Let's all [url=http://www.nativevillage.org/...%20from%20the%20People/re solution_of_apology_to_na tive_.htm]apologize[/url] one more time. Bill Clinton was famous for this. He apologized for everything. Everybody knows a great big "I'm sorry" solves everything.
Here's how I see this apology thing. "Europeans crossed the big pond, killed a whole big bunch of your folks, ran you off your land, introduced you to the magic of whiskey, and largely destroyed your native cultures. So, hey, we're all real sorry that happened."
In short, this apology accomplishes nothing. It's an enormous waste of time. It's even a little insulting.
One of the articles in the bill is: "[The United States, acting through Congress] apologizes on behalf of the people of the United States to all Native Peoples for the many instances of violence, maltreatment, and neglect inflicted on Native Peoples by citizens of the United States."
I have a problem with this. Mainly because even though I'm a 'people of the United States' I ain't sorry. Furthermore, I've never inflicted an instance of violence, maltreatment, or neglect on Native People. Thus, not only am I not sorry, I have no cause to be sorry.
I can't say I think what happened was right, but it happened and what's done is done. It's a little late to undo it.
This is a great place for a historical/multi-cultural context. Waging devasting wars against people is a human tendency, not unique to the 'white man'. Many many cultures have been destroyed. Those with poorer technology or skills were easy pickings and were shattered, absorbed, and their culture erased from the march of time. The Golden Horde was violent and vicious in their conquest of the known world. In fact, they are attributed with inventing biological warfare. During their seiges, they would launch corpses of plague victims into the cities and wait for the people to die off. The Mongols introduced the plague to Europe (more or less purposely), and followed up with brutal physical violence that has rarely been matched by any other conquering power. Their violence was so famous that their battles were half won before they engaged the enemy. I don't know that they wiped out entire cultures, but I do know if they failed it wasn't for lack of zeal. When Europeans found the Aztecs, they were already at the mercy of invaders. The invaders used ritual human sacrifice (injudiciously) to cow their new subjects. More recently we've seen attempted genocide in two parts of Africa (Rwanda and Sudan) and in Europe.
This isn't necessarily a defense, but it does serve to illustrate that this mentality is a consequence of human nature. People (cultures) are subject to evolution. Those who are incapable of defending themselves and their culture will fade into oblivion. The reason does not matter. The Native Americans had no defenses against the diseases introduced by Europeans. They did not have equivalent technology. Some of them were disadvantaged by their spirituality. Europeans exploited the Indian's weaknesses for their own gain. As has happened time after time throughout history. As continues to happen today. People seldom treat one another fairly. They treat one another in such a way as to gain advantage.
We do not live in a world where all cultures are equal. If that were the case, Egyptians would be building pyramids, Phoenicians would be sailing the Mediterranean, Sumerians would be pounding squiggles into chunks of clay, the Incas would be paving their streets with gold, Hawaiians would have a monarch. These culture failed for various reasons, many of them because of violence and brutality. Regardless, they were unable to protect their culture and are relegated to historical curiosity.
Native American cultures will eventually disappear also. There are too few of them, and they will not be able to survive in their crystal spheres with or without casinos. Over time, fewer of the youngsters will be satisfied with entitlements and will integrate into the general American population. The last vestiges of their societies are fading, native languages are disappearing, traditions are being lost.
Yesterday's theme sparked my imagination. I'm not a scientist or an engineer by training, but science is a hobby of mine, and I have a general understanding of the technology and problems faced by folk wanting to go to space. So, since I only know enough to prove my ignorance (and possibly be dangerous in the right situation "Ohhh, look, red button! Must push button!"), I'm going to engage in wild speculation and create my own fantasy version of the budding space industry.
I suspect the first revenue streams will come from cargo transport, tourism, and research. Carrying cargo like satellites and food stuffs for space station inhabitants will be a preferable alternative. At first, tourism will probably amount to a really fucking expensive carnival ride. People will effectively be paying a few (tens of?) million bucks to spend a couple of days on a rocket ship. Research organizations will pay to have experiments taken to space where they can be conducted without some of the problems found at the bottom of a gravity well.
As the technology matures and kinks are ironed out there will be some additional revenue streams. One, I think, will be orbital satellite servicing. Satellites only last about five to seven years. Hubble was the first satellite to be successfully serviced in orbit. Had the Hubble not been able to be serviced in orbit it would have been a disastrous (and expensive) failure. Obviously it is preferable to have modular, serviceable satellites that can be fixed than ones that have to be scratched. It can be compared to getting a new car everytime you need an oil change. Satellites are built more robustly than that, but still a satellite is an expensive bit of gadgetry, and orbital servicing would add some guarantee of longevity. I think companies would pay well for that service (and still pay less than they would if they had to rebuild and relaunch). Actually, I want my next job to be an orbital satellite technician. If you know of any openings, please let me know.
The next step in the industrialization of space is orbital manufacturing, long-term research facilities, and tourist facilities (Orbital Spa and Resort type facilities). The real horse-choking hairball problems show up here. Factories and research labs and hotels require things like air and water and walls. Lots of all of them. Coming up with those things is problematic. Hauling all that stuff up from the Earth is a horse-choking hairball problem by itself. Taping it all together is another. Building an orbital factory will not be a matter of fitting nipple A into Slot B and tightening the universal flangelator. I think that the best way of building the foundation for an orbital infrastructure would be to build modules here on the ground and launch these fully functional modules into space where they could be stuck together ticky-tack style. Launching the components for a module and then constructing them in space seems inefficient when a fully functional module could be up and running as soon as it is bolted onto the larger structure. These modules would necessarily be smallish and limited in their productive abilities, but they could also be dedicated to expanding the orbital structure. The factories would be better used to build additional facilities and such than being used to build things for use on Earth.
Coming up with raw materials is problematic (though not horse-chokingly so). Bringing raw materials up from Earth is pretty much out of the question. I think there are better sources of raw materials. Near Earth Asteroids and the Moon have loads of raw materials that can be harvested. (Not easily, but I'm making the rules.) Besides when I'm bored with being the satellite plumber, I want to be an asteroid miner ("There's gold in them thar hills!").
That's it in a nutshell. Stay tuned, though. I'll be considering other. . . considerations later.
The airport in Mojave will soon be the world's first privately held Space Port. It is expected that the X-Prize will be claimed this year (as early as this summer). It's already been demonstrated that folks are willing to pony up a chunk of change for a ride on a spaceship.
I think we are seeing the dawn of the space age. Or maybe the mid-morning of the space age since it can be argued that the space age dawned about half a century ago. What we are inarguably seeing is the commercialization of the space industry. Satellites and satellite launching technologies have been successfully commercialized already. There are scores of privately owned satellites floating around our little hunk of dirt. Several companies offer launching facilities. A number of competitors are trying to build reusable space craft. Even NASA is getting into the spirit of things with their Challenges Workshop.
