Franchise

We once had a long discussion about the franchise, questioning whether the universal franchise was really a good idea and debating approaches. The debate took place here, at VC, and at Elise's place. Different models were offered: a Starship Troopers model that linked citizenship to military or other public service; a property qualification, for 'skin in the game' reasons; I think we also discussed some education qualification. In the end, none of it proved very persuasive, although it was interesting to see what arguments people had for and against things like the service qualification.

I think the debate was worthwhile, although it offended some readers so badly that they asked to have their blogs removed from the sidebar so they wouldn't be associated with someone who would entertain the question. Well, philosophers entertain a lot of ideas; as someone said, the mark of an educated mind is to be able to entertain an idea without accepting it.

So, I'm prepared to entertain the idea. How about denying the franchise just to white men?

The idea is first justified by consequences: progressives would do way better if white men didn't vote, not just in America but across the Anglosphere. Isn't that unfair, to deny people the vote just because they don't vote the way you'd like? Why yes, the author admits:

Let's be clear, it may be unfair, but a moratorium on the franchise for white males for a period of between 20 and 30 years is a small price to pay for the pain inflicted by white males on others, particularly those with black, female-identifying bodies. In addition, white men should not be stripped of their other rights, and this withholding of the franchise should only be a temporary measure, as the world rights the wrongs of the past.

So, they won't be stripped of their rights, other than voting rights? Well, and property rights: it turns out, the whole point of this is to take their money.

At the same time, a denial of the franchise to white men, could see a redistribution of global assets to their rightful owners. After all, white men have used the imposition of Western legal systems around the world to reinforce modern capitalism. A period of twenty years without white men in the world's parliaments and voting booths will allow legislation to be passed which could see the world's wealth far more equitably shared. The violence of white male wealth and income inequality will be a thing of the past.

This redistribution of the world's wealth is long overdue[.]

Ok, so, just voting rights and property rights, then. Oddly enough, there's actually a solid philosophical argument against that exact combination. It's fine to have redistribution in an oligarchy, Aristotle says, because the regular redistribution of wealth to the poor makes them willing to accept a lack of political control. But you can't have redistribution in a democracy, as this will produce violent revolt:

In democracies the rich should be spared; not only should their property not be divided, but their incomes also, which in some states are taken from them imperceptibly, should be protected. It is a good thing to prevent the wealthy citizens, even if they are willing from undertaking expensive and useless public services, such as the giving of choruses, torch-races, and the like. In an oligarchy, on the other hand, great care should be taken of the poor, and lucrative offices should go to them; if any of the wealthy classes insult them, the offender should be punished more severely than if he had wronged one of his own class.

So, denying people power for the purpose of taking their wealth is right out. If you give them the power, you can claim that they owe you compensation from their wealth. If you take the power, you have to spare their wealth. Trying to take the power so you can take their wealth reliably produces civil war.

An Act of Theft, or Defacement?

The artist who crafted the charging bull sculpture on Wall Street is irritated that his work has been revised without his permission.

An attorney for [artist] Di Modica, Norman Siegel, said the 4-foot-tall bronze girl was created as part of an advertising campaign for Boston-based investment firm State Street Global Advisors and its placement opposite the bull exploits the earlier sculpture for commercial gain and negates its positive message.

"The placement of the statue of the young girl in opposition to 'Charging Bull' has undermined the integrity and modified the 'Charging Bull'" Siegel said. "The 'Charging Bull' no longer carries a positive, optimistic message. Rather it has been transformed into a negative force and a threat."

Arguably the second sculpture steals something from the first work, as the first work is necessary for the effect of the second work. He seems to be charging that it's a bit more than that, though: that the act is one of defacement, such that his positive and optimistic sculpture is transformed into a big meanie.

I guess the bull (and the bear) are some of those animal spirits that Keynes was talking about. William Safire apparently wrote on the history of the phrase.

The phrase that Keynes made famous in economics has a long history. "Physitions teache that there ben thre kindes of spirites", wrote Bartholomew Traheron in his 1543 translation of a text on surgery, "animal, vital, and natural. The animal spirite hath his seate in the brayne ... called animal, bycause it is the first instrument of the soule, which the Latins call animam." William Wood in 1719 was the first to apply it in economics: "The Increase of our Foreign Trade...whence has arisen all those Animal Spirits, those Springs of Riches which has enabled us to spend so many millions for the preservation of our Liberties." Hear, hear. Novelists seized its upbeat sense with enthusiasm. Daniel Defoe, in "Robinson Crusoe": "That the surprise may not drive the Animal Spirits from the Heart." Jane Austen used it to mean "ebullience" in "Pride and Prejudice": "She had high animal spirits." Benjamin Disraeli, a novelist in 1844, used it in that sense: "He...had great animal spirits, and a keen sense of enjoyment."

