The Noble Pundit

Personal Responsibility & The Constitution

Well, I had a bunch of stories I was going to write about, but I let the kids play on the computer and that was the end of that. So instead, I'll look at another subject I've been wanting to touch on: personal responsibility and how it relates to the Constitution.

I'm one of those people who hates it when someone around me refuses to take responsibility for something they do. Honesty and integrity are important concepts to me and I view an ignorance or willful disregard of personal responsibility to be tantamount to lying. In my opinion, it simply unacceptable - it is one of my pet peeves (and I'll be the first to admit that I don't always live up to my own expectations in this regard - but there is a difference between an occasional slip and a generalized pattern).

So I found it interesting when I sat down the other night and began to read Securing Constitutional Government: The Perpetual Challenge by Suri Ratnapala (The Independent Review, Volume VIII, Number 1, Summer 2003 - sorry no link available). Dr. Ratnapala is a law professor in Australia, but many of the concepts discussed are consistent and relevant regardless of the nation or form of government.

Ignorance of personal responsibility is one of the greatest threats facing Constitutionally based governments today. Too often an individual or group of people will deny responsibility for their actions - or they will claim victimhood status - which will force the costs of their irresponsibility on to those of us who are responsible. Drug abusers who willfully refuse to reform and welfare abusers who survive by manipulating and exploiting the system are but two examples of groups that cost us more by denying any and all personal responsibility for their own health or well being.

But the denial of personal responsibility isn't restricted just to the drug and welfare abusers. It can also be found in the middle class, in businesses and in government.

Look at the current rise in personal bankruptcies. Why have people gotten themselves into these bankruptcy situations? Some have been laid off, sure. Some have had unforeseen medical issues. But what is almost always listed as the primary impetus for having declared personal bankruptcy? Excessive amounts of consumer debt - i.e.: credit cards, home equity loans, car loans, etc. I don't have statistics in front of me, but I'm guessing that less than 25% of all personal bankruptcies are as a result of medical bills.

Let's face it, in the middle classes, people have abdicated their personal financial responsibility. Look at this article from the Chicago Tribune (requires registration) in which a homeowner acknowledges that he took on too much housing debt. Yes, you can put blame on the lender for making money so readily available without having adequate lending criteria, but ultimately, it was the consumer that signed on the dotted line and took the money. No one held a gun to his head. He did it of his own free will. Personal responsibility.

There was a time in my life where I made about double what I do now. I was able to easily pay all my bills, save something for retirement, and have spending money. During that time, I took on two car payments and other debts that totaled up to about 25% of my gross annual salary. I could have gone further into debt, but I chose not to. Why? Because of the fear of what might happen if I lost my job, which I did in April of 2002. Because of my savings (and unemployment) I was able to survive until I found another job nearly 6 months later. But it only paid half of what I had been making when I took on the debts. I eventually ended up in a situation where I was having a great deal of trouble in making ends meet. Bankruptcy was one option, but so was working though a credit counseling service. Bankruptcy probably would have been cheaper for me in the end, but making good on the debts I had taken on was more important. In the end, it was the idea that I was responsible for my actions (including the conscious decision late in 2001 to not take on any more debt) that made my decision very easy for me.

But as the example of the homeowner in the Tribune article shows, businesses oftentimes fail to take responsibility for their actions. Now there is a degree of reciprocal causation going on here: the loan company extended the offer to the consumer who accepted the offer. The loan company then denies any responsibility claiming the debtor failed to repay and the debtor will deny responsibility claiming the company should have never made the offer knowing that the debtor was overextended. And they're both right in their assertation that the other is wrong. But in the end, who ends up paying? The consumer who now has to pay an extra 25 basis points on their mortgage - but who pays every payment on time. The cost of the failure on the part of the loan company and the debtor is passed off to the responsible debtor because he is the only one who is willing to pay.

The increased number of Chapter 11 bankruptcy filings is also symptomatic of the decline of "personal" responsibility in the corporate world. When companies go Chapter 11, they almost always claim that it is necessary to "respond to rapidly changing market conditions," "to restore competitiveness," or "to restore rationality to our labor costs." They never talk about how they failed to respond to data showing the market was changing from buggy whips to internal combustion, or that they're uncompetitive because they make an inferior product and try to charge too much money for it, or that their labor costs are out of line because of labor agreements that the company agreed to. Companies never go into Chapter 11 saying, "We screwed up and are going to try to reorganize to make the most of our second (or third or fourth) chance." No, they nearly always go into Chapter 11 because of some uncontrollable outside influence. No "personal" responsibility for the failure (I believe that this is part of the reason why there are so many companies that go into Chapter 11 multiple times - they never acknowledge that they're doing anything wrong).

And of course the welfare state government does nothing to help the situation either. Not only has it set up a system that almost encourages evasion of responsibility (welfare, social security, the tax code, etc.), but it actively works at assisting people of certain demographics in evade personal responsibility for personal gain.

