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It's important to appreciate that Libertarian voters are not merely Republicans with an eccentric streak. Libertarians tend to support gay rights and open borders; they tend to oppose the drug war and hawkish foreign policies. Some of them wouldn't vote if they didn't have the Libertarian option.Which is ridiculous, of course. Concern about civil liberties and other socially liberal policies isn't just the domain of libertarians. Lots of conservative and Republican voters care about it, too. The GOP would be in for a dangerous time if the Democrats ever started showing some backbone on civil liberties issues. Unfortunately, the Democrats are even worse than the Republicans on that score. And so people are going to vote Libertarian to protest that. Good. If the Republicans ever got their act together, started to cater more to their libertarian-leaning base rather than their religious one, they'd be the dominant party for decades, because they'd easily capture the swing voters.But Libertarians are also free-market devotees who are generally closer to Republicans than to the Democrats. "Exit polling shows that we take twice as many votes from Republicans as from Democrats," said George Getz, a spokesman for the Libertarian Party.
Yet Libertarians are now serving, in effect, as Democratic Party operatives. The next time they wonder why the Bush tax cuts aren't permanent, why Social Security isn't personalized and why there aren't more school-choice pilot programs for low-income kids, all they have to do is look in the mirror.
The Army has discharged six gay Arabic linguists studying at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, even as the military is clamoring to fill a critical shortage of fluent speakers of Middle Eastern languages.Keeping gays out of the military is stupid. The "don't ask, don't tell" policy is stupid. This is a free country. Any person who can meet the physical requirements of combat should be able to serve, regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation. That's the only sane, logical approach. The fact that we've dismissed people who are willing and able to serve in our armed forces due to a reactionary policy is appalling, and it ain't what America is about.The soldiers were dismissed after they disclosed their homosexuality, a violation of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy that says gay or lesbian soldiers may serve as long as they keep their sexual orientation private.
But --- Mr. Safire is doing a bit of scare-mongering of his own, because other then what is stored in your credit report, most of the information Safire lists as being "snoopable" generally is not, except in isolation. Combining everything into a central database is a technical feat which is almost impossible, especially for a government which up until recently, didn't even have the ability to search its own FBI database using more then one search term! There are too many different formats for the data, and it is stored in too many places to make any kind of automated, centralized system work. A detective with skill in computer forensics or a cyber-savvy private eye can go from database to database and put together a very solid profile of someone. But this takes time and costs money, and requires human skill, all of which are things that do not scale well or are amenable to being automated.He then goes on into great deal about why, exactly, it would be difficult. I'd encourage you to read it, and I'd like to give a big thank you to Mike--he's making breathe a bit easier.
But when the forces he unleashed galloped ahead of his plans, Gorbachev faced a choice: Turn totalitarian tyrant or let history have its head. Yes, he did countenance a crackdown in the Baltics. But as the Soviet Union's Eastern European bloc begin to break apart, he refused to thwart the process.I love how he just mentions in passing Gorbechev's brutal murder of innocents in the Baltics. Not even mentioned are the political prisoners who continued to be imprisoned and summarily executed. Gorbechev wasn't a statesman in his handling of the end of the Soviet Union. He was protecting his own ass. He was just smart enough to know that the USSR was finished, and that if he tried to crackdown, the resulting civil war would end with him being hanged in the middle of Red Square. But by letting the Soviet Union collapse, he assured that he would have a steady income provided for him by speaking tours with left-wing elites who would much rather credit him with the end of the Cold War than that evil cowboy, Reagan. And never mind the tortures and executions Gorbechev ordered, the families he split apart, and the tanks he ordered to fire on people who yearned to breathe free.Soviet tanks didn't roll. The Red Army didn't march. Strained by its own internal contradictions and undercut by his reforms, the massive empire crumbled peacefully.
If the Homeland Security Act is not amended before passage, here is what will happen to you:And if the law doesn't get amended, then let's pull the goddamn biggest civil disobedience movement of all time. I'm going to want to know everything there is to know about hacking, computerized database tracking, and how to get around computerized transactions. And I'm sure a lot of other people will want to, too. So let's do it!Every purchase you make with a credit card, every magazine subscription you buy and medical prescription you fill, every Web site you visit and e-mail you send or receive, every academic grade you receive, every bank deposit you make, every trip you book and every event you attend — all these transactions and communications will go into what the Defense Department describes as "a virtual, centralized grand database."
To this computerized dossier on your private life from commercial sources, add every piece of information that government has about you — passport application, driver's license and bridge toll records, judicial and divorce records, complaints from nosy neighbors to the F.B.I., your lifetime paper trail plus the latest hidden camera surveillance — and you have the supersnoop's dream: a "Total Information Awareness" about every U.S. citizen.
Al Gore was right in 2000 when he promised to continue using American power to defend liberal democracy around the world. And George W. Bush was wrong when he proposed a foreign policy based solely on narrow national interests. That the two have since reversed themselves is certainly interesting. But it doesn't change what made Gore's original foreign policy progressive during the 2000 campaign and what makes his new stance -- and the stance of most liberals -- woefully inadequate now.I don't agree with a lot of Just's rationale, not being liberal, but for those who are, this might prove useful.
