The Ignorance of Jeb Bush

Jeb Bush: 'I don't know' if Obama is a socialist. CNN headline.

Jeb's ignorance, however vast, should not take precedence over the knowledge of others, however small.

Demented American Values and Illegal Drugs

How many times does it have to be said? The fundamental drug problem is not marijuana or heroin or cocaine, as troublesome and damaging as they are.

The far more harmful drugs are 1. tobacco and 2. alcohol. Tobacco kills at least 400,000 every year in this country. Alcohol kills at least 100,000. Add to this the health and other costs, and you will see that the usual suspects are minor in comparison. We have spent billions of dollars and incarcerated thousands, especially poor African Americans and have barely made a dent in the devastation wrought by illegal drugs.

The difference is that tobacco and alcohol are socially acceptable drugs, while marijuana, heroin, and cocaine are not. I do not mean to trivialize the harm done to people and the costs incurred to the nation by the illegal drugs, but we need a sense of proportion.

The illegal drugs are perils with no good solution, but the best approach is to take the profit--the money gain--out of them and deal with them as a public health concern, i. e., prevention and treatment, and not as a criminal justice matter.

Would there be major tribulations associated with the decriminalization of the the currently illegal drugs? Certainly, but I defy anyone to make a convincing case that the situation would be worse than it is now.

The root problem is the distorted, puzzling set of values we have in this country. We are astonishingly tolerant of guns and violence and still both puritanical and obsessed in regard to sex, and totally irrational when it comes to the drugs now classified as illegal.

See a more lengthy treatment of all this at:
http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/drugs.htm

Quasi-Acerbic Reflections: Pundits

The punditry should be abolished. Were it not for the all-news channels their population would be less of a menace, but given the necessity to fill 24 hours a day by the likes of CNN, MSNBC, and Fox, daily they egregiously violate Occam's razor -- do not multiply entities beyond necessity-- ad nauseam. The worst are the Democratic and Republican political strategists, whose vacuity and predictability are astounding and who never increase understanding of anything.

While sometimes a pundit may shed light on an issue, generally they are a superfluity. Anyone who reads a couple of good newspapers and a serious journal of current events will know as much as 93.34% of the experts whose breezy interjections could provide electricity for a small town if harnessed to wind generators.

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml

If You Are Over 60, You Don't Exist in the Media

Or you might as well not exist for the attention you get. The CNN web site asked, "How are you honoring Michael Jackson?" Not do you plan to honor MJ, if so, how? I am sorry he died so young, but honor him?

His music and dancing were boring to me. The few seconds of Thriller I saw were not thrilling. He was two generations too late for me. Elvis Presley was only one behind me, but with few exceptions, his performances were not entertaining either in my book. But the general assumption in the media is that your musical and other tastes were formed after I was already married and a father.

Now there are some minor exceptions -- some PBS programs, C-Span, and and a few others recognize that some people are in or are approaching Medicare. The national evening network news broadcasts perhaps recognize us most clearly. Advertisements are the evidence -- constipation, upset stomach, leaky bladder, ED, dementia, pain, and other typical later in life ailments are subjects of interests and revenue for them.

But we know we exist. Nat King Cole or the Mills Brothers anyone?

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml

Michael Jackson and American Excess

Too much has already been said about Michael Jackson, the woman man, white black, child adult -- he of odd, bizarre behavior, that sad, tragic idol who always wanted the approval of his abusing father, who thought if ever he were ordinary, people would not love him, who in the midst of the adulation of crowds was lonely, in whom there lived a kind, gentle child who never had a childhood, and who required tranquilizing drugs to relieve his pain.

But that is not my text today. I wonder if the attention worthy of a President given him in death bespeaks of a celebrity-intoxicated culture whose excesses approach pathology. He offered, say some, moments of transcendence and good will that united followers with humanity, but in my view was exhibitive of a quasi-religion whose "yoke is easy, whose burden is light," that makes no moral demands, judges no behavior, and whose exalted moments are shallow and ephemeral.

