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Alex Knapp | Wednesday, July 9, 2008 |
“What I fear most are affirmative actions of sober and well-intentioned men, granting to government powers to do something that appears to need doing.”
– Robert A. Heinlein
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By Any Other Name…
Jonah Goldberg has sparked a minor blogospheric furor for a recent column in which he castigated Barack Obama, John McCain, and others for promoting a compulsory national service program, which he compared to slavery.
Most of the outrage directed at this column deals directly with these two paragraphs. And, frankly, I do think that Goldberg did employ some bad rhetoric here. But it’s bad rhetoric used to make an excellent point. Namely, that there’s something un-American about compulsory national service. As Goldberg points out:
Now, Obama’s plan, like most plans of this type, doesn’t outright mandate that all students perform national service. It merely makes such service a condition for federal education dollars. So in a technical sense, these types of plans probably don’t run afoul of the 13th Amendment. But they’re still pretty appalling, and I think that Goldberg does make an excellent point here:
I agree with this sentence wholeheartedly. Both Obama and McCain’s service plans serve the nefarious idea that people ought to be forced to help somebody else, which is something that is anathema to the rights of “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness” that this country was ostensibly founded upon. I can’t be the only one who shook his head in disbelief at John McCain’s essay about ‘patriotism, in which he said:
Yes, in John McCain’s worldview, country reigns supreme. Above religion. Above conscience. Above the human race as a whole. At least, that’s the conclusion you have to reach if you take his words at face value. But that’s the very ideology that drives the clamor for compulsory service–the idea that the lives of young people are not their own. That their dreams and their ambitions should be shunted aside in the name of some vaguely defined “greater good.” Look, if a kid wants to spend 50 hours a year volunteering at a soup kitchen or building a house for habitat for humanity, then more power to him. If she wants to spend that time playing video games or basketball, or even *gasp!* holding down a part-time job well, that’s her choice, too. The point of America is that you got to make the choice about what you want to do with your life, not have some bureaucrat decide for you. Clunky prose aside, I think that Goldberg was dead on in condemning compulsory service. It’s an antiquated, un-American notion that should by no means make its way into federal law.
Iraqi Government Demands Timetable For Troop Withdrawl
Iraq’s national security advisor announced today that the Iraqi government will be demanding a hard timetable for American troop withdrawl: Iraq will not accept any security agreement with the United States unless it includes dates for the withdrawal of foreign forces, the government’s national security adviser said on Tuesday. Presented without comment. Not With a Bang But a Whimper (In the Press)
Writing for Slate, Tim Noah nails exactly why the possible destruction of the Earth later this year when the Large Hadron Collider is switched on isn’t getting much attention in the press:
Makes sense to me. BLM Freezes New Solar Development for Two Years
The Bureau of Land Management has placed a two year moratorium on new solar power projects proposed for building on public lands.
The Bureau of Land Management says an extensive environmental study is needed to determine how large solar plants might affect millions of acres it oversees in six Western states — Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah. Now, this won’t affect any pending proposal–apparently there are about 130 in the works. But at least on face, this ban doesn’t appear to make a lot of sense. It seems to me that there isn’t any reason why the BLM couldn’t study the environmental impacts of solar power while still allowing new proposals–as new information is gathered, the EIR’s for new projects could just be changed accordingly. At a time when we’re giving due consideration to opening up new oil and gas projects on public lands, a freeze on solar power seems counterproductive. Fastest Flip-Flop In History?
