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News Archives - Posts #35-46, 3-25, 13:54 PST to 4-7
#46
2004-4-7, 00:40 PDT
Sorry my posts are getting less and less frequent lately...
This time, I'll talk about free speech with reference to Kos' comment about the lynch in Fallujah.
For those of you who don't know, the comment is:
Let the people see what war is like. This isn't an Xbox game. There are real repercussions to Bush's folly.
That said, I feel nothing over the death of merceneries. They aren't in Iraq because of orders, or because they are there trying to help the people make Iraq a better place. They are there to wage war for profit. Screw them.
The comment is of course idiotic, for several reasons. One, Kos acts as if the regular troops are any different, which they are not - after all, they signed the enlistment form, and thus agreed to be murderers and cannon fodder for the United States.
Two, contractors or not contractors, they are human beings; further, one could argue that their deaths are worse than these of regular troops, because while regular troops' job involves getting killed for the country's chosen cause, contractors of all kinds do not, and further, the fact that they're not in the army indicates that they have a better sense of individuality.
Three, the US troops aren't there to make Iraq a better place, either; that may be their intention, but currently they're only screwing the country.
Anyway, all the people who started the campaign to boycott Kos need a lesson in free speech.
Free speech does not only mean that the government can't restrict it.
Legally, it does; but a person committed to free speech must not be content with the government not restricting it - no, s/he must refuse any opportunity to violate this right him/herself, even when s/he has the power to do so.
As a consumer, a person committed to free speech must not boycott products because of political affiliation (yes, boycotters of Rush Limbaugh advertisers, or of French products; I'm talking about you).
As an advertiser, s/he must not withdraw ads based on such disagreements, particularly over such stupid comments.
You don't see me boycotting patriots, proponents of the death penalty, theists, etc.
I may not vote for them, but I won't boycott people just because of such crap.
Of course, such a boycott will mean shit because my site gets on average 10 visits per day, most of which are accidental; but even if I get this power to restrict free speech, I won't use it.
It's important to note that this does not apply to actions.
A corporation that discriminates against blacks in hiring should be boycotted.
A corporation whose CEO is a racist, or even a book publisher that publishes Nazi books, should not.
There's a big difference between words and actions - free speech means that words must be absolutely protected, but does not make bad actions (e.g. lynching) tolerable.
#45
2004-4-4, 00:13 PDT
I promised Sunday, 3 am; I delivered on midnight, two hours before (yes, I can count - 2 am is exactly when daylight savings time starts).
The article on liberals and conservatives is up and running.
My agenda for the next 3 or 4 hours includes uploading the article to OSP, emailing Kenneth Quinnell (whom I attack in the article for making a biased comparison of liberals and conservatives), and reading 60 blogs because Hope has some business deadlines to meet and Natasha is nowhere to be found.
Maybe I'll post on OSP some short lexicon that explains a couple of political terms - I don't know. I'll post it here, too, just for the sake of it.
On another note, today's one of the very rare occasions, which in fact only occur 12 times in any given century, on which the day is written the same in whatever date system you use: 04-04-04 :-).
#44
2004-3-31, 10:37 PST
In the first episode superb British sitcom Yes, Minister, chief bureaucrat Sir Arnold explains to the minister of administrative affairs' private secretary Bernard: "The less you intend to do something, the more you have to keep talking about it," explaining why the aforementioned department's white paper is called "Open Government" but does not actually promote open government.
I recalled that a few moments ago, having just seen a banner ad on my forum: "Independent Reports on the Britich Columbian Liberals' Environmental Records," said the banner.
And so I thought up a new law of political cynicism: the more a term is used to describe a certain point of view, person, or action, the less that point of view/person/action/whatever has to do with the said word's actual meaning.
Independent counsels are rarely independent; Democratic Republics are never democratic; all the self-styled progressives of the Democratic Party are hardly progressive; and populists as a rule of thumb don't do what the people want, what they (the politicians) think the people want, or even what they think is best for the people.
#43
2004-3-30, 23:43 PST
Correction to post #42: Holy War has two stories that are also on my site - not just A Theist Tale but also The Story of Bob (which I confused with another of David's articles, Resurrecting Atlantis, which is not featured on this site).
Announcement: read my virtual lips - the liberalism/conservatism article will be online by this Sunday, 4 am PST.
#42
2004-3-30, 22:41 PST
Check David M. Payne's site, Holy War.
It features a couple of very good articles on religion and how Christianity is authoritarian, including A Theist Tale, which is also included on Redeye's Corner.
Warning: it's hardly politically correct, so if you are a religious person who can't stand seeing his beliefs challenged, you may want to skip that site.
#41
2004-3-30, 17:38 PST
Condi will testify. Hooray.
I'ev always known I have this power to make people do things... ;-).
#40
2004-3-29, 20:53 PST
In a democracy, there are two important rights that often conflict with each other - freedom of information and the right to privacy.
They're reconciled by relegating freedom of information to government and public service activities and privacy to the rest.
The Bush administration, however, appears to reverse that: as far as private activities go, they're ardent proponents of state surveillance in the form of the Patriot Act and sex laws, and as far as government activities go, they are very pro-privacy... at least when it's their government (when the government is Democratic, they want complete accountability).
