It's the Software, not the Hardware

America's Unique Exceptionalism

2009-01-19T21:02:00.000-08:00

In a Forbes Magazine op-ed, Tunku Varadarajan writes:

The creed of American exceptionalism is distinctive because it is tied closely to the creed of American individualism. There are other societies or people that are adamant believers in their own exceptionalism: The Chinese have their conceit of the Middle Kingdom; the Jews hold that they are Chosen; Hindu Brahmins believe that they alone are born from the head of God; and the Britons have believed that they rule the waves, and that they never, never, never shall be slaves (and what is that if not exceptionalism?). But only the American brand of exceptionalism is not tribal; it allows Outsiders to become Insiders.

American exceptionalism is, paradoxically, all-inclusive, for it encourages salvation through assimilation. I speak, here, of a civic salvation, of a sense of joining a citizenry whose rules are the product of a bold and bracing experiment in perfectibility. This experiment, while yielding a most stirring result in the election of Obama, is as yet far from complete. And still the world watches it--watches it, I should say, with no small amount of awe.

Exactly right. I am unabashedly proud of my country, particularly because it doesn't mean putting anyone else down. Anyone can become an American in spirit, and millions of people have given up everything to do so.

Frosty Candy Mountain

2008-11-26T07:49:00.000-08:00

Camera: BLACKBERRY 9000
Taken on 2008:11:25 08:12:51
Exposure: 0.000s
No flash
46° 15' 28.62" N 119° 20' 42.54" W

Intellectuals

2008-11-11T06:11:00.000-08:00

Thomas Sowell nails it:

How have intellectuals managed to be so wrong, so often? By thinking that because they are knowledgeable-- or even expert-- within some narrow band out of the vast spectrum of human concerns, that makes them wise guides to the masses and to the rulers of the nation.

Rationalistic Politics: A Dangerous Pipe Dream

2008-11-10T20:07:00.000-08:00

Miklos Hollender's comment on a Dr. Helen article is the quote of the day:

Jim M,

You need a coherent rational philosophy.

No. That’s the whole point: currently we have so little scientific knowledge about the human mind and human society that any kind of rationalistic politics is a dangerous pipe dream, because we pretend to know stuff we do not know. This is why we have to rely on common sense, tradition etc. - generally, pattern recognition, as opposed to theoretization.

What he said.

Bill Whittle Explains Rights

2008-10-09T08:41:00.000-07:00

Go. Bill Whittle explains the difference between birthrights and the "rights" that socialists want to give us.

Absolute Evil

2008-09-21T01:01:00.000-07:00

Quote of the day:

The road to wisdom starts with acknowledgment that there is such a thing as absolute evil in the world and it does exist, and that it will always exist.

If you refuse to recognize that, and insist that everything is relative, well then, you’ll never find your way.

--Mike Myers, from a comment thread at Neptunus Lex

Whittle Writes

2008-09-19T22:13:00.000-07:00

Just to whet your appetite:

On February 9th, 1933, the ruling elite of the world’s great Civilization held a debate in the Oxford Union. With thunderclouds growing dark across the English Channel, at a time when resolute action could still have averted the worst catastrophe the world has ever known, these elites resolved that “This House will in no circumstances fight for its King and Country.”

The Resolution passed by a vote of 275 to 153. Needless to say, this vote did not avert the fight. It guaranteed it.

Go. Read.

Defensive Handgun Class (Day 2)

2008-09-19T20:51:00.000-07:00

As mentioned earlier, LovelyWife and I attended a Defensive Handgun class at the Firearms Academy of Seattle (FAS).

If you're considering a firearm for self-defense, training is critical. Not only do you need to learn the physical skills to operate a firearm safely and effectively, you must also learn how to conduct yourself before and after using the firearm.

FAS went over the Washington State statutes in detail. We learned the various types of homicides, and the conditions under which a homicide can be ruled justifiable. If you're protecting yourself you have certain affirmative defenses against murder and manslaughter. But if you're protecting someone else you must have overwhelming evidence that your use of deadly force is justified. (E.g., you don't want to shoot a 7-11 clerk who is holding a robber at gunpoint!)

The FAS instructors disagree with Professor James Duane and his colleague, Officer George Bruch of the Virginia Beach police department. (Click on their names for their very compelling Google Video talks.) Essentially, Duane and Bruch argue that there's nothing to be gained by cooperating with a police officer, so you should refuse to cooperate in order to secure your legal rights.

