Thursday Linkavaganza

• Jury nullification is a perfectly legal practice for jurors who wish to vote their conscience. But talk about it and, like professor Julian P. Heicklen, you could find yourself the target of an angry, peevish prosecutor.

• Here’s an airline pilot who was forced by airport security to give up his five-inch fork — never mind that (a) any commercial captain who wants to commit an act of terrorism can just crash the fucking plane, or that (b) every day, flight attendants hand out hundreds of thousands of metal forks and knives to passengers in First and Business Class. “Security theater” doesn’t begin to sum up the TSA’s abject stupidity.

• Old news: Muslims issuing death threats against apostates. Probably-equally-old but largely unreported news: Christians issuing death threats against atheists.

• The notoriously litigious Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), a foe of illegal downloading, now should probably sue itself for, um, illegal downloading.

• First the Arab world, now Asia’s ruling giant? Chinese people, fed up with Communist Party oppression and rampant corruption and cronyism, have risen up against their government and the police. Not that it will likely end well in this instance, but if the Chinese want change, it won’t come without the hazards brought on by defiance and principled insubordination. In other words, it’s brave stuff, and I hope we’ll see more of it.

Should Prostitution Be Legal?

More than half the world’s countries now have legalized or semi-legalized prostitution. The sky appears to have fallen in, let’s see…none of them.

As everyone knows, the U.S.A. is not among these more permissive and enlightened nations (a few pockets in Nevada excepted), which puts us squarely in the company of China, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia — instead of in the group that comprises, say, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, etc. Fun, huh?

In the U.S., it’s legally OK to fuck for money if the sex is being filmed or photographed for dissemination — but money-for-sex when there’s no camera in sight, that’s the kind of filth up with which our Washington betters will not put. (Not that the law applies to our dear lawmakers, of course — otherwise many Congresscritters, from Barney Frank to David Vitter, would have found themselves behind bars. It’s both interesting and predictable that somehow the police and prosecutors never got around to paying them a visit.)

I see no compelling reasons for prostitution to be outlawed. No surprise, I guess, given that this blog was named after an eye-opening book called “Ain’t Nobody’s Business If You Do.” The arguments for and against legal prostitution are advanced passionately in a current discussion over at the Volokh Conspiracy. Well worth a read.

Muslim fundies demand protection from music

A kindergarten student in Saint-Michel (Quebec, Canada) will be wearing a noise-reducing headset in class. That’s because her Muslim parents insist their religious beliefs don’t allow the five-year-old girl to listen to music. Music is an integral part of the kindergarten program, but the school authorities say they are glad to carve out an Islamic exception. “The principal thinks the family is acting in good faith,” chirped a spokeswoman for the Montreal School District.

Good faith. Funny, but not ha-ha funny.

We’re talking, I’ll remind you, about protecting the girl from Mary Had a Little Lamb — hardly the Sex Pistols or Snoop Dogg.

At least it would appear that no taxpayer money is being spent on this fundie craziness, nor are other kids being inconvenienced or forcibly indoctrinated by the arrangement. So it’s only a matter of a five-year-old being deprived of a normal, rounded education, with the complicity of the very school that is tasked with providing it to her. Nothing to get upset about, then.

Side note: To my knowledge, a noise-reducing headset combats ambient noise, such as the din in a busy shopping mall or the muffled roar of a plane engine. It almost certainly does very little to block close-by music, which has a wide frequency spectrum and lots of penetrating transients. My guess? The school is agreeing to let the girl wear headphones in the full knowledge that the remedy is ineffective, thus keeping the parents happy while circumventing their demand; or the school will in fact supply the girl with tight-fitting earplugs, thus sealing (ha) her isolation. It should go without saying that the former possibility is far more palatable than the latter.

Belatedly, on Christopher Hitchens

One of the late atheist thinker Christopher Hitchens’ sworn enemies, the British proto-socialist George Galloway, comes off like a “neener-neener”-yelling eight-year-old in his remembrance of sorts, in part because of this opening:

I hope that the deceased, unbelieving English man of letters Christopher Hitchens has discovered that God is not only great but merciful too.

That’s essentially the same passive-aggressive attack-masquerading-as-piety that was tweeted and facebooked by all manner of Christian guffawers, including evangelicals like Rick Warren and Cal Thomas. They prodded the corpse with a stick while attempting to suppress that dirty little pang of pleasure … and almost refrained from thumbing their noses at the remains. Real classy, gents.