Well, the Europeans may still be able to count on the sympathies and cultural deference of many East Coast journalists, but something has shifted among the diplomats, the think tanks and even many of the academics. At a think-tank meeting last week, when a European diplomat asked rather patronizingly what all these American weapons were actually for, a renowned liberal academic simply quoted Kipling's line about "Making mock of uniforms that guard you while you sleep." And then he turned on his heel and walked away.This is a dispiriting, but inevitable reaction. Europe is quick to crticize the U.S., hardly ever apologizes, and hardly ever gives credit for a job well done. The United States is often criticized for "not caring what other nations think," which is manifestly untrue, but nobody ever stops to care about what our government thinks. Fair's fair, y'know.America's foreign policy establishment is composed largely of people who seldom pay much attention to military matters, but since the Kosovo war they have come to appreciate the vast disparities between the U.S. armed forces and the rest. It is now widely understood that of all the Europeans, only the British can begin to fight on the same modern battlefield as the hugely expensive and technologically advanced American forces. The rest of the Europeans are so many free riders on the readiness of American taxpayers to spend twice as much as Europeans on what remains the common defense.
The student protests have spread to other cities and seem likely to continue unless the medieval mullahs stomp on them, an action which would just polarize any remaining fence sitters. The Iranian students are living proof there is a liberal, tolerant 21st Century face to Islam crying out for escape from the rule of fundamentalist fruitcakes.No arguments here.News media everywhere should be pushing this story with as much alacrity as possible. No reasonable person wants to see blanket hatreds grow. This is precisely what al Qaeda wants. If they have any strategy, it is to bring about the war of civilizations in hopes they can win by expending more lives than we in the civilized world have a stomach for. They are not sufficiently versed in history to understand how terribly mistaken they are or exactly how apocalyptic such a war would be for all... but most especially for them.
We must let the average guy on the street know there are Muslims out there who are just like him or her; people who want to live their lives, worship in their faith, exercise basic liberties... and most importantly, allow others to do the same.
UPDATE: Michael Ledeen has a great article about Iran, as well.
You know, though, Bush could throw the Democrats in the Senate into a tizzy by appointing, say, Randy Barnett -- a law professor from Boston University with experience as a criminal prosecutor, whose pro-choice credentials would confuse Democrats, as would his pro-gun credentials. As far as I'm concerned, it would be worth it just for the confusion it would create.Glenn mentions it as kind of a throwaway idea, but I think it's a helluva good one. I'd say that Barnett is eminently qualified to sit on the high court. I had the privilege of hearing him give a libertarian version of Originalism at last year's Federalist Society conference, and it was fantastic. He's smart, insightful, and has experience. What more do you want?
A cumulative analysis of dozens of domestic violence studies, published by British psychologist John Archer in the November 2000 issue of the journal Psychological Bulletin, found that overall rates of violence were roughly equal for men and women. While women were more likely to be injured in domestic assaults, a third of those sustaining such injuries were men.Which is important to note. Domestic violence isn't about sexism--it's about power and control. That desire for control might be partially rooted in sexism. But the desire to control others is, sadly, an altogether human trait, not limited by gender or sexual orientation.The numbers remain a subject of heated dispute. Battered women's advocates point to Justice Department surveys which find that only 15 percent of domestic assault victims every year are male. But because of the context of these surveys, they may miss many attacks that the victims do not regard as crimes. (They also find considerably lower numbers of female victims than the 2 million or 4 million a year commonly cited by the advocates.) The National Violence Against Women Survey, co-sponsored by the Justice Department and the Centers for Disease Control, estimated about 1.3 million women and 900,000 men are assaulted by spouses or partners every year.
Studies also consistently show that violence is no less likely to occur in gay and lesbian relationships than in heterosexual ones—which also undercuts the notion that domestic violence is a product of male oppression of women.