As police officers themselves, the FAS instructors explained that they must write a report about every incident. Part of that report is a form with places for the names of everyone involved. Each name has several boxes to check, including "victim", "witness", and "suspect". The FAS instructors argue that you want the officer to check "victim" by your name rather than "suspect", and that goal is worth the risk of cooperation.

The FAS instructors argue that after you've used deadly force in a self-defense situation, you should point out evidence and explain the "active dynamic" to the responding officers. Evidence might include the gun used by the perpetrator that got kicked under furniture and would otherwise be missed. The active dynamic is a simple explanation of what happened. "Officer, as I was walking down the street this man jumped out of that doorway, showed me a knife, and demanded my money. I pulled my lawfully licensed handgun and ordered him to back off. Instead of backing off he advanced towards me. Fearing for my life I had to shoot him. The knife is over there under the doorstep."

Do not try to talk your way out of being arrested. After explaining the active dynamic, you should go on to say something like "Officer, I intend to fully cooperate with your investigation. But as you know, situations like this are very stressful. I'm not feeling well; please take me to the hospital. And to protect everyone's legal rights, I want to talk to my attorney before making a formal statement."

Switching from the content to the pedagogical approach:

I've taken precisely two classes in the defensive use of firearms (Gunsite 250 and this one.) Three days into a five-day class (Gunsite) and 1.5 days into a two-day class (FAS) the instructor started berating the students. The instructor accused us of not paying attention, not working hard, and basically wasting his time. At Gunsite this happened after we shot at night for the first time. At FAS this happened after a block of instruction where we shot at moving targets for the first time. The plural of anecdote is not data, but both instructors did the same thing.

After the next block of instruction, the FAS instructor explained that he almost always yells at his students in order to motivate them to do their best. One of the students in the class confirmed that the instructor did the same thing at about the same time in a class taught a couple of weeks earlier.

For students to succeed they must take the things they learned on the first day and apply them on the second day. A student whose mind wanders won't learn as well, and may even make seriously unsafe mistakes. In contrast, a student unfairly accused of slacking off will often redouble her effort to prove the accuser wrong, achieving a higher standard of performance than she would otherwise.

Several times during the class I was chastised by the instructors for minor safety procedure violations. That was absolutely fair--and it pointed to something specific that I could change. Instructors noticed I was unnecessarily bouncing before drawing my handgun when the whistle blew to fire, or was moving the gun inefficiently from the holster to the firing stance. Again, I welcomed their criticism because it came with specific things I could do better.

I believe the motivation of the instructors was good, but I question the utility of this technique. The general chastisement of the class was very discouraging and demoralizing. I felt very frustrated that the instructor was accusing me of laziness, while not providing any specific criticism in terms of procedure or skill.

In defense of this technique, it did add mental and emotional stress to the learning experience. A real-life self-defense use of deadly force will also be very stressful. So perhaps it adds some value.

A colleague has also experienced similar group chastisements in other self-defense training classes. He calmly asked me whether I had been slacking off. I thought for a few moments and said no. In the future, he suggested, I should consider such undeserved criticism as static, and ignore it like I would ignore a harmless insect. Most excellent advice!

On balance, will we go back to FAS? Yes, I think so. The content was excellent, and I really appreciated the specific feedback and guidance on my shooting technique. But I will be prepared for seemingly unfair negative feedback. I will use it as an opportunity to exercise my self-confidence, and to exercise restraint and calm.

Yummy Sansar

2008-09-19T20:39:00.000-07:00

I had an opportunity to visit Sansar Indian Cuisine this week. If you ever find yourself in Livermore California then you really ought to stop by. Even though their menu suggests you wait 20-30 minutes for them to cook each entree to order, they delivered my Mutter Paneer almost immediately.

Our Indian restaurant options in Tri-Cities Washington are quite limited, particularly compared to our previous residence in the greater Chicago area. So I'm happy to go out of my way to enjoy a tasty Indian curry dish.

Quote of the Day

2008-09-09T09:31:00.000-07:00

Happily married gay couples with closets full of assault weapons. That's my vision for America, and it's a good one.

--Glenn Reynolds

Defensive Handgun Class (Day 1)

2008-09-06T20:45:00.000-07:00

Lovelywife and I recently picked up a couple of Kahr Arms handguns. She has an MP9 and I have a P40. We're used to shooting Kimber 1911-pattern handguns. The 1911 has a single-action trigger. The Kahrs have long-sweep double-action-only triggers. So we've decided to get some training before carrying the Kahrs for self defense.

Today was our first day at the Firearms Academy of Seattle (FAS). We're taking the Defensive Handgun two-day class. It's an entry-level class, but that's OK because it's been six years since our Gunsite 250 experience.

Some impressions from the first day:

Best practices have apparently changed in the last six years. For example, At Gunsite we learned the so-called "Mozambique" drill, where you shoot two rounds into center mass of the target and one round to the head of the target. The FAS instructors said that they don't teach that anymore; instead, they expect students in a deadly force situation to continually assess whether their shots are having the desired effect and shift fire appropriately. Lesson learned: training is perishable and things change, so it's a good idea to continue taking classes.
Gunsite is in the Arizona desert, much like Tri-Cities Washington. FAS is in the wetter part of Washington State. It's a lot greener than we're used to, but it's great to be in the wetter forest for a few days.
The Kahr is a lot harder to shoot than the Kimber. The long trigger sweep slows me down, and gives much more time for the sights to wobble off target. But both LovelyWife and I were able to put plenty of rounds on target. Our group sizes were quite competitive with other people in the class, even those shooting 1911-pattern guns. We're pretty pleased.
We need to consult with an attorney about the appropriate use of lethal force to protect our dog. Kiko's fight was a significant motivating factor for LovelyWife to get her Kahr in preparation to use her concealed carry permit. Our FAS instructors were quite clear about situations for the use of deadly force against humans, but weren't as sure about when it would be appropriate to shoot an attacking dog.

We're staying at the Morton Seasons Hotel, since we drove in from Tri-Cities Washington over White Pass on US Highway 12.

AT&T Wireless does not have 3G service available in Morton. I measured 178 kilobits/second download and 84 kilobits/second upload speeds to the Internet using the AT&T EDGE service. The hotel wireless provided 512 kilobits/second download and 270 kilobits/second upload, so that's what I'm using to post this blog entry.

We go back tomorrow for the second and final day. Unfortunately I won't be able to post any class pictures, because the legal release we signed included our agreement not to photograph anything.

UPDATE 19-September 2008: Day 2's post is now available!

Suicide Bomber Crash Dumps

2008-08-28T18:00:00.000-07:00

Someone who writes computer software for a living quickly learns to appreciate crash dumps. When something goes wrong inside a computer program, the basic operating system can write a file detailing the internal workings of the program--at the exact moment the problem is detected. Programmers examine those "crash dump" files, and work backward to find the programming error.

Psychologists and psychiatrists often deal with faulty thinking. Without realizing it, some women will hurt their husbands because of unresolved father issues. Kids will run screaming from a friendly dog because of a long-ago dog bite. Mental health professionals help people find their faulty internal "programming". Sometimes they ask patients to review horrible events, working out where the error lies. Then the doctor will help the patient change thought patterns to end the pain.

Death cults like Hamas and al Qaeda "reprogram" people to commit suicide attacks. In a perversion of the mental health healing process, they change their human weapon's thinking to override her natural drive of self-preservation, replacing it with motivation to kill herself in the name of some greater cause.

Ultimately defeating these death cults requires understanding this reprogramming process well enough to counteract it. By the time someone is programmed to blow herself up in a crowded market, it's too late. Eventually you must give people the mental tools and motivations to resist death cult recruitment and reprogramming. But understanding the reprogramming and recruitment process is very difficult, because the results of that programming is destroyed along with the life of the suicide bomber. There is no "crash dump" left over to examine.

Fox News reports on a female homicide bomber that was caught before completing her mission:

At this moment, Rania is precious. The size and gruesome effectiveness of the Al Qaeda female homicide bomber program in Iraq has surprised and appalled everyone here. There is a report that there are another four "on the loose" somewhere in Diyala province. For both Iraqi and American forces desperately working to crack the homicide network and find the ringleaders, any first-hand "lead" — and future witness — like Rania is extremely useful.

Yes, she is useful on a tactical basis. But she is also useful on a more strategic basis--to understand and counteract the threat posed by the twisted ideologies of the death cults.

Interviewing Rania is like examining a computer program crash dump. The interviewer can probe how she thinks, looking for ways to undo the programming and build up resistances to that programming in other potential human weapons.

I hope she gets the professional help she needs to undo the perversions visited upon her, and that eventually she can help other women resist the evil suicide bomber weaponization process.

