as many legal roadblocks as the ACLU did and claim that the charges levied against the newly-defined POWs were improper, and have all legal renderings from the first such charge voided.

If the men detained in Gitmo are mercenaries as International Law says, then go through the proper mechanisms of defining them as such and summarily execute them – as we are entitled under that International Law to do.

If these people are, instead, to be considered Prisoners of War, then they get no lawyers and the ACLU needs to go away; further, they are also to be confined until the end of the war in Afghanistan – whenever that may be – and the ACLU needs to shut up about their indefinite detention.

But this wholesale redefinition of US and International Law to suit the whim of the day – no matter whose whim it is – has gotta stop. Makes us look arrogant and self-righteous to the rest of the world. … as if we think our rules are more important than everyone else’s and we’re making it up as we go along.


*******************************************************************


[1] A similar situation arose in South America in 2008, in which a paramilitary group in Ecuador crossed the Colombian border to undertake acts of quasi-war against Colombia. Columbia notified Ecuador that the raid took place; Ecuador said “Sorry, we can’t help you,” and Colombia thereupon sent its own military across the Ecuadoran border to kick some paramilitary ass. Ecuador complained to the UN and every reporter it could find about the Colombian border incursion, and while the reporters dutifully took notes about the US lapdog Colombia being rude to Ecuador, the UN said, “Too bad; you needed to either stop that paramilitary group before they raided Colombia, or turned them over to Colombia when asked. Doing neither makes you responsible for them.” Cuz that’s the way it works.
[2] http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/91.htm
[3] This argument was made in front of the USSC, which repeatedly cited “Common Article 3” in order to upend the heretofore universal interpretation of this GenCon and which effectively obliterated Article 4 of the thing. Legislation from the bench?
[4] Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, article 3
[5] http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/93.htm
[6] “We” does not include me, by the way. But unfortunately, it appears to include many of those who argued ineffectively in front of the USSC on behalf of the US posture taken – which was entirely consistent with both our previous enactments of these GenCons as well as the universally recognized international interpretations of them. “We” also, unfortunately, includes nearly all of those who argued against the US position – and who continue to do so – for it requires wholesale redactions to the protocols involved in order to get the strained interpretations they wish to arrive at.
[7] Not to mention universal
[8] Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, article 99
United States Constitution, Art I, Sect 9
[9] Are your ears burning, ACLU?
[10] Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, article 105
[11] Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, article 84
[12] …and wasn’t that why al Qaida attacked us in the first place? For presuming to be better than everyone else? Why, I believe it was.

Cock-a-Doodle

I Know Why the Free-Range Cock Crows
© 2009 Ross Williams

Roosters are mean.

They are territorial.

They are aggressive.

Worse, they are single-minded aggressive[1].

They are arrogant, have no discernable memory and no known ability to comprehend reality.

It is only because we want to have some protection from critters for our hens while they roam the yard during the day that the rooster we have has not yet died a violent and bloody death, though it’s been close a few times. The thing has drawn my blood twice, my oldest daughter’s once. It’s stalked my wife on several occasions, and made the mistake of ruffling its feathers at my son – whose rooster it is, by the way – at which time my son took to it with an aluminum baseball bat.

My wife has repeatedly smacked it with the kennel-cleaning shovel. Both my daughters have kicked it, never gracefully, but my youngest runs from it when she’s alone with it in the yard. I routinely punt it across the pasture whenever it comes within boot-swinging range. My son and I have taken to periodic pre-emptive strikes whenever it goes into pre-attack posture just to keep the damned thing humble for a few hours, and our farm-sitter refuses to sit the farm unless we catch it and cage it.

We have saved its neck a dozen or more times from our two bigger dogs who got the stray notion through their wind-swept skulls that they wanted a fresh-kill chicken dinner. I feed it daily before work, and half the time I am thanked by being skulked from behind with its neck feathers fluffed out looking for an opening to slash my leg into ribbons with its spurs. …for the third time.

It refuses to learn that if it would just strut around the yard acting as the front-line deterrent to nosy cats and the occasional coyote but otherwise leaving folks be that we would also leave it alone like we do the hens. Instead, it must act belligerent to any who cross its path which, mostly, are the folks who feed it and save its occasional life.

It has a compulsion to – literally – get its ass kicked by those who are bigger and stronger and have the opposable thumbs necessary to hold shovels and baseball bats as weapons. When pushed or annoyed enough, we accommodate it, and chase it into and through the barn to the pasture where, in a panic, it dodges this way and that to avoid being punted. Sometimes it can’t avoid the boot and ends up flapping and sprawling several feet away in a panicked, clucking heap.

Does it learn? No it does not.

And after each skirmish, after each encounter, it turns around, shakes it’s feathers down, struts off and crows[2]. Loudly.

It is very clearly declaring that it has won the battle. It may have drawn no blood, it may have been booted twenty feet, it may have lost two dozen feathers after being doubled off the wall, it may have no obvious, tangible signs of victory, but by god! it won.

The measure of its winning? it’s still alive. It wasn’t given the brutal death that nature would dictate for it had it attacked, say, a fox, and that many semi-natural people would assume for it, so … therefore … it is the clear victor.

And being so victorious and all, it’s going to let the whole world within earshot know about it. So it crows.

We’ll go out to the pasture to bring a horse in for the farrier, the rooster could be a hundred feet away; we leave the pasture with the horse… the rooster won again! It crows.

We’ll go out to the garden to pick asparagus and the rooster could be nowhere in sight. We go back in the house… the rooster won again! It crows.

It’s almost as if its existence is validated by these battles, real and imaginary. To those unaware of these barnyard dynamics, the rooster is merely making noise; it’s what they do. To those who’ve lived it, fed the cute little chicks[3] from pups, and watched them grow to pullet-dom only to have the two males fight incessantly until one was dead and have the victor turn its attention to every other bipedal life form around it, the rooster is bragging about routinely getting its ass kicked.

Which is funny as hell, cuz there’s no similarity between reality and this bird’s perception of it. It helps that our egos, not to mention our lives, are not affected by idiot poultry posturing, as well.

On the barn floor, though, a rooster who brags like this will draw the attention of every other rooster around. This is why, when there were two roosters in our flock, only one of them crowed. Only one was allowed to crow. It started out being the leghorn, since it was the first to grow up. It was big and strong and repeatedly smacked down the smaller, lighter rhode island red. And crowed about it afterward.

But the red soon grew up itself, and though staying smaller, it became quicker and scrappier, and didn’t like the leghorn crowing all the time. One day I came home from work to hear the red crowing and I looked in the chicken house to discover that the two boys had redecorated – painted the walls with the leghorn’s blood. I found Foghorn under the chicken house, humbled, covered in dried blood and plotting revenge.

…which it attempted to get many times. Every once in a while we’d hear the leghorn crowing[4] and knew that the power balance had shifted once again, but it never lasted for long. The red would soon retake the throne and the leghorn would be silenced. It was silenced for good one cold spring day a few years ago, probably after another of its failed coup attempts.

If we were roosters, we’d have the same visceral reaction every time the remaining rooster strutted around crowing in all its 8-pound glory. We would not simply respond to its aggression or pre-empt its aggressive posturing. We would be obliged to seek it out and kick its ass every time we heard it, for any reason. For that is nature. The real world works that way[5].

And the real world does not simply work that way among arrogant, bombastic birds, either.

Dogs, cats, horses – our two horses have a very clear winner and a very clear loser as well. And people work this way, too, though most of us seem too pious to acknowledge it.

I’ll come in from the pasture in the afternoon, listen to that bird shooting off its mouth, and some days I’ll very distinctly hear Hugo Chavez bragging about how he is defending South American independence from US imperialism[6] … by sending all his oil to Texas because he doesn’t have the knowledge or resources to refine it himself.

Other times I’ll clearly hear the Presley-loving, pompadoured comb-over Li’l Kim gloating about how he has bested the whole world by starving his people to death in order to afford to build a rocket out of spare American parts and bubble gum[7] … which he’ll then point at US forces in South Korea or Japan and crow once again.

Yet other days I’ll hear the unmistakable cackling of Ahmadinejad – who actually looks like a bird – boasting how he’ll blow Israel off the map and anyone else [i.e., the US] who stands in his way[8].

And still other times I’ll hear the sweet melodies of Castro crowing how, even under the barrage of US economic warfare, Cuba is still an independent powerhouse[9] of … of … of cigar rolling, perhaps.

There are others besides these, as well. All, in their own puny, insignificant ways are cocks crowing their magnified importance to a world better than they are, as they strut around the chickenshit barnyards they call home. Each is begging to have his ass kicked by those bigger and stronger and with better weapons and who will one day get tired of listening to them brag.

If we were Martians, it’d be funny as hell.





[1] …to the degree they have minds.
[2] Except, notably, when my son took batting practice on it. It hid for a week.
[3] awwwwww
[4] It had a lilt in its song that the red doesn’t have
[5] In the real world, crowing, bragging or gloating IS aggression.
[6] http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,518677,00.html
[7] http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,519418,00.html
[8] http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,517186,00.html
[9] http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/04/22/fidel-castro-obama-got-overture-wrong/

Saving the World from Democracy

Saving the World from Democracy
© 2009 Ross Williams

Every so often I get an email – usually from my mother – about how some history professor, or political science professor, or other expert in the field has just proven that US democracy is about to fold up its tent and hit the road. It’s normally based on some ancient Athenian history professor, or political science professor, or other expert in the field who noticed that the Greek’s own experiment in democracy a few millennia ago folded up its own tent once the Greek citizens realized that the authority for power in a democracy – Majority Will – can very easily plunder the Treasury of all public wealth by law, thus causing the Government of, by and for The People to quickly become the Government of, by and for the Lazy. It’s soon discovered to be easier to find some convenient [and wealthy] minority to lawfully rob[1] in order to continue satisfying the thirst for plundering the public treasury by the lazy majority.

It is frequently cited in these mass-produced emails that this Majority Will understanding of their power to plunder others under color of law has a ceiling of about two centuries, which puts our Welfare Society and other entitlement programs right on schedule for our democracy’s self-destruction. Political entropy.

Despite the sarcastic and cynical way I’m describing all this, the concept is sound[2]. Democracy without an abundance of self-discipline is doomed to fail sooner rather than later – two centuries, in the Grand Scheme, is no time at all – and it takes on the air of handing the house keys and check book to our three pre-teens and hopping a flight to Rio. What do we honestly expect to happen while we’re gone?

Of course the house will be a shambles when we get back – if it’s there at all. Of course the checking account will be overdrawn. Of course the child with all the Big Ideas® and Clever Schemes® is going to convince the fence-sitting child to go along with almost every cockamamie notion … over the objections of the timid, stick-in-the-mud, responsible child who keeps his room clean.

Of course this will happen. This is a Duh Moment.

Laziness and whim-fulfillment win out every time. And satisfying our whims is the ultimately laziness, for it not only means less work, but it also gives us an emotional charge at the same time. This is the reason that once the voters in a democratic society discover they can compel their legislatures to create Social Security, Food Stamps, Welfare, Medicare and Medicaid, all programs whereby the public rationalizes why it deserves a share of the public treasury, the more Big Ideas® and Clever Schemes® are going to be created with grander and grander rationalizations as to why more and more people similarly deserve having their existence underwritten by everyone else. “Universal” Healthcare, anyone[3]?

The ironic thing is that we created democracy to get away from this lazy, whimsical government which is known, in other circles, as Tyranny. You could look it up. In fact … here[4]. Pay particular attention to: “He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.”

What’s old is new again; there is nothing new under the sun; same shit different day … take your pick. In any event, the Declaration of Independence, if edited for modern diction and syntax and presented to the US government, would be fairly substantial evidence of treason were anyone to sign it; change a handful of names and virtually the whole thing reapplies today.

We have become our own parents. The outrages and offenses we bristled against 230 years ago and which caused us to arms are what we now do to ourselves. …seemingly without a second thought. We will happily reintroduce pre-democratic, pre-Constitutional expediencies if it suits our whim, our fear, our laziness. And we will self-righteously defend those lazy, whimsical, fearful notions as “moral” or otherwise justifiable when confronted about them.

I could go off here on large-scale issues owing to our nation’s mass paranoias like the Patriot Act, drunk driving, sexual predation, drug crimes – but I’ve already done so[5]. I could wax cynical on our nation’s laziness in accepting bureaucratic nannying and overkill rather than having to take the slightest bit of responsibility – not to mention risk – for and upon ourselves … but I’ve already done that as well[6].

Instead, I’ll point at a different subject.[7] Something new.

Some stupid lady, being stupid while driving, flattened another lady stopped at a stop light. The second lady was on a motorcycle, minding her own business and obeying traffic laws. The first lady – the stupid one – was applying nail polish to her fingernails and “didn’t see” either the motorcycle or the traffic light.

Understandably, virtually everyone hearing about this is outraged; I know I am. One woman is dead in a senseless and preposterous accident at the hands of a stupid, brainless, thoughtless other woman. It is outrageous, and outraged is how everyone should be.

But what is happening is that prosecutors are searching law books high and low for reasons to charge the stupid woman with a crime. Why? because they are listening to the majority of us … who are justifiably outraged, and are busy trying to convince ourselves that “something must be done”. More than issuing the stupid lady a traffic ticket, that is.

Only…

Being stupid isn’t a crime. If it were, there wouldn’t be a single person not locked up for one reason or another … and usually several. Society cannot function that way, and that is the ultimate purpose of having a government: to create a society that works.

Not all of our stupidities cause the senseless deaths of others. Some stupidities simply cause them grievous bodily harm, or poison their water, or make them ill, or cause them property damage that insurance cannot and would not touch. When these are done deliberately, they are called assault, or fraud, or what have you. When they are done out of stupidity, they are properly called stupidity.

Others of our stupidities annoy people, cause them to lose sleep, cause them to lose hair, or gain weight, or offend their sensibilities to distraction. In some instances, where actual harm is done by these stupidities, we can sue the stupid for being stupid. But being stupid is still not a crime.

You can’t criminalize stupidity; it would violate our civil rights. The right to be stupid is near and dear to most of us and many could not live without it. Witness those who defend the Designated Hitter and 90% of network television. Finding excuses to punish stupidity because it causes outrage is called vigilantism, which works off the human emotional impulse of vengeance. Which is, to beat the dead horse, what we tried to get away from 230 years ago. And here we are, less than ten generations later, trying to rationalize getting right back into it. …because it will make us feel better right now.

Illinois legislators, ever ready to be super serious in response to some outrage or other, are talking about criminalizing this stupidity. …because, like voting ourselves a share of the Public Treasury, we have discovered we can also vote ourselves out of freedom and into tyranny just as easily by indulging our whims, our laziness or our fears.

Being free means being free to be stupid. But being stupid carries risks – to ourselves and others. I find it interesting[8] that most of those clamoring for laws to criminalize others’ inconvenient or outrageous stupidities are quick to deny that the things they do which inconvenience or outrage those others should themselves be criminalized.

…like lawsuit abuses which have the cumulative effect of driving doctors out of practice by raising all malpractice insurance rates because a handful of doctors are truly incompetent enough to MALpractice medicine, while other doctors are sued because some [lazy] patients want a windfall for having undesired health and have to defend themselves … at the insurance company’s expense.

…like the endless justifications for pilfering the general public to pay for their own guilty consciences and sympathy binges, or their own lazy greed.

…like rationalizing vigilantism by passing laws in the heat of the moment to make others’ stupidities a criminal act.

Criminalizing stupidity has the net effect of formalizing vigilantism[9] and the emotional satisfaction we derive from it takes us one step away from Rule of Law which is supposed to be based on an unemotional, pre-defined and deliberative response to potential outrages. It moves us two steps closer to the barbarism of tyranny. Claiming to be “Rule of Law” because you’ve managed to change the law to criminalize stupidity along with deliberate actions is to short circuit everyone’s liberty for the current notion of stupidity. …which is what takes us two steps closer to tyranny: most of us aren’t even aware that their own future right to stupidity is now in jeopardy.

Let’s not even mention the effect it has on the ideals identified in our Declaration of Independence [it emasculates them], nor the principles fleshed out in our Constitution [it obliterates them].

No one is justifying stupid women stupidly applying nail polish while driving stupidly and flattening random motorcyclers obeying traffic laws. But others are justifying vigilantism under color of law to make themselves feel better.

Vigilante justice: can’t get more democratic than that.



[1] Lawful robbery is called taxation
[2] See Parliament of Whores, by the inimitable P J O’Rourke
[3] Do we really believe it makes a difference whether the public treasury is being plundered on behalf of ourselves, or on behalf of those we feel sorry for? Robbing Peter to pay me? versus robbing Peter to pay Paul? Either way, Peter gets robbed. Liberals and other sympathy-junkies have no moral leg to stand on.
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Declaration_of_Independence
[5] http://dblyelloline.blogspot.com/2009/01/government-bait-n-switch.html
http://dblyelloline.blogspot.com/2006/06/usda-prime-manure.html
http://dblyelloline.blogspot.com/2006/05/crime-fighting-by-proxy.html
http://dblyelloline.blogspot.com/2006/04/tawana-brawley-redux.html
http://dblyelloline.blogspot.com/2006/03/dignity-for-undignified.html
http://dblyelloline.blogspot.com/2006/01/screaming-of-meemies.html
et al
[6] http://dblyelloline.blogspot.com/2009/01/liar-liar.html
http://dblyelloline.blogspot.com/2008/03/citizen-raising-cain.html
http://dblyelloline.blogspot.com/2006/06/hating-hate-crime.html
http://dblyelloline.blogspot.com/2006/04/when-in-country.html
et al
[7] http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-nail-polish-fatalmay05,0,570584.story
[8] Which is to say hypocritical and self-righteous
[9] http://dblyelloline.blogspot.com/2009/04/its-dog-eat-dog-out-there.html

Cat Fight

Cat Fight at the I’m Okay, You’re Not Corral
© 2009 Ross Williams

So have you heard about this? The runner up to the Miss America title gave a politically incorrect answer to the live-action essay question and it “may have cost her the crown”?

Miss California. I could have sworn that the term “Miss”, when used in reference to a female, was formally banned in California … Maybe not. They’re full of contradictions[1] there.

And correct me if I’m wrong[2], but isn’t the purpose of the essay question not to grade the answer, but to grade how well the contestant handles herself speaking extemporaneously on a random topic in public? By all accounts, she handled herself well – perhaps too well. As it turns out, she already had a fairly well-formed opinion on the topic.

Not that I’m accusing the contest judges of being prejudicial bigots or anything unfair like that. Besides, for the judge in question, it’s been done and it’s being done once again. It should go without saying that if he did indeed dock the young lady[3] from California for giving the “wrong answer” to a politically-charged, not to mention sanctimony-laced, issue, then he is indeed the prejudicial bigot he’s been called for years, and saying so is not unfair. Indeed not saying so is dishonest.

Now, I say all this and the simpletons who know what happened are going to draw convenient conclusions based not upon any facts, but upon their own prejudicial biases … because they’re simpletons, and that’s what simpletons do: leap to idiotic conclusions because it makes them feel good to do so. I am sitting here writing this, defending the young lady from California, and so therefore I must agree with her.

Just one problem … I don’t. Not even close.

In fact, I think she’s a pinhead. Between 60 and 75% of the country agrees with her[4], though, in varying degrees of stridence and that makes me part of the “politically correct” minority on this subject. I’m just in that part of the minority who doesn’t feel the need to declare anyone disagreeing with me to be immoral – though I will assert [and support] that when one’s disagreement is based upon false or dishonestly selected facts that they are rationalizing. As far as I can tell, the nonjudgmental portion of the minority to which I belong is a fairly exclusive sub-minority. Me and maybe as many as five others. …in the whole country.

But that’s only as far as I can tell. I haven’t actually made a detailed study.

At any rate, Miss California came in second after having been asked, and subsequently answering, this question, posed by the pseudo-celebrity, pseudo-journalist “blogger” named, pseudo-cleverly, “Perez Hilton”: “Vermont recently became the fourth state to legalize same-sex marriage. Do you think every state should follow suit? Why or why not?”[5]

Her answer was along the lines that she was raised to believe that marriage was meant for a man and a woman, and so no, she did not ‘follow suit’. Though her actual answer was somewhat longer than this description of it, she said nothing which condemned the notion – and in fact said “it’s great” – just that she didn’t agree with it.

That’s pretty much exactly what she was asked: whether she agreed with it. And at the risk of repeating myself, her answer is not supposed to matter, but how she handles herself in off-the-cuff discussion does.

The wet-panty storm following this episode, though, is what truly baffles. Miss Massachusetts declared: “It's really hard to think that people still think that way.” Really? Around two-thirds of Americans think that way, cutting across all political, ethnic, racial, religious and class boundaries. You seriously need to get out more, toots.

Miss Connecticut said California should have considered the national audience. The same national audience of which two-thirds agree … not to belabor the point. Tell you what, Connecticut, you get together with Massachusetts up there since you’re neighbors and all, and go slumming in the real world. It oughta be an eye-opener. Don’t forget the cake.

Miss Vermont – and what is it about New Englanders? – averred: “I totally disagree with [her]. I have a very different perspective on gay marriage and I would have never said what she said." Well, that’s totally good, because if you disagree but said it anyway, then you would totally have been a liar. And that’s pretty much what everyone seems to be saying [after the fact] California should have done … lie.

How does lying fit in with the philosophy of the Miss America Pageant? I’m going to climb out on a limb and take a wild guess here and say: not well at all.

I may have spoken a trifle too soon; not everyone is advising Miss California to lie, actually; some are just calling her names no matter what she’d have said. Miss Massachusetts claimed: "She would've made herself look more like an idiot if she changed her mind." Well, duh.

California could only have been “more like an idiot” for lying if she was already an idiot for being honest with the “wrong answer”. Which suggests that something was up. This either means the question was a plant and the fix was already in[6], or the Thought Police are the next feature of the Department of Homeland Security. Neither option is comforting, frankly.

Massachusetts just loves to blabber: “I'm surprised that she would say it, knowing the demographic she was speaking to." Yes, indeed. The demographic of “America”, which supports man-woman marriage by roughly 2:1. Or did you mean the demographic she represents in California which, in a statewide referendum, just defeated a gay marriage bill by a sizeable margin. …which they blamed on the Mormons[7].

Pick a different line, Massachusetts. And … shut up, wilya? You aren’t good at this.

The award for mealy-mouthed ignorance goes to – interestingly – the winner: Miss North Carolina[8], who was asked the same question a few days after she won. I find ignorance such an admirable trait among the Fifteen Minute Fame crowd. Well, a typical trait, anyway. She vacillated: “…everyone should be able to enter into a civil union, where they're legally recognized as a couple and earn the same rights as a married couple. I'm not going to say whether or not I think it should be defined as marriage because that's up to our politicians and our elected officials."

Um. Sweetie? A “civil union” is getting married at the courthouse by a justice of the peace. It is still “married”; politicians haven’t a thing to say about it. The only reason the semantic quibble has come up at all is because there’s a significant number of religious dweebs, frequently from North Carolina I might add, who somehow think that if gay marriage becomes reality in their hometown, they will be forced to have those gay marriages take place in their churches[9]. Yet, how many of those churches have been compelled to marry non-members, or even members not-in-good-standing? Or, indeed, anyone they didn’t want to?

Short answer: none.

Long answer: not a god damned one of them. Not even the Catholic church, which has historical issues with divorce; they politely deny remarriage to those who never got the annulment, but they don’t have gargantuan hissy fits.

No church would be compelled to participate in any formality they didn’t want to. Learn this and learn it quick: There is no difference between ‘marriage’ and ‘civil union’. Cease the irrelevant blather.

We are a democratic republic, governed by a Constitution which puts our guiding principles and philosophies out in the open. If the majority of us want something to be a certain way – such as marriage being between a man and a woman – then that majority is entitled to get what they want.

…until it is shown – not asserted, not claimed, not histrionically demanded, but shown – that this Majority Will causes others to miss out on the same rights and privileges that the rest have. Such as the right to free association, inheritance, probate and divorce. At that point, it is the duty and obligation of our nation to say, “Oh, gosh, well, we never thought of it that way before, but you’re correct … you do have the right to be married.”

It has been shown repeatedly in the last several years that denial of marriage to those who are gay denies them rights routinely extended to others. This denial of equal rights violates Equal Protection.

Acknowledging this does not require anyone to like gay marriage, for requiring people to like something they don’t would deny those people their own rights to Liberty, Free Speech and/or Press, possibly their right to Freedom of Religion depending on the basis of their dislike, and just generally disqualifying their “freedom of conscience” which is at least as legitimate as the “right to privacy”. …which is also being trampled for those whose private opinions do not conform to, in this case, the very vocal and self-righteous minority who happen to be correct.

So you see, gay marriage aficionados, I am very, very comfortable advocating in favor of the issue that we both support, and in significantly more compelling ways than you’ve been able to muster, I might add. Yet virtually all those who support this notion are so god damned sanctimonious about it that they frankly don’t deserve the courtesy of respect. Come down off your faux-moral thrones and then we’ll talk politely. But not before.

And Miss California? you can come down off your cross, while we’re at it. You are now more relevant in losing the way you did than you could ever have hoped to be by winning. The religious talk-show circuit will be clamoring for you for years if not longer. If you play your cards right, not to mention invest wisely, you won’t have to work a day in your life. You’re going to pray for the arrogant asswipe who cornered you with that question? You should be thanking him; he’s obviously an agent of your god. That’d make him an angel, wouldn’t it?

The only – and I mean only – one to come out of this with clean hands because of a clean conscience is Miss Iowa: “I'm proud to say that our state has interpreted the Constitution to say that gays have the right to marry. Whether you agree with [her] or not, to be on national television and say exactly how you feel, it does take strength…

"People have blown it out of proportion."

No kidding. Let’s leave it there.




[1] Among other things
[2] I’m not…so you can’t
[3] Wasn’t “lady” banned in California also?
[4] …depending on how the questions are phrased… This includes majorities of declared Democrats and declared Republicans, both, so Democrats have no claim to being fundamentally different from Republicans. Gee! Where have I heard that before?
[5] http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,517616,00.html
[6] And nothing in “Perez Hilton’s” past would make that possible at all … would it?
[7] Religious groups make historically uber-good scapegoats, nein?
[8] I am referring to all these young ladies by their Objectifying names, since the Miss America Pageant is itself an objectifying institution that strips away all individuality, humanity and uniqueness from the contestants. …or, at least that’s what I have been told to believe by those who wish to strip my individuality, humanity and uniqueness.
[9] They disguise it under the shinola of rendering “legitimacy” to marriages not sanctioned by their faith; “marriage” is a religious ceremony, they claim, and if gays can get “married” then their church is somehow beholden to alter its religious dogma accordingly. Yet not a single one of those denominations so opposed have any issue with rendering current “civil unions” as legitimately “married”, nor those “married” by other religious denominations. No church has had to jump through any liturgical hoops. They are in violation of the Ninth Commandment by maintaining this specific opposition. Ironic, ainnit?

It's Dog Eat Dog Out There...

Going to the Dogs
© 2009 Ross Williams

Just over four weeks ago, my Main Dog Earnest[1] took a walk with my wife down to the corner to get the mail. My wife went for the mail, that is; our dog went for the excitement. This jaunt goes right past the territory – plotted out in urine spots and not conforming to any county plat – of the neighborhood bully dog. Marble.

Marble is of indeterminate sex, but from all indications, she’s a female. Those indications are: she doesn’t get along with other female dogs and continually attempts to pick fights or otherwise domineer any female dog she runs across. …which is an alpha female dog-type thing to do. Alpha males, on the other hand, would tend to compel submission from other males.

Marble is of indeterminate sex because she’s part husky or part malamute or part some-other-thing which grows abundant hair that collects mud and burrs and becomes matted and makes identification a rather cumbersome task; we simply haven’t checked. Shaved, she’s probably a very sleek and unimposing canine. Unshaved, she’s large and – to other dogs – very intimidating. Which works in her favor, because she views herself as the queen of all she surveys.

This, of course, doesn’t sit well with our Main Dog Earnest and her two Emergency Backup Dogs[2], the brother/sister act of, respectively, Pinky and the Brain. Both of our female dogs see themselves as the alpha females of the neighborhood, not to mention of our house. Among themselves, though, Piri tolerates Addie’s bossiness for only so long and then she’ll swat her and knock her flat. But since Marble is the neighborhood’s third contender for the throne, this leads to some spectacular posturing and theatrics whenever they all meet.