I am not religious myself, but people who are don’t bother me in the least. Sometimes I envy their conviction; sometimes I wish I could lend them my doubt, and I flatter myself to think we would each profit from the exchange. I’m more comfortable on this side because the people who take emotional satisfaction in trashing religion just annoy the piss out of me, and I want nothing to do with them. I’m not talking about atheists - at least they believe in something. I’m talking about those preening sneerbots who lack the capacity for spiritual contemplation, and think that anyone given to theosophical disquisitions is akin to a small boy expecting Superman to fly through the window and help him tie his shoe.I couldn't agree more. This is actually why I no longer really associate myself with objectivist circles like I used to, and why I've become more and more uncomfortable with any sort of organized political movement, despite having been active in the past. Part of being a decent human being, in my mind, is to be able to debate with somebody 'til you're blue in the face, but be able to buy him a beer afterwards. There are limits to this, of course. Certain types of people, like racists, will be shunned by me completely. But by and large, anybody who desires to change minds through persuasion rather than coercion is somebody I can get along with.I’m not the first to note this, but: for some, politics has taken the place of religion. As usual, this basic observation has been inflated to cover entire groups, and lazy writers will say that the ENTIRE LEFT has replaced religion with politics. Nonsense. There is a religious left in this country - they’re the ones holding prayer vigils, asking God to keep the United States from removing Saddam. There are the religious liberals, who may take issue with the positions of their church, but are devout believers, and vote Democratic because they believe this is the best way to achieve a certain set of objectives; they are motivated by their conceptions of justice and compassion, and regard liberal policies not as the only way to achieve them, but the surest and the best. But with many there is a belief that liberalism itself is not just a superior method for achieving certain goals, but an idea that is inherently nobler, and bestows on the believer a moral advantage not available to people who believe otherwise. I’ve never thought that people who don’t share my views on national security or economic policy are morally inferior. I’m not fighting Nazis or Soviets here. I’m dealing with fellow Americans about tax brackets.
The teenager accused of participating in the sniper attacks that terrorized the Washington region has told investigators that he pulled the trigger in several of the shootings, three law enforcement sources said yesterday.His lawyer is naturally moving to suppress this evidence in court, but I don't think that he's got any real grounds to do so.During an interrogation that lasted about seven hours, John Lee Malvo provided details about several of the slayings that authorities have linked to him and John Allen Muhammad, including killings in Fairfax and Prince William counties and the District, the sources said.
So a defense of capitalism, of freedom of trade, requires these four philosophical ideas: reason, egoism, harmony of interests, and mind-body integration. The rejection of any of them generally leads to statism. The rejection of reason leads to the paternalistic state. The rejection of egoism leads to the welfare state. The rejection of the harmony of interests leads to the egalitarian state. And the rejection of mind-body integration leads to the theocratic state.For the time being, I will grant her argument that reason and harmony of interests are relatively indispensible for capitalsim. But are egoism and mind-body integration really necessary philosophic defenses for capitalism? I don't think so.
Looking at egoism, Diana's main argument is based upon the assumption that egoism and altruism are not only complete opposites, but that they are the only two ethical theories. And even more to the point, she is making the assumption that coercion is a valid under an altruist ethical theory, which isn't necessarily true, either. But let's look at ethics and capitalism/libertarianism. Are egoism and altruism the only ethical theories? Certainly not. Utilitarianism isn't necessarily altruistic. Neither is the categorical imperative, yet both principles have been used to argue in support of liberty and capitalism (by Mill and Kant, respectively). There are plenty of other ethical theories, as well, which don't necessarily fall under the egoism/altruism rubric, and yet can be used to support libertariansm/capitalism.
In addition, mind-body integration isn't necessary to capitalism. In fact, it could be argued that mind-body integration can, in fact, undermine capitalism. One of the failings of materialist philosophy is that it does not provide a satisfactory answer to the existence of free will. If the universe is completely materialistic, then free will, by definition, does not exist. This is because a completely material universe involves a completely material consciousness. That being the case, consciousness is subject to natural law just like everything else. Which means that, given enough information and knowledge, it would be possible to predict the decisions of every human being into the future accurately. If that's the case, free will does not exist, because such predictions would prove that the actions of human beings are not made by "choice," but are rather pre-determined. And if free will does not exist, then choices cannot actually be made, and the entire principle of voluntarism, which libertarianism is based on, falls through the floor. If this argument is correct, and there are a lot of people who make it, then the only way for there to be free will is if consciousness is (in whole or in part) immaterial, and thus there cannot be mind-body integration.
In my mind, it's too simplistic to surmise that there is only one philosophic foundation for a particular political or economic system. The nature of human existence limits the number of possible socio-economic systems. However, the only real limit on philosophic argument is human imagination. This being the case, it is inevitable that many different integrated philosophies can logically result in virtually the same political system. This is not to say that people shouldn't worry what the right philosophic system is, or what the right political system is. To me, philosophy should be treated like science (which, much to its discredit, it is not), which implies that there probably is only one correct, fully integrated philosophy. Ditto for politics. Different policies that have different results, and that can be empirically determined. And so it can be said that certain policies lead to certain outcomes.
However, I think that it is foolish to say that supporters of certain political systems and ideas must have the same philosophic background. Politics doesn't work that way. Like it or not, it is highly unlikely that there will ever be one dominant philosophic system in any polity ever. That being the case, if you support a certain brand of politics, and you want it to succeed at all, you will have to work and support people whose philosophic foundations for such politics are completely different from yours. And that's reality. It's not wrong to argue with those persons about their philosophy, but if it goes to the point of excluding them from politicking, or accusing their fundamental philosophy of being counterproductive, then you are likely to have nothing more than fragments of political movements that will never accomplish anything. Politics is a branch of philosophy, yes. But practical politics means learning to work with people whose ideas you disagree with in order to reach a common goal.
-- Alfred, Lord Tennyson, from Ulysses