The same issue of The Independent Review has another article Shame of the Cities: Setting Aside Justice for the "Disadvantaged" by Jonathan J. Bean which looks at the Small Business Administration’s Section 8(a) program which is supposed to help "disadvantaged minorities" by requiring set asides to compensate for their supposed inability to compete in the marketplace for racial or socio-economic reasons. The author proceeds to point out, detail by detail, how the SBA actively works against the concept of personal responsibility in their administration of the Section 8(a) program. The goal of Section 8(a) company is not to be able to actually perform the work or to be able to compete, rather the effective goal is to be able to rake in as much 8(a) money as possible, while contracting the actual work out to normally run, competitive businesses that actually complete the work. The owner of a Section 8(a) company has no real incentive to make his company competitive, only to keep the governmental gravy train running by perpetually claiming victimhood status and declaring that their inability to truly compete is not because they have never tried to run a business, but instead because they are being oppressed by some force.

The government also indirectly encourages the shirking of personal responsibility through the effects of unintended consequences. The welfare state and social security are two of the best examples of this in action. Neither was set up to be a retirement system or a sole means of support. They were both intended to be safety nets, there for times when people really needed them while they got back on their feet or for those times when someone might fall through the cracks of private charity. But of course there were some unscrupulous people who decided to exploit the loopholes in the system and the politicians, sensing opportunity to build a constituency, gladly helped to create more loopholes and more instances of laws designed to create a particular outcome.

Which brings us back 'round to Dr. Ratnapala's argument that one of the gravest threats facing Constitutional government is the move from classical law, which is characterized by being general and impersonal to positive law, which is specific, engineered towards creating a specific result and more importantly is made on a case by case basis. Dr. Ratnapala puts it very succulently:

The rule of law as classically understood requires (1) that all public and private actions are, in general, subject to law conceived as general and impersonal norms that are end independent in the sense that they are not directed to the achievement of specific outcomes; and (2) that citizens, in general, are not compelled to obey any dictate that does not take the form of a general, impersonal, and end-independent norm in the preceding sense.

These two elements are fundamentally linked; one cannot exist without the other. A great conceptual error in constitutional theory resulted from the belief that the first element could be maintained while the second was abrogated. An official who has the power to coerce a citizen by arbitrary command cannot at the same time be subject to a general law with respect to the province of that power. The power of arbitrary command can be generated only by the displacement of a general law. An official who fixes the price of goods does so without the guidance of an impersonal norm, and his determinations displace the norm that contracts freely concluded must be observed. The official who prohibits trade by denial of a license displaces the freedom of contract that not so long ago was a common-law doctrine. Derogations from the second element are automatically derogations from the first element because the officials who have power of arbitrary command are placed above the law. It is wrong to say that such officials act under the law. They make law for the individual case in derogation of general law. It is not sufficient for the rule of law that officials always act under the authority of the legislature. It is necessary that the legislature be constrained from authorizing arbitrary action. (pgs. 11-12)

So how do we overcome the threats that face us?

It's simple in theory, but difficult in practice. People, individuals, make up every step of the problem chain here. People need to start accepting personal responsibility for their actions, whether they be at home, at work, or in the voting booth. If someone can't pay their bills, they need to accept responsibility for it. If a company is uncompetitive or makes bad lending decisions, it needs to stand up and take responsibility for its failings. And the people who make up our government, whether they be Congressmen or bureaucrats; the President or the Judicial Branch, all need to stand up and accept responsibility for their actions - including those which have helped to reduce the perceived importance of personal responsibility in our society.

Only when the concept of personal responsibility is once again generally accepted will we see our government starting to move in the right direction - towards smaller, less restrictive, and less invasive government.

I Hate Being Sick

Sorry about the lack of posts yesterday and so far today. I got home from work last night and was running a pretty good fever so I didn't even bother to turn the computer on until almost 10 pm last night and even then I only checked to see where the storm was.

The center of circulation for Henri supposedly passed right over us, just to the north of Orlando, but it was really, really lame. A few thunderstorms and that was about it. A direct hit and the wind was no worse that it is in a normal thunderstorm. Only difference was that this one had a name.

It has been so long since central Florida (meaning the inland counties) got hit by a real storm that I'm afraid to think of what the damage might be like when it happens.

Oh well. I can add this to my list of natural calamities I've slept through. When I was a kid, I slept through a tornado touching down 1/10 of a mile away and now I've slept through a named tropical cyclone. I think the only thing I've been awake for was when I got zapped by lightning!

I've got a few things set up to discuss today, but just in case you need a quick fix, I've got a post up over at SportsBlog looking at the situation with Rod Rutherford, the University of Pittsburgh quarterback who was charged with assaulting a girl in a nightclub parking lot.

Quick Links

Sorry about the lack of posts today. There was a job fair downtown this afternoon and I was tweaking and sending resumes this evening, so I didn't get my normal blogging in.

As these two articles and my one other post tonight show, today was not a great news day for Iran:

IRI Intimidating Israel
Blair issues warning to Iran over nuclear weapons

I guess the Islamic Republic of Iran has to work on their public relations a bit this week.

We also found these two interesting articles:

Group Says Teachers Union Avoided Taxes - Oh, so many snide comments I could make here, but I won't - for now.

Wake-Up Call on Spending - If the market mentality is at play here, then the recent spate of negative articles would be pointing to an economic upturn. For some reason, I don't see it happening any time soon. Too many fundamental problems in the economy right now.

This Is No Better Than The ICC

An Iranian torture victim is suing the Iranian regime in a US court for violations of international law.

