Using HTML in comments

I've noticed that many people are linking to articles in their comments (which is excellent) and thought I would share some basic HTML for Optimates who haven't been learning HTML from chipmunks (like our esteemed colleague Prometheus). When making a post, you get a handy formatting bar which allows you to create links, and add various emphasis to your text (italics, bold, etc). When posting comments, however, you get no such luxury, but can still type in the actual HTML code to make such things happen. All of the formatting works by placing "tags" around whatever text you want to give a specific format. Tags are bits of text inside carrot brackets placed at the beginning and end of the text in question (although the second tag gets a "/")
For example, in order to make a link out of text in your comment put the following tags around the text you want to be linked:
<a href="http://the-URL-goes-here.com/">This is the link text</a>
The quote marks are important and must go around the URL inside the first tag.

For bold use <b>This text will be bold</b>
For italics use <i>This text will be italic</i>
For underline use <u>This text will be underlined</u>

The link tags are particularly useful because they save people having to copy and paste a big messy URL. Plus they are great for pissing off Cato.

Permanent underclass

After reading another frustrating piece on our failure to curb illegal immigration (hat tip: Boudicca), I decided it was time to share some of my thoughts on the nexus between minimum wage laws and illegal immigration.
I think our adherence to minimum wage laws, combined with our unwillingness to police our own borders, could create a permanent underclass in this country.
My case begins with the simple economics of supply and demand. Let's say a company has a need for unskilled labor. The labor pool for this is exceedingly large, and they only need a handful of workers for the particular need. In addition, the productivity increases the new employees brings are not very large, but large enough to warrant the new hires. As a result, it isn't economically feasible to pay these workers any more than, say, $5.00 per hour.
Now let's say all of this happens in a state where the minimum wage is $6.50. Let's go one step further and say this is a state that borders Mexico (or Canada, but... really, now). So what does a business do? Does it follow the legal requirements and employ citizen labor at 30% above maximum cost? Or does it take advantage of a lax regime of immigration enforcement and employ, ahem, 'undocumented workers' at less than $5 per hour?
The choice to employ the illegal labor is harmful in two ways. It deprives citizens (some of whom may be legal immigrants!) of employment, and it puts the illegals into a shadow zone: they have no legal rights whatsoever and are at the mercy of their employer's good will. The employer can always claim that they didn't know, but the workers have no such alibi.
Of course, for the worker the risk of getting caught is worth the reward of the job. So from this comes a thriving industry in human trafficking and its attendant evils; from this comes the environmental devastation of the borderlands; and in short order, we have an entire underworld of illegal activities as crime begets crime.
Let's put the focus back on the citizen who would have provided the unskilled labor. What is their lot? Marginal employment to unemployment. Their communities' infrastructure suffers, because the public funds are exhausted providing emergency services to deal with the illegal population. So the resources simply aren't there for education, basic law and order, and other simple needs. Things aren't going to get any better for them.
The end result is an underclass comprising two groups, one citizen and one foreign. Both are locked in place and both feel threatened by the other. If the situation threatens to become permanent, we have a recipe for societal meltdown.
What can be done? Change the laws! Allow more legal immigration and act more effectively in dealing with illegal. Don't just expel the workers, penalize the companies severely. At the same time, abandon the notion that raising the minimum wage (or setting one in the first place) will automatically increase actual wages and employment, as it often has the opposite effect. Instead, let's allow companies to set wages based on the market and the pool of legal labor.
It's not the whole solution, but I think it's a start.

The Knife's Edge

I think I've detected the pattern in Iraq. We spend months creating (or trying to create) good will: through public works, elections, and dialogue. Then, in one explosive instant, we're set back on the path to civil war.
Yahoo's account of the latest outrage can be found here.
Money quote:

In the hours after the bombing, more than 90 Sunni mosques were attacked with automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, burned or taken over by Shiites, said the Iraqi Islamic Party, the country's largest Sunni political group. At least seven people, including three clerics, were killed in the attacks, which were mainly in Baghdad and predominantly Shiite provinces south of the country, the party said.

