Imitation is the Sincerest Form XI

At the beginning of June I posted a windy essay that included a lengthy encapsulation of selected…um…bull squeeze that purports to capture the spirit of how America is “seen” around the world. I used the phrase “we are seen” to cast my net over this stuff, observed how unexectedly well that simple phraseology worked for this purpose, and noticed there were somewhere in the neighborhood of a million hits on this codswallop. Then, I carved out a generous slice of data space from the “innernets” to reinterate just a tiny sliver of what I had found, and made the following commentary about the abundance, the consistency, and the content:

There is a point to all this, and it isn’t a pretty one. When you say something is “seen” a certain way, you may pack a powerful punch in intimidating people toward your point-of-view, but you prove very little. What you’re really saying is that someone, somewhere, whether you name them or not, has a certain opinion. And this says, precisely, nothing.
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Give me an opinion, no matter how nonsensical you make it out to be, someone, somewhere, has that opinion. To point out simply that someone has it, therefore, is tantamount to saying nothing at all. Not that someone isn’t willing to waste time and breath pointing it out anyway. I have an impressive collection up there of “we are seen” quotes. It is just scratching the surface, believe me.

We here at The Blog That Nobody Reads are pleased to have made the acquaintance of Good Lieutenant who maintains Mein Blogovault you see off in the sidebar, and it would appear he first learned about us from that post.

Now, I don’t know if Christopher Hitchens reads my blog. I would suspect hardly anybody does. But how else do you explain this gem which appeared this morning in The Examiner? It would appear that what has been getting under my skin, has been doubly irritating to Mr. Hitchens…

Here�s what I want to know, and here�s why I want to know it. At what point in history, exactly, did the Pew Center decide that it knew how to measure world opinion?

I ask this because almost every week I seem to read a study of how the rest of the globe thinks (or at any rate feels) about the United States. The polls in this country are unreliable enough and are often used to measure intangibles, such as “approval ratings,” which is why there is so much fluctuation within and between them. But who�s doing the random samples in Somalia and Tajikistan and Ecuador?

I ask because these polls tend to inform Americans that the rest of the world has a decidedly low view of them. That this is true in large parts of the Middle East, and among large swathes of European intellectuals, is something that I can already tell you from experience.

I’ve been robbed, but I’m not calling the police. I’m quite flattered.

As an afterthought, I would add that if you were to ask me the worldwide approval rating of, let us say, Chad…or Monaco…or Paraguay…or Mongolia, or Indonesia, or Somalia, or Belgium…I would not know. I, furthermore, would not have the slightest clue where you could find out such a thing, nor would I have any idea where & how you could stay abreast of such a statistic on an ongoing basis. Furthermore, if you were to sound off on some grievance you have against any one of the above countries, I’m completely ignorant on where you could go to air it, to be put in touch with others who have similar grievances. And I certainly don’t know how you can get your disaffected opinion into print, in the form of a poll result.

The United States is spay-shul, in that regard. I guess. Not sure who decides these things.

Welcome to our birthday party. You’d better bring a present, if you want a slice of the cake.

Must-Tards VIII

Via BSAlert.com, we learn about a church in Memphis, TN that has used $2.5 million to build a Statue of Liberty to be unveiled today. But you see, this one is special.

The Statue of Liberation looks a lot like the Statue of Liberty, but the famous torch is replaced by a cross. Instead of the inscription about giving the lady the tired and poor, there are Roman numerals for the Ten Commandments.

Some people in the community are eager for the $2.5 million statue’s unveiling.

11-year-old Evelyn Douglass isn’t one of them. She says the Statue of Liberty represents the United States and the cross represents a specific religion. In her words, “It’s not right that they are mixing the two.”

It appears the statue cost $260,000, not $2.5 million.

The Miss Douglass quoted in the article is in good company here. Very good company. A lot of Americans agree with her. Your FARK comments follow…

As you can see, Miss Douglass is pretty far from being a lone voice in the wilderness.

I’m sorry for that.

You see, on this proclamation that the $2.5 million or $260,000 could have been spent on other things, I am more-or-less in agreement. Where I disagree, is the idea that it is worth commenting-upon. Not right that they are mixing the two…not right in what way? Were these taxpayer funds? Nobody, anywhere, seems to be saying so.

Not right…okay, so what if we were to knock this statue down, and I were to make, say, a ten-inch replica of it, with the cross and the Commandments, and put it in my living room. Would that be “not right”?

What is scarier to American freedom, might I ask. The statue itself, or a suggestion that someone in authority should be able to come along, waggle a finger, and with a tut-tut and a cluck-cluck, haul the statue away with instructions to put up a different image less offensive to those-in-the-know?

The statue is the church’s business. It starts out being that, but is being made, with a lot of tsk-tsking, into everybody else’s. Hm, you know, that’s not the America I know. In the America I know, people put up statues and signs, and the statues and signs remain the business of the person putting ’em up…not everybody else’s. There are lots of countries you can go to, where everything everybody does is everybody else’s business. Not here.

I put up a statue saying America is all about Christianity…or that it’s all about nightclubbing…or that it’s all about Hooters…or that it’s all about Coco Puffs and Saturday morning cartoons. It’s all the same. It’s free speech.

