Tuesday, July 1, 2008

McCNN structures the news

This is pretty minor, just another day's work in the so-called liberal media:

  • Half the story is McCain's warmed over law and order Nixonism with a little fillip of earmarks malarkey.
  • We get a rehash of the no command experience story.
  • Finally, in the rump of the story, we hear that Obama wants to expand faith-based programs, though in a way that preserves rather than assailing the separation of church and state.
For an editor with real news sense, which of these is really the top of the story? Just askin'...

A man's got to know his limitations

I had heard many years ago that suicides by gun outnumber homicides by gun in the U.S., but I had not seen it in print for so long that I had begun to doubt my memory and my sourcing. The risk to loved ones and myself is one reason I don't keep my .22 rifle, a legacy from my grandfather, in my house.

Here's the approximate breakdown of fatalities (in 2005):

  • suicides - 17,000
  • criminal homicides - 12,500
  • accidents - 900
  • putatively righteous shootings, most by cops - 600
What does this prove about gun control and the Constitution? Not necessarily anything; it's just some facts.

Monday, June 30, 2008

Bob Barr gets something right

... and that's news, though less so lately.

"It probably wasn't any one thing," he said during our conversation last week outside the White House.

"But perhaps listening to the attorney general of the United States, in a purportedly conservative Republican administration of George W. Bush, justify to the American people that the writ of habeas corpus, the great writ, the foundation of civilized society as we know it, is no longer important. Watching a president and his attorney general try and torture the language of the law and the language of the Fourth Amendment to justify warrantless spying on American citizens in their own country in the name of being a commander in chief.

"Those are so dramatically inconsistent with any notions of legitimate, constitutional, conservative government, that I certainly could not be party to, or remain in a party that advocated those procedures."
Aside from the misplaced esteem for conservatism, he gets everything right.

Sadly untested

John McCain's lack of command experience is soooo sad.

No matter how much the McCain surrogates may mewl and wail about Obama surrogate Wesley Clark's comments, it is an objectively unassailable fact that McCain has no command experience. Courage and military service, sure, but not in a command role.

It's interesting to note the McCain campaign's response is to pretend that Clark disrespected McCain's courage and service and to use that pretense to attack. The obvious on-point rejoinder that Obama has no military command experience either leaves the two candidates on par, and the McCain camp can't surrender their perceived advantage even though the fact is that McCain was what business these days calls an individual contributor.

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Dysbelief

Only rare human beings think for themselves. Most of us choose to follow along with the predominant crowd. In the state of nature and probably also in a developed society, this is adaptive behavior in the short run, but it risks a lemming plunge together over an easily seen cliff.

Peer influence is a tremendous prejudicial force in human groups (and groups of other animals, as well, I'm sure). It leads to the Gloucester 17, to obesity in relationship cohorts, to religious beliefs, to the acceptance of bald political lies.

If your friends are fabulists, their most outrageous lies become the received wisdom of your peer group, and it's afterward unshakable, despite the only evidence for it being rumor deriving from very unauthoritative sources such as "some guy" or an email or a posting on the Internet with circular or non-existent sourcing.

People believe what they want to believe, what they choose to believe. Only a precious few compare their beliefs to their experience and reject their false beliefs.

More than a day late

Now the Swifties are concerned with their good name. Where were they in 2004 when it mattered, when the Swift Boat Liars were everywhere? Why aren't they all pillorying T. Boone Pickens, Texas bullshit artist?

Stole it fair and square

Can we now dispense with the fiction that Zimbabwe is a democracy? Robert Mugabe is President for Life.

If violently stealing an election doesn't justify revolution, I'm not sure that any political crime could, but I still have no idea whether it's practical in Zimbabwe.

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Mitt right but stupid

Look, non-proliferation has always been a liberal approach to a national security problem. The internationalists were for it, the conservatives simply wanted to use military force. Anyone ever heard of preemption? Of course, the internationalists were not all liberals, but the driving force behind engaging adversary and ally alike to reduce the spread of nuclear weaponry was us libs.

People who have a brain understand that arms control and preemption may both be needed at different times. You can tell liberals from conservatives by which stick they reach for first.

Mitt Romney gets points for saying so but only enough to get him the booby prize.

What's really stupid on his part, though, is that his definition of 'bipartisan' is "caving to the conservatives". I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that he labors under this misconception, since that has been the Broderist, Liebermanesque definition for the past twenty years.

True to form, John Roberts totally misses the obvious logic of the story.

Friday, June 27, 2008

They call Obama arrogant

I'm actually glad David Addington and John Yoo took their surly, unaccountable Bushism before Congress. Maybe if they piss off enough Representatives and Senators, those two war criminals among others will wind up hog-tied on a slow boat to the Hague.

There is very little in intent that distinguishes the Bushists from Vladimir Putin (or even Robert Mugabe). Sadly, there is very little in effectiveness that distinguishes our Congress from the Duma or whatever rubberstamp legislature Mugabe is bullying at the moment.

I am dying to hear these words, "Sergeant-at-Arms, take these men into custody."

Thursday, June 26, 2008

When the bullshit hits the bone

Antonin Scalia's Second Amendment:

A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Even so, the D.C. ordinance was too broad a restriction.

My view: The Second Amendment's purpose is to vest in the people enough power to forestall both invasion and coup d'etat. For that purpose, the people individually and collectively have the right to arm themselves, but the regulation clause allows reasonable restrictions consistent with the purpose.

This means there's no bright line, and we'll have to continue to argue about it for a long time. If I want an RPG launcher to defend myself against the (mythical) black helicopters, well, that's still illegal, though I hear they're readily available in Baghdad.

What's to be done to keep people from killing each other? Handgun - or all firearm - registration would be consistent with my interpretation. That would drive the gun nuts crazy, especially if Obama wins, and for sheer entertainment value, I would recommend it as a next step in D.C. (Of course, since Congress has final Constitutional authority over D.C.'s laws, if local officials passed this, they'd probably get their 35-year-old home rule revoked in a hurry.)

It'll be interesting to see what happens to gun crime rates this summer and fall. And, when I say 'interesting', I mean from a safe distance. But it is clear that the ban hasn't been, ahem, 100% effective up to now. The question is whether we'll find out that it used to be 50% effective.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Dobson: Bible means what I say

James Dobson can accuse Barack Obama of editing the Bible to fit his worldview, but he can't recognize his own editing. Dietary laws in the Old Testament aren't relevant, but despising homosexuality is. Etching the Ten Commandments in stone in Alabama in a courthouse is a cause celebré, but slavery is passé.

Dobson may call himself a Bible literalist, but the Bible, especially the Christian Bible, is so filled with contradictions that Obama is right to say that it's not a clear basis for a modern secular government. No matter what Dobson's "traditional interpretation" may be, there's no way it's less a distortion than Obama's.

And, of course, Jesus was a liberal (though not a statist liberal).

Still and all, Obama has to expect to be attacked about everything. His Christianity is just another thing that thoroughly political wingnuts like Dobson, far from trying to understand and accommodate even in honest disagreement, will try to muddy up with invidious comparisons.