How Silly

2008-08-16T17:42:00.000-07:00

Clayton Cramer writes:

The parallels between black pride and southern white pride have been obvious to me for many years--and with the same reason. You take pride in your race, ethnicity, culture, or gender because it is the one thing over which you have no control. There are things in which I take some pride: my ability to design and make products; my ability to develop software; my ability to write. But these are personal attributes that are primarily my doing--actions at which I have personally worked. I didn't choose to be white. I didn't choose to be an American. If you have nothing to be proud about that you have done--why, you can be proud of something that is an accident of birth. How silly.

You do have a choice about your culture. Culture is software; you can choose to reject self-destructive thoughts and behaviors. Some black kids get scorned for "acting white" when paying attention at school, working hard at jobs, and avoiding teenage pregnancy. Immigrants move to the United States from all over the world, most often for the opportunities denied them by their societies of birth. Native-born Americans choose to join the military or serve their communities in other ways.

We must celebrate those people who make wise choices and improve the culture around them.

Al Gore Killed Clean Energy

2008-07-18T18:50:00.000-07:00

Former Vice President Al Gore gave a speech yesterday. He said

The answer is to end our reliance on carbon-based fuels.

and

Today I challenge our nation to commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years.

Sounds good, maybe. But in the early 1990s, Al Gore denied us truly clean carbon-free nuclear power.

When hit by neutrons, uranium atoms either split (giving off energy, neutrons and fission products) or transmute into heavier elements (the transuranics). So reactors produce two kinds of nuclear waste: fission products and transuranic elements.

Fission products are only dangerous for a couple of hundred years. I've seen plenty of buildings in Europe and elsewhere that old, so I'm confident we can safely store fission product waste until it decays to harmless dirt.

Transuranic elements can be dangerous for tens or hundreds of thousands of years. Safely disposing that waste is a lot harder, particularly if you care about your great-great-great-great-grand kids.

But transuranic elements can be recycled. You chemically separate them from the fission products and put them back into reactors. Over time the transuranics "burn up", producing power while being converted into easily handled fission products.

One of the transuranic elements is plutonium. The Fat Man bomb that dropped on Nagasaki used a plutonium core.

Jimmy Carter decided that the risks of terrorist diversion of plutonium outweighed the benefits of recycling nuclear waste into new fuel. He feared shipments of reactor fuel could be hijacked by terrorists. Other presidents have upheld that policy. So the United States government refuses to allow industry to recycle nuclear reactor fuel. (France, Russia and Japan all recycle their nuclear reactor fuel, which is why they don't have a nuclear waste problem.)

15 years ago I was a new employee of Argonne National Laboratory. As a student I had worked with Argonne staff on the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) project. It aimed to demonstrate on-site fuel recycling, eliminating the possibility of hijacking shipments of spent fuel. It also demonstrated the inherent safety of a sodium coolant reactor.

The IFR project ended on September 30, 1994. Al Gore killed it.

When the Clinton administration took office in early 1993, they immediately decided to kill the IFR project. I think their constituents in the anti-nuke community saw that the IFR project answered most of their arguments against nuclear power. So Al Gore and Hazel O'Leary stripped all IFR funding out of the administration's Fiscal Year 1994 Federal budget request.

The nuclear industry and scientists lobbied Congress to preserve the IFR project. Congress added the funding back in to the FY1994 budget.

Word then came down from DOE headquarters to us at Argonne that if anyone so much as used a sheet of copier paper to write a letter to Congress or the media supporting IFR, that person would be criminally prosecuted for misappropriation of government property and other charges related to illegal lobbying activity. The administration (Al Gore and Hazel O'Leary) wanted IFR dead.

Through a combination of bullying the scientists and doing their own lobbying, the Clinton administration managed to keep IFR funding out of the FY1995 budget as passed by Congress. So the IFR project ended on September 30, 1994, the last day of the 1994 Fiscal Year.

Skip forward 13 years. Al Gore presents a speech on the "climate crisis", calling for the end of carbon-based electricity generation. But his jeremiad omits the very mention of the word nuclear. He still thinks it's more important to keep the irrationally anti-nuke crowd happy than save the planet from carbon dioxide pollution.

I will believe Al Gore really cares about greenhouse gasses when he admits his mistakes in 1993 and 1994, or at least reverses himself on nuclear power.

Involuntary Servitude

2008-07-14T18:00:00.000-07:00

Today I must provide some unfree labor to the government. I knew this was going to happen, so I couldn't go on business travel for my employer. And the government isn't going to fairly compensate me for my time.

Technically, US Case Law (Butler vs. Perry, 1916) says that the 13th Amendment prohibition against involuntary servitude does not prohibit "enforcement of those duties which individuals owe to the state, such as services in the army, militia, on the jury, etc."