If one of those examples is to be lifted upward in to a special eschelon of Offensive Stuff That Must Be Hauled Away, because someone likes to believe in a religion of There-Is-No-Gawd and my statue gets in the way of that…you know what? That, right there, is a violation of the First Amendment. “…or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” It’s in there. Look it up.

Except, this transgression of free speech is scarier than all the others…we happen to be closest to enshrining that one into law.

Neal’s Challenge

Neal Boortz, not one known for frequent updates to his website during holidays, has seen fit to update his page today. And what an interesting commentary he has for us.

Now, in 2006, Americans are far more dependent on and oppressed by the Imperial Federal Government of the United States than they ever were by Great Britain. The level of taxation is higher, and the level of government interference in our daily life exceeds anything the colonists ever saw. In spite of all this, Americans will be waving flags, watching parades, going on picnics, and gawking at fireworks today, all in celebration of their love of freedom.

Love of freedom, my left big toe. This isn’t a celebration of freedom, this is a celebration of hypocrites.

So .. you love freedom, do you? You’re out there waving your flag and watching fireworks with the rest of the freedom lovers? Do you mind very much taking the time off to handle a little quiz? Just go through the following scenarios and answer a few questions:

The questions are pretty predictable. They have to do (see my post from yesterday) with living life like a man, or living life like cattle. The colonists took the time to put together the Declaration of Independence, the birthday of which we celebrate today, to enumerate the reasons why they were taking the trouble to Dissolve The Bands That Connected.

It was a treasonous act. The Crown required absolute fidelity.

But they had to do it, because The Crown was treating them like a bunch of stupid cattle. Beasts of burden. You buy, you sell, you build, you ship…have the money change hands in whatever way you like, and when you’re done don’t forget to send the tax money back to us. And when we pass some new taxes without your consent, we’ll be good enough to let you know.

The Founding Fathers thought that was cattle-like. It was unsatisfactory, beneath the station in life they had been designed to occupy when they were created as thinking, honorable men. So they declared Independence (poll rating: 33%), fast-forward 230 years and how we doin’?

Moo…moo…

Suffering is on a fast-track. Someone doesn’t have what they need…or what they want…and they don’t even have time to go boo-hoo. If they say “boo” they don’t even get to the “hoo” before a news truck is in the driveway. Let’s get realistic about it — it doesn’t matter what the problem is. They may be missing a kidney, through no fault of their own…they might. Or, they have no money for baby formula because the whole paycheck went to cigarettes and lottery tickets.

The process is broken. We’re supposed to be compassionate toward people who are facing dire emergencies and aren’t at fault for the position they have in facing them. But this has nothing to do with anything. The magnitude of the crisis is irrelevant. The culpability they have in their situation is irrelevant. These things matter to the fast-track process, the way kibbles-n-bits versus cat poo matter to a hungry dog. It’s all the same. Down it goes. Every morsel of human suffering, or unfulfilled human desire, is broadcast. After it is broadcast, it is discussed. After it is discussed, it is lobbied, and then through public policy it is accommodated, more often than not at taxpayer expense. Health problems. Kids who don’t pay attention. Abusive ex-husbands. Lung cancer from years of willingly smoking cigarettes. Inadequate retirement plans. Penises that don’t get erect when someone wants them to.

I’d guesstimate half of these crises, as they are presented to us, have to do with the taxpayer-funded remedies we have previously constructed, being somehow inadequate. Or maybe the budget of a state will be put in dire financial straits, and the governor will take action to change the criteria of qualification for educational assistance. On the front page it goes. Change in criteria; someone qualified up until yesterday, and no longer does. Suffering! Load up the camera truck, and head out.

Anyway. Now you know Neal’s beef. And you know mine. You are free to disagree, of course, but I think all reasonable minds would have to sign on to the idea that the original idea of Independence may have…slipped a little?

Let’s just think about it some today. In fact, with what remains of this week, make a point of getting ahold of the newspaper in your area, whatever newspaper that may be, and opening it to Page B-1. That tends to be your “Local Human Suffering” section, from one metropolitan area to the next, whatever it may be called. In honor of the Spirit of ’76, read this stuff, and try to read between the lines. Women are forced to split up with their husbands in order to qualify for AFDC benefits. Fathers who live with their own mothers, so they can be full-time college students while a half-dozen souls under the rooftop live day-to-day in poverty, no longer qualify for tuition assistance because their wives make too much money. Some homeless guy, with an abundance of social security benefits, has to eat at our local bread-and-soup line because he lacks the mental competence to make use of his entitlements, and the law allows no one to act in his proxy. Government agencies spend good money, advertising, trying to make sure everyone’s aware of the “emergency” benefits they offer, to head off the disaster of a qualifying applicant actually trying to make do on his own without drawing on the benefits. Can’t have that, you know.

Read between the lines.

And be concerned.

Happy Independence Day.

Of Nature And Nature’s God

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

Separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God entitle them. Boy, that Thomas Jefferson. He really had a knack for tossing in the ol’ throw-away words. He really knew how to season the main course of his essay by sprinkling in a bunch of adjectives and nouns, sounding oh-so-weighty, but completely devoid of purpose, laying sprigs of inedible parsley alongside the pork roast.

Whoopsie, though, no he didn’t.

