Treason

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, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

2nd World Lectures

First Putin, and now Klaus - Russia and Poland are lecturing the U.S. on free markets. 

Is it time yet to consider revolution? 

On Liberty

"Liberty" is too narrow a concept to serve as a foundation for libertarianism. Ultimately, this philosophy of government is not about liberty, but about the love of self. To love liberty, after all, is to love what one can do and be when in a free state -- to love liberty is thus to love oneself, to love being alive.

What does it mean to be happy? Happiness requires freedom.

But wait, this is surely false. Even a prisoner can be happy in his cell. Indeed, in a tyrannical state the threat of prison is no threat at all. It's just one more "right" to which the citizen is entitled. There will come a time in the not-so-distant future when Americans will all demand the right to be imprisoned.

No, happiness does not require freedom. The love of self, the love of being alive, is not happiness. It is something more primal, less tranquil.

Self-destruction, perhaps? Perhaps that's merely the other extreme, a false hedonistic panacea.

What of these extremes? Is it really the sedative of contentment on the one side, and the drunken stupor of self-destruction on the other? What does this formulation tell us about the nature of self-love?

Perhaps this: to love oneself is not to seek escape via the sedation of contentment (Buddhism), and it's not to be found in manic perversions. Instead, to love one's liberty is to love what one can become. The love of liberty is ultimately the love of a future Me that is shaped by the present Me. In loving myself I muster the energy to make myself anew, to find a vision that energizes me for the battle against me.

This is the meaning of Nietzsche's formulation that in self-love there is self-destruction, then. To this I merely add the necessity of freedom. Thus, we must beware of conflating self-love with happiness. The man who loves himself is not content, and he is certainly not drunk. The content one has run away from himself. The drunken one has fallen headlong into the moment. The self-lover, however, does neither: he looks to his future self for guidance, he acts out of an energizing vision that drives him onward because he loves himself -- and in loving himself he hates himself all the same, hates what he has failed to thus far become, and thus loves what he can be.

There's a reason that lovers of liberty -- pace Reagan -- come off as "hopeful." They are lovers of the future, always thinking ahead to that time when a nation -- or a man -- will be better than he is today.

To be a libertarian is thus to love liberty for the sake of being able to carry out one's own self-improvement even when it is not forced upon him. Why? Because it is harder this way! Because to "improve" through coercion is no improvement at all. This is what the libertarian thus resents most about liberalism: that the liberal wants not to improve himself, but he wants to improve others.

The New Environmentalism

It has seemed to many during the last few years as if it were impossible to be an environmentalist without believing in the anthropogenic global warming argument. Of course, this is false: one can be quite concerned about environmental devastation without buying into the sloppy science of the global warming diehards. To wit:

• Water shortages existed prior to the AGW argument, and they will exist after that argument has died out. The challenge of supplying water to the future billions who will populate the earth is a daunting one that will have to be addressed by serious people.
• Rainforest depletion is still occurring at an alarming rate, and that trend has nothing to do with AGW. There might be serious concerns about eliminating such a potent carbon sink, though algal growth is probably a much better sink in any case.

Interestingly, the libertarian position on these concerns might be the best form of non-AGW environmentalism still extant. That position could hold that individuals have a moral obligation to assist in preventing these and other forms of environmental damage, and at the same time reject arguments calling for intrusive government intervention. The chief premise underlying this position is simple: if human beings can't band together on a voluntary basis in order to "save the world," then human beings deserve to perish.

This position can be defended:

• Coercion is undesirable in itself - the default position in human affairs ought to be the rejection of coercion as a model for encouraging desired actions.
• The claim that without coercion survival will not be guaranteed is, first of all, most likely false on its face: humans will be around regardless of how badly they manage the environment. Even if they were to go extinct, however, it is incredibly unlikely that they would take the whole of Earth's ecology along with it. No one, not even Al Gore, is prophesying such a calamitous future.
• If the second claim above is true, then the worst case scenario is the extinction of the human race. Therefore the important question is this: Is the guarantee of human survival (assuming such could be given) worth the consequences of coercion?
• To answer "Yes" to this question is to believe that there is something special and good about human beings - but what could this be? What could possibly justify the use of violence and/or the threat thereof? Why should one accept that violence against our fellow man is justified solely because we want to survive?
• In short - what good is man? What is his raison d'etre? If he is to exist solely by virtue of doing violence to other men, what is the point? And if he, in his free, uncoerced, and voluntary state, cannot muster up the desire to save the very planet on which he lives, then what good was he in the first place? Why would we save such a shortsighted creature?
• Libertarianism offers at least a hopeful answer: Let us try to save ourselves (and the "planet," if you wish) by relying on what is best in us: a free and uncoerced self-love that bids us to go on with our lives as free men. Let us save ourselves and our habitat because we love life.
• But to love life -- that requires freedom.

