.Consider the case of Mr Ayers … and this time not one bit in relation to Mr Obama. Mr Ayers for some years acted as a domestic terrorist. He bombed, killed, and spread terror for some time. He and his cohorts worked actively and spoke fervently about bringing down the government of the United States preferring Communist rule to a republic. He was eventually caught .. but it turns out those that caught him used illegal wire-taps and the evidence could not be submitted.
In the TV Show Law and Order, quite frequently legal system is shown with the police confronted by the issue in which if the rules are not strictly followed guilty parties will go free. Typically in those shows (and alas I have no other experience with the how such matters play out), the punishment inflicted on the police in these matters is just that. That is the primary and perhaps only punishment inflicted on the law enforcement agencies is that they “don’t get their man.”
Is that sufficient. Would a system in which penalties on the law enforcement agencies were harsher, imprisonment and loss of employment for infractions being more common but that the evidence so collected remained admissible in the legal proceedings against the defendant. After all, in Mr Ayers case he did commit the crimes. He should be imprisoned … still. His crimes were heinous and needed stopping as fast as humanly possible. Clearly the police had reasons to suspect him, for they didn’t randomly wire-tap everyone, the machinery to do so doesn’t exist. They picked likely targets and found their man (and his wife). If they proceeded more slowly … more people would likely have died. The notion that more severe penalties might be submitted instead of a “get-out-of-jail free card” for the defendant … might allow a enforcement team to choose between their job and saving lives instead of saving lives and not getting a guilty verdict.
Why is the current system better? Is it less likely that the former would be the choice and that is why we prefer the latter? … is it just common law tradition? or another reason?
Especially in Venezuela. A few links from the past couple of weeks regarding the socialist "utopia".
When oil prices fall, suddenly Hugo Chavez can no longer afford to buy big guns, to finance terrorism, and to spread the wealth around.
Awash in oil, Hugo can’t even keep the lights on; electricity shortages to go along with food shortages. As Pejman Yousefzadeh puts it, "I would delight in the Schadenfreude, but after having read this story, I feel more sorry for the people of Venezuela than I do happy to see yet another indication that the regime of Hugo Chavez is failing to provide basic services."
And when Hugo gets cranky, he starts to ponder jailing the opposition. Without any specific charges, Chavez said of his former presidential rival, "I am determined to put Manuel Rosales behind bars. A swine like that has to be in prison." Yup, now there’s a freedom fighter.
Gotta run, so … y’all get the unedited list. That to say, as explanation, the weekday “things heard” post is culled from a longer list on my personal blog … edited for audience and a less “personal” view. If you’d prefer the unedited list to be the norm, let me know in the comments (or if you prefer the shorter list let me know that too).
I am a political animal and a news junkie. But after years of the 2008 presidential contest, I’m oh-so-weary of the all of the calculated and practiced rhetoric.
After all of the overblown predictions and warnings and promises, we are all a bit guilty of the “political illusion” that politics, the right government, and the right policies will bring social harmony, spiritual enlightenment, world peace, better baseball, and a panacea for whatever ill inflicts our personal lives.
On Tuesday we will either have a historic comeback that ranks with Truman/Dewey, or a historic mixed race president. But at least this campaign will be done and the next chapter of American life will begin. We’ve had early voting in Georgia this week and the lines at the polling places here in the northern suburbs of Atlanta have been very long. A lot of people are voting early, which either indicates an unprecedented high voter turnout, or a lot fewer people voting on election day.
I will be voting for the McCain-Palin ticket, which is running only slightly ahead here in Georgia—obviously not a good sign for Republicans in the deep south, where they should be comfortably ahead.
A few observations as we await the election on Tuesday:
· If the Democratic Party does not capture the presidency next week, it will be in enormous disarray and its ability to win nationally will be in question for years. If the Dems don’t win with the war in Iraq souring the country before we began to prevail, with the economy dragging and now crashing, with the failure of the Bush administration to maintain even a drumbeat of enthusiasm in its second term, and with a smooth talking and careful candidate—the Democratic Party will need to make wholesale change (which would be good).
