anti-drug operations are about power, not drugs

When a local "drug task force" dresses up in black military gear, arms up with assault rifles, breaks down someone's door, forces the occupants to the ground at gunpoint, shoots their dogs, and vandalizes their residence, this is not about drugs. It is about projecting the power of the state into someone's home and terrorizing that person, along with anyone else who might be visiting or looking on from across the street, etc. It is a statement. It says, "We are powerful and you are powerless. So keep that in mind as you go about living your life."

Similarly, when the federal government pours billions worth of military resources into a podunk South American country ostensibly for purposes of assisting "drug interdiction efforts", it isn't about drugs. It is about projecting American military power into that country and intimidating its neighbors. In this case, the federal government is completing an agreement to base troops and military aircraft in Colombia "in a battle alongside Colombian forces against Marxist guerrillas and drug traffickers".

First, I don't know exactly who these "Marxist guerrillas" are supposed to be, or whether they actually exist outside the imaginations of politicians and journalists, but assuming there are such people, this appears to signal U.S. intervention in a Colombian civil war. And all I have to say to that is: WTF?

But back to the point: I do actually know who is referred to by the term "drug traffickers". These are farmers and the middlemen who transport their crops to market. Since 2000, the federal government has spent $6 billion -- in Colombia alone -- to inundate their farmland with herbicides and to shoot at them from helicopters. The result? Colombia's share of the cocaine production market has fallen from 74% to 54%. Great. Of course, the overall production of cocaine in Latin America has risen by 16% over roughly the same time period. Oops.

It might surprise many of the folks in the various sectors of our Anti-Drug Industrial Complex here in the U.S.A., but South America is a big fucking place. It has lots and lots of remote areas, many many many square miles of which are perfectly suited for growing coca. South America is furthermore full of many thousands and millions of poor people, many of which are suited for becoming (relatively) wealthy coca farmers. Quite simply: if, tomorrow, you withdrew all American forces from Afghanistan, Iraq, Germany, South Korea, and all the other dozens of countries in which our far-flung military might be stationed on any given day of the week, and then you instituted a draft and conscripted about a million more soldiers, and then transported the entire sum of all American soldiers and military hardware down to South American and ordered them to "assist in drug interdiction efforts", you would still barely make the smallest dent in the amount of cocaine available on the streets of the United States. You would make a small dent, that is, for just as long as it took for some enterprising Africans to learn how to farm coca.

But notice I said it might surprise many of the folks in the anti-drug industry. Most of them, up to and including our Drug Warrior In Chief, President Obama, know this quite well. Why, then, would they embark on the pointless project outlined above (i.e., stationing soldiers and military aircraft in Colombia for purposes of drug interdiction)? Because it's not about the drugs. As in the hundreds or thousands of neighborhood drug raids conducted each day across America, drugs are merely the excuse.

And perhaps if Hugo Chavez wasn't such a loon, and hadn't become known as the Leftist Kook Who Cries Wolf, someone might pay attention when he says he "sees the base plan as U.S. 'imperialist' aggression".

guns and the nuts who carry them

A faithful reader suggests it might be productive for me to offer my thoughts on this story:

PHOENIX – About a dozen people carrying guns, including one with a military-style rifle, milled among protesters outside the convention center where President Barack Obama was giving a speech Monday — the latest incident in which protesters have openly displayed firearms near the president.

As you can see from the photo down on the right, your humble blogger is familiar with firearms. I'm comfortable around them, I grew up around them, I own several of them, and I like to take them out and shoot them from time to time. Some of my best memories of growing up revolve around my Dad and Granddad taking me out target-shooting. I support the Second Amendment, and in general I oppose most gun control measures.

So that's my starting point here. And my initial reaction to this story is along the lines of: just because something is legal doesn't mean it's a good idea (along with the corollary: just because something is a bad idea doesn't mean it should be illegal). As a recent example of this, the First Amendment does indeed allow a person to use the word "nigger" when referring to a black person. This does not mean it is a good idea to do so. The linked-to blogger (a regular commenter over at Barry Green's House of Right-Wing Crazy) wears his ignorance and hatred and faux-victimhood as a badge of honor, and gets his thrills by oh-so-rebelliously inflicting slavery-era insults upon those segments of humanity whom he can readily identify as being "below" him. These folks are easily identified by virtue of their skin pigmentation.

Legal? Yes. Likely to advance the cause of civilization? Not even remotely.

