The Monkeys Have No Tails
If you've seen the old John Wayne / John Ford movie Donovan's Reef, the lyrics are given "the monkeys have no tails in Zamboanga." I haven't been to Pago Pago, but I have been to Zamboanga, and I did meet a tail-less monkey near there. He belonged to a Catholic priest, who had his collar attached to a steel ring that ran along a cable, so the thing could climb up and down the church.
Nice guy. Pretty brave ministry, there in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. But most of the Republic of the Philippines' special ops guys are Catholics.
Pearl Harbor Day
The Pearl Harbor surprise attack occurred 71 years ago today. It is an example of the kind of intelligence failure we would most like to be able to prevent in the future: a violent and severe attack against a critical American target, in a case when there is a pretty good set of reasons to expect an attack sooner or later. It is not, to use Donald Rumsfeld's old terminology, an unknown unknown: we must simply accept that we cannot predict those. It is an example of a known unknown.
Something similar is going on in Egypt today. Media coverage of the protests seems to be under the impression that there are three sides: the Muslim Brotherhood, the Army, and the protesters in the streets. In fact there are only two sides, because there are only two powers: the Muslim Brotherhood and the Army.
As recently as a couple of days ago, the Army was tacitly encouraging the protests -- sometimes more than tacitly, according to reports. This was about showing Mursi and the MB that their thugs weren't really capable of standing up to a full-scale revolt. Mursi has been very successful at out-maneuvering the Army politically, and has managed to win power and control at their expense several times.
It was clear that a deal had been struck in principle when the tanks surrounded the palace to protect it, and Mursi. Now the outlines of that deal have become clear.
Once the powers have finished dividing the authority between themselves in a way that both find acceptable, the protests won't be useful anymore. Then it will be time for a "whiff of grapeshot."
If I were an Egyptian protester, I would realize that now was the time to get off the streets. There is about to be an example made. The only question is exactly when.
Something similar is going on in Egypt today. Media coverage of the protests seems to be under the impression that there are three sides: the Muslim Brotherhood, the Army, and the protesters in the streets. In fact there are only two sides, because there are only two powers: the Muslim Brotherhood and the Army.
As recently as a couple of days ago, the Army was tacitly encouraging the protests -- sometimes more than tacitly, according to reports. This was about showing Mursi and the MB that their thugs weren't really capable of standing up to a full-scale revolt. Mursi has been very successful at out-maneuvering the Army politically, and has managed to win power and control at their expense several times.
It was clear that a deal had been struck in principle when the tanks surrounded the palace to protect it, and Mursi. Now the outlines of that deal have become clear.
Once the powers have finished dividing the authority between themselves in a way that both find acceptable, the protests won't be useful anymore. Then it will be time for a "whiff of grapeshot."
If I were an Egyptian protester, I would realize that now was the time to get off the streets. There is about to be an example made. The only question is exactly when.
Blood Mountain
There was a lot of rain on the way up to Vogel State Park today, so that by the time I finished the ride up on the motorcycle I was completely soaked. The soaking meant that everything I was wearing took on extra weight. My motorcycle jacket in particular seemed to have turned to iron. Still, it was worth it.
The trail rises 2,400 feet over the course of about five miles. The reward is this:
Clouds rising, seen from atop Blood Mountain.
A cairn along the trail.
The stone shelter, built by the CCC in the 1930s. Today two hikers from Maine were resting before the final assault, and had built a fire within it. The fire was most welcome.
Clouds mounting against the ridge.
Transportation anarchy
More from Maggie's Farm, a link to a blurb about the attempts of the Taxicab Medallion Bureaucrat Industrial Complex to crush the upstart mobile app livery service "Uber." Being a country mouse, I hadn't heard a thing about this service, but there are lots of articles out there about it now (here, here, here, and here). You sign up in advance with an app for your smartphone and put your credit card on file. When you need a ride, you punch in your position and wait far less time than you'd wait for a normal taxi. While you wait, you can see your driver approaching on the GPS map, which definitely beats the amusing habit of many taxi companies, which claim your driver is on the way when he's really across town with another fare and planning to drive out toward your area sometime in the next 45 minutes or so. No cash changes hands; even the tip is charged to your card. Fares are somewhat higher than traditional cabs. Users report mixed results.
Municipal taxi regulators hate this service, of course, and are doing their best to strangle it.
Municipal taxi regulators hate this service, of course, and are doing their best to strangle it.
You Know Who Deserves More Money? Like A Lot More?
The Atlanta City Council, that's who. Largest increase in the history of the city -- a $20,000 raise this year. Recession? More people on food stamps than ever before? Nonsense, give these people a gigantic raise at taxpayer expense.
