Persuasion is Unnecessary

In a recent comment debate, I've been chastised for alienating others, thus limiting my ability to persuade them to act for political common ground. That doesn't matter to me, and here's why: I do not write those comments or this blog primarily to persuade or convince others.

I do it for me.

It's not that I can't take criticism. For most of my life, I haven't been nearly as close to perfect as I am now, so I've had to eat my share of humble pie when people convince me (or I independently figure out) that I'm wrong. Most of my critics need no encouragement. So, if you have a substantive objection to something I write, don't hold back.

Just know that if you object on the grounds that I'm ruining the chance to make political converts, you're wasting your time. Whether I'm right or wrong has nothing to do with how many people agree with me. I outright reject using any measure of popularity to settle a matter of truth or moral probity, whether it's polls, votes, consensus ("sustainability NOW!"), or common wisdom. If I must be more genteel and diplomatic to convince you of the truth, if you would like me to be more moderate, and less "extreme," to avoid being marginalized, you might as well save yourself the trouble and close this window without delay. Nobody is forcing you to read this.

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Before I get back to the debate over religion and torture, I'm going to relate a bit of background to my position. Anyone familiar with Billy Beck (cited above for his substantive exposition on the use of the word "extremist") will no doubt recognize a significant number of his arguments and phrases in what I write, including his attitude towards consensus, politeness, and persuasion. I could spend years cataloging the number of incidents in which someone attempted to disregard his argument, not for its merits, but because they regarded him as a foul-mouthed, arrogant jerk. Bearing in mind that he focuses his ire at selected targets (regardless of whether his critics understand why), he is unrepentant in eschewing such niceties. Read the comments for this article and search for his name. Here's a sample:

"I am aware that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation. No! No! Tell a man whose house is on fire, to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen, but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch - and I will be heard. The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal and to hasten the resurrection of the dead.

It is pretended that I am retarding the cause of emancipation by the coarseness of my invective and the precipitancy of my measures. The charge is not true. On this question my influence - humble as it is - is felt at this moment to a considerable extent, and shall be felt in coming years - not perniciously, but as a blessing; and posterity will bear testimony that I was right."

(William Lloyd Garrison, "An Immediate End To Slavery", editorial in The Liberator, January 1, 1831, emphases original)

Word.

"This ain’t no disco."

I added quite a few comments there, too. Search for those, too. For example:

But what keeps a predator from just pretending not to be persuaded? What about an idiot who lacks the mental capacity to grasp the reasoning? What then?

Billy Beck and Radley Balko are goldmines to me, for different reasons. Balko is an invaluable source of frequent articles highlighting corruption and injustice. His efforts have influenced criminal trials and played no small part in Steven Hayne being fired. But Balko still balks at being smug or "extreme." Also, I felt that during the last campaign he too often focused his criticisms against Republicans, ignoring the horrible consequences to freedom inevitable under Democrats. He spiked a few of my comments and then posted this defense, which I took to be in no small part a reaction to my criticisms. I realize that during an election campaign, people cast a jaundiced eye at their critics, often assuming that the motivation is to influence the election outcome (which is pretty funny considering the fact that I don't vote). But to his credit, he has started to see the consequences of the election outcome. He generally focuses on civil liberties, but perhaps he'll find good reasons to object to a new class of government abuses once the filibuster-proof Democrats start passing laws and regulations. When they ram through carbon cap and trade systems, increased gun control, and universal health care, that will trigger waves of citations, shutdowns, and takings, along with the inevitable arrests and prison sentences for people who resist these additional restrictions on their freedom. (Dare I dream that he might even realize that a McCain administration would likely have made most of the same positive changes, with much fewer negative ones, considering The Maverick's voting record?) I know Beck will be on top of things, as he has been since the Clinton years, without apology for his brusque tone.

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Back to the article on religion and torture, which triggered me to write this:

#27 ClubMedSux: ...if you want others to support your beliefs then alienating them is probably a poor strategy for winning their support.