Likewise, carrying a gun to a presidential event may in fact be legal in Phoenix, Arizona. Is any good likely to come of it? I think you know the answer to that one.

One further point, though. Those people in the story carrying guns aren't looking to advance the cause of civilization. They are trying to assuage their own personal feelings of powerlessness in the face of the ascendancy of certain points of view which they find extremely frightening ("socialism" being the most charitable of these fears -- among other fears which are far less charitable).

But I also suspect that another, more sinister purpose -- though perhaps not well thought out -- is to provoke a confrontation in which they can be portrayed as the victims. For example: "Obama's brownshirt thugs attacked me, arrested me, and took away my assault rifle -- even though I was simply protesting his fascist policies in full compliance with all the laws!" This, the fantasy goes, will inspire thousands or millions more like-minded patriots to take to the streets bearing firearms, which in turn will result in either: (a) a bloody civil war in which all their fantasies of minority-directed vigilantism will come true, or (b) the removal of Obama from the presidency, to be replaced by someone more palatable who will -- in comparison with Obama -- reduce (even further) the tax burden on the wealthy, reduce (even further) social services for the poor, increase (even more) spending on defense and law enforcement, and increase (even more) the tax burden on the poor. This, in the fevered minds of these decidedly unwealthy, gun-toting protesters, is called "Liberty".

let God sort them out.

From SCOTUSBLOG:

The Supreme Court, over two Justices’ dissents, on Monday ordered a federal judge in Georgia to consider and rule on the claim of innocence in the murder case against Troy Anthony Davis (In re Davis, 08-1443) The Court told the District Court to “receive testimony and make findings of fact as to whether evidence that could have been obtained at the time of trial clearly establishes [Davis'] innocence.”

Scalia, of course, was one of the dissenters, having never yet encountered a criminal defendant he didn't believe was guilty. The crux of his dissent: "This court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is ‘actually’ innocent."

In other words, innocence is no constitutional impediment to execution, so long as the condemned has had a "full and fair trial". One of Sullivan's stand-ins asks if this a "crazy view". I don't know if it's "crazy", but I'd definitely vote for "callous and amoral".

But the point I want to get at is the Sullivan stand-in's subsequent statement: "Procedural rights (like the right to a lawyer or the right to avoid self incrimination) do not guarantee a specific outcome (like the correct decision in a case). It is possible to imagine a fair trial that respects everyone's rights but nonetheless reaches the wrong conclusion."

Emphasis mine, because I think this is undeniably true, and is probably the absolute best argument against the death penalty you are likely to ever see.

The Fifth Amendment provides that no person shall be "deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law". I've always thought that this should be interpreted as prohibiting the death penalty except in truly exceptional circumstances.

Obviously the Fifth Amendment allows for different levels of "process" being due to a person depending upon what the state is trying to deprive the person of. On the one hand, if it seeks to deprive you of some small amount of property (say, by imposing a fine for a parking ticket), the not a lot of process is "due". On the other hand, if the state intends to deprive a person of a great deal of liberty (say, by imposing a sentence of life in prison), then quite a lot of process is due.

My argument is that if the state intends to deprive a person of all of his property, and all of his liberty, and all of his life (say, by strapping him down and injecting him with a lethal dose of toxic chemicals), then the amount of process due that person is essentially infinite. Especially given the idea noted above: namely, that even the fairest and fullest trial may in fact reach the wrong conclusion.

Whole Foods Fail

I've often argued against anti-corporate regulations and general government interventionism in many contexts on the libertarian theory that corporations hate bad publicity, and if they do something wrong they will usually be punished by the resulting consumer backlash. For example, you don't need laws against tuna company fishing practices which snare a bunch of dolphins, because more often than not, if this is truly something that people don't like, tuna companies following these practices will suffer in the marketplace, and either change their practices or lose market share to companies who don't kill dolphins (and eventually go out of business).

This is only a general rule, of course, and subject to many exceptions in particular contexts. But today we have an especially ironic example of this rule in action. John Mackey, CEO of the grocery chain Whole Foods Market, is apparently somewhat of a libertarian himself. Yesterday he took to the pages of the ultra-right-wing WSJ editorial page to argue vehemently against government involvement in health care.

I think you can see the problem here. Whole Foods caters to hippies, crunchies, and granola types. These are its hard core of support -- its target group of customers. And this demographic is heavily slanted toward liberal (or "progressive") views on various political issues. Such as for example: health care.