I’m pretty sure Hitchens would have had no compunction about dishing it out if Galloway had kicked the bucket instead of the other way around, so that’s not my beef with that cretinous oaf fine contributor to Iran’s Press TV. Instead, it is that Galloway, as he is wont to do, plays fast and loose with the facts. The excellent UK group blog Harry’s Place deserves praise for fisking Galloway’s latest prose and putting the man in his place, but it can’t do so as masterfully as Hitchens would’ve likely acquitted himself of the task. Hitch is a tough act to follow.

In their 2005 Manhattan matchup, which Galloway clearly regards as a highlight of his life (one he is still flogging, to try to make money off a pending DVD version) Hitchens easily maintained the upper hand, calling nothing to mind so much as the old quip “It’s not right to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed man.”

Anyway, a final word on Hitchens’ passing. Predictably enough, and not without justification, many people on the left, and libertarians too, brought up his defense of the war in Iraq. Some said they’d never forgive him. But if ever there was a time for forgiveness, Hitchens’ premature death of esophageal cancer was it. Truth be told, I couldn’t brook Hitchens’ reasoning on the matter either (I marched in New York City in February 2003 against the invasion of Iraq), though I followed him all too well on the dangers of fundamentalist Islam. But even when I thought him wrong, I admired Hitchens for shaping his own ideology, being his own man, hacking his own path — consequences be damned.

“Suspect your own motives, and all excuses.” Hitchens didn’t just write that; he lived it. He never was part of a côterie he wasn’t fully prepared to walk away from if that’s what his intellect told him was prudent or necessary. That’s a very rare attitude because it takes tremendous guts.

Another Hitchens quote (it’s been one of my cherished guidelines since I first came across it, some ten years ago): “Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence.”

Silence, and the grave, have imposed themselves on the man once and for all, and what a strange sensation it is after a lifetime of beautiful, fearless, erudite roars.

Thank you, Hitch.

A kiss is just a kiss

But not this one.

The death of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell remains one of the cheeriest pieces of news of the year. It’s easy to forget that, especially for those of us who weren’t directly affected by the policy one way or the other. But what a difference its repeal made to thousands of couples just like Petty Officer 2nd Class Marissa Gaet and Petty Officer 3rd Class Citlalic Snell. My love and best wishes to them all.

Ron Paul: Hell freezes over

Well well, lookie here:

I’m a bit bothered by Ron Paul’s ideas on immigration. I’m more than a bit bothered by the man’s apparent abandonment of his libertarian bona fides when it comes to women’s reproductive rights. I’m bothered as hell by the absolutely scandalous racism in his 20-year-old newsletters, nastiness which he has (to his credit) repeatedly disavowed, but (very much not to his credit) never explained.

And the Atlantic is surely entitled to ask

If Ron Paul is so libertarian that he won’t even police people who use his name [the authors of the newsletters], if his movement is filled with incompetents and opportunists, then what kind of a president would he make? Would he even check in to see if his ideas are being implemented? Who would he appoint to Cabinet positions?

Aye.

I’d still rather have someone in the White House whose ideas are at heart about leaving people alone, than any of the meddlesome Christianists whose every legislative impulse is to expand government powers at the expense of our pocketbooks and our constitutional rights.

Sign language

A panhandler finds himself in trouble with the NYPD. Wouldn’t have anything to do with what’s on his sign, would it?

“Help!” the sign, in green letters, reads. “I Need Money for Weed!” The man, Joshua Long, has become a favorite of some tourists who pose for pictures with him and stuff dollar bills into his hand. But some police officers in Midtown have taken a dim view of his entrepreneurial spirit and, perhaps, the words that further it; they have arrested him several times while he was displaying his placard. Once, he said, officers told him he was not welcome on Broadway because they objected to his message. When he asked those officers to identify themselves, he said, they replied by arresting him.

Luckily, we have the judiciary to correct such a situation. Mr. Long sued, saying he was arrested five times between May 2010 and June 2011 and charged with various crimes, such as disorderly conduct and “obstructing governmental administration,” whatever that means. The outcome?

Judge Shira A. Scheindlin approved a stipulation in which the city agreed that the police would use their “best efforts” not to roust Mr. Long or arrest him without cause.

Was anyone made safer when cops arrested Mr. Long over and over again (and pepper-sprayed him for good measure)? Would they have done so if he had held a sign saying “God Bless” or some other message of head-bowed piety or humility? Who are the real lawbreakers and harassers here? And what does it say about New York’s law enforcement that the promise the judge succeeded in eliciting from the NYPD is that cops will now use their “best efforts not to arrest Mr. Long without cause”?

A libertarian looks at Occupy Wall Street, part 4

I’ve been taking a look at the Occupy Wall Street movement. In Part 1 I just rambled on a bit about the movement, then in Part 2 I started to take a look at the official Declaration of the Occupation of New York City, and in Part 3 I delved into the List of Grievances. Today, I’m going to look at one particular grievance:

  • They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.

Here in the United States, I am one of the lowly 99%, but on a world-wide basis, I’m firmly in the top 1%.  The U.S. census considers a family of four to be poor if they earn less than $22,000 per year. That’s an average annual income per person of only $5500 per person. Yet on a world-wide basis, an income of $5500 is above the 85th percentile. Someone living at the U.S. poverty line is still living better than 85% of the people in the world. The United States is a very wealthy country, and even in the midst of the current economic crisis, we all benefit greatly just by living and working here.

So when an American corporation outsources its labor to the third world, they may be taking jobs away from an Americans, but they are also giving jobs to people in one of those poor countries. On the Occupy Wall Street homepage they proudly claim their internationalism, “The revolution continues worldwide!” Yet now they’re complaining that comparatively rich Americans are losing jobs to comparatively poor people in other countries.

It’s as if they think Americans are inherently more deserving of jobs than people in other countries, which is pretty bigoted for an international revolution. I wonder how their brethren in other countries feel about that? (Then again, looking at the Occupy Together Actions & Directory page, of the 489 actions listed, only 75 are taking place outside the U.S., and 22 of those are in Canada.)

There’s another problem with this grievance: It focuses entirely on people’s roles as workers but completely ignores their role as consumers. When manufacturers reduce their production costs, they don’t get to pocket all the money they save. They’re in competition with other suppliers of competing goods, and those suppliers are also cutting costs. In a free market, competitive pressure will force them to pass on nearly all the savings to consumers.

(Even the Occupy Wall Street types implicitly acknowledge this whenever they complain that big-box stores like Walmart drive smaller stores out of business. The other stores go out of business because they can’t match the low prices.)

We don’t work at jobs because we want money. We work at jobs because we want the stuff that money can buy. We like getting a raise because that means we can buy more stuff, but we can also buy more stuff when the prices go down. That’s just two different ways of looking at the same productivity growth. Looking at only one side of the equation distorts the Occupiers’ view of economic progress.

A libertarian looks at Occupy Wall Street, part 3

I’ve been taking a look at the Occupy Wall Street movement. In Part 1 I just rambled on a bit about the movement, then in Part 2 I started to take a look at the official Declaration of the Occupation of New York City. That document includes a lengthy List of Grievances, and today I’m going to look at the first few of them.

  • They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.

I’m pretty sure this is completely true. And it’s a perfectly reasonable legal tactic for someone about to lose their home to point out that the corporate entity that initiated foreclosure proceedings doesn’t actually have all the required paperwork. There’s nothing wrong with making the banks untangle the confusion they caused. But it’s an oddly technical point with which to launch a list of grievances.

  • They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.

The way I see it, it’s the federal government that took the money from the taxpayers, it’s the federal government that gave it to the banks with impunity, and it’s the federal government that didn’t specify limits to executive compensation.

There are also three things to keep in mind about those bonuses: (1) The amounts involved are usually relatively small compared to the bailout itself. (2) Just because it’s called a “bonus,” doesn’t mean it isn’t a regular, agreed-upon part of their executive compensation structure. (3) Just because the company overall is doing poorly, doesn’t mean some of the executives didn’t do an excellent job with their divisions.

  • They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.

Discrimination sure hasn’t been eliminated, if that’s what this means. Wall Street is hardly the only culprit. (And I’ll bet the top 1% are a lot less racist than the bottom 10%, largely due to the effects of education.)

  • They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.

I don’t know enough about agriculture to address this one, although I suspect that most agricultural monopolies are government-created.

  • They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless animals, and actively hide these practices.

Probably true, if they’re referring to using animals for product testing.

  • They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.

Corporations have no ability whatsoever to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions. Employees can always quit or use the threat of quitting to pressure their employers into giving them what they want. Of course, as in any negotiation, they might find themselves agreeing to less than they’d hoped for. Employees have a right to negotiate, but they don’t have a right to win every negotiation.

I assume that the authors of this declaration are really talking about collective negotiation — i.e. unions. I’m not convinced that the decline in unionization represents anything other than a failure of unions to provide value to employees in the modern economy.

  • They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.

There’s a lot wrong with that statement. For one thing, the idea that education is a human right might make sense if you’re talking about basic literacy, but it’s absurd to elevate a degree in French Literature or the Performing Arts to the level of a basic human right.

