Today I'm transitioning to a new computer. I am not very technically-inclined, so wish me luck as I attempt to set it up and move all my stuff from the old machine to the new one. It is really astounding how much I depend on my computer. It is even more astounding how much I have cluttered it up over the years. It's like going through a time capsule!
Hopefully this will not take too long. With luck, I will be back up and posting by tomorrow. I have a long list of issues to discuss, so this will not be a long break. Feel free to check out my archives if you are really itching to read something. Until then, thanks for checking in.
Oesterhoudt
EDIT : I started setting things up and realized that I was missing some parts. It turns out they won't be in until next week. So I guess this whole post was a false alarm. Ah, technology.
I'll stick to my old machine until next week.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Thursday, September 10, 2009
A WORD ON JOE WILSON AND THE NATIONAL DEBATE
A REFLECTION
I would be remiss if I did not write something about Representative Joe Wilson’s (R-SC) outburst last night during President Obama’s congressional health care address. I was genuinely stunned when I heard someone—a Washington politician, not some anarchist on the street or even a stealthy outside activist—call out “You lie” as the President spoke. Don’t get me wrong: I’m all about disrespecting authority. But I have some standards about the time and place to do it.
For a moment, I thought that we had gone the way of the British parliament, in which acting politicians traditionally interrupt their colleagues as they speak. Yet there is something hallowed about Presidential speeches before Congress. They are not “routine debates.” There is an unspoken code of decorum when the President speaks during a joint meeting of government. For a brief moment, Congressmen and Senators put aside their everyday quarrels in deference to the Executive. When both parties sit and listen to the President—no matter his own party affiliation—it reinforces the notion that the government is united, even if only symbolically. To return to the British example, not even the cheekiest MP ever shouts at the Queen when she speaks.
Joe Wilson’s outburst destroyed even that fictional unity. And why? To protest President Obama’s contention that the Democratic health care reform plan would not cover illegal aliens. This man took an unprecedented step against congressional protocol to personally attack President Obama’s honesty in the very halls of government. Pundits on both sides will endlessly debate whether the President’s statement was “technically accurate.” But that is really not the point. Rhetoric is not science. It does not work when it bogs down in minuscule details. Statements do not carry as much rhetorical punch when they nitpick. Perhaps Obama did not remember every single proposed section in every single proposed bill about health care. Perhaps he even misspoke. I don’t know.
Still, misspeaking does not warrant the pejorative exclamation: “You lie.” Those are fighting words. They do not impinge upon technical knowledge. They impinge upon personal honor, integrity and decency. They are as much an insult as a critique.
In a way, Joe Wilson’s outburst does not surprise me. I have warned over and over again that Obama faces very real dangers simply because he is an African-American in a country with a longstanding tradition of intolerance toward African-Americans. I have warned that Obama’s mere presence courts danger in some parts of the country. His first months in office have borne out my warnings. Never before has dissent been so ominous as dissent on Obama’s health care push. Town hall meetings descend into shouting matches and fistfights. Republicans show up to Presidential appearances with loaded rifles. Opponents concoct absurd stories about “death panels” and suggest that President Obama is not an American citizen. Now Joe Wilson ignores traditional respect for the President’s office by calling him a liar on the floor of Congress.
These are not good omens. They show that Obama’s opponents not only do not respect him, but they are willing to put aside all civility in order to derail him. It is just a matter of time before heated words and sneering disrespect turn into violence. Worse, Joe Wilson’s outburst shows that not just private citizens adhere to these sentiments. So do elected officials. And they actually swore an oath to uphold the constitutional system.
Republicans will undoubtedly counter that Democrats showed no respect toward George W. Bush during his time in office. They will say that fiery partisanship is the order of the day in modern Washington politics. True, many private citizens paraded against Bush. They even threw eggs at his Presidential limo during his inauguration in 2001. Democratic politicians, too, reserved harsh words for Bush in public statements. But in no case did any Democratic Congressman ever interrupt President Bush while he spoke to Congress, let alone call him a liar in public. In this sense, both Democrats and Republicans are guilty of partisan politics. The difference is that Republicans willingly disrespect constitutional traditions in order to spew their bile.
I venture that Democrats had every reason to interrupt Bush for lying during his Congressional addresses. After all, Bush told Congress that African nations were supplying uranium to Saddam Hussein. He also manufactured stories to suggest that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction in order to induce support for a foreign war. These were lies that led America into bloody armed conflict and bankruptcy. They were not casual misstatements about thousand-page health care legislation. If ever a congressman had reason to scream “You Lie” at the President in the Capitol Building, it was in 2002 or 2003.
Yet I applaud the Democrats for never doing so. Rather than disturb traditional respect for the President while he speaks to Congress, Democrats waited until after the speech to register their dissent. They observed protocol, if for no other reason than to maintain the fictional unity that the protocol is intended to generate.
Not so with Joe Wilson. Protocol meant nothing to him, nor did the importance of the “unity fiction in government.” What does this mean? I think it means that the national debate is flying off the handle. In recent months, rhetoric about health care has reached white-hot levels. It is as belligerent as it is unreasonable, misinformed and confused. Civility has no place in this debate. And Joe Wilson’s outburst shows that civility cannot even survive in the Capitol Building while the President speaks.
This is the state of our national debate. It does not bode well. Democracy only works when the losing party accepts the winning party’s rule. It fails when the losing party revolts and refuses to cooperate on anything. In ancient Rome, civil wars broke out whenever an Emperor died because there was no protocol for succession. In the United States, we peacefully transition power to winning Presidents, even though millions and millions of people voted against them. The losers do not rebel against the winner. They grin and bear their loss for the good of the Nation as a whole. They continue to dissent, but they accept some things as sacred. They know when and where to dissent. Even MPs in England know that.
Joe Wilson’s outburst seems to show that the losers don’t really think that way anymore. On health care, nothing is sacred. Civility is dead. Not even age-old congressional traditions and unspoken deference to the President during an official address constrain those determined to undermine ideas with which they disagree.
I have many objections about the American constitutional system. I do not shy away from expressing them. To use a hackneyed phrase, criticism is patriotic. Nonetheless, I would never get up and yell at the President, especially if I were an elected official who took an oath to serve our constitutional system. For all my sneering irony and sarcasm, I know my place. Not only that, criticism works best in private.
I do not believe that Joe Wilson is an isolated case. He spoke for a very real constituency when he yelled at the President. There are others just like him. They have even less respect for democratic traditions than Joe Wilson. They are regular guys with guns; and they do a lot more than call people liars.
This is what happens when reform-minded Presidents try to shake things up in the United States. And they weren’t even black.
I would be remiss if I did not write something about Representative Joe Wilson’s (R-SC) outburst last night during President Obama’s congressional health care address. I was genuinely stunned when I heard someone—a Washington politician, not some anarchist on the street or even a stealthy outside activist—call out “You lie” as the President spoke. Don’t get me wrong: I’m all about disrespecting authority. But I have some standards about the time and place to do it.
For a moment, I thought that we had gone the way of the British parliament, in which acting politicians traditionally interrupt their colleagues as they speak. Yet there is something hallowed about Presidential speeches before Congress. They are not “routine debates.” There is an unspoken code of decorum when the President speaks during a joint meeting of government. For a brief moment, Congressmen and Senators put aside their everyday quarrels in deference to the Executive. When both parties sit and listen to the President—no matter his own party affiliation—it reinforces the notion that the government is united, even if only symbolically. To return to the British example, not even the cheekiest MP ever shouts at the Queen when she speaks.
Joe Wilson’s outburst destroyed even that fictional unity. And why? To protest President Obama’s contention that the Democratic health care reform plan would not cover illegal aliens. This man took an unprecedented step against congressional protocol to personally attack President Obama’s honesty in the very halls of government. Pundits on both sides will endlessly debate whether the President’s statement was “technically accurate.” But that is really not the point. Rhetoric is not science. It does not work when it bogs down in minuscule details. Statements do not carry as much rhetorical punch when they nitpick. Perhaps Obama did not remember every single proposed section in every single proposed bill about health care. Perhaps he even misspoke. I don’t know.
Still, misspeaking does not warrant the pejorative exclamation: “You lie.” Those are fighting words. They do not impinge upon technical knowledge. They impinge upon personal honor, integrity and decency. They are as much an insult as a critique.
In a way, Joe Wilson’s outburst does not surprise me. I have warned over and over again that Obama faces very real dangers simply because he is an African-American in a country with a longstanding tradition of intolerance toward African-Americans. I have warned that Obama’s mere presence courts danger in some parts of the country. His first months in office have borne out my warnings. Never before has dissent been so ominous as dissent on Obama’s health care push. Town hall meetings descend into shouting matches and fistfights. Republicans show up to Presidential appearances with loaded rifles. Opponents concoct absurd stories about “death panels” and suggest that President Obama is not an American citizen. Now Joe Wilson ignores traditional respect for the President’s office by calling him a liar on the floor of Congress.
These are not good omens. They show that Obama’s opponents not only do not respect him, but they are willing to put aside all civility in order to derail him. It is just a matter of time before heated words and sneering disrespect turn into violence. Worse, Joe Wilson’s outburst shows that not just private citizens adhere to these sentiments. So do elected officials. And they actually swore an oath to uphold the constitutional system.
Republicans will undoubtedly counter that Democrats showed no respect toward George W. Bush during his time in office. They will say that fiery partisanship is the order of the day in modern Washington politics. True, many private citizens paraded against Bush. They even threw eggs at his Presidential limo during his inauguration in 2001. Democratic politicians, too, reserved harsh words for Bush in public statements. But in no case did any Democratic Congressman ever interrupt President Bush while he spoke to Congress, let alone call him a liar in public. In this sense, both Democrats and Republicans are guilty of partisan politics. The difference is that Republicans willingly disrespect constitutional traditions in order to spew their bile.
I venture that Democrats had every reason to interrupt Bush for lying during his Congressional addresses. After all, Bush told Congress that African nations were supplying uranium to Saddam Hussein. He also manufactured stories to suggest that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction in order to induce support for a foreign war. These were lies that led America into bloody armed conflict and bankruptcy. They were not casual misstatements about thousand-page health care legislation. If ever a congressman had reason to scream “You Lie” at the President in the Capitol Building, it was in 2002 or 2003.
Yet I applaud the Democrats for never doing so. Rather than disturb traditional respect for the President while he speaks to Congress, Democrats waited until after the speech to register their dissent. They observed protocol, if for no other reason than to maintain the fictional unity that the protocol is intended to generate.