Studying the writings of the red-headed Founding Father, in his days as a rising young legal savant, and as an elderly, impoverished former President, one is awestruck by the unbroken pattern of purpose behind each word. His writing is like a good movie script. Everything has a point. Every article, every verb, every syllable.

Entirely worthy, like the writing of few other men either living or dead, of dissection.

So let us dissect. It’s birthday #230, after all.

They…and from this, it is easily inferred, the big “We” as well…have a station in life, a station to which we are entitled by the laws of Nature and Nature’s God. The laws of Nature, alone, do not entitle us to this station, nor do the laws of Nature’s God. We are entitled by both of these. What on earth could that mean?

It would appear that as far as the word “Nature,” definitions #1 and #4 of Merriam-Webster’s are the focal points of what Jefferson means to say.

1. The material world and its phenomena.
4. A primitive state of existence, untouched and uninfluenced by civilization or artificiality: couldn’t tolerate city life anymore and went back to nature.

We are entitled to these stations because we have been made to be entitled to them, in the state untouched and uninfluenced by artificiality. King George III is denying us this station, because he is influencing our status with artificiality, denying us rights to which we would naturally be entitled.

History supports the thesis that this has to do with trade. As I’ve already commented in Thing I Know #24: “A dog can pick out a master and follow him; a lemming can detect a consensus and go along with it; a monkey is capable of showing compassion to the weak; but only a human can honor a pledge.” This is a sacred thing, made moreso by the fact that the honor of a pledge, is the keystone to any & all trade. But the paramount quality to the honoring of pledges, is that only humans can do it. We must be able to engage freely in the practice of doing so, because we can do so. The laws of Nature say that whatever we can do, we must be able to do.

The laws of Nature stay in place, even when they are offensive to others. I don’t like to see spiders suck the juices out of flies, or to see killer whales bite seals in half while the victim is still alive. And yet, such things will be. Nature can be pretty harsh.

In this highly compact nugget of obscure terminology, Jefferson manages to observe, and soundly address, the dictum that this is not an absolute. I may have biceps as big as your thighs, and I may be able to beat the crap out of you. According to the logic above, I should be able to do it. I’m bigger, and stronger, so it’s “natural.” And indeed, that is what King George, and Parliament, were doing — passing taxes against the colonies, because they were legally able to do so, because they were militarily able to do so.

This is where “Nature’s God” comes in. Jefferson was saying this was wrong…

…and yet he wasn’t saying simply that, and nothing more. If this was the foundation of the argument, you could use the same logic and go around saying this is wrong, that’s wrong, don’t do that…insinuating yourself in all things whether they were any of your business or not, whether you had authority to enforce your decrees or not, over the flimsy foundation of “well, that’s just wrong,” like some smelly European.

Note that in 1776, Great Britain was a protestant nation. The laws of England decreed that we are here because God put us here, and by the Grace of God King George was the high and mighty Prince of all the realm. The King, in those days, was almost like a protestant version of the Pope. He shared the power over his subjects with Parliament, which was said to “virtually” represent the colonies. That is to say, the colonies were thought to be represented in the Parliament that approved the Stamp Act of 1765 and the Townshend Act of 1767, although, factually, they were not.

So according to the Law of Nature’s God, within this tiny nibble-sized clause, Jefferson, by implication, posed the hypothetical. The Creator put us here, clearly, with the explicit intent that we should live our lives as thinking individuals, engaged in lawful trade through the honoring of pledges, and by His divine will, appoints a sovereign, who, acting on the will of The Lord, proceeds to treat the colonists like…dogs. Beasts of burden, who simply draw breath, eat food, do work, and send the profit of the work back to Mother Britain.

Makes no freakin’ sense. Jefferson was saying, if we are all children of God, let us all act like it. And in order to act like it, we need absolute, inalienable rights, rights from which we cannot be separated by any mortal man, no matter how offensive our exercise of those rights may be…

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…

Look that last one back over: We hold these truths to be self-evident. Our modern liberals would strike this down in a heartbeat, according to their own twisted logic of “oh yeah, prove it!” Jefferson, here, is saying I cannot prove it and I will not deign to try. We hold them to be self-evident. You may disagree with these premises, but in so doing, you abjure yourself from the discourse involved in reading our document. You cease to be part of our intended audience.

And of course, if you accept these truths, thus remaining part of our intended audience…you must ultimately come to agree that the Independence of the colonies (poll rating: about seven percentage points, in 1776, beneath what President Bush has right now) is the right way — the only way — to go.

Man was not built to be two-legged cattle. He has rights, rights transgressed by the status quo. You can tell by looking at him.

You may peel a carrot, and in so doing comport with the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God.

You may peel the skin off a living man, and in so doing comport with the Laws of Nature if you have this physical ability…but not with the laws of Nature’s God.

Man has rights. We may do everything that the laws of Nature say we can do, so long as we also comply with the laws of Nature’s God. And if we do so comply, then the laws of Nature’s God say that all other men must allow us to do what we are doing. If they use physical force to stop us, then they, in turn, are complying with the laws of Nature, but not with the laws of Nature’s God.

Nature’s God has a simple law: Now that you are here, do my work. Justify your existence. Use your lives to find some reasonable purpose to why I put you here in the first place.