Also, they left out the part where the students knowingly and willingly took on that debt. They took other people’s money, which those people made available with the understanding that the students would pay it back, they then spent the money on a semi-worthless degree, and now they’re trying to back out of their promise to pay the money back. It’s like going into a restaurant, ordering and eating the lobster dinner, and then complaining that it’s unfair to make you pay because food is a basic human right.

That said, it’s important to note that student loans — unlike almost all other debts — are not dischargeable in bankruptcy.

As a society, we benefit from having a bankruptcy process. It does us no good to have people saddled with debts they can never repay. Being deep in debt, they have little incentive to become productive members of society, since the benefits of their productivity will go almost entirely to their creditors. On the other hand, since their creditors aren’t going to get paid anyway, it does little harm to have a bankruptcy court wipe out the debt. The creditors still don’t get paid, but at least the debtor is encouraged to re-enter productive life. There’s nothing about student loans that changes this logic, so I fully support revising the law so that student debts are once again discharegeable through bankruptcy.

That’s about it for now. Next time, I’ll start with the grievance that reveals Occupy Wall Street’s bigoted streak.

A libertarian looks at Occupy Wall Street, part 2

As I said before, I haven’t been writing about the Occupy Wall Street movement because it’s hard for me to get a handle on what such a grass roots movement is all about. (I had the same trouble with the Tea Party.)

However, the various Occupy movements appear to each be run locally by consensus-driven Generally Assemblies that take place every day. The New York movement, the original Occupy Wall Street, even has a website. That website has something I can use, a Declaration of the Occupation of New York City, which lays out an official statement of what the organization is about. I realize that this is no more likely to represent the goals of any given protester than the Libertarian party platform represents mine, but it’s a place for me to start.

Declaration of the Occupation of New York City

This document was accepted by the NYC General Assembly on September 29, 2011

Translations: French, Slovak, Spanish, German, Italian, Arabic, Portuguese

By the way, kudos to Occupy Wall Street for providing translations. For a movement that claims to value inclusiveness, it shows that they walk the walk.

As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.

Sigh. Anti-corporatism makes me weary. A corporation is what you create when you need a secure, easy to administer, and proven legal mechanism for people to pool their resources in pursuit of a common goal. Sometimes that’s Bank of America, sometimes it’s a storefront church. And sometimes, it’s a political cause: If you donate to the Occupy Wall Street movement, the money is handled by the Alliance for Global Justice, which is a corporation. Complaining about corporations because you didn’t like the bank bailout makes about as much sense as complaining about black people because you once got mugged by a black gang member.

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power.

I’d like to know which corporations “do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people.” Even monopolies like Comcast can’t make me pay them unless I agree to it beforehand. The free market is built on the idea that all parties consent. The only way a corporation can get wealth from you without your consent is with the forceful help of the government.

We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments.

I don’t even know what most of that means. Corporations are owned and run by people. So while profits are of paramount importance, those profits ultimately go to people. Saying corporations “place profit over people” is just a way to say you don’t like the people who own corporations. Also, who expects corporations to provide justice or equality? (Whatever those mean to OWS.)

I hope this will make more sense later. Next up, I start working my way through the list of grievances.

Update: Part 3 is up.

A libertarian looks at Occupy Wall Street, part 1

I haven’t had much to say about the Occupy Wall Street protests — or any of the other Occupy <your-city-here> events — mostly because I don’t know what the protests are about. That’s not entirely my fault, because the protesters themselves don’t know why they’re there either. For example, check out this declaration of principles from the Occupy movement in my home town of Chicago:

Currently the participants of Occupy Chicago are expressing their voices together and developing an agreed Mission Statement and list of Grievances (to come soon).

So, sixty days of protesting in the streets, and they still don’t have a clue why they’re there. That’s not actually as bad as it sounds. I imagine that most of the individual protesters can explain why they’re there, but they’re having trouble finding a common cause. There’s nothing terribly wrong with that. Building a consensus is a process, and it doesn’t happen overnight.

I’m sure that in time the Occupy movements will reach maturity, by which I mean that charismatic psychopaths will scheme their way into leadership positions so they can steal donated money, and professional politicians (also charismatic psychopaths) will try to co-opt the movement to fulfill their own elective ambitions.

Welcome to the revolution, kids!

I was planning to write more, but I’m too tired. I think for my next post I’ll visit the Occupy Wall Street Movement’s New York Generally Assembly website, which doesn’t work well in Internet Explorer because that browser was created by an imperialist capitalist corporation.

Update: Part 2 is up.