That's the only way I can explain the way they support Condi Rice's refusal to testify. She says it's "against policy for the national security advisor to testify"; I wonder whether she is willing to get Clinton's national security advisor to corroborate that.
The bright (or darker - depends on how you look at it) side of this is that governments have always been that way; this current administration was simply unlucky enough to get caught.
#39
2004-3-28, 04:18 PST
While preparing the latest Around the OSP Blogs column, I stumbled across this post by Jeff Alworth, which also made it to the column.
The post bashes Bush's "may defense" - brushing of an issue by saying "it may be true" (about, for instance, global warming).
This, however, is irrelevant to this post's topic.
Rather, it is gas price, which one poster brought up in a strawman argument against acting to prevent global warming.
He bashed raising the price of gas from $1.95 a gallon to $5, which is what people in Europe usually pay, on the grounds that it will "lose jobs."
I ignore that "it'll lose jobs" argument on the grounds that no evidence or other substantiation is presented that higher gas prices lead to recession.
What I don't ignore is one huge plus that will ensue from raising gas price - namely the eradication of the split between inner cities and suburbs.
A bit of math here: suppose that the average suburban yuppie drives 30,000 kilometers every year.
The EPA assumes 24,000 km (p. 2) in its calculations; people who live in the suburbs, however, drive more than average because of the distance between them and their workplaces - 30,000 km a year works out to 80 km a day, i.e. driving 40 km to the city and back every day, which is a pretty reasonable estimate.
Now, how much does it cost the suburbanite to drive 30,000 km every year? The EPA assumes that gas prices are $1.6 per gallon, i.e. ¢42 per liter.
Average mileage per gallon is 24, IIRC, i.e. 10 km per liter; in other words, your average suburbanite consumed 3,000 liters of fuel every year, i.e. $1,200.
Now, suppose gas price increased to the $1.10, which is the global average; the cost would increase to $3,300. More importantly, suppose that the government wanted to really crack down on fuel consumption and raise gas prices to $5.00 per liter, i.e. $19 per gallon.
The cost of living in the suburbs would rise by 3 grand a year for every dollar a liter (=3.75 dollars a gallon, for the metrically challenged); the cost of living in the inner city would rise, too, but much less sharply.
In other words, raising gas prices hysterically would start forcing people from the suburbs back into the inner city.
"What good will it do?" You may ask. My answer is, "especially if the returning to the city is gradual rather than sudden, which can be ensured by raising gas prices incrementally, the quality of life in the inner city will rise. Inner-city schools will improve, most notably, thus reducing poverty in the United States. At worst, suburbanites will simply switch to more fuel efficient cars, which will help the environment."
Besides, reducing fuel consumption will cut Al Qaida's funding.
And yet, I have yet to meet one hawk who will laud a plan to cut fuel consumption on these grounds...
Can you spell hypocrisy ;-)?
#38
2004-3-27, 22:57 PST
Does anyone know what to do with these frustrating popups that litter this site?
On another note, news archive #3 is up; I may or may not add more posts to it as there are more new news posts.
#37
2004-3-27, 22:50 PST
One of the latest memes spread by Republicans is that "Bin Laden wants Kerry to win." As far as I'm concerned this is a joke with no logical weight, on the following grounds:
1. None of the people who say this has actually asked Bin Laden or checked Bin Laden's previous statements or something.
2. Bin Laden is very anti-communist. Does it means we need to go communist to piss him off?
3. Even if Bin Laden wants Kerry to win, it doesn't mean that a Bush administration will be worse for Al Qaida - after all, the communists in Germany preferred Hitler to a stable democracy, and Hitler persecuted every trace of socialism, which included of course communism.
4. Given Bush's appeasement of atrocities committed by China or the USA's allies, one could say, "Islam Karimov wants Bush to win."
#36
2004-3-25, 15:08 PST
Check out Phillip Kuchar's article on why the war on faith-based terrorism is itself faith-based terrorism.
The argument made is intelligent, unlike the crap Chomsky spews about American imperialism and how 9/11 is comparable to anti-Nazi resistance.
It basically attacks a) Christian fundamentalists who are identical to Bin Laden except that their preferred method of proselytization is so far subversion rather than terrorism, and b) the war on terrorism itself, on the grounds that it kills civilians for a cause.
It's interesting to note that one argument made in the article, namely that while the USA does not strictly speaking intend to hit civilians, it attacks civilian populations knowing that there will be civilian casualties and is hence guilty of terrorism; I wouldn't call this terrorism (I prefer the plainer term, "murder"), but otherwise this is exactly the argument I make against the War on Afghanistan Iraq whichever country is next on the list.
I didn't edit the article, so none of the spelling mistakes there is mine.
#35
2004-3-25, 13:54 PST
Two things:
1. I forgot to update the main site to reflect the update of the news page. This will be rectified within a minute of posting this message.
2. I am going to post chapters of a fiction book called Freedom is Slavery, concerning a world of unrestrained capitalism, where the 15 corporations that rule the world do everything to convince the people that they're now free from that oppressive government that would hand their own money to lazy bums and regulate their lives in every aspect and so on.
Since I do not think that I'll be able to publish this on OSP, and since I have so far gotten 4 unsolicited emails and 0 threads on my forum not started by me concerning this website in 10 months, I will decide whether it's worth continuing posting based on traffic stats.
This site has gotten
hits since 2003-12-25.