Open Letter to Sony: Letting the bad guys win

Sent to: press@spe.sony.com

Letting the bad guys win

Way to show your cowardice, Sony. Pulling The Interview tells North Korea and the other murderous thugs of the world that threats and DDoS attacks are an effective tactic to shut up voices they don't want heard. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

You should have opened that picture even if you were left with just one screen in the country. You should have rented the biggest stadium you could afford, and had the CEO make a speech about freedom before the showing.

But no, you rolled over like kicked dogs. I'm ashamed on your behalf.

No Mao Stalin, Obama

From the history books: "Then, for his next executive order, then-President Obama used his pardon power and prosecutorial discretion to refrain from arresting people who murdered legislators, judges and journalists who stood in the way of his agenda. This came to be known, in a termed coined by President Obama's long-time ally, Russian President Vladimir Putin, as 'The Flexibility Period.' Research estimates the death toll during this period, to violence and starvation, at 20-30 million...."

Banned from NR

Well, this is a sad turn of events. I have been a paying subscriber to National Review Digital for many years.

Today, it appears I have been banned from commenting at NRO.

I can only assume it was because of a recent comment thread where I defended a poster whose opinions on eugenics were unpopular. I didn't even agree with the fellows arguments, but I felt that he was presenting his case rationally and respectfully, and deserved more thoughtful reasoned response than all the emotionalistic outcries of "Nazi" and "Eugenics is evil," because he clearly raised some uncomfortable, factual points, that people were not effectively addressing.

I've gone through my Disqus feed and looked over the banned posts, and I cannot find anything that I would be embarrassed to repeat to my mother or children. This is a very disappointing turn of events.

Buckley's NR was supposed to uphold the conservative ideals as espoused by our nations founders, including the ideal that opposing voices have a right to be heard.

Here are some of the banned posts, in reverse chronological order:

"The public is smarter than he and other Obamacare supporters give it credit for."

I don't know if I believe that. The public is pretty dumb. But that should be beside the point. The fact that individuals make poor choices is not sufficient justification to take those choices away from them. People have a right be autonomous, to direct their own lives. Implicitly, that includes the right to direct their own lives badly.

I think this is important to confront, because if your only justification for self-determination is that people are smart enough to make the decisions, then every occasion when they choose wrongly, as people inevitably will (in someone's opinion), is a justification to to take self-determination away.

The founders did not write "...endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, but only unalienable as long as they make good choices when they're exercising those rights."

...

I don't include crimes against others, like murder, and I think abortion is murder. Criminal and civil justice is one of the legitimate spheres of government, in my opinion

...

So if it were possible through genetic testing and manipulation to identify and prevent or cure a serious genetic disease such as hemophilia en utero or at time of conception, you'd be opposed to using it? "Not being hemophiliac" is definitely a trait parents find desirable in their children.

...

Eugenics is also already happening quietly, steadily, on an individual level, and it's going to happen more and more as technology becomes more advanced. In the U.S., mothers regularly abort babies that test positive for Downs Syndrome. That's eugenics. In many countries, sex-selective abortions are common. As there are tests for more and more fetal traits, there will be parents who take advantage of that knowledge. It will be primarily the parents who are affluent enough to afford and care about such testing, at first. Gattica come to life. Or Brave New World, with the classes further self-segregating, as Murray has documented in Coming Apart.

Government policy will play catch-up to the realities on the ground, as it almost always does.

...

I'm willing to bet there are plenty of fans of Idiocracy among your detractors. But perhaps they've never really thought through how they'd avoid it becoming prophetic.

Someone said something along the lines that smart, educated women producing one designer baby at age 40, while the unemployed single mom in the Section 8 housing a couple neighborhoods over has eight kids by eight different fathers, is a recipe for societal disaster.

...

I'm honestly a little boggled that your point is so hard for them to understand. The almost willful barriers to comprehension surpass even my expectations of unwillingness to touch the third rail.

...

We didn’t know that he was a terrorist. This image is in popular use in Turkish memes on the Internet,

One of the most infamous Muslim terrorists in the world, the image is popular with Turks on the internet ... and nobody knew who he was. Riiiiiight.

Kid, I may have been born at night, but it wasn't last night.

...

Mr. "Thrill Up My Leg" should just quietly resign and consign himself to a hermitage for his massive failure as a journalist. If I was a less charitable person, I'd suggest he literally fall on his sword.

...

Pretty much only the lawyers who have to appear in front of the regularly. So I generally refrain from voting unless I have some clue (like an endorsement from Buckeye Fireams Association, for example).

...

“I wore fishnets and a little black dress to vote, then walked around with a spring in my slinky step. It lasted for days. I can summon it when I’m blue. It’s more effective than exercise or ecstasy or cheesecake . . . ”

Ugh. Dunham is about as slinky as Play-Doh.

...

I must be the only one in the word that finds 2001 tedious and overrated.

...

The headline of this NYT article from September is looking mighty prophetic now:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09...

"Lena Dunham Is Not Done Confessing"

...

I have. And worse.

But it seems to me that's a cop-out, along the lines of women who say you can't discuss abortion if you're not a woman.

I reserve the right to comment regardless of my personal history. Your tone was flippant, and, having extensive experience with the gruesome realities of death, I think a lot more people could do with having to participate and experience the necessary ugliness and finality of death.

...

I think it's a mistake to treat all suicides as if they are the same. Brittany Maynard's case -- facing an unavoidable death -- is dramatically different than an otherwise healthy teen committing suicide due to depression, or a father killing himself and leaving his children fatherless because he lost his job.

...

Indeed. I switched primary care physicians recently, and when I called up the office of the new physician to enquire about them taking me on, nearly the very first thing out of their mouths was "We don't write prescriptions for painkillers." I hadn't asked.

The problem with government is that it becomes such a busybody in one area that it feels like it needs rules for every area.

If you could just buy pentobarbitol over the counter or behind the counter, as I do with many drugs for use on my ranch, then the government wouldn't have to have rules about what I used it for (apart from murder, of course). I don't do drugs, but that's why I'm one of those wretched drug-legalization libertarians. Not because I want a license to smoke pot, but because I think people deserve to be the ones to make their own decisions about their own lives without nanny government questioning their decisions all the time. Even if that means people make horrible decisions.