And for an upper-crust of aristocracy to make arbitrary rules, while commoners toil away, doing nothing, just working for the benefit of others, sweeating, pooping, eating, drinking, like so many millions of bacteria, being denied the right and privilege to even think for themselves…that’s just not consistent with the mission. It cannot be. We are sovereigns as individuals — or else, we are a pointless experiment. And whoever makes us such a pointless experiment, thwarts the will of Almighty God. Thus, thwarting the point to his own existence, along with our own.

I believe in God, so I know what we’re celebrating tomorrow. I feel really sorry for the atheists. They have no home in this country, and most of them don’t even realize it. As a scientic theory soundly based on empirical fact, God most certainly does not exist and cannot ever exist. But as a hypothetical, posed for the purpose of defining our existence and the justifying the same, He most certainly can.

And among those who seek shelter beneath the rights afforded by the laws of Nature and Nature’s God, whether they call themselves “atheists” or not…in His station as this hypothetical, defining and justifying the existence within which those rights are to be enjoyed…He must. Logically, there’s no way around it. The rights do not exist, unless there is authority to say they are there, and all authority to say the rights are there, are derived from Him for they can be derived from nowhere else.

Happy Independence Day.

Wingman

There is this scene in the classic movie Rashomon (1950) in which the criminal and the nobleman engage in a swordfight. It’s a re-enactment that’s been done two or three times earlier in the movie, according to different testimony, and this latest one is really lame. Not Revenge of the Sith (2005) type stuff, not in the least. Both combatants spend a great deal more time posturing, anticipating, stumbling, quivering, yelping, and once or twice in the whole melee their weapons actually make contact with a rather pathetic “pinging” noise. Naturally, this causes them both to retreat, topspeed, backward, like craven hyenas, and then the comical circling/trembling exercise is renewed again.

Kind of funny. Kind of eerie. Anyone who has not actually seen a swordfight in person, including your humble author, quickly gathers the impression that perhaps this version mirrors reality most closely.

As the critics and apologists of the New York Times circle each other over this whole SWIFT dealy-doo, the ensuing conflict reminds me of that scene. Rhetorical questions bumptiously posed, which in turn seem to have only a nodding acquaintance, if any acquaintance at all, with the point that is supposed to be made by posing them. Relatively simple matters, made more complicated, not to flesh out obscure points that would otherwise pass by forgotten, but instead to deceive and distract.

Brutally Honest, which is already listed in the sidebar, came up with a couple more of the anti-war posters photoshopped from the World War II days to more directly address the New York Times’ speaking-truth-to-power, or seditious-indiscretion, depending on your point of view. The post went up a week ago. For this, the blogger earned the enmity of one of his commentators, who said the blogger was “crazy-ass,” “freakazoid,” and “sinking into fascist territory real fast.”

Unlike the Rashomon duelists, the Brutally blogger preserved his dignity by refusing to engage. I, of course, am not that dignified.

Now, some will assert, I expect, that there’s nothing wrong with what the commentator said. Others with a slightly more healthy fixture to the plane of reality, will recognize the commentator is arriving at whatever haphazard conclusions he wants to in order to advance an agenda, neglecting completely to show how these conclusions can be logically supported by anything that was said, or anything that actually happened — but then go on to assert this is an isolated case.

Well, it isn’t an isolated case. People, just like the Brutally blogger, articulate the entirely sensible notion — the entirely sustainable notion, might I add — that the Times made a publishing decision running heavy on the peril to our national security, and much more lightly on the value of the revealed information to the public-at-large. For this, and/or for photoshopping some posters, the people who advance this simple observation are called “right-wing nutjobs,” “freakazoids,” and “neo-cons.” The notion that too much information might get some people killed, is summarily pronounced to be delusive, extravagant, half-assed, crazy, and to be nothing more than a reverberation of a cock-and-bull talk-radio talking-point.

Even though, in times past, our government prosecuted people for doing the same thing. This is just a simple fact. If it’s okay to do, now, what decades ago was unanimously recognized as treasonous, something must have changed. Has the nature of war changed? Can it be that information is less valuable to our enemies…now that we’ve jettisoned the moorings of the industrial age, and ventured headlong into the information age? If that’s the case, how can this be?

That’s the question. And all I hear back, in response, is a lot of swooshing, with some occasional pinging.

One of the favorite talking-points from the left-wing…oh, did you not know? The Left are pretty fond of talking points too. Anyway. One of the blustery rhetorical questions, which perhaps seeks to make a point, but shows little evidence of a continued fastening with that point, is this. The Wall Street Journal did it too!

Gee, when little kids say he did it first! at least they seek shelter behind the skirts of time. “First.” Of getting physical I am guilty, but I didn’t throw the first punch. By implication, I’m using the excuse of self-defense.

The “WSJ did it too!” defense is several levels weaker than this, because it is single-strand. It sees vindication through dilution, alone. What The Times did, is equal to what The Journal did, so if you utter even a syllable against The Times you are morally bound to mirror your invective in the direction of The Journal as well, or else you are a hypocrite. Attacking the critics; accusing the accusers.

One of the cards in the bottom row of this quivering house, is the notion that the two situations are identical. Hah! If only they were. Forget about the house collapsing; doubt must be cast on whether it can be built in the first place.