Missiles and Anti-Missile Missiles

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20090302/120375219.html

Two possibilities should be considered: 

• Deception on the part of the U.S. -- that it will continue to develop a missile shield while telling the Russians they have stopped. 
• Deception on the part of the Russians -- that they will string the Americans along in order to give the impression that they are helping with Iran.

Observations:

• A lot will hinge on who moves first: if the U.S. is expected to withdraw its missile emplacements from eastern Europe, then it will need assurances that Iran will be handled. But how could Russia give such an assurance? 
• If Russia moves first, then what guarantee will there be that it has successfully tamed Iran? What guarantee will the U.S. accept? 
• The U.S. apparently made the offer. It must know that it will never have satisfactory proof that Russia has done enough to keep Iran from developing the weapon. So, why would it make the offer? Is it to paint the Russians into a corner? 
• If the Russians say no, then they look like they're backing Iranian aggression. 
• The Russians have to say yes, but they don't have to actually do anything. They can collude with the Iranians to string the Americans along. 
• Best-case scenario for the Americans -- they cancel a relatively cheap weapons system while getting improved relations with Iran. It also gives the U.S. a better image among Europeans. 
• The offer makes the U.S. look weak in Russia. The Russians know that the Americans have the weak hand by virtue of the paucity of guarantees the Americans would have of Russian/Iranian cooperation. So, what are the Russians thinking? Knowing that the U.S. knows it has the weak hand empowers Russia to make inroads into the Ukraine and Georgia. This should give it the small edge it needs to break the stalemate over control of gas delivery into Europe. 

Health, Money, and Human Nature

The challenge for pharmaceutical drug peddlers: convincing the 5 billion who aren't yet hooked on pharmaceuticals that entering the pharma-drug culture is a good thing.

A lot of people are not yet on the drug bandwagon. In many nations it's simply a matter of affordability: pharma drugs are not affordable and therefore it is not rational to spend much time desiring them. In some nations, however, the population is right on the verge of contentment. When a nation achieves contentment one of the marks of its decadence is the love affair with pharmaceutical drugs. The U.S. has long achieved this plateau of civilization, and as a result it now finds itself hooked on the idea that life is worth preserving at all economic costs. This runaway, self-aggrandizing philosophy has taken over the whole of health care in the U.S. And to what end? Has the belief that life is worthy of preservation created a more satisfying contentment among the people?

On the contrary: the addiction to drug-addled life has only made the people more miserable. Like any addict, the pharma addict's life is driven by a cycle of pleasure and tension that can only be broken by giving up the assumption that life is worth living even in the face of overwhelming economic cost.

More than any other modern debate, the question of health care financing cuts to the core of the human nature discussion. To know a people today is to understand its health care financing system.

Government and Competence

Is it possible to track the competence of a government? I wonder if one could make an argument for the thesis that the United States government is trending toward incompetence.

The argument could be partisan or nonpartisan. It could focus on the incompetence of a certain party, or instead on incompetence rooted in inexperience (younger governments would be more incompetent than older ones, perhaps).

It would be interesting to consider whether this argument could be conscientiously and impartially constructed. Some will argue that such an argument is impossible because all arguments about politics are inherently biased and therefore incapable of assessing a government's competence.

If such an argument is possible, however, then it's because it is in fact possible to assess competence. But this implies that it is possible to objectively determine a definition of governmental competence. Presumably, this definition would vary from function to function and agency to agency. The government is varied. The definition of its competence must be similarly varied.