#28 Dan: ...your rhetoric makes it much more difficult for us to work together for the things we do agree on, like the liberty movement. The libertarian and constitutional movements, energized by Ron Paul, will achieve little if we are not able to come together where we can.

Since I choose not to vote, I don't care about movements or political parties. (As much as I enjoyed watching Ron Paul make the other candidates look ridiculous by comparison, he isn't consistently on the side of freedom, either.) So if I have to give respect (in special cases) to anti-evidence, anti-logic, and anti-reason (i.e., faith), so that the people exhibiting such anti-thought don't switch sides against freedom, I have to question their commitment to principles. Democracy aside, why should I value having fair-weather allies? Such support seems arbitrary and capricious, not something on which to rely.

Idol

Danny Gokey outdid everyone else in style and substance. The way he powered through the ending was impressive. Adam Lambert sang like a musical maniac, but more Broadway than American Idol, as Randy put it. The other three lagged well behind.

The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008)

Spoilers below.

My son picked up The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008) the other day. When I was younger, I watched the original from 1951. I don't recall thinking much of its message of moral relativism (making no ethical distinctions between the aggressive use of violence versus defensive). I just saw it as an example of a science fiction movie from that era, overshadowed by the uncertainty of the Cold War.

Having seen some reviews, I knew the new movie would have an environmental spin, rather than anti-war. Still, I gave it half a chance. Partly, I wanted to see how it compared to the original, and see if it had any notable special effects. The effects were underwhelming. The CGI of the destruction cloud was the low-quality "crumbly" type, for example.

As a skeptic of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) hysteria, I expected the theme to be over-the-top hammer-you-on-the-head pontification. I got exactly what I expected. Klaatu (Keanu Reeves) even used the phrase "tipping point," so common among the most hysterical AGW chicken littles. The only thing missing was a shot of Henry Waxman aboard an orbiting spaceship, directing everything.

The anti-human hostility of films like War of the Worlds and Independence Day isn't driven by a moral cause. Rather, it's simply a matter of conquest by outsiders. If anything, such films often poke fun of the naive pacifists. But the anti-humanity of this film is one of moral judgment, taken to psychopathic extremes. As the CGI locusts go about destroying human civilization, I can't help but wonder at the hatred for progress and industry expressed by the writers and producers of this film. In the end, Klaatu relents and calls off the swarms, but only after destroying the ability of everything electrical to function. But the movie ends there, without showing planes fall from the sky, infants in PICU beds dying, massive starvation, death on the order of billions as crops rot in fields, or any of the other obvious consequences.

The childishness of such a massive destruction of human success and ingenuity, without addressing the real-life consequences, doesn't quite sink to the level of absurdity present in The Day After Tomorrow, in which tens of thousands of years of climate change are compressed into a couple days, for dramatic effect. But that isn't saying much.

Green is the New Red

Back in 2000 I looked up the platform for the Green Party and forwarded it to a colleague, in response to his offhand remark praising Ralph Nader's principles. From reading articles about the party, I knew they were more socialist than the Democrats, but I didn't realize how hard core they were until I read that platform. Yes, I know that party platforms are often just a token formality, not to be taken too seriously. But the political activity touted as pro-environment has been quite hostile to free markets and individual rights. If you had written fiction 20 years ago describing how the AGW crowd would behave, critics would have panned your writing for being ridiculously unrealistic.

I'm not sure when the phrase "Green is the New Red" occurred to me, but I know it was years ago and I had never heard anyone else use it. Had I thought of it before these moonbats, I might have reserved the domain or suggested to Warren or Anthony to use it.

I still like Richard's pithy summation from last year.

Idol

<rant>Were I a producer of American Idol, I would ban Randy from stupidly booing Simon at the start of every show. I would also ban contestants from responding to criticism by saying they "had a lot of fun." Most importantly, I'd eliminate any contestant who held out their fingers as Ryan gave the number to call for them, as though viewers were too stupid to read the screen.</rant>

Danny Gokey did the best tonight, and I think he has the most commercial potential. Adam Lambert always has fantastic vocal abilities, but his performances seem a bit too formulaic to me each week (soft, emotive voice to open, then a crescendo of wild riffs). I doubt his commercial appeal will be as broad as Danny's. Allison Iraheta and Kris Allen were very good, as usual. The other three paled in comparison to everyone else.