The link above will take you to a DailyKos post vilifying (rightly or wrongly) Mr. Mackey for his strident stance against health care reform. The post, in turn, links to the forums section of Whole Foods' website. When I first read the DailyKos item I of course immediately clicked on over to the WF forums to rubberneck at the trainwreck carnage. Sure enough, threads and comments, running roughly 99% against Mackey and WholeFoods, were proliferating at an amazing pace.

So I had my fun, and went on to something else. I clicked back over a while later just to check the comment count, and lo and behold WF's web minions (and, presumably, P.R. staff) had done a massive purge of forum threads and were, even as I watched, engaged in a heroic effort to scrub the new posts and comments as quickly as they were being posted. These new comments had moved from the obvious "Food Politics" section and were now inundating more innocuous sections of the forums, such as "Recipe Swap" and "Gluten-Free Diets".

I only skimmed Mackey's op-ed. I don't know for sure whether his ideas are good or bad. But either way, the irony here is delicious. Mr. Mackey surely believes in the idea that "the market will decide" what's best for everyone -- consumers, corporations, and society alike. I tend to agree. And I have a feeling that the market for organic arugula is going to decide to teach Mr. Mackey a hard-earned lesson about where his whole-grain bread is buttered.

Of course, Mr. Mackey can always hope to pick up some customers from the ranks of folks who agree with his health care views. You know, the "Death Panel" "keep your dirty gubmint hands off my Medicare" crowd. Good luck with all that. That particular demographic is on record as stating that arugula is only consumed by communist muslim illegal aliens, and that organic farming is nothing more than a Satan-inspired conspiracy to force us all into interracial gay marriages and abort our white babies. I'm sure they'll all be lining at your stores any minute now, Mr. Mackey.

[UPDATE] Well, it appears now that the P.R. staff is starting to realize that the delete-ignore-hope it all goes away strategy isn't going to work. They've now created a whole new forum category (Current Events/Health Care). Which is good, I guess, but it didn't stop someone from posting, in the "Recipe Swap" forum, a thread entitled "Recipe for Obviously You Don't Know Your Customers Soup". Heh.

some disjointed observations

1. It's been a while since I was in law school, but from what I remember from my first year torts class, there's a name that lawyers have for this type of thing: false imprisonment.

2. Though I find Judd Apatow movies generally amusing, I'm not a huge fan and am on the verge of being an anti-fan simply because the guy gets so much hype nowadays. But aside from that, I guess I never realized that his movies had this element of "conservative family values", a fact which, I suppose, means that the message was clever and effective. In any event, Matt Yglesias makes a really insightful point in discussing the linked article. Namely, the tendency of a high percentage of the folks most loudly espousing these ideals to place a highly disproportionate amount of importance on those parts of "Christian family values morality" that are the easiest for them personally to adhere to. For example, most people are not gay. For those people, refraining from having sex with persons of the same sex is easy -- they have no desire to do so. On the other hand: being charitable, turning the other cheek, loving your enemies, keeping lust out of your heart, being faithful to your spouse, subordinating your materialistic desires in favor of your love of Christ and your fellow man, or -- to take the teachings of Christ literally -- to give away all of your material possessions and lead a simply, godly life in service of the Lord: these things, to a greater or lesser degree, are all very difficult. But hating fags: simple!

3. This story comes from one of my old stomping grounds -- a place where Christian charity abounds. Apparently County Judge Tom Head thought it would be a good idea to paper the courthouse cork board with a racist wingnut email he printed out. When caught, rather than admitting error and apologizing, he chose to defend the message, deny any racism, and state that he was attempting to "try and get people talking to one another". Because, ya know, in Lubbock County, Texas, the best way to promote a civil, productive conversation about racial issues is to use the county courthouse as a forum to champion the idea that blacks are all a bunch of crack-smoking, wife-beating felons. I predict this guy will be re-elected in a giant landslide.

4. Apropos of the post below, Sarah Palin recently broke her post-employment silence to assert that Obama's health care reform plan is evil because it will establish "Death Panels" (no doubt populated by gay muslim terrorists) for the purpose of euthanize her grandmother and her Trig-baby. (the same Trig-baby, by the way, that is OFF LIMITS! to all political speech -- just FYI, dontcha know.) Prominent conservatives then lined up to support this ludicrous conspiracy theory. This is really reaching some kind of limit, isn't it?