An individualist analysis of jury duty must balance two competing goods. On the one hand, jury duty is compulsory. I can't just opt out of the activity; the government ultimately makes me to do so through its monopoly on the first use of force. On the other hand, jury duty is an important check on the power of full-time government actors: a criminal or civil defendant's loss of life, freedom and/or property must be endorsed by ordinary citizens in her specific case, not just through rules and laws promulgated by the State.

Although it's a close call, I think it's reasonable to require otherwise uninterested ordinary citizens to serve on jury duty. The benefits to the individual (protection against government over-reach) outweigh the costs (time and inconvenience). That's why I will uncomplainingly report to the Benton County Justice Center this afternoon at 1:00 PM for jury duty.

6:00 PM update: The defendant failed to appear, so the judge issued a bench warrant for his arrest and dismissed the jury pool. I still have to check in twice more, but the jury room supervisor opined that it's unlikely our group will be called back again.

My Favorite Horror Movie

2008-07-11T19:21:00.000-07:00

This one's a classic:

Poor guy suffered a "catastrophic failure of the victim selection process." Heh.

Rush, Call Your Dermatologist

2008-07-10T17:40:00.000-07:00

Rush Limbaugh loves to say he knows liberals "like every square inch of [his] glorious naked body." Well if that's true he should visit his skin doctor immediately! He's missing something very important and very scary.

Lord Obama--the Democratic nominee--is "troubled" about contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan:

I'm not arguing that there are never going to be uses for private contractors in some circumstances. What I am saying is if you start building a military premised on the use of private contractors, and you start making decisions about armed engaged based on the availability of private contractors to fill holes in gaps, that over time you are, I believe, eroding the core of our military's relationship to the nation and how accountability is structured. You are privatizing something that is what essentially sets a nation state apart, which is the monopoly on -- on violence, uh, and to set those kinds of precedents I think will lead us over the long term into, uh, some troubled waters.

Rush said "[Obama] doesn't know what he is talking about now. He is strictly wandering aimlessly in vain search of a cogent thought. He wasn't even coherent there."

But Rush missed Obama's point. As I've written before, socialists want to restrict all capabilities for violence to government employees. Guns in private hands empower the individual at the expense of the collective will. A 110 pound woman rejects the unitary will of the collective by arming herself. This empowered individual becomes a "rival entity" and thus an enemy of the collective, even if she never uses the weapon.

Lord Obama's point is very clear: a nation state must have an absolute monopoly on the capacity for violence. He believes contractors can provide supplies and transportation, but capacity for violence must always remain in government hands. His statement is coherent and consistent with socialist theory and practice.

Tens of millions of people died when socialists achieved their political goals in Russia, Germany, China and Cambodia. The collective, in the form of the nation state, infringed on individual rights to the capacity for self defense. Once the state held the monopoly on violence, dissenting or dehumanized people died. It's that simple.

For the record, I reject the unitary will of the collective. Legitimate government is instituted to protect individual rights, not to hold a monopoly on violence.

A seemingly minor blemish can turn out to be life threatening skin cancer. Lord Obama's beliefs must be examined and treated with similar care and concern.

When Individual Rights Collide

2008-07-08T19:54:00.000-07:00

There's a legal fight on here in Washington State, with both sides claiming their rights are being infringed. Women want to protect their individual rights to control their reproduction, while some pharmacists have religious grounds to refuse to dispense the "Plan B" drug sold by Barr Labs.

At first glance it appears to fall under settled law and precedent. In the early 1960s we decided as a country to disallow commercial discrimination. The Greensboro Woolworth's lunch counter policy of not serving seated African Americans was protested by massive sit-ins. Those protests led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act, barring such discrimination.

But there's a key difference. The seated African American students weren't asking Woolworth's for some special food not offered on the menu. The problem was with discriminating which customers would be served, not which food would be served.

Civil Rights law does not dictate what food a given restaurant must serve. As a restaurant owner I can choose not to serve anything, or to limit my menu in any way I want. It's perfectly legal for me to open a vegetarian restaurant and refuse to serve meat, even if my reasons against serving meat are based on my religion--or if I'm running the only restaurant in town.

The same is true of the Washington pharmacists. They are quite willing to serve any customer, but they are not willing to dispense a particular medication.

Once someone has decided to do something, it's reasonable for government to regulate how that something will be done. Any real-world action could have consequences beyond the first actor, and so it's reasonable for government to intervene to protect the individual rights of others. Once a restaurateur decides to offer a given food she must comply with laws and regulations protecting her customers. Likewise, Civil Rights law requires her to serve that food to anyone who comes in the door with money.