My favorite part:
More and more, I find myself biting my tongue really hard.
My favorite part:
A spokeswoman for Reed said the mayor wants to review the ordinance before deciding whether to sign it, veto it or let it slide into law without his signature.Let me slide it on you people.
More and more, I find myself biting my tongue really hard.
Socialism Is About Respecting People's Dignity
After all, if we believe a person is truly dignified, we know they ought to have health care regardless of their ability to pay, and also a place to live.
Thus, a movement that began out of a respect for the dignity of humanity turns those same humans into "scum." It will happen here too.
Holland's capital already has a special hit squad of municipal officials to identify the worst offenders for a compulsory six month course in how to behave.It starts as "Hey, let's pay for other people to have the things we want them to have." It ends up as, "Hey, those jerks are costing us a fortune by being irresponsible, and saddling us with costs arising from their bad behavior!" So the solution has to be control of their behavior: and control at a level you couldn't employ against someone you respected.
Social housing problem families or tenants who do not show an improvement or refuse to go to the special units face eviction and homelessness.
Eberhard van der Laan, Amsterdam's Labour mayor, has tabled the £810,000 plan to tackle 13,000 complaints of anti-social behaviour every year. He complained that long-term harassment often leads to law abiding tenants, rather than their nuisance neighbours, being driven out....
The new punishment housing camps have been dubbed "scum villages" because the plan echoes a proposal from Geert Wilders, the leader of a populist Dutch Right-wing party, for special units to deal with persistent troublemakers.
"Repeat offenders should be forcibly removed from their neighbourhood and sent to a village for scum," he suggested last year. "Put all the trash together."
Whilst denying that the new projects would be punishment camps for "scum", a spokesman for the city mayor stressed... "This is supposed to be a deterrent[.]"
Thus, a movement that began out of a respect for the dignity of humanity turns those same humans into "scum." It will happen here too.
I Didn't Know God Made Honky-Tonk Angels:
Wow.
The Obama administration said Friday that it would charge insurance companies for the privilege of selling health insurance to millions of Americans in new online markets run by the federal government.Those federal exchanges aren't even legal, and already they're talking about you paying for the privilege of using them -- and by you, I mean you, because the cost can be passed right on to the consumer. It's like a tax, for an illegal service that the government commands you to accept.
The cost of these “user fees” can be passed on to consumers.
Advent
An aside: this Advent wreath was made by my wife in about fifteen minutes this evening, because I told her I wanted one this year. I'm really quite impressed with her.
Imperial Overreach
There's a pretty solid argument here from Rep. Eric Cantor, which includes something interesting on the link between the rule-of-law and GDP. We were discussing that recently, in one of the Politics sections, and it might be worth revisiting in light of this piece.
Better Enjoy the War: The Peace Will Be Terrible
So, allegedly, went a popular joke in Nazi Germany. How surprising to imagine that they thought of what the peace would be like! The ideology called for a system that was unlikely to ever produce it. A war of all against all, meant to lead to the ethic domination of one party on all others, seems least likely to produce anything like a peace.
Perhaps they always knew that vengeance was coming. The subject of the article is the question: does peace require vengeance? I suspect the answer is that it does: there are times when the failure to exact a due and dispassionate revenge will prevent you from being respected enough to serve as a new locus of authority.
But so say I; decide for yourselves. It is an interesting story.
Perhaps they always knew that vengeance was coming. The subject of the article is the question: does peace require vengeance? I suspect the answer is that it does: there are times when the failure to exact a due and dispassionate revenge will prevent you from being respected enough to serve as a new locus of authority.
But so say I; decide for yourselves. It is an interesting story.
The Party of Big Taxes
Which party? The Republican Party, or so advises Mark Steyn:
Any “debt-reduction plan” that doesn’t address at least $1.3 trillion a year is, in fact, a debt-increase plan.So what's the scale of "ponying up"? It's there in the piece: every tax of every kind needs to go up by half, assuming we can prevent entitlements from growing any larger than they are today. Which, of course, we cannot do.
So given that the ruling party will not permit spending cuts, what should Republicans do? If I were John Boehner, I’d say: “Clearly there’s no mandate for small government in the election results. So, if you milquetoast pantywaist sad-sack excuses for the sorriest bunch of so-called Americans who ever lived want to vote for Swede-sized statism, it’s time to pony up.”
Okay, he might want to focus-group it first. But that fundamental dishonesty is the heart of the crisis. You cannot simultaneously enjoy American-sized taxes and European-sized government. One or the other has to go.