The Journal, after the umptyfratz-th time the argument was raised, decided the time had come to address it soundly on Friday:

President Bush, among others, has since assailed the press for revealing the [terrorist financing] program, and the Times has responded by wrapping itself in the First Amendment, the public’s right to know and even The Wall Street Journal. We published a story on the same subject on the same day, and the Times has since claimed us as its ideological wingman. So allow us to explain what actually happened, putting this episode within the larger context of a newspaper’s obligations during wartime.
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According to Tony Fratto, Treasury’s Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, he first contacted the Times some two months ago. He had heard Times reporters were asking questions about the highly classified program involving Swift, an international banking consortium that has cooperated with the U.S. to follow the money making its way to the likes of al Qaeda or Hezbollah. Mr. Fratto went on to ask the Times not to publish such a story on grounds that it would damage this useful terror-tracking method.

Sometime later, Secretary John Snow invited Times Executive Editor Bill Keller to his Treasury office to deliver the same message. Later still, Mr. Fratto says, Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton, the leaders of the 9/11 Commission, made the same request of Mr. Keller. Democratic Congressman John Murtha and Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte also urged the newspaper not to publish the story.

The Times decided to publish anyway, letting Mr. Fratto know about its decision [on or about 6/21]. The Times agreed to delay publishing by a day to give Mr. Fratto a chance to bring the appropriate Treasury official home from overseas. Based on his own discussions with Times reporters and editors, Mr. Fratto says he believed “they had about 80% of the story, but they had about 30% of it wrong.” So the Administration decided that, in the interest of telling a more complete and accurate story, they would declassify a series of talking points about the program. They discussed those with the Times the next day, June 22.

Around the same time, Treasury contacted Journal reporter Glenn Simpson to offer him the same declassified information. Mr. Simpson has been working the terror finance beat for some time, including asking questions about the operations of Swift, and it is a common practice in Washington for government officials to disclose a story that is going to become public anyway to more than one reporter. Our guess is that Treasury also felt Mr. Simpson would write a straighter story than the Times, which was pushing a violation-of-privacy angle; on our reading of the two June 23 stories, he did.

We recount all this because more than a few commentators have tried to link the Journal and Times at the hip. On the left, the motive is to help shield the Times from political criticism. On the right, the goal is to tar everyone in the “mainstream media.” But anyone who understands how publishing decisions are made knows that different newspapers make up their minds differently.

Some argue that the Journal should have still declined to run the antiterror story. However, at no point did Treasury officials tell us not to publish the information. And while Journal editors knew the Times was about to publish the story, Treasury officials did not tell our editors they had urged the Times not to publish. What Journal editors did know is that they had senior government officials providing news they didn’t mind seeing in print. If this was a “leak,” it was entirely authorized.

Would the Journal have published the story had we discovered it as the Times did, and had the Administration asked us not to? Speaking for the editorial columns, our answer is probably not. Mr. Keller’s argument that the terrorists surely knew about the Swift monitoring is his own leap of faith. The terror financiers might have known the U.S. could track money from the U.S., but they might not have known the U.S. could follow the money from, say, Saudi Arabia. The first thing an al Qaeda financier would have done when the story broke is check if his bank was part of Swift.

Did you catch that?

Tony Fratto, through his boss, through the President, has the job of declaring things classified in the interest of national security. That means, to those unacquainted, there are some things that can’t be publicly known — if they are so known, people might be put in danger. This job, ultimately, rests with Fratto’s boss’ boss. The President. Yeah, the guy who didn’t really win Florida and Ohio. Whatever. Get over it already.

So here comes Fratto, to say hey wait a minute, don’t run that. It will compromise our national security. And Keller, who has First Amendment protection, but has no obligation for figuring out what’s classified and what isn’t…zip, zero, nada…says screw you.

This is supposed to be a “publishing decision.”

Sure it is…in the sense that New York Times stock value could tick up a notch or two, if & when the story is run. That is one side of the decision.

The other side of the decision, is the national security, to say nothing of human life, placed at risk.

How is Keller responsible for this? You know what, forget about responsibility…how is he even in a position to make an assessment of the risk? Nobody, at least no one brought to my attention, seeks to demonstrate such a thing.

So in order to re-assert this as a “publishing decision,” you need to demonstrate no lives were placed at risk. And The Left seeks to do that with the silly rhetorical question…how?

Ah, but the answer is so simple, that the question, by being asked, betrays a voyage into fantasy-land, the length of such sojourn, day-trip, lifetime-voyage, somewhere in between, being anybody’s guess. Um, well…terrorism kills people? Terrorism…can sometimes be expensive, and needs financing? The root of terrorism is terrorist money? Kill a weed it’s back tomorrow, kill the root it’s gone for good?

Like, duh?

I wish this dialog resembled some of the other more genuinely confrontational swordplay in Rashomon. But it doesn’t. I’m being asked to believe we are getting a better government when the government is transparent, because that way it is accountable to the public-at-large. I wish, when I saw the behavior of the public-at-large, once the guts of the transparent government have been exposed for inspection…that the ensuing forensic deliberations gave me a little more confidence.

Posture, quiver, swoosh…ping! Swoosh.

