Big Government To The Rescue; Safety more important than liberty
I just read a Wall Street Journal article ($$) reporting that Google received a subpoena from the DoJ seeking “a broad range of material from its databases, including a request for one million random Web addresses and records of all Google searches from any one-week period”. Ostensibly, DoJ needs this information ” to determine how often pornography shows up in online searches as part of an effort to revive an Internet child protection law that was struck down two years ago”.
This is but one more example of the evils of a large central government with its fingers in every facet of life. It sounds great when it’s providing free healthcare to all, or a ‘living wage’, or ‘justice’ or ‘equality’, but you can’t have it both ways. You can’t empower a central government to do the things you want it to, and expect it to stay away from the issues you don’t. The only way to preserve liberty is to tightly constrain all government activities, as the founders did with the principles of separation of powers and federalism.
Intelligent Design, Public School Curricula, and 'The Right'
As I am (apparently) the last guy with a website to comment on the recent intelligent design debate, I have the benefit of forensic hindsight not enjoyed by my predecessors. Even with that advantage, however, I find myself adopting a position heretical to both the godless lib’rul sinners and the hating right-wing Christofacist fundamentalists–two groups one would do well to avoid pissing off simultaneously.
Regarding ID as a scientific theory, I do not find it credible. Upon reviewing the site of the Intelligent Design Network, which seems to be a somewhat authoritative source of information on the subject, I still find ID difficult to accept.
If I understand it correctly, the fundamental thesis of ID is thus: the presence of observed complexity in a system implies an intelligent origin of that system, with greater complexity implying greater intelligence. When this principle is applied to the origin of life, the inevitable conclusion is that the complexity in biology, physics, chemistry, etc, is clear evidence of an intelligent creator. Since there’s no evidence of extraterrestrial intervention (what would such evidence look like?), God is the only candidate creator we know of.
I disagree with the fundamental assertion that complexity implies design, and therefore the entire argument is not credible. The emergence of complexity from somewhat simple rules is well established, and is presented most coherently to the lay reader in Stephen Wolfram’s magnum opus, A New Kind of Science. Thus, it cannot be argued that the appearance of complexity (itself somewhat subjective) conclusively proves, or even strongly suggests, an intelligent designer.
Notwithstanding the scientific argument for ID, I find the theological motivations of the ID advocates somewhat dubious as well. It seems the Christians (and ID supporters seem overwhelmingly Christian, despite Jewish and Muslim acceptance of the Old Testament) see in ID a way to prove, or at least argue stronly for, the existance of God and His role as Creator. This is hard to square with two millenia of Christian theology, which has long held that belief in God requires faith, which is itself a gift of the Holy Spirit. To seek to prove the existence of God by force of scientific certainty is to seek to deprive subsequent generations of the gift of faith itself, and is itself hubristic.
Having said all that, the visceral contempt from the left which has met ID advocates is rather appalling, and just as indefensible as the ID argument itself. ID advocates are advancing a scientific theory regarding the origin of life, and the nature and origin of complexity more broadly. I (and many others) think they’re wrong, and therefore put forth rebuttals and counter-arguments against ID claims. Such is the time-honored process of scientific debate. Advocates of the theory of evolution who engage in ad hominem attacks and unseemly science-is-infallible condescention are at least as intellectually dishonest as the ID advocates they rail against.
Regarding attempts to include ID in public science curricula, my position can be stated succinctly as: I don’t care. I belive from my many experiences with educational systems that education decisions should be made as locally as possible. If the voters of Kansas elect school board officials that include ID in the education curriculum, good for them. If the voters of Virginia or California or New York do not, so be it. If you live in a state or county whose curriculum choices are not acceptable to you, you can opt for private schooling (if you can afford it) or home schooling (if you’re really serious). Those are your options: get your way by the vote, or don’t participate.
For those who demand ID in the public schoools, there’s really no Constitutional recourse. For ID opponents who want to keep it out of the schools after a majority of voters have chosen to include it, there’s nothing in the Constitution either; the difference is, the ID advocates know it, while the sola evolution adherents do not.