Not so with Joe Wilson. Protocol meant nothing to him, nor did the importance of the “unity fiction in government.” What does this mean? I think it means that the national debate is flying off the handle. In recent months, rhetoric about health care has reached white-hot levels. It is as belligerent as it is unreasonable, misinformed and confused. Civility has no place in this debate. And Joe Wilson’s outburst shows that civility cannot even survive in the Capitol Building while the President speaks.
This is the state of our national debate. It does not bode well. Democracy only works when the losing party accepts the winning party’s rule. It fails when the losing party revolts and refuses to cooperate on anything. In ancient Rome, civil wars broke out whenever an Emperor died because there was no protocol for succession. In the United States, we peacefully transition power to winning Presidents, even though millions and millions of people voted against them. The losers do not rebel against the winner. They grin and bear their loss for the good of the Nation as a whole. They continue to dissent, but they accept some things as sacred. They know when and where to dissent. Even MPs in England know that.
Joe Wilson’s outburst seems to show that the losers don’t really think that way anymore. On health care, nothing is sacred. Civility is dead. Not even age-old congressional traditions and unspoken deference to the President during an official address constrain those determined to undermine ideas with which they disagree.
I have many objections about the American constitutional system. I do not shy away from expressing them. To use a hackneyed phrase, criticism is patriotic. Nonetheless, I would never get up and yell at the President, especially if I were an elected official who took an oath to serve our constitutional system. For all my sneering irony and sarcasm, I know my place. Not only that, criticism works best in private.
I do not believe that Joe Wilson is an isolated case. He spoke for a very real constituency when he yelled at the President. There are others just like him. They have even less respect for democratic traditions than Joe Wilson. They are regular guys with guns; and they do a lot more than call people liars.
This is what happens when reform-minded Presidents try to shake things up in the United States. And they weren’t even black.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
BEATING ROBBERS : HOW TO KEEP YOURSELF AND YOUR PROPERTY SAFE FROM VIOLENT CRIME
CRIME WATCH
By : Mr. G. Chadwick Klauenberg, Esq., J.D. (University of Pennsylvania Law School 1980), Former Chief of Police, East Orange, New Jersey (1985-2005); Published Author, Can’t Thug This : Hoodlum Management in 21st Century Urban America (New York Times Bestseller List), a Best-Selling Self-Defense Handbook; Amateur Chef; Property Owner (residence and beachfront properties).
We live in a violent society. For those who inhabit cities in the United States, crime is a very real danger. Murderous gangs roam the streets. Discharged and undiagnosed psychiatric patients threaten to push innocent commuters before onrushing subway trains. Con artists defraud hard-working men and women with fanciful yarns. And thousands of petty thieves mill through the streets every day, picking pockets, stealing, looting, robbing and swindling.
It is essential to know how to deal with crime. But today I do not write to call for greater enforcement against criminals. I leave that to legislators and executive officials in State government. Rather, today I write in order to inform the public about an important skill: How to keep yourself and your property safe from violent crime. Today, we are not talking about theories and abstractions. We are talking about real-life, practical skills that will prevent you from being the next police statistic.
Let’s face it: Many criminals want your property. They want your wallet, your watch, your Gucci handbag, your billfold, your cash, your family amulet, your car and even your furniture. Criminals are not like you or me. They do not work, make money, pay taxes and buy things at Wal-Mart®. No, they have separated themselves from society. Unlike us, they acquire money and property by violence, scheme and coercion. Everybody wants property in our society. Yet there is a legal way to do it. Criminals don’t follow the legal way.
It is illegal to steal and rob. As law-abiding citizens, we find it appalling that some people commit violence in order to obtain property. But that does not alter the fact that many people do it. For that reason, we must be prepared to deal with robbers and thieves. They are out there. They see our property. They want it. And they are ready to hurt us to take it from us. Put simply, we must be on our guard.
I have written many articles about self-defense and practical crime prevention. I always take a practical approach. I do not try to explain social trends and the reasons “why” criminals become criminals. I do not rationalize criminal behavior, nor do I make excuses for criminals, like blaming bad schools, bad parenting and poverty. Rather, I try to keep law-abiding citizens—like you—safe from hooligans. It does not help a robbery victim to understand why her assailant is a hooligan; it helps to prevent the hooligan from attacking in the first place. Hooligans are hooligans. In my book, that fact doesn’t change. And it makes no sense to debate it.
Let’s talk robbery. We must always fear robbers. They lurk everywhere. At this very moment, some thug may be sitting in a car outside your townhouse, observing your daily routine. He may be looking at your clothes, your briefcase and even the grocery bags you carry on the way home from work every night at 9 PM. He may be looking at your house and guessing that you have quite a lot of property. He may be plotting the right moment to ambush you and take your wallet. Put simply, robbers are everywhere. As long as you have property, robbers will try to take it from you.
I was a police chief for 20 years. Before that, I went to law school. From both a legal and law enforcement perspective, I know a thing or two about robbers. My knowledge can help you avert robbery. Robbery has a legal definition. In the law, behavior either fits the definition or it doesn’t. You can legally avoid robbery if you know what robbery actually means. When you understand what robbery actually is, you can take steps to make it impossible for a criminal to rob you.
At common law and in most State law, robbery is “the taking of personal property from a person by force or fear.” That means a person can rob you with a toy gun because he creates “fear” in order to take your personal property. It also means no one can rob your house, or your tree, or even apples from your tree, because those things are “real property,” not “personal property.” “Personal property” is “anything that is movable,” like a watch, a wallet, a pocket-knife, a painting or a jar. Apples are movable, too, but they are an exception to the rule because they come from trees, which are not “personal property.” There has also been some debate whether a mobile home is “personal property.” But let’s not get too philosophical; in most cases, a robber doesn’t want your trailer or your apple orchard.
No matter the circumstances, robbery cannot occur without “property.” A criminal cannot legally commit robbery without “taking property.” From a practical perspective, this means you can completely avoid robbery by refusing to carry, own or otherwise lay claim to property. Consider this: If you own nothing and go about naked on the street, you cannot be robbed. Legally, no criminal can rob you if you are naked, penniless and possess nothing. Now, if you were naked and had a rope around your neck, a criminal could rob you by threatening to kill you unless you gave him the rope. But again, you can avoid that situation by simply owning or possessing nothing at all, not even a rope. Property is the key to robbery. Without property, you cannot be robbed. Thus, refusing to own or possess anything is the best defense against robbery.
Other crime prevention advocates recommend lesser measures to prevent robbery. They offer advice such as “don’t go out by yourself;” “watch your belongings;” “stay away from bad neighborhoods;” and “don’t show off expensive goods.” Yet these are half-measures. They do not make it legally impossible to suffer robbery. Rather, they still allow robbers an opportunity to commit robbery. If you “don’t go out by yourself,” yet still own property, a criminal can rob you because there is property available to “take by force or fear.” Similarly, even if you don’t “show off expensive goods,” a criminal can still rob you because you have “expensive goods” (which are “personal property”) to take “by force or fear.” It doesn’t matter whether you conceal it; if you have it, someone can take it. In sum, then, these measures may reduce the chance that you will suffer robbery. But they do not render robbery legally impossible.
Wouldn’t you rather make it impossible for a criminal to rob you? A 0% chance of robbery is preferable to a 10% chance. The only sure way to make robbery legally impossible is to stop owning or possessing property. No matter how much you conceal or protect your property, a determined robber always has something to “take by force or fear.” But if you are naked, broke and destitute, you have nothing that can be robbed. The minute you obtain property you are subject to robbery. Why increase your risk? Just don’t own anything; it will render robbery a hollow threat.
Law teaches us many things. Many people think that the law does not provide practical solutions to real problems. But here we see that the law allows us to effectively prevent crime. By understanding what robbery actually means, we can stop robbers before they even obtain the legal opportunity to violate our property rights. Let robbers try to rob you. If you are naked and own nothing, you are completely safe.
Now, a would-be robber might get angry when he discovers you have nothing to “take by force or fear.” In that case, he might attack you with a weapon or his fists. If you are a woman, he might try to sexually assault you. In fact, these chances increase if you are naked on the street. Nonetheless, none of these criminal acts would be robbery. They might be rape, or murder, or attempted rape, or attempted murder, or assault, or sexual assault or battery. But they would not be robbery because the criminal has no “personal property to take.”
Let the law work for you. The law is not just a post hoc remedy intended to deter future criminals from violating your rights. It is a proactive tool. You must merely understand what the law requires before setting off on your daily routine. I have dedicated my life to preventing crime. We can prevent crime by understanding legal definitions. That is why I say to you: If you know what robbery actually means, you can make it impossible for anyone to rob you. Just refuse to own or possess anything.
This is not an absurd recommendation. How can we call a solution absurd if it completely prevents a potential problem? In my opinion, a solution that completely removes the possibility of a problem is a winning solution, not an absurd one. To that extent, heed my advice. If you wish to forever free yourself from robbers, simply give up all your property and live penniless—and naked—on the street. If you do that, you will literally have no “personal property” to “take by force or fear,” not even tattered old rags.
Just imagine how good you’ll feel knowing you can’t be robbed. If someone puts a gun in your face while you’re naked and broke, let him say: “This is a robbery.” You can confidently say: “No it isn’t. I cannot legally be robbed.”
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
NEW YORK RENTS & THE FREE MARKET : A LITTLE PROFIT IS NOT ENOUGH
OESTERHOUDT STRIKES
Most people know that it is expensive to live in New York City. But most people do not realize just how expensive. Rent in Manhattan is truly exorbitant when you consider how little your money buys. While it has always been relatively more expensive to live in New York as compared to any other city in the country (exception: San Francisco), prices have accelerated especially quickly over the past 15 years. One-room studios in Greenwich Village used to cost $900 a month in the mid-1990s. Now they can cost up to $2900. That is acceleration, baby.
What caused this? Do landlords suddenly deliver more value in 2009 than they used to deliver in 1994? Do you get free champagne service and a complimentary shoeshine with your apartment now? No—you get the same thing you got in 1994: a semi-trashy walkup with old fixtures. Your landlord is just making a much bigger profit than he used to. Real estate markets in other States took a beating in recent years. But not New York. Things just kept on marching skyward here. And now virtually no one can afford it except wealthy publishing heirs, Japanese industrial magnates, Hollywood celebrities and various prematurely gray, professional workaholics with no lives who hire nannies (weekends included, because they work then, too).
I often write about profit and the “ugliness” of commercial enterprise in general. Rent in New York City encapsulates my views on the subject like no other. Why are rent prices in New York so high? If landlords are not delivering more value now than they did in the past, what entitles them to keep charging more? According to free market principles, price is a function of “supply and demand.” Applying those principles, it is easy to see why New York rent prices increased so much since 1994. There is a very limited supply of apartments in Manhattan (it is a pretty small, narrow island, after all), and demand for them has steadily increased since “Giuliani time” (ie, the era during which many Americans began to feel that hoodlums, bandits and various “minority thugs” no longer ruled the streets).
