I report, you decide.
Blair's recent justification for the war - WaPo:
After Sept. 11, it was necessary to "draw a line in the sand here, and the country to do it with was Iraq because they were in breach of U.N. resolutions going back over many years," Blair said in an interview with the Associated Press. "People say the decision was already taken. The decision was not already taken."Walter Sobchak:
What the fuck are you talking about? The chinaman is not the issue here, dude. I'm talking about drawing a line in the sand, dude. Across this line, you DO NOT--Eerie.
...
Look at the current situation with that camel fucker in Iraq. Pacifism is not something to hide behind.
I'm so tired of hearing about September 11 in connection with the war in Iraq. I'm tired of the references to 9/11 in Bush's speeches, and I'm equally as tired of every lefty blogger pointing out all those references to 9/11 in Bush's speeches. Yes, folks, Bush invokes 9/11---a lot. Yes, it is indeed a matter of sophistry, rhetoric, and evasion of cogent argumentation. But, No, he has not come out and directly linked Saddam and AQ. There was, of course, some genuine legerdemain: making a statement about AQ or bin Laden, and then saying in the next sentence that Saddam has supported (Palestinian) terrorists. But the speechwriters knew what they were doing, and the record pretty much supports that.
But the current invocations of 9/11 are the foreign policy equivalent of Santorum-ian statements about the damage to individuals that can be done by a corrupted liberal culture. Santorum's point is that individuals are hurt when they must live surrounded by debauched concupiscence. The idea is that the rights of liberal citizens to act as they please must be constrained by the rights that illiberal citizens have not to be confronted with liberal nonsense. So when Santorum points to gay sex and tries to argue that allowing that sort of nonsense will open us up to man-on-dog sex, he need not be relying on the claim that gay sex is as bad as man-on-dog sex. He need only be invoking a common characteristic of both, namely that the existence of both in our society infringes upon a certain moral space that he believes decent, god-fearing citizens are entitled to.
Bush's use of 9/11 these days is similar: he need not be saying that Saddam was as big a threat as bin Laden was before 9/11. He is saying that our 9/11-inspired appreciation of how vulnerable the US is should convince us that we could not simply abide the threat--whatever its actual nature--that was posed by Saddam's Iraq. Since we did not know what sort of threat there in fact was, we were justified in invading Iraq because we were justified in being more careful than we were before 9/11.
My point is this. While Bush and Santorum fully appreciate the rhetorical points they score when they mention grave threats (man-on-dog sex, 9/11) in the same breath as less grave threats (gay sex, Saddam), the best way to combat their arguments (if genuine arguments they be) is not to point out that they make such comparisons, but it is rather to meet their comparisons head on. Point out that gay sex occurs between consenting, loving, peaceful adults who use the act as a form of expression of their love, or even simply that it occurs between consenting adults in the privacy of their own homes. Point out that while bin Laden was a threat, Saddam was not; or--if you're currently more concerned for the lives of real Iraqis and American soldiers--point out that we are not doing any good in Iraq, and that we're creating and perpetuating more terror than we're combating or stamping out. Those are the only effective ways to demonstrate the inaptness of the analogies and connections. Insisting on the existence of more sinister rhetorical motives is either (a) politically inexpedient or useless, or else (b) a misrepresentation of what Bush (and Santorum and the rest of them) are really doing with their words.
Canada Parliament set to approve same sex marriage - Yahoo! News
Canada's Parliament was set to approve legislation on Tuesday that will allow same sex marriages across the country, despite fierce opposition from conservative legislators and religious groups.A majority of parliamentarians support the bill, which would make Canada only the third country after Belgium and the Netherlands to allow gay marriages.
Officials said Parliament's House of Commons would vote on the bill at around 8 p.m. EDT (midnight GMT) on Tuesday.
Bradford Plumer, who is usually right, is surely wrong about this:
Initially, of course, the Bush administration tried to negotiate with the Taliban and get them to turn over bin Laden, Zawihiri, Abu Zubaydah, and the rest. That didn't work, but if it had worked, and bin Laden had been handed over on a silver platter, there may not have been an invasion at all—judging by Richard Clarke's Against All Enemies, Rumsfeld wasn't all that excited about attacking Afghanistan in the first place—and instead the U.S. would've been sitting around handing out indictments and prosecuting terrorists. True, there still would've been some military action: the U.S. would have almost certainly bombed more al-Qaeda camps in the region, and the Taliban likely would've collapsed eventually after alienating all those Islamic militants it had been counting on to fight the Northern Alliance. But the whole thing might've been much less than the full-scale war we actually got.Not likely, in my opinion. For one thing, it was clear early on, and it became much clearer later, that the Taliban had fairly extensive ties with A.Q. and had benefited in the past from that cooperation. If the Taliban regime had simply coughed up bin Laden and Bush had pronounced himself satisfied, I think Bush would have been pilloried by his own side as deplorably weak.* What, his hawks would ask, happened to deterrence? And what, in the future, happens to regimes who get very cosy with terrorist groups? Can they wipe the slate clean in the future by simply coughing up a few bad guys, after years of helping them? No. This is the sort of thing that calls for a demonstration war, or no one would ever have let Bush dress up in a flight suit.
And indeed, as I remember it, it was fairly easy to tell at the time that the Bush administration wasn't keen to see the Taliban cave in to the demand to hand over bin Laden. The demand was made bluntly, with a very short deadline, and then not followed up with much in the way of serious diplomacy. And I'm willing to bet that if the Taliban had served up the whole A.Q. crew on a platter, more demands would have followed. The Bush administration wanted war.**
* True, Pakistan also had ties to A.Q., but the ties were easier to renounce and ignore, and Pakistan, a much larger nuclear power, would have been impossible to invade anyway.
** Not that war was unjustified. That's a separate question.
If you're a Canadian, you know who Rick Mercer is. In case you're not a Canadian, he's a smart-ass comedian who does a lot of political humour. (Samples here.) Anyway, I just now discovered that he has a blog (via). I thought this post was especially funny:
Like most Canadians when I’m surfing the Internet I have Canada’s parliamentary affairs channel CPAC running in the background.Later, Mercer pointed the site here.I find I can work and think just a little bit more efficiently if I’m simultaneously entertained by the dull and dulcet tones of Peter McKay or the shrieking wail of Anne McClellan.
Anyway, a few weeks back I happen to catch Don Boudria standing up in the house and I can tell he is hopping mad.
Don is seriously pissed by the anti same-sex marriage crowd. It seems they have gone out and purchased one of Don’s domain names and they have been playing silly buggers with it. Take a look for yourself at www.donboudria.ca.
Don is upset that somebody stumbling across such a site would think that they were viewing an official Don Boudria website, and not a propaganda tool. Obviously Don thinks there are a lot of low intelligence voters out there googling the hell out of Don Boudria. But I digress.Anyway, Don felt that this was a nasty below-the-belt tactic from the family values crowd. Well, the Conservative party wasn’t going to have any of this bashing of the anti-SSM crowd so Jason Kenney jumped to his feet.
I love Jason. The honorable member from Calgary Southeast is the Conservative bright light that likes to point out that gays are allowed to get married; as long as they get married to members of the opposite sex! Stupid and talking, my favorite combination in a politician. Needless to say, when Jason Kenney opens his mouth, I listen.
Anyway, long story short, Jason told Boudria it was his own fault for not registering his own domain name. I tend to agree with Jason on this; I mean, doesn’t the liberal Party have access to a teenager who can advise them on this kind of stuff? I bet a guy like Jason does. Anyway, Jason was just getting started. I include here a transcript from Hansard for your own edification.
Mr. Jason Kenney (Calgary Southeast, CPC): Mr. Speaker, the only additional element that the hon. member has brought to the Chair's attention relates to a matter which is in no way, shape or form within the purview of this House or your honour and it never has been, and hopefully never will be, that is to say, the registration of domain names on the World Wide Web. I understand my hon. friend opposite is learned with respect to parliamentary procedure but I must infer from his remarks that he is stupefiedly ignorant about the commercial practices on the Internet.¹ (1510)
The Speaker: Honestly, the hon. member for Calgary Southeast need not suggest that any hon. member of this House is ignorant.
Mr. Jason Kenney: Mr. Speaker, of the Internet.
The Speaker: That does not make it better. He could say that he has perhaps missed the point or something. We do not need to use this kind of language.
I would urge the hon. member to show some restraint.Mr. Jason Kenney: Mr. Speaker, let me be clear. I did not mean ignorant in the pejorative sense but in an objective sense that the member apparently does not understand the process by which domain names are registered on the Internet.
Anyway while the speaker was admonishing Jason for such unparliamentarily language as “ignorant” I started thinking “What are the chances that Jason Kenney is so stunned that he would call another MP ignorant for not having registered his domain name when he hasn’t bothered to register his own?”
Not a chance, I figured. I am not that lucky.
Turns out the chances were pretty good. Before he sat his arse down in his seat I was the proud owner of www.jasonkenney.org.
As you can see by clicking the link, www.jasonkenney.org drives web surfers to the Marxist Leninist party of Canada. I wanted something that screamed Jason.
I should say, though, I am open to suggestions. If you think it would be more appropriate that jasonkenney.org points to hot lesbian sex, by all means drop me a line. Or maybe you have a website that needs the conservative traffic generated by this bright thinker. Just email me and tell me where jasonkenney.org should go. You can send me an email at rick@rickmercer.com and I’ll be sure to take all suggestions seriously. I might even send a dated no longer useful Monday Report t shirt or sleeve of golf balls to the winner.
...abrewing about utilitarianism as a moral theory in general, and in particular Bentham's version of it. In order to keep making daily headway on my dissertation, I must resort to constrainted comment.
As for the historical point about what Bentham thought, see Brian Weatherson's reply to Brad DeLong's characterization. Brian's response is right on the mark, and usefully points out that Bentham believed that the supreme moral principle directs moral agents to maximize instances of a certain sort of experience, namely pleasure (and the absence of pain). Brian hits the nail on the head: for Bentham “advantage, pleasure, good, or happiness” amount to the same thing.
Brad, however, attempts to defend Bentham with the following:
Happiness--utility--plays a very special role in Bentham's philosophy. It is defined to be that which is maximized by the choices of a rational and reasonable person with enough time for reflection and sufficient information about the situation.As Brian points out, the difficulty is to render more determinate what would "maximized by the choices of a rational and reasonable person with enough time for reflection and sufficient information about the situation." Bentham believed that would be pleasure and the absence of pain. But many of us do not live our lives according to those ideals only. For while we do act in ways responsive to our prospects for pleasure and pain, we also act (e.g.) so as to respect others' autonomy, or so as to do that which is challenging and hard and not necessarily pleasant. These are ways of acting that seem eminently rational and reasonable, and which are often the content of informed preferences, but which do not seem easily accounted for by Bentham's specific version of utilitarianism. Indeed, it is not clear that rational behavior would seek the maximization of anything in particular, let alone the maximization of a contentless mental state like pleasure.
...
A good society is one in which as much of what people would choose for themselves--with enough information, after sufficient deliberation, when they are in possession of their faculties--is attained, taking care that when there is a tradeoff between one person's preferences and another's, each one counts equally.Those seem to be obvious and unexceptionable foundations for morality.
So while DeLong may well be pointing to "obvious and unexceptionable foundations for morality" by invoking what fully rational and informed agents would choose, it takes substantive moral argument to fill in the gap between that particular characterization of morality's foundations, on the one hand, and Bentham's utilitarianism on the other. This is precisely the sort of substantive argument that Rawls attempted to give in A Theory of Justice [1], which Brad has elsewhere described as an "absurd [attempt] to try to base all political obligation on one's being a supposed party to a contract that one never even made." To be sure, it is not easy to see exactly how Rawls hopes to move from the nature of rational choice to the nature of morality. (See here some discussion.) But for a guy who defends Bentham's view of moral theory as part of theory of rational choice, Brad appears ill-situated to criticize Rawls for pursing virtually the same argumentative avenue. Perhaps this little debate about Bentham will spur Brad to recant his claim that all Rawls's arguments had going for them was merely that they were "less sloppy, more careful, and informed by a much less niggardly will than those of Robert "Anarchy, State, and Utopia" Nozick." If he doesn't, I pledge charitably to assume that he, unlike his idealized utilitarian agents, is not possessed of "enough time for reflection and sufficient information about the situation."
[1] I of course don't mean that Rawls wanted to end up at Benthamite principles. They simply both wanted to use the theory of rational choice to derive ultimate principles of (political) morality.