· The Republican Party doesn’t deserve to win, and is preferable only in comparison to the horrendous policies of its opponents.
· Sarah Palin was brilliant choice for an underdog candidate who was not supported by the base of his party (unfairly, I believe, and if McCain loses I place partial blame squarely at the feet of the pouting conservatives, who failed to rally early and often, and evidently decided until recently to wait for the perfect candidate in four years).
· If Obama becomes president, he will work with a very Democratic congress for the most liberal agenda in our memory. But Pelosi and Reid haven’t shown much political skill or even a shred of subtlety in their governing, and together with an enthusiastic young President they will totally overplay their hand—even worse than the first two years of Bill Clinton—and if the Republicans can find a leader in the mold of Newt Gingrich, they can lead a new contract for America in 2010 and begin recapturing the Congress.
· If Obama becomes president, there will be many bad policies, but bad policy can be reversed.
· The greatest concern for me of an Obama presidency is the reshaping of the Supreme Court over four or eight years into a solidly liberal, activist court for the next generation. I cannot begin to recite here all of the ways that will fray the fabric and character of American life.
· My second greatest concern is that America’s military and intelligence capabilities will be compromised by another president (like Clinton) who doesn’t’ believe that peace is the result of strength, not by playing nice with evil. I don’t think Obama will pull troops out of Iraq prematurely or make rash military changes that will endanger America immediately—sitting in the Oval office will sober him up and moderate his radical isolationism. The damage will come over time and the danger is long term weakness.
· The economy will recover, because that’s what it does, but if Obama is elected the recovery will be muted by the overtaxing of the engines of American wealth–the productive, the successful, and the businesses.
· There is going to be massive voter fraud throughout the country that should—but probably won’t—result in the national requirement of photo ID’s for anyone who votes. The stories that emerge about Acorn and others will stretch on for years. And if the election is close, we may see far more law suits than in 2000.
But maybe McCain-Palin will mount a historic comeback. Wouldn’t that be a blast? I do think it is quite possible, but not likely.
This morning I linked Brandon on the 5-d vs 2-d axis of morality used by the right vs the left in the divide we have in society. Brandon suggests, and commenter JA seems to essentially concur (and if he doesn’t I’ll hear about it right off I expect), that the purity axis is the most problematic for us “post-moderns” and that this notion is entirely rejected by the liberal. For context, the 2 axis for morality on the left is harm and fairness, and the 5 on the right are harm, fairness, in-group, authority, and purity.
But that doesn’t seem right to me. That is, I think the liberals in our midst say that they reject purity as a moral factor but in practice they do not.
What do we mean by purity? Brandon suggests:
To make a purity work as a moral category, you need the idea that people can exert a morally corrosive influence on another, and, even more, that you can be exerting such an influence, or be receiving such an influence, completely independently of any intention you may have or deliberate choice you may make.
Blue laws and other codes regulating behavior count among these sorts of ways we legalize notions of purity. For an extreme example, none right nor left, would condone public sexual intercourse or drug usage in places frequented by children. Why not? Could it be that this is a notion that this would be “a morally corrosive influence” intentional or not? Indeed it is. This is purity. This notion of purity is shared by the left in practice, but in rhetoric they deny it.
It might also be suggested that the left’s increasing sensitivity to more and more different notions of “harm” is a reaction to rejecting rhetorically and logically the other 3 axis of morality, including purity. In the context of such a lack, the remaining to “axis” need to be stretched and expanded to fill the logical gap provided by the other.
One thing I fear if Mr McCain wins as compared to a possible victory in by Mr Obama. If Mr McCain wins, I think the left will go absolutely insane. If Mr Obama wins on the other hand, my impression is that conservatives (such as myself) will just hunker down for 4 years of bad policy, increased racial tensions, higher taxes, and other similear consequences of electing an inexperienced academic to the the Presidency. But … if you thought the left and their BDS was a problem for national discourse on Mr Bush’s re-election I fear such anger will increase far more if Mr McCain wins this election.
So, to that point, I’ll take a comment survey. If the “other guy” wins, what would be your dominant emotional response.
For the record, I think mine would be, the “oh, crap” sensation when standing near or in striking range of a tottering shelf or pile.
In the realm of alternate electoral methods, the somewhat “out there” novel Courtship Rite by (if I recall the mathematician) Donald Kingsbury. In this science fiction novel set an a colonized planet quite a number of customs have arisen among the humans living there that are very alien to our customs today. One of the societies, from which a number of our protagonists derive, for example practices polygamy as well as cannibalism. There is actually a logical reason for the latter, being that on this alien world most animal and plant life is poisonous to the colonists … and there is no meat available other than man for consumption. Anyhow, that is not the point for today’s little essay. Given the current season and year in the States it might be more topical to offer some of Mr Kingsbury’s unusual suggestions for government.
In an age where the Democrats urge universal (and in fact arguably foreign) enfranchisement and participation in our elections the suggestion in Courtship Rite is quite the reverse. The radical society in that culture was a full participatory democracy … with a catch. On laws, one could only vote on their passing if one was an expert on that particular law. How did one become an expert. By becoming a participant in the discussions involved in framing the text of that law and in discussion on its merits, consequences, and implementation. Anybody could vote on any issue and law, but in order to vote, one had to become knowledgeable and and expert in that.
Further, the executive as well as selected in another manner. Mr Kingsbury suggests essentially that one of the primary qualities this society felt was necessary in a leader or the executive was to be able to accurately predict the unfolding of political and global political trends. People who wished to become executive submitted to a repository, dated predictions of future events. There was likely some (but the details of implementation were left to the reader) weighting of predictions based on the importance of the event and how far in advance the prediction was posted. Whomever had the highest score at this “prediction” game was the Executive. Any citizen could call for a “re-tally” like a vote of no-confidence and possibly in that way remove the current leader. Of course, one way to get predictions to come true, is to make predictions and then work to make them come true. In this way, the Executive very often had a good deal of influence which enabled him to have his predictions fall in line.
This is the 2nd and final part of my analysis of an open letter from Anne Rice. Part 1 was posted yesterday.
Abortion
Anne Rice spends most of her letter covering this issue, and she starts with an assertion that, to me, shows a lack of consideration of the history of the issue.
I want to add here that I am Pro-Life. I believe in the sanctity of the life of the unborn. Deeply respecting those who disagree with me, I feel that if we are to find a solution to the horror of abortion, it will be through the Democratic Party.
Ms. Rice does touch on these historical issues lightly later on, and I’ll hit them more in-depth then, but even looking at how the abortion issue generally falls between the parties today, I don’t see this as making sense. What I hear from Democrats are things like John Kerry with this sentiment:
I completely respect their views. I am a Catholic. And I grew up learning how to respect those views. But I disagree with them, as do many. I can’t legislate or transfer to another American citizen my article of faith. What is an article of faith for me is not something that I can legislate on somebody who doesn’t share that article of faith. I believe that choice is a woman’s choice. It’s between a woman, God and her doctor. That’s why I support that. I will not allow somebody to come in and change Roe v. Wade.
If one’s commitment to Christianity should be “absolute”, as Ms. Rice has said, there is a big problem with this statement, that is generally the line religious Democrats use when talking about abortion, and that is the canard about legislating one’s religious faith, or sometimes call ramming one’s religion down your throat. Civil rights are very much a moral issue, but does Sen. Kerry have the same problem with legislating that? No, he’s very willing to impose his view on KKK members, and rightly so. It’s right, it’s moral and it’s the law. Legislators all throughout our country’s history, and more so in our early history, based many of their decisions partly or mostly on their religious faith. This excuse is disingenuous.