Just peachy.

Activist Judges

So, the Honorable Judge Punch of Orleans County, New York, has taken it upon himself to Judiciate his beliefs in a seemingly one-sided child-custody case.

While the child in question, Jary Kohl, was born in Orleans County, he has lived almost the entirety of his life in Dallas, Austin, and Georgia, under the care of his mother, Rachael Knight, a chief member of the "Church of the Sub-Genius." For those who don't know, the CSG is a satirical group; essentially it is to organized religion what The Onion is the mainstream journalism. After nearly a decade of bizarre and draconian rulings blindly in favor of the deadbeat father who still resides in Punch's jurisdiction, including forcing the mother to pay for Jary's visits to his father when the father refused to see him otherwise, and requiring that the child never refer to his step-father as "father" or "dad,"Punch has now forcefully removed Jary from Rachael's care, based on photo's from a CSG "X-Day" event satirizing "The Passion of the Christ" as a commercial endeavor. Mrs. Knight is now forbidden even to write to Jary, as the Hon. Punch declared her non-Catholic views to be "mentally ill." Links may be found here, here, and here.

I could ask a thousand questions about this situation. How far can Judiciary decision be carried before it creates it's own fiefdoms, how can Neo-cons berateliberal judges as "Activist" when this sort of conservative activism is occuring, what can be done to salvage a system where a Judge in Upstate New York can decide the fate of a child in Georgia based on where the father lived when he slept with the mother? Instead, I leave the whole atrocity up to you all. I'm simply disturbed by it all.

Huh?

What is he thinking?

Free Speech in Europe

British Historian and Holocaust denier David Irving has been sentenced to three years in prison by an Austrian court. Denial of the holocaust is a punishable by up to 10 years in prison in Austria but it seems as if papers in Europe are split over the sentence.
Meanwhile, the British House of Commons voted by a margin of one vote to adopt changes to an anti religious hate bill, effectively narrowing the scope of punishable actions and language.
I have long held that laws such as the Austrian one, as well as bans on Nazi imagery or language in Germany and France are egregious violations of freedom of speech. The ostensible purpose of legislation like this is either to make an official government statement or stand about certain events or to prevent their reoccurrence. The laws fail at both. If a government wants to take an official stand, or issue a formal apology, its executive is empowered to do so on behalf of the government, without the need to restrict the liberties of its citizens. The fear that allowing public discussion of or debate about the Nazi's actions during WWII will somehow encourage a renaissance of fascist ideology in Europe is farfetched at best. Placing restrictions on what may be said or about a certain topic (or in the case of Austria believed! - Thought Police anyone?) is precisely the wrong way to go about dealing with horrors of the past. It would be similar to the United States passing laws which made denying the existence of slavery a criminal offense. Let people espouse whatever views they like (provided they are not conspiring in a material way to deprive others of their liberties), and then let them enjoy the opprobrium and ridicule they deserve if their views are absurd. Surely people like Irving deserve to be treated like the inconsequential nuts they are, not to have their profiles elevated to public awareness by treating them like notorious criminals.
The news from Britain is as heartening as the Austrian news is disappointing. I cannot stress this enough. You cannot legislate opinion. If opinion leads people to commit real crimes, then they should be punished for those crimes, but trying to stifle the expression of odious opinions, merely because they give offense is antithetical to the very idea of liberty.

One step further

Now let me take it one step further!
Let's say you are constructing your ideal nation. You have all the cultural, historical and political experiences of our planet.
So, what is your guiding political philosophy? What is your religion (or lack thereof)? What are your attitudes toward morality? What is your economic system? And so on.
Of course, there's no "right" answer. I'm just curious to see what everyone's "ideal" country is like. I won't bias the comments by giving my answer just yet, but do expect to hear from me as the discussion gets going. Fire away!

Culture or Religion?