NASA paved the way and proved the possibility of space travel. Now, they are losing relevance. Market forces and independent research and development will eventually stomp NASA. A bureaucracy like NASA can't compete with the rapidity of free-market competitors. NASA was necessary to get the ball rolling because of the sheer scale of the proposal. At the time, there were no corporations or individuals with the resources to research the technology. The government did have the resources (and did a brilliant job, all things considered).
Now, corporations have enough wealth to begin exploring the space industry. The technology is mostly well-understood and is freely available. Sitting here at my desk I could hunt down all the suppliers and information I would need to begin building my own space craft. Funding is a different matter, but it is hardly impossible to find. A full dozen participants have entered the X Prize (and I'm quite certain each of them has spent far more than the $10 million prize money). There are even more privately funded groups who will be participating in the X Cup. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on developing this technology privately, and there is every reason to believe that money will continue to be spent at this rate if not more rapidly as the technologies develop and begin to prove lucrative.
Many people decry the effort as a waste of time, energy, and money. One of their main arguments is that the amount of money involved is to great to permit any kind of profitable return. There are limited sources of profitability in space. They are (potentially) tourism, research, industry, energy production, and materials harvesting. There are many things that must be in place to support these activities. There must be a means of purifying air and water, and a reliable supply of food. Additionally, there is a staggering energy cost, one must factor in the cost of support personnel on the ground and in space, the capital expenditure needs to be recouped. . . It's unquestionably an expensive proposal.
It's all well and good to crunch dollars and explain how that makes the whole catastrophe a pipe dream. But I think that's backwards thinking. Dollars don't necessarily drive us to explore space. Something more fundamental is at work here. Simple curiosity, the need to explore, is driving the X Prize competition and the space industry. For the near future the prospect of significant financial returns is vanishingly small. The $10 million X Prize will be nothing compared to what has been spent on building the winning vessel. I submit that the competitors are not competing for the prize. They are competing for the 'first'. They want to earn themselves a place in history more than they want the big check. Furthermore, they want to explore. People know it is possible to leave our little hunk of dirt and see what's on the other side. We've been captivated by the very idea of leaving the earth at least since Jules Verne took us to the moon. The NASA missions fueled that fire more than ever. Maybe it's just me, but I'm the bear climbing the mountain to see what he can see. If it's another mountain I want to climb that one too. And that's what makes the X Prizers compete. They want to see what's on the other side of the mountain.
We are now living in an era when there is sufficient wealth and knowledge to make the dream of exploring the worlds beyond our own a possibility. I wrote a blurb about Space Agencies outside of the U.S. arguing that they ought to be invited to work with NASA. They said that the only way to develop space would be a concerted multi-lateral effort. I think they are just trying to get a piece of the pie. But again, they fail to see how free markets work and the power of capitalism. Bureaucracies are good at some things, but making money is not one of them. Leveraging technology is something else they are poor at doing. Private organizations are good at both of those things because they can change and adapt more rapidly to changing conditions and emerging trends. The United States is about to unleash the power of its economy and business on the space industry. As things stand right now, the space agencies around the world are specks in NASA's rearview. Once we open the industry to commerce, they will no longer be visible.
Of the 12 X Prize participants, seven of them are American. One is Romanian (who woulda thought?), one is Argentinian (ditto), one is British, and two are Canadian. I think this is not insignificant. Americans have the will to pursue this technology and the wealth to fund it. Maybe I'm a hopeless optimist, but I think Americans also have the ingenuity to make it work. It may take years, but if anybody can make space a lucrative place, it's Americans.
People are quick to point out the hurdles facing the space industry. But, I think recognizing a problem is the first step in solving it. I also think that we don't really have a grasp of the potential benefits and revenue streams that will come of a healthy space infrastructure. Everybody who points out problems we face, does so in the context of modern technology. The technology will not remain stagnant. It will advance (that is, in a way, the very essence of the X Prize). We have a fair grasp of the physical principles involved, but we haven't yet developed a lot of those principles to sufficient maturity to know how they will affect our advancement. I think the naysayers are important, but in this case I'm an optimist. Maybe because I would like nothing better than a ride on a rocket ship. In any case, I fully expect to see a healthy and growing space industry emerge before I die.
I keep a saltwater aquarium. It's a fascinating hobby. It's a great opportunity to learn of many things. Chemistry, natural history, even some physics and math principles.
Anyhow, I have a 40 gallon tank with a snowflake moray. He's a handsome devil. And about as smart as you can expect an eating machine to be. Unfortunately, I'm only able to keep him in the tank. He's big enough to eat just about anything else I might like to keep. He even ate a Picasso Trigger that was *supposed* to be able to fight back. I probably could keep a lion fish with him, but I'm afraid he might get stung during feeding. He goes apeshit when he smells food in the tank.
It's all good though. Eels are my favorite fish. I've spent many hours, mesmerized by his beautiful aquabatics. Eels are usually nocturnal and quite shy by saltwater fish standards. Snowflake eels are a friendly bunch though. Mine certainly likes to show off by swimming through cracks and crevices in the rockwork, and cutting shapes in the water.
He's not only handsome and outgoing, he's a fascinating creature. Eels are fish. People compare them to snakes, but they are fish with gills and fins and all things fishiness entails. Eels are unique fish though. They have long bodies and one continuous dorsal/anal fin they use to locomote. They also have rudimentary lungs and can survive out of water for some time. Mine last eel was a real hanger on. He escaped from the tank while I was away on a long weekend. I found him under the tank stand. I was going to write him off as marine jerky when he opened his mouth to gasp for air. I nearly bounced him off the nearest wall. I dropped him back in the tank and, unbelievably, he came around. What happens is they excrete a slime coat that helps keep them from drying out. They can breathe out of the water and will survive as long as they don't dry completely.
In nature they hang out around coral rubble where there are lots of nooks and crannies, so I put rock work in my tank to approximate his natural surroundings. He finds crevices and crawly spaces I couldn't even see.
They are also quite smart and very determined. You practically need to seal the tank with thermal bond epoxy to keep them in. If there is a crack in your tank's defenses, they will exploit it. They are naturally curious animals and they also have a powerful extinct to return to the place from which they came. If their wiles don't work in getting them out of the tank they will resort to brute force. Before settling in, my eel would wait for feeding time. Instead of going for the meal he would launch himself at the opening (and my face). He never escaped using that tactic but he did send me fleeing to the opposite corner of the room on occassion.
For the aquarists out there, here is my setup:
40 gallon glass tank Reverse flow undergravel filter Millenium Power Filter (on the back type) Bak-Pak Skimmer 25 Lbs. live rock SG: 1.025 (He prefers a slightly high SG) Temp: 77 F ~0 ppm Nitrite ~5 ppm Nitrate ~0 ppm Ammonia
An interesting theme emerged yesterday in the news. The title link on this page is to the EU Observer. Additionally, there was a talk radio guest who discussed the EU economic situation. I discussed it a little bit here.
I think the compound problems that have become apparent in the EU's attempted economy are accelerating the collapse. I think it is clear that the EU is approaching critical mass. What it all boils down do is that there is far too much regulation. European nations are strangling their own economic zone. It's worked out so far because they haven't needed to spend much on the military (the U.S. foots that bill for them), and because their populations haven't grown very rapidly. Now, they're running into some serious problems. They're approaching the point where there are about as many people living on entitlements as their are tax payers. They are not replacing retirees with new workers. Furthermore, the tax burdens and union burdens on their economies stifles any kind of growth. France, for example, has netted zero new jobs in the last decade (possibly longer, I can't find the stat anymore).
Most of this has been pretty well hashed out (by folks with a lick of sense at least), but it seems that, finally, Europe is going to have to face the facts.
[b]Cross-posted at [url=http://jrogg.blogspot.com]jrogg's Blogspot[/url] . Please leave comments there.[/b]
I don't get this [url=http://washingtontimes.com/up...]apology thing[/url] . I grew up understanding that when I do something wrong I should apologize for my wrongdoing. I also understood that an aopolgy by somebody for something for which they were not responsible is not worth a hill of beans. So, what is accomplished when the Swiss President apologizes to the Russian president for an aircraft collision (two years past).
Well, who am I to question such things? I'll just join in. I hereby declare May 20th to be Apology Day. As one gives thanks on Thanksgiving, so too shall one give apology on Apology day.
1. I'm sorry for two-headed calves. 2. I'm sorry for poodles with stupid hair-dos. 3. I'm sorry for women who have ugly babies.
I'm watching the Boogiepop Phantom anime series for the third time. I'll probably be watching it a number of times in the future. It has so many layers and threads that you have to watch it carefully and (in my case) many times. I'm writing this partly to help myself clear up the sequence of events both in the overall story and in the stories of the characters. When I start discussing specifics I'll give a warning so you can skip it.
Boogiepop covers a series of events in a city in Japan. I don't think they ever give the name of the city. All I know is it's not Tokyo. Anyhow, each episode gives additional details of the overall story. The twist is that each episode is done from the perspective of a different character. Not only does the series tell an inclusive story, it tells individual stories about the various characters. Another twist to the series of events is that the series is not in chronological order. In fact, a number of the episodes are in reverse chronological order, most of them have a now and then chronology with flashbacks to moments in the past, and most of them don't start or end over the same period of time. This is why you have to pay attention when watching. You have to catch clues that tell when the scene is taking place.
The main story begins five years ago. The story-telling begins a month ago with a bright light spearing the sky. The light is important because it is a marker that helps clear up the confusing sequence of events. In each episode (some more than others) comments and flashbacks give information on the events of the previous five years. The events of the previous five years lead up to the light appearing in the sky and the weirdness that follows. The soundtrack is also clueful(?!). Certain sound effects and music indicate important things about the timeline and the characters.
***Beginning of potential spoiler section. I don't think I have it all right yet so some of what I put here might be incorrect.***
Here's where things get foggy. The background information is sprinkled throughout the series. What I've figured out so far is that humans are evolving (X-Men style). There is an organization called Towa that is resisting this evolutionary process. Their goal seems to be (eventually) to enslave the general population for their service. Their means of controlling evolution is to create artificially evolved humans called composite humans and sick 'em on evolved humans. That's it in a broad stroke.
The anchor to everything is the beam of light. Everything that happens is related to the beam of light and it provides the time frame. Everything happens before or after the beam of light. The events immediately surrounding the beam of light are only revealed through flashbacks and it's hard to reconstruct them. What seems to happen is that there is a battle of sorts involving Saotome (who has some kind of relationship with the Manticore, the Manticore (who assumes Saotome's form), Detective (or Agent maybe? or a super-evolved human called Echos?), Boogiepop (who is not Boogiepop Phantom), and Nagi Kirima (who is following in her father's footsteps and may be hunting for his killer). Detective dies. Saotome dies, Manticore is defeated. Dead detective becomes reporter. Wait. Detective was already dead. Detective had been killed five years previously by Evil Doctor who was the serial killer of five years ago. Unless the Manticore escaped around then. It's a puzzle. Boogiepop (and her alterego) lived but Boogiepop Phantom emerged from the mess also. Nagi lived (she was hunting for her father's killer). Nagi and Boogiepop seemed to have an understanding although Nagi seems to think Boogiepop might have something to do with Towa (the Evil Organization). Echos is the source of the light (Or the Manticore is. They both seem to be made of energy).
That's the simplified plot. What about the characters? The Manticore is a composite human who looked like some woman but now looks like Saotome. Saotome was Saotome until he became the Manticore. Moto loved Saotome until Boogiepop crushed her crush. Boogiepop is Boogiepop but she's also Toka although neither of them are Boogiepop Phantom. Nagi is Nagi. Detective is detective except he might actually be a composite human Towa agent. Detective stops being detective after Evil Doctor kills him but is brought back from the dead by or as Echos. None of the above are Reporter although Reporter is eventually Manticore. Yoji is Manticore/Saotome's slave until he goes insane. Panaru is unknown. Two girls are also called Panaru, one is Panaru-like, the other is Fake Panaru. Fake Panaru pays for being fake when Morita (who is actually Fake Morita; really he's Snake Eye)tears her apart and shoots her twice. Manaka is a little girl but she dies (strangled by her grandmother) and is reanimated by Echos. She's also Poom Poom (or at least the source of Poom Poom who is not imaginary but who is not entirely real). Actually, Poop Poom is the Pied Piper of Hamlin.
Okay. My head's starting to explode so that will have to do for now until I finish watching again.
Gay marriage became officially legal in Massachusetts on Monday. I am all for same sex marriage. But I have a problem with Conservatives arguing that the judges in Massachusetts are "Shredding the Constitution."
I'm not what you might call a Constitutional scholar, but my understanding is that rights and duties not specifically given to the federal and state governments respectively are reserved for the people. Civil laws (the things dealing with marriage contracts and the like) are specifically due to the states. The Federal Government has the right to determine how the individual state civil laws relate to other states, but does not (at this time) have the right to determine what those laws can be. That's what the Protection of Marriage Act is all about. It only says that homosexual civil unions performed in a given state do not have to be recognized as legally binding in other states.
I read the Massachusetts State Constitution (at least thoroughly skimmed it) and read the judicial ruling that brought Massachusetts to the present situation. I didn't find anything in the State Constitution that defines marriage. All I found was that the state had the right to determine what officials had the authority to perform marriages. The State Supreme Court determined that because there was no legal definition of marriage it can not be restricted only to heterosexual couples. The marriage contract is between two persons. The Federal Supreme Court dismissed an appeal by saying that the issue is up to the state of Massachusetts.
I think law is a matter of hair splitting. This is a fine example. The people of Massachusetts can amend their State Constitution so that marriage is defined as a civil union between a man and a woman. Until that happens marriage is a civil union between two consenting persons.
I've decided to move my blog. I've been on tBlog since last October and while I love the set up and the community I'm tired of having it go down once a week. So I'm going to be moving everything to [url=http://jrogg.blogspot.com]Blogger.[/url]
I will be posting here and on my blogspot blog until everything matches up (with some editing). I know there are some quality blogs here on tBlog and will read them often. I don't like clutter so linking will be limited but I will take a few with me. I will also leave commenting on but encourage you to read and comment on my blogspot site since I will not be taking comments to my new spot. Thanks for reading my tBlog and I hope to see you at blogspot.
In my previous two posts, I gave a broad definition of rights and made a distinction between individual and collective rights. My definition of rights is that they are things (tenets) that are due to an entity according to nature, law, or tradition. This piece on rights will determine what I think is the source of rights.
Something that has cropped up a number of times in my reading has been that rights are equated with morality. I think it's important to distinquish between right (the noun) and right (the adjective). Each is a unique principle that is not necessarily related to the other.
The problem I see is that a right is an objective principle. Morality is a subjective principle. For example, on Friday I heard on the news about a woman in the midwest (possibly Iowa) who was abused by her husband for 17 years. She was beaten once too often, waited for her husband to go to bed and killed him in his sleep. I'm not certain she made the [i]best[/i] decision, but I have no moral quibble with the decision she did make. Legally, I know she did not have the right to pursue that action and is serving a mandatory prison sentence.
My examples shows why I think rights are (or should be) objective. In order for a right to be a right it must apply equally to everybody. The subjective nature of morality precludes that possibility. I say rights should be subjective because the very concept comes from the observation and conception of natural rights which are bestowed as objectively as possible.
Another thing I've seen in reading about rights is that people are so twitterpated about individual rights they forget that there are rights extended to bodies, other than individuals. The SSA has the right to assign Social Security numbers to citizens. The DMV has the right to award driver's licenses to citizens. They are tenets due to the government by virtue of law. However, there is no morality involved, only common sense and functionality.
Morality colors our perception and application of rights, but in looking at the rights extended to other bodies it is not necessary for defining them.
Morality is not the source of rights. Rights come from some objective authority (nature, law, tradition). This is the source of rights. It's difficult to discuss rights like this in the context of the United States because we have developed a unique situation here. We decided we want self-determination to be protected at all costs. We are the source of our own rights, and the source of the government's rights. I think it was a good decision; it has proven to be more successful than any other system, but we lose sight of the fact that rights are supposed to be objective. Equating rights with morals is evidence of this. It's the subjectification of rights, and I think it's dangerous. It has the potential to turn the government into the moral police and the question then becomes whose morals are being policed?
The United States is also unique because we charge ourselves with protecting our rights, and to do so we extend to our government the right to arbitrate violations. We have shown remarkable restraint in not trying to codify every right we think we should have (as has been attempted in some European democracies), but rather have limited the ability of other parties to interfere with our rights. In some ways, this adds to the subjectification of rights because we are expected to self-regulate based on our personal morality. When that fails we ask our judges and juries to exercise their own wisdom and morals and knowledge of legal history to mediate disputes. It works fairly well because by and large Americans share an overall vision of morality. It breaks down when we delve into shades of gray which are invariably unique to an individual, and that is when things end up in court.
I maintain my definition of rights (tenets due to bodies according to nature, law or tradition). For clarity I might revise it to say tenets objectively due to bodies according to nature, law or tradition. I think that the concept of rights is entirely distinct from morality and have gone out of my way to avoid phrases that use right in the adjective form (as in 'making the right decision). It seems to me that people mistakenly think that rights must be right (morally correct), but I think rights must be objective, and can then be qualified and clarified by what is morally correct.
Finally, I maintain rights must have a source. Rights must be bestowed. The bestower (is that a word? It doesn't matter. It is now.) can be nature, law, or tradition. In a democracy such as the U.S. we bestow upon ourselves the rights we think we should have and the limits to which they can be exercised. More importantly, what we have done is worked in an opposite direction to what has been done in history. Traditionally, rights were bestowed by imperial fiat. In the United States, we have done the reverse and bestowed all rights upon ourselves, then gone about the business of determining what rights we [i]don't[/i] have and the limits to the ones we do.
Most people would agree that free speech is a right; few would agree that defamation is a right. In order to resolve conflicts like this we must turn to external sources of wisdom and insight. The concept of 'a right' is not sufficient on its own. And this is where we find ourselves on the brink of an existential crisis. If we look to nature we find that anything goes. Nature is uncontrolled and uncontrollable. The natural freedom of speech is granted by virtue of our ability to speak and our ability to speak allows us to say anything on our mind. Anarchy reigns supreme in nature. The only rule is eat or be eaten. If we follow a natural model, defamation is a form of speech and is therefore a right. If we look to tradition, however, we find honesty. It's a virtue, something for which people have an understanding and an appreciation and an empathy. It has practical applications, and is a desirable virtue to pursue. By applying tradition to this situation we can say that the right to speak freely ends when our speech ceases to be honest. Or more [legally] accurately, when our freely spoken words are harmful. The thing to note is that the determination regarding the end of free speech and the beginning of defamation is purely arbitrary. It is not so hard to imagine a world where success is valued over honesty and defamation then becomes protected speech.
My example leads to another important point. In many cases two or more rights must be served. We applied a rule about defamation using honesty as a measuring stick. Person A applies their right to free speech (slanderously). Person B has a right not to be defamed. It must be decided whose right is of greater importance. Since we decided that defamation is not desirable, B's right is upheld (arbitrarily). We are violating A's [i]natural[/i] right to free speech but we are protecting B's legal [i]right[/i] not to be defamed. Defamation might be bad for the ego, bad for sleep and bad for digestion but it is of zero import to biological survival. It is a human construction we have made to create a preferable situation for [i]many[/i]. We reveal another distinction that must be applied to rights. Cast in this light we see a conflict between rights served to individuals and rights served to a collective.
It is convenient to highlight two extremes. On one end is absolute service to collective rights (those serving a greater collective). The logical conclusion of this extreme is pure socialism where arbitrary legal rights outweigh natural and individual rights. All people are absolutely treated as equal, regardless of ability. All things are distributed equally among all individuals. This situation does not function because it is counter to the nature of the human animal. It is nearly impossible to seperate rights from external influences, and in this case it can not be done. Socialism might be an ultimate ideal but it is not realistic because humans do not function in such a way. There will [i]always[/i] be somebody who desires to exercise their individual rights (legal or otherwise) and will take advantage of the flaws in socialism. Collective rights attempt to look out for the good of all [i]regardless[/i] of the good of the one. In this case, collective rights trump natural individual rights. It may well be a moot point because we already know how successful socialism has been.
The opposite extreme is the supremacy of individual rights or a situation where [i]all[/i] individual rights are equivalent. Anarchy in short. Anarchy is technically the absence of government. What good is a government charged with upholding every individual right? It simply can not be done. Free speech is on equal footing with no defamation. There can be no effective government. However, service to individual rights has proven to be a superior situation (with qualifications). This is one of the secrets of democratic success. Without the qualifications there is no possibility of arbitrating conflicting rights. It is a situation of nature. Eat or be eaten. It is as undesirable as pure socialism.
One effort to limit the potential of uncontrollable individual rights is that a right must be defined in negative terms. (You [i]don't[/i] have the right to prevent me from getting an education. You [i]don't[/i] have the right to prevent me from saying what I choose. You [i]don't[/i] have the right to prevent me from protecting myself.) Now, I'm not a believer in domino theory, but by discussing rights independently of other influences I don't see an alternative here. Any statement can be cast negatively. This is a horribly inadequate means of describing what constitutes a right.
In any case, we can see the shape of political rights by comparing these two cases. Socialism can't be successful because it unsuccessfully stifles individual rights. Absolute individualism doesn't work because there must be considerations for the collective. These conclusions may have more to do with human nature than with the nature of rights but the two may be inseperable in this instance. What I think it illustrates about political rights is that they are arbitrary.
I started writing this and it kind of snowballed so I'm breaking it into three parts. For your reading enjoyment.
The amount of philosophical brainpower that has been poured into the concept of rights is astonishing. If you hunt around a little bit you will find thousands of pages of material on rights. The first and most fundamental question is what is a right. Rights have been described in many ways and the definitions have further been refined. It's even been said that rights are like muscles that need to be exercised regularly and strenuously lest they atrophy. Anyhow, after all the years of consideration I think the question of exactly what a right is has been pretty well settled. In its most distilled form a right is something that is due to an entity. Better yet, a right is something that is a due an entity by nature, by law or by tradition.
That definition sort of sums everything up but it is inadequate and hopelessly vague. In order to understand rights on must go further and determine the various incarnations of rights. These determinations are tricky because all sorts of variations and hypotheses can be imagined 'proving' them inaccurate. Additionally, they can be colored by beliefs. Nonetheless, it is useful to make distinctions and bear in mind that they are not ironclad.
Natural rights are the most fundamental and, I think, fewest in number. They exist by virtue of being. I qualify natural rights as those which can only be violated or denied through violence and that are a result of factors emerging from evolution. To this list we can add life (including self-protection), speech (freely, since there must be some nastiness involved in ending one's ability to speak one's mind), freedom (defined narrowly as free from subjugation in the form of forced servitude), and the pursuit of happiness (this is a theme that has endured throughout recorded history). That last is a potential loophole in everything that follows so I must qualify the pursuit of happiness to mean achieving a life of sufficient comfort that the basic necessities for life are well-met (e.g. there is always food on the table, there is shelter). By today's standard (certainly in America) that's a pretty grim vision of happiness but natural rights arise from the state of nature. Nobody can argue that people are [i]due[/i] televisions or cars or telephones. They are comforts not necessary to life. The list may be incomplete but I think it is the core of natural rights. I also believe natural rights are inalienable simply because we exist and they exist. I can't offer a better explanation, except, possibly, that in order to deny a natural right one must be killed or damaged. To curtail life, one must die, to curtail speech one must be mutilated beyond the ability to communicate. To curtail freedom one must be forced through violence to be enslaved. To curtail the pursuit of happiness one must be left to the elements and starved. Nature does these things on its own sometimes but only an idiot would believe rights of any sort are always distributed fairly. As long as there are people, these rights will exist and will be pursued if for no other reason than that it is the nature of the human animal to do so.
I'm going to skip political (or legal) rights for the moment because they will take up most of the remainder. Traditional rights are the most tenuous and arbitrary of the three categories. They can be as simple as "My dad has the right to carve the Thanksgiving turkey because that is how my family has always done it." They can be far more sweeping as in "The monarch has the right to convene parliament at will because it has been done that way for 1000 years." However, given time and will traditions change and the rights along with them. Dad no longer has the right to carve the turkey when he decides he would rather watch the game. The monarch no longer has the right to convene parliament when parliament doesn't listen and passes a law forbidding it. Traditional rights are important because they can eventually become legal rights and they can color legal rights, but ultimately they are nebulous and impermanent.
Finally, the meat of this topic is political or legal rights. The description of legal rights must fall somewhere between traditional and natural. Some of them span more than one definition, but largely they exist in the middle ground. They are not inalienable as are natural rights, nor are they as impermanent as traditional rights. Like traditional rights they are abritrary constructions. Like natural rights they are meant to be strictly binding. Legal rights are the gray are where distinctions must be made between how binding a right is and when it ceases to be a right.
I think I need to clarify a few things about my previous post.
In order for rights to truly be inalienable there must be no mechanism for taking said rights away. Philosophically, I suppose rights can't be taken away, but reality is different. Life can be snuffed out, property confiscated and liberties denied. While you might still have the [i]right[/i], the practical application of the right is denied. There is not some untouchable crystal sphere containing all rhe rights people should have.
Comments were made about the Declaration of Independence. It is an important and fascinating philosophical document outlining the ideals of America. Period. It is not a legally binding document, it is a manifesto. The Constitution is a legally binding document but one that can only function provided the citizenry approves of it.
I mentioned in my previous post that the United States struck a balance between forms of tyranny, and that we have protections to prevent abuses by the people or by the government. It also has a mechanism by which we can change what rights we have or don't have.
Prior to the inception of the United States, rights as we know them did not exist. There are dozens of examples throughout history of citizens gaining rights only to have them taken away. The United States has proven to be a smashing success at ending that practice but not because our government arbitrarily and altruisticly protects our rights. And not because rights exist in a form that is beyond the reach of deniers.
I said in my previous post that people are the ultimate authority of the land and it is they who make determinations regarding rights. The Constitution is the measure by which we determine the extent of our rights, and the list of what rights we have. If 75% (a virtual concensus) of the population decided we have a right we shouldn't have the right can legitimately be denied.
And just to nip any nitpicking in the bud, I don't distinguish between the philosophical right and the ability to exercise it. If the practical ability to exercise a right is legitimately denied one no longer has that right.
I had an exchange with Therealspartacus regarding [url=http://www.tblog.com/template...]this post[/url]. More precisely, regarding the comments.
I said that it's the governments job to reflect our vision of morality. Therealspartacus did not agree. His contention is that the governments job is to protect individual rights. Furthermore, he goes on to claim that individual rights are inviolable by the citizenry or the government. I can understand the argument but it bugged me. I obsessed about it for a few days and finally came to a conclusion.
There is a flaw in the idea that individual rights are inviolable. It must be determined what those rights are and what they are not. There must be an ultimate authority to decide what constitutes a right, what constitutes a privelege, and what constitutes a violation. In the U.S. more than anywhere else in the world, that authority is the people.
What is a people? Normally in this context it would be best described as a group of persons who share a common history, culture, and language. That doesn't work very well for describing the people of the U.S. Americans don't necessarily share all of those things. We are so various we can't even be painted. The people of the U.S. really only share one commonality. That commonality is the spirit of cooperation. Our country is the most populist country in the world.
In fact, our very society is founded on the principle of populism, and on the ability to agree to disagree. The Constitution states: "We the people of the United States. . . do ordain and establish this Constitution." The Constitution and the government of the United States is legitimate because we say it is, collectively as a people. Our consititution was radical at the time of its framing for that very reason. There was no divine mandate, no legitimacy by force of arms. It was legitimized by the will of its constituents. Furthermore, rather than giving the government powers, it limited them by outlining exactly what powers the various levels of government would have. Additionally it outlined exactly what rights are reserved for the citizenry.
In creating the Constitution as it was, the ultimate authority of the land was placed in the hands of the citizenry and it is they who have the power to make determinations regarding the extent of rights, individual or otherwise. Being a republic, our nation operates by electing representatvies to pursue the best interest of the citizens. If the government fails to uphold the will of the citizenry it ceases to be democratic (regardless of republicanism) and crosses the line to absolutist. Furthermore, our officials are elected from and by the citizenry.
Thus our government reflects the people and our will not only in its inception, but in its composition. It is the citizenry who makes the rules, who determines what is a right, what is a privelege and what is a violation. It is the citizenry that has the power to give or take power from themselves or from their government. In the U.S. the government is charged with protecting the rights of the people, but it is the people who decided what those rights are to be. Should we as a people decide that we don't have a right we ought to have or that a right we do have is one we ought not to have we have both the right and the authority to make the changes deemed necessary.
We have protections in place to prevent abuses by the people and by the government. On the other hand, we protect ourselves against uncontrolled individual rights. If individual rights were inviolable we would find ourselves in a downward spiral towards anarchy. Thus, we have a balance between outright tyranny and total chaos. We also have a government that necessarily, by virtue of democracy, reflects the will of the people, be it economic or moral or political.
[url=http://www.september11news.co...]Airplanes are hijacked[/url] and torpedoed into buildings. 3,000 people, mostly civilians, are killed. Arabs celebrate in the streets, cheering for their newest martyrs and passing out candy to the children.
[url=http://www.dailysouthtown.com...]Contractors in Fallujah[/url] are set aflame, dragged through the streets and hung from a bridge like sides of beef. A crowd of people wallows in orgiastic glee at striking a mighty blow against the infidels.
[url=http://www.azcentral.com/news...]A pregnant woman and her children[/url] (aged 2 to 11) are killed while driving to the polls in Israel. Additionally, a bullet is fired into the head of each person in the car and into the woman's abdomen. Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the 'heroic attack'.
[url=http://abcnews.go.com/wire/Wo...]Militants videotape[/url] themselves sawing a man's head off. The man is bound hand and foot. They hold his head up as a trophy. They claim it is retaliation for the abuses in Abu Ghraib.
[url=http://abcnews.go.com/wire/Wo...]Palestinian militants[/url] explode Israeli personnel carriers and snatch the body parts off the street. They videotape themselves with the body parts. The body parts are being held for ransom in exchange for the release of Palestinian militants.
[url=http://www.usatoday.com/news/...]A couple dozen soldiers[/url] employ inappropriate and indecent methods to interrogate prisoners. Their actions are uncovered and military courts are conducting investigation and trials to determine guilt and to administer justice.
What makes me insane beyond reason is that there are ignorant fucking two bit oxygen thieves out there who still maintain that Americans are the monsters.
What we have here is a fine example of left-wing demagoguery. A fairly ridiculous one, at that. The piece as much as says that a vote for Bush is a vote for torture. It is posed as a qustion of sorts: Does the United States have moral fiber equivalent to the strength of our economy and our military? The author of this piece thinks we do provided we vote for Kerry.
[i]"The United States cannot simultaneously stand against depraved sexual torture and the wanton abuse of human rights, while electing the commander in chief upon whose watch these events occurred."[/i]
Please explain the chain of logic here. According to this it must be tacitly understood that President Bush is directly responsible for what happened in Iraq. It is not a reasonable premise. The president can not be aware of or responsible for every transgression that occurs under his watch as it occurs. What is important is that when such things happen they are dealt with quickly and according to the law. President Bush is doing that. In fact, he is going above and beyond by opening the military proceedings to the public and the press, both Western and Arabic.
I don't think the state of American morality can be laid at the feet of George Bush any more than it could be laid at the feet of Bill Clinton or any other president in the history of America. It is not a matter of political parties or elected officials or ideologies. It is not a matter of external expectation. It is a matter of the collective will of the American people who are the ultimate moral authority in this land. As long as those who fail to meet our moral litmus test are corrected we will be progressing towards our goal of greater morality.
I wrote [url=http://www.tblog.com/template...]here[/url] about American morality. One of the things I put forward was that morality is a pure form. Thus it is a goal towards which we must strive but one that we may never achieve. We have found a flaw in the moral character of some of our representatives. To arbitrarily blame the flaw on one person is reactive and doesn't accomplish anything. The strength of our moral fiber comes from our collective willingness to enforce it. Now that we are aware of the flaw we will attempt to correct it and we will take a step closer to achieving morality.
The Daily Brew's article paints the actions of the soldiers in Abu Ghraib as a character flaw on all Americans. It ignores the character flaws of others. It sets America up for failure. It obliquely asks the question that doesn't deserve an answer: "Why do they hate us?" It represents everything that irks me about the left.
[i]"This election will determine whether the United States will ever again have any standing or moral authority in the rest of the world."[/i]
The United States's moral authority in the world was given to us by the world and not by any effort on our part. We have always pursued our own self-determined code of moral authority. As long as we pursue what we believe to be right and moral we are on good footing regardless of what the world thinks.
We are under no obligation to maintain the perfection the world thinks we ought to and it is foolish of the liberals to promote such an agenda. The only reason they do so is because it promotes their own values-driven platform. They point to it as hypocricy on the part of the right when in fact what the right is trying to do is achieve a [i]greater degree[/i] of morality.
In answer to the question of whether our moral fiber is on par with our other might, I think we can resoundingly answer "Yes!" How many billions of dollars of foreign debt have we forgiven? How many billions have we given to foreign governments to prevent their bankruptcies? How much infrastructure have we built and rebuilt outside of America? Who is first to rush to the aid of victims of disaster around the world? The United States doesn't have a spotless humanitarian record but it is nonetheless one to be proud of. We should be proud of it not because we have done well in the world but because even when we have done poorly we have refocused ourselves to do [i]better[/i].
I listened to President Bush's speech this morning. I heard two particularly notable things that ought to be commented on.
First, he went on the offensive against the Democrats. They've been complaining for some time that our soldiers don't have the equipment they need to effectively pursue their duties. President Bush told the country that he has petitioned Congress for additional money to better supply our troops, effectively giving the Democrats what they want. Sort of anyway. What they really would like is for us to leave Iraq. Technically their argument is that since [i]we aren't able [/i]to supply our troops as they ought to be supplied we need to cut our losses and leave (or in the words of Rall "Cut and run.") But, the heart of their arguments has been that our troops need more supplies. President Bush has agreed to arrange for more funding and supplies for our soldiers. That's not exactly what the Democrats wanted. But they set themselves up for it. After screaming for so long about the supply deficit they would be idiots to not approve the funding.
Second, my [url=http://www.tblog.com/template...]previous post[/url] argues that what went on in Abu Ghraib will be dealt with according to the rule of law and transparently, in this case. President Bush must have read my blog. In his speech this morning he said that those responsible for the abuses in Abu Ghraib will be dealth with in an orderly and transparent fashion and that we will observe the rule of law. It is not usual for military courts to have public hearings but in this case it is necessary and I think it will show that the administration is dealing with the problem.
As much as I find the events in Abu Ghraib a tragedy, I find the bandwagoneering almost equally distasteful. Lefties are wallowing in moral relativism, screaming hypocrisy at America in general and the administration in particular. There are even people on the right clambering aboard calling for Rumsfeld's head on a platter (admittedly from a different perspective, but none the less. . .). I think it's an artifact of America's culture of instant gratification. People have an irrational expectation that cause and effect ought to be near-instantaneous.
Unfortunately, that is not how institutions like the government and the military operate. Nor should they. The very foundation of our government and our society is based on the rule of law. Little things like innocent until proven guilty and a trial by a jury of peers are part of the structure of our society. That is why I take issue with the uproar concerning Abu Ghraib. We may have all the proof in the world regarding the wrong-doing of the soldiers at that facility. But until the due process of law has been followed there is no basis for punitive action. Courts martial will determine the guilt of those involved and will mete out punishment according to military law.
Our military is no less responsible for following the rule of law than society at large. In fact, it is imperative that the military do so more scrupulously than any other institution. Why? Because they are the defenders of the principles of our nation. That fact is what makes the actions of the people in Abu Ghraib so abhorrent. If they are to be soldiers fighting for the principles that Americans hold so dear, they must reflect those principles in their own personal integrity and behavior. Otherwise, they do not fight for the America I believe in.
Encouragingly, there is ample evidence that these abusers are a minority and that integrity is indeed held in regard by our soldiers. The abuses in Abu Ghraib were revealed not by the media or by Coalition members or by Iraqis. They were revealed by members of our own military. In following the rule of law, courts martial will be held regarding the abusers, and in the course of the investigation, those responsible will be held accountable, including those in the chain of command.
You might think I'm naive or optimistic. I'm not. The cat is out of the bag. The whole world knows what may have gone on in Abu Ghraib. Instead of trying to cover up what happened, instead of sweeping it under the rug, we trotted it out on the stage for all to see. There is no longer a possibility that it will be ignored or concealed. The media will sink their teeth into this like a pitbull with a rawhide bone. It will not go away and anything less than fully transparent proceedings will not be acceptable.
The moral of the story is that America is not perfect. We fail as much as anybody. However, one thing we do correctly is uncover our failings and hang them in the window. Everybody gets a chance to see what went wrong, why it went wrong and what ought to be done to fix it. I have every faith that those who are guilty will pay.
I had intended to post on this before posting my previous post, but then I was hijacked by the previous post and thought I wouldn't post this post. Now, having read a bit more about Moore, I figure I'll go ahead and post this post also.
Anyhow, I wrote about Rene Gonzalez earlier. I also wrote a blurb about Ted Rall's foulness. And today Michael Moore's newest twaddle is in the news and since it ties in so nicely with the other two I couldn't really resist.
The Walt Disney Company, owner of Miramax, have refused to allow Miramax to distribute Fahrenheit 9-11. Ted Rall's comic strip about Tillman was yanked by MSNBC. I haven't been able to find out, but I think Gonzalez's article was also removed. Now, the 'C' word is popping up. Liberals are screaming censorship bloody murder.
A refresher on censorship: The act of removing or suppressing information that may be considered morally, politically, or otherwise objectionable.
While I think folks like Moore and Gonzalez and Rall are filth, I can't disagree that they have a right to say what they think they need to say. No matter how offensive or inappropriate it might be.
Unfortunately, there seems to be an idea floating around that there is some sort of universal obligation that all things that are said need to be published 'in the interest of free speech.' The argument goes thusly: "They have every right to say what they want. It's free speech. If you don't want to watch, you don't have to."
That is indeed very true. However, that's not really the issue.
Any given privately owned company in the business of media distribution is only answerable to its customers and its directors. Such a company has the right to pursue a chosen image, and to decide what seems most agreeable to the largest number of customers. If Disney doesn't think that Michael Moore's film is appropriate to their image they have every right to refuse to participate in its distribution. It's not censorship. It's corporate decision making. Moore is free to find another distributor.
Additionally, as I've mentioned, our culture has its own corrective mechanisms. The people of America decide what is appropriate. If a company refuses to distribute something, it will generally be because they are more worried about he public backlash than they are about the actual content of the thing. I don't think that is the case here, but it was the case with Ted Rall's Tillman strip. I think Disney is exercising their own discretion in Moore's case.
I think an important thing here is that companies have no obligation to distribute everything that they are asked to distribute. Just as Michael Moore has a right to spew tripe, Disney has a right not to support it. And while their motivations might matter to people it doesn't matter to the eventual decision. If Disney is doing this out of political motivation, out of public consideration, or out of financial consideration, they do have the right.