In my personal opinion, it would be interesting to present the theory of evolution, discuss it’s weaknesses (the missing missing link), then present ID, and explore its weaknesses. However, if voters within a state or county disgree with me, that’s fine; they live there and I don’t.
"PROTECTION OF LAWFUL COMMERCE IN ARMS ACT" and Federalism
Recently, President Bush signed the “PROTECTION OF LAWFUL COMMERCE IN ARMS ACT”, which protects firearms manufacturers from lawsuits based on criminal use of lawfully manufactured and sold firearms. While the gun control lobby has decried this legislation as an extension of protection not enjoyed by any other industry, they’re only half right.
While it’s true that no other industry of which I’m aware enjoys an explicit protection such as that provided the the PLCAA, that’s only because the legal principle of proximate cause provides a general protection against friviolous suits of manufactures several layers of lawful indirection removed from any actual crime. The suggestion that Ruger or Bushmaster can be held liable when the citizen (who bought (or stole) a gun from a dealer who bought it from a distributor who bought it from the manufacturer) commits a crime with that gun is to ignore the doctrine of proximate cause, as well as utterly abandon common sense.
Regardless of one’s attitude toward private gun ownership in the US, it must be acknowledged by rational objective citizens that such a distortion of tort liability is greviously unjust, and has far-reaching implications for many other industries. The possibility that manufacturers of a legal product are liable for its criminal misuse far down the supply chain would cripple any industry. Common worst-case examples are cars (criminals use them all the time), computers (terrorists, cyber crime, etc), cell phones (two words: drug dealer), and McDonald’s (feeding felons should be a crime).
However, that said, I can’t get past the sense that this act seems unconstitutional. Without a strained reading of the commerce clause, it’s hard to see how this is an issue of federal import. Most of the suits are in state courts, and most have been dismissed on the grounds that they are, well, stupid. The opportunistic local officials who pursued the suits and the lunatic judges who allowed the suits to proceed are both fairly well disgraced. The gun control lobby is reduced to long-discredited talking points and emotional hyperbole. So, I ask again, where’s the federal issue?
That’s the problem with federalism: it requires its adherents to oppose things they really want, at least as often as it provides an argument against things they don’t want. Perhaps that’s why federalism is dead in this country. Nonetheless, as a Zoroastrian amongst agnostics, I cling to my aging, outmoded beliefs.
Social Conservatives Crusading/Railing Against 'Bad' TV
Periodically on the Heritage Foundation’s Townhall.com I run across a social conservative piece like It’s always Halloween on ‘Nip/Tuck’ by Brent Bozell, who among other things runs a conservative lobbyist group whose primary function is to complain loudly about the bad things they see on television. Bozell watched another episode of Nip/Tuck, and was predictably horrified. Apparently, Nip/Tuck is actually a depraved orgy of envelope-pushing sex, violence, necrophilia, and ‘sleaze’.
This type of social conservative thinking doesn’t agree with me in general (that is to say, even when applied to programs I do not like), but it is particularly disagreeable in this particular case.
First, Nip/Tuck is an edgy, explicit, adult-oriented dramatic series; to fail to recognize that and instead focus on the litanny of plot lines and scenes which are inappropriate for children is somewhat specious. In fact, before the show starts, FX displays a disclaimer so unambiguous it may as well read ‘this is a depraved, base program and will corrupt all who watch it’. If one ignores that disclaimer, one cannot subsequently complain about the show’s depravity and corrupting effects, as though they are unexpected.
Second, it is not an uplifting series; a fairytale Hallmark special with likable but slightly troubled characters and a happy redemptive ending. Rather, it is a dark and strangely compelling examination of superficiality, human conception of beauty and ugliness, and the nearly meaningless distinction between the two.
A typical motif in the series sees a patient with some physical deformity or injury or perhaps just wrinkles, seated in the plastic surgeons’ office. One of the surgeons consistently opens with ‘what don’t you like about yourself?‘. The episode then progresses, usually revealing the patient’s (and surgeons’) emotional scars running deeper and wider than the physical defect onto which they’ve been projected. The typical conclusion sees the underlying emotional issues unresolved and thus pain and self-loathing remain, or has the characters reaching some sort of closure or healing only upon grappling with their non-physical wounds.