5. Or maybe not. Here's another brain-dead ideologue's valuable contribution to the national conversation on health care, in which we are told that under the UK's state-run health care system, brilliantly intelligent special needs persons such as prominent physicist Stephen Hawking "wouldn't have a chance" -- would, in other words, presumably be put of of their misery, just like little Trig -- never mind that Stephen Hawking, of course, is British and has lived in the UK his whole life. No word on how he's managed to evade the NHS death squads for the last 67 years. (link is to secondary source, as the original has -- after being righteously (and hilariously) pilloried far and wide -- been scrubbed.)

right wing idiocy

I think it's wise to be skeptical about the value of the health care reform law that will end up emerging from the sausage factory and being signed by Obama. First, given that giant health care companies have been for some months bombarding members of congress with hordes of lobbyists and massive amounts of money, it stands to reason that the most likely effect of any new health care legislation will be an almost unprecedented giveaway to the aforementioned giant health care companies. Second, any new government spending that isn't paid for by commensurate savings or tax revenue will only make our increasingly severe deficit/national debt problem even more severe -- possibly even catastrophic. Third, even if new government spending is paid for by tax revenue, this isn't necessarily a good outcome unless the money is well-spent, because any increase in tax revenue will inevitably correspond with less money being available for spending in the private sector, which hurts the overall economy.

Meanwhile, of course, the health care system in this country is broken. Every other western democracy has found a way to provide health care to all of its citizens while spending a lower proportion of its overall resources on health care. Not to mention all of the crazy and stupid problems Americans -- those who actually have health insurance -- encounter in actually getting their health insurers to, you know, pay for their treatments, and the constraints the current employer-based system puts on people who might want to change jobs, start a new business, take a sabbatical, etc.

These are complicated problems with which even very smart, well-informed, well-intentioned people will struggle. But making these problems even more complicated (say, by several orders of magnitude) is that in this country we, on the whole, do not have smart, well-informed, well-intentioned people debating these issues. We have bought-and-paid-for politicians, and a bunch of ignorant asshats going around spouting nonsense. For example, people who say that we can't have some third party coming between us and our doctors, dictating what types of treatment we will receive (hint: this third party already exists -- its called your insurance company, PPO, HMO, etc -- and it only makes money to the extent that it can limit its expenditures for your treatments (e.g., deny coverage)), or people (like a senior citizen of my acquaintance) who insist that the government keep its dirty, incompetent hands off of their Medicare. Yes, you read that correctly. But even those senior citizens who do in fact understand that Medicare is a government program overwhelmingly oppose legislation which would provide government-funded universal health care. "For me, but not for thee," I guess.

As I say, I'm skeptical that this situation can be improved. Because not only is our health care system broken, but our government is broken. And not only is our government broken, but a high proportion of our electorate are "informed" by reading and listening to dishonest partisan ideologues whose personal interest in fixing either health care or government is exactly zero. Their sole objective is to endlessly spout nonsense designed to confuse and enrage. Seriously: only 42% of Republicans believe that Barack Obama was born in the United States.

Bonus right wing idiocy: I've spent the last day reading and hearing about prominent right-wingers criticizing Bill Clinton for bringing back those two girls from North Korea. Apparently this was some kind of "appeasement". Or, alternatively, it's being called (without citing any evidence) a "hostage ransom", wherein Clinton Gore and Obama desecrated the honor of our country and endangered its national security by giving those North Korean terrorists something (what? who knows!) in exchange for the return of these hostages. And, as all good right-wingers know, America Does Not Negotiate For Hostages!

declining entertainments

I was excited to hear that Guy Richie was going to direct a Sherlock Holmes movie. Even better, Robert Downey, Jr. would play Holmes, and the movie would have a big budget and a great cast.

I am a fan of Guy Ritchie. I haven't seen everything he's done, but I liked Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Snatch was hilarious. And I highly recommend the recent RocknRolla. This movie is awesome in the best Quentin Tarantino tradition; not quite as good as Pulp Fiction, but close.

Sherlock Holmes is one of the most revered characters in literature, and for good reason. I've read the complete collection several times, going back to when I was kid. The characters, plots, and stories as a whole are clever, subtle, and richly detailed. Holmes himself is brilliant, stubborn, devious, witty, sophisticated, damaged, brooding, whimsical, tenacious, ethical, loyal. And tough. Definitely tough.

What he is not, however, is the James Bond of the 1880s. Or John McClane with a British accent. Or Neo downloaded into a Victorian version of the Matrix. Anyone who's ever read a single Sherlock Holmes story knows this. Why, then, when I see Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes trailer, am I assaulted by images of Robert Downey, Jr. in acrobatic, jump-cut, bullet-time fight scenes? I mean, sure, Sherlock Holmes got into some altercations. He boxed a couple of guys. He ordered Watson to take criminals into custody at gunpoint. But he's not a comic book superhero! Seriously, WTF?