Not many apartments. A lot of people want them. They’re going to cost a ton. That’s the free market for you. The same thing happens with umbrellas when it rains: Not many umbrellas. A lot of people want them. The hawkers can charge anything they want to exploit the sudden demand. An umbrella that costs a dollar on a sunny day costs $40 in a downpour. People call this “price gouging” when a street hawker does it. But when a Manhattan landlord or industrial baron does it, it’s called “prudently reacting to progressive market trends.” No matter what you call it, it adheres to the same principle: Make as much profit as you possibly can in the circumstances.
I find this all atrociously ugly. In the free market, those with “goods in demand” suddenly obtain the power to screw everyone else simply because they can. I have written about this power in other circumstances. Banks, for instance, charge fees for ATM use—up to $4.00 for taking out $20.00—because they can. They don’t need to charge that much to cover their cost and make a modest profit. In the free market, modest profits are not enough. Those with the power to make a profit want gratuitous, gluttonous, bountiful, excessive, disgusting, fattening, overflowing, sumptuous, fat-dripping profits. They don’t want to make $1 per unit; they want $100 per unit. This is just the way the free market works. When someone has the unique power to provide goods or services in demand, he or she can throttle the public for far more than the goods or services are worth. Modest profits are no good. In the free market mind, only luscious profits are appetizing. After all, why go into business if you can’t really cash in?
At this point, someone will naturally object: “Prices reflect operating costs and factor in some margin for profit, but nothing excessive.” This might be true in markets in which goods are not in special demand. But it is not true in the New York rental market. Consider this example: My friend’s father co-owned an apartment building in Manhattan starting in 1959. In 2001, he said that he could make a decent profit on a one-room studio (450 square feet) by charging no more than $715 per month. He sold the building the same year. The company that bought it began charging new tenants $2900 for the same apartment in 2002.
Overhead cannot possibly have increased that much in one year. The landlord did not increase the rent by over 300% in order to defray new costs. He increased the rent because he could; and demand was so high he could actually get away with it. He was not satisfied with the “modest profit” he could net from $715 per month. He wanted the bulging, luscious profit he could wring by charging four times as much. This is the free market at work: Take demand and drain it for all it’s worth, no matter how shameless the “gouging.”
I do not write all this in order to abolish the free market. I know the Soviet Union failed, so spare me that standardized objection. I mention it only to point out there is nothing at all dignified about free market forces. Some have the good fortune to own goods or offer services at a time and place in which they are in special demand. Everyone else needs the goods and services. This arms those who possess the goods or services with unusually disparate economic power. The party with power has discretion whether to exploit it by overcharging and making a huge profit or acting “fairly” and making only a modest profit. When it comes between big profits and small profits, which one do you think the true free marketeer will choose? This is not just natural human avarice at work; institutional factors come into play, too. Corporations, after all, are fictional entities established for one reason: To maximize shareholder wealth. “Maximize” means “get the most you can in the circumstances.” As such, corporations have a legal duty to “gouge” as much as possible for the goods or services they sell (subject always to laws that would cost more to violate than ignore).
I do not like tilted playing fields like this. That is why my blood boils when I read about New York rents. Landlords essentially charge thousands of dollars for something that is really worth hundreds. I know for a fact that they do not need to charge as much as they do. They do it only because they want to gorge themselves on profit. At the profit table, New York landlords are not content to nibble or even eat their fill. They need to stuff themselves with profit with orgiastic relish. And even then they are not satisfied. The same apartment that cost $4200 a month last year will go up to $4500 a month next year, and on and on until you have to flee, making room for the next fully-bankrolled trust fund heiress. In my view, this is just disgusting.
I do not lightly use the word “disgust.” Generally, I criticize the concept because people use it to underscore perverse moral judgments on many subjects. But I honestly feel disgust when I learn about people who make excessive profits on goods or services that should not yield so much profit. After all, there are so many people who struggle in this country for next to nothing. Millions worry in desperate fear whether they will lose their home or go bankrupt because they can’t pay for an unexpected medical expense. Yet there are those who sit in offices and rake in billions simply because they had the good fortune to own choice property. Their hunger for profit drives everyone else to despair. The irony is that they really don’t need to charge as much as they do, not even close. But they charge $5000 for a $1000 apartment because they can. I find that disgusting.
I have no solution to this. Perhaps it is humanity’s fate to endlessly seek maximal profit at others’ expense. Perhaps there is nothing we can do to temper the human urge to maximize profit when opportunity permits. Perhaps this is just the way we are. Commerce, after all, is warlike. By nature, man is a violent creature. He seeks to dominate his fellows. But in civilization, he can’t assert his dominance with brute force, so he uses “civilized” means, such as economic tyranny and legal oppression.
Commercial struggles replace the struggle for survival in the wild. And just as survival in the wild requires total victory over natural foes, so too does commercial dominance require total victory over every conceivable foe. The urge to maximize profits reflects that desire for “total commercial victory.” Modest profits simply do not cut it.
What would the world come to if landlords only charged “what they needed to survive plus a little extra?” Sadly, people only take risks in our society if they know they’ll get a chance to gorge themselves at the profit buffet. No one would risk all for a mere chance to nibble or snack. Although this hunger for excess might lead to “progress” and “prosperity,” it sure makes life bitter for everyone else who has to tribute food to the buffet.
Most people know that it is expensive to live in New York City. But most people do not realize just how expensive. Rent in Manhattan is truly exorbitant when you consider how little your money buys. While it has always been relatively more expensive to live in New York as compared to any other city in the country (exception: San Francisco), prices have accelerated especially quickly over the past 15 years. One-room studios in Greenwich Village used to cost $900 a month in the mid-1990s. Now they can cost up to $2900. That is acceleration, baby.
What caused this? Do landlords suddenly deliver more value in 2009 than they used to deliver in 1994? Do you get free champagne service and a complimentary shoeshine with your apartment now? No—you get the same thing you got in 1994: a semi-trashy walkup with old fixtures. Your landlord is just making a much bigger profit than he used to. Real estate markets in other States took a beating in recent years. But not New York. Things just kept on marching skyward here. And now virtually no one can afford it except wealthy publishing heirs, Japanese industrial magnates, Hollywood celebrities and various prematurely gray, professional workaholics with no lives who hire nannies (weekends included, because they work then, too).
I often write about profit and the “ugliness” of commercial enterprise in general. Rent in New York City encapsulates my views on the subject like no other. Why are rent prices in New York so high? If landlords are not delivering more value now than they did in the past, what entitles them to keep charging more? According to free market principles, price is a function of “supply and demand.” Applying those principles, it is easy to see why New York rent prices increased so much since 1994. There is a very limited supply of apartments in Manhattan (it is a pretty small, narrow island, after all), and demand for them has steadily increased since “Giuliani time” (ie, the era during which many Americans began to feel that hoodlums, bandits and various “minority thugs” no longer ruled the streets).
Not many apartments. A lot of people want them. They’re going to cost a ton. That’s the free market for you. The same thing happens with umbrellas when it rains: Not many umbrellas. A lot of people want them. The hawkers can charge anything they want to exploit the sudden demand. An umbrella that costs a dollar on a sunny day costs $40 in a downpour. People call this “price gouging” when a street hawker does it. But when a Manhattan landlord or industrial baron does it, it’s called “prudently reacting to progressive market trends.” No matter what you call it, it adheres to the same principle: Make as much profit as you possibly can in the circumstances.
I find this all atrociously ugly. In the free market, those with “goods in demand” suddenly obtain the power to screw everyone else simply because they can. I have written about this power in other circumstances. Banks, for instance, charge fees for ATM use—up to $4.00 for taking out $20.00—because they can. They don’t need to charge that much to cover their cost and make a modest profit. In the free market, modest profits are not enough. Those with the power to make a profit want gratuitous, gluttonous, bountiful, excessive, disgusting, fattening, overflowing, sumptuous, fat-dripping profits. They don’t want to make $1 per unit; they want $100 per unit. This is just the way the free market works. When someone has the unique power to provide goods or services in demand, he or she can throttle the public for far more than the goods or services are worth. Modest profits are no good. In the free market mind, only luscious profits are appetizing. After all, why go into business if you can’t really cash in?
At this point, someone will naturally object: “Prices reflect operating costs and factor in some margin for profit, but nothing excessive.” This might be true in markets in which goods are not in special demand. But it is not true in the New York rental market. Consider this example: My friend’s father co-owned an apartment building in Manhattan starting in 1959. In 2001, he said that he could make a decent profit on a one-room studio (450 square feet) by charging no more than $715 per month. He sold the building the same year. The company that bought it began charging new tenants $2900 for the same apartment in 2002.
Overhead cannot possibly have increased that much in one year. The landlord did not increase the rent by over 300% in order to defray new costs. He increased the rent because he could; and demand was so high he could actually get away with it. He was not satisfied with the “modest profit” he could net from $715 per month. He wanted the bulging, luscious profit he could wring by charging four times as much. This is the free market at work: Take demand and drain it for all it’s worth, no matter how shameless the “gouging.”
I do not write all this in order to abolish the free market. I know the Soviet Union failed, so spare me that standardized objection. I mention it only to point out there is nothing at all dignified about free market forces. Some have the good fortune to own goods or offer services at a time and place in which they are in special demand. Everyone else needs the goods and services. This arms those who possess the goods or services with unusually disparate economic power. The party with power has discretion whether to exploit it by overcharging and making a huge profit or acting “fairly” and making only a modest profit. When it comes between big profits and small profits, which one do you think the true free marketeer will choose? This is not just natural human avarice at work; institutional factors come into play, too. Corporations, after all, are fictional entities established for one reason: To maximize shareholder wealth. “Maximize” means “get the most you can in the circumstances.” As such, corporations have a legal duty to “gouge” as much as possible for the goods or services they sell (subject always to laws that would cost more to violate than ignore).
I do not like tilted playing fields like this. That is why my blood boils when I read about New York rents. Landlords essentially charge thousands of dollars for something that is really worth hundreds. I know for a fact that they do not need to charge as much as they do. They do it only because they want to gorge themselves on profit. At the profit table, New York landlords are not content to nibble or even eat their fill. They need to stuff themselves with profit with orgiastic relish. And even then they are not satisfied. The same apartment that cost $4200 a month last year will go up to $4500 a month next year, and on and on until you have to flee, making room for the next fully-bankrolled trust fund heiress. In my view, this is just disgusting.