I've expressed my displeasure with the arrogance of the Belgian courts and the ICC with their assumptions of universal jurisdiction. I am of the opinion that the concept of universal jurisdiction is wrong. So it really bugs me to see someone trying to turn the US courts in the same direction.

I feel bad for the guy, I really do. But the US court system is not the place for him to be redressing his grievances. We have no, and should not have any, jurisdiction over the actions of a sovereign government, even if they're absolutely despicable.

Our court systems are already filled with too many cases without true merit. This is another one. The guy has been wronged, no doubt about it. But show me where the US courts have authority in this type of case.

I don't believe that there is authority and as such, I hope that this case is thrown out before it goes any further.

Quick Links

Immigrants 'should pass Britishness test' - This might not be a bad idea to implement here also.

Calls Show Pre-Blackout Utility Confusion - They blacked out the entire Northeast, of course there was confusion.

China Agrees to Eventually Allow Currency to Trade Freely - So when is "eventually?"

A Murderer Is Not A Martyr

Today, at 6 pm, the State of Florida carried out the execution of Paul Hill, a convicted - and confessed - double murderer.

Hill declared himself in the days leading up to his death to be a martyr. Death penalty opponents pleaded with Gov. Bush to halt his execution by making the same claim.

Hill was unrepentant to the end:

"If you believe abortion is a lethal force, you should oppose the force and do what you have to do to stop it," Hill said as he lay strapped to the gurney in the execution chamber. "May God help you to protect the unborn as you would want to be protected."

Now it is not my goal to debate the propriety or impropriety of abortion in America. It is not my goal to debate the propriety or impropriety of the death penalty in America.

I do, however, want to take exception with the claim that, somehow, Paul Hill is a martyr.

Paul Hill is not a martyr. He is a murderer. He directly and deliberately took the lives of two men, not as an act of self-defense, but as a premeditated act of hatred.

Paul Hill hated abortion. He hated abortion doctors. And his hatred led him to buy a shotgun and to take it upon himself to act as judge, jury and executioner because he so hated the profession that these two men had chosen.

And for taking the law into his own hands, for his vigilantism, a true judge and jury sentenced him, as permitted under Florida law and as they have hundreds of others, to die for his crime.

Paul Hill was not above the state, yet he acted as though he was. His double murder was an absolute and inexcusable usurpation of the State's responsibilities to enforce the laws as they are decided by the population of the State.

Today, for his crime - not for his belief, his anti-abortion position, or for anything other than his crime - Paul Hill met Florida's legal executioner.

Like it or not, Mr. Hill committed a grand and elaborate form of suicide. He took actions that he knew could, and likely would, lead to his death. When he aimed that shotgun and pulled the trigger, he not only caused the immediate death of his target, he began the process that led to his own death.

In this respect, Mr. Hill wasn't much different from a Hamas bomber who blows himself up at a checkpoint and kills two Israeli soldiers. His intent, like that of the Hamas bomber, was to create an atmosphere of terror. He wanted to scare abortion doctors out of their offices, much like Hamas wants to scare Israelis out of the settlements. And he was about as effective.

No, Mr. Hill was not a martyr. He wasn't persecuted for his beliefs. He wasn't executed for being a pious man.

No, he was a terrorist. He was a murderer. He was a sickening example of extremism gone too far in America.

Paul Hill may have acted for religious reasons, but he was executed for his crime.

A murderer is not, and never will be, a martyr.

My Daily Learning Lesson

I like learning. One of my truly bad habits is to go off on a link tangent when reading one story and usually end up reading something totally unrelated, but interesting. Most often I end up doing this while attempting to learn a little something new each and every day.

This morning, I had to go online to do medical research (my leg infection appears to possibly be flaring back up). As I'm going along trying to learn as much as I can about the particulars of what I had last time, I came across this interesting article from the National Institute of Health, which talks about how Group A Streptococcus can evade our natural immune system.

That was all well and interesting, but I've already learned about how some diseases will evolve into little superbugs that make life miserable for the infected.

What I did find interesting was the grossly simplified description of how the body actually fights these little viral terrorists:

During battle with most foreign microbes, PMNs successfully "eat" invading predators, a scientific process called phagocytosis. After microbes are engulfed, PMNs produce deadly oxygen radicals, such as hydrogen peroxide and hypoclorous acid (the active ingredient in household bleach), and release toxic granules to kill the enemy.

So the body essentially makes it's own hydrogen peroxide and bleach to kill off the little buggies.

Wierd little fact, but something that I just find to be kind of cool.

Quick Links

Arafat: 'The road map is dead' - He is quick on the uptake, now isn't he? Just about anyone paying attention has been saying this since about the day after the road map was proposed. In the current environment of violence, it was doomed to be a non-starter. Nice to see Yassar catching that finally.

Judge: Public school teacher can lead Bible club meetings - Just becuase someone is a teacher does not mean that they must give up their right to free exercise of religion. I can accept that she may not be able to teach a Bible class at the school in which she is currently employed, but she should be able to teach a Bible class, if that is what she wants to do.

I had a couple of other articles that looked interesting but required paid registrations, which I'm in no mood for at the moment. I'll try to do better tomorrow.

Economic Apocalypse?

For a few months now, I've had periodic posts about the threat of deflation given our current economic environment. In Financial Sense Online today is an interesting editorial that makes a similar point, although in perhaps a more apocalyptic manner.