An e-mailer to Andrew Sullivan (presumably a Hindu, from the tone of it) raises the question: is it cultural and social circumstances that create these violent outrages in Islamic countries, or is it the religion itself?
The flashpoint in this current contretemps is Pakistan, which among all others has reacted most violently to the Danish cartoons. It's next door to India - which has a Muslim population of equal size - which in recent years has undergone something of a renaissance on the world stage. But Pakistan remains what it remains: an unstable dictatorship.Thoughts?

Profiles

I just wanted to shoot out a quick request that people fill in their profiles some more. It's nice to link a face (or, at least, a likeness) and a little background information to the fine members of our little community that post here.

Sometimes, a little background information helps us to interpret communications a little better.

Thanks!


That is all.

Mere Christianity [2]

The first installment of quotes from Mere Christianity went well, so indulge me in a second post. Today's quote debunks Intelligent Design!

"One reason why people find Creative Evolution so attractive is that it gives one much of the emotional comfort of believing in God and none of the less pleasant consequences. When you are feeling fit and the sun is shining and you do not want to believe that the whole of the universe is a mere mechanical dance of atoms, it is nice to be able to think of this great mysterious Force rolling on through the centuries and carrying you on its crest.
If, on the other hand, you want to do something rather shabby, the Life-Force, being only a blind force, with no morals and no mind, will never interfere with you like that troublesome God we learned about when we were children. The Life-Force is sort of a tame God. You can switch it on when you want, but it will not bother you. All the thrills of religion and none of the cost."

POW!

You wanted to see it [3]

You wanted to see it [3]: At long last, the Holy Grail of Optimates! Gaze to your left, citizens, and behold "Recent Comments!" The comments are arranged in chronological order, with the freshest at the top. Name of poster and the post commented on are listed, and a click of the mouse will take you right to the conversation in question.
The great thing about this - and I admit freely it was not my idea - is that we can continue conversations after the post has left the main page. Onward to victory!
Update: As revealed in the comments (thanks, Gaufridus!), the minor 'bug' of the title not appearing in "recent comments" only happens in cases when there is no "official" title to the post. I am the chief offender, of course, because I have stubbornly resisted putting titles on my posts. No more!

Fingers crossed

Fingers crossed: Yesterday my brother and mother went to the doctor's in Portland for some further tests, and we have discovered that their blood types match and they match for three of the genetic markers. Even their antibodies get along! This is excellent, excellent news. Some more tests have to be performed, of course, but the optimistic timetable is that my brother could have a kidney (from my mother, no less!) by late April! I do understand that the optimistic timetable is never the realistic one, but I'm all for cautious optimism right now. Fingers crossed, everybody!

Mere Christianity

Mere Christianity: I have made little secret of the fact that the works of theology and religion fascinate me. In that vein, allow me to share a brief quote from C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity:

"The truth is, we believe in decency so much... that we cannot bear to face the fact that we are breaking it, and consequently we try to shift the responsibility. For you notice that it is only for our bad behaviour that we find all these explanations. It is only our bad temper that we put down to being tired or worried or hungry; we put our good temper down to ourselves."

As they say, read the whole book. It's a very short and amicable read. Even if you have no intention to read it, please feel free to comment about this-or-that old thing as it relates to the quote.

One-Click Activist

Has anyone heard of True Majority? I find them to be a more friendly version of MoveOn.org. Founded by Ben Cohen, of Ben & Jarry's fame, and the organization only offers to bring issues to the attention of members. Most of the time, you can simply hit reply and send to take action, and the organization does the rest. They contact all the relevant folks in government on your behalf.

It's really great for people like me, who are living in a place where they care little for local politics, but still want to be able to do something about certian issues. The most recent one has been about EPA and toxic materials and mold in New Orleans.

Check it out, if you wish. It looks pretty good to me. They have a great flash animation in which Ben outlines how the Federal Budget could be allocated a little differently... using OREOS!

Ok, I'm off to class...

That is all.

Update on China and Internet Censorship:

Apparently some members of Congress think Google and Yahoo's internet dealing with China are a bit suspect and will be holding a hearing today regarding it. Kudos to several Opti-mates for highlighting this as a potential issue before it gained prominence in the newsmedia!