I do not lightly use the word “disgust.” Generally, I criticize the concept because people use it to underscore perverse moral judgments on many subjects. But I honestly feel disgust when I learn about people who make excessive profits on goods or services that should not yield so much profit. After all, there are so many people who struggle in this country for next to nothing. Millions worry in desperate fear whether they will lose their home or go bankrupt because they can’t pay for an unexpected medical expense. Yet there are those who sit in offices and rake in billions simply because they had the good fortune to own choice property. Their hunger for profit drives everyone else to despair. The irony is that they really don’t need to charge as much as they do, not even close. But they charge $5000 for a $1000 apartment because they can. I find that disgusting.
I have no solution to this. Perhaps it is humanity’s fate to endlessly seek maximal profit at others’ expense. Perhaps there is nothing we can do to temper the human urge to maximize profit when opportunity permits. Perhaps this is just the way we are. Commerce, after all, is warlike. By nature, man is a violent creature. He seeks to dominate his fellows. But in civilization, he can’t assert his dominance with brute force, so he uses “civilized” means, such as economic tyranny and legal oppression.
Commercial struggles replace the struggle for survival in the wild. And just as survival in the wild requires total victory over natural foes, so too does commercial dominance require total victory over every conceivable foe. The urge to maximize profits reflects that desire for “total commercial victory.” Modest profits simply do not cut it.
What would the world come to if landlords only charged “what they needed to survive plus a little extra?” Sadly, people only take risks in our society if they know they’ll get a chance to gorge themselves at the profit buffet. No one would risk all for a mere chance to nibble or snack. Although this hunger for excess might lead to “progress” and “prosperity,” it sure makes life bitter for everyone else who has to tribute food to the buffet.
Monday, September 7, 2009
WAR, DEATH AND TRUTH : PUBLISHING CASUALTY PHOTOGRAPHS
AN ESSAY
Associated Press photographer Julie Jacobson recently published a “disturbing image” in the New York Times. See http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/04/behind-13/. Specifically, she dared to snap a picture of a U.S. Marine moments after he suffered a mortal injury in Afghanistan. The image shows two comrades struggling to stabilize him. His lips are weakly parted; he stares at the ground as if in shock. His bloody leg (or stump) is clearly visible. His rifle lies powerless at his side. According to the article that accompanies the picture, the Marine died several days later. His father learned that Ms. Jacobson had the picture and asked her not to publish it. He did not want the picture to “sully the memory of his son.”
Ms. Jacobson published the picture anyway. Defense Secretary Robert Gates angrily denounced her decision. Although he acknowledged she had a “legal and constitutional right” to publish it, he claimed that “common decency” and “taste” should have stayed her hand. In response, Ms. Jacobson pointed out that she complied with the Defense Department rule for publishing “U.S. casualty photographs,” namely, only after the Department confirmed the casualty and notified the soldier’s family. This satisfied her sole legal obligation. From a strictly legal perspective, the fact that the Marine’s family objected to publication made no difference; Ms. Jacobson followed the only rule that constrained her.
Not surprisingly, Ms. Jacobson’s decision sparked a heated debate on the New York Times’ website. The debate broke into two camps: (1) Those who believe that the press must always respect a family’s wishes and (2) those who demand to see the “truth of war” uncensored and uncut. One angry commenter even went so far as to say that “acts like this” (ie, photographers defying military families’ wishes) were reason to “revoke the First Amendment.” But another applauded Ms. Jacobson for delivering a “dose of truth” about a war that seems all-too distant and “sanitized” in American eyes.
This is not a new debate. Americans have always been queasy about seeing pictures of their own men dead (or dying) on the battlefield. We have been in many wars since the advent of photography. Matthew Brady was the first man to photograph dead soldiers after the Battle of Antietam during the Civil War. His work sparked outrage and disgust. He said he was merely trying to show “what really happens in war” beyond all the glorious rhetoric and saber-rattling. Despite his commitment to “telling the truth” about war, the U.S. military took steps to curtail such publications. These efforts culminated in complicated rules about publishing “U.S. casualty images.” These are the rules that Ms. Jacobson’s image now calls into debate.
Interestingly, the military’s rules about publishing “U.S. casualty images” only apply to U.S. service personnel. If a civilian is killed, there is no rule prohibiting a journalist from immediately publishing the image. Similarly, if a soldier from the enemy army dies, a journalist does not have to wait until his family is notified. And naturally the journalist need not heed the foreign soldier’s family’s objections to publication (if they even know their son has died fighting the Americans). The U.S. military defends its rule because it wants to “uphold the dignity and memory of troops who give their lives for their country.” Yet that concern does not apply to any other human being who dies as our troops fulfill their mission. At the same time, the rule leads to a skewed impression: Americans only get to see dead enemy troops and civilians, but never dead Americans. In the end, this blinds the American public to the brutal reality of war. After all, American troops die in Iraq and Afghanistan every day. We know this from the “official casualty rolls.” Yet those rolls do not begin to tell the same story as pictures showing soldiers dying.
If America wants to wage war, it should know the costs. War is not about animated maps and strategic objectives narrated on the FOX News Channel. Nor is it even about geopolitical balancing or justice. Rather, for the men who fight war, it is about fear, carnage, brutality and death. For the men who fight war, it is an agonizing sensory experience. The sights, sounds and sensations of war irreversibly alter those who experience them. (See, e.g., All Quiet on the Western Front). Yet these sensory impressions rarely make their way back home for everyone else to see. War veterans cannot even start to “explain” what it is like to be in combat and to see young men suddenly die. Yet photographs can at least partially convey the sensory impressions that language can never capture. In so doing, they tell an essential story that would otherwise be forever lost. Put simply, when the government censors images capturing the visual, visceral, unforgiving “essence of war,” it deludes the public. If the public really wants to know the sacrifices men make on the battlefield, it should know about the uncensored brutality they see every day.
Yet many strongly disagree with this assertion. They say that the public’s “right to know” about war’s brutality must yield to the individual soldier’s family’s interest in freedom from the emotional turmoil that flows from seeing their dying son paraded in newspapers. They say that military families have a right to “cherish certain memories” about sons who die in combat, even if those memories are inaccurate or false. While it is true that military families will suffer immense pain upon seeing such images, their pain must be compared with the broader public interest in knowing the true cost of war. I venture that it is better for the public to know how bloody and senseless war is than to fall into ignorant delusion about its human price. The only way to truly inform the public about war’s price is to inflict additional emotional pain on the families of the individual soldiers whose dying bodies we see captured on film.
This sounds harsh. Yet this is the only way to drive home the cost of war. Nothing else even remotely tells the story.
My heart goes out to the father who lost his son in Afghanistan. I am truly sorry that he must bear the additional burden of seeing his son’s final moments in a photograph. I am also sorry that the public, too, can now see that image. But I venture that this image does far more than inflict individual emotional pain on those who knew the soldier who died. It does not disparage his memory, nor does it dilute his sacrifice. Rather, it honestly shows what he endured. It shows what war does to men. It reveals that there is nothing glorious or heroic about war. In so doing, it educates the public. When the public knows what war really costs—in visual, visceral, human terms—we can only hope that they will be less eager to start them in the future.
America needs to understand that wars have costs. Yet rules such as the military’s ban on “casualty photographs” blind us to those costs. They also deceive the public into believing that “we do the killing, but not the dying.” Ms. Jacobson’s photograph unsettles these assumptions, and rightly so. It illustrates that war is not fun for anyone, American or not. It is important for Americans to know that before launching another military excursion somewhere in the world.
Europeans learned the cost of war between 1914 and 1945. That is why they criticize us so much for our willingness to start new ones.
Associated Press photographer Julie Jacobson recently published a “disturbing image” in the New York Times. See http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/04/behind-13/. Specifically, she dared to snap a picture of a U.S. Marine moments after he suffered a mortal injury in Afghanistan. The image shows two comrades struggling to stabilize him. His lips are weakly parted; he stares at the ground as if in shock. His bloody leg (or stump) is clearly visible. His rifle lies powerless at his side. According to the article that accompanies the picture, the Marine died several days later. His father learned that Ms. Jacobson had the picture and asked her not to publish it. He did not want the picture to “sully the memory of his son.”
Ms. Jacobson published the picture anyway. Defense Secretary Robert Gates angrily denounced her decision. Although he acknowledged she had a “legal and constitutional right” to publish it, he claimed that “common decency” and “taste” should have stayed her hand. In response, Ms. Jacobson pointed out that she complied with the Defense Department rule for publishing “U.S. casualty photographs,” namely, only after the Department confirmed the casualty and notified the soldier’s family. This satisfied her sole legal obligation. From a strictly legal perspective, the fact that the Marine’s family objected to publication made no difference; Ms. Jacobson followed the only rule that constrained her.
Not surprisingly, Ms. Jacobson’s decision sparked a heated debate on the New York Times’ website. The debate broke into two camps: (1) Those who believe that the press must always respect a family’s wishes and (2) those who demand to see the “truth of war” uncensored and uncut. One angry commenter even went so far as to say that “acts like this” (ie, photographers defying military families’ wishes) were reason to “revoke the First Amendment.” But another applauded Ms. Jacobson for delivering a “dose of truth” about a war that seems all-too distant and “sanitized” in American eyes.
This is not a new debate. Americans have always been queasy about seeing pictures of their own men dead (or dying) on the battlefield. We have been in many wars since the advent of photography. Matthew Brady was the first man to photograph dead soldiers after the Battle of Antietam during the Civil War. His work sparked outrage and disgust. He said he was merely trying to show “what really happens in war” beyond all the glorious rhetoric and saber-rattling. Despite his commitment to “telling the truth” about war, the U.S. military took steps to curtail such publications. These efforts culminated in complicated rules about publishing “U.S. casualty images.” These are the rules that Ms. Jacobson’s image now calls into debate.
Interestingly, the military’s rules about publishing “U.S. casualty images” only apply to U.S. service personnel. If a civilian is killed, there is no rule prohibiting a journalist from immediately publishing the image. Similarly, if a soldier from the enemy army dies, a journalist does not have to wait until his family is notified. And naturally the journalist need not heed the foreign soldier’s family’s objections to publication (if they even know their son has died fighting the Americans). The U.S. military defends its rule because it wants to “uphold the dignity and memory of troops who give their lives for their country.” Yet that concern does not apply to any other human being who dies as our troops fulfill their mission. At the same time, the rule leads to a skewed impression: Americans only get to see dead enemy troops and civilians, but never dead Americans. In the end, this blinds the American public to the brutal reality of war. After all, American troops die in Iraq and Afghanistan every day. We know this from the “official casualty rolls.” Yet those rolls do not begin to tell the same story as pictures showing soldiers dying.
If America wants to wage war, it should know the costs. War is not about animated maps and strategic objectives narrated on the FOX News Channel. Nor is it even about geopolitical balancing or justice. Rather, for the men who fight war, it is about fear, carnage, brutality and death. For the men who fight war, it is an agonizing sensory experience. The sights, sounds and sensations of war irreversibly alter those who experience them. (See, e.g., All Quiet on the Western Front). Yet these sensory impressions rarely make their way back home for everyone else to see. War veterans cannot even start to “explain” what it is like to be in combat and to see young men suddenly die. Yet photographs can at least partially convey the sensory impressions that language can never capture. In so doing, they tell an essential story that would otherwise be forever lost. Put simply, when the government censors images capturing the visual, visceral, unforgiving “essence of war,” it deludes the public. If the public really wants to know the sacrifices men make on the battlefield, it should know about the uncensored brutality they see every day.
Yet many strongly disagree with this assertion. They say that the public’s “right to know” about war’s brutality must yield to the individual soldier’s family’s interest in freedom from the emotional turmoil that flows from seeing their dying son paraded in newspapers. They say that military families have a right to “cherish certain memories” about sons who die in combat, even if those memories are inaccurate or false. While it is true that military families will suffer immense pain upon seeing such images, their pain must be compared with the broader public interest in knowing the true cost of war. I venture that it is better for the public to know how bloody and senseless war is than to fall into ignorant delusion about its human price. The only way to truly inform the public about war’s price is to inflict additional emotional pain on the families of the individual soldiers whose dying bodies we see captured on film.
This sounds harsh. Yet this is the only way to drive home the cost of war. Nothing else even remotely tells the story.
My heart goes out to the father who lost his son in Afghanistan. I am truly sorry that he must bear the additional burden of seeing his son’s final moments in a photograph. I am also sorry that the public, too, can now see that image. But I venture that this image does far more than inflict individual emotional pain on those who knew the soldier who died. It does not disparage his memory, nor does it dilute his sacrifice. Rather, it honestly shows what he endured. It shows what war does to men. It reveals that there is nothing glorious or heroic about war. In so doing, it educates the public. When the public knows what war really costs—in visual, visceral, human terms—we can only hope that they will be less eager to start them in the future.
America needs to understand that wars have costs. Yet rules such as the military’s ban on “casualty photographs” blind us to those costs. They also deceive the public into believing that “we do the killing, but not the dying.” Ms. Jacobson’s photograph unsettles these assumptions, and rightly so. It illustrates that war is not fun for anyone, American or not. It is important for Americans to know that before launching another military excursion somewhere in the world.
Europeans learned the cost of war between 1914 and 1945. That is why they criticize us so much for our willingness to start new ones.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
THE POLITICAL ASSOCIATION UNITED FOR THE MURDER OF ALL PEOPLE WITH WHOM THEY DISAGREE
POLITICAL PARTIES FOR A CHANGING WORLD
By : Mr. Martin F. Buckley, Esq., Chairman and Political Analyst; J.D. (Harvard Law School 1983); Free Speech Advocate (with exceptions for appropriateness).
We live in a great country because everyone can speak their mind. The United States became powerful because we tolerate many different viewpoints and we profit from an exchange in ideas. Even our legal traditions embody this tolerant approach to intellectual discourse. Unlike many so-called “progressive” European governments, the United States does not ban speech because it disagrees with its content. In Germany, for example, the government bans any speech that glorifies Nazism. Yet here in America, we tolerate such speech. We trust that the American people will listen to every idea and reject the bad ones. In other words, our law doesn’t make martyrs. We let every idea compete for attention in the “marketplace of ideas.” Nazism can’t compete, so Nazis can yack all they want. They have a right to.
But law only tells half the story about free speech in the United States. Just because our law tolerates all viewpoints does not mean we agree with every viewpoint. I, for instance, cannot bear speech about free health care, single-payer systems or “a woman’s right to choose.” I disagree profoundly with all these ideas. Although I acknowledge that our law gives everyone in this country the right to express their views on important issues, that does not mean I do not wish to kill people who disagree with me.
We, the The Political Association United for the Murder of All People With Whom They Disagree, stand for a simple premise: Some ideas are inappropriate. We have particular views about life, property, employment, immigration, child-rearing, health care, military affairs, foreign policy and politics. We have appropriate ideas. We firmly believe that our ideas are the best. If we do not follow them, we are convinced that America will disintegrate into anarchy, socialism or worse. That is why we are committed to defending appropriate ideas. We do not stop with rhetoric. When we lose verbal arguments, we jump over podiums and beat our opponents with iron bars. Free speech is wonderful. But there is only one guaranteed way to defend appropriateness against inappropriate speakers: Murder.
We advocate murder whenever we reach an impasse with people with whom we disagree. Yet we are reasonable people; we only kill our opponents when lesser measures fail. For example, we buy as much airtime as we can to convince our opponents that they are wrong. We show up at their meetings to shout them down or throw trash on their stages. We send targeted newsletters containing false and skewed information about the opposing viewpoint. We even get on national news television shows to make our case before the American people. Yet when these measures fail to convince inappropriate speakers to change their minds, we have no choice. We have to kill them. True, everyone has a right to speak their mind in America. But we also have a duty to ensure that America is safe from inappropriate speech and behavior. The only way to fulfill that duty—while maintaining a healthy respect for free speech rights—is to murder people who disagree with us.
On the whole, murder is a much more effective rhetorical tool than either language or logic. On hot button issues like the environment or race, it is not enough to speak eloquently or convincingly. When a person disagrees with you about race or the environment, you can proffer the most beautiful, logically-airtight arguments in the world, but you still will not sway him. In such cases, murder is the only way to solve the disagreement. It is more fun, too. After all, it is frustrating to debate with a person who stubbornly refuses to change his mind. After a hot verbal exchange, there is nothing more satisfying than to pull out a pistol and shoot the opposing speaker in the head. BANG! That’ll teach you to advocate clean-air technology and affirmative action! In such circumstances, logic only goes so far: Only firearms can firmly settle deadlocked debates.
These are not new ideas. Throughout history, appropriate speakers have won debates by eliminating their ideological opponents. Roman emperors killed those who advocated inappropriate solutions to problems. So did medieval kings. Put simply, only those willing to kill for their ideas have truly left a mark on history. No one ever prevailed in a substantial social debate by outwitting his ideological opponents with florid speeches. No, only murder can put real disagreements to rest. When people make up their minds to think inappropriately, nothing you say will shake them from it. You have to kill them to shut them up.
We proudly follow this tradition. As The Political Association United for the Murder of All People With Whom They Disagree, we are committed to speaking our minds. We have not only a constitutional right, but also a moral obligation to lead America in the appropriate direction on contemporary policy questions. Inappropriate ideas are more dangerous to America than any foreign dictator or Muslim bomber. That is why we stand united to debate and—if necessary, shoot—anyone who refuses to see things our way. We promise always to first use logic and reason to convince others that they are wrong. But when it is clear that we have reached an ideological impasse, we promise to murder our opponents. America deserves to speak with one voice: When disagreements exist, we cannot speak with one voice. That is why we are unafraid to murder those who disagree.
This does not mean that we gainsay the right to free speech under the First Amendment. To the contrary, we believe in the Constitution and liberty. Every American is free to speak, think and believe as his conscience directs. But anyone who disagrees with us does so at his peril. If someone thinks differently than we do, we admonish him to keep a lid on it, because if he debates us, we will kill him. In this way, we maintain a proper balance between our respect for constitutional liberty and our duty to lead America in an appropriate direction. In a word, you are free to think and say what you want; just don’t you dare disagree with us or we’ll put a bullet in your brain.
Never before has our Nation needed our party as much as it needs us now. Never before has our Nation faced so many burning policy questions. For the first time in our Nation’s history, lawmakers seriously debate dismantling the free market system. For the first time in our Nation’s history, a black President is calling for national health care reform. And for the first time in our Nation’s history, we face unprecedented threats from Muslim enemies bent on our destruction.
Yet we are not moving forward. Debates on these issues degenerate into shouting matches and finger-pointing competitions. Both sides tender arguments. Both sides think they know what to do. Nothing gets done because there are too many disagreements.
This is where we come in. Only we can resolve the paralyzing impasse in the national debate. Only we have the courage and fortitude to resolve disagreements in the only way they truly can be resolved: By murder. We will not avert health care collapse until we kill everyone who advocates single-payer systems and Soviet-style “Canada” medicine. We will not achieve domestic security until we kill everyone who advocates closing down Guantanamo Prison and withdrawing from Afghanistan. And we will not rescue the economy until we kill everyone who advocates greater government control over private contracting. At the moment, we cannot move forward on these issues because no one is communicating. People are just jumping up and down, screaming and accusing the other side of “being wrong.” But we promise progress. We promise to solve the disagreements. History is our guide: Disagreements go away as soon as you kill the people who disagree with you.
Aren’t you tired of ineffective government? Aren’t you tired of shrill debates and inappropriate arguments? Don’t you want to start moving forward as Nation? Don’t you feel that we’ve been stuck in the mud for too long? Haven’t you had enough recriminations, backbiting and angry arguments?
If you have, do something about it. Put a party in power that will put an end to all these verbal altercations. Put a party in power with the courage not only to scream and yell at opposing speakers, but kill them, too. We are the Political Association United for the Murder of All People With Whom They Disagree. We are committed to America. We are committed to making the right choices. We do not get bogged down in debates and feuds over abortion and parenting. We just kill people who refuse to see things the way we do.
It’s time to stop the disagreements. Let us be one Nation. Let us speak with one voice. At this challenging time in our Nation’s history, we need unity more than ever. Let us unite—and kill everyone who refuses to join us.
By : Mr. Martin F. Buckley, Esq., Chairman and Political Analyst; J.D. (Harvard Law School 1983); Free Speech Advocate (with exceptions for appropriateness).
We live in a great country because everyone can speak their mind. The United States became powerful because we tolerate many different viewpoints and we profit from an exchange in ideas. Even our legal traditions embody this tolerant approach to intellectual discourse. Unlike many so-called “progressive” European governments, the United States does not ban speech because it disagrees with its content. In Germany, for example, the government bans any speech that glorifies Nazism. Yet here in America, we tolerate such speech. We trust that the American people will listen to every idea and reject the bad ones. In other words, our law doesn’t make martyrs. We let every idea compete for attention in the “marketplace of ideas.” Nazism can’t compete, so Nazis can yack all they want. They have a right to.
But law only tells half the story about free speech in the United States. Just because our law tolerates all viewpoints does not mean we agree with every viewpoint. I, for instance, cannot bear speech about free health care, single-payer systems or “a woman’s right to choose.” I disagree profoundly with all these ideas. Although I acknowledge that our law gives everyone in this country the right to express their views on important issues, that does not mean I do not wish to kill people who disagree with me.