More on Unintended Consequences

As usual, Billy Beck hits the nail squarely on the head. I wish I had that cite from Gibbons when I wrote about repurposed drug warriors.

Or even this one:

In February, 1917, all political prisons, both those used for interrogation and those in which sentences were served, and all hard-labor prisons as well were emptied. It is a wonder that all the jailers managed to get through the year. ... (But from 1918 on, things began to get much better for them, and at Shpalernaya Prison they were still serving the new regime even in 1928, and why not!) ... (This was one particular part of the machinery of state that did not have to be destroyed and rebuilt from its foundations.)

(Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Gulag Archipelago, p. 459, 1973.)

The Anti-System

Warren Meyer of Coyote Blog writes:

I have heard it said that capitalism is not a system, it is the anti-system. This is the true beauty of capitalism — it is the only way for human beings to interact with each other without compulsion. Every other approach to organizing society involves some group of people using physical force to coerce other people.

(Go read the whole thing.)

I couldn't begin to count the number of times in online discussions I have been challenged to come up with a "better system" when I have made ethical objections to government interference in the economy. But that challenge presupposes a system, wherein "some group of people [use] physical force to coerce other people." By accepting this premise, that the free market is a system to rule others by force, you unnecessarily cede the most important quality of your argument.

Once you give that up, the accusations start flying that you want oppressive monopolies and tainted food. And, if you want this, then you're not for freedom, but are secretly for a form of fascism, controlled by corporate fat cats.

Warren's observation that capitalism (free market) is the "anti-system" is right on point. If you're not imposing a system on others, then you (and those who don't fight against freedom), don't have the control necessary to maintain monopolies or to stop people from boycotting stores that sell tainted food. People like choices. They don't like risking their health buying food from a someone with a bad reputation. Why would giving them the freedom to make their own choices result in large numbers of bad choices?

Also embedded in the "better system" challenge is the ambiguity of "better." Better for whom? In a command economy, one can always find those who are better off (at the expense of others). But each individual gets to decide what is better for himself or herself, and in a free society, that individual gets to make choices for the better.

The New "Evil-Doers" Are Capitalists

Balko cites Janet Napolitano on immigration:

What we have to do is target the real evil-doers in this business, the employers who consistently hire illegal labor…

If someone wants to come here to do honest work, they aren't hurting anyone. Furthermore, the people who employ them are doing nothing wrong either. Their arrangement is their business, no one else's.

It's no surprise that this Obama hack is once again digging for any excuse to target their political enemies. (Still no word on whether those who mocked Bush's use of the term "evil-doers" will say anything about one of their own doing likewise.)

Plenty of politicians use illegal immigrants as a scapegoat. Typically, Republicans are caricatured as being intolerant of "brown people" and thus driven to overzealous attacks on illegal immigration. But Democrats, anti-free-market commentators, and even libertarian-leaning politicians and commentators regrettably fail to stand up for freedom on this issue.

I understand the complaints about "freeloaders" who come here to take advantage of welfare. The solution isn't to deny people the freedom to move from one place to another, but to end welfare, which is an infringement on the taxpayers to decide how to spend what they earn. Why deny freedom on one end in reaction to freedom being denied on the other? That's the worst of both worlds.

For example, Ron Paul is concerned with children born in the US whose parents are illegal immigrants getting "full rights" as citizens, despite all his reverence for the principles of the American Revolution. Whatever he calls "rights" which he wants to deny these children aren't actually rights, but privileges doled out by government. Actual rights have no borders, and depend on no constitution.

The more reasonable concern is security, though this is but an artifact of the myriad of actions behind the establishment of governments and their claims of sovereignty.

Smug Atheists Getting De-baptised

Radley Balko links to a story about "De-Baptism Certificates."

...it strikes me as another example of smug atheists trying way too hard to assert their nonbelief.