I stumbled across [url=http://www.frontpagemag.com/A...]this article[/url]. I find it terribly encouraging. It's a baby step. As an aside, I would love to see a geographic breakdown of the Muslim population in America. It seems a little curious to me that Phoenix has a significant Muslim population.
Anyhow, that's neither here nor there. The one thing about the article that particularly caught my eye was this: [i]"He notes also that American Muslims, being predominantly first-generation immigrants, are still getting grounded."[/i]
It's a fact that for a few generations, immigrants in America tend to cluster together and cling to their culture. I like to think of it as a flocking instinct. They find comfort and security in creating familiar surroundings for themselves. However, each subsequent generation drifts towards mainstream American traditions. In the process, some of their cultural is absorbed by Americans and vice versa. This is called cultural cross-polination.
It may be less flattering, but I think it's somewhat more accurate to call it cultural digestion. Cultural cross-polination sounds like a feel-good lefty term. Red flowers and white flowers cross-polinate and you end up with pink flowers. It's very fair that way. Like reality (ahem). Cultural cross-polination isn't quite so equitable. What generally happens is that the dominant culture (either by virtue of force or sheer numbers) will swallow a smaller cultural group and only a tiny bit of the disappeared culture will remain as evidence of their existence. Sometimes it happens in reverse. Often what has happened in history when an army conquers a region they will subsequently settle in among the indigenous population and over time will adopt the local customs and traditions.
Sometimes what happens when a people are conquered is that the institutions of the conquering power will be set in place and indigenous institutions will disappear. First, the Romans were very good at encouraging their institutions to flourish (at least as far as their armies were able to influence various populations). One thing the Romans did (and it proved not such a good idea in the long run) was to tax non-Christians. Since one's pocketbook is often of greater personal influence than one's religion, the pagans abandoned their local religions and converted to Christianity. Thus much of Europe ended up more reflective of Roman traditions than of their own aboriginal traditions. In fact, when the Far East and Europe found themselves in more frequent contact with one another, the Chinese were more impressed by how similar Europeans were than by how different they were.
China is another culture that should be noted for cultural digestion but theirs is far removed from Roman practices. China has had a relatively static culture for at least 3,000 years. Their culture has remained distinct and shown it's digestive capacity most recently in Tibet. For the last 3,000 years China has existed under the assumption that it is the center of the universe. Furthermore Chinese believe in a sort of universal hierarchy of people. It is embodied in Confucianism. Everybody is born to a place in the universe and must live according to their place in the universal structure. It has created a stable and enduring culture, but it has also lead to ossification, a lack of creativity and growth in many ways. However, by pretending that they are the center of the universe and that no other culture is worthy, they have no qualms about simply destroying other cultures through enforced cultural digestion.
Another fine example is found in India. If China was impressed by the similarities of Europeans, Europeans were boggled at the diversity of Indians. Practically every village in India has its own celebrations and heros and even religion. India's digestive power is that it simply coexists (more or less peacefully) with various cultures. So the Indian pantheon has a multitude of gods and goddesses some of which are technically redundant. They have a whole mess of celebrations and festivals unique to particular regions and groups of people and they all manage to inhabit the same relatively limited part of the globe. When India is confronted with external cultural options it is of no consequence to them because, while it may be alien to them as none of their own cultures are, it is still just another culture. If the Chinese enjoy culturally digestive power through superiority, the Indians enjoy culturally digestive power through indifference.
American culture is not only impressive for its digestive capacity but for its infectious quality. It's also somewhat unique in that it does tend to cross-polinate. Rather than simply swallowing or ignoring immigrant cultures it absorbs them and is slightly altered by the absorption. One of the reasons for this is that while we have a primarily Anglo-Christian culture, we have enshrined as law certain protections that benefit immigrant groups. Thus, Poles and Hispanics and Jews can move to America, and are completely free to continue to live as Poles and Hispanics and Jews. However, because we are predominantly of European ancestry and English-speaking, immigrant groups necessarily adopt our culture as their generations attend American schools and find their native languages to be generally less than useful (except in California).
The article I mentioned at the beginning of my post is a glimpse at the first stages of integration and digestion. Muslims, as other immigrant groups in America tend to stick together and try to maintain their existing identity. But the lure of American traditions is of immeasurable influence. Free speech and free thinking are perhaps the greatest defining traditions in America. News coverage tends to show us groups of Muslims who advocate the actions of Muslim nations. But as time passes and Muslims come to realize that they have no vested interest in pursuing traditional Muslim beliefs they and their children will integrate. Those who continue to pursue the beliefs of their native lands will become the minority of that immigrant population.
This group in Phoenix is one of the first I have heard about who doesn't arbitrarily agree with the precepts of their homelands and I think it is exciting. They have a long row to hoe. These are moderate Muslims finding their voice. We can hope that their voices will be heard in other parts of the world where moderate Muslims are being cowed by the far more vociferous extremists.
Last week I posted about the scum of the earth, Rene Gonzalez and made the comment "[i]Now if we're lucky he'll move to France and tag team with Ted Rall[/i]" I wasn't entirely serious, but it turns out I'm psychic. During my browsing today I discovered that Rall proved once and for all exactly what kind of putrified slime he wishes he could be. Apply Friday's Addendum Three to Ted Rall. I intend to inform the editors at MSNBC why this is inappropriate and encourage you to do so as well(be reasonable. Ranting will be trashed). The appropriate e-mail address is lsalem@amuniversal.com. Perhaps I'll post my letter if I think it's worth blog space.
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Let's hope the folks responsible for the abuse in Iraq burn for what they did. I think they are a disgrace to everything they ought to stand for and there is no possible excuse for their behavior.
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As a matter of perspective regarding the previous blurb. . . We probably would do well not to forget about the four men who were killed, desecrated, torched and hung from a bridge. Also we should spare a few kind thoughts for the pregnant woman and her children who were killed by Palestinian gunmen. And in fairness we should remember that fellow who was beheaded in the Phillippines.
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Kerry is ramping up his Presidential campaign spending $25 million dollars on ads. As near as I can tell, the content of these ads is his Vietnam service. Thus far, Kerry's campaign platform is "I'm not Bush. I was in Vietnam. I'll let the UN tell us what to do." It's good to be Republican.
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Finally, just for entertainment value.
"Representatives of European and Asian space programs say President George W. Bush (news - web sites)'s goal to send astronauts to the moon and Mars would be best served by including other nations."
Whadda ya think? Do they think as they do because they want to contribute their share and reduce the burden on the U.S. or because they have a sneaking suspicion that they might not have much of a shot of doing themselves?