That is my text for today.

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml

Hooray for American Support of Democracy

Republicans in Congress are getting more and more irksome, tiresome, and downright repugnant.

They condemn Obama for not taking a stronger stand against the Iranian regime. We have always stood for democracy, they say. You mean like in Iran when Republican President Eisenhower approved the engineering of the overthrow in 1953 of Mohammed Mossaddeq, the democratically elected leader of Iran who had nationalized the oil companies. We restored the Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlev, who allowed the British and American oil companies to get their lips back on the nipples of the pipelines so oil wealth could flow Westward? In passing we might observe that Democrat Harry Truman had refused to approve the coup. By the way, the Shah was overthrown in the 1979 Islamic Revolution, whose current Supreme Leader is shooting protesters in Tehran. Hooray for the American support of democracy in 1953.

Then there were those decades when American policy toward Latin America was designed to suit the interests of the United Fruit Company without regard to whether the favored regimes were democracies or not.

Wasn't that all in the past? Not quite considering that we have been in bed with Saudi Arabia for a long time. They don't have democracy, but they have lots of oil.

Republicans constantly raise the specter of government bureaucrats making decisions about health care for citizens. Apparently, they prefer bureaucrats in big corporations to make those decisions, corporations motivated by increasing profits by limiting medical care to subscribers. There is no sustainable system that will allow any and every form of medical care to everybody.

Is there any good reason why Republicans should exist at all?

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml

Middle East: New Beginnings Needed

The best thing I have seen on the Palestinian-Israeli problem is Hussein Agha and Robert Malley, "Obama and the Middle East" (The New York Review of Books, June 11, 2009).

In brief, they say the old slogans and terms -- two-state solution, land for peace -- are impotent and should be abandoned. In the past both parties have felt they were provided solutions from third parties and asked to accept or negotiate them.

A new beginning should be made by a process that elicits anew what the essential interests of the relevant parties are--the Palestinians, including both Fatah and Hamas, and the Israelis, including the settlers. This might leads toward a two-state solution, or it might not get anywhere. What is clear, they think, is that merely polishing up the old terms, proposals, and solutions will not work.

I found it provocative and maybe even correct. See:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22731

Totally Acerbic Observations

Have you noticed that the folks who do the network morning shows appear to be abnormally happy -- smiling and laughing beyond what the situation merits?

Items it is usually futile to talk to your doctor about include the following: nausea, sleep issues not related to apnea, and and abdominal distress unless caused by ulcers or cancer.

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml

What's Wrong with the World?

Two fundamental things are essential to figuring out what is wrong with the world--original sin and universal suffering. Original sin is the natural, built-in tendency to prefer our own good--as individuals, societies, institutions, nations, etc.--to the good of others. Universal suffering means that all have known some form of human affliction--pain, accident, circumstances, disease, sorrow, failure, oppression, etc.--that take away in various degrees our joy and happiness. Suffering results from causes arising out the nature of things -- natural evil, and out of the harm we do to each other -- moral evil.

What is the solution? We have to recognize that that all --we and others--are afflicted with both egotism and suffering. This must be accompanied by the desire for understanding that leads to compassion for others.

To focus on moral evil, the typical dialogue between individuals and groups about our conflicts is that each has its own narrative and an explanation of its own suffering and injustice, which is not a dialogue but two monologues in which each party yells out its own story and does not hear or care to hear the story of others. Consider: abortion, same-sex marriage, the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis, the US and North Korea, Iran, Russia, China, Pakistan, Venezuela, and on and on and on.

The problem: nobody listens to the other. The solution: genuine listening, which leads to a sharing of the truth and suffering of the other, which can ideally lead to understanding, which produces compassion, followed by repentance, which can result in good faith efforts to resolve issues in a way that enlarges the truth shared by all and the suffering endured by all.

My text has been: Repent and believe the Gospel, which being translated means. Come to terms with the fact that we have all screwed up, some more badly than others, repent in sorrow, and therefore become open to the possibility of hearing the good news that a better future for all is waiting to be born if we are willing to receive it in faith, hope, and love.