Who Killed The Electric Car

This movie says that we had some Electric Vehicles (EVs), and now we don’t have them anymore, because the auto industry didn’t want to give them to us. Actually it says more than that; it says the auto industry didn’t refrain from giving them to us, what it did was give them to us and then take them away again. American industry, therefore, perceives an intense demand for new technology, in fact technology that will make things economically rosy for manufacturers, dealers and consumers…and indulges in the capitalist/industrialist instinct which comes most naturally in a free market, which is to make sure it doesn’t happen.

Anti-capitalist bullshit, you say? Well, watch the movie. It’s pretty compelling.

Of course, to those of us who aren’t quite so quick to chow down on the maybe-roast-beef, maybe-bull-poo-poo sandwich, give our compliments to the chef, and demand seconds, questions naturally arise…questions like, why would American industry do this? Is this an oasis of deliberately-hurt-the-consumer, in a sprawling desert of give-the-consumer-what-he-wants? Or is it endemic to the auto industry, and to corporate America in general, to figure out what people want, what makes the best economic sense to produce, and then…kill it? If it’s the second of those two, how does this work exactly?

And what is to be said of all those episodes where American industry did, indeed, try to kill innovation, and was about as successful in doing so as you would be at eating chicken broth with a fork? What about all those spin-offs throughout history since the industrial revolution? Nikolai Tesla and Edison Electric…Jeff Hawkins and 3Com…Jack Tramiel and Commodore…how do these things happen? Given these David-and-Goliath anecdotes from real techno-industrial history, what is this chokehold that industry has against technology? It’s not exactly a sure thing every time, is it? How does an American industry, or company within that industry, decide technology is going to be stopped, with any assurance of success? How is that possible? When failure at such a thing is guaranteed, the instant your mega-industrial goliath is told to go fuck itself by the right entrepreneurial genius throwing his badge and pager in the trash?

And here’s another question. The trailer is put together with expert skill. It makes a lot of good points. I’m left wanting to know more. Why put a kookburger like Ralph Nader in it? I have some skeptical questions to ask, some of which have been answered by the trailer — and others of which, have not been. Nader’s presence is a forewarning that in spite of the track record thus far, a lot of my questions are going to remain unanswered, and most of the unanswered questions will have to do with this alleged corporate malice. After all, I’m starting my second quarter-century of waiting for Ralph Nader to explain to me how it is, that the evil corporations do all the evil things that evil corporations are supposed to be doing. He is known to me, and God-only-knows how many other people, as someone who doesn’t deliver.

This article expounds on the point…but not enough to answer my bothersome questions.

The major auto industries were perhaps the most influential in keeping affordable and practical EVs out of consumer hands. As it stands, they may have had the most to lose from it. Widespread adoption of BEVs would mean decreased profits over ICE vehicles due to the simplicity of one or zero moving parts in an electric motor versus thousands in an ICE. EVs need no tune-ups, no oil changes, no servicing, and very little maintenance in contrast to their IC brethren, nor do they even require most of the parts gasoline cars require. The average ICE vehicle and its engine stays in use for approximately 150,000 miles, while an electric vehicle�s motor can easily last up to 1,000,000 miles and will routinely last over 500,000 miles. Not to say that EVs aren�t profitable, as they can easily be such, as has been demonstrated in history when there were about as many battery electric cars on the roads as IC ones in the early 1900s. They are just *less* profitable than IC cars due to the fact that they are less wasteful and consumers get more out of them for less. The auto industry and their greed simply cannot have that. They want YOUR money, and they have made sure they will continue to sucker you and others out of your hard-earned dollar for the foreseeable future.

Makes perfect sense! Except…according to this logic, we have no Toyotas on the road today. No Toyotas. You see, I have a Toyota. It’s on the original engine, up way past 320,000 miles. Second clutch, second timing belt, third muffler, third radiator, third windshield, etc. Normal wear and tear. Oil changes every 3,000 miles. Gas. That’s about all I’ve put into it. For seventeen years.

My story is not unusual among Toyota owners. There is a lot of bang for the buck, when you own a Toyota.

The article is talking about TCO, or Total Cost of Ownership, something sent sinking to bargain-basement levels with Toyota sedans. The article is trying to tell me that a low TCO means a low profit for certain nefarious interests, therefore, the nefarious interests will keep me from getting to the product and this is why we have no EVs. Yet the Toyota is parked downstairs, as I write this. I had no problems getting ahold of it.

So conceptually, this doesn’t work. I’m the consumer, I want to pay next-to-nothing for repair and upkeep of a product, and that becomes the job. I want it that way. Someone will build a product that fulfills what I want. It’s proven.

That’s the case with tightasses like me…we represent, I’m going to take a wild stab at it here, maybe 30% of the car market by nose-count, and 15% by dollars-to-spend. The article and the trailer both make mention of a wide assortment of tangible benefits to be realized from owning an EV, benefits that would be of interest to, I’m guessing, 90% of the car market.

I’m being asked to believe 90% of the car consumers, cannot bring pressure to bear on the auto industry, the kind of pressure that has proven so effective at getting 30% of those consumers exactly what we have been wanting.

Therein lies the problem. I could eventually come around to believing what I have been asked to believe. But things must be explained before that happens. If Ralph Nader is helping to do the explaining, I’ll need to see even more.

This Is Good XII

One of the folks who, it appears, learned about this blog from the Pajamas Media link yesterday, was good enough to provide a link through his own blog, The Virginian. Two posts up from that, there’s a cartoon that helps to make the point about the New York Times and SWIFT flotsam & jetsam.

I have an observation to make.

Liberals would like to cure hunger, something we are all supposed to want to have done. Conservatives, on the other hand, would like to kick terrorist ass, something else we are all supposed to want to have done. Each ideology, therefore, is put in the position of wanting to see something good get done, but precluded by their own principles from taking an active role in making it happen, committed to instead sitting on the sidelines and watching the other folks give it a crack.

Conservatives say when government takes an active role in eliminating poverty, the result is complacency on the part of the individual, and over the long term, a return to either poverty or disenchantment, usually both. History backs them up on this. Liberals, at least the ones who back up the position of The Times in this situation, say “the public has a right to know,” etc.

Conservatives have aptly explained why they don’t want government programs to take a direct role in curing poverty. Why won’t the liberals help us with kicking terrorist ass? This remains unexplained.

Another observation. When liberals have the power, and start to enact their programs to cure poverty, and conservatives try to obstruct them, that’s all the conservatives do. Vote “nay.” I have not seen a situation arise wherein a conservative tries to sabotage what the liberal is doing to cure poverty. The votes are taken, Democrats vote yea, Republicans vote nay, the program passes, a lot of money is sloshed around and a few years later we still have just as many poor people as we did before. But nobody taking a role in trying to injure the program. The injury to the program, comes from the program just being allowed to work in whatever manner it will.

Liberals have placed themselves, it seems, in the position of saying the conservative terrorist-ass-kicking programs don’t work and can’t work…while putting a significant amount of effort into keeping those programs from working.

With liberals in power, conservatives must at least pay lip-service to the idea that we don’t want poor people to be poor anymore. With conservatives in power now, I’d like to know, do liberals want terrorist ass to be kicked? Interestingly, that question cannot be answered until we have a long, convoluted, bordering-on-existentialist debate about what an “ass-kicking” is, exactly. The counterpart to this long, windy, drawn-out debate doesn’t surface when liberals are in power, and wanting to cure poverty. Our recognition of the problem is quite simple, in that event. Even simpler, I would say, than reality itself; America has some of the chubbiest “poor people,” owning the biggest television sets, wearing the newest clothes, compared to other poor people all over the world. But I suppose that gets into a different subject.

The issue is sabotage from within. It is a problem when conservatives try to work through the government to kick terrorist ass, something government is supposed to be doing. It is not a problem when liberals work through the government to give cash to poor people — something I’m not sure government is supposed to be doing, although seldom is that question raised anymore. So sabotage rises up when government does what it’s supposed to do, and when government does what it isn’t supposed to do, there is no sabotage. I find this disparity interesting.

5,002

Pajamas Media put up a post just to make sure the five-thousanth notch was carved. Now if you go to that page, find that post and then look upward, two posts…we’re there. Zowie, maybe there are people who read this blog after all.

Welcome, Pajamas-people. Set down your teddy bears on the sofa, grab a mug of root beer and stay awhile.

Nobody ever reads this blog, of course, but if anyone did they might notice a hypothetical resurfacing from time to time involving a “dispassionate but interested space alien,” the things such an alien observes about our domestic and international conflicts, and the questions such a space alien would have about the things we say and do. Of course, being dispassionate, the space alien wouldn’t ask questions the way we ask our questions amongst ourselves; to slander one side or another, would be outside of his goals. He’d be dispassionate. But interested. Wanting to learn more.

And puzzled. In the situations in which I pose his visits and ensuing inquiries as a hypothetical, he’d be very, very puzzled.

The way we support our troops, for example…versus the way we support our football, baseball and other sports teams. Very curious. The things we do here, to us, make perfect sense. Because we’re not space aliens. We have become aclimated to our own behavior, over time, kind of the way the proverbial frog is aclimated to the water getting warmer. Being assaulted on all our senses at once with our ritual support of troops, and sports teams, like the dispassionate but interested space alien, we’d never be able to puzzle out what, to those of us born and bred amongst these rituals, makes perfect sense.

Allegations have surfaced in connection with soldiers, and I know not which branch they were supposed to have served, who are supposed to have raped and killed a woman and murdered several members of her family (link requires participation in a survey). I heard this last night on the radio, and happen to have picked up the snippet that these “allegations” are second- and third-hand. Mmmkay, no confounding problems for the space alien just yet. Allegations were made against the Duke LaCrosse team, worthy of being checked out at the onset, eventually found to be full of holes and dismissed. In both cases, the accused are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty…and this process works a little differently, since one is decided in a military setting and one is not.

The dispassionate space alien starts to be confused with the nature of the accusations. Who is supposed to have done something? The unarmed Iraqis are supposed to have been killed by, and the woman raped by, “soldiers.” Not army soldiers, or sailors, or marines, but “soldiers.” How come it is, wonders the space alien, that the other case is the “Duke Lacrosse” case? How come they aren’t simply “Lacrosse” players? Why aren’t they “a college sports team”?

People are proud of supporting our troops. They drive around with bumper stickers that say so. People are proud of supporting our sports teams, too. They drive around with bumper stickers that say…they support the Seattle Seahawks. Or the San Francisco 49ers. Or the Sacramento Kings. Nobody, it seems, has a bumper sticker that says “I support our brave sports people.” Support is extended to teams.