This is hilarious, if you know NYC at all.
Body's own 'cannabis' helps pain
Via everyone's favourite torture apologists.
Harry Farrell at Crooked Timber writes:
Matt Yglesias notes that “MPAA rules for avoiding an R-Rating … allow you up to two uses of “fuck” as long as the word appears in a non-sexual context.” A bit reminiscent of the “Rory” Award, featured in Douglas Adams’ Life, the Universe and Everything, which was granted for the Most Gratuitous Use of the Word “Fuck” in a Serious Screenplay. In the US edition of LTUAE, this was changed to the Most Gratuitous Use of the Word “Belgium” in a Serious Screenplay, neatly proving Matt’s point about the unique censoriousness of American media.I had no idea that was the case, and I'm annoyed to learn it. On the other hand, much to my chagrin I actually find "Belgium" a bit funnier.
Anyone else have the same reaction? Be honest.
My lovely wife is playing at the 55 Bar on Monday, June 20th:
4inObjectsYoon Sun Choi - voice
Jacob Sacks - piano
Dave Ambrosio - bass
Jacob Garchik - trombone
Special Guest on DrumsTime: 7:00pm-9:00pm
Today I helped him move to Brooklyn. After we had unpacked the van, I introduced myself to the two people present that I hadn't met before. A few moments of conversation later, I discovered I was talking to her. Everyone else there was a jazz musician, so no one could figure out why I suddenly started acting star-struck. Cool!
I've met a few other bloggers before, but this is my first completely random blogger encounter.
I'm teaching a western Civ class this summer. We recently got around to reading selections from Augustine's City of God. Augustine is lots of fun, but he's also a bit excitable. Here's a passage, in the rather outdated translation that we use (to save money, since the copyright has lapsed):
. . . who can describe, who can conceive the number and severity of the punishments which afflict the human race - pains which are not only the accompaniment of the wickedness of godless men, but are a part of the human condition and the common misery - what fear and what grief are caused by bereavement and mourning, by losses and condemnations, by fraud and falsehood, by false suspicions, and all the crimes and wicked deeds of other men? For at their hands we suffer robbery, captivity, chains, imprisonment, exile, torture, mutilation, loss of sight, the violation of chastity to satisfy the lust of the oppressor, and many other dreadful evils. What numberless casualties threaten our bodies from without - extremes of heat and cold, storms, floods, inundations, lightning, thunder, hail, earthquakes, houses falling; or from the stumbling, or shying, or vice of horses; from the countless poisons in fruit, water, air, animals; from the painful or even deadly bites of wild animals . . . What disasters are suffered by those who travel by land or sea! What man can go out of his own house without being exposed on all hands to unforeseen accidents? Returning home sound in limb, he slips on his own door-step, breaks his leg, and never recovers. What can seem safer than sitting in his chair? Eli the priest fell from his, and broke his neck.You know, Augustine had me right up to the end, but the bit about Eli just cracks me up. Usually the introduction of the particular into a passage like this makes the writing more vivid. Here, the choice of the particular example is so anticlimactic that it drains the preceding general claims of their power. What was a pretty decent lament about the woes of the world is suddenly transformed into the sort of thing you'd hear from a cranky old man sitting on his porch, bitching away without really caring if you're listening: ". . . And did you hear what happened to Eli? He was sitting in his chair, and the next moment his neck was broken! I tell you, the world is . . ."
It's the one-hundred-and-first Bloomsday! I love the idea of Bloomsday, even though I've never (yet) been able to actually read the book. (I will. Oh yes.) How luxuriously nerdy is Bloomsday... it's like a high-brow international celebration of Captain Picard's birthday. I love it.
In keeping with that spirit, here's a high-brow comic, to celebrate. Kind of.
Percussionist Dan Weiss has a really cool show tomorrow at the 55 Bar at 7pm. Weiss is both a superb jazz drummer and an accomplished tabla player. The show tomorrow features Weiss playing a traditional Indian tabla solo on a Western drumset, as he does in a recent CD which I've been enjoying. Anyway, if you're going, go early, since the show is likely to be packed.
(Weiss also plays in 4inObjects, with my wife.)