This movie will suck. I don't think I even have the heart to watch it. And while we're on the subject, I've read Prince Caspian several times (ok, maybe several dozen times), but I somehow never realized I was reading the talking animals version of Saving Private Ryan. Thank you Walt Disney Motion Picture Corporation for pointing out what has apparently been a severe error in my reading comprehension.

"the highest standards of excellence in higher education"

So says the Texas Tech University mission statement. The university has made great strides in accomplishing "high standards of excellence" with its most recent hire: Professor Alberto "Judge" Gonzales.

I received multiple reader emails requesting a comment/post on this topic. I'm not sure I have a lot to say about the subject that wouldn't immediately come to the mind of anyone who: (1) isn't the most partisan of Republican bootlicks, and (2) has been paying the remotest of attention to the news of the last several years. (Not to mention regular readers of this blog.)

I mean, after all, a search for the term "alberto gonzales perjury" returns 42,600 results. The Judge is a perfect example of an apparatchik. He was responsible for facilitating all manner of criminality during the Bush administration, including the marketing -- on completely false pretenses -- of a war that killed hundreds of thousands, the wholesale subversion of at least half of the Bill of Rights, the near-complete conversion of the Justice Department from a publicly-minded, justice-seeking organization into a political tool of sociopaths bent on ridding the U.S. government of everyone who might harbor some dissent against Karl Rove's "permanent Republican majority", and -- last but not least -- the bureaucratization and normalization of torture as a legitimate tool of what was -- formerly, at least -- a country which stood as a beacon of freedom and human rights. The Judge is an evil little man, without principles, who sought only approbation from his bosses and who didn't mind that he was, in the process of securing pats on the head, ensuring pain and suffering for many and dishonor for all.

While he was George W Bush's yes-man in Texas, he performed the function of writing "slapdash, incomplete and inaccurate" memos in support of executing 57 death row inmates (100% of the cases he "investigated") while ignoring "glaringly obvious" evidence that would have shown innocence or incapacity on the part of those folks, um, killed on the basis of his memos. This man is a piece of shit, the likes of which haven't been seen at the highest levels of U.S. government since at least Spiro Agnew.

A fact which is understood well among all law firms, law schools, universities, and non-governmental organizations (none of which would hire him), and, well, people in general, with the notable exception of, apparently, Texas Tech University. Full disclosure dictates that I identify myself as a graduate of one of the, er, professional schools associated with TTU. Am I ashamed of this hiring? Sure. Just as ashamed as I was when they recently hired Karen Hughes to give their commencement address. Just as embarrassed as I was when they recently hired Karl Rove to give the commencement address at their law school (look: forget about the fact that he's a slimeball who got GWB elected (twice!) and cemented abject cynicism as the SOP in our country's electoral politics: the dude isn't even a fucking lawyer!). Texas Tech is a lower rung academic institution which apparently believes that a good way to further its influence and reputation (rather: notoriety) is to pay money for the (academic?) services of thoroughly discredited has-beens who made their names destroying our great country in furtherance of nothing more noble than the disgraceful political agenda of the most despicable presidential administration in the history of the United States.

This isn't quite the same as Boalt Hall hiring John Yoo. Because, let's face it, that was a school that actually had a high reputation to uphold -- or tarnish, as the case may be. TTU is a podunk backwater institution that arguably has little to lose by hiring persons of questionable backgrounds (Bobby Knight, anyone?) in order to increase its visibility. Still, though, I can't imagine that this pleases its faculty much -- however right-wing they may be on the whole. Because aggressive war, warrantless surveillance, perjury, general criminality, and torture aren't really what I would consider partisan issues. And one thing even the lackluster students who attend school at such a place should be entitled to expect from their teachers is that they haven't spent the last several years publicly disgracing themselves and making a mockery of our country's values and legal traditions.

So, shame on you, Texas Tech. Here's hoping your funding gets cut, your enrollment goes down, and your football team goes 1-11.

Bible Spice. Caribou Barbie. The Snowbilly Grifter.

