The New York times recently had an article on how the case of Bush vs. Gore is now being cited in other cases, despite the fact that the court decision specifically said "“Our consideration is limited to the present circumstances". I'm no fan of that decision, but it is essential to ignore the Supreme courts hedging qualifier. That qualifier violates the entire principle of rule of law. Kant said that the essence of morality was the Categorical Imperative: the principle that what you are doing has to be capable of being made into a universal law. The criminal thinks it's OK for him to steal, but no criminal would ever say it was OK for other people to steal FROM him. That is why everyone implicitly acknowledges that stealing is wrong--even those who steal.
The Supreme Court knew that they were only interested in making sure their man got elected, not in developing a principle that could be used to decide anything in the Future. So like the thief they wanted to do something that would get them what they wanted, but could not be translated into a Universal principle. Kings and Tyrants can get away with such things. That is why we have laws, to stop our leaders from becoming tyrants. If other Lawyers do manage to translate Bush vs. Gore into a principle that serves justice, it will be in spite of the Supreme Court's intentions, not because of them.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
I recently read a New York Times article on Attention Deficient and Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), as well as several of the posted comments. This is a topic that polarizes people strongly. Many people think the disease is completely imaginary,and those people often seized on this phrase in the article.
“Children with the disorder typically have trouble sitting still and paying attention. But they may also have boundless energy and a laserlike focus on favorite things — qualities that could be very helpful in, say, an Olympic athlete.”
It seemed to me that describing these characteristics medically is absurdly reductionistic. Why not just say that ADHD kids are very good at doing what they want to do, and very bad at doing what they are told? In which case, having ADHD is simply having all of the characteristics that Americans value the highest. To say that someone is sick because they don’t follow orders sounds like something out of 1984.
However, as I read some of the other posts, it seemed obvious that there are many people who clearly benefit from taking the drugs for ADHD. Consequently I am not willing to say that the whole thing is a conspiracy of Big Pharma.
But why are these the only two alternatives? Philosopher Dan Dennett says we have two different perspectives on human behavior: 1)The Intentional stance, which explains behavior in terms of beliefs, desires, goals and purposes. 2) the Physical Stance, which explains behavior in terms of physics and biochemistry. To call ADHD a disease is to rely on the physical stance. My alternative description uses the intentional stance. Dennett believes that all intentional explanations can ultimately be reduced to physical explanations, a belief I do not share. However, Dennett acknowledges that it is impossible in our real life interactions to explain everything we do in physical terms. Consequently, we cannot ignore the intentional stance without dangerously oversimplifying. One of the comments on this article defends the physical explanation by saying that ADHD is “is as real as grass, in spite of looking for all the world like “laziness” or a lack of caring.” But whoever said that laziness and lack of caring are imaginary? We encounter them all the time. What is needed, I believe, is a recognition that both the Intentional and the Physical Stance are real, and we cannot explain human behavior without both of them.
I think that acknowledging this would mean that using drugs, and the extent to which they are used, would be seen as unique to each individual, and the individual, not the doctor, should be the ultimate authority as to when and how to use them. The drugs must be seen as part of a rehabilitation program that involves self-discipline and careful awareness of one’s own values, so that each person can shape herself into being the person she wants to become. This also means that we need to dismiss the American myth that everyone starts with a clean slate, and therefore everyone deserves full credit or blame for what they are. We assume the false dichotomy that either it’s physical (and therefore not my fault) or mental (and therefore just a sign of laziness). The truth is we are dealt a physical hand of cards, but must figure out how to play them using the concepts of the intentional stance. Some people are born with a bad chemical makeup, just as some people must grow up in dysfunctional families or in poverty. There should be no shame in acknowledging this, because if you don’t know where you are starting from, you have no way of getting anywhere else. All of us can be better than we are, and we should use whatever resources are available to us to help towards our goals. If drugs are the best resources for some people, those people should use drugs.
I think, however, that acknowledging this might enable people to use drugs to take them to a state of mind, and that once there, they can use their own awareness and will power to stay there. Some of my students have said that they used to do Ritalin, but they eventually learned how to maintain its mental benefits without taking the drug. They also told me their doctors thought this was a bad idea, but they did it anyway. I think for some patients this might work, and doctors should not see this a rejection of the entire idea of ADHD. Similarly, accepting the existence of ADHD should not be seen as a complete rejection of explanations that use the intentional stance, such as that ADHD patients are people who march to the beat of a different drummer, and don’t like a rigid school system.
One problem with all psychological categories is that they straddle the intentional and the physical stance. ADHD is not physical in the way that an excess of dopamine is physical. It is a category with blurry borders, and therefore ought to welcome blurry diagnoses, and a recognition by both doctors and patients that the patient must make the final decision. I think it likely that I would have been diagnosed as ADHD, had such a thing existed when I was a kid. And the fact that I am wasting time writing this blog, instead of grading papers or designing next term’s syllabus, is probably a sign that I’ve still got it.
“Children with the disorder typically have trouble sitting still and paying attention. But they may also have boundless energy and a laserlike focus on favorite things — qualities that could be very helpful in, say, an Olympic athlete.”
It seemed to me that describing these characteristics medically is absurdly reductionistic. Why not just say that ADHD kids are very good at doing what they want to do, and very bad at doing what they are told? In which case, having ADHD is simply having all of the characteristics that Americans value the highest. To say that someone is sick because they don’t follow orders sounds like something out of 1984.
However, as I read some of the other posts, it seemed obvious that there are many people who clearly benefit from taking the drugs for ADHD. Consequently I am not willing to say that the whole thing is a conspiracy of Big Pharma.