The fundamental individual right of Liberty includes a strong presumption against government compulsion or coercion. With some very few exceptions (e.g. military draft, jury duty) the government should not have the power to force someone to do something they don't want to do.

The Washington women want to use the coercive power of government to force pharmacists to do something they don't want to do. The pharmacists' right not to do something at all necessarily overrides a woman's intent and desire to avoid the consequences of her choice to have sexual intercourse. The pharmacists should and must prevail in this legal matter.

More on Lord Phillips

2008-07-07T07:24:00.000-07:00

Over at the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler, people are misinterpreting Lord Phillips:

Now, far be it from us to impose our “un-nuanced” ways on anybody, but we simply can’t see the attraction of stonings, pre-teen marriage and forcing women to wear burlap bags. One would think that if the muslims, their women in particular, were so enamored with being treated slightly worse than livestock, they’d have stayed right at home.

My church teaches that premarital sex is wrong, based on our reading of the Christian Bible. So if I get a woman pregnant outside of marriage it’s perfectly legitimate for my church to say I can’t be a church officer, sing in the choir or preach from the pulpit.

Likewise it’s perfectly legitimate for Muslims in the West to arrange their private relationships in agreement with Sharia law.

The bright line we must not cross? My church can’t tell the government to put me in jail for premarital sex. The mosque can’t tell the government to fine a woman for not wearing her headscarf. In fact, the government must protect my individual right to sexual expression and the woman’s right to go around bare-headed--the church or mosque is not allowed to enforce any sanction beyond separation from the voluntary organization.

Both sources of authority (religion and state) are legitimate in their own sphere, but they must be kept separate.

Even Eisenhower and McArthur allowed the private practice of Shintoism in post-World War II Japan. They only forced it out of the government sphere.

From that perspective, Lord Phillips has it right. He made it very clear that any government sanctions must be based entirely on English and Welsh law, not on Sharia. But private individuals can voluntarily structure their lives and relationships following Christian church law or Sharia law.

Naming the Enemy

2008-07-06T10:19:00.000-07:00

Via Insty, now comes the Times of London reporting on the clearing of Al-Qaeda from Mosul Iraq.

But Glenn missed the money quote:

Al-Qaeda was also bleeding support as allied Iraqi insurgents accepted an amnesty. It did not apply to Al-Qaeda. “If you are fighting to install sharia [Islamic law] on this country, you are going to have to be killed,” said Colonel David Brown, an American adviser to 2nd Division.

There you have it. That's what the Americans and Iraqis are fighting and dying for--freedom from the imposition of religion-based law.

Two More Reasons

2008-07-05T13:07:00.000-07:00

A couple of days ago I explained why I'm an American Individualist, not an Anarchist. Unlike Eric S. Raymond, I believe the history of 1930s Germany and late 20th century America are different enough that we don't need to be Anarchists.

In my last post I articulated three reasons: First, advocating Anarchy is like advocating unilateral disarmament--your enemies will happily infringe your liberty if you stop protecting it. Second, the Feds got well and truly deterred in the 1990s by events at Ruby Ridge, Waco, and Oklahoma City. Their approach to the Montana Freemen bears that out. Third, Mr. Raymond misses a crucial difference between 1930s Germany and the American Republic: the Establishment cause of the 1st Amendment. The Nazis were able to neutralize criticism from the Catholic church in large part because Catholic church officers were confirmed and paid by the government.

Kim du Toit's 4th of July Geopoliticus blog posting was almost uncharacteristically optimistic. I commented that I agreed with his point that we Americans have kept faith with the Founders, protecting and preserving the gift they bequeathed us.

My comment seems to have motivated two other very interesting comments. Ken writes I was

missing one big historical victory for the freedom (i.e., 2nd Amendment side): the successful campaign against Smith & Wesson for its surrender to the Clinton administration over gun control.

It amazes me that this absolutely critical event in history should be so overlooked. This was the turning point in the gun control fight. It convinced both George W. Bush and Albert Gore, Jr., that the 2nd Amendment supporters were the “strong horse,” although both had previously backed gun control.

Ken makes the astute observation that the politicians and industry had their own wake up call after the Smith & Wesson "settlement" caused a measurable marketplace reaction. The politicians saw where the people were going, and any successful American politician must eventually run to the front of the crowd and yell "follow me!" The gun industry saw that their primary market--civilian weapon sales--could dry up in a hurry if a manufacturer accommodating people who wanted to give the state a monopoly on the tools of force.