Kevin Drum awards the world record for fastest flip-flop to Sean Hannity in a show yesterday commenting about the North Korea deal: HANNITY: The news today brings a clear foreign policy victory for the Bush administration. But will the press report it that way? Joining us now for analysis, former ambassador to the U.N. and a Fox News contributor, John Bolton. What do you think this means? That’s just funny right there. You’d think someone who makes a living spouting their opinions to the world could stand up for them for at least 30 seconds. Or, at the very least, acknowledge that he’s changed his mind. Just one more reason why I don’t bother watching news or political opinion on TV. Except for Stewart and Colbert, of course. Activist Judges Overturn Democratic Process Again
In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court has overturned the D.C. handgun ban, thwarting the democratic process. The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the District of Columbia cannot ban a citizen from keeping a handgun at home, throwing out one of the nation’s strictest gun control laws. The opinion isn’t up on the Supreme Court’s website as of the time of this writing, but I’m sure that conservatives will be quick to excoriate the flagrant judicial activism of the court in this case, while liberals will be defending the Court for upholding an individual right enshrined in the constitution. Right? Update: SCOTUSBlog has the opinion here. I haven’t time to do much but skim the summary, but it seems on first glance to be a good decision. The most interesting thing to me so far is that the Court declined to overturn U.S. v. Miller. Update (James Joyner): I had planned to write something similar when the decision came down, since this was the expected result. Snark aside, while I think this is exactly the right interpretation of the 2nd Amendment — one can’t imagine that the Framers, so soon after gaining their independence in a war initially fought by people supplying their own weapons from their private cache meant merely to protect state-owned arms — it’s not a “conservative” decision in two senses. First, stare decisis would seem to have indicated the contrary ruling. Most recent precedent has been in favor of states and municipalities restricting firearms; the 2nd Amendment had previously been construed very narrowly. Second, as Alex suggests, it overturns the will of the people of DC as expressed through their elected representatives. Update (Alex Knapp): I’ve now read the entire decision, and I think it provides a fair reading of the Second Amendment. The way I understand it, though, it doesn’t appear that most gun control laws are going to be at risk as a consequence of this ruling–just particularly onerous ones or outright bans of commonly used guns. And, as Dodd points out below, this opinion does not overturn Miller because Scalia does not find Miller to be incompatible with the Second Amendment, which is the view of a number of legal scholars as well. It’s also worth pointing out that James is absolutely correct that this isn’t a “conservative” opinion, because the democratic process was, in fact, thwarted. Which goes to show the value of a republic over a democracy. We’re supposed to be living in the former.
General Taguba: Bush Administration ‘Guilty of War Crimes’
Physicians for Human Rights has just published a report detailing the medical evidence of detainee torture at the hands of U.S. Personnel in Iraq, Afghanist, and Guantanamo Bay. Maj. General Antonio Taguba (Ret.) authored the preface to the report, in which he accuses the Administration of having committed war crimes: The profiles of these eleven former detainees, none of whom were ever charged with a crime or told why they were detained, are tragic and brutal rebuttals to those who claim that torture is ever justified. Through the experiences of these men in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay, we can see the full scope of the damage this illegal and unsound policy has inflicted—both on America’s institutions and our nation’s founding values, which the military, intelligence services, and our justice system are duty-bound to defend. The answer to that question? No. They won’t be. (link via Radley Balko) McCain Proposes Prize for Battery Breakthrough
John McCain has proposed offering a $300 million dollar prize to the developer of “breakthrough battery technology.” Senator John McCain on Monday proposed the creation of a $300 million prize for anyone who developed breakthrough car-battery technology and he recommended greater tax incentives for buyers of nonpolluting autos, saying that only a combination of increased oil production, conservation measures and ingenuity could ease the fuel crisis and slow global warming. That’s not a bad idea, assuming that the prize conditions are well defined. I’ve always preferred the incentive approach to research as opposed to direct subsidies. Plus, if the car battery principles can be applied to other energy storage, it might help boost the transition to fluctuating power sources such as solar and wind. (link via Balloon Juice) Were There No Oil Spills From Katrina?