To truly understand the article requires getting past the political statements about recent and current leaders. The policies of GW Bush and Bill Clinton are still too recent (and too similar to those undertaken in the last 50 years) to have had a real effect on the economy.

Deflation is quite possibly the greatest threat facing us today and this article does nothing to inspire confidence in our ability to avoid such a calamity. A deflationary economic cycle could very well plunge us into an economic depression that would have the possibility of tearing apart the social fabric of our nation.

I still believe that our best move is to use depreciation of the dollar as a way of exporting the deflationary pressure - for now. However, if we do take this action, we need to use the time it buys us to try to restructure our economy in a way that helps us to possibly avoid deflation. Otherwise all we've done is to put off the day of our final reckoning.

We've had it too good for too long now and the bill is finally coming due. I think it's time for credit counseling on a national scale.

Quick Links

After a hiatus over the weekend, the Quick Links are back!

The Ayatollah: Iraq's archduke? - I think that comparing the murder of the Iraqi Ayatollah to the murder of Archduke Ferdinand is a bit over the top. Possible, but not likely.

Civics 101 -- Getting it right... - a rational look at the case of Judge Moore's monument, examining the Constitutional aspects rather than the religious ones.

China Is Resisting Pressure to Relax Rate for Currency - This is one of the problems when the market is not allowed to work freely. China isn't concerned so much with profit as they are with providing full employment, which helps them to avoid social unrest from the idle.

Transfer of power would be tricky - If a candidate hasn't taken the time to formulate his team, I'm guessing that he hasn't spent much time formulating policy positions either. If the voters in California vote him in, knowing he hasn't taken the time or effort to accomplish either of these basic tasks then they deserve what they get.

Sharpton In South Carolina

In my last post, I looked at an essay that discussed some of the reasons why people make ineffective arguments. Reading this article in The State about how Al Sharpton has been spending so much time in The Palmetto State.

Towards the end of the article, a political scientist from Clemson points out that:

Sharpton is good with one-liners and is going to get attention and be invited to speak because he is entertaining.

But as we get closer to the primary, voters are going to think seriously about their vote and its impact.

Which comes back to my point in the last posting. The voters want to hear a coherent, defensible message articulated. Sharpton is wonderful at articulation, but his message is lacking any real depth.

He'll make a splash in the polls and will have an effect on the outcome of the primary elections, but he won't have any real policy effect because his message is lacking.

Why The Right Is Losing The Debate

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post in which I touched on the fact that the conservative movement in America is starting to lose its ability to articulate a coherent position. Over the last few days, I've been having a rather interesting debate with Dr. Barry Mauer, a professor at the University of Central Florida, on the whether or not it is proper to have an American flag permanently displayed in every classroom on campus.

During the course of our debate (which is still ongoing as I write this), he pointed me towards an essay he wrote titled Speaking Freely in a Time of War.

The essay is written from a liberal point of view and looks primarily at free speech in a wartime environment and how it is challenged by fundamentally weak arguments by the right. I disagree with several of the details, such as the media is protecting Bush or that the Marshall Plan was likely a plan to spread US corporate power in the aftermath of WWII. But to focus on a few disagreeable details is to miss the bigger, and more accurate, picture. The defenders of the conservative movement in America are losing their ability to form a defensible and coherent argument.

In the years since the end of WWII, America has been working its way through a long term political cycle. From the end of the War right through the Johnson Administration, the Democrats, and their ideas, were the dominating influence on America. Even Eisenhower, nominally a Republican, went in for expansion of government (see the Interstate Highway System). The real peak of this Democratic wave hit during the Kennedy Administration.

Some people will debate the overall effectiveness or value of JFK's term in office, but for my purposes in this argument, Kennedy was the high water mark for the liberal/Democratic idea. More than any other Democrat before or after, he was able to articulate his ideas; he was able to articulate his thoughts; and he was able to inspire great dreams in Americans.

Kennedy was a communicator. The only reason that he was able to defeat Nixon was because he was able to articulate and defend a position when Nixon could not. Nixon may have been a better policy man than JFK; he may have been a better choice in 1960 (we'll never know), but in the end he lost the election because he could not effectively articulate the conservative position. (As for all the accusations of vote rigging and other irregularities, if Nixon had been an effective communicator, the election wouldn't have been close enough for any of that to matter.)

One of the side effects of the years of Democratic sway in the US was that the conservative movement began to find its voice. The right learned how to build and defend a position. And as they were doing so, the left began to think of themselves as infallible. Throughout the mid to late '60s, the balance of articulation shifted to the right.

The greatness articulated by Kennedy and his space program gave way to the despair of Johnson that brought on the Great Society. Johnson was never able to solidly articulate his reasoning behind the Great Society. His inarticulation, combined with the coherent messages being brought forth by Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon on the national level, and by men like Ronald Reagan in some of the influential states, eventually signaled a fundamental shift in society from left to right.

Throughout the '70s, even taking into account Watergate and the Ford Administration, the right kept presenting the American people with a valid and believable message, while the left kept right on making irrational and indefensible arguments.