Windy Wilson points out another key difference between the politics of 1930s Germany and the United States:

Parallel, another point of great divergence from the Weimar/Nazi transition is that during the Weimar period, many if not most of the Germans did not recognize the legitimacy of the Weimar government—not Hindenburg as president, but the entire government, and longed for a return to the pre-WW1 setup (Richard J. Evans, The Rise of the Nazis). That alone would make it easier for someone to overthrow the government as the Nazis essentially did. For all the crybaby “Stolen Election” drivel, I don’t see anyone contesting the legitimacy of the Federal government here in the US.

I think Windy Wilson is referring to this book:

I haven't read it yet, but I've just added it to my Amazon.com wishlist so I don't forget about it.

As an Individualist I'm concerned that the Federal government has too much legitimacy, particularly beyond its core purpose of protecting individual rights. Too many people want its scope of activity to extend much further; see (for example) my criticism of the National Endowment of the Arts. But Windy is right--all the calumny heaped upon George W. Bush was motivated by the perception he stole something important and valuable. The hue and cry would have been considerably less powerful if the prize--the Presidency--was itself considered illegitimate in some way.

Thanks Ken and Windy!

Lord Phillips Has it Right

2008-07-04T10:00:00.000-07:00

Now comes Lord Chief Justice, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, speaking to the London Muslim Centre in Whitechapel:

"There is no question of such [Sharia] courts sitting in this country or such sanctions being applied here.

“So far as the law is concerned, those who live in this country are governed by English and Welsh law and subject to the jurisdiction of the English and Welsh courts,” he said.

It's about time someone in Britain defended the legitimacy, supremacy and authority of national law over Sharia law. After all, people are free to vote with their feet:

“Those who come to live in this country and benefit from the rights enjoyed by all who live here also necessarily come under the same obligations that the law imposes on all who live here.”

Absolutely right. Legitimate government must equally protect the rights of all residents. If some people's rights are privileged, other people's rights are denigrated. Any government policy that fails to protect someone's individual rights is illegitimate and immoral.

I have several friends who immigrated to the United States from other countries. They came and played by the rules and are exemplary citizens. I have a special respect for people who give up the comforting familiarity of their early lives to become Americans. But I have nothing but disdain and condemnation for people who want to live in America and enjoy the benefits of America while disrespecting and disparaging the very values that make America great.

Good on you, Lord Phillips, for defending the British rule of law.

End the NEA

2008-07-03T20:34:00.000-07:00

The National Endowment for the Arts should go away.

Yesterday I explained why I think it's safe to be an American Individualist, and not an Anarchist. An important factor is that the government is prohibited by the Constitution from supporting religion. That keeps religious organizations free from worry that something they say will impact their government funding. Specifically, in contrast to 1930s Germany, American religious bodies don't have any government entanglements that compromise their ability to respond and criticize government speech.

Consider this paragraph from the Chairman's Statement in the 2006 NEA Annual Report:

Because we know the difference that availability to a thriving arts community can make to our youth and families, the NEA has made a priority of reaching every community. To be truly national, the National Endowment for the Arts has awarded at least one direct grant for every 760,000 Americans. Every member of Congress can return to his or her district and find at least one arts organization that is receiving catalytic support from the NEA.

In other words, arts organizations in every congressional district are compromised. They receive government funding. Government funding is always conditioned on something, either explicitly or implicitly.

Note that the Chairman is admitting that their funding decisions are not based entirely on merit. It's not a coincidence that the NEA funds organizations in every congressional district. Inevitably the merit-based evaluation process must be skewed to obtain this result.

It gets even worse. The Chairman goes on to write:

I say catalytic because for every dollar the NEA grants, seven to eight additional dollars are generated.

In other words, these Federal funding decisions have an impact above and beyond their base dollar amount. An organization receiving Federal arts funds can turn around and get seven or eight dollars in third party funds for each government dollar. The pernicious truth is that the converse is also true--if an art organization loses Federal funding, their third party funds dry up as well.

That's too much power for government. Government's purpose is to protect my liberty. Making decisions on the quality of art does not advance that narrow purpose. And as we've seen in history, government influence in the marketplace of ideas can lead to bloody ends.

Not an Anarchist

2008-07-02T18:41:00.000-07:00

I'm an Individualist, not an Anarchist.