We, the The Political Association United for the Murder of All People With Whom They Disagree, stand for a simple premise: Some ideas are inappropriate. We have particular views about life, property, employment, immigration, child-rearing, health care, military affairs, foreign policy and politics. We have appropriate ideas. We firmly believe that our ideas are the best. If we do not follow them, we are convinced that America will disintegrate into anarchy, socialism or worse. That is why we are committed to defending appropriate ideas. We do not stop with rhetoric. When we lose verbal arguments, we jump over podiums and beat our opponents with iron bars. Free speech is wonderful. But there is only one guaranteed way to defend appropriateness against inappropriate speakers: Murder.
We advocate murder whenever we reach an impasse with people with whom we disagree. Yet we are reasonable people; we only kill our opponents when lesser measures fail. For example, we buy as much airtime as we can to convince our opponents that they are wrong. We show up at their meetings to shout them down or throw trash on their stages. We send targeted newsletters containing false and skewed information about the opposing viewpoint. We even get on national news television shows to make our case before the American people. Yet when these measures fail to convince inappropriate speakers to change their minds, we have no choice. We have to kill them. True, everyone has a right to speak their mind in America. But we also have a duty to ensure that America is safe from inappropriate speech and behavior. The only way to fulfill that duty—while maintaining a healthy respect for free speech rights—is to murder people who disagree with us.
On the whole, murder is a much more effective rhetorical tool than either language or logic. On hot button issues like the environment or race, it is not enough to speak eloquently or convincingly. When a person disagrees with you about race or the environment, you can proffer the most beautiful, logically-airtight arguments in the world, but you still will not sway him. In such cases, murder is the only way to solve the disagreement. It is more fun, too. After all, it is frustrating to debate with a person who stubbornly refuses to change his mind. After a hot verbal exchange, there is nothing more satisfying than to pull out a pistol and shoot the opposing speaker in the head. BANG! That’ll teach you to advocate clean-air technology and affirmative action! In such circumstances, logic only goes so far: Only firearms can firmly settle deadlocked debates.
These are not new ideas. Throughout history, appropriate speakers have won debates by eliminating their ideological opponents. Roman emperors killed those who advocated inappropriate solutions to problems. So did medieval kings. Put simply, only those willing to kill for their ideas have truly left a mark on history. No one ever prevailed in a substantial social debate by outwitting his ideological opponents with florid speeches. No, only murder can put real disagreements to rest. When people make up their minds to think inappropriately, nothing you say will shake them from it. You have to kill them to shut them up.
We proudly follow this tradition. As The Political Association United for the Murder of All People With Whom They Disagree, we are committed to speaking our minds. We have not only a constitutional right, but also a moral obligation to lead America in the appropriate direction on contemporary policy questions. Inappropriate ideas are more dangerous to America than any foreign dictator or Muslim bomber. That is why we stand united to debate and—if necessary, shoot—anyone who refuses to see things our way. We promise always to first use logic and reason to convince others that they are wrong. But when it is clear that we have reached an ideological impasse, we promise to murder our opponents. America deserves to speak with one voice: When disagreements exist, we cannot speak with one voice. That is why we are unafraid to murder those who disagree.
This does not mean that we gainsay the right to free speech under the First Amendment. To the contrary, we believe in the Constitution and liberty. Every American is free to speak, think and believe as his conscience directs. But anyone who disagrees with us does so at his peril. If someone thinks differently than we do, we admonish him to keep a lid on it, because if he debates us, we will kill him. In this way, we maintain a proper balance between our respect for constitutional liberty and our duty to lead America in an appropriate direction. In a word, you are free to think and say what you want; just don’t you dare disagree with us or we’ll put a bullet in your brain.
Never before has our Nation needed our party as much as it needs us now. Never before has our Nation faced so many burning policy questions. For the first time in our Nation’s history, lawmakers seriously debate dismantling the free market system. For the first time in our Nation’s history, a black President is calling for national health care reform. And for the first time in our Nation’s history, we face unprecedented threats from Muslim enemies bent on our destruction.
Yet we are not moving forward. Debates on these issues degenerate into shouting matches and finger-pointing competitions. Both sides tender arguments. Both sides think they know what to do. Nothing gets done because there are too many disagreements.
This is where we come in. Only we can resolve the paralyzing impasse in the national debate. Only we have the courage and fortitude to resolve disagreements in the only way they truly can be resolved: By murder. We will not avert health care collapse until we kill everyone who advocates single-payer systems and Soviet-style “Canada” medicine. We will not achieve domestic security until we kill everyone who advocates closing down Guantanamo Prison and withdrawing from Afghanistan. And we will not rescue the economy until we kill everyone who advocates greater government control over private contracting. At the moment, we cannot move forward on these issues because no one is communicating. People are just jumping up and down, screaming and accusing the other side of “being wrong.” But we promise progress. We promise to solve the disagreements. History is our guide: Disagreements go away as soon as you kill the people who disagree with you.
Aren’t you tired of ineffective government? Aren’t you tired of shrill debates and inappropriate arguments? Don’t you want to start moving forward as Nation? Don’t you feel that we’ve been stuck in the mud for too long? Haven’t you had enough recriminations, backbiting and angry arguments?
If you have, do something about it. Put a party in power that will put an end to all these verbal altercations. Put a party in power with the courage not only to scream and yell at opposing speakers, but kill them, too. We are the Political Association United for the Murder of All People With Whom They Disagree. We are committed to America. We are committed to making the right choices. We do not get bogged down in debates and feuds over abortion and parenting. We just kill people who refuse to see things the way we do.
It’s time to stop the disagreements. Let us be one Nation. Let us speak with one voice. At this challenging time in our Nation’s history, we need unity more than ever. Let us unite—and kill everyone who refuses to join us.
Friday, September 4, 2009
ADVERTISING & INFORMATION : SIMPLE WORKS
AN ESSAY
I noticed something new about advertising as I rode the New York subway this morning. I thought I had written all I could about advertising, but just when I thought I had said enough, a new idea spawned in my head. After all, advertisers stop at nothing to kindle our commercial urges. As such, they resort to any tactic to get our attention and make us want to spend money. The Supreme Court actually grants advertisers full freedom to say whatever they want, provided they are not “deceptive, false or misleading.” Yet that is a meaningless exception, because it is very easy to provide misleading information without “actually lying.” And it is easy to lie simply by keeping quiet about bad stuff.
But today I do not write to analyze advertising theory or constitutional standards. Rather, I write to make a simple point, namely, that all advertisements do the same thing: They selectively provide an “informational tidbit,” which in turn makes a suggestion to the listener. The suggestion is always the same: “Now come give me your money.” Advertisers provide information—perhaps largely true, perhaps half-true, perhaps not true at all—for a purpose: To entice you to give them money. Advertisers do not aim to educate. They do not want you to “know more” or develop into a more “enriched person” with the information they provide. No, they want to “inform you” only to the extent necessary that you feel compelled to spend your money on them. It is strictly instrumental.
Consider these examples. As I sat on the train today, I looked up and saw three distinct commercial messages. The first was an admonishment from Duane Reade, a drugstore. Its message: “There are a bazillion germs on the pole you’re holding.” Broadly speaking, this is information. Maybe some people don’t realize that contagions congregate in crowded public spaces like the subway. Yet Duane Reade doesn’t care whether they’ve just educated you. They don’t care whether you’ve just become a more well-informed person because you heard their message about germs. No, they want you to take the information and translate it into commercial activity. Namely, they want you to say: “Omigod! There are germs all over the place, so I should go to the Duane Reade and start buying things!” Duane Reade is not trying to inspire the world’s next great microbiologist with this information. It is trying to lure an average schmuck into the store to buy cough drops.
In the next message, a local college advertised: “95% of people without college degrees never obtain jobs with salaries over $40,000 a year.” This is information, too. It might be accurate; maybe it isn’t. Still, it sounds relatively accurate (it has a percentage in it…wow), and in advertising, appearances are just as important as—if not more important than— “truth.” No one on the subway is going to check facts anyway, so it really doesn’t matter. Yet the local college does not provide this information to alert its listeners to demographic trends or educational crises in the United States. It wants to spark a desire in its listeners to start spending some money on tuition. After all, according to this information, if you don’t have a college degree, you stand a 95% chance never to make over $40,000 a year. You want to make more than $40,000 a year, so you’d better get a college degree with us. Again, the advertiser here provides information for an instrumental purpose: “People without college degrees don’t make much money. We can give you a college degree. Now give us your money.” Simple.
Finally, an Upper East Side “enrichment group” called the “Center for Practical Philosophy” blared this message: “No other ad on the subway will make you as happy as this one.” The center revealed that it offered classes to teach “working students” about “reason, beauty and justice” (no commerce or free beer; note that), and that its classes would lead to “happiness” by “harnessing the power of attention.” This was not typical advertising fare (ie, it wasn’t hawking trinkets or dental services), but it followed the same formula as any other. Specifically, it provided information about “classes” and those classes can make you “happier than other ads on the subway.” People want to be happy. Again, the message provides information in order to make the ultimate suggestion: “Now give me your money.” You want to be happy, don’t you? Well, here’s some information about happiness classes. Now you know where to spend your money if you want to learn how to be happy.
“Practical philosophy.” That made me laugh. In my experience, the two concepts mutually exclude each other. You’re either philosophical or practical, but not both. If you’re practical, you don’t like “philosophical bullshit” because it “doesn’t get things done.” If you’re philosophical, you don’t like “everyday, boring, banal practical shit” because it’s not “deep” or “sophisticated.” You can’t have it both ways. Yet this advertisement dared to cross the line. It made philosophy—which is generally antithetical to commerce—a commodity to be bought. On the other hand, this is New York. Everything is for sale here, even things that traditionally can’t be bought, sold or “commercialized.” We have more banks than guys named Bob in this town. In that light, maybe I shouldn’t be surprised that philosophy is for sale, too.
But enough about philosophy. The point is that advertising is insidious because it channels information for a limited purpose, namely, to enrich the speaker. Human beings cannot know everything. They have short-range senses; they can only learn so much by direct perception. Everything else requires reliance on second-hand reports and “information sources” like advertising. In many ways, we are all hopelessly dependent on external information sources. Those who possess more information hold more power. That is the nature of things. Advertisers do not want us to “learn about the world” or even expand our consciousness with the information they selectively dispense. They want us merely to learn a few suggestive “facts” then fork over some money.