Now I have diagnosed the problem and offered the solution. It is up to others to begin working this out in practical ways. Meanwhile, I have to write another blog resolving other pressing issues. Global warming is next on my list. Good luck.

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml

What They Learn in Journalism School

Based on years of watching TV news reports, I can imagine the day in Universal School of Journalism when they dealt with "How to End Your TV Report."

The cardinal rule, never to be violated, is: Do not end on a positive note, never. Several options are available:
1. Suggest that something awful could still go wrong.
2. Suggest a countervailing trend.
3. Raise a question that qualifies any optimistic developments in your piece.
4. Use your imagination to suggest that somehow the future is still in doubt, so viewers should tune in next time.
5. Say anything just as long as it is negative in some way.

That appears to be the one thing that all the students learned well.

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml

Quasi-Acerbic Oddities for Today

Senator McConnell said he did not want a judge on the Supreme Court who let subjective preferences and personal ideology affect their rulings. You mean you do not want judges like Scalia, Thomas, Roberts and Scalito?

Somebody should instruct Senators that all people have ideologies, personal background experiences, and identities that affect their rulings. I did not say determine, I said affect, i. e., influence.

Cheney is to the left of Obama on gay marriage. He favors it if the decision is made by the states, while the President has so far only indicated support for civil unions.

Senator Greg Judd says he does not want government bureaucrats making decisions about our personal health care. Apparently, he prefers to have them made by corporate bureaucrats working for companies who want to maximize their profits by limiting services.

Strange.

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml

The Woman in my GPS

I didn't believe there was a real person in my GPS either until recently when we were on a newly opened section of US 15 that we know about but Hildegarde (Geography Genius) Himmelwassen didn't. She recalculated repeatedly trying to get us back on the right road, assuming that we were driving 60 MPH over farmland. After frequent recalculations, she finally had enough: "I don't know why I bother with you stupid idiots. You never take my advice anyway. I have had it with you. I'm outta here. You are on your own, since you think you know more than I do anyway. So long, suckers."

Yep, there's a real person in there.

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml

Obama is a Radical, An Extremist

According to a headline in the morning paper, President Obama stood before the graduating class at Notre Dame and urged us to have (gasp!) "open minds on abortion." The American people open minded on abortion? Come on, Mr. President, get real, this is planet earth, this is America.

The next thing you know he will be suggesting that we be reasonable about gun control!

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml

Ethics at the Boundary Line: Torture

Immanuel Kant distinguished between perfect and imperfect duties. The former are universally obligatory, i. e., allow no exceptions under any circumstances. The latter may have exceptions in some cases or alternative ways of fulfilling it?

Does the rule "never torture" define a perfect duty? Is it a moral absolute? Or is it sometimes morally permissible?

Here we enter the realm of "borderline situations " (Helmut Thielicke, Karl Jaspers) in which the usual rules and norms do not provide clear guidance but require a difficult situational decision in which no choice leaves us at ease.

In this context, one can argue that the rule against torture should not be made an absolute. Few moral principles are. There may be rare occasions in which morality may permit extraordinary means, including torture. This could be argued on both deontological and teleological grounds.

Opponents maintain that no such events occur in real life (the ticking bomb scenario) or are so rare as not to justify any exception to the prohibition against torture. Moreover, even if such emergencies justify torture in that immediate extreme circumstance, one might reason that on the whole the damage to the rule of law and to the global image of the country might still forbid it. Hence on balance it may be better to have an absolute rule that is never violated though it may be costly in some instances, though how costly would make a difference. I tend to fall into this camp.

Nevertheless, the ambiguities, contingencies, and uncertainties surrounding this question create a troubling space in which reasonable people may disagree.

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml

What is it all About?