Besides getting some sun, drinking margaritas, watching fireworks, the pool, and all the rest, I've spent a good deal of my holiday weekend watching Sarah Palin's latest train wreck. I've seen a ton of great snark, though I've neglected to bookmark or collect any of it, so you'll have to find it for yourself. My recommendation is to watch her speech ("unbalanced" doesn't even begin to describe it), read the Governor's official Facebook transcript (you won't see more random ALL-CAPs usage, misused quotation marks, or greater proliferation of exclamation points anywhere outside of an eighth grade girl's diary entry), or -- if you've got several hours to kill -- go read the wonkette comment threads.

Anyway, I don't feel like I have much to add to the whole thing that hasn't already been said. Except this: my prediction is that Sarah Palin will *not* resign as Governor of Alaska. Or at least not on the time frame she promised us that she would. And, in true Palin fashion, she will deny that she ever said she was going to leave office. You see, this is all a big misunderstanding, because the librul media that intentionally misinterpreted her strong, clearly, Christian-American words in order to make her look bad and smear her good name.

Don't believe me? Just wait.

UPDATE: Heh. I beat Josh Marshall to this by about 12 hours. Though he doesn't actually think it will happen; he's just highlighting the possibility based on the fact that "we're dealing with a deeply erratic and probably mentally unstable person who does lots of completely whacked things at the drop of a hat."

Happy Birthday, USA

For most Americans, Independence Day is mostly just a good excuse to put on a good drunk and get a sunburn. Which is pretty great. I'm no different, but I've gotten into a habit of re-reading the Declaration of Independence around this time of year.

It's a still a good read, and it's fun to try and put yourself into the mindset of the guy who wrote it and the people who signed it. I think of them as basically really pissed off, proud of what they're doing, and very scared -- all at the same time.

One interesting thing is how the middle part -- a list of grievances -- builds up. It starts out by mentioning a few things that almost sound nitpick-y, like "imposing Taxes on us without our Consent" and my personal favorite: "He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records..." Heh.

And there's a long list of this stuff, some of which is pretty important but mostly falls into the category of complaints against bad governance... and then they finally get around to this: "He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people[!]"

Anyway, the best parts are of course the beginning and the end:

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

[...]

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Full text here.

Lazy Blogger, Part CXXVII

Some stuff I've found during the extended hiatus (stuff which, I'm hoping, works well with minimum effort, in terms of addition commentary (i.e., thinking, effort, etc.), on the part of your humble blogger):
1. Eschaton nails the anti-abortion crowd:

The broad anti-abortion movement isn't just anti-abortion, it's anti-sex generally and most importantly anti-women having agency over their bodies and sexual activity. This is not true of all anti-abortion people, but it is true of the anti-abortion movement.

Lots of people are squishy about abortion, though I firmly believe the vast majority of people in this country are pro-choice for me if not for thee, but those involved in the anti-abortion movement don't just care about embryos and fetuses, they care about punishing women for unapproved fucking.

I have some stuff to add to this, but unfortunately too lazy right now. Sorry.

2. Check out this graph. Does it strike anyone else as somewhat important that along about the time the trend line deviates dramatically upward is along about the same time we as a species discovered the magical properties of fossil fuels? Think about what fossil fuels are, as manipulated by human ingenuity. They are force multipliers. They multiply our work by hundreds, or thousands, of times. They are basically the only thing we've found so far that will do this. The discovery of how this works, and subsequent discoveries building on this basic discovery, have allowed us to thrive far beyond what we could have done without it. And yet, by doing so, we are to a great extent poisoning our collective living space, and nearing the point where it (our living space) will no longer support us. But not only that, these fuels are non-renewable and will run out before too long. Not saying it's a bad thing, just saying... what if it's a somewhat singular discovery -- i.e., one that won't be repeated again anytime soon?

3. One of Sullivan's readers does a phenomenal job of exactly capsulizing the mindset of a great big swath of conservative dumbfucks:

Part of Sarah Palin's irresistible appeal to her fundamentalist base is her ability to look at the camera with utter conviction and declare black to be white.

The ability to lie well is a valuable part of the fundamentalist psychology. My son isn't gay, he just hasn't found the right woman! Those rocks aren't 50 million years old, they just look like it as a test of our faith! My sexless marriage isn't foundering, it is filled with God's spirit! The minister isn't molesting little Maria, they're just very close! It isn't torture, it is being tough on terrorists!

Fundamentalists can recognize a truly audacious and talented liar from miles away. Instead of running the other way, as you might expect, they gather around the powerful liar, for they know that their own lies will be respected and protected by a leader who understands the paramount importance of preserving their whole system of denial.

I wish I would have written that.