But if you read the TIME article as well as the certificate itself, the explicit intent of the NSS is to make the church's census count of church members more accurate, in part to limit their proportion of political sway. That doesn't strike me as "smug" or trying "way too hard," but rather a defense against dishonest political tricks.

I left comments here, here, here, and here. The most salient argument I made concerns the importance of baptism to the the believer and non-believer.

UCrawford: …and it’s more likely to just polarize religious opinion against atheists because they’ll see it as us profaning their rituals…which it kind of is.

... But look at the ritual of baptism. Why do it? Because you fear that if you don’t engage in this strange rite, you will actually burn forever, even after you die!! And, you teach children that this is so, cruelly instilling fear in them. (Your friend who died in the car accident was only five years old, but since he wasn’t baptized, he is now being cooked and will be forever! Not only will little Jimmy not be able to play with you, he is right now screaming in agony! But God loves you.) Do you really, really think that such a ritual needs to be ridiculed to be any more profane?

Addendum:

I'm an American and I wasn't raised in any church. I voluntarily was baptized on my 18th birthday, so the particulars of these certificates don't apply to me. Even if they did, I wouldn't do it even if it were free, for the same reason I don't vote: I reject the underlying premise that our rights are subject to the outcome of polls or censuses. If 99% of the population joined a church, that still wouldn't give them the authority over the lives of the other 1%.

Unintended Consequences of Legalizing Drugs

Discussions of drug legalization or drug decriminalization have been appearing more frequently in the "mainstream media." There have even been a few glimmers of hope that the federal raids on California medical marijuana establishments would abate, but I doubt this portends any sea change in the War on Drugs. Most of these recent noises are in reaction to events in Mexico and Afghanistan. Yes, more people are realizing that allowing legal markets for drugs will reduce most of the violence and other problems which are the natural result of "black markets." But most advocates of legalization suggest taxing and controlling the market. Going by the government's track record on other legalized "vices," drugs will be no different. But it occurred to me that there is a more ominous possible consequence.

If the war is called off, what happens to the warriors and their weapons? What happens to the extra prison space?

Should we expect these people, who have grown used to having great power, with scant accountability, to hang up their jack boots and find other work?

I honestly can't predict how they will be used, in this world where satire has become impossible. As ridiculous as it seems to us now, could their new purpose be a War on Global Warming, a War on Sharing, A War on Fat, or a War on Guns?

The Drug Warriors are already quite used to sending in SWAT teams, terrorizing people, and killing pets for non-violent crimes, typically with no remorse for collateral casualties or getting the wrong house entirely. They're used to using dubious snitches, economic deprivations which skirt due process, and prosecutorial overzealousness. When they've already lost any respect for the rights and privacy of civilians, why would any of these new "wars" be any less authoritarian and tragic?

Land of the Free (1776-2008)

I made this picture just after Bush signed the Failure Reward Act. When even a Republican president and a congress with a relatively small Democrat majority could so easily steal nearly a trillion dollars in just a matter of days, it's time to call it. This isn't about Obama's impending election victory, either. McCain voted the same.

Election Horror

So much to say these days. Barack, Hillary, et al. are duking it out to see who can promise the most "free" stuff to voters. And, with all the socialism dripping from their every word, they are still awful damned close to being "mainstream" in this, the land of the free.

Then there are the Republicans, who are spineless at best, trying to tap-dance around the abortion issue, immigration, Iraq, etc.. Ron Paul is the only one making any sense (as much as a rotten, no good politician can), but he is widely dismissed for his radical views.

I'll be sitting out this election, like the last one—on principle. Still, it's hard to detach myself as the horror unfolds, and the masses clamor more loudly for these assholes to take control of their lives—or rather, to stick it to the others they don't like. How dare they be rich, immigrants, insufficiently pious! It's like a hurricane of outrageous lies and absurd demands, bearing down upon every last inhabitant. And, those of us who take notice of little things like freedom can only cringe, knowing that words like “mandate” and “will of the people”—all false—will be spoken in stern voices as our freedom crumbles away.

It's easier to be numb to it all (Update:archived).