Ironically, it doesn’t matter whether advertisers provide “accurate” or “true” information to their listeners. Truth is largely irrelevant in commerce; it only matters when a commercial actor must be truthful to avoid a loss. Advertisers, too, provide accurate information if the law threatens punishment or if they want to outdo a competitor. But truth is never the ultimate aim behind advertising. Rather, the only goal is to incite an urge to buy in the listener. Selectively providing “facts” can create that urge. Whether the facts are “true” does not affect whether they will spark a “commercial urge.” In many ways, then, advertising targets human emotion more than reason. Advertisers want to incite a reaction, a need, a desire, an itch to buy. These are not entirely reasonable responses to information. To the contrary, they are childish, even animal responses: Show a dog a bone and the dog will want it; show an average American an all-NFL cable package and he will want it, too. In fact, if consumers had access to all information, they probably would have reason to avoid virtually every seller in the market. In short, advertising would not work if people were too well-informed. And it certainly would not work if people used their reason all the time.
I write all this because advertising literally surrounds us. Commercial speakers speak more than any others. They buy airtime. Their billboards leer over us. Their television messages interrupt us every five minutes. Their radio broadcasts barge in on our music. In short, they own our senses, besieging our eyes and ears with generally unreliable information calculated to arouse our commercial urges. No matter the medium, they all function in the same way: They selectively provide information for an instrumental purpose, then suggest “Now come give us your money.” Some advertisers spark more commercial urges in more people than others. They are called “effective advertisers.” But whether effective or not, they are all doing the same thing. And I venture that there is nothing noble or sophisticated about it.
After all, what do I care whether a private company succeeds in luring more people to spend their money? Who cares? Will anyone even remember? This is the never-ending “commerce dance.” Advertising provides an endless beat for the dance. It just keeps droning on day after day, generation after generation, following the same old formula: Provide information… suggest “Come on down and spend your money…”
In sum, there is nothing to it. It is all the same.
I noticed something new about advertising as I rode the New York subway this morning. I thought I had written all I could about advertising, but just when I thought I had said enough, a new idea spawned in my head. After all, advertisers stop at nothing to kindle our commercial urges. As such, they resort to any tactic to get our attention and make us want to spend money. The Supreme Court actually grants advertisers full freedom to say whatever they want, provided they are not “deceptive, false or misleading.” Yet that is a meaningless exception, because it is very easy to provide misleading information without “actually lying.” And it is easy to lie simply by keeping quiet about bad stuff.
But today I do not write to analyze advertising theory or constitutional standards. Rather, I write to make a simple point, namely, that all advertisements do the same thing: They selectively provide an “informational tidbit,” which in turn makes a suggestion to the listener. The suggestion is always the same: “Now come give me your money.” Advertisers provide information—perhaps largely true, perhaps half-true, perhaps not true at all—for a purpose: To entice you to give them money. Advertisers do not aim to educate. They do not want you to “know more” or develop into a more “enriched person” with the information they provide. No, they want to “inform you” only to the extent necessary that you feel compelled to spend your money on them. It is strictly instrumental.
Consider these examples. As I sat on the train today, I looked up and saw three distinct commercial messages. The first was an admonishment from Duane Reade, a drugstore. Its message: “There are a bazillion germs on the pole you’re holding.” Broadly speaking, this is information. Maybe some people don’t realize that contagions congregate in crowded public spaces like the subway. Yet Duane Reade doesn’t care whether they’ve just educated you. They don’t care whether you’ve just become a more well-informed person because you heard their message about germs. No, they want you to take the information and translate it into commercial activity. Namely, they want you to say: “Omigod! There are germs all over the place, so I should go to the Duane Reade and start buying things!” Duane Reade is not trying to inspire the world’s next great microbiologist with this information. It is trying to lure an average schmuck into the store to buy cough drops.
In the next message, a local college advertised: “95% of people without college degrees never obtain jobs with salaries over $40,000 a year.” This is information, too. It might be accurate; maybe it isn’t. Still, it sounds relatively accurate (it has a percentage in it…wow), and in advertising, appearances are just as important as—if not more important than— “truth.” No one on the subway is going to check facts anyway, so it really doesn’t matter. Yet the local college does not provide this information to alert its listeners to demographic trends or educational crises in the United States. It wants to spark a desire in its listeners to start spending some money on tuition. After all, according to this information, if you don’t have a college degree, you stand a 95% chance never to make over $40,000 a year. You want to make more than $40,000 a year, so you’d better get a college degree with us. Again, the advertiser here provides information for an instrumental purpose: “People without college degrees don’t make much money. We can give you a college degree. Now give us your money.” Simple.
Finally, an Upper East Side “enrichment group” called the “Center for Practical Philosophy” blared this message: “No other ad on the subway will make you as happy as this one.” The center revealed that it offered classes to teach “working students” about “reason, beauty and justice” (no commerce or free beer; note that), and that its classes would lead to “happiness” by “harnessing the power of attention.” This was not typical advertising fare (ie, it wasn’t hawking trinkets or dental services), but it followed the same formula as any other. Specifically, it provided information about “classes” and those classes can make you “happier than other ads on the subway.” People want to be happy. Again, the message provides information in order to make the ultimate suggestion: “Now give me your money.” You want to be happy, don’t you? Well, here’s some information about happiness classes. Now you know where to spend your money if you want to learn how to be happy.
“Practical philosophy.” That made me laugh. In my experience, the two concepts mutually exclude each other. You’re either philosophical or practical, but not both. If you’re practical, you don’t like “philosophical bullshit” because it “doesn’t get things done.” If you’re philosophical, you don’t like “everyday, boring, banal practical shit” because it’s not “deep” or “sophisticated.” You can’t have it both ways. Yet this advertisement dared to cross the line. It made philosophy—which is generally antithetical to commerce—a commodity to be bought. On the other hand, this is New York. Everything is for sale here, even things that traditionally can’t be bought, sold or “commercialized.” We have more banks than guys named Bob in this town. In that light, maybe I shouldn’t be surprised that philosophy is for sale, too.
But enough about philosophy. The point is that advertising is insidious because it channels information for a limited purpose, namely, to enrich the speaker. Human beings cannot know everything. They have short-range senses; they can only learn so much by direct perception. Everything else requires reliance on second-hand reports and “information sources” like advertising. In many ways, we are all hopelessly dependent on external information sources. Those who possess more information hold more power. That is the nature of things. Advertisers do not want us to “learn about the world” or even expand our consciousness with the information they selectively dispense. They want us merely to learn a few suggestive “facts” then fork over some money.
Ironically, it doesn’t matter whether advertisers provide “accurate” or “true” information to their listeners. Truth is largely irrelevant in commerce; it only matters when a commercial actor must be truthful to avoid a loss. Advertisers, too, provide accurate information if the law threatens punishment or if they want to outdo a competitor. But truth is never the ultimate aim behind advertising. Rather, the only goal is to incite an urge to buy in the listener. Selectively providing “facts” can create that urge. Whether the facts are “true” does not affect whether they will spark a “commercial urge.” In many ways, then, advertising targets human emotion more than reason. Advertisers want to incite a reaction, a need, a desire, an itch to buy. These are not entirely reasonable responses to information. To the contrary, they are childish, even animal responses: Show a dog a bone and the dog will want it; show an average American an all-NFL cable package and he will want it, too. In fact, if consumers had access to all information, they probably would have reason to avoid virtually every seller in the market. In short, advertising would not work if people were too well-informed. And it certainly would not work if people used their reason all the time.
I write all this because advertising literally surrounds us. Commercial speakers speak more than any others. They buy airtime. Their billboards leer over us. Their television messages interrupt us every five minutes. Their radio broadcasts barge in on our music. In short, they own our senses, besieging our eyes and ears with generally unreliable information calculated to arouse our commercial urges. No matter the medium, they all function in the same way: They selectively provide information for an instrumental purpose, then suggest “Now come give us your money.” Some advertisers spark more commercial urges in more people than others. They are called “effective advertisers.” But whether effective or not, they are all doing the same thing. And I venture that there is nothing noble or sophisticated about it.
After all, what do I care whether a private company succeeds in luring more people to spend their money? Who cares? Will anyone even remember? This is the never-ending “commerce dance.” Advertising provides an endless beat for the dance. It just keeps droning on day after day, generation after generation, following the same old formula: Provide information… suggest “Come on down and spend your money…”
In sum, there is nothing to it. It is all the same.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
SOME THINGS CHANGE FAST
A REFLECTION
This morning I thought about how fast some things change. Sometimes history can change in an instant. So can our lives as individuals. Developments are not always measured or even reasonable. Sometimes we deserve things; sometimes reason scolds us because we "should have anticipated results." Yet sometimes events strike from the blue and change everything overnight. There is no logic in these sudden changes. They defy the notion that life can be planned. In large part, they strengthen my belief that something beyond reason and "chance" works in our lives.
In 1942, the Japanese were winning the Pacific War. In May, a Japanese fleet was steaming toward Midway Island. The Japanese planned to destroy America's aircraft carriers and take the island. Japanese pilots were far superior to the Americans at this stage in the war. They had experience. They had high morale. They had never lost a battle. They had every reason to think they would win the upcoming battle.
But they did not. By chance, the Japanese had to switch their bombers from ground attack mode after they discovered American ships nearby. For twenty minutes, all their bombers stood dangerously exposed on carrier flight decks while crew members switched torpedoes to bombs. Fuel was strewn all over the place. At that precise moment, an American bomber squadron was overhead. They had no idea the Japanese were refueling and rearming. The American bombers swooped down at this critical moment. They sank three of Japan's four mightiest carriers in five minutes. It was pure luck. Japan never recovered from this catastrophic blow. For better or worse, America did not win the Battle of Midway by skill. They won because they profited from fortune.
Such moments do not just occur in war. They occur in everyday lives, too. Consider my life partner's story. One night two years ago, he walked into a gym. At that moment, he was healthy and had everything to live for. He suffered a freak burn accident in the gym. He spent 15 days in an ICU and almost died several times. Since then, he has never been the same. One moment he was healthy. The next moment, he was crippled. Bizarre accidents happen to many people; I report this incident because I know about it. I have seen how (mis)fortune can radically transform individual lives in an instant.
Things do not always change gradually. Sometimes they change without reason, defying our expectations. Our assumptions can transform in an instant. Sometimes fortune strikes for the better. Other times, it strikes for the worse. No matter how fortune falls, it defies our logic. We cannot account for "randomness," yet "random" events change history and our own lives in equal measure. Some say that we can predict events based on circumstances from which to make "educated guesses" about the future. Yet no one could have made an "educated guess" about the Japanese refueling their planes at the moment the American bombers were overhead, nor could I have made an "educated guess" about the disaster that befell my life partner. When fortune falls, our logic appears woefully inadequate.