I thought it was a reference to Descartes, though, who uses the term in Passions of the Soul as part of an explanation of how passion can interfere with rational decision-making. That seemed to be what Keynes was talking about, but perhaps Safire was right.

Near Certainties

Putin says that the gas attack in Syria was a "false flag," and also that he just knows that we'll be seeing a lot more of them soon.

He has that feeling.

Old Norse's Influence on English

Since everyone is enjoying this game -- both here and at AVI's place -- here's a thesis on how English was changed by another language. This one's not on French or Celtic forms, but on Old Norse forms.

"Studies have revealed that about 400 words in English are incontestably Scandinavian in origin and are still in daily use in standard, literary English (Geipel, 1971, p.69). Although 400 words are a mere fraction of those 20,000-30,000 words it must be acknowledged that most of the ON terms left behind by the Vikings are the very bedrock of English lexicon and the most frequently occurring words in spoken English. Geipel also takes this further and states that if rural dialects are added the number goes quickly from 400 to 2,000 items, enough to allow a person to carry on a simple conversation using entirely ON terms."

One of these words is "they" and its variations, which you probably use many times a day.

(H/t: Medievalists)

The Obvious Answer

Last week, a driver in Stockholm completed the latest in a series of Islamist murders by truck, the most famous being in Nice, France. The local paper has come to the obvious conclusion.

Cars and other vehicles “have turned into deadly weapons”, and should be banished from cities to stop attacks like the one in Stockholm from happening in future, according to Aftonbladet editorialist Eva Franchell.

Yes, we should ban cars and trucks from cities. The vast amounts of food needed to keep the populations of these cities from starving will henceforth be beamed in by Starfleet Command.

*Sigh*

Sean Spicer, ladies and gentlemen:

We didn't use chemical weapons in World War II. You know, you had a, you know, someone as despicable as Hitler who didn't even sink to using chemical weapons,” Spicer said. “So you have to if you're Russia, ask yourself: Is this a country that you, and a regime, that you want to align yourself with? You have previously signed onto international agreements, rightfully acknowledging that the use of chemical weapons should be out of bounds by every country.

Reasonable point he probably intended to make: after World War One, the Western powers agreed that chemical weapons were beyond the pale. Even Hitler did not use them against soldiers on the battlefield, not even when defeat was all but certain.

Why not? Well, in addition to the fact that Hitler himself suffered from a gas attack in WWI, the policy was really "no first use," which meant that Germany's deployment of chemical weapons against soldiers would have opened it to retaliation by similar weapons. The Allies had large stockpiles of these things. So, maybe, Germany restrained itself out of a calculation of enlightened self-interest.

Of course, it may be that someone's thumb was on the scale.

According to Frank J. Dinan, a distinguished professor of chemistry and biochemistry at Canisius College in Buffalo, New York State, a scientist close to Hitler exaggerated the Allies' capability of hitting back with their own chemical weapons, which caused the Fuhrer to rethink his plans.

If Professor Dinan's extraordinary claim is true, it means that a German scientist, up until now regarded as a war criminal, might be one of the greatest unsung heroes of the 20th century....

Ambros told the Fuhrer the Allies would be able to produce vast quantities of mustard gas, but this didn't bother Hitler.

He wanted to know if the British and Americans also had access to much deadlier nerve agents, such as Tabun.

'I understand that the countries with petroleum are in a position to make more mustard gas,' Hitler said, 'but Germany has a special gas, Tabun. In this we have a monopoly in Germany.'

Hitler then enquired whether the Allies could make Tabun and a similar nerve agent, Sarin.

And it was at this point that Ambros made the claim that Professor Dinan believes may well have changed the course of the war.

Sarin is the nerve agent Assad is supposed to have used, as you probably know.

Apparently the German leadership kept pressing Hitler to reverse himself, but he never changed his mind once he was told -- completely falsely -- that the Allies could strike back in this way.

Sanctuary State

When it comes to a flat refusal to participate in enforcing Federal laws against immigration, it's clear that this is a bad practice. On the other hand, what about Montana?