The administration of Ronald Reagan beginning in 1980, like the administration of Kennedy starting in 1960, signaled the real high point in the conservative movement since the end of WWII. Reagan, like Kennedy before him, was a great communicator. He knew how to talk to the American people. He knew how to reach them. And most importantly, he knew how to present the conservative position to them in a way that they understood.

The landslide reelection of Reagan in 1984 seemed to wake the liberal movement up to the fact that they were considered out of touch and clueless by the American populace. They understood at that point, that they had lost their ability to debate and that they were instead relying on many of the enthymemes that Dr. Mauer discusses in his essay.

It was in the mid to late '80s that many of our current crop of political commentators got their start. And they had argumentative biases set that still persist to this day.

On the conservative side, there was established a belief that the best way to argue with a liberal was to challenge them in the manner in which they challenged you. In other words, the current conservative commentators learned that they could effectively influence large numbers of people with weak, but good sounding, arguments. Fact and reason started to lose their prominence as the basis for argument and were instead replaced to a large degree by intellectually simple arguments that appealed to a large non-critically thinking segment of the population. Bill O'Reilly is one of the best examples of this trend. He can debate someone like Al Sharpton, who also uses these intellectually weak arguments, without any problem, but when it comes to debating a Harvard educated record executive his only response is the repetition of "But it's mind poison" (first noted here).

In contrast, Allan Colmes would have gotten his ideological grounding at about the same time, in the mid to late '80s. It is also obvious that he studied the faults of the hippie liberal generation and learned that in order to truly promote the liberal position, he had to do more than sloganeering. He learned to formulate positions and to make them defensible.

Watch Fox's Hannity and Colmes one night and you'll see an example of the diverging approaches used by each side right now. Sean Hannity is the more popular of the two hosts, but part of the reason why is because he uses intellectually simplistic arguments that, while indefensible, anyone can follow. Colmes on the other hand, suffers from constructing real arguments that require some intellectual effort to follow. And so his popularity suffers. It's also interesting to note, that Colmes is often written off by the left as a false liberal because his positions aren't far enough left to suit the powers that be. I think that this is more a reflection of the fact that a well thought out position, viewed from either perspective, will tend towards a moderate approach. But I'm digressing.

If we look at the Presidential elections since the end of the Reagan Administration, we see the same pattern continuing. Bush won in '88 because he was a more effective communicator than Dukakis. But in '92 the lessons the left had learned from their Reagan years in the political wilderness were brought onto the national stage full force by Bill Clinton.

Clinton was another communicator. There were large segments of the population that disagreed with nearly every policy decision he undertook, but in the end he was able to communicate his ideas and to inspire people that wanted to believe him. Clinton recognized that in Presidential elections, the voting public wants to hear thought out and theoretically defensible positions (this is why the Presidential debates do so well and are so heavily discussed whereas most people don't even realize that there are mayoral debates also). Clinton gave them that. Bush, Sr., thinking he could ride into another four years with intellectually easy arguments, did not. What were the big issues for each party in '92? For the Democrats it was health care. For the Republicans it was he's a dope-smoking, draft-dodging, womanizer.

In '96, Clinton once again out-communicated his opponent, Bob Dole.

The Republicans learned their lesson during the Clinton years and the election of GW Bush was as much a factor of communication as was true in the election of Kennedy over Nixon. Gore never articulated what he stood for, other than a continuation of Clinton. Bush put forth a reasoned and articulated argument for why we needed something different.

Since taking office, the Democrats have been getting frustrated by the fact that Bush can communicate with the common American. Like with Reagan, they can't understand why the American people will listen to someone is so obviously intellectually inferior.

But I can't bring myself to call Bush a communicator yet. He, like his father before him, falls prey to many of the weak techniques described by Dr. Mauer. If the Democrats can present and articulate a reasonable platform in '04, then it is very possible that Bush may lose.

Part of the reason why Howard Dean seems to have such staying power in the Democratic race is because he seems to be the sole candidate for the Democrats capable of building a true position. Many of his positions are disagreeable to me, but then again, so was the idea of nationalized health care. Dean may very well be able to win the election running on a platform of tax increases if he can present the American people with a reasonable argument for why they are necessary.

Of the other Democratic candidates, the only one who seems to have any skill of articulation is Al Sharpton, but as I said earlier he is too prone to taking the intellectually easy argument to be a true factor.

Bush has to develop a platform that consists of more than "I won the war in Iraq" and "More tax cuts." These arguments are incredibly weak, but they're all he's proposed so far. He's got to get on the ball. Otherwise, he may very well lose the election to an articulate Democrat.

The right does have time to right its ship before it ends up in a political Bermuda Triangle again like it was in during the '60s. The right hasn't completely lost its ability to formulate defensible positions and the left hasn't again perfected their ability to do so.

But if things keep shifting the way they have been over the last few years, the right will once again lose the debate.

What A Wonderful, Wacky World We Live In

Reading along this morning I came across two articles in the New York Post that just hit as being a riot.

The first, 'ALIVE' OSAMA PLOTS DOOMSDAY BIO-STRIKE, describes everyone's favorite terrorist clown as living in "good health" in a "secure, remote mountain lair".