Politics, Book III, Parts V-IX
A few more parts of Book III over the weekend, if you like. Part V asks whether everyone should be a citizen -- that is, to have a share in both ruling and obeying -- or if some orders of those in the city should be ruled only. This is similar to the debate we had a couple of years ago about the extent of the franchise, but this is the ancient take on the question. Aristotle doesn't give a final answer to the question here, but he does answer the question from the last post: are the virtues of the good man and the good citizen the same? Yes, he tells us, in states where all citizens are part of the ruling class.
After that Aristotle takes on the question of forms of government. We'll stop with Part IX because a new big question comes up in Part X, which is where the ultimate source of sovereignty ought to reside: with the people, or somewhere else? That's a discussion in itself.
After that Aristotle takes on the question of forms of government. We'll stop with Part IX because a new big question comes up in Part X, which is where the ultimate source of sovereignty ought to reside: with the people, or somewhere else? That's a discussion in itself.
Cheap, ubiquitous solar power
I like the way these young men think. I wrote about them a few months ago, when they were raising money for their enterprise on Kickstarter, which is now coming along very well. They almost make me remember what it was like to be young.
Syllogistic Logic
Writing about a recent post encouraging traditional gender roles, a feminist offers a partial concurrence:
I need no men.
You are a man.
Therefore,
I do not need you.
Surely it's no surprise that people who are told they aren't needed eventually go away.
But, as time passed — and my 20s became my 30s — I began to realize that when I told men I was independent and didn’t "need anyone," many eventually backed off.This is not difficult to understand. One of the classic Aristotelian syllogisms was called "Cesare" by medieval logicians. Her problem is an excellent example of how this very basic form of logic works:
I need no men.
You are a man.
Therefore,
I do not need you.
Surely it's no surprise that people who are told they aren't needed eventually go away.
Campus Sexual Harassment
Dr. Jacobson at College Insurrection has a complaint about a sexual harassment case at UVA. I happened to have an opportunity to talk to the woman who is in charge of a similar code governing another major Southern university about how these codes developed.
The most recent comprehensive guidance from OCR is here. Note that the letter is addressed to the colleges, and is all about what standards the colleges have to adhere to in order to avoid liability. They cannot leave investigations to the police, for example, nor defer to the courts. They cannot defer on issues that happened at private homes, or indeed anywhere off campus. They must take immediate action of some kind on any complaint whatsoever. They are required -- by SCOTUS precedent -- to adhere to the preponderance standard. If they do not do these things, they will be liable in court.
This current complaint is thus one in a long series of lawsuits that have pushed the standards a little further by seeking judgment against the school in spite of their adherence to established procedures. Such lawsuits have succeeded fairly often -- that's how we got here. The next OCR letter may well instruct the schools that, based on the outcome of this case, if they want to be safe from a liability judgment in court they must regard the accusation in itself as meeting the preponderance of evidence standard.
What troubles me about this is that we've built a rather terrifying system in such an ad hoc manner. This is one occasion where some legislation would actually be welcome. It would be wise to take this cobbled-together monstrosity and replace it with a carefully constructed, fully-considered law that included adequate protections for both parties to the conflict.
Of course, for that to happen we would have to have a legislature that was capable of producing a fully-considered law on any subject at all, let alone one so fraught as this. Judging from the recent Presidential and Congressional campaigns, it is impossible to imagine that our political system is capable of that.
The Office of Civil Rights’ mandated procedures for investigating sexual assault are tilted heavily against the accused party... [and] judge the student according to a 50.00001 percent preponderance of evidence standard, an approach that mocks even the pretense of due process....What I did not understand until my recent conversation was how much our campus sexual-harassment environment is the product of lawsuits rather than legislation. It is true that the OCR sees enforcement of these codes as a kind of civil rights campaign, but the actual mandate they are enforcing was largely produced by court cases where students sued the schools for having inadequately protected them. The courts accepted that the schools were liable, and said that they would need to have clear procedures in place to handle these cases. Then, when schools created such procedures, time and again they were found liable anyway, forcing the procedures to become even more tilted.
It is remarkable, then, that one such accused student at the University of Virginia was exonerated of the charges brought against him. Unfortunately, what happened next was unsurprising.
The accuser hired an outside attorney–none other than controversial victims’ rights lawyer Wendy Murphy–and filed a complaint with the Office of Civil Rights. Murphy’s argument, as expressed to c-ville.com, comes close to saying that a failure to convict amounts to an OCR violation. “The preponderance standard is simple,” she told the newspaper. “When her accusations are deemed credible, and his denials are not described with the same glowing terminology, she wins.” But under the UVA system, the investigators (serving as the equivalent of a grand jury) have the authority to deem an accuser’s claims “credible.” For the OCR even to consider such an absurd claim would be highly problematic.
The most recent comprehensive guidance from OCR is here. Note that the letter is addressed to the colleges, and is all about what standards the colleges have to adhere to in order to avoid liability. They cannot leave investigations to the police, for example, nor defer to the courts. They cannot defer on issues that happened at private homes, or indeed anywhere off campus. They must take immediate action of some kind on any complaint whatsoever. They are required -- by SCOTUS precedent -- to adhere to the preponderance standard. If they do not do these things, they will be liable in court.
This current complaint is thus one in a long series of lawsuits that have pushed the standards a little further by seeking judgment against the school in spite of their adherence to established procedures. Such lawsuits have succeeded fairly often -- that's how we got here. The next OCR letter may well instruct the schools that, based on the outcome of this case, if they want to be safe from a liability judgment in court they must regard the accusation in itself as meeting the preponderance of evidence standard.
What troubles me about this is that we've built a rather terrifying system in such an ad hoc manner. This is one occasion where some legislation would actually be welcome. It would be wise to take this cobbled-together monstrosity and replace it with a carefully constructed, fully-considered law that included adequate protections for both parties to the conflict.
Of course, for that to happen we would have to have a legislature that was capable of producing a fully-considered law on any subject at all, let alone one so fraught as this. Judging from the recent Presidential and Congressional campaigns, it is impossible to imagine that our political system is capable of that.
Politics III, Part IV
In this one section we take up a matter of tremendous import. Are the virtues of the good man and the good citizen the same, or different? In other words, would a polity of good people make up a good state?
At this point Aristotle seems to take it as proven that the good citizen and the good man have a different moral structure. That strikes me as an alarming conclusion. He carries on to consider examples -- please read them -- concerning rulership and similar cases.
I would like to say that he goes wrong here. Perhaps you would care to agree; or perhaps you would care to defend him. Where and why, ladies and gentlemen?
There is a point nearly allied to the preceding: Whether the virtue of a good man and a good citizen is the same or not. But, before entering on this discussion, we must certainly first obtain some general notion of the virtue of the citizen. Like the sailor, the citizen is a member of a community. Now, sailors have different functions, for one of them is a rower, another a pilot, and a third a look-out man, a fourth is described by some similar term; and while the precise definition of each individual's virtue applies exclusively to him, there is, at the same time, a common definition applicable to them all. For they have all of them a common object, which is safety in navigation. Similarly, one citizen differs from another, but the salvation of the community is the common business of them all. This community is the constitution; the virtue of the citizen must therefore be relative to the constitution of which he is a member. If, then, there are many forms of government, it is evident that there is not one single virtue of the good citizen which is perfect virtue. But we say that the good man is he who has one single virtue which is perfect virtue. Hence it is evident that the good citizen need not of necessity possess the virtue which makes a good man.So, citizens have different roles. But because different roles excel in different ways, Aristotle wants to say that the 'good man' -- who is excellent in one way, as a good man -- is not the same as the good citizen.
The same question may also be approached by another road, from a consideration of the best constitution. If the state cannot be entirely composed of good men, and yet each citizen is expected to do his own business well, and must therefore have virtue, still inasmuch as all the citizens cannot be alike, the virtue of the citizen and of the good man cannot coincide. All must have the virtue of the good citizen- thus, and thus only, can the state be perfect; but they will not have the virtue of a good man, unless we assume that in the good state all the citizens must be good.Here the objection is that all citizens cannot be expected to be good people. Yet insofar as we still expect them to be good citizens, they must be capable of a virtue of a sort. Good argument?
Again, the state, as composed of unlikes, may be compared to the living being: as the first elements into which a living being is resolved are soul and body, as soul is made up of rational principle and appetite, the family of husband and wife, property of master and slave, so of all these, as well as other dissimilar elements, the state is composed; and, therefore, the virtue of all the citizens cannot possibly be the same, any more than the excellence of the leader of a chorus is the same as that of the performer who stands by his side. I have said enough to show why the two kinds of virtue cannot be absolutely and always the same.This is the first argument again. Here we get different problems, but the same issue: people fill different roles in the state. Some are husbands and some are wives, some police and some policed. How can they have the same virtues?
At this point Aristotle seems to take it as proven that the good citizen and the good man have a different moral structure. That strikes me as an alarming conclusion. He carries on to consider examples -- please read them -- concerning rulership and similar cases.
I would like to say that he goes wrong here. Perhaps you would care to agree; or perhaps you would care to defend him. Where and why, ladies and gentlemen?
Crime Stories
Back in October, Little Ms. Attila wrote a piece chiding networks for having "partisan" crime shows:
It's already difficult to discuss certain contentious moral disputes in politics. If we can't discuss them in drama either, I wonder how we ever shall. All that will be left is shutting up and letting our would-be betters tell us what opinions are acceptable.
That said, when she said she was writing about crime shows, I didn't initially think of the shows that focus on things from the law-enforcement perspective. I thought she was going to talk about shows about criminals. These do demonstrate an interesting perspective, because in making the hero opposed to the state, they show what values transcend the law in our hearts. These are the dramas that explore the distinction between morality and the law.
I'm only familiar with two current television shows at all, and I've only actually seen one of them -- the other one I know of because of the excitement it generates among some friends of mine. That latter is Dexter, on the Showtime network, which apparently skews left. Certainly these of my friends are all very left-leaning, Obama-supporting intellectuals. None of them would ever engage in actual violence of any kind themselves, but they are really into the show.
The premise of the show is that the hero is a serial-killer, who has learned to subject his homicide to a sort-of moral code. The moral code is universalist -- it applies to everyone equally at all times -- and the appeal of the guy is that he can subject bad people to horrendous penalties with impunity, things the law can't do.
The other show is Sons of Anarchy, which Jimbo at BLACKFIVE recommended to me some years ago. Its audience apparently skews right. Here there is no impunity, and there is no universal moral code. What justifies crime and violence is family, which the state cannot adequately protect. The criminals can't adequately protect it either -- they suffer greatly over the years, which is not surprising given that there is an openly Shakespearian cast to the plot. Still, it is a way of protecting the people they love from predatory drug-selling gangs, a stalker in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, racist gangs, street gangs, and those who manipulate the law to their own purpose. They also have a thing against rapacious developers who want to turn their hometown into a place too expensive for them to live anymore.
It's an interesting divide, I think. The one side dreams of setting aside the law to enforce a moral code on people who refuse to live by it. The other dreams of setting aside the law to defend the people and the place that they love. It's the opposite of universal: it's very particular.
This has led to a sort of culture war in our crime shows, and a tendency to categorize them as “left-leaning” -- like Law & Order-- or “right-leaning” -- like the NCIS shows, or Blue Bloods. Relatively few try to split the difference, as does Criminal Minds (when it isn’t descending into gun-controlling preachiness)...I humbly disagree with the proposition that drama should appeal only (or even always chiefly) to universal moral principles, insofar as any can be discovered. Drama is one of the great areas for exploring moral qualms and questions, conflicts and difficult areas.
Morality belongs in the public square, but it should be a morality that we all agree with.
And there are moral principles we all agree with, like protecting the innocent and punishing the guilty.
It's already difficult to discuss certain contentious moral disputes in politics. If we can't discuss them in drama either, I wonder how we ever shall. All that will be left is shutting up and letting our would-be betters tell us what opinions are acceptable.
That said, when she said she was writing about crime shows, I didn't initially think of the shows that focus on things from the law-enforcement perspective. I thought she was going to talk about shows about criminals. These do demonstrate an interesting perspective, because in making the hero opposed to the state, they show what values transcend the law in our hearts. These are the dramas that explore the distinction between morality and the law.
I'm only familiar with two current television shows at all, and I've only actually seen one of them -- the other one I know of because of the excitement it generates among some friends of mine. That latter is Dexter, on the Showtime network, which apparently skews left. Certainly these of my friends are all very left-leaning, Obama-supporting intellectuals. None of them would ever engage in actual violence of any kind themselves, but they are really into the show.
The premise of the show is that the hero is a serial-killer, who has learned to subject his homicide to a sort-of moral code. The moral code is universalist -- it applies to everyone equally at all times -- and the appeal of the guy is that he can subject bad people to horrendous penalties with impunity, things the law can't do.
The other show is Sons of Anarchy, which Jimbo at BLACKFIVE recommended to me some years ago. Its audience apparently skews right. Here there is no impunity, and there is no universal moral code. What justifies crime and violence is family, which the state cannot adequately protect. The criminals can't adequately protect it either -- they suffer greatly over the years, which is not surprising given that there is an openly Shakespearian cast to the plot. Still, it is a way of protecting the people they love from predatory drug-selling gangs, a stalker in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, racist gangs, street gangs, and those who manipulate the law to their own purpose. They also have a thing against rapacious developers who want to turn their hometown into a place too expensive for them to live anymore.
It's an interesting divide, I think. The one side dreams of setting aside the law to enforce a moral code on people who refuse to live by it. The other dreams of setting aside the law to defend the people and the place that they love. It's the opposite of universal: it's very particular.
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