But why are these the only two alternatives? Philosopher Dan Dennett says we have two different perspectives on human behavior: 1)The Intentional stance, which explains behavior in terms of beliefs, desires, goals and purposes. 2) the Physical Stance, which explains behavior in terms of physics and biochemistry. To call ADHD a disease is to rely on the physical stance. My alternative description uses the intentional stance. Dennett believes that all intentional explanations can ultimately be reduced to physical explanations, a belief I do not share. However, Dennett acknowledges that it is impossible in our real life interactions to explain everything we do in physical terms. Consequently, we cannot ignore the intentional stance without dangerously oversimplifying. One of the comments on this article defends the physical explanation by saying that ADHD is “is as real as grass, in spite of looking for all the world like “laziness” or a lack of caring.” But whoever said that laziness and lack of caring are imaginary? We encounter them all the time. What is needed, I believe, is a recognition that both the Intentional and the Physical Stance are real, and we cannot explain human behavior without both of them.
I think that acknowledging this would mean that using drugs, and the extent to which they are used, would be seen as unique to each individual, and the individual, not the doctor, should be the ultimate authority as to when and how to use them. The drugs must be seen as part of a rehabilitation program that involves self-discipline and careful awareness of one’s own values, so that each person can shape herself into being the person she wants to become. This also means that we need to dismiss the American myth that everyone starts with a clean slate, and therefore everyone deserves full credit or blame for what they are. We assume the false dichotomy that either it’s physical (and therefore not my fault) or mental (and therefore just a sign of laziness). The truth is we are dealt a physical hand of cards, but must figure out how to play them using the concepts of the intentional stance. Some people are born with a bad chemical makeup, just as some people must grow up in dysfunctional families or in poverty. There should be no shame in acknowledging this, because if you don’t know where you are starting from, you have no way of getting anywhere else. All of us can be better than we are, and we should use whatever resources are available to us to help towards our goals. If drugs are the best resources for some people, those people should use drugs.
I think, however, that acknowledging this might enable people to use drugs to take them to a state of mind, and that once there, they can use their own awareness and will power to stay there. Some of my students have said that they used to do Ritalin, but they eventually learned how to maintain its mental benefits without taking the drug. They also told me their doctors thought this was a bad idea, but they did it anyway. I think for some patients this might work, and doctors should not see this a rejection of the entire idea of ADHD. Similarly, accepting the existence of ADHD should not be seen as a complete rejection of explanations that use the intentional stance, such as that ADHD patients are people who march to the beat of a different drummer, and don’t like a rigid school system.
One problem with all psychological categories is that they straddle the intentional and the physical stance. ADHD is not physical in the way that an excess of dopamine is physical. It is a category with blurry borders, and therefore ought to welcome blurry diagnoses, and a recognition by both doctors and patients that the patient must make the final decision. I think it likely that I would have been diagnosed as ADHD, had such a thing existed when I was a kid. And the fact that I am wasting time writing this blog, instead of grading papers or designing next term’s syllabus, is probably a sign that I’ve still got it.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Obama's Victory, and Beyond.
I just came back from a long victory march through the streets of my home town: Bezerkely, The People’s Republic of Berkeley, The city that gave 83% of its vote to the only congressperson who voted against the Patriot Act, and the home of the last dozen Trotskyites and Maoists on the planet. Thousands of longhaired deadheads in tie-died shirts, spike-haired punks in leather, and latte-sipping liberals in suits and tee shirts, were marching shoulder to shoulder and chanting slogans. “Yes, we can” and “Obama” were the obvious choices, but it was fascinating to see what else popped up. An obscene chant against George Bush started once, but died away almost immediately. People were waving American flags, some of which had only 13 stars, or the number 76. My friend Mica Dunstan was making and passing out hats made of red, white and blue balloons. A raucous out-of-tune version of the Star Spangled Banner, pitched too high for the top notes, appeared tentatively, then grew to a triumphantly ragged crescendo. Shortly after that, “America the Beautiful” started somewhere in the middle of the song, and I received grateful shouts of “Thank you” from several 20-somethings when I started it from the beginning and taught them the rest of the words. When we got to “Crown thy good with brotherhood”, I knew I was surrounded by people who were thinking, without fear of condemnation from either the right or the left “For the first time in my life, I am proud of my country.”
When I returned home, and scanned over the electoral map on the New York Times website, I saw a pattern that was impossible to ignore. In almost every state, the margin of victory for each candidate was near ten percent and frequently greater. The same pattern appeared when I zoomed in on the individual counties in both red and blue states. When each candidate lost, he usually lost by large margins, but there were also always places in each state where he won by large margins. California voted over 60 percent for Obama, but Tehama County voted over 60 percent for McCain. Alabama voted over 60 percent for McCain, but the city of Montgomery and environs went almost 60 percent for Obama, and Macon County went almost 87% for Obama. The City of Washington D.C. voted 93% for Obama.
These kinds of margins did not exist in presidential politics for over a century and a half. The first president to win by over 60% was Franklin Roosevelt in 1936. However, the polarization that began in the sixties produced two 60% landslides: One on the left, when Johnson beat Goldwater, and one on the right, when Nixon beat McGovern. Because of these demographic patterns, this polarization has remained in place since then. Today most people never talk to, or even see, anyone who voted for the other candidate. However, the Obama/Dean strategy of speaking to all 50 states has begun to change this. In the middle of large stretches of red real estate, there are now a few places in which both candidates were running neck and neck. Tennesee and Kentucky went to McCain with over 57%, and are adjacent to North Carolina, which is still too close to call. In California, Tulare and Madera counties went to McCain with almost 57%, but adjacent Fresno county split with 49.2 percent for each candidate. There must have been some lively discussions in Fresno bars to produce that result. My friend Brian Kenney Fresno, who has built a musical career around ridiculing his hometown, must be very proud.
