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Monday, October 31, 2005 posted by Eric at 08:29 PM | Comments (2)
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Breaking News
It's official. Alito is the nominee. Might the trial lawyers consider him their enemy in light of his previous rulings? I haven't researched this, but in light of my last post, I hope so. MORE: Alito might be a victory for free speech, which would doom McCain-Feingold: Alito is noted for his fidelity to the First Amendment protections for freedom of speech—which may make the recent 5-4 evisceration of those protections by the Court in McConnell v. FEC at issue UPDATE: Michelle Malkin has a huge roundup. And Glenn had one before the nomination was official. posted by Eric at 09:10 AM | Comments (2)
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Why I'm a lawyer in name only....
Every once in a while, I'll see something which triggers what Leon Kass would probably call my "repugnance" factor. The occasion for my outburst of repugnance is a jury verdict clearing the way for "$1.8 billion for physical and emotional pain and suffering and loss of business and wages" for victims of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. The legal "reasoning" is that the New York Port Authority is more legally at fault than the terrorists who committed the act: In what some legal experts characterized as a startling footnote to history, the jury found that the Port Authority was 68 percent at fault for allowing the bombing to occur, while the terrorists who carried out the bombing were 32 percent responsible.(HT, Orin Kerr and David Bernstein.) Part of my outrage is that I used to work as a personal injury lawyer, and I understand the legal theory and the legal thinking behind such an atrocious result. The law operates in a moral vacuum -- totally devoid of common sense. That's because the lawyers are little more than emotional mouthpieces for their clients, and they have a mindless creature called "the law" behind them. This thing that we call "the law" is constantly "evolving" -- especially the tort law variety -- and the result is that theories of liability are continually expanding, and the size of awards is constantly escalating. This has produced a class of parasitic multimillionaires who can then either use their millions to run for office, fund politicians who will do their bidding, set up and fund so-called "think tanks," and even create new media outlets to malign anyone threatening the basis of their wealth. I consider them parasitic scum, I think their wealth is ill-gotten gain, and hence my moral repugnance. Whether their legal theories are correct, of course, depends on how many courts of appeals will do their bidding, and how many politicians are too cowed to do anything about them. My distaste for these people is grounded in guilt heightened by deep feelings of personal hypocrisy, for I once belonged to their class. I used to argue for ever-larger verdicts, and ever-expanded theories of tort liability, even though I knew in my heart that this was wrong. And my heart echoed what was in my head, for as a libertarian I never agreed with the theories I promoted. I rationalized it as a "career," and as a way to "make a living." Had it not been for AIDS coming along and destroying my social network, I might still be doing something I consider morally abhorrent. There's no rational connection between losing friends to AIDS and rejecting the legal system, but what AIDS did was trigger something best characterized as an "epiphanic depression" -- in which I found that I could not participate in things which seemed to have no ultimate purpose than to make the world a worse place. Certainly not while the people around me were dying. I suppose I could have had the opposite reaction, and looked for defendants to sue on expanded theories of AIDS liability, but I had just had it with blaming people, perhaps because I felt so overdosed on personal guilt. Anyway, the guilt made me reject my class -- the personal injury lawyer class. That, however, did nothing to stop the relentless legal theorizing which leads to results like saying New York is twice as guilty as the terrorists. There is no way I or anyone else can stop these people, because they are simply drawn to the money the way cockroaches are drawn to kitchen garbage, and the legal theories are a product of highly motivated, highly intelligent minds. They know how to appeal to human emotions of the juries, and enough of them are judges and politicians that no result is too absurd. Above all, they are champions of the sacrosanct "victim." The "little guy," whose life has been ruined and who needs money. And the large, nameless, faceless entities have it. And the romanticized, heroic jury is there to "do justice" -- usually to take from the nameless "deep pocket" (who has plenty of money anyway) and give to the victim. It's applied populism at work, and the fuel is human emotion. As to the legal theories, they are there, and unfortunately (much to my horror), they are quite logical. Back to the Port Authority verdict: Stephen Gillers, another NYU law professor, compared the verdict to a landlord-tenant case in which a tenant was mugged in a dark elevator. "From a moral perspective, you're going to blame the mugger," he said. "From a legal perspective, the law says, Is there anything the landlord could have done to prevent this?"That's a pretty good statement of the law, and you don't have to be that bright to understand that it does make the Port Authority liable. It's grounded in communitarianism, and I was disgusted by it years ago, even as I was forced to pay verbal homage to the bogus theories that paid me. It may sound cruel, but I prefer blaming the mugger -- theory be damned. Thoughts like these, of course, threaten the livelihood of people who see themselves as doing good, of working hard to make the world a better place. But should their view of themselves be controlling over the moral issue of whether they're in fact making the world a worse place? A few years ago, I took my mandatory "Continuing Legal Education" course, and happened to spend some time hanging out with some typical specimens of the creature I once was. They were nice, intelligent, motivated young men, who wanted two things: In an unforgettable moment (because it reminded me of a classic movie line), PI lawyer A said to PI lawyer B, "The big money is in toxics!" And I am sure it is. "Toxics" includes such things as discovering that a building has a layer of lead paint buried somewhere, that some child might have eaten some of it, and that some owner somewhere in the title chain has a large enough insurance policy to motivate one of these well-meaning neo-Robin Hoods to charge after the evil company in the name of another victim. Anyway, the guys who were talking toxics were nice, and I hung out with them. What would have been the point of spoiling their day by telling them they're making the world a worse place? I wouldn't have felt any better, they wouldn't have felt any better, it wouldn't have caused them to abandon their profession, and besides, from where the hell would I derive any moral authority at all? I don't claim to have any, nor should I. And really, just because I don't like the system they're caught up in does not mean I wish them ill or dislike them individually. (As Eisenhower once said about Southern segregationists, "These are not bad people.") Herein lies the rub: it may be a terrible thing to say, but I think that people who believe they're doing good when they're not are far more sinister than ordinary rogues and villains. So why did I just say they are nice guys? Hmmmm..... Surely no one today would say that about Southern segregationists. (And quite possibly few would say it about trial lawyers.) Maybe another illustration will make this clearer. While no one will defend a criminal who might steal $100.00 from you either by force or by fraud, suppose we give a man a badge, a gun, radar equipment, and an unmarked car. And suppose we tell him we'll pay him a salary if he pulls over and extorts $100.00 from anyone he can catch driving faster than 55 miles per hour on highways on which the average speed is 75 mph. From a purely moral perspective, most of his victims are people committing no crime more serious than driving to or from work. In another age, at another time, the extortionist would be seen as a criminal. A highwayman, even. But despite the fact that he spends his time making a living this way, we tell him that he's "helping society." Over time, he will come to believe it himself -- even going so far as to tell people that they were "endangering others" by exceeding an absurdly low speed limit put in place for the sole purpose of gathering revenue. Most of these cops are in fact nice guys, and good people -- as are the lawyers I recklessly and insensitively called "parasitic scum." (Besides, some of my best friends . . .) The harsh realities of such contradictions only make it worse.