Eric S. Raymond is an Anarchist. He reviews the history of the 20th Century, deciding that even the United States Constitution isn't enough protection for individual liberties:

The Founding Fathers of the United States thought they had found a way to successfully head off the degeneration of governments into pathological monstrosities: ensure that the people remain armed, and teach them that it is part of their duty as free citizens to check the arrogance of government — by threat of armed revolt or by actual revolution, if need be. Thomas Jefferson would have asked why the Jews and Gypsies of Germany allowed themselves to be disarmed by Nazi gun-confiscation laws without rising in revolt — and, more pointedly, why the soi-disant civilized nations of the world did not see the confiscation of civilian weapons as a sure harbinger of the Holocaust to come.

[....]

I am left with the bleak conclusion that no attempt to hold the arrogance of government in check will work — because a majority of the people themselves are too easily seduced into abandoning their own institutional protections against tyranny by the false promises and poisonous dreams of statist propaganda.

That is why I am an anarchist.

Mr. Raymond, I must respectfully dissent. I believe your analysis misses three important points.

First, a policy of Anarchism is national suicide, which will inevitably lead to denial of the individual rights we enjoy in America. Too many nation-states in the world today would be only too happy to conquer the United States by force. Some would be motivated to expropriate our wealth. Some would simply like to enslave the people, whether for economic or religious reasons. Others simply see American success as an unacceptable proof that their own philosophies and beliefs don't provide universal Truth in some way. We really do need "governments...to preserve...[our] rights."

Second, he doesn't put appropriate weight on four events in late 20th-Century American history: Ruby Ridge, the Waco Siege, the Oklahoma City bombing, and the Montana Freemen standoff. At Ruby Ridge, an assault by Federal agents on an isolationist family led to deaths on both sides, and the target of the raid (Randy Weaver) was eventually acquitted of the underlying charge by a jury. At Waco, Federal agents tried to raid the compound of a fanatic religious group--but the group stopped the assault by shooting and killing several agents. Federal agents eventually assaulted the compound with military vehicles and chemical weapons, but the resulting fire led to widespread criticism and outrage. Timothy McVeigh was motivated to bomb the Murrah Federal Building as revenge for Ruby Ridge and Waco.

But when they came to arrest the Montana Freemen, Federal agents took their time and managed to make the arrests without violence or deaths. Federal agents got the message; it's simply not a good idea to ride roughshod over Americans. Even though the Federal agent killer of Randy Weaver's wife didn't go to prison, and the surviving agents responsible for Waco didn't lose their jobs, Federal police tactics became much more respectful of American individuals--even obvious criminals.

Third, early-20th Century Germany did not separate church and state. Catholic church officials were nominated by the Vatican, but their names were approved by the German government and their salaries were supported by tax money. This structural collusion between the Vatican and the German government meant that the Church was dissuaded from criticizing government policy. It ensured that German government ideas and propaganda weren't easily challenged in the open marketplace of ideas.

In contrast, the Framers of the United States Constitution wanted to keep the government from concentrating either the power to shape public opinion (First Amendment) or the power to force public compliance (Second Amendment).

The First and Second Amendments are both necessary to restrain government: The First amendment makes sure there are competing voices in the marketplace of ideas, accessible to many individuals. The Second Amendment makes sure that once individuals make up their minds about a public policy, they can make their decisions stick in the face of raw government power--or at least greatly increase the cost in blood and treasure for the government to crush the individuals.

Bottom line: I believe it's safe and appropriate to be an Individualist in the United States.

Update 5 July 2008: please seetwo more reasons suggested by comments at Kim du Toit's Geopoliticus blog.

Dog-loving Individualist

2008-07-01T19:47:00.000-07:00

I've just changed the "about me" description to your left. It used to say

A mostly conservative computer security scientist type guy.

When I started this blog I thought I was a conservative. To me, a conservative is someone who agrees with Rush Limbaugh most of the time. The Republican party is the American political home of conservatism.

Right-wing, conservative politics are based on preserving or returning to some traditional authority. Left-wing politics are based on social change or progress. My fundamental values aren't based on returning to something old or trying something new.

So rather than a conservative I'm more of an individualist. From a very young age I was taught that each person is a unique, valuable individual. Everyone has God-given rights, and is worthy of respect. To respect someone as a person means respecting and allowing them to make their own choices.

For the past 3.5 years my wife and I have been blessed to share our home with Kiko. He thinks he's a black Labrador Retriever, even though his mother is half chocolate Lab and half pointer. As you can see in our picture, he loves his people--nothing more satisfying and fun than to lick my face.

So I'm changing my self-description. Individualism better describes my personal philosophy, and my love for dogs like Kiko is important too.