We now need to recognize that this lack of contact has caused Us to stereotype Them as badly as They have stereotyped Us. We won this election because a lot of people admitted, at least in the privacy of the voting booth, that they made a mistake. It will be a lot easier for them to admit this publicly if we are gracious in victory. During the past few weeks, when I was terrified that poll fraud and vote suppression might steal this election a third time, I received several viciously satirical emails, which I greatly enjoyed. But now the time has come to look at those with a fresh eye. One of them began this way:
“Dear Red States:
If you somehow manage to steal this election too we've decided we're leaving. We intend to form our own country, and we're taking the other Blue States with us. . .You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states. We get stem cell research and the best beaches. We get the Statue of Liberty. You get Dollywood. . .”
I’ve never actually been to Dollywood, but I doubt that anyone who received that message realizes that Dolly Parton eloquently defends gay rights in her autobiography, partly because her manager is gay. Her book also contains sharp criticisms of the fundamentalist intolerance that she sees as a betrayal of her deep Christian faith, and her quarrel with Sylvester Stallone that started when he sneered at a homeless man for not being as rich as they were. He ended up apologizing to her, and gave the man 20 bucks. The whole book artfully undermines the stereotype she has spent her lifetime constructing, and was written without a ghost writer by this complex and talented woman.
Another emailed essay titled “This is how fascism comes”, contains a litany of red state failings that includes “If fascism comes, it will dress like a hockey mom, or a NASCAR dad. It will believe Toby Keith to be an artist, Larry the Cable Guy to be a comic, and that the world was made in six literal days less than 6000 years ago.” A few years ago, Mr. Keith angered many of us with lyrics like “You'll be sorry that you messed with The U.S. of A. , Cause we'll put a boot in your ass, It's the American way.” and an accompanying video of planes bombing people in turbans. His most recent #1 hit, however, has these Lyrics:
Sometimes I think that war is necessary.
Every night I pray for peace on Earth.
I hand out my dollars to the homeless.
But believe that every able soul should work.
My father gave me my shotgun that I'll hand down to my son,
try to teach him everything it means.
(chorus)
I stand by my right to speak freely.
But I worry 'bout what kids learn from TV.
And before all of debatin' turns to angry words and hate,
sometimes we should just agree to disagree.
And I believe that Jesus looks down here and sees us,
and if you ask him he would say
(chorus)
I'm a man of my convictions. Call me wrong, call me right.
But I bring my better angels to every fight.
You may not like where I'm going, but you sure know where I stand.
Hate me if you want to, love me if you can.
How much of this did you have to read before you stopped responding with Pavlovian bursts of annoyance? Are you willing to agree to disagree with the millions of people who listened to this song on country radio, and share its values? It won’t be easy, after all we’ve been through the past eight years. There are some real disagreements that won’t go away, and we’ll have to negotiate those. But we have got to get beyond the point where “Conservative” and “Liberal” have degenerated into matters of taste about beverages, music and headgear. Neither a turban or a cowboy hat automatically makes you a villain. Obama is quite right that we are going to have to grow beyond those kinds of quarrels if we are going to get this country working again.
When I returned home, and scanned over the electoral map on the New York Times website, I saw a pattern that was impossible to ignore. In almost every state, the margin of victory for each candidate was near ten percent and frequently greater. The same pattern appeared when I zoomed in on the individual counties in both red and blue states. When each candidate lost, he usually lost by large margins, but there were also always places in each state where he won by large margins. California voted over 60 percent for Obama, but Tehama County voted over 60 percent for McCain. Alabama voted over 60 percent for McCain, but the city of Montgomery and environs went almost 60 percent for Obama, and Macon County went almost 87% for Obama. The City of Washington D.C. voted 93% for Obama.
These kinds of margins did not exist in presidential politics for over a century and a half. The first president to win by over 60% was Franklin Roosevelt in 1936. However, the polarization that began in the sixties produced two 60% landslides: One on the left, when Johnson beat Goldwater, and one on the right, when Nixon beat McGovern. Because of these demographic patterns, this polarization has remained in place since then. Today most people never talk to, or even see, anyone who voted for the other candidate. However, the Obama/Dean strategy of speaking to all 50 states has begun to change this. In the middle of large stretches of red real estate, there are now a few places in which both candidates were running neck and neck. Tennesee and Kentucky went to McCain with over 57%, and are adjacent to North Carolina, which is still too close to call. In California, Tulare and Madera counties went to McCain with almost 57%, but adjacent Fresno county split with 49.2 percent for each candidate. There must have been some lively discussions in Fresno bars to produce that result. My friend Brian Kenney Fresno, who has built a musical career around ridiculing his hometown, must be very proud.
We now need to recognize that this lack of contact has caused Us to stereotype Them as badly as They have stereotyped Us. We won this election because a lot of people admitted, at least in the privacy of the voting booth, that they made a mistake. It will be a lot easier for them to admit this publicly if we are gracious in victory. During the past few weeks, when I was terrified that poll fraud and vote suppression might steal this election a third time, I received several viciously satirical emails, which I greatly enjoyed. But now the time has come to look at those with a fresh eye. One of them began this way:
“Dear Red States:
If you somehow manage to steal this election too we've decided we're leaving. We intend to form our own country, and we're taking the other Blue States with us. . .You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states. We get stem cell research and the best beaches. We get the Statue of Liberty. You get Dollywood. . .”