4. Here's something I should (and maybe will) do a longer post on. But it is so outrageous that at present I really can't do anything other than rage incoherently about it. The short version is that Ft Worth police conducted a "bar check" on a bar that had been open approximately 1 week. You know, go in, make sure they're abiding by the terms of their liquor license, check to see if they're overserving people, etc. They end up beating the shit out of several patrons, arresting those and a few others, and generally terrorizing everyone in attendance. One of the victims is intensive care with a life-threatening head injury. As it happens, this was a new bar catering to the male homosexual crowd. Surely just a coincidence, no?

Though I'm generally against "hate crimes" laws, this is exactly the reason people want them. I tend to think we could handle this kind of thing with regular laws -- like aggravated assault, attempted murder, and the like. But when the cops are the perpetrators, they somehow never get held accountable. Their superiors circle the wagons to defend them. The citizenry turns a blind eye and assumes that the police chief is telling the truth when he says "these faggots made sexual advances on my officers -- they deserved what they got" (not an exact quote). To my mind, this is no different than what happened to Matthew Shepard. Except that, as a mitigating factor, the victims here actually were afforded medical attention. But as an aggravating factor, this was done under the color of law. By our "public servants". Let's be clear: the cops who did this are bigots and brutal thugs. Rather than collecting paychecks from the public treasury, they should be breaking rocks at Huntsville and, in their spare time, getting some special attention from the other TDC occupants: large, mean, temporarily homosexual prisoners.

Via Sullivan (check the links).

Memo to Target Cashier Checkout Guy:

Here's what's your business: using your little scanner thing to add up all the prices on the items I purchase and determine the total and then charge me accordingly.

Here's what not your goddamn business: making inane and borderline-derogatory comments about the nature of those items and the quantities in which I am purchasing them. STFU, asshole.

I am well aware that I am purchasing what might appear to be an unusually large number of razors, or deodorant sticks, or tubes of toothpaste, or shower gel. Not that it is any of your motherfucking business whatsoever (see above), but I like to limit the number of trips I make to your store. This is a purposeful strategy designed to limit my total number of interactions with shit-for-brains assholes such as yourself. Fuck off!

the monetary value also rises

I like books, and own many of them and have recently run completely out of shelf space. (And though Gleemonex has invited me to do this this summer, and though it seems like a fun thing, one of my shelves is filled with books I've been planning to read, so I don't think I'll be able to fit it in.)

Because I'm a book reader and not a book collector, most of my books are cheap paperback editions. Some are cheap hardcovers (book club editions and the like). A few are first editions of very recent vintage, of books that had large print runs. None are worth more than a few dollars.

With two notable exceptions. A while back a person with special gift-giving talents procured me a first edition of Oblivion with a personalized epigram from DFW himself. Crazy! In terms of value, I have no idea what this is worth, but as I won't be likely to part with it, such measures are not relevant. It is without a doubt one of the coolest things I own (right up there with my Soviet-era assault rifle!).

But several years back, a very generous (and somewhat extravagant) benefactor gifted me with a copy of one of my all-time favorites, Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises. It is a first edition, first printing. One of only 5,090 copies published in 1926. Out of curiosity, I googled it and found this. Needless to say, my jaw dropped. Apparently, several copies have sold at auction at or above this level.

But, of course, that's not the end of the story. Having read this book, which is an excellent introduction for anyone interested in becoming a book collector (which, as stated, I'm not), I already knew my copy wouldn't be anywhere near the high end. Because, while mine is in good condition, it has some minor damage on the spine, and, most importantly, is without the original dust jacket. The presence or lack of a dust jacket appears to affect a book's value seemingly out of all proportion to the actual worth of the dust jacket. In the case of this book, the dust jacket appears to be worth upwards of $90,000!

So, alas. In retrospect, I probably should not have discarded the jacket that came with my copy.

Kidding!

hiatus interrupted: an aimless post filled with unrelated scraps

Did I forget to mention the blog was going on hiatus? Probably because I didn't realize it was on hiatus until a few minutes ago. Anyway. Here is some stuff:

1. An example of the interesting things one might find on a wingnut blog: "Video of Black Panther: "You are about to be ruled by the black man, cracker." (No need to click though, btw, just wanted to quote the lede. and also, btw, that's not what the guy actually said.)