All that I can picture is Osama sitting in a big Dr. Evil type lair trying to figure out how to work his fancy Captain Kirk chair. Up and down, go around a few circles in each direction and then get dumped off. A "secure, remote mountain lair" just seems to add a level of comedy to the whole Osama story that makes it hard to take the whole thing seriously anymore. The threat of terrorism is still real and serious, but Osama himself seems to have been turned into the Chevy Chase of terrorist leaders.

The second article, CARDS TARGET TOP ISRAELIS shows just how far "me, too"-ism has gone in the world today.

The deck of cards handed out in Iraq was a novel idea. At the time, I thought it was a cute, but effective, way of targeting certain people.

Then the Israeli paper Ma'ariv create a deck of 34 Palestinian terrorists.

Now Hamas has taken it a step further and has created a deck of their 34 most wanted Israelis, but they took it to a new level of classlessness by "X"ing over Rechavam Zeevi, the Israeli Tourism Minister who was assassinated.

In the course of what, four months, the "most wanted" deck has gone from a cutesy gimmick to a tired and trite cliche.

I just find it funny to see how much effort and thought went into Hamas creating their deck, only to have it come out being such a crass embarrassment to decency. In their quest to go "Me, too! Me, too!" as quickly as possible they have once again damaged their cause in the community of decent people. In their one-upmanship with the "X", they crossed the line and went to totally tasteless.

But I still can't get the picture of Osama trying to work his chair out of my head.

Environmental Colonialism

As I mentioned last night, I bought a copy of The Independent Review and have been reading through it in between football games and spending time with the kids. Today I read through an excellent article by Robert H. Nelson that discusses how the environmentalist movement in Africa has taken on the attributes of being neo-colonialist.

He starts by examining the traits of the environmentalist movement which have brought us to this point. I have always been annoyed with the dismissal of fact in favor of fiction that the environmentalists are so good at, but I had never put my finger on exactly what it was that made me so uncomfortable with the environmentalist movement.

Mr. Nelson points it out very succinctly as the Messianic qualities of the environmentalist message:

For many of its followers today, environmentalism has been a substitute for fading mainline Christian and progressive faiths-its religious quality obvious to any close observer of its workings. Its language is often overtly religious: "saving" the earth from rape and pillage; building "cathedrals" in the wilderness; creating a new "Noah's Ark" with laws such as the Endangered Species Act; pursuing a new "calling" to preserve the remaining wild areas; and taking steps to protect what is left of the "Creation" on earth. At the heart of the environmental message is a story of the fall of mankind from a previous, happier, and more natural and innocent time-a secular vision of the biblical fall from the Garden of Eden.

It is this quality, the false religion, that bugs me more than anything else. Zealots, manipulators and charlatans create new religions to advance their goals. An honest person with an honest agenda doesn't need to hide behind a facade of false morality.

But the environmentalists have raised their cause to the level of being their religion, complete with vicious, unrelenting, and uncompromising attacks on any heretical thought that is counter to their ultimate purpose.

The fundamentalism of the environmentalists rivals that of the Iranian clerics. They have shown a willingness to silence their critics by any means necessary. They have taken to terrorism using the "righteousness" of their cause as their Machiavellian justification for the evil and deadly means. And most importantly, they have shown a complete and utter disregard for anyone who might be harmed or disadvantaged by the environmentalists’ actions.

The worst shame here is that the prosaic goals of environmentalism: cleaner air, protecting rare plants or animals, and acting as a counterbalance to unchecked expansion are all worthwhile causes and goals in and of themselves. If they were sought after in a reasoned and responsible manner it would be virtually impossible, except for the most cold-hearted person, to rationally object. But instead of the reasoned and responsible route, the goals have been hijacked and are now used, much like children by the Messianic For-The-Children cult (another group that annoys me to no end), to force people to accept otherwise unreasonable positions.

There is no justification for allowing people - human beings - to die because of a "need" to protect some particular species or landscape. Yet that is exactly what the environmentalists have been doing in Africa for years. They pursue policies that allow the tsetse fly to flourish while denying the native Africans the ability or right to use the land to provide for themselves. So the Africans starve as the environmentalists tell them that they cannot produce food in fertile and traditional areas. The environmentalists are issuing their edicts about what is permissible and what is not from their ivory towers without a care, concern, or shred of knowledge about what their actions are actually doing to the people - or to their beloved environment.

The neo-colonialist actions of the environmentalists are proving to be nearly as deadly to humans and as damaging to the environment as the hated colonialist actions were. And like their imperialist predecessors, they have no clue. They take the opinion that they, and they alone, are the sole arbiters of right and wrong when it comes to the environment.

And like their colonialist predecessors, they are wrong. In time they will be as hated as the British, French, and other colonial powers were. In time, the Africans will throw off the fundamentalist environmentalist yoke just like they did the colonialist yoke.

Hopefully it won't require as many dead before the Africans can have back their land again this time.

New SportsBlog Post

I have another post up over at Sportsblog looking at the Miami Dolphins final preseason roster moves.

Should Education Be A Right?

Al Sharpton has decided that part of his Presidential platform will be to support a Constitutional Amendment to guarantee the right of a "public education of equally high quality." I appreciate his desire to see the level of educational quality in this country raised, but I think that he's going about it the wrong way.

Specifically, I disagree with his reasoning for wanting the Amendment. I also disagree with his concern about the "privatization" of education. I seriously disagree that education is or should be a federal problem. And finally, I think that there are some pretty worrisome measurement issues that would come up here.