...

"...leaving a mess for my friend and others to clean up. I even got to
help. Needless to say, they diminished the value of their home."

How awful. Not a diminished home value?! And someone had to get their hands dirty? Unforgivable!

...

Ain't that the truth. I've got Section 8 tenants in my rental properties and guys who do labor for me driving around in better cars/trucks than me, but living hand to mouth. Who am I to question their priorities, though.

...

Why shouldn't the shoe shiner make $100k? Who decided that a librarian is more valuable than a shoe shiner? The correct answer should be "the market," but if there's a shoe shiner out there pulling down $100k, more power to him. Your labor's worth what you can get for it.

...

Classic confusion of correlation with causation.

...

Of course, they don't care whether the kids are capable of understanding. In fact, it's a lot easier to indoctrinate them when they can't fully cognitively process the information, It just becomes the kids' baseline for "how things are."

Their tactics make perfect sense when you understand their goals.

...

"Do they punish two kids for an entirely legal photograph that they took
in their home, and that caused no trouble to anybody? Or do they stay
the hell away from the issue?"

That's easy. They punish. Because their goal is to terrorize those who hold incorrect thoughts.

...

Well, they're white, anyway. I wonder when Jews are finally going to wake up and realize that the Democratic Party is not their friend in the long run.

...

Public institutions today are so soaked in relativism, they don't believe there is such a thing as an unreasonable criticism -- all cultures and viewpoints are equally valuable, of course. Unless, oddly, your viewpoint is Christian, conservative and/or pro-life. Then you're a right-wing nut-job and your opinions are out-of-bounds, if not hate speech.

...

You just want to cry that we've come to this. There are banana republics that would be too embarrassed to have such an obviously insecure, fraud-friendly voting system. And, since you can't vote them out, what alternative are you left with, besides violence?

...

I'm going to stop now. It just keeps going back. There are some odd incidents of posts fro about a week ago that haven't been removed, but I'm assuming that there's some little bot working away, scrubbing everything I've ever posted at National Review, making it like I never existed and that I was some out-of-bounds raging troll. The posts above aren't exceptions, there's no hidden posts where I rant outrageously and incoherently or call people names.

It's despicable.

Fun Fact: According To OSU, It Is Illegal To Have Sex With A Physically Disabled Person

I swear I'm not making this up. From OSU's own student conduct web site:

By law, a person cannot give consent, even when he or she might verbally say so, when:

• The person is so intoxicated or unconscious due to alcohol or drugs
• The person is physically or mentally disabled
• The person was coerced due to force, threat of force, or deception or when the person was beaten, threatened, isolated, or intimidated.

To emphasize: "By law, a person cannot give consent, even when he or she might verbally say so, when the person is physically or mentally disabled."

So, Ohio State is purporting that, by law, if you are physically disabled -- in a wheel chair, blind, missing a limb, have cerebral palsy or MS, or any other physical condition that qualifies you as physically disabled -- you are unable to consent to sex, even if you verbally say so.

Man, it must really suck being a disabled person at OSU. No sex for you!

Or, you have a free license to accuse anyone who has sex with you of sexual assault. Even if you enthusiastically said yes, in front of witnesses, because, hey, you're physically disabled and thus not responsible for your own decisions.

I dunno, if I were a physically disabled person, I might find that a wee bit insulting. Unless I was evil.

In saner times, Occam's Razor would lead me to believe that OSU's interpretation of the law is incorrect, but we live in times when schoolchildren are suspended for chewing their poptarts into pistol shapes and 5-year-old girls who point crayons and say "pew, pew" are forced to sign contracts promising not to kill themselves or anyone else, so sane thought processes can't really be applied to official policy anymore.

Thus, the only safe advice: OSU students, do not get it on with that hot physically disabled guy/girl in your Intro to Communications class!

Mainstream Islam Is Violent Islam

A reminder from Andrew McCarthy.

Islamic State terrorists have infamously decapitated three of their prisoners in recent weeks. That is five fewer than the Saudi government decapitated in August alone. Indeed, it is three fewer beheadings than were carried out in September by the Free Syrian Army — the “moderate Islamists” that congressional Republicans have now joined Obama Democrats in supporting with arms and training underwritten by American taxpayer dollars.

All Islam is the enemy of freedom and civilization.

Charity For The Elite

New York Times columnist David Brooks is astoundingly out-of-touch with the real world. In his New York Times column, Startling Adult Friendships, Brooks fantasizes on the theme of "What if you had $500 million to give away?"

Sadly, the best thing Brooks can come up with is "friendship retreats."

So I envision a string of adult camps or retreat centers (my oldest friendships were formed at summer camp, so I think in those terms). Groups of 20 or 30 would be brought together from all social and demographic groups, and secluded for two weeks. They’d prepare and clean up all their meals together, and eating the meals would go on for a while. In the morning, they would read about and discuss big topics. In the afternoons, they’d play sports, take hikes and build something complicated together. At night, there’d be a bar and music.

I think you have to be an academic or elite New Yorker not to realize that the only type of people who are interested in, or who have time to attend two-week "friendship retreats" are people who already have a lot of free time and who are already inclined to be interested in that sort of touchy-feely endeavor. Who has time to spend two weeks away from their regular life, even all-expenses paid? In other words, this will attract elites, the wealthy, or the Occupy Wall Street types (over-educated, under-employed).

So, basically, Brooks thinks the best way to change the world with a big bag of money is touchy-feely vacations for people just like him. Yeah, sounds like something a New York Times writer would come up with.

Or, you could look at it from the darker side, "groups of 20 or 30 would be brought together from all social and demographic groups." I love the term "would be brought together." People use the passive voice in writing when they are trying to avoid naming the actor, or the method of the action. How would people of "all social and demographic groups" be brought together? Because, let me tell you, my social and demographic group would rather gnaw its own leg off than have to spend two weeks at a David Brooks-sponsored friendship camp.