I’ve never actually been to Dollywood, but I doubt that anyone who received that message realizes that Dolly Parton eloquently defends gay rights in her autobiography, partly because her manager is gay. Her book also contains sharp criticisms of the fundamentalist intolerance that she sees as a betrayal of her deep Christian faith, and her quarrel with Sylvester Stallone that started when he sneered at a homeless man for not being as rich as they were. He ended up apologizing to her, and gave the man 20 bucks. The whole book artfully undermines the stereotype she has spent her lifetime constructing, and was written without a ghost writer by this complex and talented woman.
Another emailed essay titled “This is how fascism comes”, contains a litany of red state failings that includes “If fascism comes, it will dress like a hockey mom, or a NASCAR dad. It will believe Toby Keith to be an artist, Larry the Cable Guy to be a comic, and that the world was made in six literal days less than 6000 years ago.” A few years ago, Mr. Keith angered many of us with lyrics like “You'll be sorry that you messed with The U.S. of A. , Cause we'll put a boot in your ass, It's the American way.” and an accompanying video of planes bombing people in turbans. His most recent #1 hit, however, has these Lyrics:
Sometimes I think that war is necessary.
Every night I pray for peace on Earth.
I hand out my dollars to the homeless.
But believe that every able soul should work.
My father gave me my shotgun that I'll hand down to my son,
try to teach him everything it means.
(chorus)
I stand by my right to speak freely.
But I worry 'bout what kids learn from TV.
And before all of debatin' turns to angry words and hate,
sometimes we should just agree to disagree.
And I believe that Jesus looks down here and sees us,
and if you ask him he would say
(chorus)
I'm a man of my convictions. Call me wrong, call me right.
But I bring my better angels to every fight.
You may not like where I'm going, but you sure know where I stand.
Hate me if you want to, love me if you can.
How much of this did you have to read before you stopped responding with Pavlovian bursts of annoyance? Are you willing to agree to disagree with the millions of people who listened to this song on country radio, and share its values? It won’t be easy, after all we’ve been through the past eight years. There are some real disagreements that won’t go away, and we’ll have to negotiate those. But we have got to get beyond the point where “Conservative” and “Liberal” have degenerated into matters of taste about beverages, music and headgear. Neither a turban or a cowboy hat automatically makes you a villain. Obama is quite right that we are going to have to grow beyond those kinds of quarrels if we are going to get this country working again.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Obama and "Friends".
I read that a Republican PAC group is planning on recirculating the most incendiary quotes from some Jeremiah Wright Sermons. I therefore decided to post some of my earlier reactions to the Wright/Obama connection, updated to include some of what’s happened since.
After the first hoopla about Wright, a University in Chicago retracted an offer of an honorary degree to him. This should make us think, but not the way people have been thinking. Why is it that a University in Wright’s hometown was so eager to honor him in the first place? Surely they were aware of at least some of his many failings. The answer seems to be that they honored him not for what he said, but what he did—the soup kitchens, day care, drug and legal counseling, senior citizen home, and mentoring for young people. For more details on these many accomplishments, see the entire interview with Bill Moyers.
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04252008/watch.html
Although I certainly disagreed with many things Wright said in that inteview, I would never refuse to vote for somebody because they once admired this man. Among the many quotes from this interview that you won’t see on Fox, or even in the New York Times, is Wright’s description of the ideas behind his mentoring program.
You can't be what you ain't seen. And so many of our young boys haven't seen nothing but the gangs and the pimps and the brothers on the corner. They've never sat and talked to lawyers, they've never sat and talked to a man, a black man, with 2, 3 degrees! They've never had a chance, they've never had an option in terms of thinking I could do this? I can be this? They see a doctor when they're sick. They don't get to sit and talk about med school. They don't talk to somebody who writes programs and analyzes systems and computers. A black guy? I can do this? They’ve never had their horizons lifted.
Obama could see that even though Wright regularly said a lot of stupid and hateful things, he regularly did a lot of heroic and kind things. This was among the answers that Obama gave in his first superb speech on this subject, and this is why my support for Obama is stronger than ever. Surely this is far preferable than our current executive branch, where people say heroic and kind things, and do stupid and hateful things. What we need desperately now is a president who is capable of communicating with, and even respecting, people he strongly disagrees with. As a young man, Obama could see through Wright’s weaknesses and still learn from his strengths. This ability is an essential part of being a skillful negotiator and a good leader, and will be a welcome change from the “Either you’re with us or against us” mentality which has made us so many enemies over the last eight years.
Everybody needs a list that begins “I would never associate with anyone who did the following”. My list includes things like murder, theft, eating babies, and thousands of other reprehensible behaviors. However, too many people on both sides of the political spectrum put people on that list who should be on the “People I would never include in my Presidential Cabinet” list and “People I think are seriously mistaken about a lot of important things” list. This means that negotiating has almost disappeared from the political and diplomatic scene. The assumption is that anybody who disagrees with you is a bad guy, and anybody who talks or listens to the bad guys is either a dupe or another bad guy. Consequently, problems that should be solved by negotiations end up being “solved” by military force. Obama’s natural instinct is to look for people he respects, whether he agrees with them or not, and try to understand their point of view. This ability enabled him to have a long and close apprenticeship with Reverend Wright, and this was time well spent. That apprenticeship is now over, which is why the time has come for Obama to break with Wright. What this country needs right now is someone with Wright’s compassion, energy, and organizational skills, but who doesn’t have his angry mouth. I think there’s a pretty good chance that Obama is that person.
That does not mean I would be comfortable with Wright being Obama’s advisor in the White House. But does anything seriously believe that President Obama would even so much as take a phone call from Wright at this point? Compare this to McCain’s relationship with a variety of characters on the extreme right. Which would you prefer—a president who used to be close friends with Wright, or a president who owes votes to a minister who calls the Catholic Church “The Whore of Bablyon”?
The Ayers situation is a bit different, because Ayers clearly did some bad things as well as said some bad things. But the Ayers connection with Obama was not a mentorship, or even a friendship. It was a temporary alliance with an organization that included one person who did some very bad things when Obama was eight years old, and later cleaned up his act and did some good things. To my knowledge, no one has ever criticized the projects on which Ayers and Obama worked together. The assumption seems to be that because Ayers did some bad things several years earlier, Obama should refuse to even sit in the same room with him. I don’t know what project Ayers and Obama worked on, but let’s assume it was something like building new libraries. Why should anyone say “I’m willing to sacrifice those libraries so that I don’t have to sit on the same committee with Ayers.” What exactly would that accomplish? As long as the project that Obama was involved with was doing good things, what does it matter that Ayers did some bad things years ago?
Part of political reality is that sometimes you have to work with people whose values are very different from yours. When McCain does this, he calls it reaching across the aisle. But when Obama reaches out to people with different values from his own, McCain claims that you can only measure a person’s worth by who he isn’t willing to work with. That doesn’t seem to me to be a very presidential attitude. I think that it’s very important to have high standards about what you’re willing to do. But if someone with a checkered past decides to do something good for a change, it seems to me that the sensible thing is to form an alliance with them, and get some good things done.
If anyone does find any corruption or other nefarious activity actually performed by any Obama/Ayers et. al. committee, Obama should be blamed in proportion to how much he knew about those activities. Compare the Obama/Ayers “relationship” to McCain’s close connection with the Keating Savings and Loan Scandal. McCain not only had a long personal relationship with a man who was eventually jailed for robbing thousands of people of their life savings. McCain played an active part in those activities that got Keating jailed. He was not founded legally culpable for what he did, but the connection was certainly closer than the connection between Ayers and the eight-year-old Obama.
Teed Rockwell
After the first hoopla about Wright, a University in Chicago retracted an offer of an honorary degree to him. This should make us think, but not the way people have been thinking. Why is it that a University in Wright’s hometown was so eager to honor him in the first place? Surely they were aware of at least some of his many failings. The answer seems to be that they honored him not for what he said, but what he did—the soup kitchens, day care, drug and legal counseling, senior citizen home, and mentoring for young people. For more details on these many accomplishments, see the entire interview with Bill Moyers.
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04252008/watch.html
Although I certainly disagreed with many things Wright said in that inteview, I would never refuse to vote for somebody because they once admired this man. Among the many quotes from this interview that you won’t see on Fox, or even in the New York Times, is Wright’s description of the ideas behind his mentoring program.
You can't be what you ain't seen. And so many of our young boys haven't seen nothing but the gangs and the pimps and the brothers on the corner. They've never sat and talked to lawyers, they've never sat and talked to a man, a black man, with 2, 3 degrees! They've never had a chance, they've never had an option in terms of thinking I could do this? I can be this? They see a doctor when they're sick. They don't get to sit and talk about med school. They don't talk to somebody who writes programs and analyzes systems and computers. A black guy? I can do this? They’ve never had their horizons lifted.
Obama could see that even though Wright regularly said a lot of stupid and hateful things, he regularly did a lot of heroic and kind things. This was among the answers that Obama gave in his first superb speech on this subject, and this is why my support for Obama is stronger than ever. Surely this is far preferable than our current executive branch, where people say heroic and kind things, and do stupid and hateful things. What we need desperately now is a president who is capable of communicating with, and even respecting, people he strongly disagrees with. As a young man, Obama could see through Wright’s weaknesses and still learn from his strengths. This ability is an essential part of being a skillful negotiator and a good leader, and will be a welcome change from the “Either you’re with us or against us” mentality which has made us so many enemies over the last eight years.
Everybody needs a list that begins “I would never associate with anyone who did the following”. My list includes things like murder, theft, eating babies, and thousands of other reprehensible behaviors. However, too many people on both sides of the political spectrum put people on that list who should be on the “People I would never include in my Presidential Cabinet” list and “People I think are seriously mistaken about a lot of important things” list. This means that negotiating has almost disappeared from the political and diplomatic scene. The assumption is that anybody who disagrees with you is a bad guy, and anybody who talks or listens to the bad guys is either a dupe or another bad guy. Consequently, problems that should be solved by negotiations end up being “solved” by military force. Obama’s natural instinct is to look for people he respects, whether he agrees with them or not, and try to understand their point of view. This ability enabled him to have a long and close apprenticeship with Reverend Wright, and this was time well spent. That apprenticeship is now over, which is why the time has come for Obama to break with Wright. What this country needs right now is someone with Wright’s compassion, energy, and organizational skills, but who doesn’t have his angry mouth. I think there’s a pretty good chance that Obama is that person.
That does not mean I would be comfortable with Wright being Obama’s advisor in the White House. But does anything seriously believe that President Obama would even so much as take a phone call from Wright at this point? Compare this to McCain’s relationship with a variety of characters on the extreme right. Which would you prefer—a president who used to be close friends with Wright, or a president who owes votes to a minister who calls the Catholic Church “The Whore of Bablyon”?
The Ayers situation is a bit different, because Ayers clearly did some bad things as well as said some bad things. But the Ayers connection with Obama was not a mentorship, or even a friendship. It was a temporary alliance with an organization that included one person who did some very bad things when Obama was eight years old, and later cleaned up his act and did some good things. To my knowledge, no one has ever criticized the projects on which Ayers and Obama worked together. The assumption seems to be that because Ayers did some bad things several years earlier, Obama should refuse to even sit in the same room with him. I don’t know what project Ayers and Obama worked on, but let’s assume it was something like building new libraries. Why should anyone say “I’m willing to sacrifice those libraries so that I don’t have to sit on the same committee with Ayers.” What exactly would that accomplish? As long as the project that Obama was involved with was doing good things, what does it matter that Ayers did some bad things years ago?