The following is a repost of a blog post I wrote over a year ago (August 23rd & 24th, 2007) during the presidential primary season. It was in response to an open letter by the author Anne Rice on her personal web site. Ms. Rice is the author of the Vampire Lestat series of books, but, after returning to the Catholic church in 1998, stopped that project.
I’ve searched her web site for the letter in question and cannot find a page that has it archived, although many of her other writings, going back to 1996, are on there. It was copied and posted on other forums, including here, so you can read along at home. (Warning: This is a link to the right-wing Free Republic web site. If you fear cooties emanating from there, turn back now.)
I think the issues covered in this endorsement of Hillary Clinton for the Democratic party nominee are still relevant now, especially how it relates to Christians, how they can and should work through the political process, how Ms. Rice believes her choice of party advances that, and where I disagree with her.
It was originally posted in 2 parts due to its length, and so it shall be this time.
This is one of my longer posts, possibly the longest I’ve done on the blog. What happened was, I was reading an open letter from a Christian planning on voting a particular way, and as I read further and further into it, one objection after another kept coming to my mind, and one problem after another regarding the writer’s reasons kept getting in the way. Finally, I realized I’d have to just set aside some of my typical day-to-day blogging of the link-and-quick-comment type, and go in-depth into the problems I see with the author, and Christians in general, who vote Democratic for specifically Christian reasons, and especially regarding the social issues brought up in the letter. Pull up a cup of coffee and sit back.
Anne Rice is a Catholic author. I’ll admit to not being too well-read, but as a Protestant my knowledge of Catholic authors is even more limited. Therefore, I’m not sure how much Ms. Rice’s views are mainstream Catholic, although whether or not they are really isn’t the crux of this post. I do want to discuss the views she espouses, and espouses quite well as an author. That she is a Catholic and I am a Protestant has really no bearing on my criticism of her recent public letter dated August 10. I know Protestants who would agree with her on these issues, so this is not a denominational thing. She professes Christianity, as do I, and we have very similar goals, as far as I can tell, on the topics she discusses, and yet we’re voting differently. Ms. Rice wrote a lengthy letter to her readers on her main web site (no permalink so don’t know how long it’ll stay on the front page) about why she is endorsing Hillary Clinton for President. The reasons she lists for that endorsement, to me, run completely counter to her list of important issues and goals. If she is truly concerned about those goals, I don’t follow her endorsement, nor the endorsement of other of my friends and acquaintances of any Democrat in the current group. I want to address the inconsistencies I see in this post.
Ms. Rice starts out with her Christian and Catholic creds, which I respect and am willing to accept. She talks about how, while the separation of church and state is a good idea, the voter does not have that prohibition, and in fact must consider their vote based on their religion.
Conscience requires the Christian to vote as a Christian. Commitment to Christ is by its very nature absolute.
I agree wholeheartedly. But, she also correctly notes, we have only 2 political parties in this country. (She believes, as do I, that a vote for neither Democrat or Republican, whether it’s a non-vote or a vote for a 3rd party, is essentially a vote for one of the two major ones, no matter how you slice it.) In short:
To summarize, I believe in voting, I believe in voting for one of the two major parties, and I believe my vote must reflect my Christian beliefs.
Bearing all this in mind, I want to say quietly that as of this date, I am a Democrat, and that I support Hillary Clinton for President of the United States.
And that last clause is where the disagreement begins.
Charitable Giving
The first paragraph of explanation deals with giving.
Though I deeply respect those who disagree with me, I believe, for a variety of reasons, that the Democratic Party best reflects the values I hold based on the Gospels. Those values are most intensely expressed for me in the Gospel of Matthew, but they are expressed in all the gospels. Those values involve feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, visiting those in prison, and above all, loving ones neighbors and loving ones enemies. A great deal more could be said on this subject, but I feel that this is enough.