Sharpton claims to want the Amendment to create an equal quality of education. That's a very noble goal, but is it really attainable (I'll come back to measurement in a few minutes.)? And is it really what Sharpton is after? Or is he only interested in this because he might be able to effectively play the race card later on?

The idea seems to stem in part from a Decatur, Ill., case in which the elder [Jesse] Jackson focused attention on the suspension of several African-American students expelled for fighting at a football game.

In 2000, U.S. District Judge Michael P. McCuskey dismissed the claim that the students were being denied equal protection under the Constitution.

That certainly puts Sharpton's interest in a different light. I'm fairly confident that there have been more than a few white kids suspended for fighting after football games. This has probably been happening as long as there has been high school football. Why is it only becoming an issue now? The kids screwed up and they were given a penalty to pay - a penalty that should have been laid out to them in their student code of conduct. They broke the rules - Equal Protection says that they should be required to pay the same price as everyone else.

Now Sharpton also claims that he is supporting the Amendment to counter the "privatization" of education. He says he wants everyone to have an equally high quality of education, yet his plan seems to be to dumb down the standard by eliminating the high quality opportunities that currently exist so that the inferior programs look attractive again. The only reason that vouchers, homeschooling and other measures are so popular is because the public school system as it currently exists is failing. Elimination of the vouchers and homeschooling is only going to make matters worse, education-wise, as the already overburdened system will be completely inundated with students they can't afford to educate. It would, however, be a boon for the people who are most likely to benefit from a massive increase in education spending - the teachers union - which just happens to be a core Democratic constituency.

Teachers will love this idea because it put education firmly in the purview of the federal government. That would create several significant benefits for them. On, the sheer amount of money flowing to the school systems, money that would ultimately be controlled by the NEA and its ilk, would increase exponentially. Second, it would be easier to ram through a new educational social engineering as they would only have to convince the federal government instead of fifty state governments. And third it would solidify their "position" as the sole group that knows enough to be able to dictate what our children need to learn and how they need to learn it.

In short, by making education a federal initiative, we would greatly increase the funding, while simultaneously removing any real oversight of the system.

Education has suffered, not because it is decentralized in the fifty states, but because the real power and authority has become centralized in the fifty statehouses. In Florida, we have 67 individual school districts. When the system was set up, if you wanted to effect a statewide change, you had to convince 67 separate school boards of the value of that change. As time has moved on the primary control of the educational system has moved from the county school boards to the state government. As a result, if some organization wants to launch an experiment of Florida's kids, they only have to convince the State Department of Education. And this process has happened in every state. Control has become centralized in one state department. This amendment would serve to further centralize control and would put our children even more at risk of being manipulated or misguided by a poorly designed idea.

But my biggest problem with Mr. Sharpton's idea is that it is immeasurable. What objective standard is going to be used to determine the success or failure of the "equally high quality?" There is really only one objective standard: standardized testing. But it has already been demogogued as being biased against minorities and is also subject to the dumbing down of results, as evidenced by the recentering of the SAT scores. Grades can't be used, as many school districts are already succumbing to grade inflation and if that were the standard, even more would do so. An annual review by an appointed panel would be both extremely cumbersome and extremely costly. With standardized testing being out of the question for racial political reasons, there really is no other way to measure success or failure against this Amendment and as such, there is no way to enforce it or to ensure compliance.

This really looks to be a grandstanding position for Mr. Sharpton. From everything I've ever seen of him, he is not a dumb man. I'm guessing that he knows that this Amendment is unworkable, but it's worth beaucoup political points and he can probably pin its demise on those evil and uncaring Republicans.

As a political play, it's pretty good. As policy, it would be a terrible, terrible mistake.

Another Moral Victory For UCF

Well, the game is still going and it's 42-21 Virginia Tech. But the score belies how close the game really has been.

UCF has once again aquitted themselves pretty well against the top competition in the country. They were supposed to have been blown out, but early in the 4th quarter they were only down by 7, 28-21.

They have also played Beamerball better than Va. Tech today, blocking a field goal and nailing some incredible punts.

They played an excellent game and even in defeat, they can walk away with their heads held high.

If UCF played a cake schedule like a lot of other teams, they would be 9-2 or 8-3 most years. But instead, they've elected to play the big boys and they've shown that they can hold their own. They just got to get past the slow starts that always seem to put them in the hole to start.

As an aside, I saw the new Big East commercial at halftime. It had all these little kids and a caption showing a future career and their future school. I thought is was interesting that the University of Miami wasn't mentioned.

Glad to see there are no hard feelings from the Big East.

UPDATE: Final score was 49-28. But it was still closer than it sounds. Really not too bad for a team that was supposed to get blown out without scoring. I'm just going to hate the news tonight with all the local sportscasters whining about what could have been. UCF played a great game and they lost. It's ok.

Define Persona Non Grata

So if you were going to use an example to define the term persona non grata, would it be possible to find a better example than this.

I would have assumed that it would be a diplomatic faux pas for the ambassador - the person who is responsible for maintaining goodwill and open communications with the host country - to make comments like calling the national leader a "lout" or the referring to the country as "paranoid."

