Category Archives: Random Blogging

Simple Approaches, Complicated Issues

There is a very robust debate going on between people who defend the behavior of Edward Snowden and (especially) Glenn Greenwald, and those (most recently, Michael Kinsley) who see Greenwald, Snowden et al as dangerously naive.

Martin Longman weighs in on the debate at Political Animal: 

Too often, it seems to me, Greenwald and his strong supporters behave as if the government deserves to be damaged and that our national security ought to suffer, even though all Americans are put at risk as a result. The risk to Americans is not something that can just be shrugged off as if it were indisputable that the country has gained a net-benefit from every single disclosure of classified information.

The reason that Greenwald is getting the better of the argument isn’t because his principles are clearly superior, but because the government lacks credibility. The overall effect of the disclosures has been beneficial, at least so far, because nothing catastrophic has resulted and we now have greater knowledge about what our government has been doing, which is already leading to reforms.

But none of this relieves journalistic enterprises of the responsibility to weigh the risks and benefits of disclosing classified information, nor does it completely vindicate either Chelsea Manning or Edward Snowden, who both leaked far more information than was necessary to make their points.

There are no heroes here. Not among the government snoops who vastly exceeded what should be permissible in a free and democratic society, and not among the scolds who took it upon themselves to release massive amounts of classified information.

We need credible and effective systemic oversight mechanisms. Otherwise, we are left to depend upon the judgement of self-righteous whistleblowers and their enablers who see the world only as black and white, and who have never considered whether even virtuous  ends justify their chosen means.

Comments

Smart Guns, Stupid People

Nearly 800 children under 14 were killed in gun accidents from 1999 to 2010, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nearly one in five injury-related deaths in children and adolescents involve firearms.

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, homicides, suicides and accidents involving guns cause twice as many deaths in young people as cancer, five times as many as heart disease and 15 times as many as infections.

And that’s just young people.

So it makes no sense at all that the NRA and the rabid pro-gun lobby have violently opposed sales of the so-called “Smart gun.” The gun requires that the shooter–presumably the owner of the weapon–be wearing a wristband. Otherwise, it won’t fire.

Mind you, no one is suggesting that the Smart Gun be mandated. It would simply join the wide array of lethal weapons available to buyers in our not-so-civilized country. Yet gun shop owners who have offered them have gotten massive blowback–including death threats–from self-styled “Second Amendment” purists.

Critics argue that the need to “find a wristband, maybe in the middle of the night” would be too cumbersome in the event of a home break-in. Of course, current safety precautions–some a matter of local law–require keeping guns in a locked box, or even disassembled. Surely the time required to re-assemble a gun, or unlock a box, is equivalent to the time needed to find a wristband.

For that matter, paranoid folks can SLEEP in the damn things.

This hysteria over technology that can make their precious firearms safer is just one more bit of evidence of the mindlessness of today’s gun lobby.

If survey research is to be believed, this craziness isn’t representative of the hunters and sportsmen who make up the bulk of NRA membership. If that’s the case, it’s past time responsible gun owners took back the organization from the wacko fringe.

Giving people the ability to CHOOSE to purchase a safer gun is not a violation of even the paranoid version of the Second Amendment.

Comments

Just Like Milton Friedman Predicted..

Libertarian economist Milton Friedman was a noted critic of America’s Drug War, pointing out all of the reasons why prohibition doesn’t work. One such reason: When a substance is illegal, the price will rise to accommodate the risk; the higher price and promise of greater profit encourages more lawbreakers.

Too bad Friedman didn’t live long enough to see his argument confirmed.

In a recent Washington Post story about drugs and Mexico, I came across the following interesting tidbit:

 Farmers in the storied “Golden Triangle” region of Mexico’s Sinaloa state, which has produced the country’s most notorious gangsters and biggest marijuana harvests, say they are no longer planting the crop. Its wholesale price has collapsed in the past five years, from $100 per kilogram to less than $25.

“It’s not worth it anymore,” said Rodrigo Silla, 50, a lifelong cannabis farmer who said he couldn’t remember the last time his family and others in their tiny hamlet gave up growing mota. “I wish the Americans would stop with this legalization.”

 ‘Nuff said.

Comments

My Excitement Was Short-Lived

I was thrilled when I learned that crazy Georgia Congressman Paul Broun–who had quit his seat to run for Senate–didn’t make the runoff for that office, and would henceforth be known as “former Congressman Broun.”

Broun was the member of the House Science and Technology Committee who–among many other things– rejected the theory of evolution and described biology, cosmology and geology  as “lies straight from the pit of hell.” To call him nutty as a fruitcake is an insult to fruitcakes.

Then I found that one of the two candidates vying for Broun’s vacated seat–worse, the one favored to win–is more of the same.

In a 2012 book, that candidate — pastor and talk radio host Jody Hice — alleges the gay community has a secret plot to recruit and sodomize children, In It’s Now or Never: A Call to Reclaim America, Hice also asserts that supporters of abortion rights are worse than Hitler and compares gay relationships to bestiality and incest. He proposes that Muslims be stripped of their First Amendment rights. […]

Hice claims homosexuality causes shorter life spans and depression, and he insists same-sex couples cannot raise healthy children…. Hice also offers an extreme interpretation of the Constitution, claiming states can nullify federal laws and take up arms against the federal government if they consider a federal law unjust…. In Hice’s view, the United States took a turn for the worse after the Civil War…. Hice argues that Muslim immigrants constitute an existential challenge to the United States…. Hice also compares reproductive rights advocates to Nazis.

 Hice also believes, among other things, that secularism causes sexually transmitted diseases.

Evidently, everyone in the Georgia GOP is bat-shit insane. (My apologies to bats for the comparison.)
Comments

Take the Sin Survey

Mississippi has passed one of those “religious freedom” bills, protecting the right of merchants who are “people of faith” to refuse service to members of the public whose identities/behaviors offend their tender religious sensibilities. (Translation: gay people.)

In response, a guy named Mitchell Moore, who owns Campbell’s Bakery, started an anti-discrimination campaign, and from the looks of it, he and many other business owners are having some fun with it.

Initially, the campaign created a large window decal proclaiming “We don’t discriminate: If you’re buying, we’re selling.” The decal proved popular with Mississippi businesspeople who remembered that they were in business. Now, Moore has produced a tongue-in-cheek “potential Campbell’s customer survey,” an online list of yes-or-no questions, complete with Biblical references:

Unbelievable as it may seem, some people took the survey literally–prompting Mr. Moore to post the following message to the Bakery’s Facebook page:

The “Potential Customer Questionnaire” is just a spoof folks. There are some people saying that my bakery shouldn’t serve certain people. I think that is RIDICULOUS. We are a business open to the public. The Public includes a TON of people I disagree with. If I only limited selling to people who aren’t sinners I couldn’t even eat my own food. We will sell our product to the public, to sinners, to people we disagree with, to anyone who loves Made From Scratch goods and wants to buy them. That is what we are in business to do.

Wow. Someone who knows the difference between a business and and a church, and actually wants to encourage people to buy his goods! Who’d have thought?

If they aren’t careful, Mr. Moore and his fellow campaigners will give Mississippi a good name.

Comments