Part of political reality is that sometimes you have to work with people whose values are very different from yours. When McCain does this, he calls it reaching across the aisle. But when Obama reaches out to people with different values from his own, McCain claims that you can only measure a person’s worth by who he isn’t willing to work with. That doesn’t seem to me to be a very presidential attitude. I think that it’s very important to have high standards about what you’re willing to do. But if someone with a checkered past decides to do something good for a change, it seems to me that the sensible thing is to form an alliance with them, and get some good things done.
If anyone does find any corruption or other nefarious activity actually performed by any Obama/Ayers et. al. committee, Obama should be blamed in proportion to how much he knew about those activities. Compare the Obama/Ayers “relationship” to McCain’s close connection with the Keating Savings and Loan Scandal. McCain not only had a long personal relationship with a man who was eventually jailed for robbing thousands of people of their life savings. McCain played an active part in those activities that got Keating jailed. He was not founded legally culpable for what he did, but the connection was certainly closer than the connection between Ayers and the eight-year-old Obama.
Teed Rockwell
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
A question for Economists
There was an article in the new York Times today saying that Credit card company may collapse, which will cause people to spend less. Unfortunately If people spend less, there will be a collapse in the economy, so that is not the solution. I think that the solution is to enable people to spend more without going into debt. The way to enact that solution is to cut salaries on the top, and increase salaries on the bottom.
Reagan once claimed that the Economy needed more rich people, because they were the only ones who could invest capital in businesses. He may have been right back then. Now, however, there is too much capital and not enough spending money. Consequently, there are not enough people to buy products from the companies the Rich people are investing in. Credit delayed this problem as the salaries of ordinary American dropped, and the trickle down became an upward flood. But now that credit has collapsed, the only way to get the economy going is to put real permanent money back into the hands of the middle class.
That's my hunch, at any rate. Is there any data or economic theory to back it up? It seems intuitively obvious that there has to be a balance between capital and spending money for the economy to function. If one person has all the money in the world, the economy collapses. If no one has more than a dollar in his pocket, there is no capital, and no business get started. How do you calculate the optimal midpoint, where there is the best balance between capital and spending money. If there is a method to make this calculation, I'll bet that it shows the balance is way off, and we need to get more spending money and less capital. In other words, the rich need to get poorer, and the poor need to get richer. The Rich were quick to bite the bullet about the need for them to get Richer, back when the economic system needed more capital. An easy bullet for them to bite, and a tough one for the rest of us. But eventually a large number of people in America accepted that they needed to cut taxes on the Rich to help everyone. Will the Rich be willing to accept the new economic reality that requires them to share the wealth to get the economy going again?
Reagan once claimed that the Economy needed more rich people, because they were the only ones who could invest capital in businesses. He may have been right back then. Now, however, there is too much capital and not enough spending money. Consequently, there are not enough people to buy products from the companies the Rich people are investing in. Credit delayed this problem as the salaries of ordinary American dropped, and the trickle down became an upward flood. But now that credit has collapsed, the only way to get the economy going is to put real permanent money back into the hands of the middle class.
That's my hunch, at any rate. Is there any data or economic theory to back it up? It seems intuitively obvious that there has to be a balance between capital and spending money for the economy to function. If one person has all the money in the world, the economy collapses. If no one has more than a dollar in his pocket, there is no capital, and no business get started. How do you calculate the optimal midpoint, where there is the best balance between capital and spending money. If there is a method to make this calculation, I'll bet that it shows the balance is way off, and we need to get more spending money and less capital. In other words, the rich need to get poorer, and the poor need to get richer. The Rich were quick to bite the bullet about the need for them to get Richer, back when the economic system needed more capital. An easy bullet for them to bite, and a tough one for the rest of us. But eventually a large number of people in America accepted that they needed to cut taxes on the Rich to help everyone. Will the Rich be willing to accept the new economic reality that requires them to share the wealth to get the economy going again?
Friday, September 19, 2008
Rational “Pandering”
In the days before broadcast media, a politician could tell a grange meeting that he was going to increase farm subsidies and a banker’s organization that he was going to decrease farm subsidies, and no one would find out until after the election. Of course, this kind of thing is unethical, as well as irrational, but it is not always wrong to present different arguments to different groups of people. Reasoning always starts from premises and moves step by step to a conclusion. This means that when you argue rationally with someone, you must assume that you share certain premises, despite your many disagreements, and that you must start from those premises. Consequently, you must tailor your argument to the person you are arguing with, because no two people share exactly the same set of agreed-upon premises.
Last week an environmental group released a television ad that criticized Sarah Palin for authorizing the hunting of wolves from helicopters. That gave me one more reason for not voting for her and McCain, but as I was never planning on voting for her anyway, that wasn’t much of an accomplishment politically. That ad probably created a sense of solidarity between hunters and Palin, because many hunters probably also felt attacked by that ad. The argument of the ad was a modus ponens that used two premises: The explicit premise “Sarah Palin supports hunting wolves” and the implicit premise “If Sarah Palin supports hunting wolves, you shouldn’t vote for her”. It’s irrational to believe that somebody should be persuaded by this ad if they don’t accept the second premise. This ad might have been effective if it had supported the second premise in a way that would be persuasive to hunters. For example the ad could have distinguishing this kind of hunting from other forms of hunting i. e. by arguing it is exceptionally cruel and unsportsmanlike, or that it may lead to the extinction of the wolf. This could have been a fairly effective tactic. Hunters are one of the largest contributors to conservation efforts, because they want to preserve species so they can continue to hunt them.