Israel is a country in which people tend to look over their shoulders a bit more or they look at people more suspiciously. This is absolutely true and was something that I noticed (and noticed myself doing) while I was there. But isn't it true that they have justification? If Parisian busses were being blown up on a regular basis the good ambassador would probably be a bit more understanding.

Whether the comments "were made in the course of a private party" or not is irrelevant. If they were made it signals a serious respect issue with the new ambassador. France shouldn't send him and Israel shouldn't allow him in.

But he would probably make a great French ambassador to the Palestinian Authority.

Important Notice About This Site

Porn links in comments will be erased as soon as I become aware of them. This site is for me to corrupt the world with my thoughts, not for you to use to peddle your porn.

I have not ever censored any comment that was in some way, shape or form germaine to the topic being discussed and I have no reason to start doing so now. But please stay at least somewhat related to the topic.

I have no problem with using my bandwidth and web space to foster debate, but I will not tolerate it being used to promote penis enlargement pills or non-surgical breast enhancements. I reserve the right to erase any such promotions and to ban the IP address of the person leaving such comments.

I really can't believe that I have to post something like this. But I guess some people have no class or common sense.

Go Knights! (SportsBlog Alert)

I've got another new post over at SportsBlog. Take a look if you're interested.

Posting may be light today as I have to my UCF Knights taking on Virginia Tech this afternoon. I don't expect that we'll win, but I hope they put on a good show and put the fear of Florida into the Hokies (after all they still have to play Miami later....)

Failure of FAA Regulation

This month was a five check month for me at work, so with the money from the extra check I decided to splurge and I ran over to Books-A-Million to find some kind of new reading material. While I was there I picked up a copy of the summer edition of The Independent Review mainly because it had an article on the failure of airline regulation.

Now I agree with the premise that airline regulation was a failure. I believe that we're still paying for the effects of the time from the Spoils Conference until the demise of the CAB. The airline industry forgot how to compete. The industry became dependent on governmental guidance. Even today, as soon as something happens, the airline chieftains are looking the Federal government for some kind of handout or guidance on where to go next. The airline CEOs almost seem to be scared to run their companies.

So I'm opening up to this article already sympathetic to the author's position.

The author does an excellent job of pointing out the failures of the FAA and is also very perceptive in identifying the causes of many of the failures. The FAA does have a dual and contradictory mission. They are to both enforce safety and security while simultaneously promoting the good of the industry. There are many times those two come into conflict.

He also points out that centrally planned organizations are usually ignorant of their own ignorance and therefore can't comprehend how or why their actions affect the marketplace. Excellent point. So far so good, right?

From there, the author tries to get into the technical details of why FAA regulation is a failure. And in the process he proves his own ignorance of the actual mechanics of running an airport or airline.

As just one example, he proposes the use of GPS as a means of increasing the throughput of the runways at the nation's airports. He believes that by using GPS the capacity could be increased to the theoretical maximum of 60 flights per hour instead of the current 40. He believes that by using GPS, flights can avoid using long, straight final approaches by turning onto the runway at the last possible minute, therefore avoiding the need for airspace separation. Great theory, but it fails in two important regards.

First, runways are still long and straight and no airplane lands right at the threshold. Most flights land 1000-2000 feet beyond the threshold. The wake turbulence from a flight doesn't dissipate immediately. It can take a couple of minutes for it to become a non-factor. The ground disrupts the turbulence somewhat, but it is still an issue for at least two minutes after an arrival. So if there are two flights landing one minute apart, even if they use different approach patterns, the following flight will still encounter some kind of wake turbulence. Depending on the two aircraft involved, this could still be a deadly situation.

It also fails to recognize that a large amount of traffic in a confined area is going to require some sort of structure. Out over the plains at 30,000 to 40,000 feet, GPS guided free flight with collision avoidance systems are a workable idea. But in a confined terminal area like the greater New York area, you don't want pilots deciding where they're going to fly. Security dictates that the aircraft are going to stay within certain corridors, which recreates the current traffic structure, so that despite the GPS, nothing will really change.

The GPS theory is just one of the topics on which the author squanders his credibility. There are other instances where he displays an ignorance of aircraft navigation or airline operation. I found that, despite being sympathetic to his position, I found myself wondering just how reasonable the position could be, given the superficial research done in regards to the effects of FAA ineffectiveness in the realm Air Traffic Control.

I still agree with the statement that the FAA's dual role has been a very dangerous risk for the airlines. Using the insurance companies as private safety regulators would probably be more effective than the FAA. The FAA really hasn't done anything to greatly benefit the airline industry. They have in fact hurt it by making it less efficient, less safe, and more dependent on governmental guidance.

I really wish that the author of the article had concentrated on the economic aspects of FAA regulation in the airline industry. He did an excellent job of picking them apart in the economic realm. But all that credibility was almost wasted by his "expert" discussion of topics he didn't really know a whole lot about. For someone who understands how the air transport system works, I was very disappointed when he got into the in depth discussions of GPS and the like.

The FAA is probably one of the most dysfunctional agencies in the entire government. The aviation industry made great strides after the sunsetting of the CAB, but unfortunately they were stymied by the FAA and its inability to upgrade the ATC system in the US. The industry has gotten stuck in a rut. The abolition or privatization of the FAA is going to be the first major step that needs to be taken if the US airline industry is to move forward again.