Now I’m sure on this point the space alien would be able to answer his own question…to have a bumper sticker that says “I support the brave United States Marines” might be thought, by some, as expressing a sentiment to the effect that if casualties are taken you hope it’s the Army and the Air Force that take them. And of course, that just wouldn’t be cricket. Death plays a part in things military, and it’s not supposed to play a part in things sports-related, so that explains the difference. And yet, there is this universality involved in arguing with people to defend one sports team over another. My team is great. That other team is full of jerks.

Some people are willing to engage in arguments to support the troops. The space alien would probably like to know…why does it seem to be far, far fewer of us who “fight,” in the arena of ideas, for the troops? Maybe just half of us. Maybe fewer than that.

The space alien hears an awful lot of discussion about whether the troops are fighting for our freedoms. Many among us say the troops are not, even many among we who say we support them. The alien would have to ask…why is this worthy of debate? It seems a given that a football team plays a game, wins the game, loses the game…our lives are not affected even a tiny bit. And yet this, somehow, isn’t worth pointing out. Is it not pointed out because it isn’t open to question?

To support one team or another, is to hope that that team, in the upcoming game and in all games thereafter, wins. The team scores a touch-down, or a home-run, or a basket, and if you support that team this is worth talking about. It’s worth talking about if the team would have scored the victory and was “ripped off by a bad call.” Over and over and over again…and yet, when our troops take out Al Qaeda’s leader in Iraq, conduct over 400 raids based on evidence they found in that leader’s stronghold, and find 500 of the much-debated Weapons of Mass Destruction…it seems about half of us will take great pains not to talk about it. By that I mean, about half among those of us who “support the troops.”

The dispassionate but interested space alien, would not have to live among us for very long at all, before he’d pick up what we all know but very few people say out loud: Those of us who have not served in the military, respect those of us who do, and have. We think we’d be better people today, if we had served. Would we be better people if we had played on a sports team? It does not appear so. Many of the “fans” seem to think themselves capable, without a hint of jocularity or irony to be detected anywhere, of filling in for any one of the actual participants. Especially the coach!

Most curious of all, however, is the way we worry about how we are represented to the world-at-large, by the conduct of our military. The way we worry about how the military trashes the place, wherever it may go. Our concerns about the military and paramilitary cultures, and how those cultures are perceived. The way we worry about how our country as a whole, is perceived as being boisterous and lacking humility. Our misgivings about how we are seen because of our military. The alien would have to think, gee, I’m not even a member of the world-at-large. I’m from another planet entirely. And I have misgivings about the conduct of football fans. I think they’re boisterous. I think they lack humility. When they think it’s time to make some noise, they hold nothing back, indeed, they actually seem offended at the very idea someone else wouldn’t want to make the same noise.

Nobody seems to be worried about that; not one iota.

We designate the last Monday of each May, and the eleventh day of each November, to think about our veterans. If your family is feeling especially considerate, you might take a few minutes on those days to actually do something. But our athletes get our attention all year long, hours at a time, no expense spared. We sit and watch and watch and watch, until our butts get sore, and during a commercial we take a quick piss, grab another beer, and watch some more.

Being dispassionate, by the very definition of the word the space alien would have to pronounce it a worthy debate as to whether our troops are fighting and dying to make life better for the rest of us, or to make the world a better place. He would pronounce it a legitimate exercise to say they are, and an equally legitimate viewpoint that they are not. But he would notice, no doubt, the abundance of soldiers signing up for their service with the intent of doing these things. And he would not be able to pronounce it a worthy debate whether the same holds true of our athletes; this is entertainment, pure and simple, nothing more. I will not delve far into the question he’d have about why the athletes make so much more money. But he’d be even more curious, or almost as much, as to why there is controversy about supporting the troops — something we’re all supposed to be doing. “Controversy” is supposed to mean disagreement. If we all support the troops, why is there controversy in saying so?

We don’t “all” support the Sacramento Kings. But nobody is ever concerned about offending LA Lakers fans, with the display of a Kings calendar on the wall of a cubicle at work.

Some people say they are the “real patriots,” that their love of our country is the reason they want it to be held to such a high standard. This is why they want every single allegation of shenanigans at the hands of these troops, every second-hand allegation, every third-hand allegation, every urban legend — of misconduct by these troops “everybody” supports — checked out with a fine-tooth comb. Should those shenanigans be verified, these “real patriots” will talk about the shenanigans over and over and over again. Contrasted with that, when the troops achieve something indisputably noble and meritorious, it’s necessary to discuss the achievement in hushed tones, or not at all.

Nobody ever says “I love football” — and this is why we need to discuss the achievements of those football players in hushed tones, or not at all. And that allegations of wrongdoing should be vigorously investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, for as long as it takes.

In fact, among those of us who say we “support the troops” — which, of course, we all do, we say so — half of us seem to treat the troops exactly the way the fan of a given football team, treats the opposing team. With one exception: The football fan is proud of failing to support that other team. He isn’t going to bristle peevishly at the notion someone might be questioning his loyalty to both teams.

The dispassionate space alien wouldn’t understand these things. These things make sense only to people who are not alien, who have become acliminated as these things slowly grew out of nothing. People who are passionate. To the space alien, in fact to everyone else stopping to think about such things, these things are bollywonkers.