And it must be all of them which meet, for in the grand scheme of things Marble is indeed the mighty neighborhood HMFWIC[3]. When Addie meets Marble alone, they simple sniff and Marble tries to stand on Addie – to assert dominance – and usually succeeds. Addie will get up when she can and run off several paces to bark for help. When the Dynamic Dumdums meet Marble by themselves – led by Piri, of course; Ferd goes where his sister goes and does what she does – they charge Marble to a discreet distance and pace menacingly … or what passes for menacing in their world; I can spot the ersatz machismo. Marble, though, wanders as she pleases until confronted by a human who does not want her in his yard.

It’s when Addie and Piri and Ferd are all together and meet Marble that we get critical mass. Addie sees her bigger Emergency Backup Dogs as just that: the muscle to grant authority to her inconvenient smallness. Piri sees an opportunity to use Addie’s instigation to kick Marble’s ass off the throne. Ferd is big and dumb and will go along with whatever, just because he’s there at the same time as whatever it happens to be.

And that’s what happened that Saturday just over four weeks ago. My wife was walking back from the mailbox with Addie trailing along and sniffing whatever needed to be sniffed. Marble sauntered over from her yard to announce her presence. Addie and Marble sniffed and were otherwise being tolerant of each other. It was then that Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dummer – on their long legs which can cover ground like gazelles – came galumphing up out of nowhere. My wife, seeing this and knowing what was likely to happen, was this close to picking up Addie before the fight started. But Addie saw her gang, snarled at Marble, Piri and Ferd lunged at Marble, Addie jumped in the middle of the fray, Marble knocked Addie down and bit her head – which is roughly mouth-sized to most dogs.

Addie got two puncture wounds on her head, one at the top of her left ear and one behind it. And, critically, another puncture wound in her throat.

My wife picked up Addie, now bleeding profusely, and ran the rest of the way back home, screaming for me. When I got there I took Addie, yelled at one of the kids to go get a dishtowel, NOW! My wife ran to get car keys and inside forty-five seconds we were backing out of the driveway, towel around the dog’s throat, heading to the vet.

We called the vet from the car announcing the impending arrival of a mauled dog, and drove pall mall into and through town to get there. My Boy Scout training kicked in, but was in high conflict the whole way. You apply pressure to stop bleeding, but applying pressure to a gushing throat also serves to strangle that same throat. Addie’s eyes were fluttering shut from time to time and she was gasping on my lap. The towel was soaked in her blood, so it seemed like I was doing nothing right – she couldn’t breathe and she was still bleeding. I was convinced that she was going to die in my lap on the way, and as we got closer I was thinking that if we’d only saved a few seconds at this point, or if I’d heard my wife yelling from around the backside of the house a little earlier, she wouldn’t have died 10 blocks from … 6 blocks from … within sight of … in the parking lot of the animal hospital.

But as it was, we pulled up at the front door, I bailed out and some gentleman also coming in at the same time opened the door for me. I handed Addie to the nurse who came running out when she saw me and I stood there for a minute shaking, covered in dog blood. My wife came in shortly after covered in just as much blood.

So how come it is that a 15 pound dog who could easily fit into a gallon bucket has enough blood in her that she can cover two people with a gallon of blood – each – and still, as it turns out, not bleed to death? The nurse came back out after a few minutes and said that I had stopped the bleeding without strangling her. She wasn’t in shock, she was now only dribbling blood, and while worn out and lethargic, Addie was trying to lick the folks cleaning her up. We came back later that afternoon to collect her, and for a week while we went to work during the day she stayed in her dog crate so she couldn’t scratch open her wounds.

That was a fairly memorable early afternoon; not a good memory, but memorable just the same. If only someone had been there with a video camera to record it. I would not have personally have found such a video to be enjoyable to watch, per se. The events were emotionally traumatizing the first time, not to mention fairly disgusting. When we got back home from the vet after dropping Addie off, we found my wife’s leather work gloves and the mail[4] on a bucket in the garage, both sitting in a pool of still-liquid blood. We delicately picked through the mail to see if there was anything we absolutely had to have, like bills or tax refunds, and we chucked the rest. Along with the gloves.

But heck, somebody would have wanted to watch that video. That’s one of the things we’re guaranteed in this country of 300 million people: there’s an audience – however small – for everything you can imagine, including the grotesque and traumatic. And why not? Capitalism, free speech, craigslist.com … I’m pretty sure at least one of them is mentioned in the Constitution by name.

So what if I think it’s disgusting? So what if it actually made me cry while I was simultaneously strangling my dog and not stopping her throat from gushing blood, and so what if I would have the very same reaction were I to see it all over again on instant replay? Some people would get off on it, and I could have made a buck or thirty. On each of them. Why shouldn’t I be able to do that?

Because videos of dog fights are against the law. Robert Stevens of Virginia was arrested for, convicted of, and served time for selling videos of dog fights[5]. He sued the government and lost, he appealed and won, the federal prosecutors then appealed the decision, and the Supreme Court has now agreed to hear it.

The issue in a nutshell: selling videos of dog fighting is against the law because dog fighting is against law, and presumably you have to participate in the one to get the other. Since the state has a compelling interest to criminalize dog fighting, it therefore has the same compelling interest to criminalize video depictions of dog fighting. …because, after all, there is no difference between video and real life. Video IS real life.

Everyone born after 1955 knows that!

The Appellate Court drew a distinction between this and the only other depiction of criminal activity to also be upheld as similarly criminal: child pornography. It was “unwilling” to carve out another exception to free speech.

And this, as one might expect, drew the hoots and hollers of every emotion-laden dimbulb the Chicago Tribune could collect on its political blog pages. What were the odds that the Chicago Tribune would be a natural collection point for soft-skulled dinks?

Among the various vacuous arguments put forward to rationalize eliminating free speech for the marginal interests among us were:
1. Watching animals being mauled is disgusting – to which: yes it is, but so are half the folks caterwauling on American Idol and three-fourths of those who try [and inevitably fail] to sing the National Anathema. Not to mention that many many many people view pornography, the “real” adult kind, to be similarly disgusting but which has been consistently upheld as a protectable Free Speech;
2. Videos of dog fights are the same as videos of the “unreal”, child-form of pornography, because the victims in either case don’t know better and need to be protected – to which: while there are many similarities between children and animals, including an inability to find appropriate spots to poop and piddle for several years, not to mention trying to cram all the food they can into their mouths all at once and chew with their mouths open, animals do not have protectable rights under our Constitution. Laws we have against animal cruelty and abuse are only made because we are fundamentally a democracy and the majority of us want those laws. But laws which protect non-rights are [supposed to be] trumped by the Constitution[6] in support of the individual over the angry majority mob wishing to force the guy to conform. One of those rights is the free speech ability to make videos of every disgusting thing you can name and sell it on eBay. Civil liberties work that way;
3. It’s “torture” or other such made-up-on-the-spot crime against nature – to which: I understand it’s ever so much fun to impose your self-righteous, emotional outrage over and on top of and superior to a legal definition in our nation of laws which never, ever indulges vigilantism,[7]. But “torture”? Torture must be statutorily defined before it can be used here, and it isn’t. Not with respect to animals, anyway. Without a legal definition, “torture” means exactly what the speaker wishes it to mean. And with that in mind, “torture” is listening to half the folks on American Idol, and self-important idiots opining about fake rights and false freedoms for dogs. Get over yourselves;
4. Animal abuse is a “gateway” crime to people abuse, and videos of it are therefore the same as the act itself – to which: yes, the first part of that is correct: animal abuse is one of the very elementary predictors of certain violently abusive crimes, just as pot smoking is a similar predictor of heroin abuse, while poverty-class pot smoking is a predictor of street and property crime, and an obsession with fetishistic pornography is a predictor of sexual … “maladjustments”, let’s say. But smoking pot is not shooting heroin; smoking pot in the inner city is not car-jacking a late model sedan; and watching Behind the Green Door is not kidnapping, rape, and forcible sodomy. We have the right to fantasize about all these antisocial behaviors and use visual aids in the process; we just don’t have the right to actually do them. A video of a gateway crime is not a gateway crime. It’s a video of one. If you can’t tell the difference, then the one with the fantasy-reality conflict is you;
5. Dog fighting is still animal cruelty, which is a crime, and depictions of crime are not “protectable free speech” – to which: ever watch Cops? The low-budget, high-revenue reality TV show? Does nothing but broadcast one crime after another, for the profit of those with the camera. Now most of the people who watch it are doing so to laugh at the peckerwoods, while some are watching home movies-once-removed. Still others are undoubtedly watching for the purpose of picking up pointers on what not to do after getting caught slapping up the old lady. Each person sees something different in everything. But the law does not see “videos of crime” the same as “crime” – with the lone exception of child pornography. The law likely sees “profiting on videos of crime” the same as it sees “profiting on books of crime”, which is to say, not something that a convicted criminal can do. You can’t commit a crime, write a book [or sell the video] and make a million dollars so you can live idly rich after getting out of jail. So convict the guy of arranging dog fights – which is a legitimate crime. Once you’ve done that, then you can properly stop him from profiting on the video sales. But not until[8];
6. “Free Speech” doesn’t count unless you are giving an opinion or issuing a point of view or something else that is generally seen as “redeemable” – to which: congratulations; you’ve just obliterated 98% of all television [including American Idol, so thank you], rap music [thanks again], all radio except AM Talk Radio [dominated by superficial conservative wags, so you might want to think again], and everything that is remotely seen as pure, saccharin, shallow “entertainment”. Needless to say, this is not now, nor has it ever been, the case under American Constitutional interpretation. Pointless drivel for the purpose of inciting base emotional impulses is just as protected as NPR’s All Things Considered[9] and the Rush Limbaugh Show[10]. Virtually all speech in this country does nothing but regurgitate a few standard, dull, tedious axioms; almost nothing is original and therefore little is justifiably “redeemable”[11]. Funny, though, that our nation isn’t quieter than it is…
7. Well, dog fighting is not something that we want to encourage as a society, so videos which glamorize it should be properly prohibited … it’s common sense – to which: almost EVERYthing is “not something we should encourage as a society”, including [but not limited to] American Idol and other self-lobotomizations, partisan politics and other pot-kettling, “wholesome” entertainment and other oxymorons, soda-pop and other recreational drugs, microwave meals and other slow poisons, and college basketball tournaments. So. Fucking. What. Want to know what a society would be like which prohibited everything it didn’t want to encourage? It would be Amish on a grand scale and from which you couldn’t go home after visiting it the weekend, with imperious governmental “oversight” on everything. Think the Patriot Act was heavy-handed? Try Iran, without the beheadings. Or maybe with beheadings, who knows.


Face it folks, it’s a losing argument no matter which tack you take. It means nothing to protect someone’s right to issue banal blandishments. Free speech is only worth a damn when it protects the antisocial jerkwad who gets off on the disgusting, the cruel, the offensive and the criminal fantasy. Decide now whether you like freedom or would choose tyranny. Because if you want to have disgusting videos shelved because you, in your self-righteous self-importance, think they are disgusting, then you’d better not complain the next time someone else thinks something you do is just as disgusting and wants to criminalize you.

Be outraged if you wish, be disgusted. Feel your stomach turn and tie itself into knots just thinking about endless loops of dogs ripping out the throats of other dogs. I’ve actually seen it, in my own front yard, on my own dog, not to mention on my jacket, shirt, pants, gloves, boots, driveway, garage and wife, and I’m all those things and more. But we are either a free nation, or we are not. It’s either-or; you gotta pick one.





[1] A paean to Dave Barry. Our “Earnest” is named Addie, short for Addison, the street on which Wrigley Field is located. Addie weighs maybe 15 pounds if she’s both soaking wet and has just glutted herself on a dinner of wild-caught moles and bunny ears – and just before she barfs them up on the carpet. And earnest she is: she’s part terrier and is therefore long on self-esteem and short on everything else, including humility; she believes she’s Dogzilla.
[2] The natural, followup paean to Dave Barry. “Pinky” is Ferd, the male, and dumb as a box of mismatched doorknobs. “The Brain” is Piri, the female, and she’s the plotter and schemer. They are part pyrenees – hence their names – and also part lab, and weigh between 50 and 70 pounds. They aren’t small.
[3] A USMC term meaning head mother fucker what’s in charge.
[4] remember the mail?
[5] http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2009/04/supreme_court_dogfights_v_free.html
[6] Notable exceptions are made subordinating property rights when the property you own is a duck you wish to fatten for pate du foie gras, or a horse you wish to sell as steaks to Frogs; also due process, equal protection, and freedom from involuntary servitude if you are a divorced father; not to mention freedom from warrantless searches if you are an airline passenger; additionally, freedom from warrantless searches and from compulsorily providing evidence against yourself if you are driving and a cop thinks you have been drinking …
[7] This is heavy sarcasm, in case you had trouble spotting it.
[8] Did I mention that you can still buy The Anarchist’s Cookbook? Even after 9-11, the Patriot Act and all those paranoiac, self-righteous Republicans ran the country “like dictators” for eight years. This is a criminal How-To manual, ferdgodsake.
[9] Which routinely fails to consider anything other than what it finds in its own navel, but that’s beside the point
[10] Which can hardly be said to even have a navel of its own, which is also beside the point
[11] Notice how I neglected to mention the “piss on Jesus” “art”? Find something socially redeemable, or “opinion-stating”, about that. If you wish to claim that it rejects mainstream social values, which becomes a valid, if cliché, opinion, then what the hell do you think a video of dog fighting does?

Nothing Flat

Nothing Flat
© 2009 Ross Williams

My wife and I travel to Chicago several times a year. Most of our time there we’re in the neighborhoods. Those parts of the city cram-packed with three story brick walk-ups [condo or otherwise] among which small shops, corner bars, and restaurants are jammed.

In these parts of the city there are many, many people who ride bicycles. Bicycles are quicker point to point than walking, and you won’t lose your parking spot. And parking spots are a serious matter in Chicago. Arguments about parking spots have inspired fistfights, vandalism and a bizarre parking spot reservation ritual which, if you refused to follow the unwritten rules, resulted in further fistfights and vandalism[1].

So bikes are common. And with a growing awareness of The Environment® among the bicycling-effete[2], not to mention the growing awareness of high gas prices, bicycles are becoming more and more common every day. Frankly, this is a good thing. It makes sense for people who can avoid using cars to do so as often as possible.

But, honestly, most of the bike riders I’ve run across in Chicago are arrogant assholes. I’ve been involved in a few online discussions with people in the general public on bicycle versus automobile articles in the Chicago Tribune[3], and there are very few bicyclists I’ve talked with whom I can truthfully describe as not sitting on their own shoulders pretty much constantly[4].

Nearly all of them quote facile bumper-stickers and say such vacuous things as “Cars need to see bicycles.” Which is unequivocally true, of course, but it’s only a [small] portion of the total sharing the roadway equation. Bicyclists themselves need to follow traffic laws. And this is a significantly greater piece of the puzzle, to be blunt about it. Because no matter how often, how loudly, or how self-righteously anyone wishes to declare that automobiles do not follow traffic laws, the fact of the matter is that when car meets bike on the street, regardless of the legalities of how the two meet, bike loses – each time, without fail. And if the bicyclists would follow the traffic laws first, there’d be significantly fewer meetings.

Personally, I admire those who bike where ever they can. Also those who walk. Particularly when they are not trying to make me walk farther than I want to, or bike at all. When my wife wants me to go riding, I think “horse”. …for which our streets were originally designed, by the way; not for cars and certainly not for bicycles.

That, though, the “streets were made for bikes” argument, is one of the typical notions flung around like road apples whenever bicyclists get their pointy, helmeted heads involved in any of these discussions. And from this follows a predictable pattern of argument:

Bicyclist: The streets were made for bikes.

Rational Person: That’s incorrect. If the streets were made for bikes, they’d be significantly narrower and not have parking meters along them. The streets were made for cars; bicycles are simply allowed to use them at the same time … and are subject to the same traffic laws while doing so.

Bicyclist: But why should bicycles need to follow traffic laws when it’s clear that cars don’t?

Rational Person: Most drivers do follow traffic laws, rolling stops notwithstanding, and in any event, in any car-bike collision it’ll be the bicyclist who loses.

Bicyclist: …which is all the more reason for cars to be required to follow traffic laws even more than bicycles.

Rational Person: So what you’re saying then is that bicyclists are not, and cannot be, responsible for themselves or their own actions. It has always seemed like bicyclists were irresponsible; it’s just interesting to have one admit it…


And that’s how these discussions invariably unwind. Who follows traffic law the least and who is more immoral for doing so; and who should follow traffic law the most: cars for the sake of creating the uber-safety bicyclists demand, or bicyclists who presumably want to make it down the block without denting someone’s grille.

In attempt to add some methodology to the dogmatic madness, I announced a few years ago in one of these online discussions that on my next trip to Chicago I would pay strict attention to the bicyclists we encountered on the streets. As it happened, we went to Chicago just a few weeks later to see a weekend Cubs game. Our normal driving pattern for these events is to get off Lakeshore at Belmont where we turn right on [I forget] and go north two blocks to Roscoe [a one-way westbound]; turn left and cross Halstead through Boystown, past Clark, past Sheffield, to Kenmore [my wife’s old haunts] and find on-street parking there for the game. After the game, we’d come back on Church [one way eastbound]; to Halstead [maybe, I forget again – it’s by the Walgreens at any rate]; turn left onto Belmont and pick up Lakeshore. In all, this is maybe two miles where we can share the streets with bikes.

In these two miles on this one trip we encountered bicycles 5 times. Six bicycles total [one time was a two-fer]. It’s been two years, and I’ve lost track of the details, but this is what I recall:

Incident #1: driving west on the one-way Roscoe in Boystown, we encountered two bicyclists travelling eastbound, weaving in between parked cars to ride on both the street and the sidewalk as their self-important whims dictated. We saw them well ahead of time [light traffic] and slowed to avoid their King of the Road-ing.

Incident #2: having failed to find a parking spot on Kenmore on the first pass, we turned right on Belmont, went one block farther west, turned right on [whatever it is] in order to circle back around and find a parking spot on Kenmore near my wife’s old apartment. At one of the all-way stops in fairly heavy traffic on this circle-back was a bicycle in our traffic lane directly in front of us. He was waiting his turn to proceed through the intersection – itself a rare occurrence; it came to his turn and the cross traffic and oncoming traffic stopped. He proceeded through, straight, and once he got through the intersection, two things happened at once:

1. The oncoming car, on its turn, started to proceed through the intersection;
2. The bicyclist suddenly realized that he didn’t really want to go straight after all, and he quickly hooked a left turn and cut in front of the car which was proceeding – legally – through the all-way stop.

The driver slammed on his brakes, missing the bike by maybe a half a foot, and yelled and glowered at the bicyclist who turned, yelled a very audible profanity at the driver [as if anything was his fault] while simultaneously flipping him off.

Incident #3: Another all-way stop but with far less traffic, a bicyclist coming from the wrong direction on a one-way side street proceeded to enter and pass through the intersection without stopping. Also, without even slowing down[5]. And it actually looked like the guy didn’t even dart his eyes around to see if he was going to encounter any vehicles.

Incident #4: I forget, but it involved another exceptionally unsafe bicyclist action.

Incident #5: This was the only incident occurring after the game, and it was on a very busy Belmont travelling east toward Lakeshore where a Latino-looking gentleman was riding his one-speed bike – common in Mexico, by the way, not that I’m insinuating anything. He stopped at the stop light and even though no cars were using the intersection he waited along with the rest of us for the green light. We passed him in the next block and left Chicago’s side streets with the last memory of bicyclists being a good one. The only good one.

But 4 out of the 5 incidents we encountered in roughly two miles of Chicago’s side streets involved phenomenally foolish and suicidal actions on the part of the bicyclists – who often wish to blame automobiles and their drivers for every entanglement because cars frequently do rolling stops at stop signs. When reminded that bicyclists rarely even do that much, the bicyclists’ common response is to claim that it’s hard to start up from a dead stop – boo hoo.

…which it probably is. I’d imagine it’s even harder to start from a dead stop when you’re lying dead in a crumpled heap in front of a face-dented fender, though. And not to suggest that it is always a choice between those two things, in certain cases it is as the earlier link to the Chicago Tribune article indicates.

It’s incredibly easy to blame automobiles and drivers because when bicyclists do phenomenally stupid things in front of cars, the driver’s natural impulse is to get angry at the bicyclist for scaring the wits out of the driver. This driver’s anger indicates – to self-centered bicyclists – that drivers are outraged at having to share the streets with bicycles and actually wish them harm … as many, many, many bicyclists have claimed during their irrational renditions of discourse on the Chicago Tribune’s public comment pages.

Not meaning to intentionally inflict ill will upon the family of the dead bicyclist cited in this article, but understanding that I probably will, 16 year-old Tess, sister of the deceased bicyclist in question, does pretty much that exact thing. She claims: “…nothing will change unless drivers start to wake up and realize that they are not alone on the road, and that they are not entitled to it any more than cyclists."

Um, Tess? Dear, sweet, ignorant, lashing-out-in-anger Tess? The issue in general, and the issue specific to your dead brother is the opposite of how you characterize it: it was your brother’s own actions which caused his death. If he had been following traffic law he would not have turned his 15 pound bicycle in front of the 15-hundred pound car who ran him flat. It can reasonably be said that your brother assumed that it was he who was entitled to the roads more than automobiles are.

But at least Mom has her head on her shoulders; she says, “We refuse as a family to have his legacy be that he died on that corner. His legacy will be one of change." Good for you, Mom!

And let the change be this: bicyclists either follow the traffic laws or they get the hell off the streets. Now, because bicycling is a good idea, and the more bicycling we have the better it will be for everyone, how about bicyclists simply follow traffic laws.

That can be a change some people can live with.



[1] A person leaving an on-street parking spot they wished to use several hours later when they returned would have a lawn chair or other such object of private possession weighted down in it; it was “understood” that only the owner of said lawn chair could remove it. This, of course, is about as mature as licking every cookie on the plate to ensure that no one else will take any, and it was particularly the habit in winter when a person who spent 45 minutes digging his car out of the snow would not want to have some schlub come in and vulture the spot he’d labored over. The city has formally announced that such reservation schemes are illegal and will subject the owner of the lawn chair to, effectively, getting a parking ticket.
[2] These Cycling Chicagoans are aware of the environment in general, which is to say in theory. They have heard of places which have not been paved to within an inch of its life, but otherwise have little to no concept of what occurs outside the cozy confines of their cloistered 6-block neighborhood. Which is the reason they – like many other modern troglodytes – continue to pretentiously scold rural folks for not taking the non-existent public transportation to work, or riding bikes for 30 miles one-way.
[3] Such as this one: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chicago/chi-cycling_awarenessapr17,0,563844.story
[4] Or other such terms as indicates they have their heads up their own asses.
[5] This is not the first time I’d seen this specific form of arrogant disregard for traffic law, personal safety and the emotional well-being of the poor schlemiel who might kiss this ass-wipe with the front of his car.

Remember

The Good Ol’ Days
or
The Short Shelf-Life of Modern Political Nostalgia

© 2009 Ross Williams

Remember when it was prima facie proof of Republican and Bush corruption that many of the advisors collected around Bush and into his inner circle – frequently referred to as his "handlers" – were millionaires? Remember how those who disliked Bush and Republicans not for stated desires or enacted policies but because of knee-jerk "principle" caterwauled endlessly on the internet and blogs and the ironically-named lead-filled running shoe sob sisterhood of MoveOn.org because the preponderance of millionaires controlling the White House only showed that the super-rich were ganging up on the helpless poor?

Remember how people in some places actually took to the streets over it?

Remember?

Well, those helpless poor have gotten their President now, and nothing has changed but the names on the 7-, usually 8-, and sometimes 9-figure personal wealth statements of the President's inner circle[1]. It’s still the super-rich in charge of the country.

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Remember when it was prima facie proof of Republicans' and Bush's inhumanity to his fellow [foreign] man that US foreign policy dared to shamelessly and openly cavort with known despots who failed to always think of the human rights of their citizens? despot-run nations such as Saudi Arabia and Pakistan? Remember how it was similar prima facie proof of Republicans' and Bush's foreign policy insularity that, ironically, the US deliberately failed and refused to engage such nations as Cuba, Iran, Venezuela and North Korea – all ruled by despots who also never considered the human rights of their citizens? Remember how US confrontationalism toward these other despot-ruled nations showed Bush's arrogance, ignorance, contempt for world peace and ambitions to world dominance and domineering?

Remember how both of these contradictory dogmatisms was among the cornerstones of the populist indictment of Bush as a “war criminal” who needed to be hauled in front of the World Court?

Remember?

Well, those Human Rights Warriors have gotten their President now, and he's still in bed with the despots-in-charge of Saudi Arabia[2] and Pakistan – and will continue to be – and he's making kissy-face and trying to climb into bed with Cuba and Iran[3]; he's still being confrontational to North Korea[4]; and regardless of what the official US policy toward Venezuela is now, Venezuela is still acting as if the US is still the same old bully we ever were[5]. …though I imagine Chavez has lost whatever ambitions to hump the female US Secretary of State that he once had. And I don’t blame him.

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Remember when it was prima facie proof of Republicans' and Bush's foreign policy ineptitude and US-centric arrogance that he could not get along in good faith with our friends and allies? how Bush and the Republicans "squandered", by 9-12, the 9-11 goodwill ladled upon the US in torrents of foreign altruism?

Remember how it only demonstrated the cowboy nature Bush supposedly exemplified?

Remember?

Well, those group-hug-harmonists have gotten their President now, and he's been publicly repudiated by the same set of friends and allies[6] who don't like Obama's US-centric economic cowboyism any better than they liked Bush's militaristic hootenannying.

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Change happens, but only one funeral at a time[7]. And speaking of funerals, we’re having just as many for US soldiers as we did between May ’03 and the fourth week of January ’09. Yet we seem to have collectively stopped counting body bags[8]. Remember when it was critical to count our fallen soldiers and publicly wail over each? Why, it seems like just three months ago …

Remember when every bong-laden Disraeli with a semester of PoliSci could prattle off the casualty figures in up-to-the-minute accuracy and, by punctuating their sermons with tears, convincingly describe how such historically low casualties in foreign occupations of non-pacified nations was indifferentiable from military disaster? Two combat deaths at a time in Iraq is a veritable Waterloo. Remember when we couldn’t get away from a daily recital?

Remember?

Well, the choir-converting preachers have gotten their President now, and counting war dead would only serve to embarrass him – and we can’t embarrass the President, now, can we? – so the war dead silently pile up in Delaware where grieving families must resort to individual theatrics[9] to get the same fleeting relevance as was once dispensed like water.

======================================

The point of all this tit-for-tatting is not to offer up the most recent episode of gratuitous partisan infantilism. The outright Republicans are doing that well enough on their own. Just as we saw the Democrats doing themselves for the previous eight years during Bush the Younger. Which was itself preceded by eight years of Republican ditto during Clinton. Which was preceded by a sustained period of Democrats’ same during Bush the Elder and a large portion of Reagan[10]. …which was preceded by Republicans’ yadda [and Democrats’ whistling past the graveyard] during Carter. …which was preceded by Democrats’ blah-blah [and Republicans’ whistling past the graveyard] during Nixon/Ford.

I can’t do such partisan tit-for-tatting because for me to do so would either be a one-sided affair, or I would be required to go up against the world. Libertarians’ natural political enemies are totalitarians, and outright totalitarians are scarce in the United States. Instead what we have here are pseudo-totalitarians, quasi-totalitarians, totalitarians-by-degree – cryptotalitarians, as it were. Those who want to take away some of our liberties and dignities, a few at a time, for the political expedience du jour, and make us think it’s for our own good the whole way rather than for their own aggrandizement and governing convenience. …which is to say, “they” are both Democrats and Republicans.

And this means that for me, a libertarian, to go toe-to-toe and tit-for-tat in partisan harangue I’d either have to go up against the chimeric, phantasmagorically non-existent American Dictator Party, or I’d have to take on both of the myopic, cyclopean dinosaurs of Democrats and Republicans. Doing the former is somewhat masturbatory and otherwise self-delusional; doing the latter is kinda messianic, not to mention that it’d be like rasslin’ pigs in mud: it’s what pigs do, and you do yourself no favors by volunteering to play on their home field.

Instead, I will remain aloof and above it all, stand on the sidelines and issue the same scold I’ve issued for as long as I can remember: there is no difference between either of them and we are deluding ourselves when we claim there is.

Dig it, dimwits: All rulers are rich, always have been and always will be. They either started out rich, or they killed the rich people, took their jobs and stole their money thus becoming rich[11]. Either way, while they rule they are rich. And once becoming the rich ruler, they surround themselves with more rich people, forming a cabal of rich, rule-making, rule-enforcing, rule-ignoring power-mongers.