When somebody says, "Its not about A, its about B," I usually find it to be the case that it is also about A. Example: Speaking of rape, its not about sex, its about violence. I say it is also about sex. When you hear, its not about the money but about X, check it out; chances are it is also about the money.
http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml

Use and Abuse of Rights Language

These days anything that anybody thinks we need or want is called a right to it. Rights language is overused to the point it loses its power. I won't even try to list all the "rights" that have been claimed in recent years by somebody.

This is a complicated issue, and I do not claim to have mastered the subject either historically or philosophically. But at least the following distinctions might bring some clarity and precision to what in our national conversation is an unbounded surfeit of loose, if not anarchical, talk.

At least three categories come to mind: natural, constitutional, and legal.

Natural Rights are claims we have by virtue of being human. This list would be short and include the fundamentals: life, equality, liberty, justice for all, and the pursuit of happiness. A natural right cannot be established or taken away by civil law. It can only be recognized and protected. We have rights that are "endowed by God" or nature.

Constitutional and legal rights arise by virtue of being a member of a particular society. The former are grounded in the Constitution as determined by the Supreme Court. The latter are legislative enactments not in conflict with the Constitution.

The order of argument be be as follows:
1. There is a need or desire for which legal provision and protection should be given for the good of individuals and society.

2. The need or desire is either Constitutionally required or permitted.

3. If not Constitutionally required or permitted, it should be because it is rooted in something fundamental in our human nature and essential for our fulfillment as individuals and as a community.

Conversation should begin at 1 and proceed to 2 and 3 only when necessary. For example, adequate health care for all can initially argued for on 1. Hence, instead of speaking of a right to health care, it would be better to say that we have a need for health care and a just claim on available resources that should be given legal status for the good of society. The kinds of health care that should be provided have to be negotiated in terms of what a particular society can offer and is able to afford. Universal health care can be argued for on the basis of need, justice, and the good of individuals and society. If one wants to claim health care as a right, then it needs to stated whether this is a natural or constitutional right. Otherwise, it is loose talk that means no more than 1 anyway.

Marriage requires a different formulation. It does not involve costly resources and availability but is a matter of granting legality to certain forms of relationships along with certain formalizing rituals. It is permissible, thought not necessary, to claim that we have a right to form unions with a partner for purposes of reproduction, companionship, and mutual love based on our sexuality that is part of the nature we were born with. All three factors are equal, and reproduction is not a sine qua non.

Moreover, marriage in the primary sense refers to a certain nature and quality of relationship between the partners. Legality is a socially useful way of recognizing and protecting the relationship. This was the basis on which I declared my son and his partner married regardless of what the laws of Ohio say. It would be sufficient to argue-- apart from any natural right--that we have a need and a desire to form such unions. Therefore, governments should recognize and protect such unions legally. (I have previously argued that arguments from nature and natural law are no more effective than any other, since no argument is persuasive for anybody except those who are persuadable by it. These days it is certainly not profitable to "hold these truths to be self-evident." http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/law.htm)

The forms of marriage are a matter for each society to determine based on what works based on justice and the good of individuals and society. Gay marriage can be justified on this basis. Polygamy is different in that it violates justice, since if some men have more than one wife, other men and lesbians can have no wife. But if polygamy is permitted, then polyandry should also.

Should older men be able to marry more than one older woman, since they greatly outnumber men? I see no objection in principle, but would it work satisfactorily in our society and benefit the partners without doing harm to society? I don't know, in some cases it might, but if a ninety-eight-year-old man can marry a twenty-year-old woman, then polygamy for older people is worth debating. Since there is no outcry --or tolerance--for polygamy or polyandry, at the moment it is a debate about principles.

This gets complicated, of course, but it would be better to make an effort to sort it all out rather than to dilute rights language by such overuse and ungrounded rhetoric that it becomes practically meaningless.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml

An Appeal You Will Never Hear on a Public Radio Pledge Drive

How refreshing it would be to hear the following on the frequent pledge drives for public radio:

"OK, let's get down to brass tacks here, cut to the chase. All you deadbeats and cheaters out there who listen to public radio but never give a dime to support it: either turn to another station, or send us some money. Got that you shameless freeloaders, you low-down scoundrels and thieves. Call now or go away. Thank you."