On Saturday, the Montana Senate gave final approval to a bill that would take big steps toward making the state a sanctuary for gun rights by prohibiting state enforcement of most federal acts restricting firearms, magazines or ammunition. If signed into law, it would effectively stop any such federal acts in practice within the state.

Sen. Cary Smith (R-Billings) introduced Senate Bill 99 (SB99) on Jan. 9. The legislation would prohibit any state or local government employee, or law enforcement officers, from enforcing, assisting in the enforcement of, or in any way cooperating with enforcement of a federal ban on firearms, magazines, or ammunition. The proposed law specifically prohibits participating in any federal enforcement action implementing such a ban....

The legislation would also prohibit expending or allocating public funds or resources for the enforcement of such federal acts on firearms, magazines or ammunition.

The position in favor of Montana but against Maryland would be that the Federal government does indeed have lawful authority to regulate immigration, but that the 2nd Amendment's "shall not be infringed" clause strips that authority with regards to firearms. Now, that is clearly not the Federal government's opinion of the matter -- not even under Heller. Still, it is a plausible textual reading of the Constitution.

Thoughts?

DB: Lake County Sheriff's Department

Here's the original.

And here's the DB remix.

All 'A's for these Journalism Students

They're just high school kids, but they understand the real spirit of the thing.

Amy Robertson... was hired as the high school’s head principal on March 6. The student journalists had begun researching Robertson, and quickly found some discrepancies in her education credentials. For one, when they researched Corllins University, the private university where Robertson said she got her master’s and doctorate degrees years ago, the website didn’t work. They found no evidence that it was an accredited university....

The students began digging into a weeks-long investigation that would result in an article published Friday questioning the legitimacy of the principal’s degrees and of her work as an education consultant.

On Tuesday night, Robertson resigned.

The free press is best when it maintains an adversarial relationship with those in power. Too often, it ends up being hand-fed by them instead.

High Stakes Poker

In a game with a lot of cash on the table, the winner rakes it in -- and the loser loses big.

[The recent confirmation of Justice Gorsuch was a] huge loss for the of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who ignored increasing calls for her retirement during the Obama administration to avoid the prospect of the flipping of her seat from a liberal to a conservative member. That gamble — whatever calculation — could now cost a sweeping number of key cases hanging by a 5-4 margin, including much of the precedent built around Roe v. Wade, if not an outright overturning of that decision....

Now Ginsburg’s gamble on Hillary Clinton being elected could have sweeping impact on precedent that she played a major role in creating. With the elimination of the filibuster, the next nominee is hardly likely to be nuanced. Without the filibuster, Republicans have no excuse to compromise on a moderate. There is nothing standing in the way to appointing someone who is openly opposed to cases like Roe v. Wade.

It's hard to overstate how big a gamble the 2016 election was for the whole country. Indeed, it's not as if the election ended the gambling that's going on.

All Right, Fair Enough

Bethany Mandel, writing at the Federalist, points out a fairly nasty bit of Antisemitism at Politico. Now, such things happen a lot, and I only occasionally remark on them; the world is full of injustice and insult, and a healthy mind can only spend so much time on those things.

But then she adds this:

We’ve spent the better part of the last year being warned about the dangers of the rise of the alt-right. Even I doubted the power the alt-right apparently wields, which apparently includes the ability to convince a mainstream American publication to publish 4,000 words of anti-Semitic garbage on the eve of a major Jewish holiday. Can they silence the rest of the mainstream media, which reports breathlessly on every headline related to Jews at Breitbart?

With most American Jews signing offline for the next few days in celebration of our freedom from bondage in Egypt, it’s up to the non-Jews working in media to pick up the slack on renouncing this article for what it is.

It is true that, at sundown, many will go offline for two days in order to solemnize the Passover. So, I suppose it really would be proper to say something about it since they won't be able to defend themselves for a couple of days.

By the way, if I have any Jewish readers, I looked up whether or not it was appropriate to say "Happy Passover" before writing this post given the details of the underlying story. I was told the right thing to say was Chag Sameach.

So: Chag Sameach. Have a good festival, secure in the knowledge that friends will stand up for you while you're offline.

River Basins of America

A pretty nifty color-coded map shows all the river basins in the lower 48, in a way that makes it very easy to see where they drain. If you look at Georgia, you'll notice a green set of rivers that drains to the Gulf of Mexico, and just east a blue set that drains out by Savannah into the Atlantic Ocean. I'm originally from the top of the green country, but very close to the divide between the basins. The rivers that mark that green area are, especially, the Etowah and the Amicalola.