This is not the same thing as “all rich people are rulers”. This latter premise is only syllogistically valid under those economic schemes in which money is deliberately kept from the hands of masses. Despite how we may feel at this particular moment, that is not happening here … yet. It is, though, happening in Venezuela. And North Korea. For Democrats to have ceaselessly whined for eight years about how rich the Bush Administration particulars were was self-indulgent foolishness. And if the Republicans now pick up the same idiot gauntlet and fling it back [and they are] they’d be advertising themselves as no different [and they aren’t].

Dig it further, dimwits – and I’ve said this before – cavorting with despots, in a world where three-fourths of the nations are ruled by them, is mandatory if we wish to know what the hell is going on. The Human Rights records of these various places is irrelevant. Deliberately not cavorting with a specific despot is only sane if you have another country do the cavorting for you – as we have arranged with regard to Iran for thirty years, Cuba for almost fifty years, and North Korea for sixty[12].

There is nothing specifically alarming about Barama cozying up to Cuba and Iran. With Cuba it’s long overdue, in fact. But this no alarm cozy is in theory only, and follows on the maxim: keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Cozying up to Iran is fine for Barama to do … as long as he understands that Iran is our declared enemy, which is to say: Iran has declared they are our enemy. See, idiot ideological posturing is not simply a Republican-American personality flaw; it predates the Republican party by a few millennia.

I’m not certain the White House fully comprehends Iran, though I’m positive that most, if not all, the career diplomats and military wonks feeding the White House do.

But for street-level Democrats to incessantly whine for the previous eight years because Saudi Arabia has lousy human rights[13] and we’re their friends – boo hoo – is to once again indulge the same self-deceptive faux-martyred foolishness. Not to mention that it’s one short step shy of that form of self-important racism once so popular under the names “White Man’s Burden” and “Manifest Destiny”. …which we implemented in our dealings regarding Serbia/Kosovo, and which many wish to implement in future dealings regarding Sudan/Darfur. Just sayin’.

If we wish to engage despots, then engage.

If we wish to engage despots by kicking their asses all over a battlefield in a pre-emptive war for regime-change – and because they’ve pissed us off – then we are just like we’ve always been, and just like everyone else has always been, besides.

If we wish to engage despots for the purpose of bettering them for any reason, including “human rights”, and by any means, including warfare, then we are self-righteous at a minimum and quite possibly racists to boot, but not particularly any different from how we or anyone else are or ever were.

If we wish to engage despots who have declared themselves enemies of our nation, then as long as we continue to see them as our enemy … engage.

If we wish to engage enemy despots but forget they are enemies, then we are lazy, careless and suicidal.

If we wish to engage enemy despots and actively deny they are enemies, then we are delusional and suicidal.

If we wish to not engage specific despots because we have a prideful prejudice against them or they don’t treat their people politely, then as long as we have a backchannel [which often consists of using another despot as our proxy], then withdraw.

If we wish to not engage specific despots for any reason and are too arrogant and self-righteous to get a backchannel, then we are lazy, careless, delusional and suicidal.

If we wish to whine about any of it because the wrong party is doing the engaging [or non-engaging as the case may be], and for reasons not supported by our personal or collective political belief systems … then we are infants.

Dig it deeper, dimwits: any nation’s policies must be geared toward what that nation considers its own benefit. Altruism does not exist in foreign policy, whether the specific policy is for diplomacy and militarism, or for trade and commerce. It is the mark of gross ignorance and naiveté to see altruism in any foreign policy; Kennedy’s Peace Corp was not meant to make third world countries more habitable because the US is kind and benevolent, it was meant to make third world countries more habitable for the sake of making third worldERS more friendly toward Uncle Sam and thus allow us to win allies in the Cold War without having to use and over-use geopolitical arm-twisting. [The results were mixed].

When a foreign nation complains about what the United States does, it is not a referendum on US partisan politics. It is a statement about the United States itself, transcending our politics. France complained about the US going into Iraq in 2003[14] not because of Bush being a bully, but because it would interrupt the cozy little French Connection built between Iraqi Oil and French Profiteering on same. Germany is now complaining about the US model for world economic recovery not because of Barama being a semi-socialist, but because Germany is being asked to contribute more than they want to.

The United States is the top gargoyle on the gothic cathedral, the alpha dog in the junk yard, the chief dung beetle in the manure pile. Other nations resist doing what we want them to do for the same reason that little sisters resist doing what big brothers want them to do. Unless it’s because they resist for the same reasons that teenagers resist doing what parents tell them to do. If you comprehend the basic dynamics of those two relationships – big brother/little sibling and parent/teenager – then you understand 95% of the interactions in international politics[15]. It’s not a secret, nor is it a mystery.

Other nations resist us because we are the United States. We resisted French and British [and Spanish and Ottoman and Mexican and Japanese and German] hegemony when they were in a position to impose it and we were in the position of resisting or having to comply. Positions are simply reversed today. They will again shift in the future; history works that way. It is no more complicated than that, and has nothing to do with our circumstantial partisan arrangements. It is because other nations are just as self-serving we are. Go figure.

Crying about us being self-serving while ignoring everyone else being self-serving is … you guessed it … delusional, self-indulgent foolishness.

Democrats’ complaints for the prior eight years were monumentally immature and advertised a near-universal lack of comprehension of anything outside the boundary of their own navels; Republicans’ complaints for the eight years prior to that, and which are again starting to congeal on the national landscape, are the same. I can’t even say they are the equal and opposite criticisms, for they are not opposite to any prior whining. The only thing that’s changed is the party being criticized and the party doing the criticizing; the criticisms themselves are identical: “the people in power aren’t us, so what they do is wrong.”

Perhaps this all qualifies as me taking on the whole partisan American political world and if so, then so be it; but – and let me directly address both Democrats and Republicans now – if the two of you can’t grow up, can you at least try to remember something beyond the party changes of our presidents? Please?




[1] http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/obama/chi-white-house-wealthapr09,0,1573304.story
[2] http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-kass-10-apr10,0,4524363.column
[3] http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/04/08/overtures-despots-pose-test-obama-administration/
[4] http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,512138,00.html
[5] http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/01/19/chavez-likens-obamas-stench-bushs/
[6] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/30/world/europe/30merkel.html
[7] Plank’s second law
[8] Fear not; one of the many functions I perform in my real job in data-analyzing US wars is to track all the dead, burnt bodies of US soldiers as they are transported back to Dover AFB. “We” have not lost track, but apparently CNN and the NY Times has. It seems pointless to count war dead now that the object of their counting has left office, doesn’t it.
[9] http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102791680
[10] though not the whole Reagan administration. Democrats, apart from being notoriously soft-skulled, are also soft-hearted, and the Hinckley episode made them temporarily forget that they despised the guy for being “only an actor” who was, even so, a better politician than any of the professionals they threw up against him. Much like Barama today.
[11] Take, for example [please], the leaders of the world’s two most impoverished peoples: the Palestinians and the North Koreans. Li’l Kim is fabulously wealthy while his adoring peasants starve, and Yassir Arafat died a few years ago leaving his widow a billionaire while his countrymen hold bake sales to raise cash to buy Katusha rockets to lob at IDF.
[12] …to the degree North Korea was willing to cavort with anybody.
[13] it’s tough to be kind to people who are constantly trying to violently overthrow the government – ask the Shah of Iran
[14] This was at a time, remember, in which France was doing to no less than a half dozen nations of west and central Africa what the United States was preparing to do in Iraq. There is nothing particularly alarming about hypocrisy in any nation’s foreign policy – after all, they are looking out for themselves – but it becomes tiresome when the ignorant masses willfully fail to recognize it for what it is.
[15] And, conversely, other nations do what we want for those very same reasons; when smaller siblings believe push has come to shove, they are going to side with big brother; when teenagers finally mow the lawn and clean up their rooms it’s because they either want something, or they are afraid of the consequences of not doing it. Not siding with big brother only means younger sibling doesn’t believe push has yet to come to shove; not mowing the lawn only means teenagers don’t want anything and they aren’t afraid of consequences.

Liar, Liar

Liar, Liar
A Libertarian Challenge to our False Political Dichotomy

© 2009 Ross Williams

I got into a brief email discussion with a lady at work a few weeks ago. She's a city councilman, er, -woman, for the town where my office is located, and she had sent out an email notification to everyone that her town was going to participate in one of the many state and/or federal programs by which cops violate everyone's civil rights by setting up slowdown roadblocks[1] and check drivers for seat belt usage, handing out tickets for those not in compliance. ...not to mention also handing out tickets for anything else they could think of at the same time. This was the second such slowdown roadblock in this town paid for by the feds in a year. My co-worker was being nice in trying to warn us to slow down, buckle up, strap in the kids, wear pants, hide that open can of beer, yadda yadda.

I replied that’s all we need is more warrantless searches on the feds’ dime trying to convince us that we're all really only 7 years old and need constant nannying in order to keep us from getting booboos.

She replied that if it was up to her, the cops would spend a lot more time enforcing traffic law in her town.

I replied that I wasn't surprised since she got a kickback that went into her city budget from each traffic fine written in city limits.

She replied that they only get a small amount of each fine.

I did not reply that any is too much and moves the law enforcement incentive away from "public safety" to "secondary taxation" ... though I used the phrase "secondary taxation" in a few of the emails. Instead I replied that they need more civil libertarians in her town who prefer freedom and liberty to being hectored to death by a group of self-righteous, power-hungry ninnies. I may be paraphrasing somewhat in my use of adjectives...

She replied that her town needs lots of things, including political diversity. I spit coffee all over my keyboard at this comment, and stopped replying. She can justify warrantless searches on her streets, but try telling her that the entrance to our parking lot is like driving over logs, and she'll make excuses about "curb profiles" and claim nothing can be done. You're on the city council; it can be done if you do it.

Then earlier this week I read this article in the Chicago Tribune[2]. Honestly, this has been "news" for quite a while, and I can only think that it's being replayed now because of the coronation of "Barama" as the new National Savior. Those who were sociology students and paid attention to this particular sub-field already knew what the article said. It's been happening for decades.

At any rate, the upshot of the article is that we, indeed, do not like diversity – at all. People in general hate diversity. And yes: even those who say they like it, love it, want it, or need it.

No, you don't.

If you still wish to maintain that you do, I'll be forced to conclude that you're a liar. And possibly the worst kind of liar there is: the type who doesn’t know it and lies to themselves. They end up lying to everyone, and they actually believe what they say. Think what you like about the callous and calculating liar who knows what he says is a lie; they're in it for personal gain. The lie-to-myself-first dope is in it for the ideology – the political equivalent of religion.

Diversity does a great many things to us and for us, nearly all of which are only theoretically good. We can sit around the coffee shop, or the bar, or the college classroom, or the stage in front of the live studio audience for The View and piously declare that we want to have differing positions in order to test our worldviews, but the reality is far, far different. Dissention is not tolerated. Not officially, not unofficially.

Dissenters – and it doesn't matter the political leanings of the majority – are hooted down at a minimum by that majority. Dissenters are frequently hounded out of the discussion completely by the majority. Dissenters – and this is particularly true in other parts of the world; in the US it is thankfully rare – are sometimes even beaten or killed.

And before anyone gets their sanctimonious nose out of joint because America's liberals, America's tolerant of diversity liberals, do not do blanch at diversity and only the evil, nasty, quasi-nazi conservatives do, let us just recall that Modern American Liberalism grew up in the 60s where they learned how to drown out political discussion by shouting "BABY KILLER!!" at the top of their lungs every time someone disagreed with them. As of 2003, individuals of their temperament were engaging in the same practices. They are implementing “speech codes” every chance they get.

Let's not forget Indoctrinate U, which convincingly describes the college experiences of many, from both sides. There are those who have been silenced for providing a [typically conservative] dissention to the local [liberal] orthodoxy, and there are more who blissfully recall silencing that [conservative] dissention with the [typically "tolerant" liberal] majority at their side.

No, we do not like diversity. We're not crazy about it in matters of race or religion, but we really hate diversity in political perspective.

Possibly the worst aspect of political diversity is that it forces us to confront our biases. That is an unpardonable sin. Our biases have typically been cared for and fed for years, and we are loath to dispense with them just because we happen to live in a democracy where no citizen's politics are better or more informed than another's. ...and judging by how informed most citizens are about military doctrine, wars in general and foreign policy at all – the area I work in – few citizens can legitimately consider themselves more informed than any plastic ficus collecting dust in the corner of a dentist's office.

No, our political biases cannot face outside scrutiny. We may find that we are, like, biased or something. That we are acting like petulant spoiled children, afraid of change, afraid of discourse, afraid of having to justify our political positions. Afraid of learning not that we are wrong! god forbid, but that ours is not the only valid viewpoint in existence – which is far worse than being wrong. We can tolerate being wrong if the other guy is also wrong; but the other guy cannot be right, not even if we are as well.

Since everyone has biases, it should not be that difficult a proposition to simply admit it. But many of the most biased people will not. And they compound their dishonesty by largely denying that they have any biases in the first place. They claim their bias to be "objective". "It's acceptable to think like this because those who don't are immoral..."[3]

Intellectually, everyone is correct in their political views. It's just that the scope of correctness may not be as universal as we may wish to believe. Folks who are liberal are correct in that the specific liberalism [whatever may be under discussion at any given time[4]] is useful for reasons X, Y and Z. Yes, it is. But as I keep having to remind people: you don’t get points for being right; you get points for being pertinent. The issue is: the reasons you claim for implementing your policy is not the entire reality that needs to be considered. And the conservative wags who dismiss the specific liberalism under discussion are also, themselves, correct about the drawbacks that will go with the policy.

...and ditto in reverse[5].

I, myself, have very pronounced biases. For example, those who move into agricultural communities and do not farm need to stop doing so: they're chewing up farmland by the hectare, pestering zoning boards to chew up even more, getting indignant when the farms still operating around them smell like animal shit or other fertilizer, and filing lawsuits because of it and driving farmers out of business. ...apparently these new transplants can be sufficiently nourished on their self-righteousness that they don't need beef, pork, chicken or more crops than they can grow in pots on their back patio. "We'll just go to the farmer's market..."

Another of my biases is that the government needs to confine itself to those authorities it was given in the Constitution and not be cutting new authorities out of whole cloth the way they've been doing with increasing rapidity in the last generation, which results in the loss of constitutional rights for everyone not named "government".

And there are others besides. But I am self-aware enough to understand that these are biases. I am aware of the counter-arguments, and that the counter-arguments are more or less valid. I just don't buy those arguments. I do not think they trump my own. For instance, people are allowed, in this country, to move where ever they wish and participate in the political process in those new communities – even if it means paving over next year's wheat crop, liberating the "enslaved" beef cattle, ensuring that we have no corn-based ethanol to free us from foreign oil, and all the rest.

Sure, you wanna starve by driving farmers out of business? You have that right, shortsighted though it may be.

For another instance, political needs and sensibilities change over time, and what the Constitution once meant may not actually serve our purposes any longer. Stipulated. I concede that very valuable point. But if current needs are such that each citizen must be considered guilty of terrorism until they prove themselves innocent in a compulsory and warrantless search at the airport, then change the fucking Constitution to say so. If current needs are that every driver is subject to warrantless search [and sometimes to compulsorily provide evidence against himself] on our roadways to fight drunk driving [et al], then change the fucking Constitution to say so.

Yes; our needs change over time. But if the needs change, then the written rules have to change in order to allow those new needs to be satisfied. The written rules have not changed; the rules still tie "unreasonable search" to lack of a warrant naming the person to be searched and the items to be seized.

I am just as in love with my biases as anyone else is with theirs, but I know they are biases. I'm not lying to myself and everyone else by extension. Because I know these are biases, I don't have any particular problem when they are challenged. I am more than capable of defending them – and commonly using the words of my challengers to make my points, for most people are hypocrites and easily trapped. ...not to mention I can throw around the odd and inflammatory adjective or seventy.

Even though I know my politics is constructed out of bias, and even though I don't have major issues with confrontation over those biases, even I don't want to live in a community in which this political confrontation is the typical case. Know how I know that? Because I am constantly in the political minority, am virtually guaranteed of confrontation every time my political sensibilities get aired in public, and it is simply tiring. I don't fit into the mold of either common political religion. I am not a democrat [ew!] and my sympathies with liberalism are on an extremely short leash. I am not a republican [ack!] and my conservatism is more personal than public.

But I can sympathize with liberals and democrats who do not want to have those [ack!] pesky conservative republicans around reminding the lib-dems how big a bunch of totalitarian freaks-in-denial they are. And I sympathize with the conservatives and republicans who do not like having the [ew!] pesky liberal democrats around to remind the rep-cons how insufferably smug they are[6]. I understand both their desires for a uniform community where dissention is suppressed as the inconvenient outrage it is.

As a libertarian [lower-case-l], though, and one who is frankly sick and tired of both, I cannot identify with what most lib-dems and rep-cons enjoy: actually living in such a like-minded community where I am in the majority.[7]

I wouldn't know how a libertarian community would operate ... apart from staying the hell out of everyone else's business. Don't wear a seat belt? It's your brain damage if you crash, bozo; don't come crying to anyone else. Drunk driving? If you kill someone, you can fry for all anyone cares. If you don't kill someone ... life is a risk under the best of circumstances; it's foolish to pretend otherwise. It’s a denial of liberty to act otherwise.

Staying out of everyone else's business is simply not in the game-plan of the lib-dems or the rep-cons; they are both intent on creating incremental tyranny – along frighteningly similar lines I might add, though they both deny it – because they arrogantly believe that a government built on their biases and their biases only is the best government there is. We libertarians believe the same. Only we have the Constitution as support. They don’t. They have, at best, an interpretation of the Constitution – an interpretation that commonly relies on closing one eye, squinting the other, and blacking out three or four words of every twenty, and sometimes adding a few "for clarity" in order to reach the conclusions they've come to.

A "reasonable" search does not require a warrant if we can point at terrorism or drunk driving as a justification. We can ignore whole constitutional requirements if enough of us are wetting our panties in fright. And we don't want to hear otherwise. And – how convenient is this? – most of us don't have to; most of us live in monotone communities in which meaningful dissention from the local orthodoxy does not exist.

We've long ago gotten used to the farcical notion that "freedom of religion implies freedom from religion" and stifling public religious expression as a consequence; it's a short step from there to "freedom of speech implies freedom from speech" and effectively silencing public dissent ... or causing it to relocate, which is the same thing for all practical purposes.

Congratulations, retards. You got what you truly wanted, and which many of you still aren't honest enough to understand you wanted.









[1] A slowdown roadblock is where cops risk their necks by standing in the middle of the street – essentially jaywalking – and where, if they get hit by a car which should be the fault of the pedestrian, it is very likely to be considered vehicular assault on a police officer, or otherwise deemed a ticketable offense.
[2] http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-011909-political-diversity-jan20,0,7541554.story
[3] "Immoral" is code for "wrong, because if you disagree with me you cannot be correct." As opposed to "wrong, because your argument is based upon desire and not meaningful factual support".
[4] …take, for example, Universal Healthcare … please [with apologies to Henny Youngman].
[5] And let’s just mention No Child Left Behind for grins, not to mention a conquest of Iraq when a mere ass-kicking would have sufficed, and Abstinence Only AIDS policies for Africa in place of the equally feeble and culturally doomed “Condoms For All” notion … ad nauseum.
[6] or were, up until November 2008, at any rate
[7] Libertarians are called, by democrats: "republicans who don't believe in god." By republicans we are called "democrats who don't like taxes." In this way, libertarians are trivialized and co-opted into a unifying "other" [another sociologist's term] in order to make it easier to dismiss us as a class ... by including us as the demonized "other party". Fuck you all for your puerile and self-righteous superficiality.

Government Bait-n-Switch

Government Bait-n-Switch
© 2009 Ross Williams

My state just decided it was time to get super-serious about drunk driving. We tend to get super-serious about certain things in this state from time to time[1]. A few years ago we got super-serious about the manufacture of methamphetamine, and went all overkill about it. Of the dozen or so ingredients necessary to manufacture meth, only one is a widely used consumer product – pseudoephedrine, the effective ingredient in most over-the-counter cold and allergy medication – and so the state of Illinois declared that if you wish to purchase OTC cold medication, you need to submit yourself to more governmental intrusion and tracking than you would endure by having a prescription for methamphetamine itself[2].

Sadly, this state law was picked up in short order by other states and Congress, too.

Interestingly, neither the state law nor the federal law, for all the interference it creates in obtaining this necessary ingredient, has resulted in less manufacture of methamphetamine. If those passing these laws were to have had a basic course in The Realities of the Early Twenty-First Century it would have been immediately apparent why this law to reduce meth-making utterly failed to do so. But that would necessarily presuppose that the legislative branch of our various governments:
1. know what they’re doing
2. wish to be effective in doing it, and
3. are actually interested in serving these purposes … as opposed to simply getting themselves reelected.

Needless to say, none of these are the case.

In no particular order, this meth-reducing law failed to reduce meth manufactury because:
· laws which interfere with the acquisition of consumer-packaged pseudoephedrine only affects small-scale producers of meth – and that portion of the general public who has, or routinely gets, the sniffles;
· the large-scale meth distribution network – which are the folks who make large amounts of meth, transport it across state lines, and sell it to school children – does not get their pseudoephedrine from the infernally blister-packed boxes of Sudafed ®; instead, they buy it in bulk from other countries and have it shipped to their professional meth lab by US Mail;
· small-scale producers are a rather self-limiting phenomenon anyway, since they mainly produce what they can use themselves, and they either debilitate themselves by drug use, or they blow themselves up cooking it … frequently because they are drug-addled.

To combat both large-scale and small-scale meth-making, it would have been far more efficient and effective, not to mention far less intrusive to the consumer, to control the access to one or more of the non-consumer products in the Necessary Ingredient list. And I offer up red phosphorus just as a conversation starter. “What’s ‘red phosphorus’?” Exactly. It’s arcane, and those who need it for some reason, legal or otherwise, are the only ones who know what it is. …with the exception of those who research subjects like this in order to know what the hell we’re talking about.

In order to get red phosphorus, an average person would be required to purchase it from a scant handful of chemical supply companies, or else invest in a fairly complex chemical derivation process. Notwithstanding that meth-making requires a whole series of chemical derivations to begin with [including the derivation of ephedrine from pseudoephedrine], adding one more chemical derivation makes it just that much more difficult to make in your garage, and it would be an effective deterrent to the large-scale manufacture that we actually want curtailed – the small-scalers can blow themselves up for all I care.

It is simply far easier to track a chemical compound only available from a limited number of supply sources than it is to track a consumer product through – literally – tens of thousands of retailers in millions upon millions of transactions annually. But the latter effectively [and coercively] deputizes drug stores, grocery stores, department stores, health and beauty stores … and all those who work for them. It becomes yet another example of untrained law enforcers enforcing wide-scoped laws that the real law enforcers do not have the manpower to enforce themselves, because the law is unnecessarily fish-eyed. This ultimately results in the infringement of civil rights – made possible because the clerks who work for 7-11 are not constitutionally required to uphold the rights of the public under threat of penalty. … the way cops are [supposed to be].

Choking off a limited-use chemical ingredient is effective, but not many of us will actually know about it; when our legislator wants our vote in the next election and he tells us he was critical in actually reducing the scourge of meth by prohibiting some arcane substance that no one knew existed … he might not get our vote. What good is actually protecting the public if the public doesn’t recognize it and reward him for it by rehiring him? It is better to pretend to protect the public by interfering with the majority of free citizens at every turn and tell them it’s for their own good.

Choking off a widely-used chemical ingredient and interfering with the lives of, arguably, most Americans at some point or other is certain to get our attention. Interfering with the lives of most Americans has become the habit for legislators wishing to impress upon their voters that They Are Doing Something. Who cares if it works? They got press.

As a result, consumers with the sniffles are required to submit to police tracking, and governmental busy-bodies populating data-minable databases of their over-the-counter drug purchases for [let’s face it] ever[3]. All this to have no effect on the meth business, but to convince us all that our lawmakers are Doing Something enough to be worthy of reelection. Isn’t that helpful!

Unfortunately, this is the most common result of our lawmakers getting super-serious about helping us: they don’t, they don’t even come close, and they piss us off in the process while constructing a faux-moral rationalization to explain why our being pissed off over governmental intrusion is actually our own fault. “Oh, so you must like drug abuse…”

This is an example of legislation which outright failed. And which was never going to work. Far more insidious is legislation which was created for one reason, and enforced for another – and sometimes far different – reason.

…like Child Support.

We are all aware of the horror stories of uncollected child support. What most people are not aware of, however, including those who work in the field of imposing, collecting, and administering child support [not to mention those who receive it], is that most of what we know about the subject is apocryphal. It’s urban legend. It’s old ex-wives’ tales. It’s a series of finely-honed lies.

It’s bullshit.

Yes, there are many fathers who do not reside with their children and do not pay child support. About half of them were never married to the mothers of those children, and in order to establish a child support order the mother must prove [burden of proof in our liberal legal system rests with the accuser] that the putative father is the actual father. Because of the demographics involved, almost all of these marriage-less children belong to the poverty class where the mother doesn’t typically have the job to get the money, nor the education to get the job in order to front the cost for the sometimes-expensive process of establishing paternity.[4] Hence, no paternity is established. Hence, no child support orders are made.[5]

Most of the other half of the fathers who do not pay child support do not have jobs that pay well enough to support more than the father himself hand-to-mouth, and in many cases he does not possess the education [or the resources to improve his education] to get a better job.

Of all the fathers who do not pay child support, only a very small share of them are those who have the money to pay it, but willfully fail and refuse to do so. Of this very small share, the vast majority of them never see their children, and mostly because the mother refuses to allow it, or has otherwise interfered in contact for so long that the father has given up trying. It is pointless to attempt to chicken/egg most of these into which violation of the divorce decree occurred first. “She stopped me from seeing the kids, so I’m not paying child support!!” Versus “He stopped paying child support, so he can’t see the kids!!” Grow up, both of you.

Honestly, you’re both wrong, you’re both criminal [though only one is enforced on even a semi-regular basis[6]], and anyone who does this is showing less maturity than the children and – frankly – demonstrates a gross inability to have custody or visitation, either one. Sorry, but babies shouldn’t be raising children.

Back a generation ago, when the issue of child support escaped state jurisdiction and was commandeered by the feds[7], Congress heard an elephant’s earful on the horrors caused by the non-payment of child support by those who were never married and therefore had no child support orders. Poor kids with poor single mothers, almost exclusively on welfare, and none of them have enough to eat. It was sad, Congress agreed it was sad, and promised to do something about it. Congress decided to get super-serious.

Congress also heard an elephant’s earful about those who do have child support orders but who don’t pay them because the job they have does not pay enough money to support an adult and underwrite the living expenses of children in separate housholds; this is also a sad situation which Congress promised to do something about. …the non-payment part only; notably not the “getting a better job in order to have enough to pay” part.

When Congress had heard enough sad tales of woe from poor women with poor children who didn’t have enough to eat and who had to use the oven for a furnace in the winter, they asked what could be done to fix it. …only they didn’t ask those who used their ovens for furnaces. Congress didn’t even ask advocates for these poor people. Congress instead asked women’s groups, who are populated by women whose children [if they have any at all] do not have too little to eat, but instead have the middle class jobs and are thus able to provide for their [sometimes] single-parent children; they also have the spare time to join a Cause.

“What can we do to help you?” Congress asked these middle-class women.

And the middle-class women in these women’s advocacy groups told Congress:
· automatically take child support from a guy’s paycheck [useless when he has no or variable employment]
· force the guy to make payments through the state [useless when he has no money at all, or only what it takes to provide for himself]
· make it a crime to not pay child support – a crime punishable by jail – and not because of nonpayment, but because of failing to comply with a court order [debtor prison once removed]
· …and because it’s now a debt owed to the state instead of the ex-wife, it becomes the state’s obligation to prosecute [how many other civil debts are co-opted by the state under conditions which pre-exist claims of, proof for, and conviction of non-payment?]
· et cetera – sadly, there’s much, much more to this litany of pointless and misdirected legislation ... some of which appears herein.

These are all measures that are useless in collecting child support for the poverty class women whose children do not have enough to eat, but they sure are handy to the relatively rare example of the middle-class woman who doesn’t get child support because her ex-husband is a baby who doesn’t want to pay it. And if she wants to be a baby herself and not allow visitation? With automatic garnishment … she can do it! Isn’t that convenient! Everything middle-class divorced women want with none of that pesky quid pro quo.

When the state prosecutes child support scofflaws, they don’t target the guys who are required to pay just a few hundred dollars a month, and whose children to whom that few hundred dollars represents the difference between being fed and going to bed hungry. Why not? Because the state knows that those fathers don’t have the money, and the state knows they don’t have the prison space for all the fathers who don’t have the money, and the state knows that making even a token example of a poor guy with a lousy job and no education to speak of will ultimately run afoul of a poverty rights group who will sue [and win] over the issue of debtor prison – which is [supposed to be] forbidden in this country. Besides, the prosecutors’ offices themselves don’t have the funds or manpower necessary to track down the hundreds of thousands of marginal males in our country who don’t pay child support, collect the documentation necessary to make a case, drag them into court, and convince the judge that it’s necessary to nail them over trivial amounts of uncollected child support[8].

So the state prosecutes only those fathers who do have good jobs, and do have good education, and who merely choose to not pay child support[9] in non-trivial amounts, and who therefore would never receive the necessary political sympathy to sue and win upon the issue of debtor prisons – which are suddenly legal for middle-class [and wealthier] fathers.

Did I mention that the incentive for all this is that the state gets free federal money based on the number of dollars it collects and not on how many children of divorce have enough to eat? This virtually guarantees that prosecutors will only enforce child support against those who have large monthly payments [i.e., good jobs], and who have not been paying for a long, long time. It virtually guarantees that those who have no job [or variable jobs], little or no education to get jobs, and who tend to father scads of children among similarly situated women will continue to father these children and not have to pay child support for them. And it may explain why, after the feds got hold of the Child Support Issue, most states fell all over themselves raising child support amounts for the middle class fathers who work, and sometimes even lowering the child support rates for the poverty class fathers who don’t.

Remember, this solution was created on the back of Congressional testimony which heard that unpaid child support means children go to bed hungry and they have to use the oven to heat the apartment in the wintertime, so now anyone who complains about the bait-n-switch is automatically labeled a deadbeat. And those who run the child support system [not to mention those who receive child support] feel better about themselves after imposing a set of onerous, draconian and presumptuous requirements upon a group of folks who by and large were not, nor were they likely to be, in violation of anything to begin with.

Brings a super-serious tear to your eye, dunnit?

Well, here’s a tear for the other eye.

Illinois passed a law last year while everyone in the state was watching our governor sell himself to the highest briber. This law was a super-serious response to what is, to many, a legitimate issue: drunk driving. But it’s another bait-n-switch. And it took effect January 1st. That’s when I first heard about it. I’m willing to bet that almost everyone in the state except members of MADD didn’t hear about it before then, either.

We’re all aware of the horror stories associated with drunk driving, as well. And it’s true: it happens. Far too frequently.

But in our zeal to sympathize with the families who’ve lost children, or parents, or friends due to the callous and misguided selfishness of those who drive while blotto, we are neglecting to account for a large batch of reality. And the cops are less than no help in remembering the realities, either – they have a vested interest in being very, very forgetful, in fact.

It is worth saying – and critical to understanding the subject right off the bat – every driver is capable of running over children, and killing parents and friends. Those who are drunk, and those who are stone cold sober, both. Sober drivers kill by far the most people on our roadways, in fact. But it is in terms of miles driven that the meaningful ratios are gotten. Per miles driven, sober drivers are relatively safe drivers … all else being equal. It is when the ratio of safety per miles driven changes negatively that we have a legitimate need for government action – and what governments do best is pass laws.

When legislatures are super-serious in law-making, the laws they pass tend to be super-stupid. Rather than basing our drunk driving laws on the relative dangers associated with driving while being this-amount of drunk versus that-amount of drunk, we have defined “drunk” to be what a group of self-professed Prohibitionists are satisfied with. They have declared any drink to be drunk – and they have been getting state legislatures [and ever since the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984, Congress as well] to go along with them in incremental chunks.

The neo-prohibitionists at MADD have gotten statutory BAL lowered from .12 to .10 to .08[10], and taken from the realm of state jurisdiction, where traffic law constitutionally belongs, to the bailiwick of Congress, where it doesn’t. Their next declared target is .05. After that [some of their literature says] is .02. Point-zero-two is a dose of cough medicine before going to work. Point-zero-two is communion wine on an empty stomach and driving home all born-again.

The only problem with all this is that there’s no evidence that .08 is any more dangerous per miles driven than driving home from church stone-cold sober.[11] There’s also no evidence that .10 is any more dangerous. You don’t start getting more dangerous driving until you get north of .12 … and the graph curves upward very, very quickly at that point. At .15 your speech is severely slurred and you wobble when you stand. At .23 you fall over when you stand. Much beyond that, you cannot stay conscious. It is the folks who drive at .15 and .23 who do the killing on the roads.

What’s the most ironic is that everyone who is involved with this subject – including the fine little Nazis at MADD during their more lucid moments – agree on this. The road-safety issue is not those at .08 [nor ten years ago, those at .10, nor 25 years ago those at .12]; the issue is those above .12. Those who drive at above .12 have typically been caught and ticketed so many times, frequently while involved in accidents, that they commonly have no license to drive anymore. They are long past the “suspended license” stage. They are license-less and not likely to be otherwise again during this lifetime.

And yet they are still driving.

And the cops can’t stop them.

Nor can the courts.

Legislatures? ferget it.

So what do they do? What do the cops and the courts and the legislatures do? They get their empty little blockheads together and concoct a plan whereby they get super-serious about stopping drunk drivers who kill by seeking out and penalizing those who don’t, and inventing out of whole cloth a brand new definition of “drunk” each time they want to justify writing more DUI tickets to fill their coffers so they can hire more cops to write DUI tickets. They’ve effectively given up on the true problem and decided that tackling a non-problem is easier. But in order to get the public to buy into the non-problem solution, they have to sell it to us in terms that dishonestly describe “buzzed driving is drunk driving.”

They’ve spent the last 25 years demonizing social drinking as indifferentiable from being a stumbling drunk, and the general public has bought into the fairy tale. We’ve been successfully preconditioned. So now the legislature can do what it wants to the .08 drivers who are no more dangerous than the .00 drivers, because most of us believe .08 is the same as .15 and .23, and few of us will quibble. After all, we don’t want to be seen as trying to make excuses for drunks killing kids. Do we? No we do not! Just like we don’t want to be seen as making excuses for meth manufactures. Or be accused of being a deadbeat.

It no longer matters what the Illinois legislature passed last year to fight the false issue of drunk driving[12]; it’s stupid and the wrong people are going to get scapegoated. No children will be saved, but many, many, many hundreds of thousands of dollars in traffic fines will be generated … which might actually be the ultimate objective [gee, ya think?], and from which police departments get a large statutory kickback, which is why cops have a vested interest in being very, very forgetful of reality as pertains to this subject.

The benefit of a democracy is that the citizens get a government they deserve. That is also the drawback. We have a government full of superficial, self-serving simpletons more interested in doing what a few minority groups want than in doing what the majority wants… which is mostly to be left alone. If Thomas Jefferson is correct and this lame-brained excuse for nickel and dime incremental tyranny is what we deserve, then my questions are not so much with the government, but with the rest of the retards who are my fellow citizens: what are the major problems in your personal lives that you feel it necessary and appropriate to be shovel-fed large amounts of steaming bullshit by power-hungry simpletons? And how does it not make you gag?




[1] Another super-serious bit of Illinois legislation has been to require car seats for all children under the age of 8, which everyone acknowledges are rarely used properly, thus making them more dangerous to the child; recent super-serious federal legislation includes 95% of our legislative response to 9-11 including, but not limited to, The Patriot Act, the creation of – ha ha ha – “Homeland Security” and their subspecies, the trained apes at TSA; additionally, HIPAA, which has done more to increase the cost of health care in this country than any other single cause since its implementation without any consequential increase in health or meaningful guarantee of insurance portability or medical privacy; the ADA, which has created a rush of new “disabilities” on the promise that those so disabled can skate; and Sarbanes-Oxley, the uber-stupid response to Enron, which makes lack of precognition by corporate leaders a criminal offense.

[2] Methamphetamine is legally prescribed for major weight reduction, attention deficit disorder, and narcolepsy.

[3] And where is the ACLU while all this is going on? Is governmental data-mining only tortable when it’s phone records of those who call terrorists?

[4] By the way, statistically, virtually all the fathers in these cases are in the same predicament as the mother: lousy jobs if any at all, little or no education

[5] And according to federal law, if and when these poverty-class cases have paternity established, any child support collected must reimburse the state for the costs it incurred in providing the mother and children any welfare payments they have ever received. So if the mother suddenly finds herself with the money to pay for paternity tests, and those tests prove some guy is the father, the guy’s child support check – assuming he has any money that can be squeezed from him – will be going to the state and not the mother whose children don’t have enough to eat. The money the mother spent in court to prove all this? She’ll never see it again. And aren’t we glad the government is on our side? Imagine the harm they could do if they weren’t!

[6] …and when the law plays favorites, as it does here, the law is also wrong.

[7] Family Support Act of 1988

[8] Before anyone wets their panties over the phrase “trivial amounts of uncollected child support” you are advised to remember who and what we’re talking about here. We are not talking about a poor mother to whom $150 a month means full bellies for her babies. We are talking about the state government to which that $150 a month requires the outlay of $20,000 of prosecutors’ office budget and 2,500 staff-hours only to result in not being able to collect it from some schmuck who doesn’t have it to give, and to which the arrearage of $1,800 per year of non-payment of that $150 per month is peanuts compared to the $180,000,000 per year that the same state government can collect from middle-class fathers just by doing nothing… because middle-class people, by and large, pay their bills, even if they disagree with them.

[9] While sending this treatise off to my proof-reader, I was scolded that I’m failing to make enough distinctions here in the “Child Support as legal bait/switch” section: there are some not-so-middle-class fathers, I was reminded, who lose jobs and get nailed … not to mention that it’s even sometimes the [token] woman who is required to pay child support. And while these are true, the point here is to describe idiotic government, and not to issue a detailed description of every corruption in the entire child support system, for that would take volumes – the entire concept is corrupt in its design and implementation. But with respect to the forlorn father who loses his job and drops out of the ranks of “middle class” and winds up in jail over it – and it does happen – the courts do not agree that he is forlorn. Once the courts establish that an Obligor has the “ability” to earn a given amount of income, that will be the minimum amount of income upon which his Child Support Obligation will forevermore be based – it can only increase from there. The courts either have not heard of, or do not care about, recession or depression or layoffs or job exports to third world countries. Nor disablement and loss of income. Nor military activation for war and loss of income. In the courts’ eyes, the newly-unemployed, disabled or deployed father chose to lose his job, chose to be disabled, or chose to start a war, and his children should not be required to financially suffer – because married fathers never, ever lose their jobs [et al] and have it affect their kids … EVER – and that’s the way they will continue to see it. Because that’s what the law says. Needless to say, these courts pick odd times to claim to be “constrained by the letter of the law” in a matter which is “in equity”. Equity means that the court can deviate from the law any time it wishes – provided it can give a reason for doing so. It doesn’t even have to be a good reason; note all the nonsense lawlessly perpetrated under the guise of “best interest of the children”. “Hands are tied?” Aww, poor judge! No, courts simply don’t wish to; they don’t want to. They are perfectly happy issuing despotic edicts that are sometimes prohibitively impossible to fulfill, and often unnecessary, simply because it gives the corrupt court a sense of power. This entire system is corrupt, and there’s not enough pixels in the world to describe it all in appropriate terms; I will not try to do so here.

[10] And let’s not even get into the notorious problems associated with breathalyzers, from artificially calculating results based on “average” lung capacity and respiration rates, to magnifying the spectrographic results from alcohol-derived wavelengths, to not differentiating between alcohol and other similar substances in the spectography, and the rest. Breathalyzers can give results that are up to 100% INaccurate. But their word is virtually unimpeachable. The technology is, at any rate; in order to beat a breathalyzer, you have to be able to prove that the cop used it wrong. You can’t question the machine itself even though the machine is inherently flawed.

[11] There is evidence that .08 brings motor skill impairment – which is not and never has been the issue. But everything causes motor skill impairment, from too much caffeine, to too little; too much sleep, to too little; being ill; being angry; being excited; being sad; being anything. Sneezing fits, coughing fits, allergic reactions that cause itchy, watery eyes and for which you can’t take allergy medicine to fix, an out-dated pair of eyeglasses. Being too old, being too young… anything which interferes with your perceptions and the ability to translate those perceptions into control of a motor vehicle. The issue is not motor-skill-impairment; the issue is whether you are too motor-skill-impaired to safely operate a vehicle. And the statistics do not support that the motor skill impairment consistent with .08 is any more dangerous than .00 and coming home from a church service where you didn’t take communion.

[12] But just in case you want to know, here it is: first offense gets a driver an ignition interlock breathalyzer deal, which must be “rented” from the state, and if it shows more than .025 – just a tad more than cough medicine – the car cannot start. Remember that .08 is the legal limit, so what’s going on is not merely an unproductive [but lucrative!] punishment for the wrong people, but an Equal Protection issue as well. Not that anyone else will see the Equal Protection issue. Only recognized minorities and terrorists trying to kill American soldiers have Equal Protection in this country.

Atmosphere Pollution

Atmosphere Pollution
© 2008 Ross Williams

There’s a reason restaurants wanting to make money don’t serve food in large rooms with bare cinder block walls under fluorescent lighting. Something about it smacks of prison cafeteria or, worse, school cafeteria dining.

A vase full of poesies won’t even help.

Take the same food, though, and serve it under ambient light, in smaller rooms with wood panel walls, and lo and behold the food tastes better. Funny how that works.

Yet the food hasn’t changed. The only thing that changed was the visual cues surrounding the food. The “atmosphere”.

There’s a reason you don’t go to barbecues in a tux and tails; barbecue is messy and paper plates have a tendency to fold on your lap and dump potato salad on your socks.

There’s a reason you don’t go to a seafood restaurant, order the pot roast, and not come away slightly seasick. It’s the same reason you don’t go to a Chinese restaurant, order the hamburger, and not be left with a sweet-n-sour aftertaste.

Certain things belong in certain places, you aren’t likely to get around it, and your personal desires are secondary. If that. Get used to it sooner rather than later and save yourself the trouble.

The reason this comes up is because we’re taking another cruise next month. My wife and I, that is. Cruise lines – especially the one we use – advertise themselves as being able to provide everything for everyone. And as long as you like being carried between a fixed set of points with officious and paranoid national security rules at each, on someone else’s schedule in a cramped and crowded boat full of selfish, fat and self-absorbed people who are mostly over-eating and over-drinking and require eskimo-ish air-conditioning, then the cruise line is right – it’s everything you want … if that’s what you want.

Personally, I try to avoid interacting with fellow passengers as much as I can. Mostly because they are generally selfish, fat and self-absorbed.

Not entirely, of course. There’s my wife and I, for example. Two more unpresupposing travel-mates you couldn’t hope to find. Most of the folks we’ve been paired with for dinner have been decent enough themselves. But not all.

There was a couple roughly our ages where the woman looked like Laura San Giacomo and who made several rude comments about people at other tables, loud enough to be heard by the person being talked about. I was embarrassed on her behalf since she didn’t appear to know enough to be so on her own. Because both my wife and I were raised to be polite and not make scenes even when they might be called for, we smiled and looked the other way a lot.

There was another couple somewhat older than us – she resembled Charlotte Rae, he looked exactly like Ted Danson looks without a hairpiece and a dye – who used the dining room’s policy of selecting multiple entrees to treat the dinner menu as a smorgasbord. They’d both order several entrees at each meal simultaneously, have one, two, maybe three bites of each and move on to the next plate … and in the process spread their dinners over the entire table for four. Nothing could be cleared because they were never quite certain if they were done eating off a plate halfway across the table.

It’s one thing to have someone else’s partially eaten meal sitting in front of the person who partially ate it; it’s a completely other thing to have it sitting in front of the diner who didn’t. Not appetizing. And my wine glass was nearly knocked over on more than one occasion. But, again, because both my wife and I were raised to be polite and not make scenes even when they might be called for, we smiled and moved our water glasses and silverware to accommodate each new appetizer encroachment.

Apart from these idiosyncrasies, our dinner companions were fine.

But these were bad enough. Try to explain to others why they were bad, though, and you risk righteous indignation being hurled back at you. Particularly by the class of people called “cruisers”.

There’s a website devoted to cruising to which I’ve occasionally gone when planning our annual cruises. This website has a rather large area where cruisers can ask others questions and give answers about all manner of topic. What are the best things to do in various ports, what should be expected on certain ships, et cetera. People preparing for cruises can ask questions and other cruises who know the answers will write back with their version of an answer.

There are the few topics, though, which amount to the cruise-equivalents of politics and religion. Of the several dead-end, conclusionless discussions on this website that tend to get beaten like dead horses are:
1] diapered children in the swimming pools;
2] smoking on the balconies;
3] smuggling booze on board; and
4] dining room decorum.

No matter which topic it is, the participants generally divide themselves into one of two groups.

Group A: “I paid for this vacation, I therefore get to do what I want.”
Group B: “‘Paying for it’ doesn’t exempt anyone from the rules.”

These rote positions merely serve as the overture to the typical free-for-all upon what constitutes a “real rule” and what doesn’t, what authority this “real rule” is enforceable by, and what the consequences are for violating it.

On the topic of diapers in the swimming pool: you may have heard one of several news reports about dozens or hundreds of cruise passengers getting ill on cruises[1]. Typically blamed is the norovirus, one of the many types of gastrointestinal virus that finds its way from the outbound side of the alimentary canal to the inbound side. And while chlorine and soap does a real good job in killing this virus there are no guarantees of that, which means that babies in diapers are putting roughly 3,000 people at risk of vomiting and diarrhea if the baby gets into the swimming pool.

The rule is there for a reason. The parents who pay for a cruise for themselves and their darling baby are no different than the parents of infants who pay the taxes which build the community swimming pool. Diapers aren’t allowed in either one. ‘Paying for it’ is irrelevant.

On the topic of smoking on balconies: you may also have read about a cruise ship catching fire, killing and injuring passengers[2]. This rule exists for a reason, as well.

Apart from this, though, smoking generally means that there will be cigar or cigarette ash to dispose of, not to mention the butts. It shouldn’t be too surprising to hear that a fairly large portion of smokers on cruise ships do not put their ash or their butts where they belong, particularly since few smokers put their cigarette butts where they belong anywhere else. For the last several cruises, we have had balcony cabins and every morning there were butts and ash on our balcony. Even if the smoker doesn’t end up killing anyone, it is simply rude to make everything filthy. Rudeness violates the rules of polite society. ‘Paying for it’ is again irrelevant – unless the smokers want to take up a collection and pay for my on-board laundry bill.

On the topic of smuggling booze aboard: cruise lines are bound by laws to prevent underage drinking. They are also bound by law to enforce other alcohol controls – both American and foreign. Apart from the cruise lines’ ability to sell alcohol tax free on the high seas, and serve alcohol without competitive pricing limitations, they are protecting themselves from legal problems – which includes potential liability in the event that some stupid young yutz smuggles booze aboard, gets drunk, falls overboard and drowns.[3]

The cruise line we use allows passengers to bring one bottle of wine “for special occasions” but otherwise declares that booze is not to be brought aboard. The rule is skirted by [seemingly] a majority of the passengers, and rationalized by most of those who defy it. “They didn’t stop us, so it must be okay…”

No. It’s not.

And ‘paying for it’ in this instance means something entirely different to Daniel Dipiero’s family than it does to anyone else.

Which brings up the main theme [one, two, three…] four pages into this essay[4]: dining room decorum.

Cruises try to provide everything for everyone. For those who want casual, come-as-you-are meals, they have a buffet which is open during all normal dining hours … and usually beyond. Many cruise lines have 24-hour food services of some type, including free room service.

The main dining room on a cruise ship, though, is formal. Look around next time you’re there. They provide not only salad forks but also that hoity-toity dessert spoon at 12 o’clock tangent to your plate, a personal butter knife and bread plate, multiple glasses per person, and linens[5]. The main dining room is formal.

It’s some of the people who eat there who are not. Cruise passengers actually need to be told not to wear shorts to dinner[6]. They need to be told not to wear t-shirts, with or without R-rated slogans on them. They need to be told not to wear bathing suits, flip-flops, baseball hats, sneakers and [for guys] sleeveless shirts.

They need to be told these because they do not know this already. They don’t know this already because they were either raised by wolves, or they were raised by ignorant parents who did not teach them the importance of courtesy for others, respect for hosts, and carrying themselves with dignity and comportment.

Their reasoning? Prime among them: “I paid for this, I should be able to dress how I want.” I paid for it too, just like the Ostrogoth hordes, and my preferred style of dress is UN-, [ask my wife for confirmation]; should I be able to show up for dinner – indeed any other place on the boat – naked, just cuz “I wanna”? “I wanna” is the basic, bottom-line reason used by slobs arriving in a formal dining room for dinner looking like slobs; “I wanna” oughta be sufficient to justify me, therefore, walking around nekkid … and displaying my own basic, bottom line.

Except that it’s not. Why not? Because there are rules of social behavior that, even if the behavior is not strictly considered criminal, define certain behaviors to be unacceptable. Walking around bare-assed is among them; so is showing up for dinner in a formal restaurant looking like a slob.[7]

The next reason commonly cited by the barbarians: “There’s only so much room in my luggage. We can’t pack everything!” Um, folks, you aren’t asked to pack “everything”, and if you overpack, or pack unnecessary items thus making it difficult for you to pack those things you should have, that’s you’re problem. Not everyone else’s. My wife and I have no problem packing clothes for a week-long cruise to include enough casual clothes for running around and getting sweaty, clothes for swimming, clean clothes for places we need to be clean in, and also formal and semi-formal dinner outfits for all seven nights. It doesn’t take a whole lot of imagination or brain-power to figure it out. It’s not rocket science. It’s getting dressed. Two-year olds know how to get dressed, fergodsake.[8]

Another common excuse used is, “…but we’re just not comfortable getting all dolled up, and this is supposed to be a vacation.” This is a different flavor of “I wanna” phrased as “I don’t wanna.” And apart from the unmistakable aroma of childish petulance associated with it comes the inevitable parallels to other semi-formal settings where people are expected to conform to conventions: weddings, funerals, symphony concerts, church services, … work. It’s not like you’re expected to keep the monkey suit on for 8 hours, here. Just two hours for dinner. If that’s too much for you, then take your pouty, pouty self in your lazy, lazy digs up to the buffet and chow down. It’s the same food anyway, just without the dessert spoon and bread plate.

Yet another excuse, phrased in the naiveté of social ineptitude, is, “But we are dressed for a formal setting!” This is most commonly used by those who think that blue jeans are formal if they have that-thar fancy white stitchin’ or have simply been warshed after the last time the hogs were slopped. Do ‘em up with freshly polished cowboy boots and a shirt with dual breast pockets and fringe, and you’re set for royalty! Ainchee?

No. You’re not. It’s not a Texas rodeo or an Arizona political convention; it’s the formal dining room on a cruise ship. If you must wear jeans, to make them acceptable in even a semi-formal setting requires a normal button-up shirt [buttoned up], shoes [not sneakers, not boots] and a sport coat. Tie optional. Jeans do not make “formal” under any conceivable circumstance.

If you want to dress for the Texas rodeo, then do so in Texas, at the rodeo.

Because neither my wife nor I were raised by Vandal raiders or Hunnish hordes, we know better than to make scenes about, or even acknowledge the presence of, the Ostrogothic barbarians who do not understand how to conduct themselves in public while on a cruise ship. But discussions about cruise ship comportment occur frequently in hypothetical, notional settings – such as internet message boards or essays.

When informed that being a slob in a formal setting is, like, sloppy, when told that it’s tacky, when told that it detracts from the dining experience of others around them, certain people get defensive. And when they get defensive, they start to rationalize why it’s everyone else’s responsibility that their being a slob is bothersome to everyone else.

It usually begins by being told, “We’re not slobs! You’re a snob!” Um. No. I chase sheep in my jeans, often miss, and get shit-stained for the effort; I go barefoot [if not naked altogether] as often as I can; wear sneakers nearly everywhere else; have cowboy boots that I don’t even bother polishing, let alone kicking the dried and caked manure off of; have umpteen t-shirts with various styles of slogan or logo on them; and dislike, more or less intensely, dressing for work … but when I go to a formal restaurant, to work, to weddings or funerals, I dress accordingly. I “clean up well.” That’s all that’s being asked.

Next, we’re told, “The way I dress doesn’t change the taste of the food. I’m there for the food, not to pass judgment!” Well, I’m there for the food as well. And sitting across the table from someone who chews with open mouth doesn’t change the way my dinner tastes either, yet it’s repulsive and unappetizing and makes me semi-nauseous. I have a feeling that it has the same effect on those who want to dress like slobs, as well. So the “doesn’t change the taste of the food” argument is completely beside the point.

But just in case there are any hold-outs still flopping their arms ever-so-petulantly across their chests and jutting out their lower lips about it, let’s just run down through a few more things which don’t change the taste of the food:
me farting, loudly and repeatedly;
me belching, loudly et cetera;
me picking my nose, yadda yadda;
me shouting into a cell phone so that my caller can hear me;
me spitting out fish bones or hunks of gristle onto the floor beside me, or [even better] onto a pile in the middle of the table.

It doesn’t change the taste of the food to be given a table right next to the kitchen; or right next to a whining, screaming brat who keeps getting up from his seat, crawling under his [or others’] tables, tripping waitresses, and pulling napkins off peoples’ laps; or right next to the pleasant aromas of the restroom; or right next to a woman who bathed in cologne; or right near the entrance to the restaurant, with people coming and going continually and watching you eat.

It doesn’t change the taste of the food to hear loud cackling shrieks of laughter coming from halfway across the room; married couples [or otherwise] having an obvious domestic disturbance; a waiter dropping a tray of dishes, a brass marching band charging through .

It doesn’t change the taste of the food to have it lit by fluorescent lighting; to have it strobed by a disco ball; spotlighted by a klieg light; or mashed all together in the center of the plate.

It doesn’t change the taste of the food to have dirt floors; paper plates; plastic knife and “spork”; newspaper tablecloths; scratchy bi-fold paper towel “napkins”; bare, unpainted cinderblock walls; rough, wooden benches that leave slivers in your ass.

Not one thing I’ve just mentioned changes the taste of the food. Yet every single one of them would detract from anyone’s meal in a formal restaurant – even those who insist on the right to dress like slobs. Because they “wanna”; because they can’t be bothered; because they don’t know better.

Dining is not simply eating. If you want to eat, to stick your face in your plate, fill your gullet and not look up until the job is done – and do it on a cruise ship at dinner – then dress as you please and hit the buffet, or call for as much free room service as you like. It’s the same food, and since you don’t require “atmosphere” in order to enjoy your dinner the way others do, it would seem to be the answer.

Dining is, instead, a full sensory experience. That’s why they teach cuisine at Le Cordon Bleu and not trail-mess cooking. Taste, smell, texture, sound and sight all count, they all matter. Anything which sticks out – loud noises, sudden odors, unpleasant textures, and jarring sights – takes away from the meal, and the enjoyment of it. Among the sights in a restaurant are other diners – which includes what they wear. And diners who stick out by wearing jeans that look like they’ve been washed in motor oil; by wearing shorts, sandals, a t-shirt and “dressed up” by wearing an unbuttoned hawaiian shirt over it all; by arriving in jeans and a John Deere baseball hat – and I’ve seen all three – are the visual equivalent of a loud, smelly belch.

“Mmmmm! You had garlic for lunch!”

I’d say something confrontational to the slobs, here, along the lines of “You don’t dress like a slob and I won’t go belch in your face” but – once again – I know better than they do. So does my wife. We were actually raised to be considerate of others in public, to not make scenes even when they might be called for, and to ignore the sources of social outrage in the interest of politeness. If someone dresses like a slob on our next cruise [and they will, several of them, even on formal night], we won’t say anything and they’ll likely never be the wiser. Cynically, I doubt they possess the capacity.

But luckily for me, this isn’t “public”. It’s an essay. If you see yourself being talked about here and are feeling the insistent urge of defensive rationalization welling up inside you, just consider this the belch in your face in response to your slobbiness. We’re almost even.

[1] http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/vsp/surv/outbreak/2006/nov13carnivalliberty.htm
[2] http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11975460/
[3] http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/05/17/man.overboard/index.html
http://www.mikepaulblog.com/blog/index.php?title=royal_caribbean_s_reputation_in_further&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1&cat=16
[4] Better late than never
[5] http://www.onlinesterling.com/helpfulhints/formal-table-setting.htm
[6] A week-long cruise on our cruise line has two formal nights and five semi-formal nights; passengers are “requested” to dress accordingly. Maxim’s “requests” gentlemen to wear a jacket; it means you WILL wear a jacket, and a tie. The word “request” is simply the polite phrasing of a demand.
[7] I also paid for my car, and my taxes paid for a larger share of the roads than almost everyone I know. Do I get to drive how I want as well?
[8] But if you really need a few pointers: 1 suit; 2 dress shirts of different color that go with the suit, and 2 ties that go with either dress shirt; 2 pair of dress pants that go with either dress shirt. Socks, shoes and belt to coordinate. Casual clothes enough for one change every two days. Bathing suit. See my wife for women-clothes-packing hints. She and I pack into one suitcase. It’s not hard.

Citizen Raising Cain

Citizen Raising Cain

©2005 Ross Williams

Of, By and For the People

I was summoned for jury duty way back in January, and told to report in late February. They were fairly snotty and officious in their summons; I don't like that. They work for me. They need to remember that.

The first day of jury duty rolled around and I showed up on time. Early, actually. I don't like being late. Unfortunately, about 40% of my fellow jury poolers didn't feel the same. I sat. And I sat. And I sat.

And I sat some more.

More future jurors trickled in one. At. A. Time.

An hour after our scheduled start time, a judge finally showed up to welcome us all, and thank us for being the guiding rail of the American Justice System. Apparently, they at the courthouse are fully aware that us Guiding Rails can't, as a group, bother to show up on time, so they don't even try to start on time. For the next half hour, more jurors trickled in with loud clumps and bumps, and disturbed everyone else.

We got a pep talk from this judge. A Santa-ish gentleman, claimed to be "Chief Judge" for the county. I wouldn't know. I vote against all judges as a matter of principle. Only in rare cases do I know their names. My knowing their names nearly always means that they have done something I find particularly reprehensible. In case any judge is reading this, and assuming he cares, he would be advised to skip past me in anonymity.

After the judge's pep talk, the clerk of the circuit court came to give us another. Wow. Was I ever getting pumped!

This talk was from the guy I address my child support checks to each month. He looked like a weasel. That had been crossed with a rat. And dressed in a gray suit. Pretty much as I imagined. I vote against him, too.

Then we got an orientation from the lady in charge of the jury pool. Her orientation consisted of saying "...and now we'll have a seventeen minute video describing jury service, afterwards I'll come take you downstairs."

Woohoo! All this and a movie to boot! Could this be any more rollicking?!

The movie was "official"; created by some law group, or lawyer group, or judicial group. The production quality was on a par with the old filmstrips we had in grade school. A whole series of still photographs choreographed to an LP record. But this video one-upped the filmstrip and occasionally scrolled a word or phrase up the screen. Those loyyers sure know all the tricks!

In this film we got to read and hear all the famous jurists throughout history say how important jury service is. It is "the citizens' last line of defense against tyranny"... which is ironic considering that they tell jurors to essentially ignore what would be tyrannical.

If a jury is truthfully to be the "final line of defense against tyranny" then the jury's first duty is to determine whether the law being applied is being used in the manner that the citizens – represented by the jury – intended when those citizens went to their legislators and asked for the law in the first place.

Citizens have demanded laws against jaywalking because jaywalking creates unnecessary traffic congestion downtown. When the jaywalking law is used to cite some schlemiel trying to leave a burning building and get as far away from it as possible as quickly as he can by crossing the street in the middle of the block, …then that is probably not what the citizens had in mind when they demanded the jaywalking law, and the jury needs to be able to say “not guilty by reason of inappropriate application.”

Many tyranny apologists are going to say, “oh, but that wouldn’t happen. No cop would write a ticket for something like that, even if there’s a law against it.” And the apologists would be correct … right up to the time they weren’t. We read about these things happening all over the country. A cop a little big for his britches runs across someone he doesn’t particularly like or who rubs him the wrong way, and starts issuing citations for having too many mules on Main Street on Sunday. A prosecutor wishing to pad his conviction rate with a gimme puts it before the arrogant judge who believes that he and he alone, and especially not the “mere citizen”, understands the purpose of The Law. Hizonner informs the jury that they can only address the facts of the case, and not the application of the law.

Incorrect.

If the jury doesn't like the way the law is being used they must be able to tell the judge and the prosecutor to use the law differently. Stupid and outrageous applications of law happen every day. If, after determining that the law is being applied the way the citizens wanted, only then is their job to determine the facts of the case.

Or, more cynically, which side had the better loyyer.

I have been aware for years that juries in our nation are not told of this first duty. I've always found that troubling. Tyranny is the inflexible application of legal authority upon citizens using laws that the citizens consider unjust – or merely unjust in the way the law is being used in a specific instance. The jury system was specifically created to place a citizen panel between the application of law and the defendant; between the combined weight of the legislature, cops and judge ... and a specific citizen accused of doing something wrong. If the jury is only allowed to consider whether the "facts" support a conviction and not whether the law is being properly applied in the first place, then that "line of defense" turns itself into a rubber stamp for whatever the law enforcers cook up. That isn't a defense of liberty; that is a ratification of reflexive, formulaic punishment and a rationalization of police-statism.

When citizen juries cannot prevent the legal system from injustice here and now when they have the opportunity, but instead must defer such judgment until they write a letter to their legislator, then we aren't being protected from tyranny. We are being told to accept tyranny; we are being subordinated into tyranny.

Of course, those rationalizing the system will say, "but the citizen doesn't have the legal knowledge necessary to determine if this is a properly applied law. Only those 'expert' in the law can determine that. The jury and the general public just has to trust us that we are applying the law properly."

No. We don’t. So what if the citizen isn't a "legal expert"? Our laws – every single, solitary law ever written and placed in a law library – were written in the name of the citizens, not in the name of "legal experts". Writing laws to satisfy the “legal experts” is what happens in fascist or otherwise totalitarian countries. We’re a Democracy. Of, by and for “we the people”.[1]

The laws are supposed to satisfy us, the “non-experts”, not the self-righteous courts, not the power-hungry cops, not the bloated and indifferent legislators. Our form of government arose in the first place because we don't trust the government in matters of law making, enforcement and application. The advice to "trust them" in their applications is rather, and frighteningly, ironic.

We want a law that criminalizes the sexual abuse of minors. But when an 18-year old boy dates, and then has sex with, an "underage" female, applying the law against the sexual abuse of minors in that specific instance leaves many with a wrinkled nose. Something doesn't smell right about it.[2]

An 18-year old boy having sex with his 15-year old girlfriend is not in the same category of social heinousness that, say, a 48-year old man having sex with that same 15-year old girlfriend. To tell the jury that it can only address the facts [was there sex? was he an "adult"? was she a "minor"?] and not the nature of the circumstances themselves is to erase, indeed obliterate, Liberty's "last line of defense".

We've all heard about the umpteen-billion-dollar "McDonald's Coffee" award. And we've heard the American Trial Lawyer's rationalizations for why it was proper[3]. Hardly anyone is aware that the jury which made the original award, to a juror, apologized to McDonalds and said they wished they hadn't had to come to such a decision, but that they weren't allowed to consider the nature of the circumstances, whether or not the law allowing tort litigation was being used to pitchfork an idiot customer doing stupid things into financial windfall by transferring blame for her stupidity – even if incompletely – to someone else.

Frankly, I'm of the opinion that if I do something stupid with something I bought, then it's my fault for being stupid, not the guy who sold it to me. Doesn't matter if the thing I bought is inherently dangerous, or only potentially dangerous, or deemed "safe". If I put a cup of grape soda between my legs, then pull out into traffic, squish the cup and stain my $600 worsted wool suit, then it isn't the fault of the place who sold me the grape soda, nor is it the fault of the cup-maker. It's mine for doing something stupid, and the cost of cleaning the suit comes out of my pocket. Or the cost of replacing it, if it can't be cleaned.

If I put a cup of hot coffee between my legs ...? Same deal. And the McDonalds jury thought the same. But they weren't allowed to rule on that thinking, because their "line of defense" was breached by a combination of judicial arrogance[4], and the jury’s own ignorant impressionability.

I don't know about anyone else, but I was taught that the US legal system was different from all others in that here, in the US, citizens were free, and the government wore the shackles. In nearly all other countries, it's designed to be the other way around. In other words, you elementary school civics flunkies, the government doesn't tell us what to do, we tell them what to do. That's the way it is supposed to work here.

Does it? Certainly not.

Why not? In no small part, because the people who populate the government – in this case, the courts – are those who want the power of being in the government. They want to issue orders, and many of the citizens who are ordered around believe that they are required to deferentially accept the orders simply because they are made. You must take off your hat in the courthouse. Why? Because the judge said so.

So what? He works for me, not the other way around. He's only allowed to do what the law specifically says he's allowed to do, remember? He's the government; he's wearing the shackles. Show me the law that says I have to take my hat off. Show me the law that says I have to stand when he comes into the room, even.

You must accept the judge's instructions which declare that the proper law is being applied, and is being applied properly. Why? Because the judge said so.

There's a fox-henhouse deal going on here. Our legislators write laws, cops enforce those laws, and judges tell us which laws are being applied. Citizens of the US are supposed to be unique in all the world in that we have the authority, described in our Constitution, to have input into that process at both ends: we are supposed to be able to tell the legislatures which laws we want when voting, and we are supposed to be able to tell the judges whether or not they are applying them properly when serving on juries. We are the legal Alpha and constitutional Omega; law begins and ends with us. It is written.

It’s debatable whether or not legislatures make the laws we want, but judges say it is improper for us citizens – through the "jury of peers" – to control the application of those laws. Because the judges say so. Did McDonalds sell the stupid old lady a cup of coffee? what was the temperature of that coffee? were the stupid old lady's injuries consistent with a scald incurred by a liquid at that temperature?

Those are the facts[5]. The nature of the circumstances is different from facts – but impertinent to "justice", because the judge said the law was being applied properly. We have to believe him because he is, after all, a judge. His word is law.

Well, sorry, yeronner, but neither you nor your words are the law, and you don't own the law.[6] We are and we do. Citizens. They're our laws, every. Single. One of them. Remember that. I do. And I'm not impressed by someone who says, "I'm a judge." Big hairy deal. I'm a citizen, and in this country, though there're many more of me than you, I have the more important position.

Remember that, as well.

So from now on, you can stand when we enter the room.



The Cost of Privilege

But that isn't what I set out to write.

I was admonished, in the jury video, that I mustn't form opinions of the case before both sides were heard – assuming that I was selected to be on a jury. The defendant is innocent until he is proven guilty. This is a cornerstone of American Jurisprudence, I was told, built firmly and squarely upon the Bill of Rights.

My thoughts upon hearing this were, "Yes, I paid attention in school, eight thousand years ago. I remember that very very well, thank you."

Of course, I'm aware that many of my fellow citizens are not so aware of that principle as I am, and they need to be reminded of it more or less often. A person is to be considered innocent until he is proven guilty. That goes for O J Simpson, Michael Jackson, Kobe Bryant, and Harold P Landsbury.

Who is Harry Landsbury? Exactly.

He’s a nobody. We're all equal – and innocent – until the government proves us guilty of violating the laws we wanted them to make on our behalf, and enforced in the manner we want them enforced. Get it?

"Innocent until proven guilty" was unique to the United States at the time it was conceived. It's not unique to the US anymore.

Not because other nations have fallen all over themselves in adopting such a noble philosophy themselves, but because we have severely backslid into the more expedient "you're guilty unless you prove you're innocent" – the historic standard of legal justice.

Some might say we never left that expedient. I'm not going to argue it. There's undoubtedly sufficient evidence to make the case that it has always been imperfectly applied even when attempted.

But again, I remember basic American Civics. I also don't accept expedience as a justification for violating rules. We are supposed to be free citizens in a free country, and innocent until proven guilty.

My question is: when is this supposed to happen? I hope it's soon; I'm in my forties now, and I've been waiting a while for it to start. Almost as long as it seemed I was waiting for all the other future jurors to wander into the courthouse on the first day of jury duty.

Innocent until proven guilty. Grand maxim. Without a trace of irony, the "official" jury service video gave us this civics refresher as we sat on the third floor of a building to which we gained admission only by enduring an expedient "guilty until you prove yourself innocent" exercise on the first floor.

For those who are slow to catch on, I'm talking about the little nazi-stand they have at the door. To the literal-minded, it was the line to the magnetometer; to the more prosaic, the x-ray machine.

To those concerned with being a free citizen in a free country, though, it is a nazi-stand.

Nazi-stands have popped up all over the country in the last several decades, always as a response to some immediate outrage or other. The justification is always the same, too. It’s for "safety".

"Don't you want to be safe?"

Of course. But at what price? There are some prices I’m not willing to pay in order to accomplish the noble but unobtainable goal of safety. Surrendering freedom and presumption of innocence is a pair of prices I’m not willing to silently or politely surrender. I’d rather be free than safe, and it certainly seems to be an either-or choice between them.

In order to be ultimately safe, I'd have to wrap myself up in bubble-wrap, never go anywhere, breathe only pure air, eat only pure food ... but I'd still be subject to the random caprices of old age and natural disasters. Better to just kill myself now, huh? Damn my parents for having me in the first place and subjecting me to this horrid, horrid unsafe world!

But I'm here, and I'm [supposedly] a free citizen in a free country, and I kinda like that. Being free, that is. Freedom brings the privilege of, in short, being free. The government is wearing the shackles, remember? We aren't. We get to go where we want. Without hassle. Unless laws are there to stop us, of course. So you quibbledicks who are going to jump in with the tiresome and boring "so you think you can drive your car across my lawn just because you want to get to the other side of it" can keep it to yourself.

Again, the laws are supposed to be there because we want them there. If we want our lawns protected from the driving anarchist then we accept the cost of having our free driving privilege curtailed to the roadways. Freedom is privilege, but the privilege of freedom has costs. How badly do you want to be free?

If you want to be free, you're going to have to accept the costs that come with it. The single largest cost of your freedom is accepting the freedom of others. Others’ freedom means that you cannot be made as safe as you might wish to be. Being free, in this country, according to the rules that are written down, also means being innocent until you are proven guilty, and sometimes that presumption of innocence makes others fear for their own safety, rationally or not. The government is not [supposed to be] allowed to treat you any other way – without a darned good reason.

Trying to enter a courthouse is not a good reason to be considered guilty.[7]

So why are we presumed guilty? Because someone at some time brought something into a courthouse with which he hurt other people. So now everyone is presumed guilty of trying to do the same thing – until they step through the nazi-stand to prove they aren't.

Ironic, eh? The building which houses all those people claiming to enforce our rights won't enforce our rights unless we first abandon those rights literally at the door. The jurors who are scolded to consider the defendant innocent until he’s proven guilty are first required to prove themselves innocent in the face of presumed guilt. Sad and pathetic.

"But what about the next time a guy wants to shoot up a courtroom full of people he doesn't like?"

First, how often does that happen? In the millions upon millions of court cases and hearings and appearances, how many times does this happen each year? Two? Three? There has been no reduction even after implementing nazi tactics to stop it.

Secondly, what, you think he'd be the only guy in the place with a gun?

How badly do you want freedom? Enough to pay the price for it? Personally, I am. I'm sorry you'd rather be aww safe and cuddwy than free. There aren't enough kevlar blankies and bubble wrap for some people. And their medication would seem to need a refill as well.

Anyone trying to fly from one place to another is guilty of being a hijacking terrorist unless he submits to abandoning his rights again. This process complements the standard passive magnetomic nazism with an interrogation, which enquires after who you've had conversations with and who packed your bags.

They were doing this before 9-11, in case you weren't aware ... Lotta good it did.

How many millions of airline passengers are there on US domestic flights? How many hundreds of thousands of flights?

How many hijackers are there, actually? Now do some math.

Airlines have more trouble with people smoking in the lavatory, yet I don't see any TSA-nazis confiscating cigarettes at the gate. Just Granny's nail clippers. Careful! She might pin down the pilot and give him an unauthorized manicure!

How badly do we want to be free in this country? I'd rather face the infinitesimal chance that there's a hijacker on my plane trying to fly me to Cuba or into the Sears Tower than endure 100% presumption of being a terrorist, and the indignities that go with it.[8]

Those indignities, by the way, are prohibited by the Constitution, and which so many “safety first” rationalists are whistling past the graveyard to accept. The philosophy of "innocent until proven guilty" is still built firmly and squarely on the Bill of Rights, which “safety” doesn’t trump.

The Bill of Rights is what takes the shackles off American citizens and places them on the American government. The American government at all levels, from local courthouses, to public schools, to the FAA’s airports. And government office buildings…

I worked in the federal building in downtown St Louis both before and after the bombing of Murrah in Oklahoma City. Within a week of the bombing they installed a nazi-stand in the lobby. Every morning I walked through the nazi-stand and called it a nazi-stand to the nazis who worked it.

One morning one of the nazi guards who was "just doing his job"[9] asked me why I called it that.

Mostly, because I am being presumed guilty of driving a rental truck full of explosive fertilizer through the lobby each time I come to work. Frankly, I resent that. And I have a legitimate reason for resenting it. I'm a free citizen in a free country, and the government is treating me like I'm a criminal until I prove I'm not.

"Oh, well, but you are a potential criminal, and they're just being safe. We have to check."

Really! So-o-o ... how many rental trucks filled with explosive fertilizer have ever been driven through the lobby of federal buildings? Or any building, for that matter? Feel free to be specific. You want to protect this building from that danger, stop traffic at both ends of the block and close the parking lots.

Don't you think it's the slightest bit ironic that the same government created to protect our freedom is taking away our freedom to do it?

I've asked this question before: how badly do you want freedom? Enough to pay the price for it? Or would you rather be "safe"?

Is freedom from the infinitesimal chance that your plane will be hijacked worth 100% accusation of being a terrorist?[10] Is freedom from the infinitesimal chance that the briefcase of the guy behind you is really a rental truck filled with a half ton of fertilizer worth 100% accusation of carrying bombs?[11] Is freedom from the infinitesimal chance of being plugged by the divorcing father who’s gotten tired of being continually screwed out of his kids worth the 100% accusation that you are him?[12]

These are all very, very trivial "safeties". There's a far greater likelihood that your teenager is going to be involved in an automobile accident which will cause financial loss, injury or death. For the safety of the community, we should prohibit teenagers from having access to the front seat of the car.[13]

Yet we don't.

There's a one-in-four chance that a black male between 16 and 24 will negatively come into contact with law enforcement, and statistically this demographic commits one-third of the street and property crime. Yet "safety" doesn't justify us taking all black males between 16 and 24 and sequestering them someplace until their 25th birthday.

Something about a pesky "Bill of Rights".

So why does the Bill of Rights apply to black males between 16 and 24 who are far more likely to commit crimes, and commit a disproportionate number of them, but not to the public at large who wants to do nothing more strenuous than check on their social security application, visit the grandchildren in Tucson, or pull jury duty?

We are prohibited from routine stop-n-search of young black males even though there’s a one-in-four chance he’s at least a minor form of outlaw, but we’re justified in the same stop-n-search of the general public because each one might be the one-in-a hundred-million disgruntled litigant, the one-in-a billion hijacker, or the one-in-a-trillion fertilizer bomber.

Is it not rule-breaking when it's even-handed? Or do the extremely long odds provide the excuse?

If the government knocks down everyone's door to search for, oh, I don't know, child porn, maybe? that makes it alright?

Somehow I'm skeptical.

Hey, it's a safety issue there, as well. Gotta protect small children from the ravages of exploitive pornographers, and one way to do that is by cutting off the pornographers' funding – from the people who buy child pornography. Which is why merely owning it is illegal.

What are the standard trivializations again? oh yes: if you're not guilty you've got nothing to worry about. If you don't have child porn in your home, then you shouldn't mind the cops busting in your doors to look for it.

Should you?

Cuz they won't find any, and you'll be in the clear.

Isn't that how it goes? Yes it is.

"If you're not intending to hijack the plane, then you shouldn't complain about them searching you to find out if you're planning to hijack the plane."

"If you aren't intending to pepper family court with bullet holes, then you shouldn't complain about them searching you for guns."

“If you aren’t planning to blow up your office building with a thousand pounds of fertilizer, then you won’t mind them looking in your briefcase for a half-ton of anhydrous.”

Yep, that's how it goes. I've heard that at least a million times. Most recently earlier this week by the little old and very proper lady who asked me why everyone was standing in a long and immovable line. She had to ask me three times what a nazi-stand was.

The other way it typically goes is this: the people who complain are the ones who are guilty, or at least hiding something.

Let's see then, how many of the 9-11 hijackers were stopped at the nazi-stand because they complained about being "screened"? None; not a one. As I recall, one was stopped but he didn't complain. He was the picture of politeness. He was then allowed to take his seat. Bang goes that pat theory.

How many people who say that complainers are guilty, or “hiding something”, would howl about their doors being busted in during a sweep for child porn? Nearly all of them, unless I miss my guess.

Exactly how badly do you want freedom?

Are you willing to put up the cost? Or do you simply wish to make others put up with costs which you find tolerable and on your behalf, while declaring the cost too great when it actually bothers your own conscience? …like, when the safety it provides is not your own?

Who does the Bill of Rights apply to again? Black males? Teenaged drivers? People who don’t want to be implicitly accused of owning child porn?

Or every citizen? under every circumstance?






[1] …where have I seen that phrase before…?
[2] Which is why many states have started adopting what they call “Romeo and Juliet laws” which largely decriminalizes consensual sex between kids, even when one is an “adult” and the other a minor otherwise legally considered to be “incompetent to form consent”. Yet how many tens of thousands of past-Romeos are now considered “sexual offenders” for hormonal indulgences decades old, required to register as same to be tracked wherever and when ever they move, and warned to stay away from children, sometimes even their own? Telling the jury that their first duty was to judge the application of the law before judging the facts would have eliminated most of this mess.
[3] McD's had gotten “hundreds of complaints about over-hot coffee”; out of how many billions of cups sold? that's a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of 1%. Literally 99.999% of McD's customers were satisfied.
[4] with the attendant loyyerly sycophantia
[5] or the questions which lead to the facts, anyway
[6] And this is most of the reason why I vote against all judges on principle: I have them, they don’t.
[7] …and, conversely, according to the “official” video, a far better reason to be considered innocent.
[8] “Live free or die”. “Give me Liberty or give me death”. “I’d rather die on my feet than live on my knees”.
[9] advice: please watch Judgment at Nuremberg sometime for my view of people who "just do their jobs".
[10] If they weren’t accusing you, they wouldn’t be checking you.
[11] Op cit or ibid; pick one.
[12] See above.
[13] Yet, relegating them to the backseat carries with it a different set of perplexing dangers.

Illiniwek

The Sob-Sisterhood of the Wet Panties
© 2007 Ross Williams

Chalk up another win for the faux-enlightened.

In the continuing quest to promote style over substance, those opposed to the use of a human-image icon for a college sports program have won. They’ve hectored and badgered and wept and wailed and nagged and thrown themselves to the ground kicking and foaming at the mouth for long enough that the dictators of collegiate sports have put their foot down. Splash! into a puddle of self-righteous wee-wee.

The college at the center of this tempest in a pisspot is – drumroll, please – the University of Illinois, recently of Danish Dozen fame[1]. You remember that one, doncha? Twelve Danish editorial cartoons depicting muslims as maybe being perhaps somewhat violent were printed in Europe, to which muslims in the one-third of the world they dominate responded by rioting, murdering and arsoning, and it’s rude for anyone in the United States to further insult muslims by reprinting them. So when the student editor of the U of I’s student newspaper, The Daily Illini, reprinted them as a Freedom of the Press conversation-starter, the perennially soft-skulled dinks who tend to congregate in the vicinity of college campuses collapsed into a ready pile of wet tissues – and the student editor, Acton Gorton, was relieved of his duties.

Much the same set of soft-skulled dinks have been driving this issue as well for the past generation. …if not identical in name, then very similar in nature. The problem – to the degree that “problem” can be miniaturized in order to represent the issue – is that the U of I has an American Indian mascot for its sports teams. Chief Illiniwek. He is supposed to represent the state of Illinois which was historically the homeland of the Illini Confederacy, and after whom the state of Illinois was named.

The Illini Confederacy, a dozen or so large and small tribes, spoke one of the many Algonquin dialects native to the eastern and northern third of the North American continent, similar to the Miami tribe[s] of Ohio, and were probably descended from the Mississippian mound builders of the Ohio and Mississippi river valleys.

From most accounts, the Illini were pretentious and warlike, and not very good at either. “Illinois” means, in Algonquin[2], “superior men”, though there’s no evidence they were. Cosmic coincidence being what it is, they were first encountered by the French who are also pretentious and warlike and not very good at either. The Illini had been having long-running wars, and losing them, with the Iroquois, Sioux, Fox, Kickapoo, Huron, et cetera, and by the time the French arrived in the mid-18th century, the “superior men” of the Illini Confederacy were so beset by their native neighbors that they latched onto the pale strangers with flintlocks and bibles as their savior.

Since like attracts like and the French weren’t any better at fighting wars with their cultural equals than the Illini were, the Frogs lost a series of wars against the British, and the Illini were essentially up a creek without a paddle. The French – suggesting behavioral design, perhaps – similarly considered themselves “superior men”, though no evidence has ever been found to corroborate their belief, either.

By the time of the American Revolution, the Illini were pushed into Osage territory and more wars with their native neighbors, inevitably losing them; and by the time of the American Civil War, the remnants of the Illini tribes joined the Peoria tribe – the largest in the Illini Confederacy [or the largest remaining, at any rate] – moved to Oklahoma, and retired from the Indian business. There were around 200 left at that point.[3]

You can think what you like of the wisdom of adopting an iconic mascot from this group of able natives, but in 1926 the University of Illinois did exactly that.[4] The University of Illinois, named after a warlike affiliation of local tribes but which should have been pacifist, played a football game against the University of Pennsylvania, named after an English settler seeking religious freedom for his heretical [read: pacifist] Quaker sect – which arguably ought to have been more warlike. Both schools came up with an icon relevant to their origin, met at midfield during halftime, smoked a peace pipe, and voila! a controversy was born.

It took a full fifty years to reach maturity though, for it wasn’t until the mid-seventies when all relevant social issues had been used up, that some idealistic fops figured that hyperbole in the creation of a new -ism was no vice. All the good social controversies had already been championed by some group [or more likely several groups], and latching onto one of them would make the wannabe activists seem trite and cliché.

The Vietnam War was over and Nixon was in hiding; Civil Rights legislation was long on the books and backlash hadn’t started yet; feminism had more than enough spokesmen, er, -women, er, -persons; the neo-prohibitionists of MADD were still having keg parties; the world was still heading for a New Ice Age due to mankind’s polluted atmosphere and it was even ten years before the Gores would invent the internet and attempt to ban rock music[5] … what was a socially-aware college student to do??? So few burning issues, and so much spare time in which to fret.

But wait! Didn’t Europeans move here in droves and displace the native Amerinds?

Why, yes we did, shame on us! We stole their land![6]

And now, by using their images for our purposes, we’re stealing their heritage! So shame on us all over again!

These activists without a cause contacted the Peoria in Oklahoma to drum up some indignation, and the Peoria responded with an indifferent shrug of their once-nearly-mighty shoulders. They didn’t care.

Undaunted, the undergrads amended the would-be righteousness of their movement with their own self-important opinions, and set out to fill the void of actual outrage with self-flagellating proxy outrage.

As with so many other things, indignation is much easier to choreograph by proxy. Activists will be indignant on Indians’ behalf since those Indians have been beaten down by the white man and cannot muster their own. Circular logic, being extremely handy here, defines “beaten down” to be proven by “do not care”. More evidence of this white man down-beating: they also do not care about what a group of self-important white children claim they should care about[7].

This brings us to the contrived controversy we see today. Whole herds of ink and entire flocks of pixels have been slaughtered since the mid-seventies to satisfy our craving for gratuitous activism. And gratuitous it is. All vestiges of intellectual vigor have long ago left the pop-activist.

Social activism of the 40s and 50s required actual courage. Courage in conviction, and courage to stand up to the masses of people who didn’t want things to change no matter the reason. Courage without having a substantial basis for desiring, indeed demanding, change[8] doesn’t have a leg to stand on. Some of us looked at our principles and looked at the real conditions, and concluded that they didn’t match.

You actually needed to think to reach this conclusion. Those who reached a different conclusion – such as that blacks were uppity or women needed more housework to do – were either the actual bigots who believed it, or they were the well-meaning majority who hadn’t actually thought about it. When compelled to think by the social activists, the well-meaning majority ultimately reached the same conclusion as the activists who thought about it before them … and society changed as a result.

We’re in a polar opposite mindset today. We are so used to hearing that minority groups are being denied their rights that we are reflexively responding as if it’s axiomatically true – without thinking about it. To a very large degree, and with likely the lone example of gay marriage to the contrary, today’s social activists are the ones completely lacking in intellectual capacity, and using the gullibilities of the well-meaning but non-thinking millions as their dupes.

These faux-enlightened twits are not the bigots who gratuitously denied the need for social change as were their counterparts in the Civil Rights Era; they are the photographic negative of the bigots. They gratuitously demand social change [and whine and stamp their feet and wet their panties until they get it] even though the social change they demand satisfies nothing in our society’s stated principles.

And the mindless millions, so used to accepting these claims after two generations of practice, go along with it and don’t think about it.

We’ve progressed from a tyranny upon minorities to a tyranny by minorities. And since that would seem to be where American History started, with us overthrowing the condescending minority monarchy of the British Crown, it’d seem we’ve come full circle. What have we learned from the exercise?

Apparently nothing.

Opponents of Chief Illiniwek are today’s standard-bearer for the know-nothings.

Colleges and universities the nation over have human-icon mascots for their sports teams. Yet only when those mascots are derived of Amerind inspiration are those mascots considered “demeaning”. The insipid hypocrisy of this position should be apparent to all, but let’s just take a minute to beat the same dead horse for the newcomers.

Chief Illiniwek and “the fighting Illini” are an insult to the Amerind heritage even though those whom the mascot specifically references do not care one way or another; but a drunken, leprechaunish Irishman used as a mascot for “the fighting Irish” of Notre Dame is not an insult to Irish heritage … because those whose heritage he represents do not care.

Chief Illiniwek is insulting to Amerinds but the Trojans of USC, and the Spartans of Michigan State [and of Maine-Endwell High School] are not insulting to Ionian or Peloponnesian Greeks. Neither are various Knights, Crusaders, or Warriors insulting to the Europeans descended from medieval Europeans – i.e., all Europeans – or the Frankish forebears of today’s Frogs, or of any culture that maintained its position and power by having wars … which is to say all of humanity.

The enlightenment necessary to identify this ethnic slight is entirely dependent upon the whims of current fashion, which is as anti-intellectual as you can get. Pick any fashion anywhere at any time, from the ruffled collars of Elizabethan England to the platform shoes of the disco-bopping seventies; it wasn’t necessity which drove it. It wasn’t even utility. It was plain old garden variety vanity.

Fashion is a “dig me” undertaking. The faux-enlightened who pushed the belief that Chief Illiniwek was “demeaning” to Amerinds were attempting to get the millions of mindless but well-meaning Americans to see them as concerned. “We’re trying to help the Illini Indians” is the subtext of their actions.

Hell, it’s often an outright assertion.

Yet the only descendants of the Illini Confederation are the Peoria in Oklahoma and their own website[9] contains not one word about Chief Illiniwek – for or against – but they have many references to the environmental cleanup of their reservation, which none of the faux-enlightened seem to be concerned enough to help with.

Their concern would appear to be limited to wetting their panties in public rather than doing anything tangible.

But the infantile posturing they’ve done has inspired those wanting to keep Chief Illiniwek to make their own idiotic claims. When the faux-enlightened made the claim “This icon is demeaning to Indians”, the supporters of Chief Illiniwek counterclaimed the opposite: “No, it’s being done to honor Indians”.

In truth, it’s neither. The Trojan at USC isn’t used to “honor” the Ionian Greeks of the city-state of Troy. It’s used to create an image that people can identify with or draw inspiration from. Big hairy deal. No one got permission from the Trojans’ descendants before adopting the Trojan as a mascot at USC. It’s unneeded. For the NCAA to require that same permission from Amerind descendants is an unnecessary hurdle for the purpose of making the mindless masses assume that the NCAA is – like the condescending intellectually crippled activists – enlightened.

They aren’t enlightened, they aren’t concerned; they’re cowards. They are cowards cravenly crouching in the face of bored undergrads desperately seeking social relevance without actually having to expend individual effort.

In just a very brief perusal of the Illini descendants’ website, I’ve identified these several areas in which the Peoria Indians have, in writing, declared they might be benefited in manifest ways by anyone who desires to help them[10]:
1] “Continue to conduct a baseline assessment for the Spring River, Tar Creek, Warren’s Branch and Flint Branch”;
2] “Continue to conduct a Bio-Assessment in Tribal Jurisdictional waters”;
3] “To remove or cleanup existing illegal and open dump sites within the Peoria Tribal boundaries”; and
4] “[To create] a recycling program, [which] could contribute by reducing the solid waste stream being generated by tribal facilities, provide a measure of income to offset recycling costs, and reduce the present cost of trash disposal for tribal facilities.”

And this list was collected from just one page of their website dealing with “environmental programs”. Just imagine what the bored undergrad could find to do for them if he looked at the “Inter-Tribal Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment Center” page. Or the Buffalo Run Casino construction project page[s]. Not to mention the Fair Housing pages, or the Health Services pages, or the Reservation Roads page, or the various Indian Child pages. Et al.

…or the bored undergrads, not to mention their sycophantic supporters and the NCAA which offers easy and absolutist absolution, can be satisfied that they have adequately served the remnants of the Illini Confederacy by whining and weeping and wetting their panties over an icon. And another batch of Amerinds, and the issues which beset them, will continue to be marginalized.

One of these requires work, the other grants superficial access to smug self-satisfaction. Hmmm. Which to choose…








[1] http://dblyelloline.blogspot.com/2006/03/epink-slip-of-courage.html
[2] …according to Peoria descendants… http://www.nps.gov/archive/jeff/LewisClark2/Circa1804/Heritage/NativeAmericans/NativeAmericanInfluence.htm
[3] There’s 2788 as of May 2006, as counted by the Peoria Tribe itself. See “Interesting Facts”, page 8.
http://www.peoriatribe.com/uploads/Peoria_News_Vol_6_Iss_1.pdf
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_Illiniwek#History
http://members.tripod.com/~RFester/
[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parents_Music_Resource_Center
[6] Europeans “stole” Amerind land in general. With specific reference to the Illini, though, their land was well in the process of being “stolen” by the Iroquois, the Sioux, the Fox, the Kickapoo, the Huron, et al long before Pere Marquette laid eyes on the confluence of the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers.
[7] And once again, proving that irony knows no politics, among the perpetual claims of the ideologues on this issue is that one of the sins of “white man” was that he “patronized” the natives in his dealings with them. But telling the Amerinds what they should care about is different, isn’t it? But for the fact that it’s not, they’re right.
[8] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_Summer
[9] http://www.peoriatribe.com/
[10] http://www.peoriatribe.com/programs/environmental.php

North by Southwest

North by Southwest
© 2006 Ross Williams

I hate flying. Not because I'm scared of having my feet 30,000 feet off the ground. I'm afraid of having my feet thirty feet off the ground. Thirty thousand doesn't even register.

Not because I'm scared of the [extremely remote] possibility of some pan-islamist yahoo trying to turn the plane into a makeshift guided missile either. We've learned to refuse compliance with pen-knife wielding whackjobs. The next guy caught getting bossy with a pen knife on a plane with Americans might well find himself in several oozing pieces by the time the plane makes its emergency landing.

No, I hate flying primarily because I cannot politely and only mutteringly tolerate the lengths to which our national obsessive-compulsive disorder gets played out on those who are supposed to be free citizens in a free country.

Which is worse: having foreign hotheads take away our rights? or having our government do ditto in order to keep the foreign hotheads from doing it first?

The answer is 'yes'. I've said this before: if you can't do your job without breaking the rules – and warrantless searches break the rules – then it's fairly conclusive evidence that your job doesn't need doing.

Or that you're a grasping power-monger who believes rules apply to everyone else. Pick one. Either way, I still have a first amendment, and you're going to hear about it.

But I'm not here to complain about the anti-constitutional indignities attached to a billion of us annual airline passengers having to remove our shoes because paranoiac feds want to prevent another yutz trying to light his laces in order to permeate an entire passenger plane with gym-shoe stink. Oh, right, it could have caused a fire. And if it were an episode of 24, it could have been enough explosive to fly a rocket to the moon as well. So, lunatic feds, thanks but no thanks. Confine your paranoias to the plausible from now on, if you don't mind.

Again, I'm not here to issue yet another kvetch on idiot power-grasping, rule-breaking, one-size-fits-all, every-whitebread-or-brownbread-American-is-as-likely-to-be-an-islamist-terrorist-as-an-islamist nonsense.

I'm going to complain about Americans. You and me. But mainly you.

Going to the airport puts me into an immediate foul mood. I'm nth-degree grouchy because of the aforementioned national paranoias I'm forced to comply with. I'm a free citizen in a free country, goddammit, and you'll damn well treat me like I am.

But what actually drives me to the edge and keeps nudging me is the people I run into there. I was carrying about a thousand pounds of Yucatan onyx in my carry-on and would have loved breaking it over the heads of a few dozen sniveling, self-obsessed retards. And would have, except that each piece of onyx had been ear-marked either as gifts or as a dust-catcher for the mantle. Pardon, as a piece of art signifying the love and togetherness my wife and I share. ...two kissing rock birds on a branch of rock. Awwww. Fifty pounds if it's an ounce.

We ran into the basic line-jumping twit. Yes, he’s going to get a much better seat by getting in front of me than in taking his arrival-order position behind me. He might have to walk as many as two steps fewer than I will. He wins!!

Congratulations, idiot. Did you start the day sitting in the middle of the airport parking lot waiting for the car in the first parking spot to load up and leave so you can take the spot for yourself? You could have been first in this line if you'd only gone around the corner and parked in the spot a half-dozen cars down the line. But no. You have to hold up 5 cars behind you just so you can snag the closest spot and walk 30 fewer feet. You win again!!

Your trophy case must be overflowing by now. Much like the seams on your pants, I notice. Walking less and less adds pounds. Take a hint.

We also ran into self-pitying tear-stains. Heaps of self-pitying tear-stains. And they were all trying to get on the plane first by abusing the rules. They all had some form of major infirmity that [sniff sniff] required them to "pre-board".

...so they boarded the plane before they got on it? No, no, no. They preferentially boarded. "Pre-boarding" is something, apart from boarding, that is necessary to do before boarding. Like getting to the airport in the first place. Like packing. Those are both “pre-boarding” activities.

"While we're pre-boarding, dear, are you going to want to take your razor? How about pre-boarding my dress shoes, while you're in the closet. And hurry up, because we need to get in the car to complete the pre-boarding."

Dear airlines: you do not "pre-board" the aged, infantile and infirm. You preferentially board them.

And while I'm on the airlines themselves, why the hell is it so hard to make airplane windows that actually serve their purpose? There isn't an airplane in the modern fleet which has a window that:
1] fits with the seat pattern, and
2] is face-high for a full-grown adult to look out.

Figure it out folks, it can't be that hard. You did it for the pilots.

If you're not infirm when you get into a window seat, you're fully crippled by the time you get out of it. Which is great if you've got a connecting flight. "I must preferentially board now; my neck is paralyzed."

The purpose of preferentially boarding the aged, infantile and infirm is to give them the room and time they need to maneuver themselves. They need the extra room and time: they’re either too old to move well, too young to know where they’re supposed to go, or too crippled to do it fast. But simply because someone wants extra room and time for himself doesn’t make him aged, infantile or infirm. Here are some hints:

If you're 80 but move well on your own two feet, you don't need preferential boarding; if you're 80 and wheelchair-bound you qualify, but you should probably think about a different form of transportation in the future. Cargo airplanes, maybe; not passenger planes. I know, how insensitive of me.

If you're wheelchair-bound because your "infirmity" is excessive obesity, then personally I don't consider you infirm but self-indulgent and selfish, and your personal shortcomings are not a quality so admirable it entitles the bearer a preference at the airport. I again would suggest another means of transportation in your future, possibly a forklift or long-haul tractor trailer.

If your "small children" are merely as immature as an infant, but are chronologically 9 or 10 years old, then they need to get in line behind everyone else … and you need to corral them. If you can't, if you insist on flouting the rules for selfish reasons, then so can I. And suddenly you and your adorably spoiled brats and their grotesquely inconsiderate parents are "suspicious", and you'll be getting tapped on the shoulder by a TSA weenie about ten minutes before your preferential boarding. Better luck on your next flight.

If you legitimately DO have legitimately small children, how about you do some basic housekeeping in your pre-boarding routine so you won't bring the entire FAA system to a slow crawl just for the sake of your aw-what-a-cutie-pie child? Like, fold up your stroller. Better yet, check it at the counter. You have a small baby, fergodsake, not a small rhino; carry it. That's what parents were given arms for.

And before anyone gets all indignant, I've got four kids and I never once used a stroller, ever, not even at the mall, and I took my kids everywhere. A stroller is prima fascie evidence of a lazy parent. Being a lazy parent doesn't grant you preferential boarding; failing to pack up your laziness before you preferentially board means you're rude and selfish as well. If you're okay being lazy, rude and selfish, I'm okay saying so.

On our crowded flight – already late due to unscheduled maintenance – there were at least a dozen individuals requiring preferential boarding. And their families with them. Over twenty-five people got on the plane before everyone else. They took an average of two and a half minutes for each group to individually load. Everyone else stood in line for an extra half hour as these people barged ahead.

They included a thin old lady who rolled up in a wheelchair but was apparently miraculously cured on the flight, because she walked off. Briskly.

There was a two-ton Tessie who should probably have moved by freight rail.

There was a family with small children who were surprised as all get-out that they'd need to fold up their strollers and collect the FAO Schwarz-worth of toys and stuff them in any of a half dozen carry-ons.

There was a young man with his arm in a cast. Uh… pardon, but how does a broken wrist make it difficult for you to walk? Are you a quadruped? If so, you need to be in baggage. In a crate.

And there was a young-ish woman who strolled up to the gate five minutes before the plane was scheduled to leave and nonchalantly headed to the preference line. I'm figuring she had a hangover headache. The airline let her on ahead of us regulars without asking for the note from her doctor, or her last night’s bar bill.

I commented to my wife – and loud enough for several of those around us to hear – that my foot hurt [which it did; it's chronic] and I needed to be up there with the lady having a hangover. Most people smiled knowingly while three people, including the line jumper, looked at me with much disdain … as if I were being, golly, rude.

Yes, indeed. How rude to point out others being rude. And it was rude of you to sneer at me about it. So put that flinging-rock away, Mr Sinfree Glasshauser.

Preferential boarding is available to those who need it, not merely those who want it. We all want it. But it takes an unacceptable level of inconsiderate social arrogance to take for ourselves what is being given to someone else. The collection plate at church is not a sampler tray; the Toys-for-Tots box is not a shopping cart in a register-less toy store. Preferential boarding is for those who need assistance, not for those who want attention.

Buy yourself as many mirrors as you can afford and heap praise upon your reflection if attention is what you crave, Narcissus. Then stay home; everybody wins that way.

Deconstructing Natalee

Deconstructing Natalee
© 2007 Ross Williams

Due to popular demand [sic], not to mention being somewhat bored with having my essaying being done scattergun in various other fora and in less than well-rounded literary styling, I’m going to address the rampant criticism my commentary on the renewed-and-dropped “Aruba Incident” has received over the past several weeks.

For the record, I have no idea what happened to Natalee Holloway in Aruba. I have not made any positive claim one way or another. Was she murdered? died of natural, if premature, causes? abducted by aliens? swam off to Venezuela to meet her internet boyfriend Raul and live a simple life picking tarantulas off bananas to the tune of Day-O? … I don’t know. And frankly, I don’t care.

I don’t have the time or emotional energy to devote concern to everyone on the planet for the outrages and tragedies they suffer. My own are quite enough, thank you. This is selfish, perhaps, but most acts of self-preservation are. I can’t think of any which aren’t to be honest, but I’m going to say “most” just because I don’t want some pretentious wag coming back shaking a scolding finger at me later as if it’s a valid trump card.

Issues from which I cannot maintain emotional detachment I rarely discuss with others. Which means that I don’t talk about divorce or child custody/support issues much, but it leaves foreign policy, land-use, scientific charlatanism and Natalee Holloway open and available.

People, including myself, who discuss issues to which they are emotionally attached have a tendency to see what they want, only what they want, and connect the dots in ways that draw conclusions convenient to their pre-conceived notions. And since I don’t have any emotional attachments, or the pre-conceived notions which accompany them, one way or another as regards the missing Miss Holloway, I have run afoul on more than one occasion of those who have drawn the conclusion that she was murdered pretty much before the plane with her classmates landed back home in Birmingham.

…Because I’ve said that while it’s possible she was murdered, there’s no direct [public] evidence which points uniquely and inexorably at that conclusion. In essence: “murder” is, at this point, an emotional reaction not supported by the known facts. It is worth pointing out here and now that the general public – which includes both me and my critics – have as information only what the Aruban authorities have given out. I know no more about it than they do and, just as importantly, they know no more about it than me.

The single difference, therefore, between my commentary and theirs is the emotional attachments we give the subject.

Instead of drawing conclusions on the case like most people have done, though, I started a list of “likelihoods” that was met by nearly uniform disdain … for those discussing the Natalee Holloway saga two and a half years into it are pretty much whittled down to the junior detectives from CSI: Aruba … and me. They because of emotional attachment, and me because of the very reason that I am not emotionally attached. I gotta talk about something.

So the way the Natalee thing breaks down is this:

She’s either alive or dead. This may seem trivial, but it’s important to gaining scope. It is “extremely unlikely” that she’s alive, and “extremely likely” that she’s dead. Why? Because that’s the way it tends to work far more often than not. Compare and contrast against similar situations, always.

Let’s deal with ‘alive’ first, since it’s the more affirming of the two options. If she were alive, then she’s either missing because
1] she wants to be missing, or
2] someone else wants her to be missing.

There’s pretty much bupkus to point at her own self-disappearance. American and Aruban authorities both looked into this and drew the same conclusion: she did not run away from home. This is not absolutely definitive, but it is the educated and experienced conclusions of the experts.

This leaves another party disappearing her.

If someone else wanted her to be missing, then it was for one of two reasons:
1] they want her; or
2] they want something in exchange for her.

If she’s been kidnapped by someone who wants her, she has been taken for white slaving duties. If she’d been kidnapped for ransom then there’d have been some kind of note or other contact made by her kidnappers. There wasn’t. After two and a half years, you can’t say the kidnappers simply hadn’t gotten around to making their demands yet. Two days, maybe. Two and a half years … no.

The results so far:
1] Dead: most likely
2] Alive: white slavery, extremely unlikely
3] Alive: ran away from home, beyond extremely unlikely
4] Alive: kidnapped by forgetful thugs
Alive: abducted by aliens
Alive: fell into the southern apex of the Bermuda Triangle and exists in suspended animation … all about the same level of preposterous.

Now on to her being, alas, dead.

If she were dead, it would be because:
1a] someone else deliberately made her dead;
1b] someone else accidentally made her dead;
2a] she deliberately made herself dead;
2b] she unintentionally made herself dead … by doing foolish things
2c] she unintentionally made herself dead … by doing otherwise normal things that had horrible results
3] her deadness was imposed upon her by heretofore unknown medical condition.

But that isn’t enough. Not only is there “dead” to consider, but there is also “missing”. Indeed, “missing” is the only thing we know for certain here, and hence the mystery. If she were not missing, it would be trivially easy to tell if she were alive or dead [with the exception being if she were in some Atlantean suspended animation, I guess] and, if dead, it would also be pretty simple to get a rough idea of what killed her.

There is less than no indication that she would have killed herself deliberately. She never displayed any suicidal tendencies. Again, not out of the question, but so vanishingly unlikely that it goes down in the “preposterous” pile along with running away from home.

She had no known medical conditions [heart defect, bulging aneurysm, etc], but then young people pop up all the time, or perhaps plop down all the time, with unknown medical problems which kill them on playgrounds and school cafeterias and whatnot. It’s not out of the question, but it’s extremely unlikely – much like her being a white slave.

Dead from medical cause and missing from …? Well, Aruba is a tropical island, and there’s many animals that will take gift meals from anywhere they present themselves. It’s also surrounded by a whole ocean full of water, which has tides and everything. Die close enough to the water, you can get washed away to be gobbled by scavengers in the water[1] or hung up on underwater debris[2] … where you’d be nibbled by scavengers at their leisure. Being missing through natural mechanisms is easily explained.

If someone deliberately or accidentally killed her, it would be trivially easy to understand why she’s now missing. In the first case [murder], the person[s] would not want to be discovered and a missing body makes that easier; avoiding punishment is in one’s self-interest. In the second case [ooops, we were messing around and I knocked her down and she hit her head], pretty much the same thing – don’t want to be discovered. However, the reason isn’t to avoid punishment, but to escape the shame of being a stupid and careless idiot. Who needs the publicity?

Whether someone else killed her accidentally or deliberately, the ability to get rid of the body with any amount of certainty is problematic. The barracuda may or may not be cooperative that night – they might have already had a full meal. Disposing of the body, deliberately, and making certain it would be gone would be a matter of luck … and any compound event which relies on luck suddenly makes it less likely. Again, not out of the question, but not likely.

In favor of this idea, though, is that there were three people [known to be] involved with Natalee Holloway that night. The rich son of a local judge, and two of his “other side of the tracks” friends … brothers. All eyes would be on the rich son, and the two brothers could use each other for alib…, er, excuses. The logistics were possible.

But not likely.

Even if that the death was accidental, the disposal of the body would have been deliberate [and a crime, although substantially less than murder], meaning that any one of the three could suffer pangs of guilt afterward and sell the other two out. This happens in the vast, vast, vast, vast majority of such cases, but it hasn’t happened here. Which means:
1] they are all three hardened criminals used to keeping and concealing criminal activities – which is as likely as the space alien theory; or
2] they are extremely lucky to have all three with no known conscience with which to feel guilty – not out of the question, but extremely unlikely; or
3] the three accidentally killed her but other forces – natural or otherwise – disposed of the body in their place. Which would be similar to them winning the Criminal Sweepstakes. I.e., down in the weeds with the space invaders.

Furthermore, if she were deliberately killed and disposed of, it would be at odds with our understanding of the murderer’s mind, as there’d have been no known motive.

Motiveless murder does occur, but it’s extremely rare. The Missing Miss was with three young men, and she had been drinking what was described as moderately large amounts of alcohol on her last night in Margaritaville. If the three wanted to rape her, it’d be 3-to-1 on it being consensual, and the son of a judge being one of the three, it’d be a slam dunk. Not to mention that most places on the planet which aren’t called USA and Canuckia, being drunk and female is often, if not nearly always, considered to be an open invitation to sex. Young Holloway saying no to sex and threatening to scream rape was not a viable threat which would have been met with murder to conceal.

There’s simply no reasonable motive that leaps out of the known facts. We’re stuck with a motiveless murder – an extreme rarity – and since there hasn’t been a string of these random missing girls, it can’t be ascribed to a “serial murder” which is also rare [but made notorious in our culture] and which has a motive, even if non-traditional: thrill of killing, mainly.

Additionally, it is possible that these three in fact did not deliberately kill her but others, known or unknown, did. And since everyone under the sun has been concentrating so hard on the three boys, it means for all practical purposes that they have been unwilling to look at other possibilities. You cannot find what you refuse to look for. Considering the narrow focus from the git-go, it’s somewhat more likely that a deliberate death by another party occurred than three boys on their virgin murder having committed the perfect crime.

The remaining options are all based around Holloway having died from her own actions. She had been drinking, reportedly heavily. Aruba is still part of the Netherlands, although they snootily declare their independence – like many teenagers do. Aruba is, in fact, independent in the same sort of way as American high school graduates who will have mommy and daddy and step-daddy paying for college are independent, even as they travel to Aruba and drink themselves silly.

Be that as it may, Aruba comes under Dutch law and it is worth noting that the Dutch have no minimum drinking age. You can start drinking the moment you’re weaned – if someone else buys it. You only need to be 15 to buy beer or wine yourself, 16 to purchase liquor.[3] The standard Caribbean age is 18 [16 in Cuba, 19 in Nicaragua]. Guess why young American college students and high school graduates want to party outside the country? Americans are prohibitionary prudes compared to everyone on the planet except fundamentalist muslims.[4]

Natalee had been drinking. A lot.

Sadly, alcohol poisoning happens, and it’s mostly seen in alcoholics [apparently not the case here] or in virgin drinkers not used to gauging their alcohol intake [ding ding ding ding!!].

It is unlikely that she would have died from alcohol poisoning. But “unlikely” is more likely than “extremely unlikely and relying on luck”. Her dying from alcohol poisoning is a better choice than her being murdered with no motive and disposed of by chance.

Similarly, she could have suffered a tragic consequence of a reasonably common activity. The suggestion that I’ve offered several times, and which ties in all the known facts – she had been drinking a lot and was last seen on the beach – is that she started puking up Bahama Mamas [she was drunk, remember], staggered into the surf to wash up [drunk], got sideswiped by a wave [while drunk] couldn’t regain her footing [tough when sober, she was drunk], and ended up drowning only to be washed away … and thereupon nibbled by hammerheads, barracuda and foreign alligators in the mangrove swamp.

Again, unlikely, but more likely than motiveless murder.

So let’s rate them all again, somewhat in order of their rational likelihood, and leaving out the ridiculous:
1a] Dead: by own action, washed away – unlikely
1b] Dead: by tragic consequence, washed away – unlikely
2] Dead: accidental, body disposed and no one got guilty – more unlikely
3] Dead: deliberate, unknown parties – very unlikely
4a] Alive: white slavery, extremely unlikely
4b] Dead: deliberate, motiveless, by virgin murderers who felt no guilt and have not squealed, body disposed – extremely unlikely
4c] Dead: accidental, washed away – extremely unlikely
4d] Dead: medical cause, washed away – extremely unlikely
5a] Alive: ran away from home – quite extremely unlikely
5b] Dead: suicide, washed away – quite extremely unlikely

These are not a comprehensive list of the possibilities by any stretch, just what I could fit into a long-ish essay detailing how I go about the process of thinking these things through. She also could have died from alcohol poisoning while with the three boys, who panicked and threw her into the surf, to name just one example. The three of them have given some indications that they know her to be dead, so it’s possible. Rate it where you wish, but it’s still more plausible than three virgin murderers committing the perfect crime and not having one of them tattle.

Just for contrast, let’s briefly juxtapose this with some fairly notorious stories in the news recently, of which I will cite three:
1] Steve Fossett, the rich “adventurer” who disappeared while flying around Nevada;
2] Stacy Peterson, the missing 4th wife of a Chicago cop whose 3rd wife drowned “mysteriously” in a dry bathtub and had been reporting abuse to family; and
3] Anu Solanki, a young woman, newly married, who left her car running in a remote forest preserve and disappeared.

Rationally, we expect that Fossett crashed and simply hasn’t been found – Nevada is huge and sparsely populated. But it is possible that his wife “cut his brake lines” so as to inherit his sizable fortune; murder is a possibility. She’s already requested that he be pronounced legally dead after only three months … does she have a boyfriend? anyone check on that? Could he have run away from home, perhaps? does he have a girlfriend? Did he fly over Groom Lake [Area 51] and get shot down by the Air Force, or black helicopters, or space aliens?

Rationally, we also expect that both Stacy Peterson and Anu Solanki are dead. Statistically, women are more likely to die at the hands of their husbands or other long-term intimates than by strangers, and when a wife or female romantic partner turns up nowhere to be found, statistics suggest that you start looking real, real close to home.

Stacy remains missing, while Anu beat the odds and turned up in California with another man [not romantic, she says; I’ll bet he feels differently] saying that she simply made a mistake getting married and didn’t mean to put anyone out by searching for her.

But in both cases involving these women, among the most plausible explanation is for intimate foul play. In Fossett’s case, foul play is a huge stretch … knowing what we know.

The same is largely true in Holloway’s case, even if not to the same degree. Knowing what we know, foul play is not one of the stronger candidates. Stupid play is.

This is unemotional, granted, and therefore not likely to appeal to those who need emotion to justify their beliefs, but that can’t be helped. And, for the murder-mongers out there, keep a good thought: Anu Solanki beat the odds and simply ran away from a reportedly good marriage; Natalee Holloway might beat the known odds as well and be a murder victim. Stranger things have happened.[5]




[1] Barracuda, shark and caiman – which is what a foreign alligator is called, and is the namesake of the Cayman Islands.
[2] Mangrove roots, old discarded fishing nets – Aruba is a tropical island with typical tropical island vegetation and social habits. Locals don’t often pick up after themselves.
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drinking_age
[4] Fundy-muzzies and MADD would seem to have similar agendas
[5] http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/12/06/missing.canoeist/

Word of Mouth

How’s This for Word of Mouth?
© 2007 - Ross Williams

We ran out of stamps last weekend, and on the way home from the farm store I stopped at the post office for a roll of the conveniently-priced first class stamp. I used my debit card, which I had signed on the back like a good little do-bee. The postal clerk took my card, looked at the back of it, and asked me for identification.

This annoys me. This, in fact, insults me.

I glared at the postal clerk. Somewhat taken aback, he offered this rationalization: “It looks like someone had tried signing this, but it’s worn off…”

No, I have a large, sprawling signature that does not fit in the quarter-inch tall strip available to hold it.

The reason I had gone to the farm store was because the chickens were desperately low on chicken feed. While there I found a bag of beet pulp feed, and I decided to try that for the sheep. They love it. Finally, a use for beets that doesn’t include turning the mashed potatoes red.

This was the major piece of the Saturday morning errand-running before we took to the pasture and tended to the new lambs. Spring ritual. We’ve had two sets of twins so far this year which, with the typical mortality, has yielded three lambs. Two boys and a girl[1]. There are two other ewes in the flock, both in what should be their first breeding. I’m expecting a couple singles here before too long.

In any event, the boys we’ve already got need to be castrated, all of them need their tails docked, their color-coded earring, and a tetanus shot. Busy busy.

This year, the older kids were going to round up the lambs and take turns holding them while I tagged and injected, and they’d get a chance to work the castrating bander. So after being insulted at the post office, we came home and started getting the livestock accoutrement ready for the afternoon.

When I went to the cupboard in the barn, though, the castrating bander was broken. The critical piece of equipment for docking tails was severely cracked. Well, double-damn. If I’d known that sooner I could have picked up another one at the farm store – twenty-seven miles up the road in Litchfield. I’m not going back there now, I thought to myself. We’ll tag and inject today, and see if we can make the broken bander work. If not, I’ll pick up another one on the way home from work at the other farm store in the area, and do the rest of it next weekend.

Well, we couldn’t make the bander work. As soon as I put a band on it and flexed it, the one arm broke clean off, leaving two of the four prongs on the ground at my feet. Can’t dock tails like that, let alone neuter the boys.

Triple-damn.

Ah, well, it was a cheap bander in the first place. Plastic. Under ten bucks. The all metal, heavy-duty bander costs around twenty-five. Two years ago I figured that with a small flock and only anticipating a handful of uses one time a year, the plastic one would suffice. Guess I was wrong.

So yesterday I went to the smaller farm store kinda sorta between the office and home. I found the castrating bander, the heavy duty metal one, and picked up a package of hypodermic needles to go along with it, and took them up front to check out.

Out came my debit card.

The one I signed on the back.

…in my large, sprawling way.

The check-out lady looked at my debit card, and looked at it again, and asked to see some identification.

I glared at her as well. I cannot overemphasize this: I really, really, really, really, really, really hate being insulted.

You insult me, chances are real good that I’m going to end up insulting you in fairly short order, and how you conduct yourself is critical at this juncture. I believe in payback-in-kind, in kindness and incivility both. And if you don’t like being insulted ...? don’t insult me in the first place. Couldn’t be simpler.

The reason I’m insulted when I have identification demanded of me is because I find it offensive to be told, essentially, that I must justify myself. In so many words: “We don’t trust you.” It smacks of a quasi-nazi police state tactic: “Papers, mein herr?!?”

First of all, we are supposed to be free citizens in a free country; freedom means not having to justify yourself to anyone. Second, if you want my business, the best way to get it is to not insult me and make me jump through your hoops. I’m not a trained poodle.

The check-out lady I glared at … she didn’t bother rationalizing her insulting behavior. She simply refused to make eye contact. That’s the best way to go, frankly. Simply accept that you just insulted me, and act contrite.

And don’t let it happen again.

Unfortunately, I know better than that; it will happen again. And again. And again. And again and again and again.

It’s happened so often that I know the insipid explanation that would be used against me: it’s for my protection.

If there’s one thing I hate more than being insulted it’s being lied to. Lies carry with them the implicit insult: “You are so stupid that you will believe this cockamamie excuse.” While that may be the case for the majority of those being lied to, it’s not the case for me and you do not have the option of telling me that indulging your financial paranoias protects me from anything. I have made, and will make again, major scenes in public involving raised voices and much profanity when idiot clerks tell me that I’m being given a neo-nazi grilling “for my protection”.

I don’t care who or where. You do not have the option of lying to me.

When a person makes a purchase with a credit card, he’s either authorized to use that card – i.e., he’s the guy who owns the card[2] – or he isn’t. The ratio is roughly 10,000 to 1. The vast, vast, vast majority of credit card purchases are authorized. The problem is in the rarest of rare cases where a credit card has been lost or stolen and someone else is using it.

Experts on credit fraud are fully aware that the items most commonly purchased using someone else’s credit card are not consumable items like groceries or gas, nor are they the large-ticket consumer items like big-screen televisions. Most credit fraud is seen, naturally, in the purchases of postage stamps and sheep castration equipment. It was only natural that I’d be pulled to the side twice in two days to have latter-day Waffen demand that I justify myself.

But here’s the way it works: when I get my credit card statement[3] and I see purchases I didn’t make, I call up the credit card company and tell them, “I didn’t make charge number umpti-ump” and they won’t pay it. I keep my money, and either the bank or the store doesn’t. I’m protected. Who isn’t protected is the bank or the store. The store is out the merchandise that was improperly purchased, and they might also be out the money for it.

So when the clerk demands that I justify myself by providing identification to prove that I’m the owner of the credit card, he’s not protecting me, he can only be protecting the store – by annoying and insulting me: the customer. My initial response is to glare.

Which means that if he tells me he’s protecting me while he’s protecting the store instead, he’s lying to me: the customer. At that point, I do much more than glare.

Clerks tend to do one of a few things when I glare at them in these situations. First is to acknowledge their insult; they look away and remain silent. Good clerk! The second is to make an excuse along the lines of “the signature’s worn off…”. This is an exercise which is not so entertaining as a full-fledged fan dance, but which serves the same purpose: cover your ass. But the last option, alas …

If the clerk decides to respond to my glare with “…but it’s for your protection…”, he will be doubling the insult by calling me stupid on top of it, and I will dive into full-on righteous indignation[4]. And no one wants that, not even me.

So the way it will go is this: if you own or run a store and you want to have customers, then you’ll probably need to accept credit cards. Many people don’t carry any more cash with them today than is needed for incidental purchases. If you’re going to accept credit cards, then implicit in that is accepting the risk of credit fraud.[5] To catch one case of credit fraud, the clerk would have to nazily interrogate 10,000 customers with credit cards in their hands. Maybe it’s just me, but the risk/reward/effort-to-achieve-reward equation doesn’t balance out.

If the merchant doesn’t want to accept the risk of one credit fraud and instead force 10,000 customers to indulge the proprietor’s paranoias, the cost of that is, first, sermons like these from me; second, many people would rather shop elsewhere than to explain why they don’t want to come back to the store that just insulted them, and the store will lose some number of customers; and third, if the stores where I am insulted do not apologize for insulting me after I tell them about it, they will also lose me as a customer.

But I won’t go away silently.

I’m expecting apologies forthwith from the Postmaster at the Edwardsville IL post office and from the Big R Rural King in Highland IL. You’re on the clock, folks.



[1] The boys are named Stew and Basil, the girl is Curry.
[2] which is to say: he pays the credit card bill
[3] or, with the debit card, my bank statement
[4] hissy fit, whatever
[5] even by accepting cash, the proprietor accepts the risk of counterfeiting, so financial fraud is already part of their landscape. To pretend otherwise, for merchants to suddenly balk at a different form of financial fraud and thrust the customer into the spotlight of the merchant’s paranoia, is disingenuous at best and self-serving bullshit at worst. Grow up, folks.

Open Wide

Open Wide and Say "Duh!"
© 2007 – Ross Williams

I was reading online news last week when I came across an article by the junk science guy: Steven Milloy. If you're a liberal you hate him; if you're a conservative you love him.

Personally, I like him in small doses.

Last week he was lauding "The Great Global Warming Swindle", which is a BBC film, ostensibly as retort to Al "Internet" Gore's cautionary fairy tale "An Inconvenient Truth". Having seen neither film, but having seen what passes for documentary in our shock-n-awe age – last night I watched an eye-rolling piece on The History Channel about how the Bermuda Triangle is really the result of a small black hole somewhere inside our planet – I do have a bias.

My bias is this: documentarians are not uncommonly idiots.

Milloy described the Swindle thus: "Global Warming", as an anthropogenic event[1] is hyperbolized, which the wisdom of the 23rd century, inhabited by Star Trek, The Original Series, will realize.

Whoda guessed, eh?

Indeed, the term "global warming" appears to have been invented in 1979 by the arch-conservative British politician, Margaret Thatcher, herself. Remember, in 1979 the planet was still in the middle of "new ice age" hysteria; winters were colder and longer-lasting, summers cooler and wetter, and Paul Ehrlich was still convincing millions of college kids and other dingbats that the draft on the back of their necks was the first sign of a major human die-off that would kill hundreds of millions within the decade.

Ol' Maggie had no time for such nonsense. She had a nation to run, and getting energy for that nation was the first order of business[2]. But she was a conservative and thus didn't like labor unions ... particularly the labor unions that dug coal out of the Welsh countryside. And she was a conservative and thus a xenophobe [as we are expected to believe] ... so she didn't like buying oil from those pesky Arabs. What she wanted to do instead was make electricity by splitting atoms into bits. This would keep British Pounds in Britain, but keep them from union laborers; instead they’d go to rich British industrialists and their atomic engineers.

So she claimed that there was more CO2 in the atmosphere than ever before – which is correct, of course. And this “more CO2” was mostly from burning fossil fuels – which is also largely correct. But to scare her Parliament into going along with her anti-coal union, anti-Arab oil move, she claimed this new CO2 would end up causing the planet to heat up to disastrous consequences.

Thatcher invented a whole new crisis called "global warming". Climate cycles being what they are[3], it would only be a short while before the colder, wetter Earth was replaced by a warmer, drier Earth and she would be considered correct. Indeed, by the mid 80s, Gaia had kicked up the thermostat. "Global warming" was cut out of whole cloth by Thatcher's self-serving political cynicism. Her legacy has been to place a "Kick me; no, really, I mean it" sign on the backs of first-world conservatism for decades to come.

How ironic.

Now, of course, the UN has jumped onto the Global Warming bandwagon[4] with both feet, and those feet would seem to be taking root. Thus it was jarring for me to read this morning that one of the many, many bureaucratic arms of the UN – the FAO[5] – is reporting that one of the crucial pieces of eco-alarmism is reversing itself … albeit slowly.

This isn’t mere alarmism, though; it is also a crucial piece of the “global warming” alarmism. We’re cutting down fewer trees across the planet today than we have been in the past[6].

The tree-huggers are winning. I like trees, so … yay!

The findings are that, by region, more equatorial clear-cutting is being offset by deliberate reforestation in the temperate zones. Such reforestation is directly tied to the growing prosperity and wealth of nations in those regions.

It was a short article, so that about covers the stated findings.

But that’s not all this one article says; some people paid attention in school and know how to determine what seemingly random facts actually mean. India and China are reforesting, and offsetting the massive deforestation in Indonesia. India and China are industrial, profit-making nations; Indonesia is not. Do the math.

The US has long-ago reforested, old-growth forest giving way to managed-forest notwithstanding; Japan, for being so small and well-peopled, has vast forests as well. Across the globe, the capitalist nations – or, with the example of China, quasi-capitalist – know the benefits of trees and also have the money to plant them. Backward nations, full of socialism or other forms of grand economic incompetence, use trees for fuel or the land under trees for farming, and … goodbye trees.

What does this mean? It means that socialism is a failure, not only in terms of pure profit, but in terms of the ecological, environmental benefit that can be purchased with the profits generated – socialism doesn’t make money. It can’t. Socialism is profit-neutral in theory, but many of the ideological freaks who insist on choreographing modern socialism are actually profit-hostile. Ask any anti-globalization zealot how he thinks his dream world would be underwritten if not by the corporate profits dependant upon globalized commerce? Even Chavez is paying for Venezuela’s unskilled worker’s paradise with globalized oil revenue.

What else does this trend toward reforestation mean? You only need to have paid attention in high school and college [and retained what you learned], and further paid attention to what the “global warmers” have been hypothesizing in order to hoist them on their own petard.

As the article on the FAO report says: deforestation directly contributes 18% of the anthropogenic carbon to the atmosphere annually. Yet the Kyoto treaty would have us reduce our carbon output by only 5 to 7% – to 1990 levels – by 10% if we’re going to go back to a pre-9/11 economic output. We could do that in a trice, and then some, by reforesting. And that’s one of the many things the US pointed out in the early Kyoto talks: deforesting nations are putting out a disproportionate amount of carbon relative to their economic output[7], and while many industrialized nations put out more carbon per capita, they put out less carbon per dollar GDP, and are – with respect to the US, Australia, Canuckia and Japan, specifically – close to carbon-neutral or are actually net carbon sinks. Some of the world’s biggest CO2 makers are also the worlds biggest CO2 absorbers. These countries have been making profits for so long that they can afford to replant all the trees they cut down [or, in Canuckia’s case, never got around to cutting down since it was too much trouble and too cold anyway].

Nations like the former Soviet Bloc, nearly all nations in sub-saharan Africa and Latin America, on the other hand, have never made a profit, and most are treeless or becoming that way. In Africa and Latin America especially, the nations are so profitless that they tend to be on World Wide Welfare. They’re deforesting a Paris on a daily basis, a Great Britain annually. And it ends up mostly as smoke.

Which means atmospheric carbon.

Wanna meet the goals of Kyoto tomorrow? Stop Indonesian, African and Brazilian rain forest obliteration today.

But wait! That’s not all.

Think about the answers to these questions: Where is virtually all of the world’s net deforestation taking place? Where does the sun spend most of it’s time? What happens when you stand under a tree? and then what happens when you step out from under the tree and stand in the sunlight? …while on the equator?

What do you think happens to the earth when it steps out from under that same tree? and what do you think happens to the air just above the surface of the earth when all this is going on?

As the global warmers have been telling us, it’s not only the heat-absorbing properties of atmospheric carbon dioxide which is heating the planet, but the radiative heating of the planet’s midsection – the equatorial region. The place where most deforestation is now occurring.

If we are to believe the global warmers – and they desperately want us to – then we have to accept some of the underlying scientific realities they are constructing their globally warm house of cards from. …and so do they. The Laws of Thermodynamics cannot be broken. Matter can neither be created nor destroyed; merely altered. And if we are to believe Einstein, matter and energy are interchangeable, so energy can neither be created nor destroyed, merely changed.

So when sunlight strikes the earth, the light energy is transformed into heat energy, and it warms the earth which radiates that heat to the air above it. Every cat napping in a patch of sunlight knows this.

And every 4th grader knows this: when sunlight strikes the leaves of a tree, the light energy is changed, by the process of photosynthesis, from light into sugar. C6H12O6. Many 4th graders can even recite the chemical equation. Six CO2 molecules combines with twelve H2O molecules to create one sugar molecule and six oxygen [O2] and six water [H2O] molecules.[8]

Every 4th grader can tell you that plants eat CO2 and poop O2 and water. If we want less CO2 we want more plants. We’ll all breathe easier.

So what happens when the sunniest part of the planet – the equator – cuts down its trees in orgiastic glee and goes from being a plant sugar factory to being a radiative heat factory because the incompetent governments of equatorial nations are clinging to outdated economic despotism? All that sunlight which used to be converted into sugar is now being converted into radiative heat.

Who thinks the planet will warm up as a result? Raise your hands…

We haven’t even gotten to my gluttonous SUV or America’s petro-rapacity, either.

Nor have we gotten to the fundamental fallacy of reforesting in the temperate zone to make up for deforesting in the tropics. The planet is round like a ball, not round like a cylinder. Sunlight strikes the temperate zone at an angle and it needs, by definition, many more trees in the temperates to convert the same amount of sunlight into CO2-munching sugar as opposed to radiative heat. When China plants trees, it helps their soil erosion problems and their timber industry and slows the encroaching Gobi Desert, to be sure, but it means bupkus to the planetary damage done by Indonesia’s massive jungle-clearing. “All of Asia” is not a unitary environment.

Nor have we gotten to the lack of correlation between atmospheric CO2 levels and temperature, either in the geologic record or in modern meteorology – CO2 levels increase after the temperature does. Nor to the nearly direct correlation between tropic-zone deforestation which began in earnest in the mid-seventies and the phenomenon of “anthropogenic global warming” which began around a decade later.

Rarely in any collision of human desires – be they social, cultural, political or scientific – are any of the participants completely bereft of sense, value or validity. And that’s pretty much my position on this monumental Clash of Titans.

Is the planet warmer now than 40 years ago? Almost certainly.

Is it partly because of mankind? Mankind affects everything it touches, so very, very likely.

Is it only because of mankind, as proposed by many of the global warmers? Mankind is trivial in power to cosmic and geological forces, and there are many periods of global warming concurrent with human history, largely unexplained, and preceding human industry, so almost certainly not.

Is it because of the increased CO2? Probably in part.

Is it only because of increased CO2, as stated by many, many, many? Almost certainly not.

Are there factors which have been glossed over, or ignored, or trivialized for reasons ranging from lack of research funding, to lack of knowledge, to lack of political will? Absolutely.

Are there other factors which have been expanded, and magnified, and hyperbolized for reasons ranging from single-minded devotion to a specialty, to overwrought crepe-hanging, to ox-goring political demagoguery? Open wide and say “duh”.

These are manifestations of standard human behavior across time. But the solution has been hinted at:

Global warming, along with all other major forms of environmental armageddon from which we’ve been hiding in the broom closet for the past two generations, will go away once we all start turning a profit. The FAO understands this, though I doubt they realize they do.



[1] i.e., manmade
[2] besides taking back the Falklands, naturally
[3] i.e., cyclic
[4] gravy train, whatever
[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_and_Agriculture_Organisation
[6] http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/03/19/environment.forests.reut/index.html
[7] i.e., profit
[8] For the pedants in the audience who are going to say that this explanation is overly simplistic – as if modern global warming theory isn’t drawn in crayolas itself – a part of the solar radiation is absorbed by atmospheric components [mostly water vapor and carbon dioxide – and mostly water vapor], a part of the solar radiation is absorbed by plants as heat [you stick a plant in the sunlight, it will warm up just as surely as the napping cat], and only a portion of the solar radiation is transformed into sugar. But the point they are desperately attempting to dodge here is that in the absence of the huge canopy of tropical rainforest, NONE of the solar radiation is transformed into sugar, and it’s all left to turn into heat. Nice try, guys.

Double-Talk

Talking the Double-Talk
- or -
The Iceman Cometh and Goeth At Will
© 2007 Ross Williams

I was looking up a reference last week when I happened upon a quote relating to the belief common among, um, "climatologists" of the sixties and seventies. This common belief held that the planet was quickly descending into a period of global cooling so drastic that within the lifetimes of many people then alive we would be experiencing a new ice age and decreased agricultural production, famines, mass starvation and human die-offs in the hundreds of millions.

It was all part of the chic cataclysmicism in vogue at the time. The human race was a suicide waiting to happen: doomsday clocks ticked in thunderous, nuclear-tipped tocks; we'd breed ourselves into a neomalthusian nothingness[1]; if we didn't do ourselves in, then the late, great planet earth would save us the trouble[2]; and ecologically ... well, let's just say that we created a witches brew of DDT, Agent Orange and overhead power line radiation, and we were going to stew in the cauldron.

As opposed to the prevailing wisdom of today which never, ever goes on the hysterical benders that the intellectual pioneers of the previous generation took us on[3]. Alar was a bad dream, after all, or possibly a one-woman, two-act morality play performed on the Congressional Stage[4]. Religious[5] and secular[6] armageddons never fight for control of the front page and we particularly haven't adopted an equal-n-opposite quasi-scientific response to the New Ice Age.

...which is tangentially how I happened upon the quote I found. I was looking up a reference in Wikipedia – the user-written online encyclopedia – and there it was. Wikipedia is generally reputed to be an accurate and up-to-date source of reference material for the tech-savvy. And it normally is. But it falls prey to the same sort of ego-tripping bigots and charlatans as everything else[7]. …just far more rapidly.

The reference I found was a statement made by the National Science Board back in the dark ages of the 1970s, when dinosaurs roamed the halls of higher learning. The National Science Board was one of the premier touters of "global cooling" and the New Ice Age, and they wrote whole treatises upon it, explaining in patronizing detail how the short-sighted social, political, economic and industrial expedience of the day was turning the planet into an ice cube.

But Wikipedia is user-written, and most of today's users – like most of any days people, actually – are in lock-goose-step with the popular cultural orthodoxy and therefore accept "global warming" on its face. It is monumentally mortifying to today’s global warmers that just a scant generation ago the planet was doomed – doomed I tells ya – to an inevitable future as an earth-cicle when everyone just knows that its true calling is to be, instead, a briquette in some cosmic barbecue.

So one of Wikipedia's user/editors managed to find the one mediating qualification in the National Science Board's report from 1974, and declared, with the stroke of his 'enter' key, that a generation chock full of pseudo-scientific chicken littling about an ice age didn't academically count for some reason; it was really all the prelude to the real science of global warming ... where the planet is a few short decades from self-incineration.

Out of the ice-box and into the gas grill, as it were.

Imagine: the National Science Board prattles on and on and on for pages about how industrial pollution, particulates and aerosols, were increasing the planet's albedo and reflecting solar radiation back into space, how this industrial pollution was driven by materialism and commercialism, how it was effectively open-ended with no known [and presumably, therefore, none at all] feed-back mechanisms, and at the penultimate paragraph where the National Science Board sums up its fear-mongered prophecies, it tacks on a single sentence which says, in effect, "...unless something else happens instead."[8]

Umpteen paragraphs of gory, self-righteous detail about how we're doomed to live in suburban igloos, and one sentence saying "But maybe not", and it’s even-steven? It's really a declaration of "global warming"? It was “taken out of context”? Thousand of pages of harangue over the span of a few decades is “taken out of context” by leaving off the one sentence that admits “well, we could be wrong”.

No, Mr Wikipedia "contributing editor", it’s not “taken out of context”; but your pretentious rationalization is disingenuous, self-deluded ass-covering, so at least there’s that going for it.

Another Wiki-editor, or possibly the same one, trivialized the eminent scientist, Stephen Schneider, and his early-seventies orthodoxical ice age pan-handling by declaring that Schneider’s prediction of global cooling to the tune of 3.5 degrees celsius did not in fact constitute an actual prediction of global cooling. Schneider declared that unless particulates and aerosols were reduced by proliferating nuclear power plants, the planet would cool by 3.5C. There hasn’t been a nuclear power plant built in the US in over 30 years, so Schneider’s prediction would seem to be wrong.

But in a presto-chango bit of political face-saving, his prediction was declared not a prediction.

When is a prediction not a prediction? When the soothsayer is still alive and saying the opposite sooth, of course. Schneider had his fingers crossed as he wrote his quatrains, apparently, as he is now one of the primary mouthpieces of “global warming”.

How Schneider managed to ingratiate himself onto several national scientific boards by playing both sides of the academic fence is beyond me. But that’s what he did. In the seventies, when it was cool to be an ice-agist, he cherry-picked the data available to him which predicted impending cold weather to scare the gullibles into buying long johns. Today, when you’re a hot A-lister if you fret about “global warming” and can correctly use the term anthropogenic twice in an evening, he’s using the convenient data to scare the same gullibles into bathing in SPF-80.

He explains himself, in oft-quoted demagoguery, thus: “…we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we'd like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broadbased support, to capture the public's imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have.”[9]

Groovy, huh? With as often as Schneider’s quoted as saying that his scientific purpose is to bamboozle us for his peace of mind, he hasn’t seemed to suffer any professional indignities because of it. He escaped in the Paul Ehrlich lifeboat for sinking careers.

Schneider’s self-described fear-mongering has done for science what many Democrats claim George Bush has done for American foreign policy. And, never fearing to tread where millions of feet have trod before, a few prominent Democrats are themselves doing to climate science what they claim Bush has done to foreign policy[10].

If extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice[11], but extremism in response to terrorism is terrorism[12], then what is extremism in the acquisition of research grants?

There would seem to be quite the quandary, here.

But never fear the scary scenarios offered up in simplified, dramatic statements. Those pushing “global warming” have given themselves the standard, one-sentence out just in case the planet limps into the 22nd century without seeing billions drowned in new oceans of melted glaciers, and huge sections of the world’s most productive farmland failing to succumb to desertification.

The Al Gores and the Stephen Schneiders can flip right past the millions of pages of “documented evidence” they’ve been citing which claims that global warming is real and inevitable when it becomes false and hyperbolized, and say thermohaline circulation[13]. They could thus claim they were really predicting a normal climate all along and that they were once again taken out of context.

Much the same as the New Ice Agers did when “global warming” came up.

For some reason, people think science is hard to understand. Just cover your ass and dance.




[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Population_Bomb
[2] http://www.nhne.com/specialreports/srnhneearthchangemap.html
[3] http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/space/03/06/nasa.asteroids.ap/index.html
http://www.boston.com/yourlife/health/diseases/articles/2005/10/31/patent_nonsense_on_avian_flu/
[4] http://www.yale.edu/opa/v31.n17/story3.html
[5] http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/03/05/korea.elbaradei.reut/index.html
[6] http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/02/27/un.climate.plan.ap/index.html
[7] http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,257340,00.html
[8] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling#1974_and_1972_National_Science_Board
[9] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Schneider#Public_understanding_of_science
Also: Discover, pp. 45–48, Oct. 1989; also American Physical Society, APS News August/September 1996
[10] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_inconvenient_truth
[11] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Goldwater#U.S._presidential_election.2C_1964
[12] http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,181030,00.html
[13] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermohaline_circulation

Say What?

You Sat ToMAHto, I Say Illiterate
© 2006 Ross Williams

I sent an email earlier this week to a local radio station, trying to be helpful. They were reporting on the recent school shootings in the Amish region of Pennsylvania, in Lancaster County, and just down the road a piece from Lancaster PA. The news announcer on this radio station pronounced the city and county in Pennsylvania Lan-CAST-er. I said, yes it looks like Lan-CAST-er, but the folks in Lancaster pronounce it LANK-uh-stir.

How would I know, one might ask? I grew up in upstate New York – where the cows outnumbered the people. Not many realize this, but "New York" is pronounced differently upstate than it is in The City. Everyone who's watched any television believes that New Yorkers pronounce it Noo Yawk. Which is true, yeah, if you live in the city and the surrounding tri-state area. Upstate, we lived in Nee Ork.

Growing up around Binghamton Nee Ork, I was only a few hundred miles from Amishland. As a child I was taken to the Pennsylvania Dutch Country several times. To Strasburg festivals, to Gettysburg just over the hill, and to the famous Amish family-style restaurant of the '70s called Good and Plenty. They called it LANK-uh-stir.

Then in junior high, a family moved to our school district. In this family was a kid my age who became a friend of mine. They were from LANK-uh-stir.

All this kid's new friends would – as childhood friends do – insult and degrade this new friend. "You talk funny," we would tell him; "where you from?" LANK-uh-stir, he would reply. "Oh, Lan-CAST-er breeds stupid people," we would respond. No, no, LANK-uh-stir breeds stupid people, he would say.

And we'd go through that pecking-order establishing bonding ritual every few months.

They call it LANK-uh-stir.

That's essentially what I told the radio station guy, minus the personal anecdotes: I've been there, that's what the folks who live there call it; I knew people from there fairly well, and that's what they called it. It's LANK-uh-stir.

The reply I got said, in effect, so what. It doesn't matter what they call it; it's an American english place name, it'll be pronounced the way American english-speakers pronounce it. It looks like Lan-CAST-er so they'll call it Lan-CAST-er.

Which is fine, I suppose. But it's not a very safe reply from any of the provincial snobs in the St Louis area. I remember very clearly during the Flood of '93 when, on the CBS Evening News, Dan Rather mispronunciated one of the Mississippi river towns in Missouri, Cape Girardeau. Mr Rather pronuncified it Cape Zheer-ar-DOUGH, apparently thinking that, as a frenchish place name it might actually be pronounced semi-froggishly. The locals don't know frogs from toads, though, and they call it Cape Juh-RAHR-dough. But for months afterwards, St Louisans took sandbagging breaks to sneer at Dan Rather for making up idiotic pronuncifications.

Dan was apparently so shaken from this verbal disgrace that he graduated from inventing idiotic pronunciations to inventing idiotic news stories.

That being as it may, St Louisans have a whole fistful of local illiteracies over which they get sanctimoniously snooty, and for even one local resident, let alone a radio newsman, to turn up his nose at a foreign oddity with a shrug and a get lost is fairly high up on the hypocrisy ladder.

Since I can't leave these kinds of things alone, allow me to identify a fair portion of the St Louis region's illiteracies. Some may think I'm doing so just to open up the locals to undeserved ridicule. Nothing could be further from the truth: there is no ridicule of native St Louisans that is not warranted.

When the local delicacy is called "toasted ravioli" and it's not, then they bring insults on themselves. Hint, folks: "toasted" anything is toasted; that is, put in a toaster, or at least baked in an oven to approximate toasting. St Louis's "toasted ravioli" is deep-fat-fried. I don't know who they think they're fooling, but I guarantee their cardiologist ain't one of them.

When high society wedding receptions have mostaccioli as the entrée, then insults are invited. It's not even mostaccioli marinara for an added flair, just plain old overcooked fat hollow noodles with Ragu. "Putting on the Ritz" means having a second fork on the left side of the plate [Pssst! It’s for salad].

Which brings me to the first example from St Louis's limp-tongue parade: mostaccioli. An Italian would pronounce it Moh-stah-CHOH-lee, with a more or less elongated CHOH, and maybe a subtle yi added for flavor. Moh-stah-CHyiOH-lee. But we're in America, and mah-stuh-CHOH-lee, all syllables clipped and uninflected, will do fine.

Not so in St Louis. Here, it is muh-skuh-choh-lee. No syllabic stress, little attention paid to vowels, free-substitution of the consonants. Throw out the 'T', add a 'K'. One of the many, many exceptions of the "I before E" ilk, apparently. As a food using the St Louis recipe, it bears little resemblance to its component parts; as a word with the St Louis pronunciation, it bears just as little resemblance to its component letters.

I've written before and I'll write again, I'm sure, that the name of their state – Missouri – is properly pronounced with one of the appropriate vowel-sounds for 'I' where ever the ‘I’ occurs. One of those appropriate vowel-sounds is not "uh". They live in Mih-ZUR-ee.

As I said above, I grew up in Nee Ork. And that's how I pronounce it when I’m talking fast. My tongue is lazy local to where I learned to talk – which is Nee Ork. But if you don't understand me when I say "I grew up in Nee Ork" I don't get all pissy and enunciate "Neeeeeee Orrrrrrk" as if you are a simpleton. I pronounce it properly, slowly, then lazily, fast. "Newwwwww, Yorrrrrrrk! Nee Ork."

Even the rude Noo Yawkuhs will enunciate properly when asked. Oh, they may throw on a gratuitous “yoo fawkin aaa swipe!” at the end, but that’s simply their character and charm.

Not so in much of St Louis and indeed most of the state it's in. Deliberate illiteracy is seemingly a badge of honor here. Ask what state it is, they'll say MuhZURuh. Ask them again, they'll get pissy, enunciate, "Muh! ZUR! uh!" as if you're a simpleton, and toss back "MuhZURuh!" Vowels? Everything translates to a grunt, and consonants are merely the placeholder between them.

Up the river in Illinois is a city named Alton. Just north of Alton is a painting on the cliff face of a huge red-winged yellow bird, with antlers and huge talons. This is the mighty Piasa Bird, which attacked travelers on the Mississippi near the dangerous confluence of the Missouri and Illinois rivers. Strong eddies and rapids require semi-advanced technology to comprehend and cartography to avoid; but a huge, mysterious bird that lives in the heavily wooded cut in the bluff – now the setting of Elsah Illinois, a quaint river town of small cottages, cozy diners and a B&B – that was something the stone-age Miami Tribe could understand. Careful in that canoe, Hiawatha; where the three rivers meet there's a huge bird that'll eat you.

The name of this bird is from the Algonquin language. Our spelling of it is supposed to be the anglicized rendering of their phonetic utterance. But their phonetic utterance was PIE-uh-saw, and our anglicized spelling of it was taken from the original Europeans who settled the area. Those original Europeans were the Frogs, who don't spell anything right. Which is to say, they don't spell anything as it would need to be spelled in english to get the sounds one is trying to use english to get.

Piasa, in english, is properly pronounced pee-AH-suh, while those same letters [or near enough; the Frogs first wrote it "paillissa", then apparently shortened it] in french give, more or less, the desired PIE-uh-saw.

But – and this is critical – we aren't Frogs, we don't speak Froggish, and using their spellings to get an english pronunciation violates the rules of english grammar. If you want to spell it Piasa, then pronounce it pee-AH-suh; if you want to pronounce it PIE-uh-saw, then throw a 'w' on the end ... Piasaw. Really; this is third-grade literacy stuff.

And speaking of using french spellings to get english pronunciations, just north of St Louis in Missouri and close to the crook of the river where the Missouri river slams into the Mississippi is a suburb called Bellefontaine Neighbors. Bellefontaine is froggish for "beautiful waters" – which is nowhere near north St Louis. Not even 250 years ago before us planet-rapers polluted it. The river was called The Big Muddy ever since Pere Marquette stuck his lily white toe in it and pulled back a grayish brown stump.

Bellefontaine is a french word; granted, this is a [nominally] english-speaking nation, but we owe it to pronounce french, indeed all foreign words which have entered our language or usage, as if they were still foreign-like. Not to the point of strangling whole syllables off french words, or rolling the double-R-ed burritos at Taco Bell, but at least give a passing nod to the foreign-ness of the thing we're trying to say. We don't translate in our head, substitute the foreign word with a preferred term, and then pronounce "burrito" as something else.

"Welcome to Taco Bell. Can I take your order?"

"Why yes you can; give me a beef and bean pita."

Nope; that won’t fly.

The french word "fontaine" is translated to english as "fountain", and so that's how the locals pronounce Bellefontaine. Bell-fountain. There's no 'U' in the word, yet – vowels being the irrelevant nuisance that the locals would seem to think they are – one is found anyhow. A number of years ago I got into a verbal pissing contest with a local who was trying to give me directions to someplace in North County. I was to proceed on I-270 and once past Bell-fountain Road ...

Where?

"Bell-fountain Road. Once you get past Bell-fountain Road ..."

Here's a map. I can't see that anywhere. Point it out.

"Right here! Bell-fountain Road!! Once you get past there ..."

That says Bell-fon-tayne.

"It's Bell-Fountain. Can't you read? Once you get past there..."

Yes I can read. And I don't see a 'U'. If you do, point it out and I'll pronounce it. But if you don't, then the one who can't read ain't me.

That was ever so much fun, especially seeing as the guy had inadvertently pointed out my destination some time before and I no longer needed specific directions.

Anyhow. Like I told the radio news guy: the news item from those few days ago occurred in LANK-uh-stir County PA. To dismiss others' local pronunciational oddities with a sanctimonious wave of the hand is not a real wise move for the glass-housers in these parts. There’s just too much ammunition laying all over the ground, and me with good aim…

Abort This

Abort This
© 2006 Ross Williams

I just don't get all the ruckus over abortion. What's there to wrangle about? We're a democracy, and the vast majority of Americans want to have legal abortion. You'd think that would settle it, wouldn't you?

It doesn't. For some reason it only inflames the issue. You see, about 15% of Americans want to have no abortions allowed at all. Normally, this would be the statistical noise of Majority Rule, but abortion is not a normal issue. It's special. If the subject were anything else, say, whether to plant a memorial apple tree for John Chapman [Johnny Appleseed] and it was 85% pro to 15% con, it would be a case-closed situation. The 15% would be roundly ignored and any disagreements among the 85% on the variety of apple tree to plant would be settled discreetly and politely. What we would not see is public name-calling and immature rants by the Granny Smith crowd toward the Red Delicious gang and back again.

But again, a memorial apple tree is a normal issue, and abortion is special.

After watching it from the middle for the past generation, I've concluded that abortion is not a normal issue because its major activists – pro and con – are not normal people. They've both been breathing the heady, dank, chemically-laden air around their basement mimeograph machine, on which they've both been churning out opposing polemics since the early seventies. They're loopy; they're stoned. They're off their gourd with fume-induced paranoid delusions of conspiracy against them.

Time to come up for air, folks, and clear your heads. The monsters under your bed will disappear once your tox-levels drop.

Two-thirds of the American people want to have legal abortion, but they don't want all abortions to be legal. This is a sound, valid, normal, typical, have-your-cake-and-eat-it democratic solution to any society's social predicaments. A little bit of this, a little bit of that, both sides covered, the majority’s happy… and in a democracy that’s the important thing. We see it every day in thousands of ways in America. We want to have free speech and press, but most of us don't want to see slander and libel and easily-amused fools shouting "FIRE" in the crowded theater. And we don't seem to have a problem reconciling free speech with reasonable limitations.

When two-thirds of Americans, though, say that legal abortion doesn't need to include, for instance, last-trimester abortions for "choice", the roughly 15% who want no limits on abortion whatsoever start screaming. And it literally is screaming.

The demographic breakdowns are roughly as follows:
One of six want legal abortions with no restrictions;
Four of six want legal abortions with certain restrictions;
One of six want no abortions at all.

Of course, the two-thirds in the middle have somewhat differing notions of what restrictions should be in place; that's always going to be the case no matter the subject. While most of us want free speech without slander, not all of us are going to agree on the same definition of slander. "President Bush is a great big poopy head" would be fine for most, while there is likely to be a sizable contingent who would say "Presi-chimp Bush is a nazi fascist pig" crosses the line.

On the main theme of the issue, though, all parties agree without the name-calling and screaming. Or ... well ... maybe using Bush wasn't a good example, but unless you're trying to play stupid, you get the point.

And I suddenly question whether or not the simile was worthwhile at all, since I've discussed this subject repeatedly with the one-sixth advocates on both sides over the last decade-plus, and they cannot grasp this point. I firmly believe they are the guy in the lab coat we used to see in commercials: "Hi. I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV..."

The issue-advocates I've discussed this with have a very un-subtle subtext running through their screed: "Hi, I'm not stupid, but I play stupid on abortion..."

It's very easy to dismiss the one-sixth of us who do not want to have any abortion at all under any circumstances as yet another incarnation of the dour, pious moralizers who seek to control everything and everyone as a testament to their close proximity with All That Is Holy. They claim abortion is murder. Yet it's the only case of murder where there was no person beforehand.

"Life begins at conception!!" is the top-of-the-lungs rebuttal. Fine; then you'll be able to point me at the law which says so...

"It's god's law!!" is the next high-volume retort. And again, that's fine; but if it's god's law, then we should really let god enforce it. The US is only authorized to enforce US laws, and "life begins at conception" ain't one of them. Nor is it likely to be, what with only about 15% of us wanting it that way.

It's usually at this point that I've been sentenced to hell by various of god's proxy Judge Nots. And if I cared, I'd probably be upset. But I'm of the opinion that if god's thoughts on murder had included abortion in the first place, the Omniscient One would have scribbled that as at least a footnote on the stone tablet – even if Moses didn't understand what it meant. Yet he didn't. But he did have his Only Begotten tell us to not bother about judging others ... so I feel fairly safe insofar as eternity is concerned – to the degree I’m actually concerned – whereas some of the folks I've discussed this with might oughta hit the confessional a bit harder. And more introspectively, as well.

The Only Begotten also advised rendering unto Caesar, which sorta implies leaving legal matters to the legal authorities. I’m open to definitive correction if god is willing to advise me, of course, but I don’t recall it being the duty of the religious to forcibly ensure that all fellow citizens be qualified for entry into heaven; free will and all. We seem to have endured some of that forcible salvation already, with unfavorable results. If some of us are willing to risk hell for abortion, well, no one else is under any obligation to follow suit. So butt out. Practice your religion on yourself. Thanks.

Proving that self-righteousness doesn't belong merely to the pious, or imperiousness to the baldly manipulative, the one-sixth who want no restrictions on abortion at all are waging their own earth scorching war.

Once again, it's not safe to be a centrist; being moderate means being a target. You can't say "well, yeah, let's keep legal abortions, but since most people think an abortion without medical necessity at 8-1/2 months is not a good thing, we can probably do without that one."

Know what happens when you say that? Why, why, why ... you become the American Taliban! You would only say that late-term abortions should be prohibited if you secretly seek to keep women barefoot, pregnant, cooking, cleaning, at your beck and call, and quite possibly wrapped in linen! First deny late term abortion, then goodbye women's suffrage, then hello sex-slaves! Crypto-fascist!! You are denying women their choice!!!

Pah! Hardly. "Choice" isn't open-ended in anything else; why such pregnancy-termination be any different? People who say "legal abortion yes, late-term abortion no" are saying nothing more sinister than “make your choice a little sooner”. C'mon, toots, step on it. The gas is on the right. Move it or lose it. You snooze you lose. You ain't got all pregnancy to make up your mind.

Saying "speed up your choice" is not the same as saying "no choice at all", but the one-sixth ideologues who equivocate the two are not honest enough to acknowledge that.

The ones saying "no choice at all" are the one-sixth equal-n-opposite ideologues. The two-thirds in the middle have no problem agreeing with both – just not necessarily at the same time. And the two-thirds in the middle do not like being told what they believe by the self-righteous all-or-nothing simpletons on both ends.

The next trick both sides play on those in the middle is to deny that the middle exists. Some may have noticed that I haven't footnoted, as I normally might, with polling results showing the approximate breakdowns in the demographics. Those in the middle intuitively know it anyway, while the advocates on both sides are fully aware of the statistics already. Indeed, each time a new survey comes out they usually beat it to the press with their version of "what the survey means".

Both sides do it. Here's how it works.

There's an entire survey, multiple questions, on how an individual feels about abortion. Taken in its entirety, it shows the 1/6 - 2/3 - 1/6 breakdown – classic bell curve. But each side will select out certain questions as being "the most important" and which therefore “typify the results”. The "no abortions at all" side will select out "how do you feel about abortion in the last month without a medical purpose" for example. Most people – sometimes well over 80% – are against such abortions. Because this specific result is in line with the “no abortions at all” position, well! it just proves that 80% of the nation agrees with "no abortions" on everything else!

Um ... no it doesn't.

Then the "all abortions always" side will select out "how do you feel about abortion for an adult woman in the first trimester" – to which usually around 80% are in favor – and they tell everyone that the vast majority of the nation agrees with abortion on demand.

Um ... no it doesn't.

Frighteningly, because each of the one-sixth demagogues rely on public support and donations to survive and print up their ridiculous tracts, they will both play the opposite “non-existent middle” game in all their Give Us Money campaigns. The “no abortions ever” group will use slanted results showing the majority which wants most abortions to be legal to show that the forces of evil are at work on the American electorate, send money now to help get the word out. Likewise, the “all abortions always” cabal will use the dishonest parsing that shows the majority which doesn’t like late-term abortion to indicate that abortion rights are being “imperiled as never before” and send money now to educate the country away from this medieval mentality.

And when someone from the two-thirds middle reminds the one-sixth freaks on either end of all this...? why, the folks in the middle are shouted down. Into submission or silence – the modern American version of the islamofascist's "convert or die" dichotomy.

See, both our one-sixth ideologues have years of practice at shouting about this subject; they've been at it since 1973 and have all the throat lozenges and everything, not to mention ... it's their issue! The ones in the middle have a life apart from slim issue-oriented politics, and they don't have the desire or the energy to go vocal chord to vocal chord with the narrow-minded ideologue.

Which explains why a combined one-third of our nation has been driving the abortion discussion away from the majority for well over a generation. It's obvious that the issue isn't going to be driven anywhere conclusive soon with the current navigators, so let me drive for a while.

Among the limitations seen as reasonable by the two-thirds in the middle are these:
1] No late-term abortion for choice. That's just icky to most people. Those in the middle don't have any problem at all with late-term abortion for medical necessity, which is thankfully a fairly rare occurrence – for everyone involved, for all kinds of reasons. And if we are to believe the "all abortions always" crowd, the instance of late-term abortion for choice is even rarer than that. So the problem with prohibiting them is ...?

2] Parental notification for a minor's abortion. This is just plain common sense to most people. Parental consent would be even better. A 14 year old girl cannot even get her ears pierced without a parent consenting, why should she be able to get invasive surgery without at least notifying her parents?

The "all abortions always" gang has a few pat answers to this question.

First, they claim that the girl is "often afraid" of her parents' reaction, yet no quantification of such fear is provided apart from 1950's anecdotal secrecy and shame and running the girls off to 'their aunt' for a year. Which means that current policy against parental notification laws is being irrationally guided by a social reality two or more generations out of date. From this we are supposed to conclude that their position is reasonable? the policy that admits to not being able to use a calendar? the argument stuck at least fifty years in the past?

Second, they claim "choice" and "bodily autonomy" that cannot be denied simply because of age. Yet we deny choice over bodily autonomy because of age all over the place. Apart from the pierced ear deal, a 14 year old cannot get cosmetic surgery without parental consent. But isn't it still the 14 year old's body, the 14 year old's choice? Uh ... yes it is. The 14 year old cannot get a tattoo without a parent's consent. The 14 year old cannot quit school even with parental consent. Nor can the 14 year old go to work full time. The 14 year old is considered – with good reason – to not be mature enough to make these decisions. What is so special about abortion that it should be granted the lone exemption from reality?

Third, they claim "privacy"; we should grant the minor girl the respect she deserves to make this difficult choice herself in "privacy". But ... um ... why is the choice so difficult it it’s “just a mass of cells” as we are so often told? It's not because the choice is to kill a living being is it? because that would be painfully similar to the piety of the dingbats on the other side of the issue. The Manchurian Abortion. Besides, isn't the 14 year-old's cosmetic surgery a privacy issue as well? the tattoo? quitting school? getting a job? These are all difficult decisions; shouldn't they also be granted to the 14 year old with the privacy to make unilaterally?

Or will the "all abortions always" mob continue to talk out of whichever side of their mouth gets them what they want and democratic philosophy be damned?

The reason this comes up now is because my state – Illinois – seems to have passed a law eleven years ago that was never enforced. It was preemptively "estopped", or something, by a federal court. Completely flew by me which makes sense, because this is not my issue. The law mandated that minor girls who want an abortion notify their parents. Not get their parents' consent mind you, simply notify them.

"Mom, Dad, I've got a honkin' beak, so I'm going to get a nose job..." Nope, sorry, need permission; notification doesn't cut it.

"Mom, Dad, I'm not as phat as the other kids, so I'm going to get a tattoo on my ass..." Sorry, still need permission.

"Mom, Dad, I'm pregnant, so I'm going to get an abortion..." This is fine, because abortion is not a normal issue. It is special.

But even this degree of specialness isn't special enough for the ideological freaks. The law was stopped before it started, because somebody might – boo hoo – be unfairly impacted by it. Somebody other than parents privately trying to raise their children themselves, that is. Parents apparently don't count, and their rights to privacy from state intrusion into their business is not a protectable concern. However, some 14 year old girl might feel uncomfortable telling her parents, and so the federal judge told Illinois, "You can't enforce this law without certain rules in place first."

...which brings up a question. Isn't the job of the courts to rule on issues arising after enforcement? and not what might occur in future enforcement? How did this ever get into a courtroom in the first place without the judge saying "Come back when someone's actually affected"?

So for eleven years, the state of Illinois did nothing about it – which again completely escaped my attention, since this isn't my issue. Illinois did nothing about it until just a few weeks ago when the Illinois Supreme Court undertook to finally write the enforcement rules for the law. Two days ago the Illinois Supreme Court announced that the rules would be coming out fairly soon, and yesterday the Illinois Supreme Court issued those rules.

...which brings up another question. Whatever happened to "separation of powers"? Isn't the legislature supposed to be writing the rules? the legislature we elect to write the rules we want to have? What is the state court system doing amending the enforceable wording of the legislature’s law? besides altering legislative intent?

Of course, the one-sixth "all abortions always" ideologues are now claiming – screaming – that the Illinois Supreme Court has just written the enforcement rules for the parental notification law for political reasons. Uh huh; and Illinois sat on it for eleven years doing nothing about it at all for political reasons as well. Chances are real good, close to 100% in fact, that when one ideologue accuses another of playing politics it's because his own political gamesmanship has just been discovered. So the "you only did this for political reasons" whine is irrelevant noise.

Here’s the thing. Both of you one-sixth ideologues listen up: We. Are. A. Democracy. The majority gets to have their political will enacted on social issues like these. Our form of government is built around that concept. We are not your ideological fiefdom in which the minority gets to set the rules for all and to hell with what they think.

Parental notification does not mean “no choice” and saying it does means you’re lying.

Having personal moral qualms does not imbue those personal feelings with supernatural or spiritual importance that overrides our laws and majority rule.

You’ve wasted enough of our nation’s time and energy on this subject. You’ve dominated the discussion, you’ve domineered everyone around with your self-righteous piety – both religious and secular, and you’ve had your say and everyone else’s too … and then some. It’s time for you to sit down and shut up. Let democracy work.

As if On Cue

As if On Cue…
© 2006 Ross Williams

Just about a year ago, a Danish newspaper commissioned Danish cartoonists to depict the prophet Mohammed to test the theory that western liberal freedoms were cowering under threats from islamist – um – fascism. So twelve cartoons were printed, a few of which depicted islam as an inherently violent religion, and muslims in most of the world responded by saying “IT IS A LIE!! ISLAM IS NOT VIOLENT!! WE ARE A RELIGION OF PEACE!! RENOUNCE YOUR LIES OR WE WILL KILL YOU!!”

To be fair, muslims in the US and Canuckia responded mostly by writing the same type of letters to the editor as every other North American writes: “oh, golly, it’s just so unfair…!” Dry your tears, Hassan; we’re glad to see you assimilating.

Well, earlier this week, Pope Benedict – and contrary to popular belief, the German Pope has not issued an edict to place a 200-watt light bulb above the chair in the confessional, or leave short lengths of rubber hose lying about – Pope Benedict gave a speech to some catholics at the University of Regensburg in which he recited some statements from a Byzantine emperor of the 14th century.

Benedict was talking about inter-religion intolerance. How christianity and islam have been rude to each other for centuries. And he quoted the rude statements of Emperor Paleologus to show how long christianity has been rude to islam. Paleologus said "God is not pleased by blood -- and not acting reasonably is contrary to God's nature."

Paleologus followed that with "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

This is rude. It as much as declares islam to be an inherently violent religion … which we know is not the case. Mass uprisings over cartoons which call for random murder doesn’t typify their religion any more than planes hijacked by muslims to destroy the world’s tallest building in the name of islam being cheered by hundreds of millions of muslims in their mosques.

No; simply because most of the world’s muslims celebrate the violent attacks on western civilization made in the name of islam doesn’t mean that they or their religion supports such violence. How could we ever have drawn that inference?

Silly us.

So when Benedict said, essentially, “We’re rude to islam, and we’ve been rude since at least the 14th century when the Byzantine emperor said … even though the Koran says ‘no force in matters of faith’ … ”, a reasonable person would expect the islamic world to say “Damn straight! Thanks, Pope, for admitting that christianity has been rude to islam!”

Right?

Oh, but I said “reasonable person”. And that doesn’t seem to include many muslims. For when the Pope said in a speech that christianity is rude to islam, demonstrations and protests erupted in muslim parts of the world denouncing the Pope, demanding apologies and calling his statements a lie.

…pretty much on cue, if The Danish Dozen are anything to go by. Pakistan has already passed a law about it.

Whether the Pope apologizes or not, riots are next, a few random lootings and razings, a bomb or three, a few people will get killed, and in some months one-point-five billion muslims will, in unison, take a deep breath and dig their wadded undies out of the crack of their ass.

This will only serve to remind us, yet again, that islam is not the violent religion that the bigoted twerps who see only the riots and bombs and the mass cheerings for riots and bombs believe it to be. …and that the Pope said we shouldn’t be thinking it is.

Darn that islam-apologist Pope Benedict Allah, anyhow!

So in the interest of world peace and quiet – particularly quiet – and though I am not catholic and think catholicism and catholics are patently silly, I hereby apologize on behalf of the Pope and retract his statements for him:

Christianity has not been rude to islam down through the centuries.

It is not inappropriate to describe as violent a religion which preaches expedient violence in contradiction of [part of] its scripture.

We do not need to learn to get along with islam if the world is to become a peaceful place.

There.

I hope – but am not counting on – that this is sufficient to halt the burgeoning self-righteous indignation currently welling up in the muslim-dominated parts of the globe. …again. I also hope – but am also not counting on – American and Canuckian muslims who read the Pope’s statements will have the comprehension abilities of at least a high school graduate before they write their inevitable letters to the editor to protest the unfairness of it all.

When Serendipity Knocks

When Serendipity Knocks
© 2006 Ross Williams

Being right for the wrong reasons doesn't make you smart; it makes you dumb and lucky. That sums up the loyal opposition's common position on Iraq: vacate the premises.

Holding foursquare to a plan that is working ... kinda ... while reality is changing all around is blockheaded. That sums up the administration's position on Iraq: stay the course.

I'm going to be siding mostly with the Democrats now, but for reasons which will annoy most of them who might actually read the details: Iraq is two fries short of a civil war, and we'd be stupid to stick around while they fight it. No democracy creation is worth the time and effort involved in interfering in someone else’s domestic squabbles. It can wait.

If all things were equal, then deposing a Hussein government which violated the cease fire on a daily basis – hell, on an hourly basis – and replacing it with a democracy is a sound long-term goal. Using war to do it, even a conquest that requires occupation, is a sound if heavy-handed means of achieving it.

But all things were not equal, and many plans for long-term goals reach short-term impasses. I personally haven't seen a long-term plan that hasn't been massively edited yet. Doesn't mean that the plan was faulty, or the people creating the plan stupid ... although that is what the bulk of our nation's Democrats have been and will be saying about the Bush administration. I shouldn’t need to point out that the Democrats haven't created a long-term plan themselves that hasn't been massively edited either, and in the case of Iraq they don't have a long-term plan at all apart from playing National Gainsayer.

Indeed, from listening to many blue-mooded voters on the Democratic Street, the long-term plan for Iraq is comprised of hopping in the Wayback Machine, returning to the summer of 2002, and altering the debate leading up to the initial invasion in the first place. For every time someone brings up the pesky, pesky question “what do you propose we do now?” some administration critic chimes in with “we shouldn’t have been there at all” which is dutifully met with the Democrats’ secular version of the “Amen Brother!” chorus.

Those individuals who can be pressured into staying fixed in the present rather than jumping around time like an H G Wells character will say that because we shouldn’t have gone in at all, the best solution now is to just leave. …as if turning our backs, tiptoeing away and whistling nonchalantly will fake out the rest of the planet. “Ha! You thought we were involved in a war in Iraq, dincha?”

Yeah. That’ll fool ‘em, alright.

The plan to depose Hussein, throw democracy at Iraq and hope its sticks is a viable long-term goal, and is still on the table. But you don’t change a society’s entire cultural outlook overnight; it’ll be at least a generation before we see a meaningful democracy in the Cradle of Civilization. They’ve got 5,000 years of dictatorial bad habits to shed. These things take time. So while idealistic, the US plan was not, and is not, foolish.

But holding to that plan, as written, can be foolish if the path of the current plan is effectively blocked. We’re supposed to be fomenting democracy and cooperation between the tripartite factions within Iraq. And it seems to be working – if you look at Iraq with one eye closed, stand far enough back, and hold your hands just so. The same way a teenager with bad skin looks in the mirror.

The southern portion of Iraq is largely peaceful. But then the southern portion of Iraq is almost entirely comprised of Shi’a who are relieved to be rid of the Sunni, baathist Hussein. The northern portion of Iraq is mostly peaceful. But then the northern portion of Iraq is populated by ethnic Kurds who, while Sunni, had committed the unpardonable sin of not being Arab in a nation ruled by the racist Arab Hussein. The Kurds are also relieved to be rid of him. The western portion of Iraq is largely peaceful. But then the western portion of Iraq is largely composed of sand and rock and hovels built in the middle of nowhere which house pro-baathist revolutionaries coming from Syria which – shhhhhh – nobody is supposed to notice. See, the notion of turning around, tiptoeing away and whistling nonchalantly wasn’t invented by silly American political neophytes. It’s as old as the hills, and is a common diplomatic gambit.

Syr