I'd Like Another Cold War

Yay!! My first post on Opti-mates, and I couldn't feel more optimized.

This morning, as I was updating a long-overdue C.H.U.D. Roundtable with a bit about Dana Vale, I got into another discussion with my co-worker, Dave. I work stupidly long hours in a small recording studio, so I just realized I probably have more conversations with Dave, the engineer, than with anyone else. Huh.

Anyway, we got into a discussion about Hard Power vs. Soft Power, and the way in which we can change the state of troublesome (to the U.S.) nations simply by presenting our way of life as more attractive. Unbeknownst to me, there is apparently a youth culture in Iran who live Muslim outdoors, but live western at home. Societal pressure keeps them constrained outside, in Dave's opinion, largely because the escalating paranoia will keep the hardliners in power until it desists. I'm not sure, but I do know that we won the cold war not with bombs or A1M1s, but with McDonald's.

What do y'all think? Is one method preferable to the other? Are they mutually exclusive? Is it too late to hope that Soft Power could defuse the middle east, and how can we present our best side in a culture of alarmism and fear? I want to hear from the people!

And they're the moderates

You'll be pleased to know that there's now a push to criminalize insulting prophets. I'm sure glad the reasonable voices are now making themselves heard!

Cheney's got a gun: Oy.

You seem to be doing well, have some more money!

An article in the New York Times (free reg required), points out that the government will be forgoing almost $8 Billion in oil and gas royalties between now and 2011. This is largely a result of "royalty relief" incentives put in place in the Clinton years as a way of encouraging oil companies to invest in risky capacity in the Gulf of Mexico at a time when oil prices were around $10. The incentives made sense at the time, but in a world of $60 oil, it begins to look like shoveling more money at companies already posting record profits (amid soaring energy costs for consumers). The problem is that the government might be in a bit of a legal bind. The original laws establishing the incentives make no reference to "price triggers", ie. the market price for oil at which the relief automatically stops applying. The department of the interior, which handles the royalty collection, claims to be authorized to set such ceilings, and indeed has set them at $35 per barrel (a price passed several years ago).
Meanwhile, congress attempted to include a one time windfall tax on oil profits last year as a dirty fix to the problem. This raises a question about how to deal with poorly written laws we inherit. It takes much greater political effort to change or get rid of legislation than it does to create new legislation (sometimes as a sloppy band-aid for past mistakes). Forget judicial restraint, how about some legislative restraint?

Tales of a Subway Pundit:

As I was riding on the "El," on my way to school, I overheard a conversation between an older black gentleman and an older woman of indiscernable origin... Italian, perhaps. In any case, they were sitting behind me, and their conversation started something like this:

Woman: I hate it when people do that.
 [I assume the man made some effort to see what she did.]
Woman: People who put their bags on the seat, so people can't sit down.
  [He must have readjusted his bag, because she then said...]
Woman: Oh, not you... the guy across the way, there.
Man: Mm Hm...
Woman: And people don't say anything. They just stand there.
Man: Mm Hm...
Woman: There's no respect, no consideration. And people wonder why
  this country's going to the dogs.

That's about the extent of my play-by-play memory recall, but at that point in their discussion, I had half a mind to turn around and tell them why I thought the country was going to hell. But then, I realized that she might just have a point, albeit a narrow, "old school" way of thinking about it.

Everyone's so damned concerned for themselves, nowadays. Hardly any consideration is paid to anyone else, unless they provide some sort of gratification—sex, money or both. By this, of course, I'm referring to significant others and bosses. America is so self absorbed these days. No one cares about nor wants to do anything for anyone else. And I believe it's reflected in our economy.

How many MBAs are there? How many lawyers? Doctors? Now, I don't think that having these people is bad... but how many of them are just chasing the American Capitalist "Ideal?" Now, when I use the word Capitalist, I'm not using it in a socio-communist sort of way... I'm referring to the love of money that many of us suffer from. What ever happened to civic duty? I know some people become lawyers or doctors to help people... but the skeptic in me says the majority are just looking to line their coffers. Has anyone ever seen the Farscape episode entitled "Dream a Little Dream?"