First of all, neither the religious right nor the religious left have a lock on charitable giving. At the same time, as was noted on this post regarding a study by Arthur Brooks, conservatives outgive liberals by quite a significant amount. How does this relate to how the political parties differ in their view of the government’s role in this? Ms. Rice, I believe, falls into a trap by simplistically equating the advocacy of government charity with Jesus’ admonition to the individual to be charitable. Democrats say the government should give more, so by her reckoning thy are more in line with her Christian view. However, it has always made me wonder how when Jesus tells me, personally, to be charitable, that somehow this means that I should also use the government to force my neighbor, under penalty of jail, to be “charitable”. I put “charitable” in quotes because when there’s force involved, there’s no real act of charity. How Democrat Christians get from point A to point Z on this boggles my mind. Another statistic from Brooks’ study brings this point home; People who believe the government does not have a basic responsibility to take care of the people who can’t take care of themselves are 27 percent more likely to give to charity.
On top of this, the bureaucratic inefficiency filter that we’re all forced to funnel our “charitable” taxes through siphons money away from the needy, as does the massive fraud that goes on in a big government program that has little accountability.
Conservatives believe that forcibly taking money isn’t charity, and that it is not government’s role to rob from Peter to pay Paul, and that the way the government handles this creates dependency and causes further problems, like giving fathers a disincentive to stick around. Because of this, conservatives give more of their own money to local charities where the administrative costs are much lower. The Republican party, the current home of most conservative political ideas in this country, purports to support these goals, and while they don’t always follow those principles, they have done better at this than Democrats. An expanded role of government in the area of giving to the poor is not the best way for that to happen, and as a Christian I believe it’s not moral to force others to give when they don’t want to. Again, Jesus asks me to give; He didn’t ask me to force others to.
Ms. Rice, in ticking off a laundry list of values, seems to be falling for the framing of the issue that Democrats have put forth; welfare = caring. There are other ways to care, which can have much better results.
Part 2 tomorrow.
One of the critical points of disagreement in the abortion divide is notions of personhood. So it seems one interesting thing to examine might be what comprises notions and ideas of personhood and on what basis these ideas are founded.
There are role based notions of personhood. I’m told that in Bali for example, your personality (and in fact your name) is dictated by the order of birth. You are “first son”, or “third daughter” a name which indicates who you are. In Rome the notions of personhood and identification of a person was primarily a legal concept. Your status of citizenship, your membership in guilds and other associations defined your legal notions of personhood. But legal and definitions of personhood based on birthplace or occupation are foreign to members of the modern western world.
One of the common notions of self is based on memory, that is you are the sum of your memories and that your memory is the basis of your continuing notion of self. But this is incomplete and insufficient. If, in some speculative fiction, a persons memories are erased we still think of them as the same person, just that they being the person whom they are is now that person sans memory. That is, the memory did not define self. Similarly if, one person’s “memories” in a scenario such as the Total Recall movie were taken and transplanted into another person … that other person would not thereby “be” identified as the original person. We have a common notion that these to persons are in fact distinct. Memory it seems does not define person. Another example that comes to mind is Latro in the Gene Wolf novels whom awakes each and every morning with no memory of his past. How is “self” or concept of ego considered for someone like him.
Organic identity as well does not define person. Again in speculative fiction not just modern science fiction, there are ideas of a person being transformed into something else. He becomes the ghost in a machine (modern computer or whatnot) or earlier works in which his self is moved to another person, animal, or magical animate object. If the ego, the “I”, can be radically transmuted and that memory of whom I am is not self either … what is the constituent thing which identifies self?
One suggestion, given by the early 4th and 5th century Eastern church, expanded by the 8th century theologian St. Maximus, and put into modern context by and John Zizioulas is that personhood and self are defined relationally. That your continuity of self and in fact your very notions of self are defined only in relation to “Other”. If we refer to the above identification of self through radical transformations, we recall from those stories that the validation of self past the transforming event is that one recovers and is recognized via re-establishing and restoration of those connections with those others with whom one was formerly connected.
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