I suppose you could say a lot about a piece of stupidity like this. I'll just limit myself to a modest point: Notice that it doesn't occur to the author of the piece that anyone held at Guantanamo, or anywhere else, might actually be innocent. In order to really work yourself into a lather about the deplorably soft treatment of detainees, it helps to pass over the fact that many detainees were captured on the flimsiest evidence, by people who are hardly infallible. Nor have they been given a proper chance to contest their captivity - a situation which raises an epistemological problem for us, as well as a question of procedural justice for them. So many of them are sure to be innocent. But whenever I cruise around the moronosphere I see people either completely passing over this point, or (very) briefly acknowledging it before going on to completely disregard it in the rest of the argument.
Air base hosts 1st military gay wedding
Three more oddball Canada-related bits, and then I'll stop. I swear.
First, here's a bit of Canadiana I think is way cool. Canadian Club Whisky had a long-running promotion in the '70s to drop cases of their whisky into remote locations (Kilimanjaro, North Pole) for adventurers to find; many were actually found. Strangely, the website of Canadian Club itself doesn't give much description of this very cool thing -- if you were them, wouldn't you have a whole big feature on this? They apparently even ran a similar promotion in the last year, but have nothing about it on their website.
Second, of course, there's the triple-crazy chainsaw-at-the-border guy. Canadian. (Ok, American too. But this is a theme post.) You've probably seen this, but if you haven't, brace yourself. If you have a strong constitution, click on the little picture for a bigger version. I want to make a smart remark, but the mind just boggles.
Finally, via Slashdot, we learn that Canada has lost the magnetic north pole. What pick-up line will Canadian planetary scientists use now?
We also discovered this wonderful Canadian candy bar.
Good name, good candy, and it teaches us something about the sophistication of Canadian marketing strategies.
Ok, Team Explananda; it's story time. Spencer and I are moving to Canada. He's taking a temporary job (a two-year post-doc) at an unnamed university there, and I'm going with him and may also get some work at the university. Recently, we went to the border to get our paperwork settled, and got mysteriously hosed.
Here's what should have happened.
Spencer: Here's my job offer letter, evidence that I have a PhD, etc.
Officer: Ok, you get a "skilled worker" permit.
S: Here's a notarized form declaring that Anne and I are "common-law partners". [This is a beautiful feature of Canadian immigration law -- same-sex parters and unmarried but committed opposite-sex partners both have status equal to married couples'.]
O: Ok, your partner gets a spousal open work permit enabling her to go find any job she wants for the same duration as your job.
Us: Thank you, Canada, home of openness, equality and fair dealing.
Here's what did happen. [Subtext in brackets.]
Spencer: Here are my documents; I've been offered a post-doc at University X.
Officer, 20 years old, testy, with something to prove: What's a "postdoc"?
S: A position as a post-doctoral fellow.
O: What's that?
Anne: [He doesn't know about academic positions. What would clear this up?] It's like being a visiting professor. He'll teach classes and do research, but it's only a two-year job.
Officer, later, angrily: It's not really a professor! [You're trying to scam us!]
Officer, to me: Do you have a job in Canada?
Anne: Well, no. [Why is he asking this? The work permit I'm applying for doesn't require me to already have a job. Maybe he needs to hear that I could get a job?] I'm in touch with a specific person about a specific job that he may have for me.
O: But do you HAVE a job?
A: No. But I expect I will be able to get one.
O, testily: Well, [little lady,] we don't take "maybes" at the border. [This seemed, in his mind, to settle the question whether I could have a work permit.]
O: Are you a student?
A: Yes. I'm still a graduate student at my US university, but I won't be taking classes there since my degree does not require any more classes. I won't be taking classes at any Canadian school either. I will be writing my dissertation, which I can do anywhere.
O, suspicious: What's a dissertation?
A: (pause) Uh. Uh. It's like a very long paper you have to write to get a PhD.
O: You mean like a thesis. [subtext: you've made up some weird terminology to confuse me, but I have seen through your ruse]
A: Yes, yes, exactly, yes. I will be writing my thesis.
O, thinking he's got the final killer question: So what will happen if the two of you split up?
A: Uh. Well, [it seems like you're not going to give me a work permit, so I would have no job and no partner -- that is, no means or reason to stay in Canada. So, obviously] I would go back to the US.
O, annoyed: Hm. [Types into computer. Clearly I have given the wrong answer, but I don't know why.]
A: Am I mistaken about the spousal work permit? I had thought that I could get the permit without already having a specific job.
O: Well, we don't even know if you can have a spousal work permit anyway. It depends on whether your partner is a skilled worker.
A: So is he a skilled worker?
A: I don't know, I would have to look it up.
(Long pause while we just look at each other. Spencer and I been here for an hour at this point and they haven't looked up the job description yet?)
A: [trying, trying not to be snide] He's going to be the equivalent of a university
professor; it's a job that requires a PhD. Wouldn't that be skilled work?
O: No - his letter doesn't say he's going to be a professor. [You're trying to scam us]
(Long pause)
O: Ok then, I'll look it up.
Two different officers, and two hours later, Spencer gets his work permit, in a skill class that should give me a spousal open work permit. But instead, I get an official "visitor" document, stapled into my passport, that says I cannot work in Canada, and furthermore that I must LEAVE Canada in three months.
Now, this is awful. Under Canadian immigration law, we're effectively spouses, so I should be able to accompany Spencer even if I don't qualify for a work permit. But instead I have this mandatory-exit thing in my passport, saying I can't live with my partner for the next two years.
I should say that the story has a happy ending -- a very kind and helpful administrator at the university was able to pull strings and get my status changed. (The string-pulling did not involve bending the rules, only having special access to people who could get the rules applied correctly.) So as far as we know, everything will be okay and I will be able to live and work in Canada for two years. More on the string-pulling in a future post.
The real question for today is -- what the hell happened? The transcript I've given is obviously just my perception of it, so probably isn't accurate in all the details. Any guesses from our experts in border-guard or Canadian psychology? Did they just get confused and assign me to some real category of three-month visitors? Do they hate academics, or Americans? Did we say the secret word? Irresponsible speculation, please.
An idea whose time has come.
And I want one as a pet.
Just for the record, I wish that Amnesty International hadn't used the word "gulag" recently in criticizing the U.S.'s detention and extraordinary rendition practices. It's not a helpful comparison. It's not crucial to the good work the organization does publicizing the truth. And it's allowed apologists for torture to distract attention from the main issue.
A lot of liberal/left bloggers are busy now pointing out that most of the people making these points are apologists for the Bush administration. And so they are. Indeed, it is not hard to make fun of these raving fuckwits. But I am not a raving fuckwit (you have to imagine me saying this in a Nixon voice), and I hope that a quick perusal of my archives will establish that I'm not a supporter of the Bush administration. And yet I'm still pretty sure that using the word "gulag" was a mistake. It's not the kind of mistake you'd want to devote a new cycle to, or that you'd want to make the focus of all the coverage of this issue. But I do think it is a mistake worth briefly acknowledging before we return to our regularly scheduled horror at what America has become, and is becoming.
Joe Biden, who voted for the war in Iraq, says that Guantánamo "has become the greatest propaganda tool that exists for recruiting of terrorists around the world." It was my impression that that role is being played by something else entirely.
I love the following line (and especially the use of quotations) from this article, on the Russians' bid for the Olympic Games:
Moscow fared worst of all, rebuked for a "lack of detailed planning" that made it "difficult for the Commission to evaluate the project."
It's so very Russia.
Alright, see ya's again in 2006, everybody!
Unless one of my fellow bloggers does something about it, this blog is not set to improve any time soon.
. . . to allow this: A Culture Vanishes in Kalahari Dust.
Awful. Just awful.
Go here, scroll down to "Bob & Doug McKenzie - Great White North" and click.
This is just totally awesome: Deep Throat and Genocide. Here's the first paragraph:
Re: The "news" that former FBI agent Mark Felt broke the law, broke his code of ethics, broke his oath and was the main source for Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward's articles that helped depose Richard Nixon, a few thoughts.The rest is equally priceless.Can anyone even remember now what Nixon did that was so terrible? He ended the war in Vietnam, brought home the POW's, ended the war in the Mideast, opened relations with China, started the first nuclear weapons reduction treaty, saved Eretz Israel's life, started the Environmental Protection Administration. Does anyone remember what he did that was bad?