We are losing our footing in the global economy, especially technologically. Where are the engineers? Where are the scientists? China produces more than 250,000 engineering graduates a year—India, over 350,000. We, by comparison, produce between 76- and 78,000... and many of them are foreign nationals. In the recent past, the foreign students would usually stay in the U.S., but with the rapidly progressing economies in their homelands, many foreign students are repatriating after receiving their degrees. If this continues, we will become even more of a consumer economy than we already are.

What is to be done? We're not going to bar foreign students from studying in the States——not that I think we should, mind you. We need citizens from our own country to take an interest in aspects that allow us to develop new technologies, whether they be for the betterment of human life, the environment or even our standing in the global economy. How is this to be accomplished? We could assign majors to students upon completion of some sort of aptitude test...

No, wait... that's no good.

We need to make these fields more appealing, somehow... but stating the facts, and saying it's going to help us keep up in the world won't do it. People want to know what's in it for them.

So, in a way, being selfish could lead to the ruination of our country.

Getting back to my impromptu couple on the train, they took the next logical step in human discourse, and moved into political conversation. The man said something in support of Bush, which [thankfully] I didn't hear. She then said something along the lines of "Oh, I wish you hadn't said that!" And they debated calmly the pros and cons of the Bush administration for a couple of minutes. As far as I could tell, the gentleman's basis for supporting Bush was the he loved this country.

So do the rest of us [mostly]. Does that make us good presidents, too?

They then made some of the usual comparisons and analyses:

"Carter was the most honest man, but wasn't the best President..."

"Clinton, while questionable in his private life (or what-have-you), was quite a good leader, and did well for the country..."

The gentleman again started to talk about why he was in support of Bush, and I was quite thankful that my stop had come.

That is all.

Anti-war and anti-sense: Yesterday the future Mrs. Tacitean and I had the incredibly good fortune to be in Vermont's capital (Motto: "Montpelier - don't blink or you'll miss us") during an anti-war protest!
The march began at City Hall and leisurely made its way to the capitol building a few blocks away. It numbered in the hundreds and comprised more than just anti-war groups.
From our vantage at a streetside restaurant, we watched as an assortment of young and old folk carried banners, dressed in character, and generally opposed everything I agree with. We were joined in our viewing by a couple seated next to us (one of whom looked somewhat like Andrew Sullivan... no accent, though), who shared our light-hearted attitude toward the affair.
Not content to end our fun there, we went to the capitol steps where we heard 'speakers' (and there I'm being charitable) try to connect the dots between the occupation of Palestine, workers' rights abroad, the progressive socialist lot in the USA, and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.
The funniest moments for me were when a speaker would try to rouse the crowd. I say this because the crowd, being made up of so many different groups with different aims, couldn't agree on what to shout. So they just shouted it all at once! A sample of sloganeering:

Speaker: What do we want?
Crowd: Bilpanhebtlaaehcre!
Speaker: When do we want it?
Crowd: NOW!
Speaker: And what do we want after that?!?
Crowd: More bilpanhebtlaaehcre!

Another favorite moment was when one of the speakers decried petroleum, coal, and nuclear energy in succession. It seems one of the 'real' reasons we started the Iraq war was so the nuclear energy industry - nefarious lot that they are - could use up its excess uranium stores on our own troops. Or something.
By far the best moment - one so good that I said 'I've had enough' and left - was when a nicely dressed UVM student, head of the Social Justice League (he took over after Green Lantern left, I guess), told the crowd that "national security" was the same as "fascism."
His authority on this was Huey Long. HUEY LONG! The same Louisiana governor who centralized all authority into himself to turn his state into a proto-communist dictatorship in the 1930s. He would know what absolute power looked like, I guess.
This same speaker then urged a counter-protester to go to Iraq where he could die of radiation poisioning. Lovely.
So there's my first peace protest. It variously advocated bad music, aggressive socialism, centralized authority of a workers' government, oh yeah, and something about abandoning all foreign military commitments.
Now where have I heard that before?