Some people think that this line of argument would be hypocritical if you personally think hunting is barbaric and cruel. However, it is only possible to have one argument at a time, and if you both agree that wiping out species is a bad thing, there is no reason to have a different argument over the morality of hunting. Rationality can never get off the ground if you don’t have a shared set of premises. Because no people are in agreement on all their premises, to insist that arguments can’t focus on shared premises and ignore points of disagreement is to give up on rationality itself. It is dishonest to pretend that you share a point of agreement when you don’t. But to focus on shared points of agreement is a sign of respect for the person you are trying to convince.
For that reason, I think the following two facts about Sarah Palin are among the most effective and legitimate points for the Obama campaign.
1) From
the Huffington Post:
Despite denials by the Palin campaign, new evidence proves that as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, Sarah Palin had a direct hand in imposing fees to pay for post-sexual assault medical exams conducted by the city to gather evidence.
Palin's role is now confirmed by Wasilla City budget documents available online.
Under Sarah Palin's administration, Wasilla cut funds that had previously paid for the medical exams and began charging victims or their health insurers the $500 to $1200 fees. Although Palin spokeswoman Maria Comella wrote USA Today earlier this week that the GOP vice presidential nominee "does not believe, nor has she ever believed, that rape victims should have to pay for an evidence-gathering test...To suggest otherwise is a deliberate misrepresentation of her commitment to supporting victims and bringing violent criminals to justice," Palin, as mayor, fired police chief Irl Stambaugh and replaced him with Charlie Fannon, who with Palin's knowledge, slashed the budget for the exams and began charging the city's victims of sexual assault. The city budget documents demonstrate Palin read and signed off on the new budget. A year later, alarmed Alaska lawmakers passed legislation outlawing the practice.
*****
My comments:
Even Ayn Rand and the Libertarians believe that the Government is morally obligated to pay for police protection. Sarah Palin apparently sees Rand as some kind of socialist, for Palin is willing to charge a woman on a minimum wage salary over a thousand dollars before she will let the police get the evidence to catch her rapist. What's next, charging crime victims for police bullets fired while trying to catch a criminal?
The thing that is particularly repellent about this is that unlike everywhere else in the USA, vital public services in Alaska are not cut for financial reasons. Alaska has so much money they that they give over a thousand dollars a year to every citizen of the state. Apparently Palin feels that letting rapists go free is a policy that should be followed as a matter of principle, not as a last resort.
Oh yes, and there is also the fact that she lied about it.
2) From an article in the Berkeley Daily Planet by Paul Glusman.
“A few months before Palin spoke to the Republican convention, she addressed another party’s convention: the separatist Alaska Independence Party which wants to take Alaska out of the United States. That party’s slogan isn’t “Country First” but “Alaska First—Alaska Always.” Palin’s husband Todd is a long-time member of that party. Joe Vogler, the founder of that secessionist party, said (before he died in a plastic explosives transaction gone bad—I’m sure there are lots of good civilian reasons for a separatist to be buying plastic explosives) “I’m an Alaskan, not an American. I’ve got no use for America or her damned institutions.” The Alaska Independence Party trumpets those words on its website, right above the introduction to the party. You can see that at www.akip.org/introduction.html.”
These facts show that Sarah Palin is out of step with voters on all parts of the political spectrum. Surely saying “I’ve got no use for America or her damned institutions” is as outrageous as Wright’s use of the rhetorical trope “God damn America.” Surely we can all agree that rapists should not go free because of budget cuts, that police protection is a universal right, and that it is wrong to lie about your own history. The Democratic party has at least the right, and arguably the obligation, to build their campaign around these kinds of facts.
Last week an environmental group released a television ad that criticized Sarah Palin for authorizing the hunting of wolves from helicopters. That gave me one more reason for not voting for her and McCain, but as I was never planning on voting for her anyway, that wasn’t much of an accomplishment politically. That ad probably created a sense of solidarity between hunters and Palin, because many hunters probably also felt attacked by that ad. The argument of the ad was a modus ponens that used two premises: The explicit premise “Sarah Palin supports hunting wolves” and the implicit premise “If Sarah Palin supports hunting wolves, you shouldn’t vote for her”. It’s irrational to believe that somebody should be persuaded by this ad if they don’t accept the second premise. This ad might have been effective if it had supported the second premise in a way that would be persuasive to hunters. For example the ad could have distinguishing this kind of hunting from other forms of hunting i. e. by arguing it is exceptionally cruel and unsportsmanlike, or that it may lead to the extinction of the wolf. This could have been a fairly effective tactic. Hunters are one of the largest contributors to conservation efforts, because they want to preserve species so they can continue to hunt them.
Some people think that this line of argument would be hypocritical if you personally think hunting is barbaric and cruel. However, it is only possible to have one argument at a time, and if you both agree that wiping out species is a bad thing, there is no reason to have a different argument over the morality of hunting. Rationality can never get off the ground if you don’t have a shared set of premises. Because no people are in agreement on all their premises, to insist that arguments can’t focus on shared premises and ignore points of disagreement is to give up on rationality itself. It is dishonest to pretend that you share a point of agreement when you don’t. But to focus on shared points of agreement is a sign of respect for the person you are trying to convince.
For that reason, I think the following two facts about Sarah Palin are among the most effective and legitimate points for the Obama campaign.
1) From
the Huffington Post:
Despite denials by the Palin campaign, new evidence proves that as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, Sarah Palin had a direct hand in imposing fees to pay for post-sexual assault medical exams conducted by the city to gather evidence.