Only the Graves are Real

Anglish

This is kind of a strange project but -- let's face it -- lots of things about linguistics are strange. Tolkien used to invent whole languages more or less for fun. This is a variation of that, except it's aimed at trying to see what Modern English would be like if it were 100% Germanic rather than involving so many Romance loan-words.



It's just for fun, but we were discussing how Germanic English is (mostly, if you measure its Germanic-ness by the frequency with which Germanic-rooted words are used in speech or writing; not very, if you measure by the percentage of all English words that have Germanic roots). So here's a bit of fun.

Big Strong Man

I remember when the words to this song went: "Well, he used to work here as a doorman / Now he's gonna fight George Foreman!"

But notice that it references the Lusitania. This is an old song, by American standards.

Ninjapunch!

The first two Marines to be punished for the Marines United scandal are, as expected, enlisted personnel. Just to add insult to injury:

The Marines ultimately were sent to NJP because of derogatory comments made about one of their more senior enlisted leaders, officials said, but the comments were discovered through investigation into inappropriate comments about women.

Headline reference here, for those who don't know the term.

DB: "World Begs U.S. To Use Military Force in Syria So They Can Bitch About It Later"

The article is actually from 2015, but it remains so very current.

Ever wonder why those kids are SO keen on free college?

I came across this on my Facebook feed this morning, and it's too precious not to share:

Got an email from my professor, asking why I didn't turn in last night's assignment:

My answer, "I have been in school since 2008, have a bachelor's degree, and now 5 AA's, and have been taking classes because I cannot afford to pay the loans, and no, I do not qualify for loan forgiveness.

I felt that my current work with the class has been correct according to the book, and my grades reflect that, so I decided to get some sleep because I am sick instead of turning in the non-graded exercise" 

Her reply: "Your work is excellent, I hope you feel better and I look forward to reading your next assignment."

Leaving aside how proud she is of what is (in essence) writing an excuse the professor bought, what struck me here is that we have someone who decided around 2012 to avoid paying back a debt she owed by racking up even more debt.  Given that, I think it's safe to say none of her degrees are in Economics.

I mean, how foolish can one be?  She's not just managed to turn 4 years of debt into 9, but she's also really hurt her own employability by showing no professional work experience for the past decade.

Arbroath

It was this day 1320 that the Declaration of Arbroath was signed.

[Robert the Bruce, and not Edward like the Pope thought], too, divine providence, his right of succession according to or laws and customs which we shall maintain to the death, and the due consent and assent of us all have made our Prince and King. To him, as to the man by whom salvation has been wrought unto our people, we are bound both by law and by his merits that our freedom may be still maintained, and by him, come what may, we mean to stand.

Yet if he should give up what he has begun, and agree to make us or our kingdom subject to the King of England or the English, we should exert ourselves at once to drive him out as our enemy and a subverter of his own rights and ours, and make some other man who was well able to defend us our King; for, as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom — for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself.

That's nothing but America talking, four hundred fifty-six years before she had the name.

Good To Hear Things Are Improving So Rapidly

I mean, it's only been 100 days, and they really did have quite a shock.

“I absolutely despise these people,” one woman tweeted at me after I interviewed Trump voters. “Truly the worst of humanity. To hell with every one of them.”...

I wrote my last column from Oklahoma, highlighting voters who had supported Trump and now find that he wants to cut programs that had helped them. One woman had recovered from a rape with the help of a women’s center that stands to lose funding, another said that she would sit home and die without a job program facing cutbacks, and so on. Yet every one of them was still behind Trump — and that infuriated my readers.

“I’m just going to say it,” tweeted Bridgette. “I hate these people. They are stupid and selfish. Screw them. Lose your jobs, sit home and die.”

Another: “ALL Trump voters are racist and deplorable. They’ll never vote Democratic. We should never pander to the Trumpites. We’re not a party for racists.”

Sooner or later, somebody's going to have to figure out how to show respect. The problem is, as bikers know, you've got to show respect to get respect. Or, as the Irish put it, "Many's the time a man's mouth has broken his nose."

UPDATE:

Speaking of bikers and matters of interest to this page, the new "Sons of Anarchy" spinoff has recruited one of the Range 15 crew!

I'll be interested to see how much of the Range 15 style makes it into the series (or if the character, like the actor, is a 75th Ranger vet).