Snow patrol: Northwest Vermont seems to have been spared the Nor'easter that tore through the coast this weekend; as a matter of fact, it hasn't snowed at all here.
Just the other day, Socratic was complaining to me how NYC hadn't gotten any big storm this year. Well here you go, chuckles! So I'd love to hear some reports from our NYC fans and any commenter who lives where the snow has just fallen. How much did you get? What are conditions like?

Shrink wrap your house!: With Boudicca off at school this afternoon, the responsibility has fallen to me to insulate the upstairs windows. We went to the hardware store and got this totally sweet shrink-wrap stuff that creates a seal that 'locks out' cold air. It's incredibly fun and the upstairs feels warmer already! I just thought I would share that with you.

Let the Games Begin: Well, the opening ceremony of the 2006 Winter Olympics was an elating and sobering moment for me. I love the Winter Olympics. They're my single favorite sporting event above all others. Sure, I can get excited about the World Series, or the Superbowl... but I love me some Winter sports. Only problem is: it makes me homesick (now, that these are the first games I've seen since moving from the glorious Granite State) and regretful. It makes me wish I'd tried harder to be a better Alpine racer. But, I was lazy... or depressed... or both. Perhaps I still am. We all have ways for attaining happiness... I'm just not sure what mine is, anymore.

I went to the Join Bode site, and watched most, if not all, of the video clips in which he shares his philosophies. I have to agree with most of them. I watched enough of them to earn the right to "add a leaf to the 'Bode Tree.'" You get to put your name in, and add a creed of your own (the Olympic Creed is mentioned, and Bode's fondness for it). Here's what I had to share:

Never forget where you came from. But don't dwell in the past... that detracts from the present, and can lead to regret. Be happy with the path that you have chosen. It's usually the right one.

I'll try hard to live up to this myself... though sometimes it's hard.

On a related note: Bode says that people who let others decide things for them (thoughts, feelings, clothing, etc.) are the most miserable. Now, I know his lifestyle isn't appealing to everyone, but I'm sure there are some folks out there that enjoy the simple life, who are saying to themselves "Maybe I should be more like him..." Now, I know that these are people who aren't quite getting his message... but by him letting Nike publish his ideals, he's essentially letting himself be put out there to influence others... albeit a side effect of his sharing his views.

Otherwise, I am glad to see most of the world united in an event that's free of war, politics, and other sources of needless contention and strife.

That is all.

They can't be serious!:

I finished my lesson planning and other pedagogical preparations early this morning and thought I'd check to see what was happening in the world today so I could find something with which to open my class before we plunged into the universe of normal distribution. The New York Times was kind enough to publish this gem (free registration required) on the U.S. Department of Education's new commission that was assembled to discuss whether or not to implement standardized testing in institutions of higher education. To clarify, these test would be separate from the GRE, LSAT, MCAT, or any other test required for admission to graduate school. Think high school graduation tests.

I certainly have my doubts and concerns about such a plan. I don't believe it is possible to construct a one-size-fits-all exam when each college or university is so unique. Furthermore, a college education is so individualized, making a catch-all exam difficult to create. The applications of basic writing, analytica, and critical thinking skills differ between disciplines. From my own experiences first at a private, liberal arts women's college and then at larger public coed institutions, as well as comparisons to my siblings' experiences (one is at Georgia Tech and the other at the University of Delaware), I'm just not convinced that, even if it were developed, a standardized test could give a true measure of what students gain in college. There are simply too many intangibles.

Fortunately, Charles Miller, the chairman of this commission, says that "he was not envisionaing a higher education version of the No Child Left Behind Act," but instead clarifies, "'There is no way you can mandate a single set of tests.'" With no single set of tests, would the comparisons be valid? Would the results even be meaningful? What is the fundamental purpose of a college education in this age?

This commission's goal appears to be looking for a quality control measure on a college education to "prove that students are learning." The first step in quality control really should be assessing how many students going to 4-year colleges actually need to be there. While I agree that everyone should have some form of post-secondary education, I feel that too many students are attending colleges instead of vocational schools. I don't consider myself an elitist, but more of a realist. As much as we all believe that "all men are created equal," that ever-present debate between nature and nurture results in people with varying strengths and weaknesses.

Even more than that, standardized testing at this level is a slap in the face to faculty members (and future faculty members) who have worked hard to achieve their levels of expertise and try to share that knowledge with students who may or may not be open to reception, as mentioned above. No one can force a student to learn. That motivation must come from within, and there is very little motivation from a standardized test. We're seeing those results as the NCLB students grow up. Teaching to a test is not teaching. High stakes tests may work on schoolchildren, but not on the young adults of America.

Jesus at the Grammys: While I'm putting together an adequate comment for Socratic's post on liberty and freedom, consider this: Kelly Clarkson just thanked Jesus for her success.
In a similar vein, might I suggest that the Adversary is helping Mariah Carey?

Liberty vs Freedom: I mentioned yesterday in the thread concerning the Danish cartoons that I have been meaning to post about the difference between liberty and freedom and I shall not disappoint, at least, not by way of failing to broach the topic.

One quick caveat before I begin: I am not trying to describe how the two words are commonly used, nor am I attempting to prescribe how they should be used by all people in all contexts. Instead, I aim to distinguish two importantly different concepts and am appropriating the use of the terms “liberty” and “freedom” as designators so as to be clear when I am talking about the one concept and when the other. So in the context of this discussion, I will try to be clear as to what I mean by the two terms, while understanding that in much common use, they are used interchangeably. That being said, get ready for a long, but hopefully relevant post…

Freedom is the less nuanced term, in my mind, and to me simply means lack of restraint. I have the freedom to do anything that physics and biology will allow me to do. Freedom is value neutral in that its meaning is tied to a given potential action, which itself may be considered laudable, unacceptable or irrelevant. Unlike liberty (which we will get to in a moment) a person’s freedom is not related (except in a physical sense) to what other people think, do, and expect. I have the freedom to run about chopping people’s heads off (until I am restrained), but I certainly do not have the liberty to do so (in most countries). I would argue that we only want to spread freedom around the world insofar as we mean freedom from various constraining situations (like dictatorship, extreme poverty, disease, oppression etc). Deposing Saddam Hussein freed the Iraqis from many nasty circumstances, but it did not give them liberty (yet).

To me, there are two related distinguishing features of liberty. The first is that liberty derives its meaning from a social context and has no meaning outside of that context. The second is that liberty implies not just a permitted action or class of actions, but a related responsibility in exercising that liberty. The concept of liberty requires some power (which I will call the “governing power”) with the authority to grant that liberty, be it a king or a constitution and code of laws. In effect, (and this is taken from social contract theory) individuals in a society have given up all of their freedom and immediately received much of it back in the form of liberties, which are essentially writs of discretion covering certain sorts of actions. There is also an understanding, however, that this discretion (ie. in what one says, or in whether one keeps and bears arms) is granted with the expectation that it will be used with a certain awareness of the reasons for which it was granted. In other words, unlike the unbridled freedom of action that we assume everyone would have in a world with no society, liberties come with a covenant of trust from the governing power that grants them. In the case of a monarchy, the king could easily strip away a given (as in given by the king, to the subject) liberty if he felt it had been abused, just as people in America who commit certain crimes are stripped by law of their liberty to go where they please, to vote, and, in some cases, to live. Modern liberal societies are based on this implied trust in the responsible use of the discretion which liberty grants. Underlying all this is the idea that one has liberties because they have been granted to you by the governing power, and that your entitlement to them is, in an important sense, contingent on your acting in good standing with the power that granted them (in a democracy, this power is assumed to rest ultimately with the people, thus giving it a an additional sense of legitimacy in many people’s eyes).