2. Another classic headline, this one from Wonkette: "Bill Kristol Suggests Bombing Whatsitcalled, One of the Chinas." Also no need to click through, but the upshot here is that Mr. Kristol, leading light of the "conservative" movement, headcheerleader for Operation Desert Quagmire, former columnist for the "liberal" New York Times, now columnist for The Washington Post, and regular guest on the Sunday political bobblehead shows, offhandedly muses on the advisability of bombing North Korea. The dude has obviously given about 5 minutes worth of thought to the concept, with none of those thoughts focusing on how this course of action would, you know, be A FUCKING GLOBAL DISASTER!, but, then again, casually bombing the shit out of random countries is, after all, part of the GOP's official platform, isn't it?.

3. Matt Taibbi has a couple of Obama critiques that follow closely along the lines of this blog's recent material. Money quote:

I still like Obama, in a lot of ways. Having a president with less ability to inspire public confidence at a time like this, with our economy in such a death spiral, would be a disaster; God knows where we’d be right now with a McCain or a Mike Huckabee at the helm. But this guy has to show some stones somewhere along the line. He has to just forget the DC game and just take a clear stand on an issue like this sometime. He’s kind of running out of time to rescue his all-important first impression.

4. In honor of the 65th anniversary of D-Day, The Atlantic reprinted this article, which is a gripping blow-by-blow recounting -- constructed from contemporary notes taken by the writer, who was there -- of the assault at Omaha Beach. It's like a textual version of the first 30 minutes of Saving Private Ryan, but maybe better.

Ok. Back to semi-hiatus.

Orwellianism of the day: "Preventive Detention"

President Obama continues down the Cheneyite path with a new proposal for "preventive detention" of people he deems dangerous or threatening. This man used to be a Con Law professor. I went to law school too, and one of the things they taught me there -- though they didn't have to, because I had already learned it in middle school civics class -- is that the bedrock of our country's criminal jurisprudence is the presumption of innocence; that is, a person is presumed to be innocent until that person is proven to be guilty in a court of law.

But take a look at this passage from Obama's speech on Thursday and tell me how it can be squared with that principle:

[T]here may be a number of people who cannot be prosecuted for past crimes, in some cases because evidence may be tainted, but who nonetheless pose a threat to the security of the United States. Examples of that threat include people who’ve received extensive explosives training at al Qaeda training camps, or commanded Taliban troops in battle, or expressed their allegiance to Osama bin Laden, or otherwise made it clear that they want to kill Americans.

We are talking about people who "pose a threat" to our security. People who have "expressed their allegiance" to bin Laden (or presumably to any other person or ideology that may be in disfavor at any given time). People who "want to kill Americans". There are a lot of people who fall into these categories, both inside and outside the United States. Maybe more, maybe less, depending on who, exactly, is making these determinations.

And notice that these are people who "cannot be prosecuted". Why can't they be prosecuted? Well, one reason might be that they haven't actually done anything illegal. Having an "intent" to do harm is not a crime. "Wanting" to commit a crime is not a crime. Being "trained" to commit a crime is not, ordinarily, a crime. Unless we are talking about thoughtcrime, which didn't used to be an actual crime for which you could be punished -- and make no mistake, depriving a person of his or her liberty permanently or for extended periods of time is a severe punishment, whether or not that time is spent, for example, subjected to extreme heat or cold, folded into a small dark box, or standing with arms shackled to the ceiling.

And let's not forget that there are very good reasons why we have a legal system with such things as "habeas corpus" and "rights of the accused" and "trials". Anglo-Americans long ago recognized the importance of this. The English knew it at least as early as 1215. American colonists knew it all along, but formally (and finally, they thought) sanctified it in 1791.

But these, the seminal events in Anglo-American jurisprudence, happened a long time ago. Before there were dangerous terrorists, or scary threatening people who intended to do harm. So maybe, as Obama intends, it is time to do away with these inconvenient safeguards, which only serve to get in the way of efficient defending us from thoughtcriminals. This break with the wisdom and traditions handed down to us over the centuries may be hard for some of us to swallow, at least for a time, but persnickety legalists and their insistence on abstractions like "rights" and "due process" can be rather easily counteracted by accompanying such policies with soaring rhetoric in praise of the same wisdom and traditions we are simulatenously doing away with -- a neat tactic for making sense of the world otherwise known as doublethink.

I leave you with IOZ:

... Cheney is nonetheless straightforward in his advocacy of a military exemption to the laws and statutes of the United States. Obama on the other hand is arguing that we must forgo legality in pursuit of security while giving the convincing appearance that we are not doing precisely that. We should abandon the legal structures that have governed the trial and prosecution of wrongdoing for over half a thousand years now, but we must do so while making glorious noise about American principles and what America stands for and all that.