posted by Eric at 06:50 AM | Comments (5)
| TrackBacks (0) Sunday, October 30, 2005
Sleepy Fall afternoon
As it's just about that time of the year, this afternoon I spent a couple of hours in Philadelphia's historic Laurel Hill Cemetery.
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What's good for me is good for thee?
In the spirit of Sunday, I thought I'd respond to a thoughtful comment -- to this post -- left by Enrique Cardova. Here's the comment: "This is another example of what I said earlier -- that "attempts to discourage something can nonetheless glamorize it just as much attempts to encourage it."I have no argument with that, except I was talking about government, not parenting. Parenting strikes me as a little trickier, because children are in need of parental supervision and discipline. How to do that, and how much of it to do, is up to the parents. They're the ones who had the kids, and they're the ones who should draw the lines. Some would draw a hard line (I probably would), but others wouldn't. Unless a parent is criminally careless or abusive, it is not the government's business. The major buyers of "gangsta" for example are white youth, but at the end of the day, after the irritating music is turned down, most white parents will have effectively applied the brakes to those youths who unwisely and naively "go native". Fears of "glamorization" should not prevent strong action being taken to discourage negative behavior. In fact that is one of the problems of American culture today- a cowardice that too often wants the easy way out, fears being accused of being "judgemental," and fails to stand up and speak up, unfashionable as it may be.I can't speak for "the culture," because I see trashy parents raising trashy kids, and diligent caring parents raising good kids, and I don't think it's fair to reduce them to a common denominator. What I was talking about was blaming, say, musicians, television or members of the media for the sexual conduct of their consumers, who go there voluntarily, just as people fatten themselves at McDonald's voluntarily. As for homosexuality, its proponents and apologists conveniently duck the clear word and moral principle of the scriptures to justify themselves. The comment about Leviticus and shellfish by Triticale, is typical evasion. The Mosaic laws primarily have a moral bearing, although there is a practical public health aspect as well. The prohibition against shellfish, as against other things, illustrates the moral principle of confining things to their proper sphere- the principle of separation. The same moral principle applies in a deeper way to homosexuality. Marriage for example, is to be confined to man and woman, for that is its proper sphere. There is no "free for all" approved between those of the same sex or between adults and children, craved as these may be by certain people.Moral principles found in religious texts -- whether of a dietary or sexual nature -- are not the business of government to enforce. It does not require religious scripture, however, to determine that children are not adults. They are not legally capable of consent, and thus cannot enter into contracts nor consent to sexual relations. While their parents have a primary duty to protect them, they also require legal protection that adults (who are legally capable protecting themselves) do not. It is no more logical to equate sex between two adults with sex between adult and a child than it is to compare a contract signed by an adult to a "contract" signed by a child. (Or for that matter, to equate consensual sex with rape.) The ban on shellfish, as with pork and other foods once deemed unclean was lifted by Christianity (see Acts 10 and 11). Food as such, provided by God was no longer to be despised. However the MORAL PRINCIPLE of separation- the clean from the unclean still remains, convenient as it is to forget it. And in the case of homosexuality, that ban was never lifted by Christianity. In fact homosexuality is again condemned in the New Testament. That condemnation was never lifted. See the verses below showing how again it is condemned. No matter what dodge or "spin" homosexuals or their apologists try, they cannot get around this. The Council of Jerusalem formally released Christians from being bound by the strictures of the Mosaic Law. However, in a compromise, four specific things were prohibited as off limits to Christians:
Bear in mind that this wasn't Jesus speaking, but an early conference of Christian leaders. I don't know how many Christian leaders consider themselves bound by the Council of Jerusalem, but the selective citation of Leviticus -- and the bizarre idea of establishing a "Christian Mosaic State" -- makes me wonder. Assuming Christians are not to fornicate, why does the homosexual variety receive such disproportionate attention? While the commenter seems to have quoted correctly from words attributed to Paul, whether Paul wanted his opinions translated into laws promulgated by governments is far from clear. Indeed, whether Christians are bound by Paul's thoughts is far from clear, as Paul was only a man, and not even an actual disciple. (Accepting the claim that he met Jesus requires an act of Paulinist faith.) I have no problem with moral rules, dietary rules, or dress codes, and if I had kids I wouldn't want them carrying on like gangsta rappers either.* My complaint is when the state treats people like children, that's what they'll get. That's the major difference between our free society and those in which the state claims to rule in the name of God. When the mullahs are away, the (adult) children will play. (And the flout the government dress code.) People who are in need of a moral shepherd with ultimate authority over their lives have every right to seek out, find, and follow one. What violates my sense of freedom is when they decide I must follow theirs.
But if I might think a dress code for kids is a good idea, others might disagree. I have no right to tell other people what to do with their kids, much less tell adults what to wear.
As the same NT says: "By their fruits, ye shall know them." I agree. This was taken yesterday in New Jersey in the spirit of the season: ![]() (But what do I know about the fruits of others?) posted by Eric at 08:06 AM | Comments (11)
| TrackBacks (0) Saturday, October 29, 2005
Thrills on the road!