Palin's role is now confirmed by Wasilla City budget documents available online.
Under Sarah Palin's administration, Wasilla cut funds that had previously paid for the medical exams and began charging victims or their health insurers the $500 to $1200 fees. Although Palin spokeswoman Maria Comella wrote USA Today earlier this week that the GOP vice presidential nominee "does not believe, nor has she ever believed, that rape victims should have to pay for an evidence-gathering test...To suggest otherwise is a deliberate misrepresentation of her commitment to supporting victims and bringing violent criminals to justice," Palin, as mayor, fired police chief Irl Stambaugh and replaced him with Charlie Fannon, who with Palin's knowledge, slashed the budget for the exams and began charging the city's victims of sexual assault. The city budget documents demonstrate Palin read and signed off on the new budget. A year later, alarmed Alaska lawmakers passed legislation outlawing the practice.
*****
My comments:
Even Ayn Rand and the Libertarians believe that the Government is morally obligated to pay for police protection. Sarah Palin apparently sees Rand as some kind of socialist, for Palin is willing to charge a woman on a minimum wage salary over a thousand dollars before she will let the police get the evidence to catch her rapist. What's next, charging crime victims for police bullets fired while trying to catch a criminal?
The thing that is particularly repellent about this is that unlike everywhere else in the USA, vital public services in Alaska are not cut for financial reasons. Alaska has so much money they that they give over a thousand dollars a year to every citizen of the state. Apparently Palin feels that letting rapists go free is a policy that should be followed as a matter of principle, not as a last resort.
Oh yes, and there is also the fact that she lied about it.
2) From an article in the Berkeley Daily Planet by Paul Glusman.
“A few months before Palin spoke to the Republican convention, she addressed another party’s convention: the separatist Alaska Independence Party which wants to take Alaska out of the United States. That party’s slogan isn’t “Country First” but “Alaska First—Alaska Always.” Palin’s husband Todd is a long-time member of that party. Joe Vogler, the founder of that secessionist party, said (before he died in a plastic explosives transaction gone bad—I’m sure there are lots of good civilian reasons for a separatist to be buying plastic explosives) “I’m an Alaskan, not an American. I’ve got no use for America or her damned institutions.” The Alaska Independence Party trumpets those words on its website, right above the introduction to the party. You can see that at www.akip.org/introduction.html.”
These facts show that Sarah Palin is out of step with voters on all parts of the political spectrum. Surely saying “I’ve got no use for America or her damned institutions” is as outrageous as Wright’s use of the rhetorical trope “God damn America.” Surely we can all agree that rapists should not go free because of budget cuts, that police protection is a universal right, and that it is wrong to lie about your own history. The Democratic party has at least the right, and arguably the obligation, to build their campaign around these kinds of facts.
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Choosing A President: Ethics and Epistemology
Choosing A President:
Ethics and Epistemology
When making any important decision, the American People like to concern themselves with the Facts. When choosing a president, we often ask ourselves whether the things said about the candidates, good and bad, are actually true. We are less likely to ask whether their truth makes any difference. In other words, when we make a modus ponens argument, we ask about the P, but not the if P then Q. Even if P is true, does it require, or even imply, that Q is true? To answer questions of that sort, we often need to ask somewhat philosophical questions.
Ethics and Values
What is the point of asking whether a Candidate has quality X if we haven’t asked questions like: “What are the qualities that make a good president? How important is experience vs. intelligence vs. people skills? Is a good president (in the sense of skillful) the same as a good person? What virtues would be nice to have in friend, but may not be necessary for a president? If a president is honest, and skillful, need he also be likable?”
Judgment and Epistemology
Even if we know exactly what qualities a president ought to have, how can we be sure that the candidate has those qualities? How can we tell who would be a good president and who wouldn’t? What other judgments would we have to make to decide that a candidate would be a good president? What job experience is isomorphic enough with being a president that it can count as job experience? A senator has foreign policy experience, but a governor has executive experience. Which is more important for the presidency?
Too much of the current discourse on this topic assumes highly questionable answers to these questions. Although I intend to deal with other topics in this blog eventually, I think these are the questions that thinking people need to ask between now and this election. I have ideas of my own, which will be up soon. I’d welcome hearing yours.
Ethics and Epistemology
When making any important decision, the American People like to concern themselves with the Facts. When choosing a president, we often ask ourselves whether the things said about the candidates, good and bad, are actually true. We are less likely to ask whether their truth makes any difference. In other words, when we make a modus ponens argument, we ask about the P, but not the if P then Q. Even if P is true, does it require, or even imply, that Q is true? To answer questions of that sort, we often need to ask somewhat philosophical questions.
Ethics and Values
What is the point of asking whether a Candidate has quality X if we haven’t asked questions like: “What are the qualities that make a good president? How important is experience vs. intelligence vs. people skills? Is a good president (in the sense of skillful) the same as a good person? What virtues would be nice to have in friend, but may not be necessary for a president? If a president is honest, and skillful, need he also be likable?”
Judgment and Epistemology
Even if we know exactly what qualities a president ought to have, how can we be sure that the candidate has those qualities? How can we tell who would be a good president and who wouldn’t? What other judgments would we have to make to decide that a candidate would be a good president? What job experience is isomorphic enough with being a president that it can count as job experience? A senator has foreign policy experience, but a governor has executive experience. Which is more important for the presidency?
Too much of the current discourse on this topic assumes highly questionable answers to these questions. Although I intend to deal with other topics in this blog eventually, I think these are the questions that thinking people need to ask between now and this election. I have ideas of my own, which will be up soon. I’d welcome hearing yours.
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