I suppose not much hinges on this, but a psycho-political point can be made: perhaps political cynicism is nothing but the belief in the inextricably political nature of government, and perhaps such cynicism is wrong.

The Difficulties of Staying Informed

It is very difficult sometimes to gain access to relevant primary documents. Take, for example, the case of Genarlow Wilson. He is a 21-year old serving a 10-year sentence for aggravated child molestation. On June 11, 2007 a judge released him from that sentence. Here is what I know and what I would like to know:

Several media organizations reported the following quotations by Judge Thomas Wilson, who issued the ruling:

• "The fact that Genarlow Wilson has spent two years in prison for what is now classified as a misdemeanor, and without assistance from this Court, will spend eight more years in prison, is a grave miscarriage of justice."
• "If this court or any court cannot recognize the injustice of what has occurred here, then our court system has lost sight of the goal our judicial system has always strived to accomplish ... justice being served in a fair and equal manner."

These are strong claims by the judge (who is not related to the defendant). I would like to read the rest of the ruling, however, but it can't be found online. This is the first challenge in being fully informed about the case.

There is one other challenge: a video was relevant in this case. It features graphic detail about the crime committed at a new year's eve party in 2003. Apparently it shows Wilson having sex with one woman and oral sex with another. The conviction was for the oral sex -- a total of ten years solely for fellatio.

This seems excessive, right? I'm sure many people are thinking that no one deserves to serve 10 years in prison without possibility of parole merely for having oral sex with a minor. But that can't be the whole story. I need to (1) read the judge's ruling, and (2) see the video in order to have an opinion about the justice of this sentence.

Unfortunately, these materials are not available online. So what to do? Media organizations are not willing to post these materials, so it is impossible to use news organizations as a way to be fully informed in this case. One might think that is the responsibility of news organizations, but they don't see it that way. They think their job is to filter the raw news for those of us not smart enough to go to the original sources.

Where does this leave me? Without an opinion, actually. I can't decide whether Genarlow Wilson should be serving 10 years, or whether Judge Wilson's order was appropriate. The vast majority of news readers will jump on the bandwagon and agree with dismissal of the sentence, but their positions will likely be ill-informed: hardly anyone will have read Judge Wilson's ruling and seen the relevant video.

This single case is not an anomaly. It is common for news organizations to fail their readers/viewers in these sorts of cases. Rarely do we see primary sources linked to stories, making it very difficult to stay informed.

Of course, most people will not want to see the video or read the ruling, but they will still express an opinion about the case. I dismiss them, however. You can't have an opinion on something without seeing all of the relevant evidence. Unfortunately, this makes up the vast majority of news readers/viewers. They are too quick to form opinions based on a 300-word news story alone.

A basic principle needs to be applied here: Shut up unless you know what you're talking about. To the press, I would say: you're either being lazy by failing to post additional resources, or you're assuming your readers/viewers are lazy. Both positions are unsupportable.

Should Incest Be Legal?

A Time Magazine story from April of 2007. It summarizes some of the state laws in areas of personal sexuality (incest, the sale of sex toys, sodomy, prostitution, same-sex marriage, and others).

The link: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1607322,00.html.

Stunting a Child's Growth on Purpose

The issue question in this case could be stated as follows: "Were Ashley's best interests served by the stunting surgery?"

Here's the story:

• AP: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070105/ap_on_he_me/stunted_daughter
• BBC (contains comments as well as a brief story): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6230045.stm

Insurance Payments to the Unborn

A recent story from Alberta, Canada. The essential (and confusing) facts are as follows:

• Woman gets into a car accident while pregnant.
• Her fetus/future daughter suffers severe injuries in the crash, which was the woman's fault.
• Alberta law allows children to sue their parents for damage caused during pregnancy. So, the woman sues herself in order to recover benefits for her daughter. The woman wins, meaning she loses and her insurance company must pay benefits to the winner (the mother, acting on behalf of her daughter).
• The insurance company pays out benefits to the child.

Banning Smoking Around Minors

Several laws have been passed recently that restrict smoking around children in enclosed spaces (cars, sometimes even homes). This law took effect in early 2007. Here's a story on other smoking bans around the nation.