Of course, many people hold to a philosophy that there are certain liberties granted us by God (or by virtue of our humanity, ie, Human Rights, if you want to cast it in a secular manner). But arguments of this sort are all normative, or prescriptive, which is to say, we may use these supposed universal liberties as grounds for criticizing the way in which certain governments are run, or for calls for reform, but ultimately there is no practical way to “appeal to God” and have him come down and enforce those supposed liberties. Thus these sorts of liberties, if we can call them that, are of a different sort than those granted by a government (which is defined precisely by its monopoly on the means to enforcing those liberties).

Of course, if liberty were merely a set of conditional discretions, with the constant threat of retraction by the power that granted them, they would be a pretty bad deal. Also implicit in a liberty is a protection from certain consequences of wielding that discretion. Thus, the governing power expects me to use my granted liberty responsibly, but also guarantees that I will not be punished by other members of society for doing so (and provides recourse (usually legal) if I am). Thus, we trade a free system (or state of nature for all you hobbsians out there) in which the only constraints on us are physical, but in which one is essentially on one’s own, for a system based on trust in which the members of society convert their pure freedom into a set of liberties granted by an agreed on (or de facto, in the case of kings and dictators) governing power.

So given this understanding of liberty, a liberal society is one which errs on the side of granting greater liberties to its members. There may be no clear boundary, as even in a theoretical state governed by Islamic law, one has liberties (just not about certain things and not to the same extent as in most western states). Every orderly and enduring society excludes certain things from the liberties it grants (short of capital punishment and self defense, it is difficult to find many functioning societies that grant people liberty in killing). So perhaps the recent row over blasphemous cartoons comes down to an argument over which things people can be trusted deciding for themselves (radical Islam says religion doesn’t fall into this category, western liberalism disagrees… with guns). Wittgenstein (wondering when he was going to show up?) said the following in On Certainty:

612: Where two principals really do meet which cannot be reconciled with one another, then each man declares the other a fool and heretic.
613: ... At the end of reasons comes persuasion (think what happens when missionaries convert natives)

Are we at such an impasse with absolutist religions and secular liberalism? Are we at the point where only persuasion (not argument) of one kind or another will bring people round to our view? And if people will not be persuaded? What then?

It is my hope that many of you will disagree with all or parts of what I say, so please comment liberally.

More insanity: Meanwhile, it's not easy being Lebanese.

Steeltown rocks!: Another victory for the AFC. It's not quite Brady & Co., but I like this Roethlisberger kid.

How to link directly to specific comments: In the interests of giving everyone the know-how to take advantage of all the features of the blog, I would like to point out a useful trick that will help make referring to previous relevant conversations easy. At the bottom of each post, you will notice a line that says something like "posted by Tacitean @ 11:28 PM. Clicking on the time (which is a link) will take you to a permenant page for that post and its comments. Say I want to link to Tacitean's post about Psalm 146 in one of my posts or one of my comments. I would right-click on the time link at the bottom of his post and select "copy link location". This will copy the URL for that post's page to your clipboard. You can then paste it as the URL for a link you are creating in a post or comment (it helps to open another window or tab to the main site so you can grab links while composing your comment or post in a different tab or window).
Now, say I want to link, not only to Tacitean's post, but to a specific comment of his attached to his post (saying "as Tacitean said in his comment in the freedom of speech post" isn't very helpful when there are 24 comments for someone to sort through). First I would click on the time at the bottom of his post, taking me to that specific page for his post (which will contain his original post and all the comments attached to it, but is NOT the same as the comment pop-up window you get when you are adding a new comment). Then I would scroll down to the comment in question and find the similar looking time link, looking something like this: "8:24 PM, February 02, 2006 " and do that same right-click, "copy link location" maneuver to get a link that will take you right to that specific comment.

Apropos of nothing: I really like Psalm 146.

Finally! My first post. Sorry y'all, that it took so long for me to get my heiney into gear. I totally agree with Tacitean-- we should definitely open it up to other people. Who knows what this could turn into if we did?

I don't really have much to say today except that watching Rumsfeld bray like a donkey was perhaps the highlight of my night last night. You can see my other comments about the SOTU here.

I'll be back later to talk about what BS it is that Cindy Sheehan was arrested for wearing an anti-war t-shirt, as it is, I'm slightly nauseated.