Exciting visit from out of town guest. Big trip today. Further blogging will probably be late. posted by Eric at 10:42 AM | Comments (3)
| TrackBacks (0) Friday, October 28, 2005
Encouraging persecution?
Local officials in Lansdowne, PA were kind enough to censor anti-gay activist Michael Marcavage for preaching at them during an open comment portion of their council meeting. This provided him a major opportunity: The founder of an evangelical Christian group has filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court against Lansdowne Borough over an incident in which he tried to read from the Bible at a council meeting in July 2004.Why did I say they were "kind" to Marcavage? Because their ill-considered action has given Marcavage good legal grounds to file a lawsuit. He'll end up getting far more leverage this way than he would have if they'd just let him read the usual Leviticus language about homo abominations. Sigh. This is another example of what I said earlier -- that "attempts to discourage something can nonetheless glamorize it just as much attempts to encourage it." Marcavage is a pro, and the city council people are amateurs. posted by Eric at 04:17 PM | Comments (4)
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Who should be the criminal here?
As a libertarian, I have an uneasy feeling about this proposed legislation -- which would require private businesses to do what the police aren't allowed to do: City councilman Darrell Clarke says it’s happening all too frequently. Panhandlers at gas stations, he says, intimidate drivers into letting them pump the gas for a handout:I absolutely hate being panhandled, so my sympathies are with the people being asked for money. But having been a small business owner myself, I can tell you what a hassle it is to get the police to do anything about street derelicts who "hang out." For the most part, they really can't arrest them unless they break laws. And few cities have laws against panhandling. Those that do usually have "time, place and manner laws" like this one which was proposed in Atlanta. But the street derelicts are a favorite cause (fodder, really) of professional activists who yell and scream about the "rights" of the "homeless" to do precisely such things as hassle people for money. This is deemed their First Amendment right. (And I could easily envision an activist construing a pushy attempt to grab a gas pump as "an attempt to find work.") Philadelphia has a 10 year plan to end homelessness, and even boasts a "homelessness Czar." According to Philadelphia's Project H.O.M.E. (which I just called on the phone) panhandling is not illegal in Philadelphia, and that organization generally opposes proposed legislation that would "target homeless people." But I am not at all sure this is a homelessness issue. Hassling people at gas pumps strikes me as an opportunistic way of shaking people down, but I see no reason why it would necessarily be linked to homelessness. Many people assume that people who ask for money are marginal types, and they equate this with homelessness, but I recall a study years ago in Berkeley found that a surprisingly large number of panhandlers actually lived at fixed, identifiable addresses, that many paid rent, and some made plenty of money panhandling. While I do think gas station owners should police their stations, I'm wondering whether the market approach might not be the best solution. If customers learn that a given station is plagued by itinerant "gas pumpers," they'd be well advised to find another station. What strikes me as a bit unfair is the idea of fining person A for the conduct of person B -- without, apparently even the conduct of person B being illegal. I mean, if it is to be a crime to allow panhandling at your business, shouldn't the panhandling also be illegal? posted by Eric at 01:00 PM | Comments (6)
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It's official!
Lewis Libby has just been indicted for "making false statements to grand jury." (Via CNN and Fox News.) MORE: Glenn's ahead of the game. So are Tom Maguire (who asks "How Covert Was Valerie Plame?") and Roger L. Simon. Like me, Roger is "still trying to puzzle out the arcane and not so arcane motivations behind the endless Valerie Plame melodrama." It's almost a labyrinth. So, so, CIA-like.... UPDATE: The full Indictment (in PDF) can be read here. (And the PDF of the press release is here.) UPDATE (3:10 p.m.): Watching Fitzgerald attempt to explain to disapppointed reporters why only perjury and obstruction were charged in the indictment (and not outing the more delicious charge of identity of a covert agent), I was struck by an old, Watergate-vintage expression: THE COVERUP IS WORSE THAN THE CRIME! But Tom Maguire said it first, not me! posted by Eric at 12:46 PM
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Prophecies not to be re-misunderestimated . . .
On the G. Gordon Liddy Show, I just heard WND founder Joseph Farah predict that 4th Circuit Justice Maureen Mahoney will be President Bush's next nominee. From his WND article: Mahoney is perhaps most famous for representing the University of Michigan before the Supreme Court defending its indefensible affirmative-action program. She wasn't just a hired gun. She really believed in the case. She really believed that government agencies should discriminate against people based on race. She really believed that was constitutional and moral.I'll remember it. (Not that Farah's predictions are always right, but he did predict that Miers was "going to withdraw her name from consideration before such hearings ever begin.") But there's something else worth remembering. (Or re-remembering.) While it wasn't quite as fervent a prediction as Farah's, Captain Ed also speculated that Maureen Mahoney would be an ideal "stealth" nominee -- and that was on October 2, before Bush announced Miers. Noting that Mahoney's "conservative outlook seems beyond question," he credits MSNBC for having first added the name to the hopper, and said she'd be an ideal Roberts-style nominee: If anyone wants to look for a surprise candidate, one that could duplicate many of the same problems for the Democrats that the Roberts nomination created, Maureen Mahoney might just be that nominee.With the Miers now withdrawn, Captain Ed's prediction has yet to be proven wrong, and right now it's looking very intriguing. Me, I'm not much of a clairvoyant (and while I'm hoping for Reynolds/Volokh/Barnett/Kozinski I'd settle for Janice Rogers Brown). Which means that for now I'll stay on the safe side and predict the nominee will either be Maureen Mahoney, or someone else! Just as a picture is worth a thousand words, I think two predictions are worth a picture, so here's a picture of Maureen Mahoney: ![]() Whether looks count (and whether they should) really ought to be another topic..... MORE: Edith Jones and Alice Batchelder are favorites of Volokh Conspiracy's Todd Zywicki, whose reasoning makes sense to me. Concludes Zywicki, If the President decides to appoint a woman, it seems obvious that Jones is head-and-shoulders above the pack, with Batchelder making an excellent choice as well. As far as I can see, there are no other candidates in the same league as these two. posted by Eric at 10:48 AM | Comments (2)
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Long life accessorizing
A piece on the fashionability of "prophetable" attire caught my attention recently. Cambridge, EnglandYou know what? If I did those things, I wouldn't be taken for a prophet; I'd be taken for Charles Manson. Believe me, it isn't fun. I'm already inclined to sympathize with the misunderstood prophet: By these measures, Aubrey de Grey is indeed a prophet. The 42-year-old English biogerontologist has made his name by claiming that some people alive right now could live for 1,000 years or longer. Maybe much longer. Growing old is not, in his view, an inevitable consequence of the human condition; rather, it is the result of accumulated damage at the cellular and molecular levels that medical advances will soon be able to prevent — or even reverse — allowing people to go on living pretty much indefinitely. We'll still have to worry about angry bears and falling pianos, but aging, the biggest killer of all, will cease to be a threat. Death, as we know it, will die.Much as I'd hate being seen as a Manson lookalike (and thus try to maintain a professional appearance), the idea of being a prophet of immortality instead of a prophet of doom appeals to my perverse side, so I'm liking this guy -- even if the intent of the piece is to get me to write him off as a nut. Ms. de Grey taught her husband genetics over the dinner table. She was amazed at how quickly he could absorb the concepts. "Very shortly we were able to have a conversation rather than a tutorial," she says. While talking about her academic career and her relationship, Ms. de Grey is puffing away steadily on an unfiltered Camel. Mr. de Grey would like her to quit, but she's been a smoker since she was a teenager and believes that nicotine is necessary to kick-start her brain. Unlike her husband, Ms. de Grey has no wish to live forever. She has not agreed to be cryogenically frozen when she dies. (Mr. de Grey has, just in case medicine does not advance speedily enough to save him.)She's right about nicotine kick-starting the brain. It's much better than coffee, and I used to use the former to force myself to write blog posts late at night. (Unlike coffee, the nic wears off and allows you to sleep. But it's highly addictive, and I think it's best saved for emergencies.) I like the idea of the prophet's wife not being a follower of the stuff her husband preaches, either. It's elementary in propheteering that every good prophet must be rejected by those closest to him. This guy just keeps looking better and better -- no matter what they say about him! And the ad hominem tone just builds and builds: He also has a talent for drumming up publicity. His eccentricities (the long beard, the thrift-store clothes, the pub crawling) appeal to journalists looking for a colorful feature subject. There is also his willingness — eagerness, in fact — to explain his plan for fighting aging to any reporter with a notebook and time to kill. More publicity, he hopes, will lead to more donations. The donations can then be used to help finance the kinds of research Mr. de Grey believes are most important.Oh please! Why don't they just call themselves the Death Lobby, join forces with insurance actuaries, euthanasia advocates, and moral conservative Kass Klones, and be done with it? The editorial took a more ad hominem approach. Mr. Pontin wrote that Mr. de Grey "drinks too much beer" and that even though he's just in his early 40s "the signs of decay are strongly marked on his face." He also called the potential social consequences of extending life indefinitely "terrible" and wrote that Mr. de Grey "thinks he is a technological messiah."I'm liking de Grey more and more.
The question is whether that stuff will prove to be true. Gregory M. Fahy, a biologist and vice president and chief scientific officer of 21st Century Medicine, a biomedical research company, was very skeptical at first. While they still do not agree on everything, Mr. Fahy has been largely won over. And, like Mr. Finkelstein, he respects Mr. de Grey for his courage in the face of ridicule. "If you think you're right, you have to stand up and say what you believe even if people think you're nuts," says Mr. Fahy. "Now, if they prove you're nuts, you have to shut up. But that hasn't happened yet."More than anything, I hope de Grey is right. It strikes me that presidential appointees wouldn't be going on the offensive if there was no, um, future in immortality. (But this post was only about immortal fashion. Life extension is Justin's department....) posted by Eric at 10:03 AM | Comments (2)
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Weak test of strength? Or strong test of weakness?
Dick Polman thinks that George W. Bush weakened himself by nominating Harriet Miers, and, now that the nomination has been killed by the right wing, that will weaken Bush further: it's likely that he will find a new nominee who will please the base - a jurist with a reliably conservative track record who would move the court rightward, as Bush has always promised.Well, "the Democrats" may insist that the weak Bush is simply being jerked around by "the far Right," but the Miers nomination was opposed by a huge number of people. Via InstaPundit, the WSJ cites a large CNN poll: 80% of the more than 130,000 voters agree with the withdrawal of Miers's nomination.I find it a little tough to believe that 80% of this sampling constitutes "the far Right." In the editorial cited by Polman, the NRO, after belittling Bush's apparent weakness ("Gloating would be unseemly" says it all), concludes by going out of its way to hope Bush doesn't to do something which, if done, would be anything but weak: We do not for a moment believe that the president will pick someone unacceptable to conservatives out of spite.Frankly, that contrary side of me that hates to be told what to do (and admires Eugene Volokh for blogging about things because of attempts to cow him into submission) almost hopes Bush does pick an unacceptable nominee out of spite. It wouldn't be good for either the liberal or conservative "causes" though (or for his party or, for that matter, the country), but I'd still enjoy seeing some of those unelected, self-appointed moralizers -- who think they have a God-given right to run the country -- get a well-deserved come-uppance. (Something I predicted as a possibility in earlier posts.) What's interesting about the NRO editorial is that it simply cannot be squared with what Thomas Sowell said when he contemplated the Miers nomination -- in the face of a weak Senate -- weeks ago: What is weak is the Republican majority in the Senate.I thought Thomas Sowell had a good point when he concluded that Miers was "the best choice Bush could make under the[se political] circumstances." But NRO -- and Polman -- would have us believe that all along the Senate was just sitting there ready willing and able to confirm, say, a Janice Rogers Brown. I don't think it's that easy. Right now, I think Bush is facing a Scylla-and-Charybdis style threat. One raging whirlpool consists of the angry right wing "base" which tastes blood, and weakness by Bush, and will demand nothing less than total, lockstep, ideological conformity to every last item (perhaps even the fringe items) in their agenda. The other monster is the accusatory left, amplified by the MSM which will cause echoes to resonate in the moderate camp. Trying to steer a course between these monsters is Bush -- not a man known for meekly caving to demands or being unduly influenced by critics. I disagree those who see Bush as a man fighting to save his "endangered presidency." He hasn't even completed the first year of his entire four year term, and the only thing which can force him out is impeachment (nothing but a fringe idea). (As Glenn opined yesterday, "Since Bush isn't running in 2008 it's not all about him any more.") Calling him weak does not make him weak, nor does it mean that those making the accusation are strong. But right now, Bush is going to be called weak -- by both sides -- no matter what he does. It would be counterintuitive and probably dramatic to call it a test of strength, so I won't do that. But isn't it sometimes a sign of weakness to call someone weak? Bush can only nominate. Is he the only one whose weakness being tested? posted by Eric at 09:12 AM | Comments (1)
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Bloom on the Culture War
I've heard young would-be scholars dismiss Harold Bloom as an old, conservative dinosaur (they call him Brontosaurus in the title of this interview), but that could hardly be the case. Not the conservative part anyway. Resolve this: I have many enemies in the English-speaking world, in and out of universities and the media, because I was politically on the extreme left. Culturally, I totally reject this horrible political correctnes, this hideous notion that people should read and study any work of literature, of the imagination on the basis of the ethnic origin, the agenda, the sexual orientation or skin pigmentation of the writer. That strikes me as real fascism. And I fought against it bitterly from about 1967 till the present – it's a battle I've waged for thirty-seven years and of course I have acquired many enemies in the proces. With this: Of course, the United States is in a terrible condition, we have a kind of fascist regime here – I think it's the real truth about it and you can quote me on that. A few years ago, when I was in Barcelona receiving the national prize of Catalonia, I remarked when somebody asked me a question about president George Bush: "He is semiliterate at best, to call him a Fascist would be to flatter him." He has now sufficiently grown in depth that you are no longer flattering him by calling him a Fascist – it is simply a descriptive remark. And this: This regime really hates Europe. It doesn't ask for allies. This regime is acting as if the United States is the new Roman Empire. And it's trying to force another Pax Romana upon the world, which is no peace at all, like Nazis, like Fascists, like Stalinists... Is it political correctness or neo-conservativism that's 'real fascism?' I invite comments on, and I invite you all to read the piece to hunt out other gems, like how the Asian Americans are the new Jews: I teach my clases at Yale and what cheers me up are my Asian American students – about half of the students who take my clases are Asian Americans. What in my generation the Jews were – the intelligentsia – these people are becoming. The Jews in this country are now so asimilated that looking at their score cards I could not tell the difference between my Gentile and my Jewish students. The Asian Americans are the new Jews – they are the ones who study hard, they have a real pasion, a real drive to understand. If this country has a future, it will be because of the new immigrants, the Asians, the Africans, the Hispanics. Our regime is fascistic, but our constitution is good. Or the truth of Kabbalah. Discuss. posted by Dennis at 07:56 AM | Comments (2)
| TrackBacks (0) Thursday, October 27, 2005
BIG NEWS
Harriet Miers has withdrawn her nomination. I am not surprised. In fact, I think it's possible that the suspicions I previously and repeatedly expressed have been confirmed. (Not that I can prove it. But Bush and his team are far too politically savvy not to have been able to anticipate this.)
UPDATE: Jonah Goldberg has called the Miers withdrawal "BRILLIANTLY ROVIAN!" (Via Gateway Pundit.) Bush had no idea that the Senate might seek "internal White House documents," of course.... (Link to Gateway via Glenn, who also links to the full text of Miers' letter.) MORE: Is it possible that we might get a libertarian on the court? Orin Kerr looked at Janice Rogers Brown last month, and pronounced her a "hard core libertarian." Might a Brown nomination be something both libertarians and moral conservatives could support? (Go ahead! Call me a dreamer....) SOBER AFTERTHOUGHT: If Janice Rogers Brown is the libertarian Kerr suggests she is, I don't think her nomination is likely. That's because conventional politics means Culture War uber alles! I hate to say this, but power abhors taking the Constitution literally. There's too much to lose. posted by Eric at 10:16 AM | Comments (4)
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Talk about bad taste!
This is news at its most tasteless: A cab driver in Dallas, Texas, was allegedly caught on surveillance video sprinkling dried fecal matter on cookies and pastries at a grocery store, according to a Local 6 News.Time for grief counselors, maybe? While the man's motive is apparently unknown, the FBI has determined that this was "not a national security issue." There's certainly national interest in the story, though. Drudge listed it yesterday but took it down, but that didn't stop the Washington Post, which added a salient fact: ... customers had complained that the fresh-baked items smelled and tasted like manure.Add this to the report of "loogie" in the turkey wrap, and I'm beginning to see a pattern. Of national insecurity. (And probably, as Rob Smith suggested, bad manners.) posted by Eric at 09:30 AM | Comments (3)
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Identical politics
Orin Kerr alerted me to some fascinating language in a Texas initiative purporting to stop same sex marriage. Here's the applicable text: SECTION 1. Article I, Texas Constitution, is amended by adding Section 32 to read as follows:If (a) is to be read in conjunction with (b), I share Orin Kerr's puzzlement. If "legal status identical or similar to marriage" is prohibited, and "marriage" is defined as the union of a man and a woman, then according to a literal interpretation, that would prohibit all legal incidents of marriage between a man and a woman, because that's how "marriage" is defined. (More here on the confusion such interpretations are already creating in Texas.) Further, at the risk of pointing out the obvious I would note that same sex unions are by definition not "between one man and one woman," nor are polygamous unions. (Nor would be any "union" between a human and an animal.) So, if (a) is read literally in conjuction with (b), because such "unions" are by definition not identical nor even similar to marriage, they are not prohibited, because they lack the defining feature of "one man and one woman." (See Joshua's comment to the Orin Kerr post.*) I'm wondering then, what is being prohibited. What might go on between one man and one woman which could be described as "similar" or "identical" to marriage? Surely, marriage itself is not being prohibited. The only thing I can think of which is similar or identical to marriage under the literal words of the amendment would be common law marriage. Unless that is being prohibited, the amendment has no meaning. Why go to so much trouble just to stop common law marriages? * It should be noted that other commenters argue that literal language should not be elevated above intent. But what is the intent here? Surely, if the intent was to prohibit only same sex marriage and not common law marriages, the language could have said so. Might there be a hidden intent? Once again, I think it's fair to ask whether this was a poor job of drafting, or whether something else is going on.... UPDATE: The Texas Legislature was warned about the common law marriage problem: "It's fiscally irresponsible and constitutionally reckless," said Austin lawyer Robert Andrews, who says it could adversely affect common-law marriages in Texas despite lawmakers' assurances to the contrary.(Detailed analysis here.) If it can be proven, how is stealth to be factored into the interpretation of intent? posted by Eric at 08:17 AM | Comments (3)
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How imminent can threats get?
I'm sure that by now everyone has heard about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmaninejad's statement that Israel is a "disgraceful blot" that should be "wiped off the map." What bothers me the most about the phrase "wiped off the map" is that it can't be seen in a vacuum or dismissed as an aberration or as rhetorical excess. Ahmadinejad's predecessor, Hashemi Rafsanjani (for many years a major Iranian leader) made it perfectly clear that the longterm Iranian goal is to use nuclear weapons against Israel: If a day comes when the world of Islam is duly equipped with the arms Israel has in possession, the strategy of colonialism would face a stalemate because application of an atomic bomb would not leave any thing in Israel but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world.Iran is of course moving full steam ahead towards the production of the very nuclear weapons they brag about wanting to use against Israel. They've thumbed their nose at the people who want them to stop nuclear development, and now their president publicly states they want Israel "wiped off the map." Excuse me, but what do they need to do to make themselves more clear? This is an intolerable and urgent situation, and in my view it calls for a preemptive response. Can I say the threat is looking more and more imminent? (Or has the word "imminent" been dumbed down?) posted by Eric at 07:37 AM | Comments (3)
| TrackBacks (0) Wednesday, October 26, 2005
Farewell Momma Bear
I'm so sorry to learn (via Glenn's links to Laughing Wolf and The Gray Monk) that Momma Bear has passed away. (I'm proud to say her blog was one of my earliest blogroll links.) I feel that I've known her -- but I'm sorry I never met her. Laughing Wolf observed, "Shades, know that this day a warrior walks among you." It's comforting, because we'll all be there. posted by Eric at 10:58 PM | Comments (3)
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Consent negated? Or implied?
WARNING: Graphic discussion follows. I've been struggling with a deceptively simple question: Is drunken sex rape? I don't mean drunken rape, because I think it is possible to form the requisite malice in that state. What I want to know is whether intoxication does -- or should -- prevent someone from consenting to sex. Because if it does, then any sex with a drunk person might be rape. (Bear in mind that this is compounded by the problem of imputing intent to active versus the passive roles in sex, but I'll save that for later.) What prompted this is the rape prosecution of two LaSalle University basketball players. I'm having a little bit of trouble getting all the facts of this case, but it does appear that the accuser went to the men's dorm room, drank 8 shots of 99 proof liquor, and had sex. According to the DA, the woman was in no position to consent: In his opening statement, Assistant District Attorney Richard DeSipio acknowledged that the woman was "binge drinking" shots of liquor that night, had flirted with the men, and had engaged in a sexually explicit conversation with one of them before the alleged assault took place.That the woman didn't fight back or say no is undisputed, as is the fact that she was drunk: The woman is expected to take the witness stand today before Common Pleas Court Judge Shelley Robins New. The woman has previously testified that she was too drunk to say no, fight back, or scream for help during the alleged attack.(More here.) Our system of justice operates under the principle of reasonable doubt. If this woman was, as she admits, drunk, how is it possible for her to know whether she was raped or whether she consented? The defense maintains, of course, that she was remorseful the next day. Obviously, she felt used. And from these facts, it's pretty obvious that she had been used. But is being used rape? And how can such things ever be determined after the fact? If drunken sex is rape, there's an awful lot of rape (especially between husbands and wives). I hate to sound like a sexist ass, but I'm skeptical. I don't think this is the same thing as saying that a woman who "dressed like a slut" was "asking for it." This woman got drunk in a room with two men late at night, and by her own admission did nothing to stop them. Bear in mind that the college students are now looking at twenty years in prison because of this accusation. While I do believe consent should be voluntary, I also think there can be such a thing as implied consent. (Or, possibly, there are circumstances less than fully consensual but which don't rise to the level of rape. Back in the days before AIDS, men used to lie naked face down on beds in gay bathhouses, next to an open jar of vaseline. Whatever you might think about that, anyone doing such a thing is in no position to cry rape.) I've posted about this before, and I'm having the same logical problem now as then: ....if these people were all gay men, no one would be complaining of rape. Why is that? Because it's basic common sense among homosexuals that if you go to someone's bedroom late at night and get drunk with him (or meet him in an already drunken state in say, a bar!), there's an understanding that, far from being rape, sex was the whole idea. Each party would, without any hesitation, accept his own responsibility.Here, no one accepts responsibility; there's a criminal case. As I pointed out previously, if one person is drunk and the other is sober, it is legally possible that the sober person raped the drunk person, if the latter was prevented from resisting because of intoxication, "and this condition was known, or reasonably should have been known by the accused." But this is a criminal case, and they're going to have to show beyond a reasonable doubt that there wasn't consent. Unless the law prevents drunks from consenting, the fact of the girl being in the room late at night, her "sex talk", and her getting drunk there, will all be factors. Earlier, the defense stated she spoke to one of the defendants about her expertise at oral sex, and now I see that she's admitted "sex talk": The alleged victim was called to testify Wednesday morning, but she could be heard sobbing outside the courtroom and her testimony was delayed for 40 minutes. The woman admitted that she sat on the lap of one of the defendants in June 2004 and engaged in some sex talk. She went on to tell the story of what she called a drunken rape.I think this is going to be a tough case for the DA. While I do not defend the sleazy conduct of the defendants, if she went to their room, engaged in sex talk, and got drunk, I don't see much of a distinction between that and going to a gay bathhouse and getting drunk. It comes precariously close to implied consent, and while the defendants are not angels, is their conduct really something that society wants to define as rape and punish with 20 year prison terms? And if a man's wife gets drunk and he has sex with her, is that rape? How about if the wife has sex with a husband too drunk to legally consent? Or suppose a husband and wife get drunk together and have sex. Returning to my original hypothetical question: if two people, married or unmarried (and bear in mind that women can rape men) get drunk and then engage in sexual intercourse, how is it to be determined which person was raped? Is the woman always necessarily the victim? As I asked over a year ago: why in logic is not a man just as much a victim of a vagina as a woman the victim of a penis?I know it sounds crazy, but crazy factual scenarios invite crazy questions. In drunken situations, it would seem that the first to sober up, have regrets, and call the police would get to be the victim. I'm still struggling for answers. (I guess people should fill out one of the various sexual consent forms.) UPDATE (10/27/05): There's more from the trial in today's Inquirer. A few excerpts: She acknowledged that she had eight consecutive shots of 99 Apples - a 99-proof alcoholic beverage - had sat on Neal's lap, and had told him she had once performed oral sex on a basketball player they both knew.Sat on his lap and told him about oral sex? This brought a question from one of the defense lawyers: The woman testified that she was on athletic and academic college scholarships and maintained high grades.Acknowledging the reporting delay, she says she considered the men "ugly" and stated that sitting on someone's does not indicate an interest in sex: She later acknowledged that she did not immediately tell the other camp counselors what had happened. She said she also did not tell former women's basketball coach John Miller in a meeting with him the next morning, although she said she did complain that some belongings were missing from her dorm room.Without taking sides, even if we assume she's telling the truth, what on earth has happened to common sense? Let's see. A girl comes to the room of two healthy young athletes, downs eight shots, sits on one man's lap, and tells him that she performed oral sex "on a basketball player they both knew." What does she expect will happen at that point? An intellectual discussion of Thomas Aquinas? UPDATE: Here's a thought. Considering the apparent position of M.A.D.D. and others that drinkers should be arrested to prevent them from driving, can arresting them as a rape prevention measure be far behind? posted by Eric at 09:54 PM | Comments (15)
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The eyes have it!
As PhotoShoppers go, I'm hardly a professional. ("Self taught hack" pretty well describes my limited skills...) But this apparent photo doctoring of Condoleeza Rice intrigued me:
And I found myself even more intrigued by Glenn's question: Adobe's "fill flash" can sometimes do surprising things, but I'm not sure it could do this. I'm so backward that I don't even have Adobe "fill flash" I thought I'd try it myself with the primitive software I do have. I had no idea whether this exercise would work, and I decided to spend no more than five minutes, because I just wanted to satisfy my curiosity. I started with this original JPEG file from Yahoo:
I opened the above (along with USA Today's BMP version with the gleaming white eyes) in Paint Shop Pro version 6, used the dropper to select the white color, and once I had done that I used the primitive "fill" feature (by selecting the icon which looks like a little pitcher of paint), to add white. I then saved it as a BMP file, and shrunk it to the same dimensions as the USA Today picture. Here's they are, side by side (mine's on the left):
How'd I do? I think I might need to add a tad more white, and maybe do a little retouching on the eye to the right, but I think mine is a little more on the subtle side. Probably not good enough for the MSM. When they say they want to see the whites of their eyes, they mean it! MORE: Because I know I'll never get a job with USA Today, I also did an Indymedia version:
FINAL THOUGHT: It's incredibly obvious to me that USA Today's picture was doctored. What surprises me is that they don't seem to mind being blatant about it. UPDATE: Caught, um Editor's note: The photo of Condoleezza Rice that originally accompanied this story was altered in a manner that did not meet USA TODAY's editorial standards. The photo has been replaced by a properly adjusted copy. Photos published online are routinely cropped for size and adjusted for brightness and sharpness to optimize their appearance. In this case, after sharpening the photo for clarity, the editor brightened a portion of Rice's face, giving her eyes an unnatural appearance. This resulted in a distortion of the original not in keeping with our editorial standards.A fine, lawyerly answer! (And I'm so into unnatural appearances that I brightened the same portion twice!) posted by Eric at 10:14 AM | Comments (5)
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I'm always right! But you're a bigot!
Sean Kinsell offers another example of something in short supply these days -- a thoughtful post about same sex marriage, in the context of Maggie Gallagher's guest blogging at the Volokh Conspiracy. For those who don't want to read through this very lengthy debate in its entirety, Sean (via Michael Demmons) links to a post by Jason Kuznicki which summarizes what he considers Gallagher's key points. Something about the way this issue is debated disturbs me enough (see this post) that I left the following comment: There seems to be a real, almost obsessive need to "prove" that opposition to same sex marriage constitutes bigotry. I don't think this is the wisest way to argue anything, and I find myself wondering whether Maggie Gallagher is playing the role of a sort of political tar baby. The harsher the attacks against her, the more insecure her opponents look. (Not that ideologues would care...)I think this "if you disagree with me, you're a bigot" meme has gotten really, really tired. The problem is, the more time people spend talking only with each other and not with people they disagree with, the more likely they are to be convinced that not only are they right, but that their opponents are more than wrong; they are evil, bigoted, and analogous to Nazis. A commenter at Gay Orbit made the following remarks: Did you miss the post where Volokh said that gays “recruit” straight people to become gay.Well, I don't know whether he meant this post, but I did blog about it, and I thought Eugene Volokh was trying to raise some honest concerns on his mind. Isn't that what we want? Did you miss the post where Volokh said that we’re all disease-ridden vermin?Actually, I did miss that one. I searched carefully for it, too. Might he mean this post? Some readers challenged my claim that there is "disproportionate and grave health danger from male homosexual activity" to men, compared to the danger from male heterosexual activity. I think this danger is tragic, and I very much hope that medical advances will lead to the danger's decreasing. All decent people should agree that it's tragic. (The bunk that we hear from some quarters about AIDS being God's punishment for homosexuality would suggest, as some wit put it, that lesbians must be God's chosen people, since their rates are apparently very low.) But it seems to me quite clear that this danger is very much there.I doubt it that could be it. The "disease-ridden vermin" part just doesn't stand out. I don't know whether this commenter is trying to put words into Eugene Volokh's mouth (I never like it when people do it to me). But in light of his confession yesterday, I don't think he'll be effectively cowed: OK, though, I confess: I am developing an ulterior motive in writing about this stuff. The more people tell me not to write about things that strike me as important and perfectly legitimate to write about, the more I'm tempted to write about them. If people are trying to cow others into not discussing this information, then it's all the more important that we remain uncowed.Professor Volokh is absolutely right, folks. If opinions can't be freely discussed in the blogosphere, where can they be discussed? Back to the commenter, who is also upset about Clayton Cramer: Did you miss former guest-blogger, and noted homophobic bigot Clayton Cramer?I have repeatedly, even vehemently disagreed with Clayton Cramer (especially over sodomy laws), but have found him to be a gentleman. Plenty of people support sodomy laws out of a belief (in my view a misguided one) that "sodomy"(a misnomer) is harmful so people should be prevented from harming themselves. I think honest debate over these issues is infinitely preferable to name calling, and I'd offer the drug law debate as a less inflammatory example. The idea of imprisoning people for consensual malum prohibitum conduct offends every principle in which I believe. But calling someone a "bigot" for disagreeing with me would be the ultimate cop out. Not only would I miss an opportunity to advance my argument, I'd actually be harming it. But this point is lost on ideologues, who think opponents deserve a sound scolding, if not something worse. While I necessarily don't share his convictions (the right to wave a marriage certificate has never struck me as going to the essence of American freedom), I rather enjoyed Jason Kuznicki's take on bigotry: One judges bigotry not by whether a position is popular or unpopular, progressive or conservative, but by whether the person holding that position is willing to engage with their opponents, to consider the issue from all different sides, and to think that maybe, just possibly, those who hold differing views might do so sincerely, and even with good reason.That's fair enough for me. But what if I am wrong? posted by Eric at 08:13 AM | Comments (7)
| TrackBacks (1) Tuesday, October 25, 2005
Numerological sobriety?
I'm having a problem with numbers. The war in Iraq is said to be on the verge of being more wrong than it has ever been before, once the number of American dead rises from 1997 to 2000. The latter is said to be a very important number: As milestone nears, adding up war lossesAm I supposed to be more against the war when the number of killed in action hits 2000 than I was when it was 1997? If so, why? The Inquirer says that the number 2000 will be "a sobering reminder of the human cost of the U.S. presence in that country." Sobering? Just as 1997 was just as sobering a reminder, I think 1000 was also a very sobering number. Except I'm not sure what is meant by sobriety. I just checked with the New York Times, which reports that the number killed has already reached 2000 -- that magic number said to be so "sobering." But I'm no more sober than I was. At least I don't feel any more sober. Or is wanting a U.S. victory less than "sober"? I could be wrong, but I'm getting the distinct impression that "sobriety" is being used as a synonym for wanting the United States to pull out of Iraq. If higher numbers meant any other kind of sobriety, then we'd fight this war all the harder. (For some perspective, The Jawa Report offers some, er, truly sobering numbers.)
....driving the war issue is the Baby Boomers' Vietnam era conceit that right-thinking people are always "against the war," regardless of circumstances. Or which war.Of course, these right-thinking people are more "sober" than anyone else. (Even when drunk.) UPDATE (10/26/05): Palmetto Pundit sees another reason for the "milestone": It seems to me the press wanted this "milestone" to occur precisely when it did so that it could be used to overshadow the real milestone that occurred today: The ratification of the Iraqi Constitution.That sort of news is buried in the interior pages (along with the Brazil's rejection of gun control). posted by Eric at 08:30 PM | Comments (3)
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England cracks me up
Since today seems to be the day for me to defend animals against unjust accusations, let me turn my attention to the charge that British squirrels have become drug addicts, and are deliberately ingesting crack cocaine: Drug addicts are known to be hiding small stashes of crack rocks in people's front lawns late at night.The stodgy Economist has speculated that crack-loving squirrels are another urban legend. But let's think about whether this story is all it's, um, cracked up to be. Does anyone remember Rocky the squirrel? ![]() What made him fly? And the name "Rocky" -- isn't that a thinly disguised drug reference for "rock" cocaine? Moving from media depictions of squirrels to depictions of pigs, I'm wondering whether it's a coincidence that there are now increasing reports of censorship directed against the latter. The campaign started with the ban of pig calendars and statuettes in offices, quickly spread to children's books in classrooms, and even piggy banks. I don't know whether there's a direct connection between the two, but a country cracking down on pigs should hardly be surprised to see its squirrels pigging out on crack. I see this apparently dysfunctional behavior by squirrels as a classic cry for help, and I hope that the censorship which started in Britain doesn't spread to this country. Well, I say the best defense is a good offense. Just as all animals are equal, all cartoons and all media depictions of animals should be equal, and treated equally. Michelle Malkin reminds us of another venerated cartoon image, and that is Piglet: ![]() There's a campaign to save Piglet, who, it seems, is being held hostage by people with absolutely no sense of humor. People unable to laugh at themselves, and who don't consider even this cartoon (quite tame by American standards) to be funny: So once again, I'll let Porky have the last word! ![]() posted by Eric at 04:46 PM | Comments (7)
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