My purpose is not to shame the freeloaders but to express the frustration of those of us who make our modest contributions every year on schedule without being asked. Our pledge drive is going on now, and I am weary the same old platitudes, inane observations, and the endless repetition of the obvious. It all reminds me of too many sermons I've heard and of statements by the Pope on his foreign trips urging everyone to be nice to each other and just get along.

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml

My How Times Have Changed

Twenty-five years ago neither you nor I would have had no idea what the following meant: RAM, email, URL, http://, ftp, cyberspace, HTML, CPU, computer virus, Trojan, or worm, Security Suite, PC, Mac, burn a CD, www, spam, malware, DVD, HDTV, gigabyte, blog, texting, sexting, YouTube, blogging, etc., etc., etc., and so forth.

And I have not yet mentioned my favorite: Google! Now I google frequently nearly everyday.

My how times have changed.

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml

Prosecuting Authorizers of Torture

I am ambivalent about whether members of the Bush Administration who authorized torture should be prosecuted.

Bruce Fein makes a powerful case for just that on the principle that torture violates treaty obligations and US law as well. We are a nation of laws, and lawbreakers should be held accountable for the sake of national integrity and to show the world who we are.

Yet troubling questions arise. Is he saying that if we openly renounced our treaty obligations and changed our laws, torture would be OK? I don't know. But his repeated emphasis on the centrality of law makes me wonder if he has gone too far in absolutizing law as a final referent.

In any case, I would assert that there is a higher principle than law, namely, morality, which is the ultimate justification of law, though not necessarily the only one. I am not sure Fein would disagree. I do oppose those who say that policy differences should not be the occasion of criminal prosecution. Nonsense! If laws have been broken, more than policy disputes is involved.

Setting all this in a larger context may be instructive. It may relativise a narrow focus on the primacy of law. Consider the use of drones by the US in recent days to bomb Pakistani targets. More to the point is the fire bombing of Dresden and of Tokyo in WWII. Many tens of thousands of civilians were killed. Surely these were acts of terror against non-combatants, whatever military targets might have been involved. We have not yet mentioned Hiroshima or Nagasaki where we became the only nation to this day to use nuclear weapons.

And the Nuremberg Trials? Were they in accordance with law? Or did the law emerge along with the proceedings so as to be ex post facto? Prosecution of the Allies was forbidden for any similar acts, thus becoming what the critics called "victors justice."

All of these are exceedingly complex and controversial. issues. That is exactly my point. It is too simple, I think, to demand prosecution of the Bush torture authorizers as a violation of law as the sole justifying principle.

I am inclined to think that, on the whole, it is preferable to denounce torture, renounce its future use, and take steps to see that it does not happen again. To be fair, prosecution would have to include Cheney and Bush, and this would severely divide the country in a time of economic crisis at home and grave threats abroad. Pragmatically, in the presence of so much ambiguity, complexity, and contradiction at the edge of morality, which course of action would be relatively better for the nation and the world? I conclude that it is more important to give attention to these enormous and challenging problems than to get involved in past acts.

But Bruce Fein makes a powerful case.

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml

Quasi-Acerbic Oddities for Today

Yogi Berra famously said, "It ain't over til its over." But in the current Minnesota senatorial election, even when its over, it ain't over.

Miss California Carrie Prejean has achieved notoriety by stating her convictions against same-sex marriage. Someone who parades before millions of people as nearly naked as she did -- and that with technologically enhanced boobs -- for the purpose of creating admiration among males and envy among females should not uncritically be regarded as a moral authority. Now we learn that she had earlier posed topless and allegedly lied about it to pageant officials. Selah.

The more often you go to church, the more likely you are to approve of torture in some circumstances.

http://pewforum.org/docs/?DocID=156

Somehow it did not seem strange that CNN found a "red light district" in Lahore, Pakistan.

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml