Rob Lyman

2003-03-17T18:50:00.000-08:00

I Give Up: This is, for a while, my last blog post. I don't want a hiatus to "consider the direction of my blog" or any such thing--I don't want a hiatus at all, in fact. But as you may have noticed, both the quality and quantity of my posts have been going down for some time, the result of both a lack of regular Internet access and a lack of time. I can't afford a nice new computer--it would consume several months of truck-driving salary--and even if I could, I don't want to spend my entire evening staring at the computer and only see my wife on weekends.

I'm as unhappy as hell about this; blogging has been one of the best things I've ever done. It was really great for making me feel useful when I was unemployed, and I wish I could keep doing it now that I'm getting paid.

I won't stay away any longer than I have to; on the other hand, I won't start up again until I'm sure I can make a better go of it than I've been doing lately. I'll (probably) be going to law school in the fall, which should make things much better (except that the Cambridge PD's gun licensing boss is an asshole who doesn't want me to go hunting or protect myself. New Haven is, amazingly, better, but I haven't heard yet).

There are a hundred things I want to write (for instance, I just read Bias and I'd like to review it. Short version: It's not bad, but it's not great, even if I agree with the conclusions). It's frustrating not to be able to write them due to time constraints.

I won't disappear completely--Joe Katzman has generously offered to consider putting some longer essay-style pieces on Winds of Change; I have an old one on freedom and security (built around a literary analogy) which I'll get over to him as soon as practical and we'll see what he thinks of it. I'll try to do more. But daily posting is out.

Enjoy the bloggers on my blogroll--I'll keep trying to read them. I'll see you over at WoC from time to time and I hope to be back for real ASAP.

2003-03-04T09:35:00.000-08:00

Blog break: My wife and I will be out of town visiting various law schools that have accepted us. Please check back next week.

2003-03-03T09:09:00.000-08:00

Encouraging Terrorist Acts: One of the many objections to war in Iraq is that it will encourage terrorism by outraging the "Arab street" (We heard the same objection when we invaded Afghanistan).

But it seems to me that nothing will encourage terrorism quite like capturing terrorist leaders alive. If we are known to be holding masterminds in "undisclosed locations," subordinates may run operations, in particular things like hostage-taking and bomb threats, with the specific demand that leaders be released "or else."

The obvious answers include secret detentions and (though this would hurt our intelligence gathering) simply killing instead of capturing terrorists.

I'm waiting to hear from the anti-war movement on this point...

2003-02-28T10:31:00.000-08:00

I told you so: In one of my first blog posts ever, I criticized the government's move to define "organic" as used in supermarkets. Among other things, I pointed out that this would make the definition subject to political forces, and in particular to pressure from powerful agribusiness lobbyists.

I was right. Sen. Leahy has introduced a rider (I hate riders) which would allow chickens fed non-organically raised corn to be labeled "organic." I don't have an opinion either way on this one--I don't worry about whether my food is P.C. or not--but I doubt that it will please food purists. Which goes to show that you shouldn't get government involved unless you really, really have to.

Iraq: For a long time, we were told that there was no "smoking gun" proving that Iraq had banned weapons. Then the inspectors discovered missiles with a longer range than allowed. Sounds like a smoking gun to me. Do the opponents of war agree? Oh, no--not so long as Iraq agrees to destroy the missiles which it shouldn't have in the first place, and explicitly lied about starting last December and continuing up to a couple of days ag.

Look, I know that war is an unpalatable option, but if anti-war activists just keep moving the goal posts, they're going to forfeit all credibility. Any pro-war thinker had better be willing to define the conditions under which peace is acceptable, and any anti-war thinker had better do the opposite. So far the anti-war side has done a very poor job, and gives the rather strong appearence of being willing to sacrifice everything to an illusory notion of "peace."

2003-02-26T09:43:00.000-08:00

No blogging today due to illness... hopefully back online tomorrow.

2003-02-25T08:39:00.000-08:00

Harvard's Penis Problem: (Sorry if this seems out of date, I meant to post yesterday but there was a snafu).

Erin O'Connor reports on a huge phallic snow sculpture erected at Harvard, and subsequently destroyed by female student who used rape imagery to justify her actions.

To begin with, the destruction of the sculpture was both laughable and sad--if non-consensual construction of a 9-foot snow penis is tantamount to rape, then surely the non-consensual destruction of it is castration on a grand scale, and I'm at a loss to understand why symbolic emasculation is more acceptable than symbolic forced intercourse. (That, and the rape comparison is stunningly insulting to people who have been, you know, actually raped. Remember them?)

But here's the thing: I think Harvard should have destroyed this sculpture themselves, on the grounds that it does not contribute to the educational mission of the university, and is offensive to many people.

Now, I know I'm headed into dangerous territory here, censorship and all that. But the mission of a university is not to be a haven of freedom, it is to be a center of education. Education requires standards, which includes standards of civility and argumentation. A student who replied to every question on a test with marvelously accurate pencil drawings of genitalia (or, less offensively, with smiley faces) would fail a class and, if a repeat offender, would be expelled. Such a student could not and should not be prosecuted. Free speech is distinct from proper academic work; the standards for the latter are much stricter.

This sculpture was not, of course, an answer to a test. But even if we leave the silly rape metaphors behind, there is nothing wrong with demanding that people keep their privates private. At some times and in some places, nudity may be appropriate because it furthers the educational mission of a university, but we expect that those times and places will not include the center of campus, so that those who don't want to be involved don't need to be. The most common solution to offensive speech--don't listen--is impossible to implement when there's a giant dick between your dorm and your first class of the day. The same goes for shouting obscinities from an open mike on the quad or having sex in public.

Most importantly, Harvard should be holding a discussion (I don't mean some formal debate, necessarily, perhaps dueling op-eds or something) about academic standards and civility (maybe they are doing so, I don't know). The mere act of debate about appropriateness would be a huge step forward. Actually, I tend to favor mandatory "Great Books" courses for the same reason--not so much because students need to read certain books, but because students need to argue about what books students need to read.

The standard canard which might apply here is that college is all about stepping outside your comfort zone. That's true enough, if "stepping outside your comfort zone" means being forced to defend your Marxism to a PhD economist or explaining your sincere Christianity to an atheist. But just as silver screen violence can serve a purpose ("Saving Private Ryan" "Black Hawk Down"), it can also be gratuitous and totally inappropriate (the terrible made-for-TV movie on as I type, "1st to Die"). Pushing people outside their comfort zones with frozen sex organs accomplishes nothing; the university should put a stop to it.

That does not mean that an individual student should have destroyed the sculpture; there is a difference, indeed a critical one, between individual and community action. This is clearly a case of community standard-setting, and no single person should take that on themselves.

Many people are uncomfortable with the notion of using educational arguments to support the destruction of what was, frankly, a better work of art than many at the campus museum; they worry that any attempt to impose standards will degenerate in to a witch hunt against certain political viewpoints. Those people are probably right; certainly the craze for speech codes is a strong point in their favor. I would, however, argue that such codes are the result of too little in the way of academic standards. Unless expectations are set--and enforced--education becomes impossible, and mob tyranny sets in. Our current predicament, with administrators ignoring newspaper theft but cracking down on blackface, and students literally burning books which suggest that affirmative action should be ended, results from years of neglect--a long period during which no one was willing to say "no" for fear of sounding judgemental. Speech codes are the perversion of academic standards by people who never got to know the real thing.

I'm not saying those who built the sculpture should be prosecuted, or even that they should be subject to school discipline. I don't think either is appropriate. Nor should the snow-Bobbitt girl who destroyed it, though I'd dearly love to wipe the self-satisfied smirk off her face (courageous, my ass).

If we want to reclaim universities as centers of learning, we cannot be free speech absolutists. We must set boundries and discourage people from crossing them. We must have good, long debates about where the boundries ought to be, and whether something is inside or outside, but we cannot doubt the need for the boundries themselves. That an essential tool has been perverted by some--as murders use kitchen knives or handguns, so PC enforcers use "educational mission"--should not lead us to discard the tool altogether. In this case, it's all we have.

2003-02-21T08:47:00.000-08:00

Foreign Policy, Free Speech, and Unintended Consequences: Well, reports seem to indicate that Iraq's compliance with the weapons-inspections regime has dropped off in the wake of anti-war protests, which some people believe emboldened Saddam by making war less likely. Since, of course, Bush is not likely to care what British college kids think, war is actually more likely now. That is a sad irony indeed, even for someone like me, who supports the idea of regime change in Iraq.

But this isn't just another post on unintended consequences--it's about the challenge of conducting foreign policy in an era of free speech and global communications.

The reason the President was given most of the foreign policy power in the Consitution was simple: it is important that the nation speak with a single voice when dealing with foreign powers. It's a lot like parents and children: it is important for parents to avoid undermining each other's disciplinary authority, lest a child sucessfully set parents against one another. In like fashion, it is essential that a foreign country not be permitted to divide--and thus to weaken--our government and population.

It is of course also essential that the population be able to criticize the government, and that the various members of the government have the freedom to fulfil their duties--e.g., that senators be able to dissent from the President's Iraq policy. The problem in 2003 is that such dissent is immediatly broadcast around the globe--and can end up providing comfort and propaganda to our enemies. It may also lead our enemies, who often lack a thorough understanding of our culture and government, to disasterously miscalculate.

Saddam's apparent belief that the anti-war protests will stop war is one example of such miscalculation. There may be similar problems with North Korea as we speak. I personally regard Kim Jong Il's nuclear program as a major and frightening crisis, but the Bush administration has been very cool in public. This may be part of a deliberate strategy, akin to ignoring a child who misbehaves to get attention. Obviously no one can say that in public, so I can't be sure.

But every time I read an op-ed calling for Bush to drop Iraq and pay attention to Korea, I wonder if Kim is also reading, and is encouraged that someone is paying attention to his antics (a guy who runs an Stalinist state would be more likely to think that the NYT is a Bush mouthpiece). I also wonder if the writer has even bothered to consider that perhaps Bush is paying attention ot Korea--but not in public, for sound policy reasons.

I'm certainly NOT suggesting censorship, but do think that it would be well for pundits and protesters to consider carefully both why the government does what it does, given that public pronoucements will often not reflect policy reality, and also how their words might play overseas. It seems odd to say it, but it is possible that some minor editorial writer could end up undermining the policy of the President--and, if the results of the anti-war protests are any indication, the result could be exactly the opposite of what the writer wants.

Scary: The "classic rock" station in Seattle played "Smells Like Teen Spirit" today.

I must be getting old.

Not, however, as old as the Armed Liberal, who, by my reckoning, must be exactly twice as old as I am.

Music and Sex: There's an interesting contrast between the music played in the auto parts store where I work and the music I pick for myself when I'm out in the truck making deliveries. In the store, it's mostly top-40, and out on the road, I mostly like oldies and classic rock. Today, I heard a hip-hop song which was quite disgustingly explicit in its description of sex acts; I found it repulsive, though not for any moral reason--there was nothing described which I wouldn't be willing to do myself. Rather, I simply didn't want to be invited to anybody else's play date.

On the other hand, I love the suggestive sound of the original "Son of a Preacher Man" (I'm fudging the title because I don't actually know it), which mixes a bass line suggestive of heart-pounding experimentation with brassy overtones evoking superficial conversation. I'm left with the impression of young lovers hiding their nervousness--and guilt--with banter.

A more explicitly raunchy-sounding (but not raunchy) song is "Little Red Riding Hood" ("you're everything a big bad wolf could want!"), which features a big bad wolf who desperately hides his true self to impress a girl. His intentions--and worldliness--are not in doubt, but his behavior is still gentlemanly.

I'm frankly not brilliant at romance; I couldn't sweep anyone off her feet with a broom. I understand the male fantasy of easy, hot sex with beautiful women. But somehow, I find the gently suggestive description of romantic seduction far more interesting, exciting, and pleasant to listen to than the hottest sex. Even if we reject moral strictures on what we say and do in public, could we perhaps accept such strictures on the basis that it makes for better music?

2003-02-17T11:46:00.000-08:00

Best Documentary: Today, two blog posts from 60 minutes. CBS claims that Michael Moore's Bowling For Columbine is in the lead for a Best Documentary Oscar. This leads naturally to the question: what if Moore's film is full of untruths? (I didn't say "lies" because I want to allow for the possibility of error rather than deception.) Spinsanity and Forbes have both claimed to uncover distortions in Moore's work, and--though I haven't seen the film, and thus hesitate to criticize it directly--one of my good friends came away with a seriously distorted impression of Canada's gun laws. He's an extremely smart liberal, and a guy I trust--and he also said that Moore had essentially no point.

That was on display during the interview last night, too, as Moore blamed our "fear of the Other" for the US murder rate--and then blamed the NRA.

So there are two questions here: should a documentary win an Oscar if it contains lots of untruths, distortions, or omissions, and: should it win if it is incoherent and self-contradictory?

On the upside though, I should point out that Moore was unusually honest in one element of his movie--CBS showed a clip in which Moore compared gun deaths in various countries. He didn't control for population, which was bad, and he didn't discuss other murder weapons, which would have been nice. But he DID talk only about murders rather than lumping sucides and accidents into the same catagory of "gun deaths." That was a surprising bit of honesty for which Moore deserves more credit than he has gotten from gunbloggers.

A little media commentary: CBS did a terrible job, never once raising the question of Moore's veracity, although those questions were raised shortly after the movie appeared in the US. Also, they used the irritating phrase "America's love affair with guns." I don't love my guns. I love the sport of shooting, no question. I love freedom, and I regard my guns as important tools for its preservation. I love my life, and my wife even more, and I definitely consider my guns key parts of a be-prepared survival strategy.

I resent the sordid implication that I, or anyone else, has a "love affair" with guns. I also would like to know why one never hears, for instance, of "America's love affair with free speech" in a story about Holocaust deniers, who are literally jailed in Europe. If you were wondering why some people consider the media to be biased to the left, the "love affair with guns" line is a classic example.

If I seem unnervingly fierce in my defense of gun rights, I can only hope that the members of the media will be similarly fierce in defense of their right to be free from censorship, should censorship ever threaten them the way the gun control threatens me. Hell, if censorship ever becomes a real threat, I'll be on the barricades with the reporters, and it makes me sad that they won't return the favor in advance.

Andy Rooney on France: Andy Rooney had an absoultely hilarious screed against the French and their opposition to war in Iraq. Basically, he said that the French have no right to comment on the US's doings, since the US has bailed France out of trouble so many times. He was focused on his own experiences in WWII, but of course there are many more examples.

I was doubled over laughing the whole time, and my wife and I cheered when he was through. Still, I find his argument unconvincing, and indeed a little distasteful. I am especially turned off by the use of the white crosses at Normandy to browbeat the French; it seems exploitative. Those boys didn't die to buy us French gratitude or servility, they died because defeating Hitler was the right thing to do, regardless of what might happen later. Virtue is and will always be its own reward; that's doubly true when you're talking about a saving a culture as vainglorious as that of the anchor of "old Europe."

The reason to ignore the French is that their arguments and ideas stink [insert cheese joke here]. It doesn't matter what they "owe" us--disagreement might well be fitting repayment for the biggest of all debts, just as true love sometimes requires one to say "no." I quite literally wouldn't be here if not for my parents; that doesn't mean I agree with them all the time, or do what they say. But the French elites' intentional obtuseness, their stupid suggestions, their shockingly offensive insinuations, their hypocricy (they're at war in Cote d'Ivoire right now, for crying out loud), and their absurd superciliousness do not add up to a serious diplomatic operation. If they don't take us--or Saddam--seriously, there's no reason for us to take them seriously.

2003-02-15T22:41:00.000-08:00

Dating Advice: There was a flurry of blogger dating advice for Valentine's day; see for instance Armed Liberal's sensible comments (there was much more which showed up in my wife's daily blog digest that she brings home to me on disk, but I can't find it).

The thing is, dating advice aimed at men (the kind that would interest me--if you're a woman, I would simply recommend that you smile, and I guarantee he'll like you) comes either from women, who can't be trusted because of the inevitable gulf between what they say they want and what they actually want, or from men who have great success with women. And the thing is, it doesn't do any good to get advice from men who have great success with women. What we need are people with a proven track record of taking losers and turning them in to ladykillers.

Look, I love taking people out to shoot, and I'm proud of the fact that my students are typically in the 90th percentile or so of the people I see at the range. I'm a pretty decent shooter myself, but my wife is a better rifle shot that I am, hands down, every day of the week. Even so, she's never taught anyone how to do it. So now: who do you want to be your teacher? The fact is my wife has a native talent which I don't have for shooting (maybe it's the lower center of gravity, maybe it's the female hip structure, I don't know), and I have a native talent she doesn't have for teaching. I'm a heck of a lot better at teaching physics than some of the Nobel Prize winners I've met, too, even if I'm nowhere near their level when it comes to research.

Getting women into bed--or into a white dress, pick your poison--is an area of endeavor in which native talent is distributed in a radically unequal fashion. Some guys have It--whatever It is, if I could tell you I would--and some guys don't. Armed Liberal is someone who clearly has It--why else would he suggest that it's better to get laid that watch porn:

I try and explain to my sons…who all have a healthy teenage interest in the female form…that it’s better to hold hands and smooch with a real girl than to jerk off to pictures of someone you’ll never meet, much less get to go to bed with.

That was one of the first posts of his that I ever read, back before I had my own blog, so I emailed him to point out the obvious--you can only hold hands and smooch--or go to bed with--a real girl if you can find a real girl who will have you. His reply was charmingly naive, the product of mixing irresistable chick magnetism with a decency and modesty--something about growing up in the '60's and not having trouble finding dates in that hippie era.

Hmm...I rather strongly suspect that there were guys in the '60's who had trouble finding dates. I doubt that any but a tiny handful of men actually prefer porn to real women. Speaking strictly for myself, I've always been much more turned on by the imperfect women who I met in real life than by the "ideal" women one sees in fashion plates. As a teen I was much more likely to fantisize about the slightly pimply girl down the street than the swimsuit model (a fact which annoys my wife to no end, given that the girl down the street might actually sleep with me, whereas the swimsuit model wouldn't). Nobody chooses porn, dude, it's just the only tail some of us can get.

So the problem--which, as a guy who attracts women easily, AL can't really address--is this: how do those of us who don't have It get women? Because it's obviously not just looks--ugly guys can get an amazing amount of action--or intelligence--lots of stupid guys get laid way more than I ever could, and I flatter myself with the notion that whatever I might be, I'm not stupid--and it isn't just being a nice guy--assholes also seem to get more than their fair share. Sense of humor, money, whatever, nothing seems either necessary or sufficient for success.

Armed Liberal's principal advice, besides not trying to cover a bald spot with a ponytail, was to be a good listener. I don't think that works: women may love to have AL listen to them as if they were the most interesting people on Earth, since they are attracted to him and flattered that such an exciting could-be-with-any-girl-in-the-room guy seems so interested in their lives. They also love to have me listen to them--since they know they wouldn't sleep with me at gunpoint, I make an appealing sort of buddy to whom they can pour out the troubles they don't discuss with AL, for fear of ruining their chances with him. Something about me invites rapid intimate confidences rather than intimate relations, rapid or otherwise. For those guys who are, for whatever reason, chick magnets, maybe listening is the greatest aphrodisiac ever. For those of us who aren't, the listening thing is more likely to land us in the "just friends" hellhole, listening to the story of her unemployed mullet-head failed-the-GED-six-times boyfriend coming home with lipstick on his collar and screaming to ourselves in our heads "What about ME you frickin' bimbo???????? Ever consider sleeping with ME???????"

We need advice not from a gold-medal-winning sprinter, ("If you want to win, run as fast as I do"), but from a sprinting coach--can anyone out there convincingly claim to have a winning record as a dating coach?

Postscript: I suppose the repeated mentions of my "wife" will have made some of you suspicious--obviously I had to have some success in my love life. You bet I did--and every morning when I wake up, I take a moment to thank God, fate, luck, whatever, that I've got such a wonderful girl next to me (except when I haven't gotten enough sleep, don't wake up at all, and she yells at me to turn the alarm off). I put it down to beginner's luck, like they guy who hits a hole-in-one with a walking stick and a rock--I wouldn't count on being able to repeat it, especially with someone so totally out of my league (and so tolerant of my foibles, which deploy in nothing less than division strength with organic engineer battalions to ensure that no obstacle prevents me from screwing up). Sometimes people ask me how it happened--I have no idea. None. It just sorta did. If I found myself single again, the only strategy I would know to try was standing around blinking, because that's the only thing that ever worked.

2003-02-15T21:09:00.000-08:00

Out of the closet at last: It's time for me to come out: I'm a biathlete.

OK, that was a really, really terrible pun. I'm sorry. But it's true: today I skied in my first-ever winter biathlon (that's skiing and shooting). I've done a number of summer (running and shooting) biathlon events, and I've loved it. I love the winter version even more. Weather conditions were lousy, which is to say they were perfect: fresh, warm sticky snow falling the entire time. Sure, I got soaked and freezing, and sure, the slow show meant more work for me as I limped along for 90 minutes. But soft, slow snow also means less dangerous speeds on downhills, soft landings if you fall (I fell twice, in a 5-lap race, which I though quite impressive given that this was the fifth time I've been skate-skiing), and no nasty icy ruts to catch your skis and knock you over.

Why anyone would rather stay home and watch TV, I have no idea. My next biathlon challenge is convincing my wife to spring for the skis (I rented). (BTW, I hit something like 9 targets out of 20--I can't remember now--but one of them didn't count, since I, like a jackass, was shooting at the wrong targets).

2003-02-13T11:59:00.000-08:00

Budget: I, like Jane Galt, lack the time and inclination to delve deep into Bush's budget and make an informed critique. Here's one uninformed critique: it's way too much. But I'm a conservative, so you already knew I was going to say that. For more detail, see Ted Barlow (like you already hadn't).

I will, however, take a moment to criticize the entire process of deficit-mongering. Simply put, nobody has any idea what the deficit will be 5 years from now. Do you doubt me? Somebody dig up the budget projections from 1997 and tell me how they match up with the actual results from 2002. Remember how the "surplus" evaporated? For the most part, that was an imaginary ("projected") surplus being replaced with an imaginary deficit. And, although tax cuts did play a role, for the most part the cause was an economic slowdown which the Clinton White House didn't include in its projections (That's not a criticism of Clinton or his staff--they aren't clairvoyants, after all).

Of course, most of the time budget projections make assumptions which are favorable to the political allies of the projector (or are static), which renders them useless. I'm sure the OMB does its best; but "as good as possible" is not the same as "good enough."

Paul Krugman criticizes the White house for ceasing to make projections for longer than 5 years. It seems to me that they should perfect the art of the 5-year forecast before forging ahead (cf 1997-2002). There's a news station in Seattle that does 7-day forecasts so that you can always see the weekend. As someone who has spent much of the winter outdoors, I can say that any prediciton a week in advance is crap. For that matter, a prediciton 5 days in advance is usually crap. There's just no point in having the "weekend in view" if the forecast for the relevant days changes daily.

I'm no expert, so maybe these forecasts have been historically very reliable--but if you want to argue that, back it up with some darn good data. Until I see such data, I will maintain there is no point arguing about what the deficit will look like after the next election.

Why men hate Valentine's day: This is a visualization excercise for my female readers. Imagine that, one day of the year (call it St. Hefner's day), you were expected to fulfill your boyfriend/husband's fantasies in a big way. Suppose that every other TV commercial was wild sex in strange positions, swingers engaged in threesomes, and bondage leather. Suppose the man in your life expected the best orgasm of the year on some particular date. Is that a day you would look forward to with relish?

Well, that's what men face on Feb. 14: the demand to fulfill female fantasy--to make our women swoon with delight at our gallantry. We will be compared to the good-looking rich guy who gives his model girlfriend a huge diamond while riding in a horse-drawn carriage, inexplicably wielding a Sure-Fire to light up the stone (Oh, Rex! 5 carats and 225 lumens! How wonderful!). Our love will be measured, if not necessarily by our willingness to spend money on short-lived vegetative sex organs, then on our ability to read the minds of what are, after all, the most mysterious creatures on Earth (if your dog could talk, he'd never say "If you don't know, I'm not going to tell you!").

The pressure to perform is substantial; the consequences of failure are terrible. After all, if you try for sweep-her-off-her-feet romance and fail, the outcome may be far worse than simply claiming you forgot. Forget and you're an idiot--but most women already think most men are idiots (they're right--food, sex, sleep. It doesn't take a genius to be a man). But try to impress her and fail, and it means you "don't really know" her--and therefore you can't possibly really love her.

Most of the women reading this are probably shaking their heads and muttering "that's so wrong--it's the thought that counts!" Which, of course is the problem--because we can't read your thoughts, and if our thoughts don't match yours, then it counts very much indeed--against us.

The best strategy for men, I think, is to complain loudly about Valentine's day every year--inveigh against it as a conspiracy of the multinational greeting-card conglomerates. Make up some facts about unsanitary chocolate factory conditions and migrant workers who bleed profusely cutting roses. Bring up "conflict diamonds" if jewelry is suggested (Sadly, that isn't a joke at all, but a sickening truth). If your lady friend is a conservative--and less than swayed by these arguments--consider pointing out the virtues of a balanced budget or Biblical condemnations of adornments.

And then, every 5 years or so, get her something nice. Not insanely expensive, just something she might like (last year I tried to get my wife a pistol, but the store sold out and ruined what could have been the best Valentine's day ever). Make it a total surprise--don't let up with the I-hate-VD-schtick at all. You'll get more "romance points" out of a badly-engraved butter knife than dinner on a yacht if you set the baseline at zero. Heck, I got several years' worth of points just for telling my wife about my failed scheme to drive to the gun shop in secret. She thought it was cute that I had failed. She called me an "idiot" and laughed--you too can make incompetence your ally!

Oh, and start bugging her about St. Hefner's day. If we all do it, maybe we can get them to shut up about Feb. 14.

2003-02-09T20:22:00.000-08:00

Light Blogging: My wife is out of town, which means my primary conduit to my blog is cut off (I write most of my posts at home and send them in with her--everyone take a moment to say "thanks," since without her, I wouldn't have posted a single thing in 2003). Anyway, I'll try to make it to the library, but with a full-time job, that's in doubt. See you Wed. or Thur.

2003-02-07T09:14:00.000-08:00

Blind Spots: Everyone has their blind spot. Thomas Friedman puts his on display with his bizarre faith in his ability to divine public opinion based on the audiences at his lectures. This isn't the first time he's done this. Tom: those people are not a random sample. Is it possible, just maybe, that since your appearences tend to be in cities rather than rural areas--and I'd be willing to bet they often take place at universities--the audiences might not be a good cross-section of the U.S.?

Nick Kristof, whose foreign affairs insight rivals Friedman's, has a similar blind spot on gun control. His columns on that subject are a unique mix of willful ignorance and malice which is not found in nature. Hours after publication they have been ripped to shreds by high-school dropouts with AOL connections.

Both of these guys are very smart and obviously capable of deep thought about complicated and nuanced subjects. Both of them must receive tons of email and comments about these issues; I don't think they can plausibly claim ignorace unless it is self-imposed and intentional. I conclude that they simply have blind spots: areas of weakness which they are not capable of perceiving for one reason or another.

I'd like to poll the readership of my blog to see if you think I have any similar blind spots. I don't mean areas of intellectual disagreement--don't waste my time and yours with my refusal to acknowledge the obvious superiority of Social Security to 401(k) accounts. But is there any area where I'm as blind to reality as Friedman is to statistical methods?

Write me: bigots-at-keepandbeararms-dot-com

Tomorrow I'm going skiing; I need to be up early. Now to bed!

2003-02-05T08:45:00.000-08:00

Warning Memos: Every time something bad happens, we hear about the warning memos written in the weeks, months, or years before the tragedy. What we are never told, however, how many such memos are written every year.

Bureaucrats are not known for their boldness; if something bad happens, they want some sort of shelter for their posteriors. A vague memo that says something like "I have concerns about the security of XYZ" won't be remembered if nothing happens, but can be waved about after a tragedy. It's a kind of insurance for careerists; it gives new meaning to the term "rearguard."

But that means that LOTS of those sorts of memos must be written--one for each civil servant, for each possible contingency. And that level of dilution, even if half the memos are genuine, you'll never be able to tell the wheat from the chaff, and any real warnings will be lost in the shuffle. Certainly any non-specific warning will get ignored (presumably, a memo that said "Door 21 doesn't lock" would get appropriate attention).

We're hearing about vague, meaningless memos in the Columbia investigation; none of them seem to identify actual hazards. A similar thing is happening here in Seattle after the theft of a baby's corpse from a morgue. I can't take it seriously at all--anything other than the identification of a specific threat is more likely to be a CYA action than a meaningful piece of evidence in the investigation.

Telemarketing: I got a telemarketing call just now (8:45 pm). It was for--wait for it--cemetary plots! I am apparently entitled to $200 off a plot at a local burial ground. I know times are tough, and many people may be postponing death until they can afford it. Perhaps we should consider adding funeral benefits to Medicare? It might prevent this sort of drumming-up-business call.

Seriously--I'm 25, and I'm hoping to go at least another 50 years before I need one of these. How creepy is it to have someone calling as asking if I think I'll die soon?

2003-02-04T09:06:00.000-08:00

Poverty and Welfare: I've been having an email debate with Ampersand about poverty and welfare. The points made by both sides have been predictable, but there are a couple of things that came out of it for me which are worth thinking about.

To begin with, my fundamental philosophial objection to welfare is simple: responsibility. Before I pay to take care of someone, I want to understand why it is that that person can't take care of themselves. I really mean can't, by the way; won't isn't good enough. Now, this attitude isn't a terribly useful one for questions of government policy, for which the question is not "How did these people get into trouble?" but rather "How can we get them out of trouble?"

Still, I think that welfare would be a lot more palatable to me philosopically and politically if responsibility were a more integral part of left-wing rhetoric. Most people who are in deep trouble are there because they made bad choices; a simple acknowledgement of this fact would make me a lot more comfortable with handouts even if the handouts themselves didn't change.

Another question on the responsibility front is "Why should I work?" Right now I have a low pay, low skill job--driving a truck for an auto parts store. It isn't exactly intellectually challenging; some of my coworkers are annoying (not all); there's more physical risk than I'd like (hoisting 50lb brake rotors over my head while standing on a ladder); and, most importantly, it deprives me of the ability to read and respond to my favorite bloggers (although my wife has started downloading my favorites and bringing them home on disk). Why did I take it? Because I need to fill the time between getting my physics M.S. and going to law school with something which pays the bills.

I'd rather be on welfare, blogging cheerfully full-time, doing some home repairs, volunteering a bit so I don't feel useless, and spending lots of time at the shooting range. And it annoys me that I work my crappy job while someone, somewhere, gets part of my paycheck because he or she was too incompetent to put a condom on correctly.

Ampersand responds that I should support welfare because someday, I or someone dear to me may be unable to work. To begin with, the question of outright disablility is different from the question of unemployment or lack of skill. Even so, if I had been unemployed for the entire 8 months between MS and law school, I had enough savings to replace my income. Again: my wife and I responsibly saved what we could, denied ourselves what we didn't need or really, really want, and built a cushion against that time. And again, it's irritating to pay money in taxes that goes to people who couldn't be bothered to save.

But the truth is I do want to support people who are really desperate, even if they got their by their own stupidity--but I'd like to see some penance on their part, and I'd like to have some assurance that the mistakes won't be repeated.

Moving right along, one point of contention between the two of us was about the effectiveness of government vs. private solutions to poverty. I suggested that only a strong free market could end poverty for large numbers of people; Ampersand pointed out that France, with its big welfare state but ailing economy, has a much lower child-poverty rate than the U.S.

Let's assume for the moment that the child poverty numbers are truly comparable; that the definition of poverty is the same, and that the difference truly is due to redistributive programs, and not cultural factors or other influences. Still my point remains: government programs don't pull people out of poverty--they may pull people out of starvation, but an end to poverty, and upward mobility, come only from employment. Since the "poverty line" is a fairly arbitrary number, it's easy to push people above it--not so easy to make them self-sufficient, which ought to be the real goal.

And, in the end, we will always have poor people. Some people will always be making the kind of bad decisions which land them in dire straits, so any "war on poverty" will be permanent, and success cannot be judged by the number of people in poverty, but rather by the number who have been pulled out.

Don't look for agreement on this subject anytime soon...

Random Act of Pomposity: I saw, on the streets of Seattle, a car with the vanity license plate "EXONIAN." In Seattle, of all places. Wow. (If you don't get it, that's OK--it merely adds to the driver's smug sense of superiority. Ask Jane Galt.)

Framing a Story: Care for a little media commentary? Here's a Seattle P-I story about a local doctor who allegedly diagnosed child abuse where there was none--and a judge's ruling protecting the doctor from lawsuits. The paper quotes "child welfare advocates" who cheer the ruling as protecting the child-abuse-prevention system.

Yet, it seems to me that false accusations of child abuse, which come with traumatic exams and interrogations, and perhaps even involve separating children from loving parents and placing them in foster care, are themselves a severe abuses of children--and that true advocates of children's welfare would be just as concerned with false accusations as with true ones.

But, as is usual for a newspaper, this term has a radically different meaning--it refers to a specific side in this dispute: "child welfare advocates" vs. wrongly accused parents--and thus implies that parents are somehow not advocates for children's welfare.

Stereotypes: Here's an editorial decrying jokes offensive to dwarves (or little people, or whatever you like.) I agree with the writer, until he decides to describe viewers of a particularly childish comic show as "slack-jawed hillbillies." Gee, if you're writing about offensive stereotypes, maybe you should avoid using them yourself? Just a thought.

The Columbia: I can't write anything meaningful about the tragedy of two days ago. I haven't been able to read Lileks, but I'd bet a good amount that he wrote something wonderfully appropriate.

The only coherent though I have in my mind is "I wish Richard Feynman were alive." You can read his account of the Challenger disaster investigation in his book What do you care what other people think?, and I would strongly urge anyone interested in the current process--or in spaceflight generally--to do so. I just hope that the current commission has someone like him--iconclastic, technically brilliant, and bureaucratically inept--to get to the bottom of this.

Bush's drug plan: I'm really skeptical of any attempt to get the government to pay for people's drugs, but here's even more reason to be skeptical: Bush's plan to add managed care may already be in operation, and failing.

My favorite quote is this:

But consumer advocates [there's that framing device again--Rob] and critics of managed care counter that the industry's bottom line--not inadequate government funding--is dictating decisions to drop coverage.

In what sense, exactly, are these two ideas in conflict? If the government doesn't pay enough, that affects the bottom line--which then may drive decisions to cut people off. But if the governement increased payments enough, presumably keeping them insured would be profitiable again, which would prevent their being dropped.

SotU update: Armed liberal has a brilliant response to the SotU. If the Democrats actually talked that way, I'd vote for them, no question. Not, of course, that the Republicans actually talk that way, either. I wanted to email him, but my internet access is still really limited--so here it is: great job, man. Keep it up.

2003-02-02T09:44:00.000-08:00

I know where I came from: The hospital now known as the "Family Beginnings Center" on Capitol Hill in Seattle.

On the other hand, the obligatory black character on CSI came from a poor, high crime neighborhood and was set on the path to success as a police investigator by the wise coach at the local rec center. Talk about packing your stereotypes as dense as possible! And on the last episode, he actually told his old coach, "Hey, I know where I came from." I would have been tempted to write this off as yet another stereotype--how many black TV characters have said that?--except that the radio where I work is perpetually on Top 40, and I've now heard Jennifer Lopez's song about being "Jenny from the block" enough times to last a lifetime (and added J-Lo's singing alongside J-Lo's acting and J-Lo's ass on the master list of Things That Don't Impress Me Much).

Lopez, of course, also felt compelled to say "I know where I came from," which means that the stereotype has at least a grain of truth in this instance. So I got to thinking--why is it that people with humble beginnings feel the need to assure everyone that they remember their origins? In particular, why do those who have "made it" seem so eager to assure their former neighbors that they don't think themselves superior to those who haven't?

In most parts of the world, of course, earning one's wealth is considered inferior to inheriting it. People will go to great lengths to conceal their humble origins. This, I suppose, is just the vestige of the old-fashioned class systems which seem to have plagued most of humanity. Perhaps this behavior has lessened in recent years as class divisions have broken down; but Americans have been lapping up rags-to-riches stories since at least Horatio Alger, and probably from before that time as well. Upward mobility is part of our culture, and we generally admire people who overcome adversity, so it makes sense that successful Americans should want to make sure everyone knows where they came from.

But the weird thing about the examples I cited above is that they aren't aimed at impressing anyone--they have just the opposite goal, that of assuring others "from the block" that, in fact, "making it" isn't that impressive. When someone says "I know where I came from," it means, roughly, "I don't think I'm all that great just because I'm rich and successful."

Now, certainly I'm not endorsing arrogance or a dismissive attitude towards one's former friends. But why would we assume that people who rise from poverty to wealth are arrogant? Why would we assume that they have "forgotten" their origins? Why is it that we insist wealthy stars pretend--and indeed they usually are pretending--that they haven't changed a bit? Why don't stars with middle class origins feel the need to remember where they came from? And, for that matter, why do some stars (like Tupac) feel the need to pretend they grew up poor?

I don't know the answer--I can't even state the question clearly--but it's an interesting question.

Unintended Consequences: A Seattle P-I editorial about a Federal law designed to fix dangerous intersections--which ended up making some intersections less likely to be fixed (thank trial lawyers for that result). Congress tried to fix the law--and ended up accidentally making a bunch of important public records secret and stepping on the toes of state court rules of evidence.

It would have been nice if some of these rather obvious problems had been considered when the law was first enacted...or, even better, if the Feds had kept their damn noses out of an obviously local function.

February: February is Black History Month--the coldest, shortest month. But did you know that the first week is also Tarsier Appreciation Week?

Actually, I just made it up. But in between Malcom X retrospectives and burning Trent Lott in effigy--both worthwhile activities--why not take a moment to learn about an endangered species or two?

2003-01-30T08:40:00.000-08:00

AA response roundup: There's been a excellent discussion over at Ampersand's about AA; I was only able to comment a couple of times because my new job has me working all day. Here, therefore, is my omnibus response.

I find the "diversity" justification--the claim that AA makes more a better education by exposing students to diverse cultures--facially correct but philosophically offensive. I have no doubt that education is improved by diversity of all kinds, whether ideological or racial. But the diversity argument has the unfortunate effect of treating students as a means to an end--that is, of objectifying them. In particular as applied to blacks and whites, it makes blacks tools in the education of whites.

If SAT scores and GPA were the only determining factors, many fewer blacks would be admitted to the most selective schools in the country. These students would be admitted to second-tier schools, where plenty of whites also attend. Thus, if the goal is to expose blacks to whites, no AA is necessary. AA is only necessary if the goal is to expose whites to blacks--adding "diversity" for the benefit of white students at the best schools (whites at second-tier schools would get plenty of black "face time.")

I'm not objecting to the creation of diversity with students of equal academic ability; but lowering standards for one group treats that group like some kind of exotic specimen which must be made available for the edification of whites. (As an aside, it's also pretty damn condescending.)

I find that attitude--treating black students as objects which enhance white education--offensive. Now, I can understand that some people consider whites desperately in need of this kind of education, and therefore may dismiss my concerns, but they should at least acknowledge the true nature of diversity-based arguments.

Moving right along: Ampersand claims that because ending AA would result in more segregated campuses, any concerns I have about AA's role in campus balkanization are overblown or dishonest. There are two points here: first, the assumption that ending AA will result in segregation may or not be true in the long run. People respond to incentives; AA lowers the bar for some minorities and lowers the incentive to achieve at a high level. Change the incentives and behavior may well change. Short term, minority enrollments will go down, but long term--think a decade or two--and minorities might (might, I have no proof) rise to the same academic level as whites. I'm sure they are capable of it, and I think a push might be all they need.

But here's the second, more important point: I consider on-campus volutary segregation far more serious than campus-by-campus unintentional segregation. Balkanization, fueled by AA, actually promotes racism and racial strife between people who would otherwise be cheerfully colorblind.

It's no secret and no surprise that black students self-segregate to sometimes significant extent at selective colleges. Un-PC whites make the (racist but true) assumption that many or most of the blacks on campus couldn't have been admitted if they were white; they make this known. Blacks legitimately take offense at being judged by the color of their skin (although they weren't offended when they got preferences, a contradiction rarely noted), and become suspicious of the white community. Leftist professors fan the flames with overheated rhetoric and nonsense charges of racism. Pretty soon race relations have soured for the next 4 years or so.

I'm not trying to blame anyone for this outcome. Cooler heads on all sides could prevent it. But so could removing AA--which would remove the first step in the process. I'm not suggesting that that would instantly make all racial problems disappear; but I think it would help a lot.

I knew lots of whites who, on entering college, simply assumed they could treat blacks exactly like whites. A few brushes with inflated charges of racism quickly changed their attitudes, and even if they didn't become racist, they did become more wary around blacks, a result which I think is very sad. If colorblindness is our ultimate goal, we don't get closer by turning forcing color conciousness on otherwise colorblind whites--especially whites with an negative picture of blacks and an ingrained wariness around them.

Some blacks complain of being treated differently by their managers at work than whites (not worse-differently). If that manager was first exposed to blacks in the radicalized atmosphere of a left-oriented campus, is it any wonder? That doesn't make it right, but it does make it understandable. I think never meeting a black guy socially would be better for the future of race relations than the twisted environment of the AA-impacted colleges.

Perhaps my experience at Williams College was totally unique--or maybe it is so common that it occurs even at open-admissions schools. I can't possibly know, and I don't claim my anecdotes are entirely dispositive. Nor do I mean to imply that I, or whites in general, can't form friendships with blacks or work successfully with them, even at school. But I think that the way AA is practiced--by lowering standards for certain people based on skin color--is worse than the segregative effects eliminating AA might (might) have.

2003-01-29T08:39:00.000-08:00

State of the Union: I suppose that the SoU is obligatory writing for all bloggers. I'm having trouble doing more than make snarky comments.

This is what passes for conservatism today? $400 billion over 10 years for prescription drugs? I particularly like the Democratic complaints about the cost of nation-building in Iraq, for which a number of $200 billion was bandied about. We're going to spend twice as much (just over the next decade, never mind the next century) as the one-time cost in Iraq? Give me a break--that's just liberalism warmed over. And the Democrats are bitching about the budgetary price of war?

Another annoying point: the stirring call to take control over medical care away from bureaucrats and give it to doctors and patients. News flash: the people who pay will always be the ones in control. If you want patients to have control, you need to make them pay. Any reform which doesn't take note of this fact is doomed to failure.

Gary Locke's response was equally flaccid and irritating. I really loved the line about reducing dependance on foreign oil by developing new technologies. Gary--are you referring to the hydrogen fuel-cell cars that Bush wants to fund? Come to think of it, there's another stupid unconservative move--let the market work!

Nancy Pelosi demands that we exhaust all diplomatic options before war in Iraq. Which options are unexhausted, Nancy? Saddam's last, really truly triple-dog-dare last chance? Only sabre rattling has gotten us even this far; if our threats aren't credible, they won't have effect. She also compained that there are other countries who are also behaving badly, and we aren't threatening them. Apparently the Congresswoman thinks we have only two choices: attack all rogue countries at once, or never attack any at all. The notion of dealing with threats one at a time is apparently new to her.

Ted Kennedy says we shouldn't be focused on Iraq, we should be focused on the problem of proliferation of nuclear weapons. Hmmmm... I'm sorry. I wanted to say something funny and profound, but I'm so annoyed at all the politicians of both parties, I can't rise to that level. I'm also annoyed at the news anchors for failing to ask simple, relevant questions of the pols in question. That was simple incompetence--can't Tom Brokaw think of questions on the fly ("What diplomatic options?" "Isn't Saddam trying to produce nukes?")?

Good Reads: Thomas Friedman tells us about the risks and benefits of liberating Iraq. What's so interesting is that Friedman has adopted the same crusading latter-day colonialist thinking of Steven Den Beste. He says that the only justification for invading Iraq is to democratize the Arab world. I'm inclined to agree, but that's an incredibly risky proposition--simply disarming Iraq is much easier. On the other hand, a free and democratic Arab world will do more for anti-terrorist security than all the wars in the world.

So, do we take the huge risk with the huge reward, or muddle through with the status quo?

Work: I've been too busy the last couple of days to read or write anything online. My truck-driving job isn't bad--I've had worse jobs--although today I had to listen to 8 hours of my fellow driver's theories about the income tax. In particular, he thinks it's optional. I've run into that opinion before, but I've always managed to ignore it. But what do you do when he's sitting next to you and won't shut up? And how can anyone seriously think that the "United States" and the "United States of America" are distinct entities?

I'll try to catch up on my blog reading today, but I'll be AWOL from pretty much all comments sections. I'll try to write more over the next couple of days.

2003-01-26T12:23:00.000-08:00

Why the Black-White Wealth Gap Is Important: I was doing my library 45-minute/day thing when I wrote the previous post, so all I had time to say was that I thought Ted Barlow's posts were important, but I didn't have time to say why. This post, composed at home, will explain that.

I've said before that I don't really care about statistics showing that such-and-such a racial group has such-and-such and average income, or does so well on the SAT, etc. My interest is, and remains, individual people. My opposition to AA and other racial remedies is based on the fact that I don't believe that present racism is a significant obstacle to success, in school, in homeownership, etc. etc.

Not that racism doesn't exist--it certainly does--but it isn't such a dominant factor that we should simply assume it was so crippling that we must give people preferences based on race. I'm open to having my mind changed on this point, but most of the people who try to change it make outrageous assumptions--for example, that if blacks are rejected for mortgages at higher rates than whites, it just proves that white bankers are anti-black bigots. (Asians have higher loan acceptance rates than whites--are white bankers anti-white and pro-Asian, too?)

I also reject the notion that somehow slavery and Jim Crow are omnipresent. Oprah's on TV right now--how many white Americans are watching? Compare her reception to Jackie Robinson--the world realy has changed, folks.

On the other hand, if bigotry really were widespread and reliably prevented certain racial groups from achieving no matter how hard they tried, I would probably support some kind of race-based preferences program (probably--it would have to be properly constructed and term-limited).

Here's the kicker: the wealth gap probably is a vestige of Jim Crow. I can't say this with certainty, and I can't Google to confirm it within my time allotment, but it makes perfect sense. Even parents who don't leave huge trust funds can dramatically influence their children's ability to accumulate wealth. A co-signer on a loan can make a home purchase possible; a relatively small gift of $10,000 can do the same (I have a friend who bought a house with an FHA loan and $5,000 down). My grandfather helped my father buy a house; my parents helped me. I could have done it without them, no question--at least partly because they helped me to invest years and years worth of Christmas checks from relatives when I was younger, and I thus had meaningful wealth accumulated right out of college (and getting parental help on college didn't hurt, either).

I still think that it is possible for someone of the humblest background to "make it"--programs like FHA loans help that to be true--but it would be harder than it was for me. And if the wealth gap really is a vestige of legal racism, then it is only right that legal measures should be used to combat it. I'm not quite endorsing race preferences--it would still be better to target poor people of all races and try to help them accumulate wealth. Of course, as always, I'm suspicious of big government, and doubtful that big government programs will accomplish much. But a tax deduction for renters would be tough to screw up, wouldn't it?

Now, this doesn't address my oft-repeated question of why blacks and hispanics get AA and Asians don't, given the poverty which plagued many Asian immigrants, and the strong history of anti-Asian discrimination on the west coast. Ampersand has sportingly agreed to answer this question. I'm looking forward to it (perhaps it will be posted by the time I get this online).

Employment: I have a job! It isn't the most exciting or highest-paying or most skill-intensive--I'll be driving a truck for an auto parts store--but it pays almost as well as being a graduate student. Pretty amazing, huh? This means that my blogging will likely be somewhat more sporadic. I'm already writing most of my posts at home; that trend will continue, but with 8 hours of work plus some evening classes which I teach, I may have even less time for writing. I also can't guarantee that I'll be able to read my favorite blogs everyday, which is a major frustration for me.

I'd like to thank all of my readers, both the regulars and the occasional visitors. I hope you'll keep coming back despite the changes I'm being forced to make.

Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations: My wife is a damn good shot. This is especially true with an air rifle, but also with her .38 Spl. defensive wheelgun. We try to practice once a week; that helps. Last weekend we had to re-qualify for unsupervised shooting at our gun club. It isn't hard--you need a score of 60 with 10 shots on an NRA B-19 target at 25 yards. I did it left-handed, because my new shotgun, with 2 oz. turkey loads, had beaten the crap out of my right hand (the trigger guard bruised my middle finger and made it impossible to control a baby Glock).

My wife was disappointed in her target--she qualified with a 75, but had a couple of wild shots which shouldn't have happened. Yet, one of the guys shooting that day waxed eloquent about how wonderful her shooting was, and how he "wouldn't want to get caught at your house" (He was right on that point). By comparison, I shot an 80 left-handed and got no compliments.

Now, my wife is good-looking, small, and blessed with a Korean face which looks about 10 years younger than it is; all of her co-workers apologize when they use foul language in front of her because she looks so darn young and innocent (she can swear like a sailor). But her girlish looks made this guy think her shooting remarkable--after all, someone who looks like that must be a giggly bimbo, right? Certainly she couldn't handle the recoil of a serious self-defense handgun without screaming in horror, right?

Maybe this guy just wanted an excuse to talk to a pretty girl; I don't know. But it sure felt patronizing and mildly offensive. A simple "nice shooting" would have been polite; his effusiveness suggested either mild intoxication (God, I hope not) or someone who was thinking to himself "Gee, that was great shooting for a woman." Or maybe someone who can't shoot as well as she can. I don't know exactly what he was thinking, but it left a bad taste in both of our mouths.

I'd like to be positive about compliments which might have been sincere, but it felt too much like someone saying "You're really athletic for a Jewish guy," or "You're pretty smart for a black guy." It's nice to be noticed; not so nice to be noticed because one meets a standard which has been dramatically lowered because of arbitrary criteria. "You're a good shooter for a woman" doesn't mean much given that possesion of a penis confers not the slightest advantage at the target range.

2003-01-24T15:47:00.000-08:00

Must Read: If you are interested in questions of Affirmative Action, black underperformance in school, and income/wealth inequalities, you MUST READ Ted Barlow. Here's the post I found most interesting, scroll around to read more. 30-second summary: White Americans have about 7 times more wealth than Black Americans, even at the same income level. Performance in college correlates well with wealth, but not with income. Oh, and "anti-poverty" programs discourage saving and investing by counting assets against recipients (that's not nuts--if you have a lot of savings, why do you need welfare? But still...)

Someone needs to be thinking hard about this and what it means for achieving equality.

2003-01-23T15:09:00.000-08:00

Abortion and poor children: Ampersand has a marvelously unfair cartoon portraying pro-life conservatives as horrible hypocrites: they oppose abortion, but don't support strong welfare to pay for living children.

My first reaction is classically libertarian: You don't have to support government welfare programs to support poor children. Food banks, churches, and private charities all do fine work, and it is possible--especially for christians who tithe--to claim plausibly that one supports poor children without supporting government programs. This is a common liberal mistake: believing that if the government isn't doing something, then no one is doing it.

My second reaction is somewhat more openly heartless: don't breed 'em if you can't feed 'em. It is not the least bit difficult not to get your girlfriend pregnant (I've been doing it for years). Pro-choice types tend to act as if contraception doesn't exist, or as if pregnancy via surprise immaculate conception were common. Pregnancy (usually) results from behavorial decisions made by the pregnant woman (with due attention also paid to the father of the child). So for a woman to demand handouts as a result of her own bad choices is a little rich. If I break my neck driving at 150 mph, should the government pay for my health care?

Still, on a practical policy level, we can't let children starve, and we will always have stupid people making stupid decisions. So perhaps government welfare will always be a necessary part of life, and perhaps it's foolish to oppose it. But the "hypocricy" portrayed in this cartoon just isn't there.

2003-01-22T13:17:00.001-08:00

Roe v. Wade: So today Roe v. Wade is 30 years old. I'm not sure how I feel about this one. To begin with, the decision iteslf is crap. Read it sometime and try to find a coherent argument--lots of prenumbras and emanations, but not much more. This isn't textualism, or originalism, or anything vaguly like a meaningful method for understanding the Consititution: this is pure make-it-up-as-you-go-to-get-what-you-want-ism. It always amazes me how some people can vigorously support Roe, and then turn around and ignore the First Amendment issues surrounding campaign finance "reform," or insist that the Second Amendment means nothing. Then again, if you are a devotee of the make-it-up school, it presumably all makes perfect sense.

But I'll say it: not all that is good is Constitutionally required, nor is all that is bad Constitutionally forbidden. Bad things can be allowed, or even required, by the law, just as good things may be forbidden. It is foolish to make all of one's political leanings in to Constitutional questions. To illustrate this point, I think it's useful to contrast Roe with the infamous Dred Scott decision. For if Roe represents make-it-up-ism with a (perhaps) desireable result, Dred Scott is solid textual and historical analysis with an abominable outcome. Taney declared that black Americans could not be citizens under the Consititution, and frankly, it's hard to argue with him on historical or textual grounds. Thank heavens for the 14th Amemdment, which explicitly overruled him.

As for the outcome of Roe, I'm ambivalent. There are so many options outside of abortion (contraception comes to mind, or, failing that, adoption) that I find it hard to accept the abortion-on-demand dogma. I've never gotten any one pregnant, so I don't think it's that hard to avoid. On the other hand, abortion, like cocaine, will always be with us, and from a public-health standpoint, it's probably better that abortion shoud occur in a safe clinical setting rather than in back alleys. But it still looks an awful lot like murder, and I doubt I'll every regard it as anything but a necessary evil at best. As I said, I'm ambivalent. But I certainly will not be celebrating.

2003-01-22T13:17:00.000-08:00

Paul Krugman v. Ann Coulter: The lefty blogosphere, including my buddy Ted Barlow, is all a-twitter about this bit of adolescent jackassery from Paul Krugman:

liberal and a conservative were sitting in a bar. Then Bill Gates walked in. "Hey, we're rich!" shouted the conservative. "The average person in this bar is now worth more than a billion!" "That's silly," replied the liberal. "Bill Gates raises the average, but that doesn't make you or me any richer." "Hah!" said the conservative, "I see you're still practicing the discredited politics of class warfare."

Now, if Ann Coulter said something this stupid about liberals (that is, when she says something this stupid) Ted would be (will be) all over her for her foolishness. Why, then, do so many anti-Colterites seem so pleased with Krugman's similarly lame-brained destruction of a straw man?

OK, I admit, some economic measures (like GDP) mix the really rich in with the really poor and thus give a deceptive picture of "average." This is Krugman’s main point here—that an “average” small-business tax cut of $2,000 is, in reality, a much larger tax cut for larger “small” businesses and little or no tax cut for really small ones. Fair enough.

But no conservative actually argues that Bill Gates' wealth is good for its own sake. Rather, they argue that the manner in which Gates acquired his wealth--namely, by building a large company that makes products people want, directly employing thousands of people along the way--is desirable. Neither I nor any conservative economist wants large concentrations of wealth--we want the wealth- and job-creating innovation which produces those concentrations of wealth as a side effect. We don't want to destroy the concentrations because we know they are the incentives which motivate people to innovate.

And, of course, the argument for this tax cut may be similar; it may be targeting certain taxes which impede growth and job creation, and it may be that little tiny businesses will get no tax cut because they aren’t paying this particular tax, similar to the manner in which poor people can’t get income tax breaks because they don’t pay income taxes. I don’t know anything about the tax cut proposal in question, and Krugman is too busy calling Bush a liar to tell us anything else.

Paul Krugman is supposedly a smart guy; he probably understands the Bush tax plan better than almost anyone. Why, then, does he prefer invective to information? Why does he warp the arguments for the tax cut in question so severely? Is he too dumb to understand what conservatives are really thinking, or is he simply afraid to tell us the truth, because then we might not agree with him?

Either way, comments like this put him into the same class as Ann Coulter. Once again I'm forced to ask: how is it that he can possibly command any respect?

2003-01-21T13:08:00.001-08:00

Diplomatic "success": The Russians are declaring their talks with North Korea "successful" because Kim Jong Il didn't spit in their face when they proposed a nuclear-free Korean peninsula in exchange for economic aid to the north.

Sounds like a retread of the 1994 "Agreed Framework" to me, which, in case the Russians haven't noticed, the North Koreans breached in 1998 and continue to breach today.

Not that I have any better ideas, but isn't doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results simply insane?

2003-01-21T13:08:00.000-08:00

Blinding Flash of the Obvious: "We are greatly concerned that a military strike against Baghdad would involve considerable and unpredictable risks for the global fight against terrorism."

--Joschka Fischer, German foreign minister

War, unpredictable? War, risky? You're kidding, right?

I'm starting to wonder if Den Beste's speculations aren't correct.

2003-01-21T13:06:00.000-08:00

"Disproportionately poor: I exchanged emails with Sam Heldman regarding AA. He brought up the point that black people are disproportionately poor, and thus part of black underperformance in school is due to poverty.

This is a common argument, and a really terrible one. It has its roots in "cosmic karma" thinking--some black people get shafted by the system, so we should offer special rewards to blacks to make it up to them, even if the shaftees and the rewardees are different people.

The relevant question is not "are black people on average more likely to be poor than white people." It is "are black college applicants on average more likely to be poor than white college applicants." We can't make life better for people in the ghetto by offering suburban blacks special perks.

Even if black (and hispanic) college applicants are more likely to be poor than whites or Asians, the mere existence of an imbalance is not a good argument for race-based affirmative action. Consider: if the white poverty rate is 10%, and the black poverty rate is 20%, one could correctly argue that blacks are poor twice as often as whites. But if AA is based on race, then 80% of the recipients will be non-poor--a decidedly unjust result. Indeed, it may even turn out that NONE of the poor blacks end up getting admitted to college, because all of the "black" slots are taken up by suburbanites. It is hard to argue that this is a just or desirable result, even by the standards of AA proponents. If it is unjust for a privileged white student to take the place of a poor but hard-working black student, surely it is also unjust for a well-off black to take that spot. (N.B. I made these numbers up. Please don't yell at me if they're wrong.)

So I'm back to asking for reasons why we shouldn't replace race preferences with class preferences. Perhaps class preferences have their problems, but the come a lot closer to achieving the alleged goals of AA. Conservatives have jumped on Berkeley's "life challenges"-based approach as being "race preferences in disguise," but for my part I'm willing to give it a chance. It might be badly flawed, but it's at least an attempt to move in the right direction.

2003-01-19T20:38:00.000-08:00

Great Pro-AA blog post: Sam Heldman makes the case for race-based preferences, and does a hell of a good job of it. This is the best defense of AA I have ever seen, hands down.

First, you've got to figure out why we admit people to public universities. It's not as a reward for making good grades in high school. It's so that we can improve our society -- spending public resources to expand the minds of a lucky relatively-few, so that they will go on to do things that will make the world better. Admission is not an entitlement that arises from being smart. It is a matter of being chosen to be the subject of a public investment. Second, we have decided that we ought to invest in just about as many minority kids, proportionately, as white kids. Why? Because it seems pretty obvious to us that this is the way to improve the world -- not by reserving this public good mostly for white folks, but by spreading it around. The world will be better more quickly, we think, if there are black lawyers as well as white lawyers, Hispanic engineers as well as Anglo engineers, etc.

Wow. Good point. But...would you want to drive over a bridge if you knew one of the engineer's primary qualifications was his skin color?

Seriously, this doesn't answer what to me is the fundamental question: why should certain minorities need preferences to gain admission in the first place? This isn't about having a pool of equally-qualified candidates and carefully balancing their racial mix--it's about lowering standards, sometimes a lot, to get that mix. And that, to me, is the fundamental flaw of AA, and the one which makes it look like tokenism. This especially true at the graduate level, when any injustice should already have been corrected by undergraduate AA--you can't convince me that a law school applicant from Harvard was stymied by racism or should be regarded as "underprepared." The incredibly lame reposte is that legacy kids and athletes get their standards lowered, so why not minorities? The appropriate reply is the editorial cartoon pages of school newspapers, which regularly mock whiny rich kids and meathead athletes. Is that the company in which minority scholars wish to find themselves?

Still, this is a serious defense of AA which deserves very serious consideration by opponents.

UPDATE: Because I'm an idiot, I forgot to mention that I found Sam's post via Ampersand, a far left blogger who is a good read for conservatives looking for a rational representative of the other side.

2003-01-19T18:38:00.000-08:00

Veteran's Benefits: I just can't get excited about the recent decision to refuse new enrollment into VA health programs for certain veterans. Let's review: in order to be refused for treatment you must:

--Not be currently under treatment by the VA.

--Seeking treatment for a non-service related medical condition; injuries and conditions resulting from your time in service are covered.

--Making more than $35,000 a year.

What, exactly, is wrong with these rules? I would have altered in income test a little--limiting enrollment to those who make below some set amount AND have no other health insurance. But as a rule, why is it objectionable to make the VA a last resort for veterans, rather than a first resort?

Some woman who served in Vietnam was complaining on NBC that if "something" happened to her employer's health program, she would have nowhere to go. Um...if something happens to your job--like you lose it--you won't be making any money, and therefore, you will be eligible. And, given the way she dressed, I find it hard to believe that she was suffering and could not afford private insurance.

As a rule, I want to see veterans cared for. But in tight budget times, can't those veterans who are making decent money look after themselves, so that the government can afford to care for those who can't look after themselves? Shouldn't the destitute be our priority, whether in housing assistance or VA hospitals?

2003-01-17T10:13:00.000-08:00

Stimulus Package: Who cares if Bush's tax plan will provide short-term stimulus? Let the economy take its course! I can't figure out why everyone expects the government to magically create jobs and prosperity. The best the government can do is preserve the rule of law and let private industry handle wealth creation.

Furthermore, why should the feds bail out state governments which face budget crises? That money all comes from the same place: you and me. Let the states manage their own budgets and face the consequences of their own choices. I can’t stand the notion that Washington, D.C. is just some kind of bottomless source of money to be doled out to whomever wants it.

If California faces a budget crisis, too bad for California. We here in Washington State face a budget crisis, too, and I don’t see how routing my tax money through the other Washington is going to help that.

2003-01-17T10:08:00.000-08:00

MLK Day roundup: Libraries will be closed on Monday, so I probably won't be posting. Here are some links in honor of the occasion:

Charles Krauthammer wrote an excellent column during the Trent Lott affair which highlighted an important part of King's legacy: the absence of political violence in the United States. This one is really worth your time.

Robert Jamieson Jr., one of my favorite Seattle P-I columnists, writes about the problems at the Seattle NAACP. Although he is describing just a couple of people at one chapter of that venerable organization, I think his column could have been written about the "civil rights" movement in general as it exists in 2003.

A local professor asks, "What would King say about Iraq war?" He answers, predictably, that King would have thought exactly like the professor appears to. Boy, do I hate it when pundits and professors start cloaking themselves in the mantle of the long dead. How arrogant do you have to be to speak for MLK, or Jesus, or anyone else?

Point 1: nobody knows, or can know, what King would have thought about war in Iraq. Maybe he would have been a boneheaded peacenik; maybe he would have been a principled and thoughtful opponent of war; maybe he would have been a principled and thoughtful supporter of war; maybe he woudl have been a raving bloodthirsty warmonger (although that last one seems rather unlikely). King's statements on Vietnam offer little in the way of guidance, any more than James Madison's discussions of the proper way to balance the budget in fiscal 1793 are useful to the OMB today.

Point 2: It doesn't matter what King would have thought. He was a great man, no denying that. But he wasn't God, and--even supposing we could know what he would have thought--we don't need to obey him. Certainly, his thoughts have relevance, in the same way the thoughts of James Madison have relevance to modern-day debates about the relationship of citizen to state. But 99% of the material describing what King "would have done" is pure exploitation--attempts by writers who can't win debates on the merits to win by invoking a dead man who can't contradict them. If Jesus or MLK is your personal moral touchstone, good for you. But don't try to tell me I need to agree with you because, according to your own account, King would have agreed with you! Try making an actual argument instead.

2003-01-17T10:06:00.000-08:00

Affordable Housing: A letter to the editor of the Seattle PI (scroll down) claims that the local "affordable housing" authority is offering a $30,000 subsidy on homes costing $250,000 to couples making less than $93,000 a year. My first reaction is "WTF"??? Why in hell should a couple making that much need any subsidy at all? My second reaction was "Why isn't this money being spent on people who actually need it???" You know the ones--domestic violence victims, laid-off single moms, etc. My third reaction was "Why can't people rent if they can't buy?" There's nothing wrong with that, and home ownership isn't some kind of Constitutional right. My final reaction was "Why didn't we get housing assistance?" When my wife and I bought our house, we were making roughly 30% less than that limit--and our house cost less. So now my property taxes are going to folks buying houses more expensive than mine on incomes much, much larger than mine.

Thank you, liberal affordable-housing advocates, my heart is warmed by your concern for those less fortunate.

The letter writer also claims that he and his wife make $90,000/year, and are "scraping at the bottom of the local housing market" in a northern suburb of Seattle. I live in the city itself, where houses are considerably more expensive. If a grad student and a secretary can buy a house in the city, there's no reason two professonals making $45k each can't figure out how to buy one in a much cheaper suburb--this is just pointless bitching from someone who thinks the world owes him a house.

See why I hate big government?

2003-01-17T10:04:00.001-08:00

Personal Note: On a purely personal and entirely non-political note, I had a great day at the rifle range yesterday. As much as being unemployed sucks, there is one upside--I can go shooting when everyone else is at work. I had the place to myself, and of 120 shots fired at 50 yards off-hand, all but 2 landed within the 4.5" radius of a typical biathlon target. More than half landed in a 2" circle. That was my best day with a rifle ever. I guess all that dry-fire practice paid off! Now I need to go skiing on a weekday to prep for a biathlon!

Actually, to add a slightly political tinge, one of my left-liberal friends from college spent two nights at my house last week, and one night I took him out and taught him to shoot pistol at the local indoor range. Though he's not going to run out and buy a gun, I think he had a good time. But what's most telling is his attitude toward gun control--he seems ready to believe that I don't need to be controlled, but he worries about other people, who may be dumb or a litte crazy, and who therefore shouldn't have guns.

I'm sympathetic to this view--I have to share the shooting range with morons whose incompetence poses a direct threat to life and limb--but I'm still disturbed by both the elitism and naivete which is hiding behind it. (I'm not trying to insult my friend--he's a good guy and I like him, and as it turns out, lots of my friends take this same view--but I can't think of better words for what I'm talking about).

Here's what I mean: you can sum up this attitude with this statement: "Of course I don't mind if you have guns, Rob, but what about all the lumpenproles out there who will just end up hurting themselves? Don't we need laws to control them?" It's pretty easy to see the elitism in that statement, especially when you consider that most of the people who make it have graduate-level educations, as do I. (In fairness, no one I know has ever used the word "lumpenproles.") It's far too easy to stereotype people you'll never meet, especially if Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine is you primary source of information about gun control.

But the notion that somehow gun control can be enacted without shrinking my rights is also terribly naive. From the perspective of the government, I am one of the lumpenproles who needs to be controlled. The government cannot possibly differentiate between me and the genuine idiots out there--and it shouldn't try. That means that my friends' good intentions--exempting me, mentally, from the list of people they worry about--does literally no good in the face of laws they support for other people. Nor will it save me when the creeping incrementalism of gun control ends up criminalizing the possesion of some of my guns. If my friends are sincere about not wanting me to wind up losing my rights, they need to tolerate the risks that fools pose to themselves and others.

I keep on plodding on, trying to change one mind at a time. Actually, it's more fun that way--I'm so tired of the bad faith and ignorance of the public debate (for the last time: a .223 Rem. IS NOT A "HIGH POWERED" RIFLE, YA FRICKIN' DIPSHIT!) but teaching someone safe gun handling and having a respectful disagreement with an old friend is actually a real pleasure.

2003-01-17T10:04:00.000-08:00

Sniper Lawsuit: Some families of D.C. sniper victims have sued the gun maker and the gun store from which the gun came (illegally--it was probably stolen by an employee and sold under the table). How strangely American: a lawsuit about guns. Can we throw in a burger and Coke?

Most of the liability lawsuits filed against gun companies and stores in the last few years have been utterly bogus. Some companies have been accused of selling "defective" guns, where "defective" is defined as "not made with personalization technology which doesn't exist." Others have been accused of selling "too many" guns in bad neighborhoods--which leads one to wonder, if they refused to sell guns in those areas, would they be accused of racism? Probably.

This lawsuit might have some merit, however, since the store involved, Bull's Eye Shooter's Supply, has lost over 200 guns in the last few years. That's probably more than $100,000 in merchandise! I can't believe that that level of loss could be missed unless a store's accounting practices were somewhere between ultra-shoddy and non-existent. And, of course, such a large loss would probably be the result of criminal activity by an employee--activity that real inventory control would have caught. So a claim of contributory negligence is not insane.

On the other hand, it's hard to understand why the plaintiffs would name the manufacturer, Bushmaster Firearms, in their suit. It's not like Bushmaster can possibly be expected to audit the books of all of the thousands of gun stores which carry their products. Still less plausible is the notion of Bushmaster actually counting guns on the shelves of those stores. That move looks like pure gold-digging. Alternatively, since Sarah Brady's gun-ban lobby is bankrolling the lawsuit, perhaps it is ideologically motivated. After all, why not sue the BATF, which, unlike Bushmaster, actually does have the responsibility of keeping gun stores honest?

I'm not sure how I feel about this, except to say that Bull's Eye has been a disappointment, and may well deserve the fate it faces.

2003-01-16T12:16:00.000-08:00

Jackie Robinson and AA: While waiting for my job interview, I was stuck in a conference room alone with some inspirational posters. Seeking an escape from the jarring lameness of their slogans (Pride sets us apart, just like eagles, which is good for reasons we don't have time to explain), I ended up studying an art museum poster depicting baseball cards from 1909 to 1953. Amoung them were such names as Ted Williams, Babe Ruth, and, of course, Jackie Robinson.

Most people know Jackie Robinson as "the first black man to play Major League Baseball." That he certainly was, and it was quite an accomplishment too. I doubt very much that I have half the grace, patience, and dignity that were required to tolerate the shockingly ugly open racism from fans, opponents, and occasionally even teammates.

But the reality is, even if Robinson had been white, he would have belonged on that poster with the greatest players of his era, because he was one of the greatest of all time. Compare him to, say, Ted Williams. Robinson had a career batting average of .311, Williams was a bit better at .344. Robinson hit 734 career RBIs and 137 home runs; for a 9-year career, that's an average of 82 and 15 per year; Williams hit 87 RBIs and 25 HRs per year. But Williams, in 21 years, stole just 24 bases, while Robinson stole 22 per season. Robinson's fielding percentage was better, too, at .983 vs. .974. Robinson was also the only rookie to lead the league in both batting average and stolen bases until Ichiro Suzuki's rookie year in 2001. (Ichiro dismisses the comparison, saying that he isn't even close to Robinson, which is in a certain sense true. 60 years after a major war with Japan, white Americans think nothing at all of chanting the name of a Japanese national at the top of their lungs.) (All stats from Major League Baseball.)

There were at most a handful of white players who were Robinson's equal when he played. No one could convincingly have claimed to be a significantly better ballplayer than he. He was dramatically superior no only to almost all of the white players of his era, but to almost all of the players of any race before or since.

I find it a little sad that this fact is overshadowed by Robinson's skin color. It takes no talent to be black; and while Robinson's dignity in the face of bigotry is commendable, I don't think his fortitude on this point exceeds that of most of the nameless civil-rights marchers who braved firehoses, attack dogs, and police truncheons covered with barbed wire.

I'd like to see a world where we don't obsess over the number of women and minorities in Congress, where it doesn't matter who was the "first black" whatever, or the "best black" whatever. And I see just that world in the world of sports, where pure meritocracy reigns. No one thinks that black men need preferences to compete in the NBA, even though they may come from neighborhoods where personal trainers and stay-at-home mothers are rare, and conversely, no one frets over the "underrepresentation" of Asians on the average offensive line. Lots of people would also like to see this world, but I think that those who encourage race concisousness are delaying, not speeding, a colorblind society.

A large part of the reason for this lack of racial conciousness and strife is the example of Jackie Robinson--a man who was asked to play in the big leagues not merely because of his skin (though that may have played a role), but because he was one of the best damn ballplayers around. By contrast, when racial preference programs are in place, minorities who benefit from them are relegated to "best black" status--the best of a particular minority group are hired or admitted to college, rather than the best of all. Perhaps this is a necessary evil, but I'm more inclined to call it simply an evil to be ended ASAP. AA programs give racists an excuse for their racism; they give non-racists a motivation to change their minds; they give "beneficiaries" an incentive to give less than 100%.

White racism made Jackie Robinson's race an issue when it shouldn't have been. He was ultimately successful in the face of hatred because he was one of the best, hands down. When we rembember him first and foremost as a black man, we are doing exactly what the bigots of the past did--and exactly what they would want us to do. And, in a certain sense, we are betraying his greatest legacy, which was a racially-integrated and meritocratic sports world. I'm not suggesting we "whitewash" Jackie Robinson, I'm suggesting we put his talent before his pigment, just as today's managers and coaches do.

I'm also suggesting we do the same for everyone else.

2003-01-15T13:03:00.000-08:00

Busy, Busy, Busy: Job interviews; back tomorrow.

2003-01-13T21:15:00.000-08:00

Bill Richardson: Bill Richardson is reportedly a very smart guy with excellent diplomatic credentials. If he can solve this North Korean crisis (and I mean "solve," not "delay for a couple of years") then more power to him.

But isn't it just a little annoying to have freelance diplomats running around? The whole point of vesting treaty making and other powers in the President is to permit the 50 states to speak with one voice to foreign nations. That means governors should keep their mouths shut when in the presence of foreign dignitaries.

Of course, it's possible (though pretty unlikely) that Bush asked Richardson veeeeeery quietly to do a little talking, in which case I retract everything.

2003-01-13T21:12:00.000-08:00

More Race: I've been writing a lot about race, and I'd kind of like to get off of the topic. I think most of the debate comes down to an philosophical difference which I'd like to highlight.

Consider this essay about a white woman recently was called for jury service. She noticed that the jury candidates were all white and the defendant was black, and had this to say:

I was dismissed, and the trial proceeded with an all-white jury. Maybe you think it's fair. I disagree; I think an all-white jury is inherently biased. Kitsap County Superior Court can't find one black juror? What do you think the prosecutor thought was more important for justice, the advantage an all-white jury can mean for a conviction (the state wins!) or fairness?

I resent this a great deal. What this woman is doing is accusing me of bigotry. She has decided that because I have white skin, I must be a racist who is unable to fairly judge the evidence in criminal case involving a black man. Or, perhaps more charitably, she thinks I need the benefit of the "black perspective" to overcome my unconscious racism.

If I were on trial, I'd take a group of leftist black lesbians who would carefully weigh the evidence over a bunch of conservative straight white guys who were going to base their decision on whether I "looked guilty" or not.

Now consider this Ampersand post about the number of women and minorities in the new Congress. Lots of people, including many in the mainstream media, think these numbers are terribly important, perhaps as important as the Democrat/Republican numbers. I, on the other hand, find the constant dissection of the racial makeup of Congress tiring. As I said in Ampersand's comments, I (a straight white man) would vote for Tammy Bruce (a lesbian activist) or Thomas Sowell (a black economist) before Jim McDermott (a straight white guy, and my actual congressman). Hell, I'd actively campaign for Bruce or Sowell.

And, of course, I voted for a Chinese-American Democrat (Gov. Gary Locke) over a straight white Republican (radio blowhard John Carlson) in the last gubinatorial election, because Carlson is an arrogant ass unfit for public office. Locke is a bit of a milquetoast leader, but he's finally coming into his own with his bold if unpleasant budget cuts.

One last thing to consider: recently, I claimed on a comments board that racism in 2003 was a shadow of the racism of 1964. Someone retorted that the statistics on housing, employment, and law enforcement proved me wrong. Presumably this person meant that more blacks are poor than whites (relative to the total black population), more blacks are in prison than whites, and that neighborhoods remain somewhat segregated. I'm at a genuine loss to understand how such statistics could possibly prove the existance of racism, since racism is neither necessary nor sufficient for such disparities to arise.

But there is indeed a theme which ties my confusion and outrage on these point together. I focus relentlessly on individuals; my philosophical opposites are interested in groups. To them, economic disparities between racial groups are the very definition of racism; I define racism as animus towards individuals based on their skin color. I care only if a determined individual can succeed, and don't care if many undetermined individuals fail; they care about the total number of indivduals succeeding and are less interested in examining the causes of success. The white jury candidate didn't really care about her fellow candidates; she didn't know if they were smart or dumb, rational or illogical. She just knew they were white, which made them inherently biased and predisposed to convict. Likewise, she didn't care if a prospective black juror were smart or dumb, predisposed to acquit based on racial solidary, or perhaps predisposed to convict based on past experience with crime; the important thing was that somone should "represent" all blacks at the trial.

In like manner, those who delve into the numerology of Congressional race and sex don't really care about the competence or politics of the women and minorities they count--to them, it matters only that the right shades are present on the floor (OK, that an exaggeration--I'm sure a black Jim Traficant would not be considered a great asset to the black community. But the headcounts collected after each election certainly imply that race and sex matter more than competence). I can't help but regard that as an extremely weird attitude, since as I've said, I care nothing at all about what particular subgroup my representatives belong to. It heartens me to see Republicans in power; it doesn't much matter to me if they're white men or not.

I don't think these philosophies can really be changed by debate. I could be convinced that, back in 1955, race was such an huge factor in one's life that things like racial quotes and racial gerrymandering made sense. But in 2003? My opponents assert that racism is nearly as pervasive today as 50 years ago. Since their definition of racism is different from mine, we can agree--and yet still disagree.

I will, however, say this much--a strong focus on group identification rather than individuals is destructive. It does not serve anyone's interest to divide the U.S. into a bunch of warring tribal camps, each attempting to plunder the others via government. In fairness, white men have in the past engaged in just such divisive and racist behavior, so in a sense one could rightly say "they started it!" Still, it accomplishes nothing for everyone else to now join in that game, any more than it is useful for demonstrators to respond to police brutiality with violence of their own. Non-violent protestors suffering from brutality have far more moral authority than rioters. They are more likely to convince others and less likely to destroy things they themselves depend on such as local shops providing employment. In like manner, for minorites to engage in just the sort of race-based rent seeking once engaged in by whites is destuctive, and only likely to reinforce animus which is gradually falling away on its own.

No, we do not live in a colorblind society. But the quickest way there is to enforce colorblindness, and vigorously punish racism of any kind. Obsessive focus on race--even with the best of intentions--delays, not hastens, the ideal which all of us seek.

2003-01-13T13:12:00.000-08:00

Affirmative action and footraces: A common analogy used by proponents of AA is a footrace. Dwight Meridith writes this over in Ampersand's comments:

Imagine a footrace. The first to the finish line will be the winner. That is "fair" as every contestant has an equal chance to win. Any difference will be the result of merit(footspeed).

Now assume that one contestant in preparation for the race is provided with a personal trainer, good food and state of the art training techniques and equipment.

The other contestant is prohibited from training, forced to eat lousy food and has to run in workboots.

Is the contest still fair merely because the first to the finish line is the winner?

Analogies are dangerous, not the least because they are usually carefully chosen to support a particular point of view, and admit few resolutions other than the one desired by the person making the analogy. Who wouldn't want to give a leg up to a runner hobbled by workboots?

Me, for one. Let's just assume, for the moment, that Dwight's runner comparison is a good one and not dwell on its faults.

First off, what's wrong with not winning a footrace? I was a cross-country and track runner for years; it was a rare race indeed which I entered believing I could win. The satisfaction of running is not found exclusively in victory, but also in achieving personal records and knowing that one ran well. In like manner, one need not attend Harvard to get a good education; one need not be CEO to have a satisfying career.

Some runners had greater natural talents than I had; some may have had better coaches, or less schoolwork to keep them up late at night. But I never asked for, and never would have gotten, a head start, regardless of the obstacles to success. Some people are possessed of advantages--rich parents, powerful friends--which others do not have. But it is certainly not the case such advantages are the sine qua non of a comfortable life, any more than a world-class coach is necessary for a runner to make progress and improve.

Moving right along, we should ask why it is that head starts and penalty laps are the only means of redress for unfairly disadvantaged runners. If a runner has only boots to wear, instead of weighing them and judging them to be worth 10 yards advantage, why not buy him a pair of running shoes? If some runners have superior training and nutrition, why not work to provide superior nutrition to all, rather than attempting to approximate the time value of a lousy diet? Why not focus heavily on lousy high schools, rather than offering certain minorities preferences in college admission? To be sure, that's a much more difficult goal--but also one which everyone can agree on, and one which truly moves us toward a colorblind society.

Do the incentives created by head starts bother proponents of affirmative action at all? It should surprise us not one bit if a runner who is guaranteed a 10-yard head start never achieves the speed of his non-preferred competitors. If he can win without it, why bother? And at what point do head starts become a hinderence rather than a help? The University of Michigan law school offers minorities a leg up in admission, which makes me wonder: how can a black kid from Harvard claim he is "underprepared" due to racism and Jim Crow? How many head starts does one person need before he can stand on his own--or will he ever be able to stand on his own, once he is accustomed to head starts?

Nor, of course, should we ignore the obstacle to reconciliation that such preference programs create among members of the majority class, in particular when a poor white kid is judged "privileged" relative to a wealthy black kid. Does it not behoove race official to focus on boot-shod runners, rather than simply assuming that all runners of a certain racial group wear boots? Why screw over the boot-wearing white guy while offering advantages to minorities who may or may not be wearing boots? In other words, if lousy high schools are the problem, why not focus on all students from particular schools, rather than all students of a particular skin color, regardless of school?

Race directors should certainly not go around affixing weights to the ankles of members of certain minority groups--and hiring managers certainly should not refuse to consider certain applicants because of their skin color. If some runners are showing up unprepared, it is certainly worthwhile to try to help them out--but by improving their preparation, not by giving them head starts. Nor does it make sense to simply assume underpreparation based on skin color.

So Dwight: sorry, you just haven't convinced me. I'm all for AA in the face of invidious discrimination (and therefore, perhaps, would buy it from a corporation with a history of bigotry), and I'm willing to consider preferences for poor people, but you'll be awfully hard-pressed to prove that Harvard's admissions office is a hotbed of racism. To me, it often comes back to the success of Asian-Americans and Jews, two groups that once faced discrimination much like that of blacks and hispanics--hard work, not government programs, is what helps people truly overcome. (Pointing out that Jim Crow laws were laws, not mere social conventions, only helps if you are willing to give up AA for Hispanics and ignore the old anti-Asian laws in western states).

2003-01-09T10:49:00.000-08:00

No Turkeys: I didn't get to go into turkey country because Weyerhaeuser lands are closed during the week. They might trouble themselves to print that on the maps they sell--you know, the one that says "Weyerhaeuser lands are open throughout the year..." Or maybe on their recorded access message I checked earlier. It's a damn good thing I took the trouble to get through to a real person so that I didn't drive for two hours each way and not get to go in.

This has affected me more than I thought. Being unemployed is so damn depressing, and I really needed a day in the woods. I haven't pulled my boots on for 5 or 6 months, and that, more than any actual scouting for game, is what I was looking forward to. The weather is outrageously good, too--cloudless skies, 50 degrees.

Oh, well.

Kim Jong Il: Both Time and Newsweek ask: Is Kim Jong Il more dangerous than Saddam? Short answer: Yes, by a large margin.

But that doesn't translate into a clear course of action, or negate Bush's Iraq policy, which I support (except that I think its too dovish). Analogies are dangerous, but here's one to chew on regarding North Korea and Iraq:

If some guy is walking down your street waving a gun around, it isn't likely that the police will refuse to respond because he "doesn't pose an imminent threat." If they wait until he kicks in someone's door, their options will quickly shrink in an unpalatable way. Likewise, if confronted with two gunmen--Gunman A waving a gun and Gunman B holding a hostage--it is not the least bit crazy to confront and arrest the less-threatening A first. If you spend 12 hours talking to the B, you may find at the end of it that A has taken a hostage of his own--or worse--while you were distracted. Focusing on threats in strict order of severity also let the criminals in the area know that they can get away with anything if someone else is doing something worse--which means that petty crime will spiral out of control. On the other hand, by neutralizing the smaller threat first, you prevent it from developing into a large one, and free up all of your resources to deal with the larger threat afterward.

Suppose we drop Iraq right now and go nuts for North Korea. What message does that send to the world? We're weak and easily distracted. Suppose we clobber and then rebuild Iraq--then the message is "Respect the agreements you have made with the U.S.--or else." Which message should we send Kim Jong Il right now, as he busily violates his 1994 agreement? Deterrence is enhanced when the results of bad behavior are clear. Something must be done about Saddam, and given that everything else has already been tried and failed, war is looking like all that's left.

Suppose we drop Iraq and in the meantime Saddam develops nuclear weapons. Now we have two lunatics with nukes, Saddam in western Asia and Kim in the east. Suppose we clobber and rebuild Iraq--then one threat is eliminated and we can focus on the other.

Suppose we drop Iraq "until the North Korea issue is resolved." Now Saddam has a motive to send money and encouragment to Kim. Even without Iraq's interference, North Korea may prove so intransigent that we simply cannot resolve the problem to our satisfaction--and all the while, the threat from Saddam grows.

Finally, I should point out that the magnitude of the Korean threat militates against hasty action, and Saddams current relative weakness is an argument in favor of action. North Korea is what happens when threats are not confronted until they are dire, which is what those who claim Iraq is not an "imminent threat" suggest we do. Just as police cannot simply charge in and lay hands on an armed hostage-taker for fear that he might kill hostages, we cannot directly defang Kim Jong Il without endangering hundreds of thousands or even millions of South Korean lives, precisely because Seoul is so close to the DMZ and because Kim probably has nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them. If we wait until every threat is as imminent as that posed by North Korea, we will be unable to deal with any of them at all.

If we do not confront Iraq soon, Saddam may soon have the means to wipe Tel Aviv off the map--effectively eliminating our ability to manage the threat he poses. Furthmore, the mere act of defeating Iraq will work wonders for our diplomatic position with North Korea, whereas irresolution will merely encourage all of our enemies.

Yes, North Korea is a greater threat than Iraq--so great, in fact, that our options are severely limited. Saddam may soon be just as great a threat, and it would be well if we stopped him before he reaches that point.

German TV II: I forgot to mention below that the German TV tax was justified to me by Germans who claimed that it was instituted because German law considers its citizens to have a fundamental right ("Grundrecht") to information.

None were able to explain to me how a fundamental right might be secured by placing confiscatory taxes upon it.

2003-01-08T09:04:00.000-08:00

TV Licenses: OK, one post. I'm sending it in with my wife.

Yesterday Best of the Web asked what the story was on the term "TV license" in an article about a saint (dead since 777 A.D.) who got a bill for one.

This has to be one of my favorite parts of living in Germany for a year. In a nutshell: German public television is not supported by general tax revenues; it is paid for by a "TV tax" which is also levied on radios. Price: one TV and one radio will cost you $24/month. A radio alone is $9/month. Though all of your TVs and radios at home are covered by only one license (provided you have a nuclear family; an elderly parent pays a separate tax), your car radio is extra, and a portable radio you carry from home to work every day is charged twice. Bounty hunters use sleazy tactics to catch people who cheat; a common tactic is to pose as a survey taker--"Which TV programs are your favorites?"

Poor people are exempted from the tax provided they have time to navigate the famous German bureaucracy to get their exemption. A student of my acquaintence attempted to do so; she sent applications showing her income (an allowance from her father) and expenses to the national tax agency and her local broadcast stations, asking each for her exemption. The results were wonderful: one of the agencies denied her request on the basis that she was too poor--they claimed that no one could live on so little money, therefore she must be lying, therefore she did not deserve an exemption. The other agency declined her request on the basis that she was too rich, or rather, that her father was rich enough to simply increase her allowance.

I am not making any of this up.

All of this might be justifiable if German public television were commercial-free and of high quality. But any such hope is in vain; ZDF features incredibly sleazy prime-time soap operas all week and Hollywood movies on weekends, along with the inevitable commercials. The Germans also have commercials for commercials--"Without ads, the economy suffers."

The best thing I can say about the German TV industry is that they still play McGyver once a week.

2003-01-07T13:06:00.000-08:00

No Blogging: Today or tomorrow. Today I'm scrambling looking for jobs; tomorrow, weather permitting, I'll be hiking around looking for wild turkeys. Back Thursday with an in-depth look at why telemarketers seem to think I speak Korean.

2003-01-06T13:18:00.000-08:00

Tapir on Jeopardy!: A Baird's Tapir (TAY-per) appeared on Jeopardy! last night, delighting those of us who hold our long-nosed, 14-toed brethren in high regard. The Tapir Preservation Fund was the only charity I gave to all through college, in addition to buying an array of tapir merchandise, and I always have hope that our friends will gain a higher profile. Hopefully a little national TV exposure will help.

2003-01-06T13:16:00.000-08:00

Racial Profiling: Here's a long article about the initial results of the Washington State Patrol's research into racial profiling on Washington's highways. A couple of points:

The article notes approvingly that minorities and whites are stopped in roughly proportional numbers for ordinary traffic violations, and contrasts this to states like New Jersey where more minorities are stopped. This sort of thing always irritates me, because it is entirely possible that any skewing in the numbers is due to actual differences in the rate of violations--if drivers of one race speeds more, they'll get pulled over more. It's actually pretty hard to tell the race of a driver before pulling them over, so it's rather unlikely that police could intentionally be racist in making stops. If you doubt that, I invite you to try the following experiment: try to tell the race of drivers going in the opposite direction on the interstate or passing you as you wait to make a turn (don't get too distracted!). I've done this many times, and the lighting conditions need to be quite favorable for you to tell the skin color of any driver who doesn't pass quite close.

On the other hand, the WSP does search minorities at much higher rate than whites--and finds contraband somewhat less often (although the difference is small, 20% vs. 18.5%). So the possibility that cops are racist in their decisions to search is still open. But what's missing in this article is an analysis of what kind of searches these were. Do cops ask blacks for permission more often, or do they have probable cause (such as the scent of alcohol or drugs)? Interestingly, the paper claims to have gathered the data on these questions, but does not present it in a meaningful way. That's pretty damn annoying, because while the article and headline give the general impression that the state patrol is racist or at least "has a problem," the hard numbers they present do not bear that out.

We need to know: Do cops ask minorities for permission to search more often? Do minorities give the cops probable cause more often? Does race play a role in the decision to ask for permission--and if so, is that such a bad thing, given what is known about, for instance, drug-running gangs? But they don't tell us--they just offer marginally relevant numbers, anecdotes from minorites who didn't like getting searched, and comments from "experts" whose qualifications and political bias is unknown (except for Hubert Locke, who is a die-hard racial grievance lefty).

How irritating that they didn't do a better job.

Still, the broader question is whether or not it is worth anyone caring. Certainly I do not endorse police racism, but we aren't talking about framing innocents for murders or beating up law-abiding drivers. I have exactly zero sympathy for drug smugglers and fugitives; so long as their 4th Amendment rights are respected, I don't much care if the cops pulled them over because of their skin. I have just as little sympathy for those who give the police probably cause; one of the risks of smoking pot in your car is that the cops may search it on the basis of the smell. If they come up empty, lucky you--but don't expect me to gush with righteous outrage.

That leaves consent searches--in which the police lack probable cause and merely ask for permission. In that case, if your car is searched, it's because you permitted it when you didn't have to, which means that you must bear at least part of the responsibility. If the cops are abusive or threatening that's wrong, regardless of race, but if they ask and you say yes, it doesn't make sense to complain later.

I'm troubled to imagine that cops might ask minorities for permission to search because of racism--but, again, is this the most pressing problem for the minorities of Washington State, or the United States? I would have thought black-on-black murders more worrisome than gruff police officers, since death is more final and more painful than a 10-minute delay which is voluntary in any case. Ditto the grinding poverty of the Indian reservatons, or the terrible living conditions of migrant agricultural workers (which, at the least, the state is trying to improve).

The problem is that racial disparities in traffic stops are easy to find and easy to criticize, while solutions to the deeper and more important problems are elusive and, frankly, probably can't come from the government, which makes them less appealing to many.

2003-01-06T13:14:00.000-08:00

What I need to know about Medicare: Friday's mail brought an urgent communication: an offer to get Important Information I Need To Have About Medicare and Me. I was instructed to mail back the special certificate to get a very important pamplet.

Now, there are two things I need to know about Medicare:

1) I'm not eligible for at least 40 years, and

2) By then, the system will probably have collapsed anyway.

You would think that it wouldn't take an entire booklet to explain that much.

The best part of this special offer was the advent of a new compound word: Senior-Americans. So we have African-Americans, Native Americans, Undocumented Americans, and, of course, Persons of Size. How long before the AARP starts demanding references to "Persons of Wisdom"?

2003-01-03T11:49:00.000-08:00

OK, I give up: Having been badgered in Ted Barlow's comments to either get comments or post an email address, I've given in. I tried for a long time to make comments work; I can't make it happen, and my new library time restrictions make it unlikely that I'll have time in the future. So here's an email: bigots-at-keepandbeararms-dot-com.

Originally, I used this to gather examples of egregious anti-gun-owner bigotry. But a funny thing has happened over the past year: very few examples have been coming to light. It's odd. I don't know if it has anything to do with Sept. 11, but the worst I've seen since then is a couple of "gun nuts" lines from Mary McGrory.

Please, people, the reason I didn't put up an email originally was because I already get enough from trolls at my various email addresses, so don't make me shut this account down. Also, I have no interest in seeing pretty little white gayboys suck big beautiful black cock, so could the guy who sends me that stuff please stop?

Seriously, I doubt that I'll have time to reply to many emails, but I certainly will try to read them all. Please keep them polite!

2003-01-03T11:32:00.000-08:00

Pretending to be the President: It strikes me that some of the criticism of Bush (and political figures generally) is rather unfair because it demands the impossible. For instance, many people are demanding that the U.S. take a harder line toward Saudi Arabia. I'll grant you, when a Saudi official said on the news last night that it was unfair to accuse his government of turning a blind eye to terrorism, my reaction was, "Well, yeah, after all, you are the #1 sponsor of terrorism."

Still, we can't expect Bush to confront the Saudi government directly until after Iraq has fallen. We need their bases, we need their diplomatic support, and yes, we need their oil (those who angrily denounce Bush on this point would have more credibility if they suggested practical alternatives). Once we have Iraq, we can expect and demand a tougher line.

Likewise, the Bush administration's attitude toward North Korea is eerily calm. Personally, I'm freaking out. But they have to play it cool. And, as Den Beste points out, their calm veneer might very well be part of a diplomatic strategy to force the North Koreans to blink first. Of course, the difference between Bush's approach to NK and Iraq is NOT related to oil--but rather to Kim Jong Il's ability to deter us by threatening South Korea and Japan, which ablility Bush wishes to deny to Saddam.

I think that we, as critics on the outside looking in, have a certain obligation to imagine ourselves in the seat of power, and to refrain from demanding actions which are clearly impossible politically or diplomatically. It makes no sense, except as a partisan cheap shot, to complain that Bush isn't doing things he can't do, such as calling for the ouster of the House of Saud. Certainly it makes sense to criticize the Saudis, but Bush simply cannot do so at this time.

2003-01-03T11:27:00.000-08:00

Registering visitors to the U.S.: Here's an article from Canada about a Pakistani-born Canadian scientist who was refused entry to the U.S. because he didn't want to be fingerprinted and photographed. He was offended by the alleged religious and ethnic profiling involved.

On the one hand, the INS has the right to do whatever they want with foreign nationals, since there is no "right" to enter the U.S. And the worries about sleepers cells are real, especially given Canada's lax asylum policies.

Still, I have to wonder what the fingerprinting and photographing will accomplish. If we have a list of terror suspects, complete with photos and fingerprints, to compare everyone to, then it might make some sense. But I haven't seen any reports on the development of a "National Instant Check System" for people entering the country. I strongly suspect this is nothing but ass-covering--bureaucrats building a database because it makes them look like they're doing something. But doing things like this won't do us much good without a truly huge and integrated effort. And even if the INS had access to a new kind of NICS computer, it wouldn't stop the terrorists with fake U.S. passports, who wouldn't be run through the system.

Real immigration control would require massive commitments to a range of agencies and projects. Half-assed measures accomplish nothing worthwhile, but do annoy innocent people and waste tax money.

2003-01-02T12:47:00.000-08:00

Free Market Analysis: I saw a real-estate agency sign offering a "free market analysis." Obviously this was a real-estate broker of the Chicago school. Perhaps the University of Washington's English department should open up a real-estate business offering "marxist analysis" to passers-by. Or the women's studies folks could pitch their "eco-feminist analysis." Why not? The value of your home is just part of a patriarchal conspiracy to oppress the producing classes anyway.

2003-01-02T12:33:00.000-08:00

Blogging from the library: I'm experimenting with blogging from the library. It seems to work fine for pre-written posts, but I only get 45 minutes a day to read and comment on my favorite blogs, which will hurt.

2003-01-02T12:32:00.000-08:00

Race and AA: Marianne Means is a charter member of my personal Axis of Annoying People, and this column makes it obvious why. On the question of racial preferences at the University of Michigan:

Politically, taking a position opposed to giving a helping hand to disadvantaged people requires making a credible argument that artificially created racial and gender diversity is a bad thing. This is extremely difficult to do without sounding bigoted.

It's going to take me a while to unpack all of the BS that she managed to pack into just 38 words, so bear with me.

To begin with, given the way that AA works at Michigan, Means simply assumes that "Black or Hispanic = disadvantaged." After all, it has been reported that being black is worth more than a perfect 1600 on the SAT (although I haven't been able to confirm that, so it may just be an unfounded rumor). Yet this equation is silly; there are privileged blacks and hispanics just as surely as there are disadvantaged whites and asians. As has been pointed out on hundreds of occasions, the biggest beneficiaries of AA are middle-class black kids, which makes one wonder why they needed a "helping hand" at all.

Moving right along, it isn't at all clear that letting admitting students whose academic records alone do not justify admission actually constitutes a "helping hand." It might well be better for them to attend a university whose standards more closely match their qualifications, rather than getting in over their heads.

Nor is it necessarily bigoted to argue that artificial diversity is bad. If minority students on campus are perceived as having been admitted only because of their value as window dressing, the result will be increased, not decreased, discrimination. This can only make them resentful, and contribute to a balkanized campus atmosphere--which is, undeniably, a bad thing. Everyone makes fun of meathead athletes and whiny rich legacy kids--should minorities really want to find themselves in the same category, as people who don't belong but had to be admitted anyway?

Means says of AA:

Its aim is to compensate for the limited educational background that many minorities have.

Um, if the issue is limited educational backgrounds, they why is AA based on race, which correlates only somewhat with pre-college education, and not on educational background itself, which correlates perfectly? And, while we're at it, why in Heaven's name would we want to intentionally admit people with weak educations? Isn't the whole point of admissions standards to separate those who will thrive at a given school from those who wouldn't?

Setting aside Means, whose column I really should learn not to read, let us consider for a moment the question of racism for a moment. I am perfectly willing to endorse quotas--yes, literal quotas--as a way to fight literal racism. If a college takes the position "We will admit no Negroes," it is perfectly acceptable for the government to demand that a certain number of blacks be admitted or threaten to deny funding. No one can possibly claim that the University of Michigan, or any other credible university, takes such an egregious position. Indeed, quite the opposite is true; most admissions departments positively love minorities and will do anything--including spending vast sums on lawyers--to admit more of them. Against such a background, it seems silly to demand that minorities get anything other than what is offered to whites. It seems even sillier to demand that certain minorities--blacks and hispanics, in particular--get special consideration which is not afforded to, for instance, asians or Jews.

Perhaps poor people should get a leg up; I'm skeptical but open to the possibility. But to offer the son of a black doctor preference over the son of a white prostitute--and claim that this is necessary because the black kid is "disadvantaged"--is simply stupid.

I don't mean to deny that racism exist; of course it does. And of course it would be great if we could put a stop to all of it. But we can't stop bigotry by running the other way in hopes of compensating. We need to fight discrimination where it is, not where it isn't--which means that, frustratingly, we need affirmative action in precisely those places where we are least likely to get it (in the presence of bigots), and we don't need it where it is easiest to enact, at our left-oriented universities. There's no cosmic balance to be achieved by being pro-minority while others are anti; we should rather strive to be neutral and convince others to do the same.

Means complains that we have not yet achieved a colorblind society. In this, she is correct. Of course, it is not likely that we well ever achieve such an ideal in this imperfect world, and AA makes it that much less likely by declaring, in essence, that 1) minorities are incapable of "white" levels of academic achievement and 2) the presence of "diversity" (of the appropriate kind) on campus is necessary to the education of white people. The former point is an insult, the latter an objectification. Neither contributes much to racial reconciliation. Means may well think it foolish for whites to resent AA, and perhaps she is correct. But the fact is that many non-racist whites do resent it, and that fact makes AA bad for the future of colorblindness. It matters not a whit that Means wants the world to be different; it is the way it is, and only a fool makes policy based on what he wishes rather than what is.

The question which is pertinent in discussion of racial inequality is certainly not "Does every group have an exactly proportional share of everything?" but rather "Can any determined individual succeed?" Exact proportionality is unlikely, and discrimination need not be the sole cause of disparities. I believe that a determined individual of any race can lead a comfortable middle-class life in whatever profession he or she wishes in the United States in 2002. That was not true 50 years ago, but amazing progress has been made, thanks no doubt in part to the actions of the government. Today's young black man might have to put of with some offensive mall security guards, and I wish that weren't true. But the fact is that mall rent-a-cops moonlight as captains of industry and college admissions officers only very rarely, so that kind of racism isn't important except as a source of gift certificates and flowery letters of apology from store owners.

True, poor people of all races have it worse than rich people, and thanks to centuries of racism, more minorities have it bad than whites. But the fate and future of each individual is today mostly in the hands of that individual, and it is up to him or her to do what millions before have done without the benefit of special set-asides.

2003-01-02T11:49:00.000-08:00

The West Wing: I don't usually watch The West Wing, not so much because of the politics, but because I find the characters insufferable. And what kind of self-important TV show needs to be letterboxed? But my wife wanted noise, and (amazingly), everything else was worse (we don't have cable).

But, as it turned out, there was one funny thing and one interesting thing on last night's episode.

Funny thing: Forced to think of something "liberal," that is, something which would please Democrats and displease Republicans, one of the characters said, "Death is bad."

Oh yeah. Every Republican Party meeting I've ever been to has ended with the Official Conservative Battle Cry: Death! Death! Death!

Interesting thing: The primary theme of the episode was Martin Sheen's desire to include a "Apollo program" line in his State of the Union--to commit to curing cancer in the next decade. Some oncologists over for dinner with the First Lady convinced him that a big push would be enough to make cancer chronic rather than terminal.

What I find interesting is the question of whether this would work or not. If the government really could cure cancer with a big research push, I certainly would not oppose it. My small-government principles would go right out the window for something like that.

On the other hand, it isn't at all clear that this could succeed. The Apollo program was a massive engineering project. The scientific principles at work were well understood; the problem was simply one of designing a big enough rocket. I don't mean to demean the greatest engineering project of all time; I just want to point out that engineering problems are much more susceptible to solution by brute force. Since engineers, for the most part, rely on known scientific principles, they spend a lot less time thrashing around in the dark than do scientists.

Engineers also work on problems that break down in to units much more easily. If we're building a rocket, I can work on the fuel pumps while you work on life support systems. As long as both of us meet our pre-determined specs, we don't every really need to talk. No specifications can be given to scientists; no one knows what they might be. Research is, in my experience, about 90% blundering and 10% brilliant ideas from other people; take away interaction with colleagues and you're left with blundering. Pouring more money in to add more people doesn't cure the interaction problem because one's social circle in inevitably limited.

A massive bureaucratic program is an excellent way to get to the moon; it probably wouldn't work at all for curing cancer. Yet politically, how could you possibly say no? I mean, forget cost-benefit analysis--"Congressman Smith voted pro-cancer in 3 separate votes. Tell him to stop listening to the NRA, the Christian Coalition, and other members of the cancer lobby."

All of this gets at a broader question which periodically gets asked in right-wing circles: would you be a socialist if socialism actually worked? There are lots of good ideological reasons to support small government and capitalism, but the best reason, and the one that motivates me the most, is much more practical: it works. Collectivism doesn't. There are lots of nuances here and there to argue about--hence blogging--but broadly speaking, it's hard to argue with that.

But I think even I'd be a socialist if 1) it worked and 2) I got to keep my guns.

2003-01-01T18:54:00.000-08:00

Cloning: I don't believe for one minute the Raelian claim to have cloned a human infant. I'm perfectly willing to retract if they prove their case, but their behavior so far--in particular, holding a press conference before they had their ducks in a row on the question of verification--does not give them an air of credibility.

In any case, the announcement has led to denunciations and calls for legislative action.

Instapundit demands that the opponents of cloning come up with an argument more substantive that the one they characterize as "it gives me the willies." Since one of my recurring themes is civility, I'd like to say that that's a pretty facile and smart-ass way of blowing off a sincere religious argument which starts not from butterflies in the stomach, but from a belief in the sanctity of life.

But that said, I agree with him in principle; I can't see any reason to ban cloning any more than I can see a reason to ban in-vitro fertility treatments, outside of the desire not to destroy embryos. As someone who likes ejaculation rather more than, say, a broken nose, I think it sounds like a stupid waste of money, but I think it more moral for a wealthy couple to create a clone than a deadbeat serial inseminator to drop his sperm all over the countryside.

Except...except that we don't know how well this will work. The threat of strange birth defects, premature aging, etc. are non-trivial, and also hardly understood at all. So actually, I would like to see some oversight, perhaps by the FDA, to be ensure that this process will not bring crippled babies with 30-year life expectancies into the world. And no, I do not consider the market an adequate safeguard, as some people are really such self-absorbed idiots that they don't care about the risk. Exhibit A: the mother of this cloned baby, assuming that this is for real.

Yes, people will go to offshore clinics, just as they do today for quack cancer cures. That some people will evade the law does not necessarily prove that the law is a bad idea. In any case, I'm not calling for an outright ban, just for enough regulatory oversight to protect children from their parents.

2003-01-01T18:21:00.000-08:00

How depressing: Den Beste, Yglesias and Barlow kindly linked me all on the same day, driving my hits over 100 in a single day for the first time ever...but they're back down to 20 or so today. So much for stickiness!

I suspect part of the problem is the lack of new posts. Sorry--I don't have access to the internet at work any more, because I don't have work any more. I'll try to get to the library or something, assuming the continuing budget crisis hasn't shut them all down.

It always surprises me which of my posts generate the most interest. I thought the North Korea one was kind of poorly written (I self-spiked a post about race at the same time because I was tired and incoherent) and short on facts. It was just some vague impressions from a 3-day visit to L.A. which involved fixing my in-laws' plumbing and reading the paper version of the L.A. Times, which made some similar points.

Well, Happy New Year to everyone, anyway. May it be a year of no more violence than necessary.

2002-12-29T19:16:00.000-08:00

North Korea: I'm worried as hell about North Korea, and I wanted to do a post on it, but Steven Den Beste beat me to it, with lots of good links to boot. OK, France, step up the plate and show us how to solve this problem.

I wanted to add a couple of comments, though, based on my Christmas with my wife's Korean parents, and on the L.A. Times, which has good coverage of Asia. One of the largest obstacles we face is the racial obtuseness of the Asian powers involved--China, Japan, and South Korea. Koreans from the south seem to regard North Koreans as kin--which of course they are--and therefore not dangerous. This is a ludicrous attitude. Meanwhile, they strongly mistrust the Japanese, who of course were responsible for a brutal colonial occupation in the first half of the 20th century. Some of my wife's aunts speak Japanese because they grew up under occupation. The Chinese have a similar mistrust of the Japanese, and of course the South Koreans don't trust the Chinese at all. And nobody trusts the Americans, who are the only power in the region which can credibly enforce its will against Kim Jong Il (maybe the Chinese could too, but they don't want the refugee problem).

This is seriously screwed up, from an American perspective. If I were going into combat, I'd rather have a bunch of battle-trained black guys than English ballet dancers backing me up, despite my ethnic heritage. My priority would be winning, and screw skin color. But in Asia, there's so much cultural and racial hatred and mistrust, lots of South Koreans will take their chances with a lunatic Stalinist rather than trust a white guy from Texas.

Meanwhile, if North Korea does put together a credible nuclear deterrent, then South Korea needs one, and then Japan would probably want one too, which would make everyone REALLY squirrelly. Christ. Do we have enough anti-artillery missiles to kill the reported 11,000 guns aimed at Seoul? 'Cause an invasion would be great except for that whole killing-200,000-South-Korean-civillians thing.

I can't begin to guess how we'll fix this mess. But when your "allies" trust you less than they trust your common enemy--as seems to be the case for some South Koreans--and when your "allies" hate each other--it's pretty hard to accomplish anything.

And here's an ethical quesiton: Since South Korea is in the most danger here, should we let them dictate policy--even if the policy they dictate is incredibly stupid and dangerous for them? Should we let their racialism get in the way of smart defense moves? Or should we ignore their ethnic prejudice and something they don't like, but which is in their best interest. I mean that seriously--Asian racism is already interfering with diplomacy and is leading countries to push policies based on ethnic prejudice rather than reflective consideration of the issues. Should we let them do that, considering that Kim Jong Il's missles can't hit our coast yet?

2002-12-24T12:12:00.000-08:00

"Smart" guns: (Still blogging from home, no links, sorry). New Jersey becomes the first state in the nation to require that new hanguns be sold with "smart" technology that prevents them from being fired by anyone other than an authorized user. Oddly, this requirement was put in place before the technology exists.

Here's a really odd quote from the governer of NJ: "This is common-sense legislation. There are safety regulations on cars, on toys. It's clearly time we have safety regulations on handguns." Whats so odd about this is that typically, it is consumers who demand safety regulations. Yet I can guarantee you that the actual consumers of hanguns opposed this legislation, which was undoubtedly pushed through not by gun owners, but by anti-gun political activists.

Gun owners don't trust "smart" guns. While the technology would probably be harmless on a target-shooting gun, it could be a disaster on self-defense guns. The stress of a lethal-force encounter might fool the technology with sweat on a fingerprint reader or changes in the style of grip. It would prevent husbands from shooting a wife's gun and vice versa. And, of course, dead batteries would turn a handgun into an overpriced rock for self-defense purposes.

For all these reasons, gun owners don't want "smart" guns, and they certainly don't want to be forced to buy them. Why, then, is this portrayed as a consumer-protection measure? Why not simply be honest and say "We want to make guns as expensive and unreliable as possible, becasue we think gun owners are racist hicks who should be punished for their politically-incorrect hobbies"?

In addition, I'd be willing to bet that police guns are exempted from the "smart" requirement. I certainly will NOT be using any gun that isn't reliable enough for the police.

2002-12-23T10:18:00.000-08:00

"Objectively pro-Saddam": This is really an old issue, but I wanted to order my thoughts a little before I wrote about it. I don't have all the links since I'm at home, but here are some musings:

On the one hand, it is undeniable that people who oppose war in Iraq are working to Saddam's benefit. Clearly it would be better for him if we didn't invade and kill him. So
technically, the pro-Saddam designation is correct.

The error lies in believing that pro-Saddam means anti-American. Certainly there is substantial overlap between the two groups, but it is possible that it is in our national interest to leave Saddam alone. If Saddam's interest coincides with ours, there is no shame in advocating a position which is "objectively pro-Saddam." Maybe being pro-Saddam is the right thing to be, and in the best interests of the United States.

It is foolish to believe that anything which is bad for an enemy is good for us. That's called vindictiveness; it is no way to lead one's life or one's country. It is also mistake to believe that anything good for an enemy is bad for us. We should decide on war in Iraq without regard to Saddam--who cares what happens to him? Our decision must be based on our own self-interest, not on the desire to kill an evil man at any cost.

I'm not sure whether the users of the OpS line are being vindictive or simply trying to smear their opponents to control the debate. Either way: stop it. What's good or bad for Saddam is irrelevant. Supporters (and opponents) of a war must make an argument which appeals to American interests, not Saddam's anti-interests.

(It seems like some people howling about "objectively pro-Saddam" seem perfectly willing to use the "objectively pro-" line to describe their opponents--just recently I saw a blog post quoted approvingly on Ampersand's site (sorry, don't have the URL in memory) which declared that opponents of affirmative action were supporting "the racist status quo." So lefty outrage at Glenn's rhetorical excesses seems a little lame to me in light of the constant smearing of conservatives other than Lott as racists and gun owners as "objectively pro-criminal." Of course, no one can be held resposible for what his fellow travelers says, but hypocricy is certainly not unheard of in political debate. It would be nice if the anti-OpSites would also police their own ranks for similar cheap shots.)

2002-12-23T10:17:00.001-08:00

Marriage advice: Want to ruin your marriage? Get a wild turkey call and practice at home. But gee, what good is my brand-new shotgun if I can't call a gobbler into shooting range?

Special note to Tim Blair: I own a pump-gun and you can't! Emigrate now! (That was kind of mean.)

2002-12-23T10:17:00.000-08:00

Limited Posting: Sorry, but there's water in my basement. Since it's finished living space, that means tearing out carpet and drywall to fill the cracks (plus, digging for the drain pipe outside to patch any leak). Fun and giggles all around.

I'll send a few posts in to work with my wife, but there will be few links, if any, since I don't have Internet access at home. Mostly, I'll miss posting on my favorite bloggers' comment boards.

Also, with the holidays, I'm not totally sure when I'll be back for real. Figure I'll be back up to full strength early in the new year.

Have a Merry Christmas. If you don't celebrate Christmas, have a good day anyway. If Christmas wishes offend you, consider purchasing a thicker skin during the after-Christmas sales.

2002-12-21T16:33:00.000-08:00

I hate the INS: I'm not referring to the INS round-ups in SoCal, which may or may not have anything to do with terrorism (I'm leaning toward not, but who knows?), but rather to the ordeal in the lab where I just finished working.

We want to bring in a Chinese postdoc, who is currently living in Japan and working in a Japanese lab. His paperwork has been pending for the better part of a year now. Every once in a while, they send him some new forms to fill out, with exactly the same questions on slightly different paper ("No, you've filled out the yellow form. This is totally different--its the goldenrod form. You can't get a visa without the goldenrod form.").

The people at the University of Washington assure my advisor that the approval is routine, and that denial of the visa simply does not happen. They're simply taking extra time since Sept. 11. In fact, these folks theorize that the delays are intentional, in the hope that students who can't get visas for a year will simply give up and stay home.

What kind of shit is that? Really--how many Chinese terrorists were on United 93? I suppose we shouldn't racially profile. Fine. If I believed they were conducting extensive background checks, I'd be fine with it. But that's not what's going on--no, no, what's happening is the visa approval people are putting the forms in a cellar to age. Like wine, you know. They want to let the ink mellow a little and the paper get slightly brittle. The rubber-stamp weenies say their stamps look better on aged paper. Anyway, the guy's just some foreign moron, so what's he gonna do, sue?

I feel much safer already.

2002-12-20T20:18:00.000-08:00

Lorises! Lorises! As you might have guessed from the links on the left, I'm an animal lover. I especially like obscure animals, preferably somewhat odd. So I was delighted to read this LA times article about a man smuggling lorises into the U.S. I wasn't really pleased with the ordeal they had to endure, but the thought of a loris in someone's pants put a smile on my face.

In fact, this is how I first heard of the loris to begin with--from a very similar case in Germany, described in the official magazine for the German customs agency (My wife was the one weird enough to read such a magazine, not me!). I mean, who wouldn't want a loris in their pants?

Although personally, I think the smuggling operation would be more successful if you put them in your bra. Looks more natural than bumps in your pants.

Via Tim Blair.

UPDATE: Here is a hilarious take on this story by an Associate Justice of the California Court of Appeal, of all people.

2002-12-20T13:17:00.000-08:00

Liberty and Stupidity, II: The other day I wrote a rather long-winded post on lazy idiots and the danger that they pose to themselves and others when their idiocy is mixed with freedom.

My larger point--somewhat lost in my discussion of having a gun pointed at me--was that while making public policy to contain the misery caused by idiots seems like a good idea (even when balanced against the loss of liberty for non-idiots), we ought also to consider the effect that idiot-proofing laws and regulations have on borderline non-idiots. Removing people from the consequences of their actions will tend to make them irresponsible, which may undercut the goal of preventing idiot-induced misery.

That is, while idiocy and responsibility are a nasty mix, moderate competence and non-responsibility can interact to create truly stunning idiocy--and thus be much more dangerous than native idiocy alone. And of course responsibility, if allowed to take its course, can beat the idiocy out of many. (Jane Galt has a good anecdote.)

Theodore Dalrymple makes much the same point with more eloquent prose than I can manage.

UPDATE: I was in a hurry, so I didn't have a chance to read the entire piece. While the first part is indeed about criminals and their bad decisions, the second part is about the mentally ill, and society's obligation to care for them. I mischaracterized Dalrymple's main point by confusing it with a subsidiary point--sorry about that.

2002-12-20T12:46:00.000-08:00

Hooray for hits! Thanks to Jane Galt, I should top 2000 hits sometime in the next hour. Yay! And thanks to all of my readers and linkers.

2002-12-20T11:32:00.000-08:00

Lileks, again: Another Screed to make you laugh so hard you vomit.

My wife and I have often wanted to "opt out" of the whole Christmas gift-giving thing--frankly, we have everything we need, and anything we want (I got a turkey shotgun recently, for instance, and want some rain-proof camo to go with it) is usually so obscure and specific that the only way we'd get it is by filling out the mail-order form and sending it to our relatives. Kind of puts the damper on Christmas morning, you know: "Wow, its exactly what I wanted! I guess you didn't make random last-minute changes to that order form I filled out! What a surprise!" I think we'd be happier if Christmas were more like Thanksgiving, which is my favorite holiday.

But never have we dreamed of wasting our money on a billboard to tell other people how wonderfully superior we are to them.

2002-12-20T10:39:00.000-08:00

Depressing news: Some days, I feel very upbeat--look how better things are today than 50 years ago! Longer lives, more wealth, less pollution, less bigotry, more freedom--and hey! Simon won his bet against Ehrlich! Things are getting better, they're going to keep getting better--what's to worry about?

Then something like this comes along:

A study of almost 50 years of Playboy centrefolds has revealed that the characteristic differences between men and women are becoming less pronounced...

Over time, bust size and hip size decreased, while waist size increased. Measures of body shape followed the same trends: body mass index and bust:hip ratio decreased, while waist:hip ratio, waist:bust ratio, and androgyny index increased.

Yeah, that's just what the world needs: girls who look like boys. Jeez.

(Not that my wife would buy that excuse: "But honey, how can you object to me buying Playboy? All the girls look like boys anyway!")

2002-12-20T10:38:00.000-08:00

LOTR: Saw The Two Towers yesterday afternoon. You know it's a good movie when the worst thing you can say about it is "The theater was too crowded."

Seriously, I don't want to do a full review, so here's just one think I liked and one thing I didn't like:

I didn't like all of the slow-motion-facial-close-up stuff. Sometimes scenes like that have great emotional impact; sometimes they are boring and annoying. There were too many of them in this movie. I especially don't like that sort of thing during battle scenes; staring at your buddy's contorted face while he slowly dies is a good way to get your head bashed in by an Orc. Unfortunatly, most movies featuring battles feel compelled to include stuff like this. I've never been in combat, so maybe this is terribly realistic and I can't get it. I'll admit a certain bias: the Ents are among my favorite parts of the book and I wanted them to get more screen time to develop their characters more. Cutting a few staring-into-the-camera scenes would have given them room for that.

I did like Elrond's speech to Arwen about how she should sail to the Blessed Realm instead of marrying Aragorn. When reading the book, I always found the Elves vaguely creepy and distantly menacing. Sure, they're good looking. They have great vision and god-like skill with bows. And of course they're immortal. But somehow they don't seem entirely friendly; they're rather xenophobic and they seem more interested in their pretty trees than in the evil which is coming. I sort of suspected this was because they were, themselves, a little evil (or at least not good) at heart.

OK, so they don't rape and pillage--but they could, and you couldn't stop them. The only reason they don't is because they're rich enough not to need it. But if they were hungry, I bet they'd eat Men and Hobbits without a second thought. Elrond drove that point home--don't get involved, just flee and be happy in the Undying Lands, screw these filthy men and their body odor. Or, rather, don't screw Aragorn, dear daughter, he's from the wrong side of the tracks and I don't want to think about his hairy hands all over your "silmarils."

Go see it. And if you haven't read the book, why not?

2002-12-18T15:17:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow: I probably won't be blogging. But I will be seeing Lord of the Rings.

2002-12-18T14:27:00.000-08:00

Liberty and Stupidity: Clayton Cramer:

I can remember a time when attending a Libertarian Party meeting in a place like Santa Clara County meant that you only had to ask one question: software or hardware? Everyone, or almost everyone, was an engineer of some sort. Libertarianism is a wonderful ideology for intelligent, rational people who make long-term plans, and put long-term goals above immediate gratification. This is to say, it is almost completely irrelevant to the vast majority of people, who are lazy, stupid, only marginal rational, or who live for immediate gratification. (Those individuals who combine all those qualities spend a lot of time in jail or prison.)

This raises some interesting questions in the debate about liberty and security. If Cramer is right--most people are lazy and stupid--then liberty causes all kinds of unnecessary suffering. Is it moral to endorse policies which cause suffering, even if stupidity is the cause? Should we refuse to give to charities which appear to help people who made stupid decisions? On the other hand, is it moral to impose rules designed for stupid people on the intelligent? Shouldn't those people be permitted to manage their own lives without interference?

Then again, is it moral to simply assume people are stupid? Even if the facts in evidence point that way, shouldn't we give people the benefit of the doubt, even if they pay a price? How arrogant do you have to be to make that decision?

Will policies designed to protect people from their own stupidity end up infantilizing them further, that is, make them stupider, by preventing the painful learning experiences? Will we actually encourage stupidity, and therefore suffering?

Most of these questions have relevant real-world examples in areas like welfare, Social Security, etc. And, in most of those areas, I have pretty good answers to these questions. But let me tell you about my Monday night, which was one of the more terrifying of my life.

My wife and I shoot almost every weekend, both to hone our self-defense skills and for the sheer joy of it. We prefer the outdoor range where we are members--we shoot for free--but with torrential rains and howling, icy winds, outdoors was not the place to be this weekend. We went instead to "Ladies Night" at a local indoor range with a couple of friends.

Waiting at the counter to pay, we saw a couple renting a gun, and a staff member demostrating grip and firing position with a plastic practice gun. DING DING DING went my threat alarm NEWBIE ALET! Worse, the newbies appear to be a couple of young (20s) guys and a girlfriend. If there's anything worse than a guy teaching his girlfriend, I don't know what it is. (Well, I do know--but at the time I didn't). The swagger inherent in an attempt to impress a girl does NOT mix well with firearms.

Once on the range, I noticed a guy with a Glock .45--and the original "tupperware" package. Hmmm...nobody uses the factory box...He also had a cleaning kit, which is a really odd thing to bring to a pistol range (benchrest rifle shooters often bring them, but pistol shooters?) DING DING DING NEWBIE ALERT!. Ouch. That's 4 of them, plus the two guys who were filling out the liability forms in the lobby. I later confirmed his newbie status when he crossed his left thumb over the back of his right hand--and got smacked, hard, by the slide as it cycled. That's not the sort of mistake you make twice.

My wife and I fled to the far end of the range and took turns keeping watch over our "friends" to make sure they didn't shoot us. Then 6 kids--college age, speaking Chinese--came in. Their skin color didn't matter to me, but their language did, because neither the PRC or ROC are known for firearms freedom. 6 young people, likely foreigners--did they learn gun handling from John Woo and Bruce Willis? Probably. Certainly it's unlikely their fathers were a big gun collecters in the People's Republic. They acted like punks, too, joking and shoving each other, which made their nationality irrelevant in a hurry.

Our friends, both women, arrived. Both of them are relatively new to shooting--less than a year--and I'm the one who taught them. It's a testament to their level of seriousness that they immediatly identified a big string of threats with a glance, and a closer look at the targets of our fellow shooters told the rest of the story. Yikes. So I, as the man of the group, wound up standing guard most of the time, watching our neighbors closely for serious screwups. It's funny in our liberated, feminist age, but my wife and friends thought that I would be the best person to complain about bad gun handling. I'm not a big guy, but I can make my voice boom if neccessary, and the general perception is that men have more credibilty on a shooting range, despite the dramatic falsity of that belief (my wife is a better rifle shot that I am, a fact which makes me proud rather than threatened).

So what happened? I watched a lot of bad gun handling that made me nervous--too many fingers on triggers when they shouldn't have been, people unable to hit the paper at 7 yards, and, at one point, wood flying from the ceiling and the floor. Actually, I didn't see that--I saw the reaction of my friends, because I was behind the line watching the people rather than their targets.

And then, the amazing and unthinkable happened. One of the Chinese kids turned around to wave at his friend: "Hey, look at my bullseye!" He brought his gun with him, finger on the trigger. He swept me. He swept my wife. He swept both of our friends and one of his. I jumped forward and yelled--I got right into the shooting lane with him and damn near grabbed the .38 spl. he was waving around. I didn't do it because I didn't know if it was loaded, and I didn't want that jackass to fight me for it. He is, however, pretty lucky I didn't deck him.

For the non-shooters out there, it may be difficult to grasp how serious this is. It isn't hard to imagine that having a gun pointed at you is bad, but--this may surprise you--it's the first time it's ever happened to me. My wife and I spent four hours on the range during an NRA personal-protection class, routinely stepping forward of the firing line, shooting from all angles and positions; and yet, not a single one of the people there committed a screw-up so serious as that kid, despite literally hundreds of opportunities. When I teach people to shoot, I tell them that turning around, gun in hand, is the classic rookie handgun mistake, and not one of my students has ever made it (they are also much better marksmen than the average guy at this particular range).

So here we see the conflict. It isn't just that I'm opposed to gun control despite the fact that idiots can and do hurt themselves and others with guns. Certainly, part of me would like to see all the new shooters be forced into halfway decent training so they can avoid shooting the ceiling and sweeping their friends. But at the same time, I can't help but think that part of the problem is insufficient freedom.

My guess is that the guy who swept me is a Chinese college student who would never be allowed to touch a gun in his home country. I've run into Japanese college students in that situation at this range; since I speak Japanese, any one of them who sweeps me will get a very direct and rude correction in his native language. But precisely because these guys cannot shoot handguns at home--much like the many American-born kids whose parents abhor firearms, some of whom were busy shooting the ceiling and the floor that night--they get their images of gun handling from TV or movies. They show up at the range ready to be Dirty Harry or James Bond. Because they have never bourne the responsibility inherent in safe shooting, they cannot now bear it--and the collision of restriction and freedom is dangerous as hell.

Worst of all, people who have never had to bear responsibility don't even know that they can't handle it, because they don't know what it is. They literally don't know how dangerous they are, which leads to tragedies like 13-year-olds shooting their friends in accidents which marksmanship training--NOT simply saying "Don't touch!"--could easily prevent. By infantalizing our children--or our citizens--we make them more dangerous than their natural laziness and stupidity mixed with responsibility would.

This is, perhaps, a special case. We can't make China change its gun laws, and we can't change ours simply because China has them. Nor can we force all American parents to raise their children in a certain way. But for many issues, gun control included, we must strike a balance between protecting ourselves from idiots and creating idiots with paternalism. I don't know exactly how to strike that balance, but it's a balance which is rarely discussed, and which ought to get wider play.

2002-12-18T12:34:00.000-08:00

Guns and freedom: Bill Whittle has written a wonderful, remarkable piece on guns and freedom, which Rachel Lucas has published on her blog.

Armed Liberal linked, and got this comment:

...and just what do you think your small-arm will be able to do against a remote-controlled droned armed with hellfire missiles? All the well-regulated minute-men in the state, let alone law-abiding gun owners, won't be able to protect themselves...

I've been kicking some ideas around in my head lately in response to this sentiment, and looking for an excuse to write about them. Now I've got it. I see this kind of argument all the time--"Do you really think a couple million guys with deer rifles can defeat the U.S. Army?" This kind of thinking reflects tactical thinking--after all, a hunter can't even dent the armor of a tank. Its easy to be dazzled by the capablities of our technologically advanced military. But wars are not won by tactics, and a strategic consideration gives the clear advantage to rebellious American citizens.

Let's break this down in to units:

Objectives: The objective of a tyrannical government would be the complete disarmament and pacification of the entire country, followed by permanent occupation.

The objective of rebels is simply to make the country ungovernable in order to force concessions from the government.

Raw numbers: If 10% of the gun owners in the U.S. decide to rebel, the New Sons of Liberty can put about 8 million men under arms, with families, neighbors and spouses forming a HUGE organic quartermaster corps.

The U.S. armed forces have something like 2 million members, with a clear majority being in logistics and support rather than combat arms units. Terrible casualty ratios would still leave lots of new deer hunters to kill the remaining G.I.s

Air power: One of the great advantages the U.S. has in battle with foreign nations is air superiority and precision bombardment. But strategic bombing is impossible because the factories, bridges, rail lines, fuel depots, highways, etc. which would be bombed are essential to the Army's progress--and largely irrelevant to the rebels, who would be hunkered down in their own neighborhoods waiting for the battle to come to them.

Meanwhile, tactical bombardment--Hellfire missiles, for instance, as suggested above--cannot be sustained. Our stock of high-precision munitions is limited, and would quickly be exhausted without meaningfully reducing the number of rebellious citizens. Resistance, since it is not directed at literally stopping an attack but rather at being annoying, would be too spread out for tactical air power or even precision artillery to be worthwhile. This seems awful to say, but who care's if the CIA kills five rebels in a car? There are millions more where they came from, and they only matter if they're leaders who inspire others, as appears to be the case in the Yemen raid.

Doing battle for freedom--and owning a gun for that purpose--isn't about personal survival. It's about the survival of ideals held more dear than life.

Morale: Rebels would see themselves as the heirs to the American Revolution. Heck, they'd probably get T-shirts that said "AR 2.0." They could draw on the American cultural affinity for the little guy, the underdog, and the freedom-loving patriot to keep their own morale up and muster support from civilians.

Meanwhile, their counterparts in the Army are not robots--they would be well aware that they were playing the role of the Redcoats--and you could count on lots of desertions. If the Army did succeed in occupying any significant piece of territory, it would need massive armies of conscripts to support the occupation--how many people would actually show up if drafted? How many would go through the training and promptly flee with their new skills to join the rebels?

The role of the National Guard: All over the country, there are stocks of weapons under the control of part-time soldiers. Given that many of these soldiers are gun owners who signed up for the free ammo, how likely are they to join the tyranny rolling across the country? Much more likely: they and their officers will form rebel cavalry divisions to support the deer-hunter infantry. They'll bring training, SAMs, armor, and artillery to the party which formerly consisted of only bolt-action .308s.

Considering that something like half the Army's firepower is in NG units, that's nothing to sneeze at.

The role of the police: Who will enforce public order in the conquered territory? Not the police, most of whom, for all their faults, believe in freedom and democracy. In fact, it's just as likely that many police will take the side of the rebels--meaning yet another pack of gun-carrying troublemakers, complete with solid communications and command structure, for the Army to deal with.

The role of unarmed civilians: Suppose you were a factory worker who made JDAMs for the Air Force. Would you show up to work on the day after those weapons were dropped on your fellow citizens? Would you put your best effort into quality control?

Suppose you were a government-loving gun-control advocate who supported the effort to disarm American civilians and hated the rebels. Could you keep feeling that way after you saw a city block shelled flat to kill the sniper there? How would you feel with tanks rolling past your bedroom window?

Armed fighters could count on massive non-violent resistance to most of what the Army tried, partly because of the American love of freedom, and partly because any use of conventional military tactics like shelling or bombing aginst guys with rifles would upset the American sense of justice. Unless the government's soldiers can be convinced to roll over or shoot their way through throngs blocking every road, they might not even get to engage the armed citizens. And, of course, doing so would merely incense the survivors and serve as a recruiting poster for rebels.

Finally, civilians would be happy to feed, clothe, and nurse the valiant rebels--but government soldiers would face a rather different welcome.

Logistics: There would be no front in a new American Revolution. That means the U.S. Army's entire logistical tail would, by definition, be in hostile territory, vulnerable to snipers, sabatoge, improvised mines and mortars, bomb-carrying crop dusters, etc.

The logistical tail of the average deer-hunter extends to his kitchen, where his wife can make him sandwiches and fill his canteen. The Army couldn't, for political, moral, and morale reasons, blockade or otherwise obstruct commerce which feeds non-combatants, which means they can't obstruct the logistical tail of the rebels.

And, finally: Tactics: Here, it Army has a big advantage. Better weapons, better training, better communications, the ability to call in close air support, etc. Of course, some of these advantages might be mitigated by National Guard defections or deserting soldiers who bring some materiel out with them. And it is certainly fair to ask what effect conscription and poor morale will have on combat effectiveness. Still, for the purposes of argument, let's stipulate a battlefield advantage for the tyrants.

So what? There will be no wheeling tank divisions on the Great Plains. Most of today's gun owners live in suburbs and cities; their rural cousins will quickly flee their isolated farmhouses for the relative safety of numbers in population centers. It won't be a battle of massed artillery and outflanking manuvers; it will be a single sniper popping soldiers from a rooftop. You don't call in Apache gunships to dispatch a single sniper, and you sure as hell don't do it when the sniper is perched on the roof of an innocent party. By the time a patrol gets to the roof in question--assuming they aren't ambushed along the way--the shooter will have run home, shoved a patch through the bore of his gun (Who, me?), and be in front of the TV.

The only way to combat the sniper menace is to go house to house and search. This, of course, gives the advantage to the rebels, who can chose which houses are most favorable for ambushes and set up the furnishings to maximize their advantage. They can count on at least one casualty inflicted on soldiers for each ambush; probably many more. The strategy of house-to-house must also be considered in light of its impact on Army morale, desertion rates, civilian support for rebels vs. the Army.

Put simply: house-to-house fighting, in which armor, artillery, and air power are largely irrelevant, and where training and equipment advantages can be largely neutralized by preparation and ambush, will be the dominant form of combat in any battle between the U.S. government and its citizens. It will produce disasterous casualty rates, destroy morale, increase desertions, reduce response to new conscription, and turn the friendliest of civilians against the government. Unless (and even if) they are willing to destroy entire neighborhoods with bombs and shells, it will be impossible for would-be tyrants to stop resistance, or even keep a reasonably effective fighting force in the field.

In a sense, the example of Palistinian terrorism (in the case of attacks on civilians) and rebellion (in the case of attacks on soldiers) is instructive; it shows the chaos which a few men with guns can cause. If the Palistinians were capable of negotiating in good faith, and if they could give up their Hitler fantasies, they would have had a state many years ago.

***

So yes, the armed forces have some wonderful toys. And yes, they could kill me pretty easily if they decided to, and I can do very little to stop them. But tactical advantage is not victory; killing me will not stop an American war of liberation. On the other hand, if the government were first to disarm the citizenry peacefully, resistence to an army willing to mow down unarmed protesters becomes nearly impossible.

2002-12-17T11:40:00.000-08:00

Faith in "The System": The print edition of National Review had an article about alleged voting irregularities in the South Dakota Senate election. It's almost a too-perfect mirror image of Florida 2000: the Democrat wins by less than 600 votes; Republicans go into overdrive trying to reverse the result. I didn't read the article.

Nor did I read 99% of the crap that came out of (and continues to come out of) the Florida debacle.

Why? Well, Josh Marshall gives one clue: the Republican AG of SD has decided that the accusations of voter fraud are themselves bogus.

But, in a larger sense, I wouldn't have cared even if I'd never seen the Josh Marshall post. Because I have great faith in "The System," and I'm confident that anything really serious--anything I really need to know--will pop up on my media radar screen, either in the paper, on the nightly news, or in many of the fine blogs I'm exposed to. I don't need to pay attention because someone else is paying attention, and they'll let me know if I need to know.

I also have great faith in the American people, including those people we elect to public office. Certainly I get in my fair share of jibes and cheap shots about politicians, but really--a state AG's job is to put people in jail for breaking the law. He'll do that as best he can. If he doesn't, the decency of the average citizen will lead to public outcry and an electoral defeat. That's why Toricelli had to withdraw from the Senate race--even in a heavily Democratic state, with a two-dimensional opponent whose only policy idea was "Don't vote for the crook," his supporters were evaporating. So I trust this AG, Republican or Democrat, to be honest and to deal with the claims of fraud fairly, whatever the outcome. Whether he does so out of personal interest or professionalism, I don't care.

I also trust our adversarial political system. In any close election, regardless of who wins, both sides will be gathering whatever evidence they can of cheating. So there is little chance that the cheating will go unnoticed. I also trust our media outlets--who can smell blood from even farther away than the most sensitive shark--to grab onto a scandal and milk it for all it's worth. Sure I complain about media bias--but in general, I don't believe something unless I can read it on CNN.com, and I do believe it if I can.

I trust our judges to do what is right--to dismiss bogus claims and permit the hearing of legitimate ones. That's not to say I trust all judges all the time, but the legal community's professional standards and oversight are worthy of respect, and the vigorous debates that accompany controversial decisions make me confident that large-scale error is pretty unlikely.

Most of all, I trust American culture. Part of our identity as Americans is belief in democratic politics. Being an American isn't about having particular ancestors, it's about having particular ideals. We can and do debate exactly what those ideals are, and how exactly they should be implemented, but voter fraud is more than illegal--it's an offense against Mom and Apple Pie, a perversion of the one thing that all Americans really do agree upon. Some partisan zealots may be willing to sell out the democratic ideal in favor of the Democratic (or Republican) ideal, but most of us are offended by cheating even if it helps us win. That rigs the system in favor of honesty from the beginning.

To be sure, there is corruption in the United States, and there was much more in years past. But the confluence of all these trends--a culture hostile to fraud, politicians who really do want to do their jobs, an amazingly efficient independent news media, an impartial judiciary--make life amazingly easy for me. I can be as lazy as I like, and yet still be confident that the truth will win in the end.

2002-12-17T11:10:00.000-08:00

Bush and small government: What can I say? Ted Barlow is right about Bush's seeming lack of seriousness when it comes to small government. Brad DeLong's comment about marginal tax rates, which Ted links too, pisses me off (assuming he's correct).

Ted, what should I do? The Democrats are worse, as you well know.

I flirted briefly with Libertarians (I still get their emails) but in the end they struck me as fundamentally unserious. They're full of ideological zeal--and I agree with them much of the time--but the actual business of governing is so messy I doubt any of them could every succeed at it without "selling out" and getting excommunicated. They also don't think seriously about the the practical impact of their ideas. If something is ideologically correct, they support it without regard to consequences (I recently came across an article denouncing meat inspections as tyrannical--sorry that I can't find it to link). In that respect they rather closely resemble the Greens.

So no, Bush is not impressive on the small-government front. But that's hardly a reason to vote Democratic in 2004.

2002-12-17T10:56:00.000-08:00

Did I need to see that?: This morning, as I was munching on my cereal, an ad came on with cutesy music and close up shots of people's posteriors. I thought it was an underwear ad--Christmas is coming, and Hanes wants to keep the economy moving. Then this voice-over played:

Get clean where it really counts with Cottonelle toilet paper...

That's right. They were showing actors' hind ends in order to make you think about the fecal matter collected around their non-Cottonelled anuses.

You know, I didn't like the Charmin ad with the bear reading a paper on his sylvan throne. Especially the part where he smiled as he used the Charmin. This is even worse. What's next? "This is your anus. This is your anus after using patented AssWipe technology. Any questions?"

2002-12-16T11:16:00.000-08:00

Race: Armed Liberal links to two interesting stories about race: One showing that people with "black" names are less likely to be called for job interviews, and another showing that ordinary people are more likely to assume that a black man is holding a gun than a white man in a "shoot/no-shoot" video combat simulator.

The employment-discrimination study looks pretty solid, although I haven't read the actual scientific paper, so there may be problems I don't know about. On the other hand, the article about the shoot/no-shoot game left an awful lot out. For instance, how were the simulated "armed robbers" dressed? In a low-light, fast-evolving tactical situation, a white or Asian kid in "ghetto" clothing is going to get more of my attention than a black guy in a pinstriped suit. If the black video images were all dressed "ghetto," and the white ones were in golf shirts, the results don't necessarily indicate racism so much as clothes-ism.

The second issue, unmentioned in the article, is the fact that African-Americans make up about 13% of the population--yet committed at least 36% of the murders in 2001 (From the FBI's Uniform Crime Report). (29% of murders are committed by perpetrators of an unknown race). This fact is not racist--facts cannot, by definition, be racist. Nor is it racist to acknowlege this fact. Nor is it racist to take action based on facts.

The article and the researchers go to great lengths to explain away "hidden bias" as the product of cultural conditioning, media portrayals, etc. I can't help but think of Chris Rock's remark: "I don't got those guns in my house to keep the media out!" The reality is that, in a lethal-force encounter, a police officer or a citizen has more to fear, statistically speaking, from young black men. The fact is that black men are more likely to be armed with hostile intent. While I was appalled by the Diallo shooting--and I don't support the cops, who screwed up in a huge way--this study doesn't prove that racism exists, it proves that people are aware of a painful reality in our society. This quote this point clear:

In one study, black participants were also more likely mistakenly to shoot unarmed black targets and were quicker to shoot black targets holding guns.

Yep. That's exactly what I would expect, especially given that black criminals generally prey on black victims.

Look, I'm opposed to racism, and I'm really quite disturbed by the job-interview study. But if both white and black participants in a study assume that black men are more likely to be criminals than white men--well, they may just be right.

UPDATE: Best of the Web has an interesting chart from the employment-discrimination study which appears in the print edition of the New York Times but not online. It shows that, for reasons unknown, someone named "Ebony" is five times more likely to be called for a job interview than someone named "Aisha." That's pretty weird. But it also shows that Ebony gets 20% more interviews than Emily, while Kristin gets 60% more interviews than Emily. The resumes were supposedly randomly shuffled for each employer, such that Ebony and Kristin might end up with identical CVs at different companies.

Given these somewhat strange results, it's hard to call this straight racism. Is it really plausible that there are "anti-Emily-ites" out there? But this is a fascinating line of inquiry and I hope it gets followed up.

2002-12-13T13:06:00.000-08:00

Jonah concurs: Jonah Goldberg agrees with me on Krugman's column. By Krugman's logic, that makes me part of the Jewish "White guy from Seattle strategy." Or something.

2002-12-13T12:12:00.000-08:00

Lott--will he or won't he? Speculation is rife about whether Trent Lott will resign. I won't bother linking because all of the links and conspiracy theories will be irrelevant in a hour or so, when his press conference begins.

Lots of conservatives are saying Lott must step down as majority leader to preserve the viabilty of the Republicans. But might it not be better for the party as a whole if they were given a chance to chuck Lott out of office? To say: "We reject this guy so fully that we actually voted against him!"

I'm no expert on politics, but it seems to me that such an opportunity might be more valuable to the party as a whole, even if it's humiliating for Lott.

2002-12-13T11:48:00.000-08:00

Cross Burning: I'm tired of the people who claim that cross-burning is just a form of free speech. HELLO!!! A burning cross does NOT convey the message "I don't like people with dark skin and I think they should have their own drinking fountains," a message which would be protected by the Constitution.

A burning cross on someone's front lawn says "I'm going to kill you nigger!" just as surely as if you'd worn a sandwich board with those words and walked up to the front door with a shotgun. Death threats are NOT protected speech.

Now, a burning cross on private land with the owner's permission, as part of a KKK rally, rather than in someone's front lawn or in a predominantly black neighborhood, is a little different. The message is still pretty damn disturbing, but I'm not so sure it amounts to an Constitutionally unprotected direct threat. I'm more conflicted about that one, and tending generally to say that it is protected, if terribly offensive. Context counts a lot here: was the cross burned specifically to target and intimidate a particular person or group? Or was it part of the local Kleegle's annual convention and spagetti dinner? (Do racists eat Italian food?) The former would clearly be unprotected, the latter probably protected.

2002-12-13T10:44:00.000-08:00

Red Flags: There are certain rhetorical red flags which alert you to the character of a person's worldview. If someone talks about "corporate hegemony," chances are that person does not spend a lot of time volunteering for Republicans. On the other side, the phrase "gun-ban lobby" is unlikely to be uttered by, say the president of the ACLU, a fact which gives you a hint of exactly which parts of the Bill of Rights the ACLU takes seriously (How does the ACLU count to 10? 1, 3, 4...).

One of my favorite bipartisan red flags is "what's really going on" and variations on that theme. Certainly not every use of this phrase is indicative of political extremism ("What the Russians are really doing in Grozny," for instance, refers to atrocities which are genuinly not widely known), but most people who say this sort of thing are on the fringes. Their thinking runs thus: most of the country doesn't agree with me. Since my thinking is so obviously correct, that must be because they don't understand me. They don't understand because they are ignorant, that is, because the don't know what's really going on.

You can find this phrase lots of places. College newspapers editorials are rife with talk of the oppression of, for instance, factory workers, and the supposed ignorance of privileged college students of the workers' fates. The workers themselves are also generally considered ignorant of how pernicious their satellite TV receiver is, being a conduit for Republican corporatist-consumerist ideology in the form of advertising. But this phrase is not limited to the Left--paranoid right-wing web sites tell us that John Ashcroft is busy constructing concentration camps for gun owners and Christians, which would indeed be shocking given that he would be forced to arrest and incarcerate himself.

In all cases, the fringy editorialists bemoan the media's suppression of the truth and express anger at the sheep-like individuals who, by not knowing "what's really going on," doom themselves and the Brazillian 24-Segmented Green Earthworm to death or Communist tyranny, or possibly both. In all cases, the writer assumes a smug and self-satisfied attitude--he knows the truth, he must be superior to all the dumb sheeple who are too foolish to understand, he has an obligation to scream and yell until the fools who live in Duluth "get it."

It is disturbing, therefore, to read Paul Krugman adopting exactly this turn of phrase and exactly the same arrogant dismissal of the judgement of ordinary people in his latest column:

The Republican Party's longstanding "Southern strategy" — which rests on appealing to the minority of voters who do share Mr. Lott's views — is no secret. But because the majority doesn't share those views, the party must present two faces to the nation.

Has it occurred to Krugman that the Republicans present more than two faces to the nation--indeed, they present literally thousands of faces to the nation? I didn't vote for Trent Lott, I voted for Slade Gorton, a man whose tolerance and personal integrity are unquestionable.

...Still, pulling off a two-faced political strategy is tricky. What prevents reporters from explaining to the majority the coded messages that are being sent to the minority?

And here the smugness creeps in. Those stupid bumpkins are too foolish to understand. It isn't that they vote for people, not parties, and find the local Republicans to be decent and tolerant, it's that they're too stupid to realize that all Republicans either racists or tolerant of racists. We, the wise writers for the NYT, know better. And we have an obligation to explain it to the bumpkins, in words of one syllable.

...It's about time for those of us in the press to pay attention, and let this great, tolerant nation know what's really going on.

There's that damn phrase. I'd say the voters know what's going on, and prefer even so to risk a couple of annoying remarks from Lott rather than a couple of annoying pork bills from the gentleman from Robert C. Byrdistan. One thing about Republicans: however bigoted, narrowminded, and foolish they might be, for the most part they are unable to enact those feelings into law. How many pro-lynching bills has Lott shepherded through the Senate? How many anti-gun bills has Ted Kennedy gotten passed? In other words, the voters are more worried about "what's really going on" in the government than they are about "what's really being thought in private." Now, Krugman may disagree with that philosophy. But that doesn't make it a journalistic obligation to fight to change their minds.

And, of course, his entire column is based on the premise that Southerners are bigots themselves. Lovely. I've heard that this guy is supposed to be brilliant. Why does he have to be a jerk?

2002-12-12T12:58:00.000-08:00

This makes me want to support hate crimes laws: As a rule, I don't support hate crimes laws. There are a number of reasons: for one, they punish not deeds, but thoughts (killing a man is a deed which deserves to be punished; making the punishment harsher because of Consitutionally protected thoughts such as racism chills freedom of expression). For another, they seem weirdly inequitable: suppose a white racist who kills a black man and his white friend. Would you want to be the one to tell the white guy's wife, "well, actually, he'll be getting a longer sentence because of the black guy's murder than he will get for killing your husband"? Finally, they are almost always unevenly applied: most any murder of a black man by a white man might be considered a "hate crime," but the reverse is rarely seen. This undermines the rule of law and elevates tribal concerns over equality.

But when you see something like this, a death penalty case in which the prosecutor explcitly asked the jury to consider the defendant's homosexuality (not simply as a statement of fact--the defendant was in a gay relationship which he feared would end--but as evidence of the "kind of person" on trial), you have no choice but to stop and think. In a sense, it would be nice to be able to slap that prosecutor down with a reference to the criminal code, wouldn't it?

(Link via Jeff Cooper.)

2002-12-12T11:16:00.000-08:00

More Canadian Gun Control: Dave Kopel's convincing take.

And, thanks to Dave, The Law-abiding Unregisterd Firearms Association in Canada, dedicated to civil disobedience. Nice to see!

Note to Sarah Brady: Americans won't be so darn polite about it.

UPDATE: In addition to NOT registering their own firearms, Canadians should consider flooding the system with millions of bogus registration forms, preferably with the names of anti-gun politicians. If everyone sends in 10 fake forms and 0 real forms, the system will have absolutely no hope.

Can we Americans help with bogus forms from here, as well?

2002-12-12T10:39:00.000-08:00

I'm skeptical: The Bush administration is claiming that Saddam has shared his VX nerve gas with Osama.

Now, I like Bush and I think we should have been at war in Iraq months ago. But isn't the timing just a little too cute? Saddam turns over his declaration, and a few days later, instead of declaring that he's lying and we can prove it, some unnamed official leaks an entirely different message. An important message, to be sure--but not what we were expecting.

I still support war against Iraq. But it's pretty hard for me to defend this from people who claim Bush is being dishonest. It just doesn't feel right, and I can't blame the people who don't believe it. On the other hand, I don't want to disbelieve it myself, because the consequences are stunning and would easily justify war without further ado. Failing to act would embolden state sponsors of terrorism and make things worse.

This fact, which doesn't come from Bush, is chilling:

UNSCOM said in its final report, in January 1999, that it could not account for 1.5 tons of the VX known to have been produced in Iraq, and that it could not establish whether additional quantities had been made.

I'm worried.

2002-12-11T19:56:00.000-08:00

Guns and Sex: Eugene Volokh links to a column with this comment:

Gun lovers, naturally, are furious at Reinhardt, the "Ninth Circus Court" and San Francisco. The fear of losing one's guns is practically psychosexual.

(The Ninth Circuit just declared that the Second Amendment doesn't protect your right to own a gun. See Clayton Cramer for info and links on why this was a bad decision.)

Now, I could get all huffy about this stupid and cheap insult. But I won't. I'll just say this: I hope Rob Morse, the author who wrote that line, has a strong psychosexual attachment to his freedom of speech. Because if he doesn't get at least as upset by the prospect of losing First Amendment protection for his words as I get at the thought of having my guns taken, we're all doomed.

Mr. Morse: the proper way protect fundamental rights with passionate zeal. If that's what you call "psychosexual," fine.

And, despite the fact that you're an asshole for making that comment, I would still welcome you into my home if, for some strange reason, the government attempted to prosecute you for excercising your free speech rights, and I would be happy to protect you with my oh-so-phallic guns. I take freedom seriously, including the freedom of idiots to say idiotic things.

2002-12-11T19:28:00.000-08:00

Media Bias: Well, Ted Barlow's been back long enough. Honeymoon's over; time for me to tell him he's wrong.

First off, it was a mistake for Ted to write about media bias. Jeez dude, will you ever learn?

Second, he makes the common mistake of confusing "liberal media bias" with "Democratic media bias." As I commented, it is entirely possible for the media to be liberal--by, for instance, subtly supporting single-payer health care by giving lots of airtime to its supporters, and none to critics--and pro-Republican, by ignoring scandals involving Republicans.

Third, Ted complains that the Republicans, owing to such institutions as the Washington Times and FoxNews, have convenient mouthpieces with which to saturate the media world with their message. That may well be true--but of course the Democrats have ABC, NBC, NYT, etc. Even if you think that "mainstream" news is totally unbiased and that the Republicans therefore have an advantage because of FoxNews, the solution is NOT to complain. It is to start a "liberal" news service to counterbalance Fox. If such a service fails to gain marketshare and prosper, that's not the Republicans' fault.

The real problem isn't that news outlets have bias--that's the inevitable product of being run by human beings. The problem is that they pretend they're perfectly neutral, which is manifestly false. Readers of The Nation may see Dan Rather as a reactionary capitalist; I see him as a flaming liberal. In both cases we're right, since Dan quite obviously sits in the center-left of American politics, making him left of me but right of Barbra. The really frustrating thing is that Dan refuses to acknowledge the obvious, much as Howell "40 stories and counting about Augusta" Raines does. Nobody can be totally objective; it is that much harder to be objective in an environment where 90% of your colleagues voted for Al Gore. Why not just admit it?

Finally, by way of full disclosure, I should point out that my view on this question is tinted by my commitment to Second Amendment rights, which are treated like crap in virtually all mainstream media outlets, local or national. Naturally that limits my ability to be, ahem, objective.

2002-12-11T12:52:00.000-08:00

Gay Marriage, again: Let's be clear: I support gay marriage. I think it's a good idea. But this argument is pretty foolish:

But, since he asks, yes, as a matter of principle, I think the denial of marriage rights to 3 percent of the population is a grotesque denial of a basic civil right - more profound than denying the right to vote, in fact.

But as I've pointed out before, civil marriage isn't a right. Being married doesn't confer special rights on me the way that being white in the Jim Crow south or being a man before 1920 conferred special rights. There are no "marrieds only" drinking fountains or "couples only" elections.

Certainly, the right to love whom you wish, sleep with whom you wish, live with whom you wish, and leave your estate (via a will) to whom you wish are fundamental rights. Because of their intensely personal nature, it could easily be argued that these rights are prior to voting; we certainly do not presume to control the love lives of convicted felons, who are often barred from voting. And religious freedom prevents the government from interfering in a church's decision on which marriages to bless and which not to. A good case can be made that gay marriage serves the public interest.

But civil marriage (unlike religious marriage) is principally an economic transaction, not a symbolic expression of love or the offical blessing of God on one's sex life. To add a new catagory of transations to the law books, Sullivan and his fellow travelers should be arguing their case on public-interest grounds (which might win some converts) rather than equal-protection grounds, where their case is weak and they can't convince anyone anyway. It's pretty easy to distinguish between two men and a mixed-sex couple on equal-protection grounds (for instance, one "public purpose" for heterosexual marriage might be "the promotion of childbearing," which two men can't manage), but I think it would be hard to seriously argue that the public interest is harmed by gay marriage. Other than the weird claim that straight marriage is somehow threatened (a claim as fanciful as Sullivan's "civil right" claim), there isn't much out there.

UPDATE: Here's Stanley Kurtz:

A radical pre-conventional right to marriage is really a right to redefine marriage into nothingness. Many will avail themselves of such a right.

This is a pretty weird take. After all, many people are already availing themselves of the right to redefine marriage into nothingness, by going to swingers' clubs, cheating, marrying and divorcing many times, never marrying their lovers at all, etc. Now, Kurtz may deplore all of this, and he may even be right about the negative social consequences it will have (or is having). But that has nothing to do with the question at hand, which, I emphasize again has nothing to do with people's sex or love lives. We already have the freedom to screw who we want, when and where we want, with as many video cameras and extra participants as we want, whether or not we are married to the various writhing bodies involved. The question at hand is not a cultural one; we are not deciding whether of not to endorse anyone's sexual or romantic practices. It is not: Should we allow this sort of hanky-panky in polite company or should we ostracize the participants?

The question at hand is a dry legal one: Should two men (or two women) be permitted to file their tax returns jointly, in the same manner that one man and one woman currently are?

2002-12-11T10:50:00.000-08:00

International Cooperation: How many times have we been told that American "arrogance" (also know as "the refusal to abase ourselves before the god of Eurosocialism") and "bullying" ("actually doing something, instead of talking about it") will lead other nations to refuse to cooperate in the War on Terror?

And how many times have we been told that it was great mistake to include North Korea in the Axis of Evil?

I'll accept your apologies now:

One dozen Scud missiles were found aboard a ship stopped in the Indian Ocean by a Spanish frigate that had to fire warning shots to keep the unflagged vessel from fleeing, U.S. and Spanish authorities said Tuesday...

The ship had been tracked by U.S. intelligence since leaving North Korea several days ago headed for the Arabian Sea region, Pentagon officials said.

2002-12-11T10:00:00.000-08:00

What the hell? Ted Barlow's back! I'll make him a daily stop. This despite the fact that he donsn't agree with me 100% of the time, a sure sign of diminished mental capacity.

Welcome back, Ted!

2002-12-11T09:26:00.000-08:00

Helen Thomas: Helen Thomas is high on my list of People Who Annoy Me. It is therefore something of a pleasure to say that I agree with about 90% of this column. Her over-the-top rhetoric is annoying (hence her charter member status on my list) but she has generally the right idea.

Here are my two points of disagreement:

1) She compares the ill-starred TIPS program to "something out of Nazi Germany." Please. Amtrak, our heavily subsidized passenger-rail company, is something out of Nazi Germany, too, with the crucial difference that it does not run on time. Something isn't evil just because the Nazis did it--presumably even Hitler's government put burglers and rapists (at least, those who weren't cabinet ministers) in jail. In any case, the TIPS program never seemed like much of a big deal--if your neighbor was making bombs in his garage, would you refuse to call the police because that would make you a snitch, just like in East Germany? The TIA thing seems worse to me.

2) She goes out of her way to jab at the National Rifle Association, and thus highlight her own hypocricy. She doesn't want the government tracking her credit-card purchase of lipstick, but she does want the government to moniter law-abiding citizens with guns. Now, I realize that lipstick is an unlikely terrorist weapon, but it is equally true that the government will never consider banning lipstick outright. Meanwhile, Thomas and her friends continually agitate for ever tighter restrictions on guns.

Now, I don't like Nazi comparisons, but as long as Thomas is making them, why not mention that the Nazis made it a point to disarm the German population before letting their rule get really out of control? And if Thomas is so worried about tyranny, isn't at least part of the solution to keep a couple of guns handy?

But that's not the point here. The point is that Republicans and their red-neck supporters in flyover country are Nazis. Which would be the 10% of this column I don't agree with.

2002-12-10T14:39:00.000-08:00

What would Jesus drive?: Eugene Volokh weighs in with this:

Carpenters, I imagine, find larger cars -- whether pickups or SUVs -- pretty useful.

You bet. And anyone who has 13 guys following him around probably needs more room than he can get with a Honda Insight.

2002-12-10T11:30:00.000-08:00

More on Lott: Interesting piece by Mark Levin over at NRO. He doesn't defend Lott, he just points out an interesting double standard.

2002-12-10T11:28:00.000-08:00

Affirmative Action: There's been a bit of discussion about racial preferences because of recent court decisions; yesterday my daily paper ran a particulary horrible op-ed in support of preferences. What made it horrible was its naked racism--the first sentence blamed opposition to AA on "white greed," as though principled white conservatives and serious black scholars are nothing but old-fashioned bigots. Sorry I can't link to the piece; some contractual obligation prevents them from putting it online. That a sense of shame should have prevented them from printing it at all--no one would print an essay attributing support for preferences to "black avarice"--is beside the point.

I'm not going to make all the of the usual anti-preferences arguments; for a good summary see Jane Galt.

I'm just thinking that, as my wife and I apply to law school, we might find ourselves in competition with other graduates of Williams College, some of whom might happen to be black. And some of those black Ephs might have attended Phillips Exeter Academy, paid for out of their father's generous salary as a doctor. As it happens, I knew several black kids who fit this description when I was in college.

So my question is, why should the graduates of elite liberal arts colleges, who also happen to be graduates of elite boarding schools, be, in some cases, hundreds of times more likely to be be admitted, even if they have inferior test scores and grades, just because of the color of their skin? Is this not the very definition of racism? Can we really call a student who grew up in a fancy home and attended a high school costing nearly $30,000/yr "underprivileged"? If not, then why are all AA plans based on race, rather than, say, income?

Just wondering.

2002-12-10T10:39:00.000-08:00

Blogroll Ceremony: My daily reading list has expanded a little, so I've added some links to the blogroll. Many thanks to all those who have blogrolled me!

[Insert ceremonious music here]

Note that I won't every bother with ceremonious (sanctimonious?) delinking. Unless I do.

2002-12-09T12:44:00.000-08:00

It's official: I will no longer take anyone who prattles about "International Law" (or, for that matter, about the Constitution) seriously unless they provide me with citations.

And not just citations to random texts, but citations to documents demonstrating the authority of those texts. In other words, if this were a question of the law in Washington State, I wouldn't be content with citations to the Washington Administrative Code (the administrative rules formulated by executive agencies), I would also want to see a reference to the statutory grant of authority in the Revised Code of Washington (the statutes passed by the legislature and signed by the governor), and probably also a reference to the Washington State Constitution, which controls the legislature's authority.

Likewise, for international "law," I will henceforth require the name of the relevant treaty, a proper citation that allows me to find the relevant passage easily and--this is the deal breaker most of the time--the date on which the treaty was ratified by the United States Senate.

I'll also expect that the "law" will be fairly and evenly applied to all nations by impartial judges, and not just as a bill of attainder aimed at the United States. I will not accept the legitimacy of laws designed or enforced exclusively to handicap my nation.

Some people say they want to bring the rule of law into the international arena; fine. Let them make the law clear, so that anyone who wants to know what is mandatory and what is forbidden can know; let them make the law fairly enforced so that nations know they will get a fair shake; let them respect the principle of the consent of the governed, and not claim jurisdiction over nation which explicitly rejects their attempts to impose their will.

Until these conditions are met--and indeed, whenever international "law" in mentioned without an explicit citation--I have to assume that this isn't about the rule of law, it's about grabbing a wholly undeserved mantle of morality in the pursuit of power.

2002-12-09T11:16:00.000-08:00

This is odd: A number of bloggers are reporting that the New York Times hasn't run a story on Trent Lott's stupid comment.

Well, of course not. A golf club with 300 male members is much more important.

As for those who are defending Lott by saying that "maybe he wan't talking about segregation, but rather big government" I should point out that there was a Republican running that year (as in "Dewey defeats Truman").

I should also point out that this guy is a politician, and he should therefore know better.

Resign, Trent.

UPDATE: I've been told that I'm not being clear here. So: I don't think Trent Lott is actually a racist or a believer in segregation. I'm saying that he made a comment that was supportive of segregation, and that such comments are totally unacceptable for Majority Leaders in the U.S. Senate. I'm also saying that trying to spin his comment as supportive of federalism, or small government, etc. doesn't wash, because such a comment should have been directed at Dewey, the Republican candidate in 1948, not Thurmond, a racist Dixiecrat. Even so, a comment supportive of segregation is not proof that a person is an unreconstructed racist, especially in the context of trying to flatter a reconstructed racist.

Lott should have said "I wish that you had been President, Strom. Why didn't you run in 1968, instead of Nixon?" Or he could have been even vaguer--"The country is worse off because you never had a chance to serve in the Oval Office." He shouldn't have gone out of his way to praise the 1948 Dixiecrat effort. So he should resign his post as Majority Leader, but let the voters decide if they want to keep him as their Senator.

2002-12-07T18:04:00.000-08:00

Marriage: Steven Den Beste writes:

I think that our marriage laws are still archaic, for one thing. I believe that any group of people who truly love each other should be permitted to legally marry. I favor gay marriage, and I don't see any good reason to outlaw polygamy, or polyandry either.

This throwaway comment also generated a follow-up post, in which Den Beste acknowledged that polygamy might well lead to individual misery, but that anything that doesn't cause society collective harm is none of society's business.

Fair enough--I agree with the generally libertarian principle at work here. But I should point out that nothing is stopping Den Beste from marrying another man, or several other men, or several other men and several women, plus two dogs and a goat (although animal cruelty laws might have something to say about marital activities with the dogs and goat). That is, if he can find someone from the Church of Atheism or whatever organization might bless such a union to do the blessing, no law prevents it. Oh, there are a few places where sodomy, fornication, and adultery are actually illegal, but such laws wouldn't be likely to survive a court challenge. The freedom which Den Beste demands already exists.

What homosexuals and polyamorists can't do is get the State to bless their union with a marriage certificate. And there's nothing fundamentally philosophically wrong with that. For a marriage certificate is not an entitlement or a grant of special rights unavailable to unmarried members of society, it is a contract which grants certain specific rights and imposes certain specific obligations on the persons getting married. It also alters their obligations to and relationship with the State and with others with whom they form contracts. In particular, a marriage certificate alters the relationship of two people with regards to property ownership, and alters their relationship with the state with regards to taxation. From a legal point of view, marriage has nothing at all to do with love, fidelity (except insofar as infidelity is a kind of breach of contract), childrearing, sex, or happiness. It has to do with who inherits what, what the marginal tax rates of the married couple is, and who has the right to make medical decisions for those in a coma.

From this perspective, civil marriage does not exist to unite people who "truly love each other," indeed, it isn't clear how the State would determine such a thing, or why on Earth a libertarian thinker like Den Beste would want it to try. It exists to promote specific public-policy goals, e.g., encourage (but not guarantee) that children will be raised in a two-parent household (which will reduce their tendency to become criminals), promote public health by discouraging disease-spreading promiscuity, and permit individuals to artificially grant the person of their choice status as "next of kin" in favor of blood relatives for a variety of legal purposes.

For my part, I favor gay marriage as I believe it advances the goal of encouraging fidelity and offers considerable benefit to those who want medical and financial decisions to be made by their romantic partner rather than parents or siblings. I see no harm and lots of benefit to both individuals and society in it. However, it is the proponents of gay marriage who have an obligation to argue that creating a new provision in the marriage law benefits society; they cannot simply sit back and chant "equal rights" because marriage isn't a right inherent to our humanity (such as freedom of conscience or self-defense), it's a privilege granted because it's good public policy.

I'm a lot less certain about polygamy; it's hard for me to see the benefit to society or even to individuals. The web of competing property interests seems to be a sure-fire recipe for disaster. How would "joint (several?) tenancy with right of survivorship" apply to 6 lovers? Would 5 of them be required to divorce the sixth, or would a majority vote (3-2) be enough? Could person A marry both person B and person C, without B being married to C? If so, how would the property be divided up in the event of a divorce? Half to A, half to B, half to C?

I don't support prosecuting a guy who has several women living in his home as his "wives," and if that's what's happening, we should put a stop to it. But I can't really imagine a good way to sanction multiple-partner marriages in the same way we could easily sanction gay marriage.

Den Beste is a smart guy; I don't think he thought this all the way through. And of course I could be wrong in believing that no one would be prosecuted for living in a big house and sleeping with everyone there.

2002-12-07T16:05:00.000-08:00

The Gentleman from Mississippi is a fucking idiot: Trent Lott:

Speaking Thursday at a 100th birthday party and retirement celebration for Sen. Thurmond (R-S.C.) in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, Lott said, "I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either."

Right. If only we'd kept the Negros from invading our schools, marrying our daughters, and advising our presidents, we wouldn't be facing this god-damn Social Security insolvency problem. AND we'd still have the WTC.

Let's make this a web-wide chant: REsign! REsign! REsign!

(Via Armed Liberal.)

UPDATE: Lott's from Mississippi, not SC. It's Thurmond whose from SC. Error corrected.

2002-12-06T15:03:00.000-08:00

Religion in politics: The 2000 election raised many questions about the role of religion in public life, what with a conservative Jew and an born-again Christian in the race. The "Religious Right" is the most common bogeyman for those who object to religion in politics, but increasingly conservatives are getting into the game by accusing the environmental movement, among others, of being a quasi-religious faith rather than a serious public-policy movement. There is some substantial merit in that accusation, but as I pointed out before, that doesn't make them wrong. Motivations are less important than merit.

I judge the merit of a law by three principal measures:

1) Does it aim to achieve some public good?
2) Does it actually achieve that good?
3) Is it cost effective, that is, is the good worth the price, in money, freedom, or whatever the costs might be?

Frankly, for most public projects, if you can get 1) and 2), you're way ahead of the game, and 3) is nothing but gravy for policy wonks and beancounters.

Oddly, you will find that almost all laws and policies pass test 1). I'm staunchly opposed to both gun control and government-mandated charity, but that's largely because I think they fail miserably on test 2), and therefore also on test 3). Reducing crime and poverty seem like worthy goals to me. Frankly, I think I can agree with 90% of the goals of the most loony left San Franscisco flower child--though we would differ rather sharply on the means.

Where you need to watch out for religion in politcs, though, is when people start talking about "values." Such people--be they Bible-thumping Baptists or tree-sitting anti-logging animists--are not interested in using law as an instrument for promoting the general welfare. They seek to use the law for expression and promotions of the nation's virtue (which, of course, they define). Thus it becomes important to all kinds of faith-filled folks that symbolic prohibitions and mandates become statute, both as a very public expression of their faith and as a means to forcibly convert.

All kinds of public policy--good and bad--are cast in terms of an apocalyptic good-vs.-evil struggle, as (for instance) the Knights of Compassion struggle against the Dark Forces of Republicanism, or the Heros of Free Markets slay the Democratic Dragon. Really--I'm not kidding. Once you start looking for religion in politics, you will quickly find that it is literally everywhere. As a sociological and political-science matter, this may be inevitable, but from where I sit, it looks a lot more dangerous than the girlishly giggly Pat Roberson.

Exhibit A for my point is Canada's current gun-control debate, which I've mentioned before. The short version: Canada has required that every gun in the country be registered with the central government. Parliament was told that this would cost taxpayers $2 million after license fees were collected; the current cost is roughly $1 billion (Canadian, but still!) and climbing, with an annual operating cost running over $100 million. In some areas, non-compliance is reported to run as high a 40%; any attempt to enforce this law in those areas will be staggeringly expensive, even assuming the non-compliers don't just start shooting the bastards.

Plugging this into my three-part law evaluator, we can only presume that the purpose of this boondoggle was to reduce violence; thus it passes test 1). Whether it has actually reduced crime is unclear; I doubt it very much. Surely, however, it fails test 3)--for a billion bucks you can hire a lot of cops and build a lot of jail cells. Or you could overhaul a good-sized school system, if that's your preferred approach to crime control. I'm not even counting the cost to freedom and cost in respect for the legitimacy of government which comes from treating duck hunters like sex offenders; those are both substantial as well.

Naturally, the guy behind the law, Allen Rock, is coming under attack.

His aides were calling journalists all day, saying Mr. Rock would welcome a chance to defend himself against the wide array of people he believes is out to undermine him -- from the gun lobby to the Opposition, from the U.S. "gun culture" to his Liberal colleagues.

"The Alliance party in particular, but the gun lobby in general, is trying to use this as an occasion to reopen the debate that they lost seven years ago," Mr. Rock said yesterday, in an interview at his Parliament Hill office. "And I can also tell you that the law we adopted in 1995 really reflects what Canadians want to see -- it reflects Canadian values, it reflects the decision we've made about the kind of country we want, it's important in that respect. I'm hearing the same arguments that failed in 1995."

Sheila Fraser, the Auditor-General, renders verdicts on value for money, he said, but she does not pronounce on values in general. And gun control is an important Liberal -- and Canadian -- value, he argued.

I like the claim that the U.S. "gun culture" is out to undermine Mr. Rock. As the unofficial spokesman for the gun culture, let me say this: we don't give a rat's ass about you so long as you don't cross the border to bother us. The only action we'll take to "undermine" you will be to send boxes of ammo to our brothers to the north if they decide they've had enough of you.

What is most interesting though, is his claim that gun control is a "Canadian value." Apparently having the serial number and address of the owner of every O/U shotgun in a government computer is as dear to Canadian hearts as, say, equality before the law is to American hearts. I find that more than a little weird. But what we are seeing here is the expression of religious faith--Mr. Rock believes, as a matter of canonical principle, that guns must be registered. Hence any debate is not merely unnecessary, but an affront to Canada's honor, much as a debate about whether or not to ship black people "back" to Africa is out of bounds for Americans. Just as Americans recoil before the notion of racial clensing, Canadians should recoil in horror before the prospect of having gun laws remotely like America's.

Note well this sentence: "The Alliance party in particular, but the gun lobby in general, is trying to use this as an occasion to reopen the debate that they lost seven years ago." It would seem to me that the release of an auditor's report showing that a particular program--any program--was 5000% over budget would be the perfect moment to reopen the debate on the merits of a policy. But no. Since, in Mr. Rock's mind, the goal is not crime control, but the expression of national virtue, cost and effectiveness are not even on the radar; the policy achieves its end merely by existing, and to discontinue it, whatever the reason, would be heresy. Repeal would mean, not more murders, but the end of "the kind of country we want."

Apparently that kind of country likes to spend lots of money merely to prove it isn't the U.S. If that accurately represents Canadian values, then Canadian values are as pathetic as they come.

I say, let's keep religion--including weird modern secular religions--the hell out of the political process. Law isn't about proving how pious you are, it's about making the best choices for everyone in the country.

2002-12-06T13:15:00.000-08:00

We need a new prize: The world has lots of prestigious prizes, like the Nobels, the Wolf Prizes, and the European Award for Excellence in Concrete.

We need a new one, however. Consider this priest:

Three women testified that Fr Meffan had come to their dormitory or summoned them to his rectory office when they were teenagers [and studying to be nuns], told them to undress and persuaded them to stroke and kiss his genitals and perform other sexual acts short of intercourse, telling them to imagine making love with Christ.

Fr Meffan, now 73, has not apologised. "I was trying to get them to love Christ even more intimately and even more closely," he told the Boston Globe. "To me they were just wonderful, wonderful young people. It was a very beautiful, I thought, beautiful, spiritual relationship that was physical and sexual."

(Note that nuns are sometimes referred to as "brides of Christ," and evidently this guy took that idea quite literally--come suck Christ's dick, honey. Then make His dinner and start His laundry.)

Now, guys, let's all be honest. We like sex, preferably with young, beautiful women. Most of us keep our hands off of teenagers for moral and legal reasons, but when we try to get sex--from our girlfriends, wives, sluttily-dressed strangers in bars, etc.--no one is at all surprised. Nor does anyone bother to enquire into our motivations--we like it, and that's enough justification for most of us.

Well, this priest deserves an award for his awesome capacity of rationalization. Never have I witnessed someone so amazingly self-deluded. He wasn't exploiting his position of power to get sexual favors from naive and powerless girls, he was helping them become more religious! Naturally he didn't do it because he liked how it felt to grope young, attractive, and evidently submissive females--he made the tremendous sacrifice of his bodily privacy for the benefit of their religious education. I'm sure they also thought that having their breasts fondled by the creepy old guy with the cold hands was part of a "beautiful, spiritual relationship" with Jesus. That level of denial deserves some kind of recognition, don't you think?

Perhaps the ATLA can endow a new prize: The Robert Torricelli Prize for Dissembling and Rationalization. Comes complete with a mild slap on the wrist and an appointment to a position supervising small children.

I'm just praying that on Judgement Day, I get to stand behind this guy in line. Assuming that Jesus doesn't share Clinton's views on the "non-sexishness" of oral sex--and I suspect he doesn't--Meffan's act would be one of the easiest in history to follow. Hell, line up the entire Boston Archdiocese in front of me--suddenly taking the Lord's name in vain doesn't seem so bad.

2002-12-06T10:07:00.000-08:00

Democrats and War in Iraq: As promised, I tracked down some sources regarding Democrat behavior in the Iraq debate, in response to Jeff Cooper's claim that the Democrats were simply misunderstood. It seems to me that Carl Levin was the chief U.N. voluptuary (I love that word, with the sordid implication of sexual arousal at the mere mention of the Twenty Second Session of the Governing Council/Global Ministerial Environment Forum). Here he is, saying "I believe that Congress should support a request to the United Nations and set a deadline...We ought to speak with one voice urging the U.N. to act." Of course, if the U.N. ever actually acted, we wouldn't be in this mess. I guess I can see how a guy with this mentality would urge you to dial 911 instead of dialing, say, 1911. 3 AM, the Levin home: "Daddy, there's a man breaking my bedroom window! Stop him!" "Pipe down, junior, and stop urging such an unsophisticated, unilateral approach. I believe that we as a family must speak with one voice in urging the criminal justice system to act."

Let's just say that I favor unilateral approaches in dealing with burglers and muggers, as well as international outlaws.

More seriously, I have no problem with the general principle of international involvement, and I think Bush was probably right to go to the U.N. and ask for approval (probably, because I think the U.N. is roughly the international equivalent of a jury composed of theives and murderers, and I don't trust them any more than I trust such a jury to convict a burgler). But here's Levin doing something more than just talk:

Supporters of the White House-backed measure Thursday turned back an amendment by Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Michigan, that would have limited U.S. military action to enforcing a new U.N. resolution to eliminate Iraq's nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs. If the United Nations did not act, Bush could seek a second vote to move against Iraq without U.N. support.

But if Iraq is actually a threat, then why require two trips to Congress, with two chances for anti-war obstructionists to stonewall? It's fine with me if the gentleman from Michigan doesn't think Iraq is a threat--I disagree, but at least that's honest--but why in hell should we have two debates about the same thing? This looks a lot like surrendering the initiative to the U.N.

Two more articles with similar stuff from Levin: here and here.

I would also like to note that all four of these pieces come from after Sept. 12, when Bush spoke at the U.N. and declared that the U.S. would "work with the U.N.S.C.for the necessary resolutions," which makes any Democratic whining about U.N. involvement entirely superfluous--UNLESS they had something other than mere "involvement" (something like "asking mommy U.N. for permission") in mind.

Perhaps I've misunderstood Levin here, and perhaps all of the pro-U.N. harping I recall from the debate really was as anodyne as Jeff makes it out. But in that case the Dem's have a very serious problem with their packaging and clarity, because I came away with the exact impression that Jeff is trying to refute.

UPDATE: Of course, it's not at all fair to take Carl Levin as the spokesman for the entire Democratic party. We'll throw in Robert C. Byrd, too (he makes a couple of cameos to say that the US is a nation that "believes in human rights," which he somehow turns into a reason NOT to kill Saddam Hussein). At some point, though, if no one else is stepping forward to dispute those two (and Daschle laid about as low as you can for a guy in elected office), it isn't crazy to start assuming they speak for their more electorally threatened fellow Dems. But my general point is this: since Bush was already working with the U.N., why even bring it up?

And why do we conflate "working with other nations" (almost always a good idea) with "working with the U.N.," (almost always a waste of time and energy) anyway? Wait, never mind, we're talking about the party that confuses "spending huge piles of taxpayer money on anti-poverty programs" with "helping poor people." (And "trust fund" with "pile of IOUs we wrote to ourselves.")

Someday I'll do a similar hypocrisy list for the Republicans, too.

2002-12-05T13:48:00.000-08:00

OK, one more post: A while back, I started gathering examples of "gun bigots," that is, people who are prejudiced against gun owners. You'll find otherwise responsible people saying some pretty outrageous things about gun owners, things they would never say about any other group outside of, perhaps, serial child rapists.

BoTW points to this article about a California county which seeks to ban gun shows on county property. I think that a stupid enough thing to be doing, but check out this quote: "[Board of Supervisor's President Mike] Nevin said the gun shows bring large crowds of people interested in guns together in one place and that is inherently dangerous." Now, this isn't a direct quote, and the journalist might have phrased it badly. But it sure looks like this jerk is accusing law-abiding gun owners of being a significant threat to public safety whenever they gather in groups larger than two. And the effort to ban gun shows is itself an expression of that bigoted attitude.

I'd love to see this asshole's examples of gun shows that are half as violent as, say, some of the nightclubs here in Seattle. The last time I heard about violence at a gun show, it was some anti-gun moron turning over tables and attacking the peaceful gun dealers while yelling obscinities.

Why doesn't liberal "tolerance" extend to me?

2002-12-05T13:19:00.000-08:00

Material Breach:From the AP, via BoTW:

Among other things, Perricos reported that on a five-hour inspection of a desert installation his experts secured a dozen Iraqi artillery shells — previously known to be there — that were loaded with a powerful chemical weapon, the agent for mustard gas. It was the first report of such armaments traced and controlled in the week-old round of new inspections.

With apologies to Mark Steyn: you've written your last romance novel, mustache boy. And I thought you had no WMD at all?

My master's exam in in less than two hours, but more bloggage tomorrow. Specifically, I hope to refute Jeff Cooper's claim that the Democrats are unfairly portrayed as wanting to turn U.S. defense policy over to the U.N., when they actually simply want to keep the U.N. involved. I'll be linking to sources when I have time to find them. For now, Jeff, answer this: given that Bush asked for U.N. approval on Sept. 12, and that the Congressional debate took place in October, how was the U.N. "uninvolved," such that the Dems needed to harp on that point? And doesn't the attempt by some senators to add a provision to the war resolution requiring U.N. approval smack of surrendering the initiative? As I said, sources to follow when I have time...

2002-12-04T12:53:00.000-08:00

"Islam means peace": It is common for political commentators to portray their opponents as being represented by the most extremist elements within their movement; to make Noam Chomsky and Pat Robertson out to be the spokesmen for the Democrats and the Republicans, respectively. In order to insulate themselves from such rhetoric, mainstream liberals and conservatives will often make pro-forma statements criticizing the fringes; thus does Bush proclaim that "Islam means peace" to separate himself from Jerry Falwell.

I'd like to see some liberals take a moment to denounce this comment from Julianne Malveaux. I mean, give me a break.

And for my part, I'll just say that whatever Ann Coulter wrote this week, it was probably unnecessarly inflammatory and full of factual errors.

2002-12-04T11:07:00.000-08:00

Hypocrisy: Can I be considered "hypocritical" if I believe something different than my father? Or if I take a different position than my predecessor in office?

Some opponents of war with Iraq have called the U.S. "hypocritical" for having once supported Saddam. As Hitchens and others have pointed out, that just increases our culpability and makes it morally imperitive that we clean up messes we ourselves made. But there's another, more diffucult question: to what extent are we bound by decisions that we ourselves couldn't control?

Reagan made lots of decisions about such things as support for Afghan fighters and Iraq's war against the clerics in Iran. He had his reasons; they may have been good or bad. I, meanwhile, was a five-year-old dreaming of growing up to be a famous football player. Am I somehow a hypocrite to believe that U.S. policy towards Iraq should be belligerent? More to the point, is GW a hypocrite because he takes a different position than the administration in which his father was vice-president? Is Bush 41 a hypocrite because Reagan supported Saddam and Bush drove Saddam out of Kuwait?

Or is it possible, just maybe, that conditions are different today than they were in 1982, and that American policy should reflect those realities rather than cling to badly outdated policies which made more sense at the time? Are we to make consistency in bad decisions a greater virtue than willingness to admit and correct mistakes?

I don't think that nations, movements, or political parties are really capable of hypocrisy. Only individuals are. Even then, seemingly contradictory positions (toward Cuba and China, for instance) may be well-grounded in ideology, or may simply be politically unavoidable. Yelling about it doesn't make for workable policy--it's just moral vanity, no better than mocking a man because his tie clashes with his shirt.