Should we then embrace destiny? Does some other power ordain these seemingly random events? I have written that destiny appeals to me--even as an empiricist--because my all-too human senses can neither prove nor disprove it. I am content to believe that there are things I cannot know. This does not mean I subscribe to a particular religion. Rather, studying history and experiencing life both teach me that it is mature to acknowledge limitations to our capacity for knowledge in this world. By the same token, I am deeply skeptical of anyone who claims that "he can know" anything in life. He obviously has not suffered a random misfortune.
On the other hand, perhaps everything is truly random. There is no way to say one way or the other. Yet that is a disheartening thought.
This morning I thought about how fast some things change. Sometimes history can change in an instant. So can our lives as individuals. Developments are not always measured or even reasonable. Sometimes we deserve things; sometimes reason scolds us because we "should have anticipated results." Yet sometimes events strike from the blue and change everything overnight. There is no logic in these sudden changes. They defy the notion that life can be planned. In large part, they strengthen my belief that something beyond reason and "chance" works in our lives.
In 1942, the Japanese were winning the Pacific War. In May, a Japanese fleet was steaming toward Midway Island. The Japanese planned to destroy America's aircraft carriers and take the island. Japanese pilots were far superior to the Americans at this stage in the war. They had experience. They had high morale. They had never lost a battle. They had every reason to think they would win the upcoming battle.
But they did not. By chance, the Japanese had to switch their bombers from ground attack mode after they discovered American ships nearby. For twenty minutes, all their bombers stood dangerously exposed on carrier flight decks while crew members switched torpedoes to bombs. Fuel was strewn all over the place. At that precise moment, an American bomber squadron was overhead. They had no idea the Japanese were refueling and rearming. The American bombers swooped down at this critical moment. They sank three of Japan's four mightiest carriers in five minutes. It was pure luck. Japan never recovered from this catastrophic blow. For better or worse, America did not win the Battle of Midway by skill. They won because they profited from fortune.
Such moments do not just occur in war. They occur in everyday lives, too. Consider my life partner's story. One night two years ago, he walked into a gym. At that moment, he was healthy and had everything to live for. He suffered a freak burn accident in the gym. He spent 15 days in an ICU and almost died several times. Since then, he has never been the same. One moment he was healthy. The next moment, he was crippled. Bizarre accidents happen to many people; I report this incident because I know about it. I have seen how (mis)fortune can radically transform individual lives in an instant.
Things do not always change gradually. Sometimes they change without reason, defying our expectations. Our assumptions can transform in an instant. Sometimes fortune strikes for the better. Other times, it strikes for the worse. No matter how fortune falls, it defies our logic. We cannot account for "randomness," yet "random" events change history and our own lives in equal measure. Some say that we can predict events based on circumstances from which to make "educated guesses" about the future. Yet no one could have made an "educated guess" about the Japanese refueling their planes at the moment the American bombers were overhead, nor could I have made an "educated guess" about the disaster that befell my life partner. When fortune falls, our logic appears woefully inadequate.
Should we then embrace destiny? Does some other power ordain these seemingly random events? I have written that destiny appeals to me--even as an empiricist--because my all-too human senses can neither prove nor disprove it. I am content to believe that there are things I cannot know. This does not mean I subscribe to a particular religion. Rather, studying history and experiencing life both teach me that it is mature to acknowledge limitations to our capacity for knowledge in this world. By the same token, I am deeply skeptical of anyone who claims that "he can know" anything in life. He obviously has not suffered a random misfortune.
On the other hand, perhaps everything is truly random. There is no way to say one way or the other. Yet that is a disheartening thought.
Monday, August 31, 2009
TURNING THE TABLES ON THE EXECUTIONERS
AN ESSAY
During my break from writing this week, I have had time to read some interesting history. I am always searching for historical material to flesh out my satires and inspire essays that link modern-day problems to ancient precedents. I found a good one in the story of Simon Fraser, 11th Lord Lovat (1667-1747), a Scottish Baron who had the honor to be the last man beheaded at London's Tower Hill.
I have studied capital punishment at length. I think it measures a society's moral progress. You can tell how advanced--or barbaric--a society is by investigating three things: (1) Does its government kill its own citizens "by law?"; (2) If it does, how does it "officially kill" them? and (3) If it does, how many does it kill every year? For over a year now, I have cataloged which countries (and US States) allow capital punishment. I have also investigated which methods they use to execute people. It is a grim business, but I think it reveals a lot about human societies and their claims to "civilization." Capital punishment, after all, is the ultimate government action vis-a-vis the individual. Government can take many things from you. It can take all your property, your dignity, your self-respect, your money, your liberty and even your children. But it can't take anything more than your life.
Yet it impossible to talk about capital punishment without talking about history. Throughout the ages, capital punishment and brute political power have gone hand in hand. Political power uses law to advance its own purposes, not in order to vindicate abstract principles like justice or right. Victorious governments execute rebels and others who commit "treason" against them. In this sense, capital punishment masquerades as a "legal sanction," when in fact it is merely an exercise in raw, arbitrary political power. The strong man kills the weak one who opposes the "establishment." The strong man deploys judges to cover up the killing with official-sounding legal gobbledygook.
But law doesn't fool me. Law is supposed to speak against killing our neighbors, not kill them itself. I have profound difficulty believing legal rhetoric that justifies capital punishment when the same legal rhetoric condemns common, intentional homicide. If intentional homicide is "wrong" when a citizen commits it, how is it different when a State officer does the same to a citizen? There is a glaring inconsistency here. And this inconsistency persists because governments have always claimed a power to kill their own citizens. In my view, blind tradition is no reason to keep foolishness alive in our time.
In all my studies about capital punishment, I routinely run across ironic tales that expose these philosophical inconsistencies. Simon Fraser's story is a perfect example. Fraser was sentenced to die because he conspired with Jacobite rebels during their attempt to overthrow King George II in the 1740s. He "had to die" because he threatened to dislodge those with political power. He lost, so he "had to die." If he had won, he probably would have executed the losers. It had nothing to do with principle; it was about power.
In any event, Fraser went to Tower Hill. Huge crowds gathered to watch his head roll off the block. The government built wooden scaffolds to accommodate the overflow crowd. They wanted to see this "traitor" die. But before the headsman struck, a scaffold collapsed, killing 20 bloodthirsty spectators.
I laughed when I learned this. I found it ironic that men and women died while waiting to watch an execution. They paid for their perverse desire to watch the government ritually kill someone. Something turned the tables on them. They thought the law supported them against the "traitor," but they died, too. Victorious political power might have killed Lord Fraser, but some other power killed the spectators who prepared to celebrate his death.
In my view, this shows that executions do not prove that the government is "right" about anything, even if the condemned person is guilty. No matter what legal arguments the King's judges and prosecutors made to justify Lord Fraser's death in law, they could not prevent "innocent" spectators from dying, too. In short, government had power to order Lord Fraser to die, but it had no power to prevent the spectators from dying. Thus, the government's own claim to "power over life and death" appeared pitifully limited.
In principle, then, government is not "naturally right" when it kills its own citizens. It has simply arrogated the power to execute people "by law" because power creates law. There is nothing in nature that entitles government to put citizens to death. All the procedures, trials, rules and rhetoric underlying modern capital punishment are mere inventions, not a priori truths.
There is not much I can do to dislodge power. I just like to think that government should aspire to something better than the crude, human urge for revenge against "trespassers." I have written before than men will always kill each other. Men are emotional animals. They have individual weaknesses, passions, idiosyncrasies and even delusions. Yet government is supposed to be better than the individual men who compose it. Just because men constitute government does not mean that government must mirror all men's weaknesses. To the contrary, government has a unique power to stand on principle and dignity, even when individual men cannot. To my mind, there is no substance to the argument that "government can kill because men can kill." Rather, I believe that government has a unique opportunity to insist on behavior that transcends human weakness. Principles might not work for individual men, but governments can demand them.
Law should mean something more than mere power. Lord Fraser's story reveals power at work through law. Yet his story also reveals that neither law nor power can control everything, despite their claims to the contrary. While power might have ordained Lord Fraser's death, it did not ordain the spectators' deaths. No legal solemnity or argument killed the spectators. Law may have justified Lord Fraser's death with florid rhetoric and even legal citations. But its pretentious reasoning could do nothing to justify--or prevent--the spectators' deaths.
In short, power has limits. But power acts as if does not. I love stories that reveal those limits, chastising those who adhere to power. The spectators at Lord Fraser's execution confidently took their seats on the scaffold to behold "their" power at work on a man "their" law had condemned. They felt justified in exercising "their" power. But they wound up dying, too, even though the "law was on their side." They didn't "deserve to die;" but apparently--to quote The Unforgiven--"deserve's got nothing to do with it."
What sweet, maddening irony. The history of power--and capital punishment--abounds with stories like this. In the end, you get the impression that no one is right, no matter who dies and who invokes law to justify death.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
SUMMER BLAHS
This is really the first year I've noticed that people don't do anything in August. They don't do much in July, either, but August in New York is just catatonic. There's no one here. They've all gone to beaches or retreats. All the "professionals" are "summering." Try making an appointment or a prescription in August. It's a nightmare.
I've even noticed that traffic on my blog has dropped off dramatically in August. In that light, I think I am going to jump on the bandwagon and reduce my own work load for the rest of the summer. This does not mean I will stop writing altogether until September; I will just post more sporadically than usual. I don't like to stop writing, but in my experience I've always found that it's a good decision to close up shop for a while. This seems like the best time to do it, since no one is around anyway.
I will write some short pieces over the next week or so, but I will hold off from diving into my usual "issue list" until the temperature drops and people come back (both physically and intellectually) from the beach. I still have major questions to address. But I won't waste my time analyzing them until life resumes in September.
Thanks again to everyone who logs in for Reason, Commerce, Justice and Free Beer! If my output over the next week is too low for you, I welcome you to simply check out my archives. There's never a shortage there.
Enjoy the rest of the summer!
Oesterhoudt
I've even noticed that traffic on my blog has dropped off dramatically in August. In that light, I think I am going to jump on the bandwagon and reduce my own work load for the rest of the summer. This does not mean I will stop writing altogether until September; I will just post more sporadically than usual. I don't like to stop writing, but in my experience I've always found that it's a good decision to close up shop for a while. This seems like the best time to do it, since no one is around anyway.
I will write some short pieces over the next week or so, but I will hold off from diving into my usual "issue list" until the temperature drops and people come back (both physically and intellectually) from the beach. I still have major questions to address. But I won't waste my time analyzing them until life resumes in September.
Thanks again to everyone who logs in for Reason, Commerce, Justice and Free Beer! If my output over the next week is too low for you, I welcome you to simply check out my archives. There's never a shortage there.
Enjoy the rest of the summer!
Oesterhoudt
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)