Of course, there are precedents. Socialists and Communists around the world have been very consistent in finding means of shipping people off to camps "for their own good," whether they want to go or not. Now, I'm not suggesting that Brooks wants to ship us all away to re-education camps against our will, I'm just using hyperbole to suggest that Brooks, like those totalitarians, thinks he knows what's best for us, and hasn't really thought it through far enough to realize that the very people he probably thinks need the camps most want nothing to do with him.

This is the sort of fuzzy-headed thinking the left is famous for. Yes, I know Brooks is ostensibly a "conservative" or "moderate" columnist at the New York Times, but, seriously, that's like being the biggest Libertarian on the Politburo.

Inevitably, such an idea would be an utter failure. In a free country, it just dies away and becomes joke fodder, like Air America. In a communist country, it becomes official government policy and turns into the Gulag.

These Sorts Of Conversatons Are Fine Until Someone Disagrees With You

Over on the blog where a fellow has decided I'm the worst person in the world, my condemner has been flirting with a discussion of Islam and ISIS because one of the cartoonists who frequents that site indicated on his Facebook page (sorry, no link, I don't do Facebook), that Islam is not a religion of peace.

Political discussions are against the site's rules, but my accuser apparently really wants to have the discussion. He says: "Listen, as Laura said, if it even qualifies as political (which I don’t think it does, since we are not talking about political policy here but rather one person’s perception of other people for reasons which I, personally, think are stupid–and calling comic strip creators stupid for stuff they’ve said on the internet is absolutely not against the rules here, considering we do it to guys like Batiuk and McEldowney all the time) it’s still far, far from the most politically-charged issue that’s been discussed here. It isn’t even the first time ISIS has been brought up. World events do not necessarily equal politics."

I think we can all infer, based on my accuser's past statements, that if I did participate and mount a formidable defense of the cartoonist's statement, which would be easy, it would immediately, in his opinion, cease to be a worthwhile conversation.

In any case, the violent nature of Islam has to be one of the top five most loaded political topics on the planet right now, so I'm going to do all the other readers a favor and not participate there.

My accuser is the kind of person who can watch the literal daily reports of Muslim atrocities over decades; see that every Muslim-dominated nation on earth is one that denies basic rights and freedoms -- even the best of them (Malaysia) are incredibly restrictive of religious freedom, but most are violent, misogynist hellholes; read Islam's scriptural exhortations to military domination, subjugation and murder of non-believers; see its blessings on violence against women and children by mainstream Islamic clerics and governments, and still say "Islam is a religion of peace, and, oh, Crusades, and some crazy Christians bombed abortion clinics back in the day, so Christianity is just as bad." It's like comparing a lone gnat on your apple to a plague of locusts.

But, religion of peace aside, what really annoys me is that I know the guy would just go nuts if I said what I think on the site, and I, the horrible, bad person, am the one who has to be the adult and not take his bait, for the sake of the innocent readers of the site.

Abolition Of The First Amendment, Redux

A few months ago, I made a short post, "Democrats Propose Amendment To Gut Free Speech."

Since almost nobody actually reads this blog, it was a rather monumental occurrence for someone to actually comment. The comment, was, sadly, the sloganeering soundbite "Uh huh; over in the real world, money is not free speech."

This is so disappointing. Not only because it's obviously false, but because the poster (who I have encountered elsewhere) clearly considers himself an intelligent, enlightened, right-thinking liberal.

Once upon a time, free speech was a liberal no-brainer. You were for it:

"If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the process of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence." -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis.

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" -- Evelyn Beatrice Hall, The Friends of Voltaire

But this silly "money is not speech" meme seems to have substituted for actual thought in an alarmingly large segment of the portion of the population that considers itself liberal.

I noticed today that noted right-wing hate group, the ACLU, agrees with me.

The ACLU drafted a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee strongly opposing the Udall Amendment, for all the reasons that are absurdly obvious to anyone who has read the amendment and given it the slightest thought.

Of course money is speech. It takes money to reach people with your speech. The bill would allow complete regulation not only of campaign contributions, but of all funds spent in support of or opposition to candidates.

The ACLU letter goes into great detail. I encourage you to follow the link.

The grant of power to infringe speech is draconian and vast. The ACLU lists some obvious examples:

To give just a few hypotheticals of what would be possible in a world where the Udall proposal is the 28th Amendment:

• Congress would be allowed to restrict the publication of Secretary Hillary Clinton’s forthcoming memoir “Hard Choices” were she to run for office;
• Congress could criminalize a blog on the Huffington Post by Gene Karpinski, president of the League of Conservation Voters, that accuses Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) of being a “climate change denier”;
• Congress could regulate this website by reform group Public Citizen, which urges voters to contact their members of Congress in support of a constitutional amendment addressing Citizens United and the recent McCutcheon case, under the theory that it is, in effect, a sham issue communication in favor of the Democratic Party; 
• A state election agency, run by a corrupt patronage appointee, could use state law to limit speech by anti-corruption groups supporting reform; 
• A local sheriff running for reelection and facing vociferous public criticism for draconian immigration policies and prisoner abuse could use state campaign finance laws to harass and prosecute his own detractors; 
• A district attorney running for reelection could selectively prosecute political opponents using state campaign finance restrictions; and
• Congress could pass a law regulating this letter for noting that all 41 sponsors of this amendment, which the ACLU opposes, are Democrats (or independents who caucus with Democrats).

Such examples are not only plausible, they are endless.

A Survival Manual

Today I draw your attention to Richard Fernandez, Belmont Club at PJ Media, The First Horseman

From the article:

We often forget that the sacred texts of mankind began as practical documents.  They were checklists. And we may well rediscover this fact before the end. One can imagine the last two postmoderns crawling towards each other in the ruins of a once great city to die, and while waiting to expire engage in conversation to pass the time.

“Waldo,” the first said, “do you remember that tablet displayed in front of the Texas Statehouse. You know, back when there was a Texas?”
“Yeah, didn’t it have a whole bunch of stuff scrawled on it? Tell me again what it said,” replied the other.
“Waldo, it said, ‘thou shalt not kill.’ And ‘thou shalt not lie’.”
“Anything else?”
“Yes it also said, ‘thou shalt not steal’. Plus somewhere in the middle said, ‘thou shalt not have sex with people you weren’t married to.’”
“Yeah, I remember it now,” the second post-modern said. “What a bunch of hooey. It’s a right wing, nutjob, racist document called the Ten Commandments.  It’s a religious document.”
“No Waldo,” the first replied. “That’s where you’re wrong. It ain’t no religious document. I just figured out it was a survival manual.”

Parking Lot

Hamas strikes at Israeli Nuclear Reactor

"Now what might a “reasonable” response look like?"

It would look like a parking lot where Gaza used to be.

Gay Marriage And The Nature Of Rights

 My reponse to this article at Reason: The Texas GOP Stands on a Platform of Ignorance

The sleight-of-hand in the gay marriage debate is the nature of the "rights" in question. The Bill of Rights is predominantly a charter of negative rights. All the rights enumerated in the bill of rights are of this nature: the government protects the right in question by simply not doing stuff to you.

There are no positive rights listed. Positive rights are "rights" where others are required to grant you something. They are popular in modern progressive Constitutions and U.N. charters: the "right" to health care (implies that someone has an obligation to provide you with health care whether they want to or not); the "right" to housing (implies that someone has the obligation to fork up the expense of housing you, whether they want to or not).

Libertarians are usually opposed to positive rights, because they require compelling the labor of others in order to provide you the "right."

Homosexuals already have the negative right of gay marriage. Just say "we're married." Nobody's stopping you.

The problem is that in the U.S., being married comes with a whole lot of "gimmes" that the government is obligated to provide: tax status, social security benefits, inheritance benefits, health care benefits, property rights.

All these are, if anything, positive rights, and can not be construed as the type of negative rights included among enumerated and unenumerated rights in the Bill of Rights.

Democrats Propose Amendment To Gut Free Speech

There was a time, I think, when any politician who dared to propose such a thing would be tarred and feathered. Let's revive those times.

Boy Scouts Rescue Ann Curry

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/boy-scouts-rescue-ann-curry-after-tv-journalist-is-hurt-on-hiking-trail-211601184.html

“I feel enormously lucky you came along at just the right moment, and were so willing to help a stranger in need,” Curry wrote. “You are a credit to the Boy Scouts and to your families, and I want you to know I am deeply grateful for your kindness and skill.” -- Ann Curry

These young men are the product of an institution that has been hounded by progressive activists and media for decades.

I think you can tell the worth of an institution by its fruits. By that measure, would you rather have the Boy Scouts or gay bath houses?

Heinlein on Freedom of Thought and Freedom of Expression

When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, “This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know,” the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything — you can’t conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him – Robert A. Heinlein

Recent Thoughts On Same-Sex Marriage

Over the years that same sex marriage has been in the public spotlight, my personal leanings have been all over the place. I've found myself "against" on grounds ranging from traditionalist to moral to rather pragmatic concerns about the building blocks of a good society. I've also found myself leaning "for" on libertarian grounds. I've found myself, again on libertarian grounds wanting to cut the Gordian Knot by simply getting government out of the marriage business entirely.

I've found flaws with each of my stances: against the traditionalist, I think that while we owe a good deal of deference to the wisdom of generations, our ancestors aren't always right -- slavery being the obvious example. On moral grounds, I waver because I'm not of an evangelical bent. If it's immoral, then it's between them and God and as long as I can be left out of it, I don't really care much. And, when I think of the building block of a good society, I'm minded to have a little humility: I'm no more likely than anyone else to have such a good idea of what the building blocks are of a good society, and, in a more bitter vein, it's not my responsibility to build a good society. People generally get the society they deserve.

My "for" impulses have been similarly unreliable. While in theory the libertarian argument is sound, in fact, the issue is more complicated. I'm not an anarchist. I believe government has a role in society. Reasonable people disagree on the proper boundaries of government and I'd be willing to wager I prefer a much more limited government than the vast majority of people. If one could rebuild a society from scratch, then I might say that government should have no role in marriage or the raising of children.

But, the fact is, I live in the present-day United States, a society in which government fingers are deeply entwined in marriage, child-raising, education and other related endeavors, and that isn't going to change in my lifetime. Taking a radical libertarian stance on one narrow aspect of society without considering how this will rebound into areas of society that aren't governed by libertarian principles is the same mistake that I accuse open borders libertarians of making.

Recently, I've come to consider a very fundamental motivation with regard to same-sex marriage. The tribal motivation: how does this affect me and my tribe? By "my tribe," I mean "me, my family, and people like us." The tribal motivation is surely a primitive one. But all the more reason to think deeply on it, because many (most?) people are motivated by tribal concerns even if they insist they are not. You can't make a motivation go away by refusing to think about it.

Gay people certainly behave in a tribal fashion when promoting their interests. Rather self-evidently, gays support same-sex marriage because same-sex marriage is a benefit for gays.

But what's in it for me and my tribe of straight, conservative upper-middle-class American Christians (sadly, for their fate, one of the least tribally conscious groups in the world)?

If we give you gay marriage, what do we get? Not much, as far as I can tell. We get a public education system that will indoctrinate our children to believe that gay marriage is a societal good. We get bakers, wedding photographers, executives, beauty queens and Christians persecuted for publicly espousing  the belief that gay marriage -- and homosexuality in general -- are not a societal good.

My tribe tends to be a pretty "do unto others as you'd have them do unto you" tribe, so as a group, we're naturally inclined to want to let gays marry, because it's the same sort of consideration we'd want if we were in their shoes. I'm sympathetic to that. But then, do they really then turn around and "do unto us" in the same way? Is there quid pro quo? Doesn't seem like it. It's not enough if we just say, "Yeah, go ahead and be married, just please leave us alone." We have to fully participate. We have to photograph your weddings and bake your cakes whether we like it or not. We have to adjust our political contributions to align with your orthodoxy or endure public attack. We can't answer a question about marriage or homosexuality honestly, or we are vilified in the public eye. Frankly, I just don't see that we're getting a good deal here.

And then the next thing I've been thinking: what, exactly is the deal?

When it comes down to it, it's not about love and marriage. It's about money. And the children.

Without government-recognized marriage, Fred and Charlie can call themselves married and spend the rest of their lives together in blissful matrimony. They can have a church wedding at a Unitarian Church. They can have all the trappings of marriage except two things. 1) The economic benefits. 2) Official recognition of their marriage for purposes of adoption.

And whenever things are about money, or about the children, I start to get suspicious.

Now, lots of gay marriages are going to be childless, so lets start with the money. Exactly why, again, do we want to economically reward people for getting married, if children are not a consideration? That's a good question. In my opinion, ideally we don't. But the fact is that we do. Married people get special tax treatment (not always favorable!), and they get Social Security survivor benefits -- one of the few things that cannot be simulated through private contracts.

Now, it seems to be that it would be simple enough to allow any person to designate any one other person as their mutual social security survivor. That solves a big problem, and would probably provide a measure of relief to people in such familiar relationships as a single child who cohabits with and cares for an elderly parent -- these parent-child relationships can span decades and the death of either can be a financial blow just as much as the death of a spouse, so why not?

As for special tax treatment, I'd roll whatever special tax treatment exists into dependent deductions and rules. An urban DINK (Dual Income No Kids) couple would get essentially no benefits, straight, gay, or whatever. But once you had kids and started getting dependent deductions and/or possibly different tax rates, then you'd benefit.

The interesting  situation would be a couple where one was the breadwinner and the other didn't work. Currently there's special tax treatment for that. Is it a good thing? I don't know. Let's assume, from the evidence of our eyes, that we as a society think it's a good thing. Is there a compelling reason to limit who the breadwinner lists as the stay-at-home dependent? Not really -- I can't see the harm in allowing someone to declare one unrelated adult dependent (or more). This isn't something that to me harms the fabric of society. It seems like it's something that encourages cooperation. You'd have to set some minimal level of income the dependent can have above which they'd not be considered a dependent. There are tax rules for that with children already.

I'm sure I haven't covered all the bases. I'm not a tax lawyer. But the general flavor and sense that I get is that the economic issues are surmountable without draconian government proclamations regarding what is and what isn't a marriage.

Until you get to the children.

It's indisputable that it's good for children to be raised in a home with a stable mother and father. People who argue against this are arguing anecdotally, not statistically. I'd be happy to entertain any actual evidence to the contrary. Same sex marriage starts to mess with that. A fundamental component of same-sex marriage is that same-sex couples have just as much of a "right" to adopt as heterosexual couples. However, a fundamental precept in family courts is that the parents rights are not paramount in custody situations, the "best interests of the child" are. It's my assertion that, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, same sex households are not in the best interests of the child.

They may not be terrible -- certainly not enough to take a child away from a biological mother or father who comes out as gay, but they're not ideal. Which means that in a situation where there are no biological parental rights at play -- adoption -- there is no compelling reason to give state sanction to the practice.

Now, same sex households are rare enough that what I speak of, "evidence to the contrary," is difficult to come by. It's unfortunate that you cannot get mass amounts of data for a social phenomenon without conducting a mass social experiment. This leads me to a tribal/traditionalist perspective: exactly what do I get out of letting same-sex marraige supporters conduct a massive social experiment on my country? Near as I can tel, not much.

Same-sex marriage supporters talk about this as a "civil right" and liken it to slavery or racially mixed marriages, but I don't think this is an apt comparison. As I've said leading up to this, same sex marriage is about two things: economic benefits and adoption. Neither of those is a civil right. Gays already have a civil right to get married and have a church wedding. Nobody's stopping them. We can handle the administrative parts without touching the state definition of marriage.

You don't have a civil right to adopt a child. And you don't have a civil right to have the government bestow favorable tax benefits on you and your partner because you're so much in love. If a particular tax rate is a civil right, why don't we give it to single people? Are single people second class citizens? Rich people pay higher tax rates; are they second class citizens? If it's unfair for Fred and Steve to have to pay a different tax rate than John and Mary, then it's also unfair for Phil, the lifelong bachelor to pay that rate. What's so special about John, Mary, Fred and Steve that they all get benefits that Phil doesn't?

The only reasons the government has to care is to make sure that children get proper care, that we support the institution of child-raising, and that non-working adult dependents don't suddenly find themselves in dire straits due to the death of their partner/provider.

None of that requires same-sex marriage.

All that said and done, I'd still be pretty wishy-washy on the matter if it weren't for the aforementioned tribal concerns. It's pretty clear that should same-sex marriage recognition become the law of the land, that my religious, moral and even scientific objections to the normalization of homosexuality will become unwelcome in the public spotlight (realistically, they already are in many circles) and subject me to potential persecution in a number of venues. So, I really just don't see the down side of opposing same sex marriage in any way that I can until it becomes a done deal and I'm forced to shut up out of fear and persecution. That attitude may not be good for your tribe, but it's good for mine.

Chilling Effect

Over on the blog where I was outed as history's greatest monster my outer (is that a word) finds himself, ideologically, on the opposite side of the argument about the use of sensitive subjects in comedy. One commenter (going deliberately over-the-top to make a joke about it) likens the current impending crash of Spidey and Iron Jonah into a Manhattan momument as insensitively reminiscent of 9/11. Mr. Moral Authority disagrees:

I’m having trouble understanding the problem here. If it were a plane and a building we were talking about, I’d find it easier to understand why somebody might be reminded of 9/11. But it isn’t. It’s a flying guy and an arch. And the arch isn’t full of people. And it’s not intentional, it’s because the flying guy can’t control where he’s going.

Superheroes and villains have been crashing into stuff while in flight for at least half a century now, and there’s really no reason to stop writing stories where that happens.

 I desperately wanted to make a joke about how it would become a problem if Spidey and Jonah were being flown into the monument by a Gypsy Assassination Squad, but I know that this guy is pretty thin-skinned and it's just not worth the potential drama for the sake of a joke.

So, it seems like this is an example of the chilling effect that occurs when people practice extreme sensitivity and throw political-correctness tantrums. It's not that people are won over to their beliefs, it's just that people think, "Man, I don't want to deal with that drama again, let it go."

Link Rot For Our Times

I usually use a different on-line copy of the U.S. Constitution, stored at archives.gov. However, I came across another link I had to a copy at house.gov, and I gave it a try. This is what I got:

Why would Congress be interested in maintaining a copy of the constitution? That's crazy talk.

You Can Hold Any Opinion You Want As Long As It's An Approved Opinion

From Mozilla's statement regarding Brendan Eich's "resignation:"

"Our culture of openness extends to encouraging staff and community to share their beliefs and opinions in public."

"... as long as you don't oppose gay marriage, or espouse any other incorrect opinion. We'll fire your ass for that." -- Oh, wait, no they didn't say that part. They just did it.

Wrong Answer

No Problema for Mixed Illegal Alien Families to Enroll in Obamacare

Obama:

“Well, the main thing for people to know is that any information you get, you know, asked with respect to buying insurance, does not have anything to do with … the rules governing immigration,” Obama said. “And you know, you can qualify if you’re a legal resident, if you are … legally present in the United States.
“You know, if you have a family where some people are citizens or legally here, and others are not documented, the immigration people will never get that information.”

Wrong answer, Obama. The correct answer would have been:

"You're right to worry. This administration does not condone foreigners who flout the laws of this nation, and we will not help cover up illegal behavior! When we find illegals, we deport illegals!"

Perspective

In Iraq, laws are being drafted that implicitly legalize marriage of 8-year-old-girls. "Also under the proposed measure, a husband can have sex with his wife regardless of her consent. The bill also prevents women from leaving the house without their husband's permission, would restrict women's rights in matters of parental custody after divorce and make it easier for men to take multiple wives."

Meanwhile, in the U.S., feminists crusade against a company that has a lobby rug that identifies the company as a meritocracy.

Time and effort well-spent, American feminists. Because who wouldn't be offended by a company that aspires to be a meritocracy? I bet those men in Iraq with 8-year-old wives they can rape at will don't work for some despicable meritocracy....

Unwitting(?) Corporate Shills

At the Firing Line-style debate between Ann Coulter and Mickey Kaus, audience questions were required to be sent via Twitter.

On many websites, comments can only be submitted if you have Facebook, Google+ or another social media account.

This is frustrating to me for a couple reasons.

First, Twitter, Facebook and Google are large corporations, with political agendas that are often at odds with the sites that require them. Do people realize that by requiring participation/subscription to a particular corporation's offerings they are explicitly supporting that corporation?

Second, it's very disturbing to have people frozen out of much the community of ideas because they refuse to deal with a particular corporation. I don't use Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or any other social media account. I'm opposed to the entire idea of social media -- all social media sites engage in Orwellian tracking of their users to truly astonishing degrees. I've done research professionally that bears this out. I also have nothing but contempt for Twitter's trivializing, anti-intellectual effect on public discourse. The tiny bites of text it allows are anti-communication.

I'm required to have a Google account just to host this blog, but it's not a plus account. I even feel guilty about having that, because I know Google, even without plus accounts, is a major tracker and monitor of behavior.

Must Practice My Tears of Aggrievement

Today the blog I read that I mentioned in I'm A Lost Cause had some links to supposed Craig's List sex ads at CPAC. Man, people are sometimes so mean to conservatives on this blog. I am shocked, shocked and offended!.... Oh, wait, no ... not bothered by what a bunch of random people say. They're entitled to their opinion, and I can laugh at myself (or at my fellow conservatives).

I'm A Lost Cause

Funny thing about leftists. If they disagree with what you say, they'll no longer defend to the death your right to say it. Instead they'll try to dig into your writings for completely unrelated stuff and publicly shame you and turn peoples' opinions against you.

I had a guy try that on me this week, pulling up old blog posts from this site and holding them up on an entirely unrelated site as examples of what a horrible person I am. Of course, since I'm not actually ashamed of anything I've written, it didn't faze me much.

I told him that if he wanted to continue his campaign against me, that blog isn't the place, and to post on my blog. And that's definitely the best way to go. I have a lot to say about the things he points out, but every time I respond on that blog, I'm just further worsening the atmosphere for people who could care less about our little argument. Of course, he really doesn't want to discuss anything with me. He wants to call me out in public and make me toe the line, to shut up and stop saying things he finds objectionable.

It almost -- almost worked! He replied:

I’m sure I’m going to regret this, but all right, I’ll make one comment over there saying everything I want to get off my chest.

But then, a little while later:

Actually, some people you just can’t reach, and it’d be futile of me to try. So never mind. Best thing is to just go back to skipping over comments and avoid being baited.

So, I'm incorrigible. I'm not worth the waste of his words of enlightenment. Mom's going to be so disappointed. Anyway, that's one thing I like about leftists, they're not judgmental.

By the way, what did I say that was so objectionable? Just for the record here is the most recent set. Apparently he's been doing a slow burn for the last year or so, but I'm not going to collect all that. Since this is the series that caused the blow up, it should be sufficiently horrendous to get me on the short list for history's greatest monster. I'm not including full context, because it gets really convoluted, plus, I want to focus on what I said. My words aren't likely to look better in context than they are in isolation. Italics are quotes from others:

April’s comment in the first throwaway panel about the wedding being invaded by “gypsy assassins” just made me wonder if perhaps that wasn’t the best word choice.
I think there’s a blanket excuse from being culturally sensitive toward people who are trying to kill you.

...

 If you can’t have your fictional characters speak in the [terms the] character would use, even if offensive, you can’t really do honest fiction — you can only create politically-correct fantasy worlds where, for example, people who say “gypsy” don’t exist.

...

So are you saying we should accept the Paula Dean[sic] precedent as appropriate? I dissent.

...

So you are saying that the treatment of Paula Dean[sic. Again. I suck.] was appropriate, because there is “something wrong” with her. Thanks for clarifying.

...

I thought Lenny Bruce had it all explained half a century ago. We’ve undone everything he taught.

 ...

JP “Please dear, a Roma assassin squad is crashing your wedding. You know, maybe it’s attitudes like that that drive them into the criminal underworld.”

I’m afraid it’s already too late for Wilson, Manley and me. Whatever gypsies call a fatwa has no doubt already been issued because of our insensitivity and the real-life gypsy assassins are en route.

I’m being extremely wary about any approaching caravan wagons, men in colorful vests, or women in those peasant dress outfits. I won’t go quietly!

 ...

JP: Don’t let this get around or everyone will want Gypsy Assassination Squad crashing their wedding. They’re a great live act, even if they’ve never fulfilled the promise of their first album.
Oh, my, you’re right! That’s an awesome name for a band!

...

I saw Bela Lugosi drinking a piña colada at Trader Vic’s. His hair was perfect.

...

“…flapjap syrup…” Now, listen. I’ve recently been educated about inappropriate use of ethic[sic] slurs, and I don’t want you making the same mistakes I did. You need to use more sensitive language: “Flapjapanese,” or perhaps “Flapasians.” And whatever you do, don’t mention the war!

...

Gosh, some of my favorites! Your outrage is delicious.

...

BTW, did this have something to do with gay people? I didn’t check to see if Flapasians is gay slang. Or are you projecting? What exactly do I think of gay people? I don’t actually have a problem with gay people. I make fun of lots of people on my blog. People who get offended very easily and then try shut down people who won’t toe their line, basically pretending they are victims but acting like bullies, those are a popular target.

...

Hey, it’s fine that you don’t like me or my opinions. Surprisingly, I’m growing less and less fond of you and your opinions, but on the whole I’m OK with you not having happy thoughts about me (that’s actually the point of a lot of the stuff you’ve pointed out, in context). However, this isn’t really the place to wage your campaign. Please, harangue me on my blog posts, where we can discuss things fully and not waste the time and ruin the experience of people who come here to snark on comics.

And that's all she (meaning me) wrote.

Try as I might, I just can't muster up a huge heaping load of guilt over all that.

Business Cat

My 7-year-old daughter loves Business Cat:

Business Cat just called to make sure
That we're singing from the same hymn sheet
That we're optimising, synergising our portfolio
Diversifying our assets
By investing in other kind of business pets.
...

In the future, corporate buzzwords will be the way all the hip kids are talking!

It's incredibly catchy and well-done. At the end, I had to ask her, "What's it about?"

"It's about a cat that has a business! Hahahahahaha!"

That'll do.

Conservative Pro-Immigration Mush-Headedness

I read the Volokh Conspiracy pretty regularly, but I rarely enjoy reading it. It's an important blog and is generally regarded as a conservative blog (though the fact that it has been absorbed by the Washington Post makes me question how true that assumption is). Unfortunately, it's a blog run by lawyers and is marred by the fact that its writers think like lawyers.

What I mean by that, is that the writers often concern themselves far more with what is legal, or what can be justified by precedent and case law, than what is right. As lawyers, they have a certain respect for the laws and the processes surrounding them. I view that as a liability. Law is often twisted for evil while maintaining a scrupulous attention toward legal language and precedent.

The blog also appears to be generally pro-immigration. I think this is an extension of the fact that the authors are academics, and far more caught up in ivory tower theorizing than the facts on the ground in immigrant-heavy neighborhoods like the ones in which my rental properties stand.

I consider the pro-immigration stance to be an almost comically unjustifiable position on the merits, so it causes me to have grave doubts about their intellectual honesty in other areas (pretty much the opposite of the Gell-Mann Amnesia phenomenon. I try to actively cultivate this. If you discover a source being outrageously ignorant in an area about which you are knowledgeable, you should assume until proven otherwise that they are ignorant on subjects about which you are not very knowledgeable).

An example of this is the recent article "Assessing immigration policy as if immigrants were people too". How can you take seriously an article that starts off with such an outrageous straw man assertion? Point me to the ranks of immigration opponents who don't think immigrants are people, too? They are virtually* non-existent. This is a blatant attempt to demonize the opposition by the inference that they think of immigrants as less than human. It's ridiculous and offensive.

Of course immigration opponents think immigrants are people, too. We also happen to think that, as these people are citizens of other nations, it is those nations that have primary responsibility for protecting those citizens' rights and privileges under law. If that nation is failing in its responsibilities that does not mean that all of a sudden those people become the responsibility of the U.S.

Either you support the idea that the U.S. is justified in exercising Manifest Destiny over the entire world, or you accept that much of the world population is simply neither our problem nor our responsibility, nor should it be.

Also, lets make it plainly clear, when pro-immigration forces talk about "immigrants" they really mean "illegal immigrants." Failure to be clear on the distinction is another characteristic piece of intellectual dishonesty common to pro-immigration types. Of course, many of them are also "open borders" types who believe in the ludicrous proposition that anyone should be able to choose to reside in any nation they wish at any time.

As to the illegals: people who flaunt our laws, violate our sovereign territory, and engage in persistent deception to hide their illegal status or who refuse to accept the legal consequences for it are terrible candidates for permanent residency or citizenship. They are, by definition, people who do not respect our laws. They are, by definition, criminals.

Let's state the obvious: every person in the world is a person. It makes as much sense to talk about "assessing immigration policy as if immigrants were people too" as it does to talk about "assessing anti-terrorism policy as if terrorists were people too." Yes. Terrorists are people. We know that. It's rather beside the point. What is not beside the point is that what these people are not, is citizens of our country.

The article says "For many current and potential immigrants, denying them entry or deporting them once they have arrived means consigning them to a life of poverty and oppression in Third World countries."

First, our primary source of immigrants by several orders of magnitude is Mexico. Despite popular perception, Mexico is not a third-world country. It's an advanced, industrialized nation with large government, business and education infrastructures. It uses immigration as a means of letting off steam -- exporting its malcontents and its peasants rather than addressing their needs. Consigning someone to a lifetime in Mexico is not a crime against humanity, so lets stop pretending it is.

As for immigrants from truly hellish places -- pick a random African nation -- well, Africa is filled with hundreds of millions of desperate, impoverished people. It's patently ridiculous to say that our only humane option is to give each of them a free pass to the U.S. Even if it were possible to import the entire population of Africa to the U.S., if you think doing so wouldn't destroy the U.S. as we know it, you're lying to me or to yourself.

Anyway, if we really want to bring U.S. style rights and benefits to all the downtrodden people of Africa, wouldn't it simply be more efficient to take over Africa? Start a new colonial, imperial era? That would give the downtrodden people the advantage of being able to remain in a familiar land, speak a familiar language, and give us ample space to accommodate them all. Of course, this would be terrible! First, it's part of the liberal catechism that colonialism is terrible (all the ways that perception is wrong is fodder for a different article). Second, the Africans would fight us tooth and nail. For some reason millions of them want to bring Africa to the U.S., but they're not so keen on bringing the U.S. to Africa (except when it means us sending them boatloads of food and money). I'm fine with that. Let them just stay in Africa, then, and fix it.

At a fundamental level of human dignity, each man's fate and destiny is his own. If you want a better world, you have to build it, not expect it to be handed to you on a platter.

The author's answer to this: "One can argue that the US government is not responsible for the poverty and oppression that exists in Third World countries, and therefore we have no moral obligation to let in immigrants fleeing from it. But when we restrict immigration, we do more than simply ignore poverty and oppression created by others. We actively use force to prevent immigrants from escaping those terrible conditions – even in cases where there are Americans who are perfectly willing to engage in voluntary transactions with those migrants, by hiring them for jobs or letting them rent housing."

Unless the immigrant is to become an indentured servant of the U.S. citizen that is willing to hire them or house them, it is ridiculous to assert that the mere willingness of employers and landlords to transact with immigrants negates the societal effect of immigration. A permanent immigrant impacts the public space in numerous ways, and as citizens we have a right to expect our government to prioritize current citizens over those desirous of citizenship or residency. None of what the author says in any way establishes a plausible right to immigration.

I have to admit, the original article and the one in the link above are so endlessly tiresome to me that I can barely be motivated to slog through their rationalizations. We're arguing from different first principles. My first principle is that a state exists to serve the needs of its existing citizens, to protect their rights. A state has no meaningful concern with the rights of those outside its borders. Those people are beyond its jurisdiction in both positive and negative senses. The state has no more obligation to honor the right to immigrate of foreigners than it does to honor the right to trial by jury of citizens of North Korea. Surely the citizens of North Korea have such a right. Just as surely, we're not about to go to war with North Korea to defend North Korean citizens from their own government.

Likewise with immigration, the state has an interest in defending the right of its own citizens to immigrate to other lands, and promoting treaties and international laws that facilitate this. But, it does not have an interest or obligation to promote or defend the rights of Mexicans to immigrate to the U.S. The priorities of a nation are not necessarily symmetrical.

The cold, hard fact on the ground is that if every person in the world has the right to immigrate to the U.S., then the U.S. will itself shortly cease to exist as it currently exists.

You simply cannot allow several billion people with no interest in the United States' tradition as a constitutional republic with a limited government and a presumption of liberty and autonomy of its citizens to overrun the country. The vast majority of the world's population is some combination of tribalist or socialist, and simply wants to get in to the U.S. and get as big a piece of the public pie as they can via any means they can.

I see the Somalis in Columbus, Ohio rioting over Section 8 housing slots. These are not a people who are embracing our tradition of rugged individualism. What they're embracing is our handouts. To continue to import people like that is national suicide! I refuse to even spend too much thought over pro-immigration navel-gazing when they can't even recognize that elephant standing right in front of them. I say:

Listen you over-educated bunch of academic soft-heads -- the starving masses from around the world are not rational, acadamic philosophers. They are not your friends. They don't come in peace. They don't have a reverence for your progressive pluralistic, "diverse" society. They come to consume you. Wake the hell up.

If they want a nice country, they can fight for it just like our forefathers did. On their own ground. They can't have ours.

* I say "virtually" to account for the theory that for every crackpot idea, you can find someone on the internet who supports it.

Journalists: Big Numbers Are Hard!

I only saw it today, but back in August PJ Media published an article "Is America Inching Toward A Police State?" Now, it is not the purpose of this post to evaluate whether the answer to that question is yes or no. The purpose of the article is to highlight the journalistic device of "scary big numbers!"

In article after article, you see the authors refer to some "scary big number" or other, clearly with the intent to shock. Unfortunately, in almost all cases the numbers lack context and proportionality.

I don't have anything against this particular author -- I'm even sympathetic to his thesis -- but intellectual honesty compels me to ridicule his use of "scary big numbers" when such numbers are, in fact, ridiculous.

The offending example in this article is these two short paragraphs:

Whitehead said NSA personnel told him that a new facility in Utah has a computer that downloads 1 trillion bytes of information from the Internet every month.
“The new computer they have is so powerful, it can actually download the entire content of the Library of Congress in six hours,” Whitehead said.

 Wow. One trillion bytes! That's sure a scary big number! One trillion bytes, why that's ... um ... 931 gigabytes. Smaller than the typical hard drive in a home PC. Per month, that's 31 GB per day. That's maybe 150-160 Netflix movies a day. In other words, nothing compared to a typical hour in the life of the U.S. internet.

It's such an arbitrary and laughably small number, the author is almost surely missing something. The number is either wrong, or it isn't referring to what the author thinks it's referring to.

We'll probably never know, because the author didn't know enough to be critical about the scary big number.

AT&T Pointless Privacy Protection

I talked to an AT&T rep. today to add a feature to my phone. At one point, she had to get an official acknowledgment from me before she was allowed to use my account information to discuss promotional offers with me. I said to her, "It's very ironic that you have to get special permission from me just to access my account information so you can discuss my own account with me, but you don't have to get my permission to send all my call metadata to the NSA."

Right. Now that we have that cleared up.