This being FX and not, say, PBS, the stories are infused with somewhat graphic imagery; one of the objectives of the show is to shock, and clearly it’s worked on Mr. Bozell. However, to see only the explicit FX imagery is to miss utterly the point of the series.
Third and most important, Mr. Bozell isn’t writing his indictment of Nip/Tuck as a critic; he’s not complaining of dull plots, bad acting, or poor production value. He takes the same approach to problem solving as do gun control advocates, War on Drugs sycophants, and anti-corporate Marxists: he sees something he doesn’t like, casts it as a threat to our children, and demands government intervention. While this piece does not make any explicit calls to action, Mr. Bozell’s organization consistently demands federal cures for broadcast media’s ills.
As he concludes his article, he points out two shocking facts:
- Nip/Tuck is watched by 162,000 teenagers and 55,000 children in the 2-11 group. Presumably this is supposed to demonstrate to concerned parents that their children are not safe so long as such filth is allowed to stand; in truth, it is if anyting an indictment of the incompetence and irresponsibility of over 200,000 parents. It is not any government’s job to make sure you kids don’t watch bad things on TV: it’s yours.
- FX receives millions in cable fees from anyone who was cable; even you, dear reader, upstanding and moral citizen that you are, subsidize FX. This is a thinly-veiled allusion to an action item on the social conservative agenda for at least a couple years: so-called ala carte cable programming. As a believer in free markets, I applaud efforts to transform broadcast media monopolies into a marketplace of channels, each of which must stand on its own and earn its cable fees. However, when these calls are made to the federal government, I draw the line.
There are now so few issues on which social conservatives and I agree, I almost feel guilty claiming the ambiguous title ‘conservative’, without the customary elaborate qualification, like ‘small-government libertarian conservative’ or ‘Christian social conservative’, or the contradictory ‘laissez-faire social conservative’. However, it’s the bizarre coalition of groups with substantively unrelated or even contradictory views which enabled the Right to take the Congress and the White House, so perhaps I shouldn’t complain too bitterly…
Why is offsetting controversial?
This week I’ve been listening to Republican and Democrat party leaders in the House wail and gnash their teeth over the newly-discovered need to return to fiscal responsibility, ostensibly to offset the mind-boggling largess of Gulf reconstruction efforts.
While I am gratified by the rediscovery of fiscal responsibility, I do not understand why this is a painful process. As usual, Democrats have an answer, and it’s more taxes (but only on the super filthy deserve-what-they-get rich, so I’m safe). Republicans also have an answer, and it’s spending cuts across the government, and de-authorization of future-years spending obligations on boondoggle programs. Anyone familiar with my politics knows I like the Republican idea and don’t like the Democratic idea, but what I don’t understand is why either of these ideas are needed, when the transportation, energy, and omnibus spending bills are so heavily ladden with pork as to observably distort spacetime.
C-SPAN has an interesting feature during spending bill debates; every hour or two they read some line items from the budget; I assume a random sample. But it’s never stuff like ‘$50 million to modernize the Energy Deparment’s nuke tracking system’; it’s crap like ‘$2m for a bike path in Ted Stevens’ home state’, ‘$500k for a bike path in Barbara Boxer’s home state’, ‘$10m for some guy John Warner knows from high school’, etc. So, I ask again, why is anyone talking about raising taxes or cutting government programs when there’s all this low-hanging fruit (er, pork?) to be plucked? Immediately after the hurricanes Pelosi and DeLay both gave up ~$100m in pork they’d ‘won’; was that the extent of the pork-trimming?
To hear about all this indefensible, unconstitutional redistribution of taxpayer dollars, I wonder how we arrived at this point. Not 300 years ago, Madison and Boone were foreswearing federal aid of any kind; now I have 535 congress-units rummaging around in my pockets for whatever they can find and bring back home. If only there was a competitive market of liberal federalist democracies; maybe then things would be better.
Update:
I now know why offsetting is unacceptable. At the risk of sounding like a C-SPAN caller, I’m surprised I’ve not seen more of this in the media. I can’t decide if the media silence represents a glaring bias to the left or to the right; I think I’ll go with the neocon/Likud cabal on this one.