In the comments to my latest post on domestic oil production, in which I continue my skepticism over the benefits to more domestic oil production, a number of claims were made in the comments that raised some interesting issues. So I thought it might be worthwhile if I went ahead and investigated some of these claims and presented the evidence. Some of these claims are going to require more research than others, so I’ll be spreading them out over several posts. For today, the claim I thought would be the easiest to look up was the continuous repeat of John McCain’s recent claim that there were no significant spills from offshore oil platforms due to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Is this true? Well, the U.S. Minerals Management Service commissioned a study of this very issue, which concluded that: The impacts from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita were typical of this historical experience. While cleanup was required. The volume of oil spilled and impacts to shore from the offshore infrastructure were categorized as minor. Case closed, right? Well, not exactly. Reading further into the study reveals the total extent of the damage: As a result of both storms, 124 spills were reported with a total volume of roughly 17,700 barrels of total petroleum products, of which about 13,200 barrels were crude oil and condensate from platforms, rigs and pipelines, and 4,500 barrels were refined products from platforms and rigs. Pipelines were accountable for 72 spills totaling about 7,300 barrels of crude oil and condensate spilled into the [Gulf of Mexico]. Response and recovery efforts kept the impacts to a minimum with no onshore impacts from these spill events. How can we evaluate whether this amount spilled was truly “minor”? The criteria I think it’s best to focus on are the guidelines are spelled out in the Code of Federal Regulations and used by the EPA and Coast Guard to evaluate oil spills: (1) Minor discharge means a discharge to the inland waters of less than 1,000 gallons of oil or a discharge to the coastal waters of less than 10,000 gallons of oil. 17,700 barrels of oil corresponds to 743,400 gallons, which is more than sufficient to qualify as a “major discharge” under Federal guidelines. Now, that 743,400 gallons is certainly small potatoes compared to the over 8 million gallons of oil which spilled inland along the Mississippi River and other locations in Louisiana. Still, if it’s over seven times what the EPA considers a “major discharge”, I have to take issue with the MMS’s report characterization of the spill as “minor.” While it appears that no individual leak appears to have been a major discharge, the sum total of oil spilled from oil platforms after Katrina and Rita is more than enough to qualify as one. Thankfully, the environmental impacts from these spills appear to be minor. But the idea that there were “no significant leaks” from offshore platforms after Katrina and Rita doesn’t appear to be justified by the evidence. Photo credit: NOAA The Economic Benefits of Drilling in ANWR? Negligible.
As the debate over opening up more avenues to domestic oil production continues, it’s worth noting that last month, the Department of Energy, at the request of Senator Ted Stevens, produced an economic forecast about opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration. The overall benefit? Well, not much, really. Additional oil production resulting from the opening of ANWR would be only a small portion of total world oil production, and would likely be offset in part by somewhat lower production outside the United States. The opening of ANWR is projected to have its largest oil price reduction impacts as follows: a reduction in low-sulfur, light crude oil prices of $0.41 per barrel (2006 dollars) in 2026 for the low oil resource case, $0.75 per barrel in 2025 for the mean oil resource case, and $1.44 per barrel in 2027 for the high oil resource case, relative to the reference case. In other words, the absolute, best case scenario for ANWR’s oil production is that if we open it up today, then 19 years from now the price of a barrel of oil will be $1.44 less than it would have been. While the most likely case expects that 17 years from now, a barrel of oil will be about 75 cents cheaper. Note that these are prices for a barrel of crude–not a gallon of gasoline. So the economic effect looks to be pretty marginal. Granted, this report is merely a projection and subject to all the caveats thereto, but it should certainly give people pause with regards to the “great economic benefits” to be gained from opening ANWR to exploration. In all perfect honestly, I don’t really care much one way or the other if ANWR is opened to exploration (as opposed to opening up more offshore drilling, which raises some more serious environmental considerations). But given that the feds inevitably foot part of the bill for this type of deal, I think that we should question whether this is a worthwhile expenditure of resources, or if those resources are better spent elsewhere. h/t Matthew Yglesias A Difference, Not a Defect
In reference to James’ post below, it’s worth pointing out that a biological cause for homosexuality does not, in any sense of the word, make for a birth defect, and we should be careful how we define the phrase. Calling homosexuality a “birth defect” (as some will no doubt begin to do so), implies that homosexuality causes some interference in a person’s flourishing or capabilities. Clearly, it does not. Calling homosexuality a “defect” is akin to calling left-handedness a “defect”–it doesn’t make sense, because being left-handed doesn’t affect health or flourishing. Neither does homosexuality. Homosexuality is just a difference from the norm. But from a purely biological perspective, there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s worth considering, too, that calling homosexuality a “defect” is based purely on the Judeo-Christian moral sense. Homosexuality is certainly not a taboo in many human cultures, and has been celebrated in many. Additionally, from a pure empirical perspective, you’ll have a tough time convincing me that being gay would be bad for my kids when you consider that homosexuality appears to be based partially on brain structure. Given how intwined the various aspects of brain function are, you have to consider that if a “cure” had been available and used throughout history, there’s a good chance that human culture would have been deprived of the works and ideas of:
* Socrates * Alexander the Great * Desiderius Erasmus * Francis Bacon * Walt Whitman * Oscar Wilde * Cole Porter * Leonard Bernstein * T.E. Lawrence * Christopher Marlowe * Leonardo da Vinci * Horatio Alger, Jr. * Hans Christian Andersen * Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky * Alan Turing And many, many others. How sad this world would be if parents tried to change the very structure of their children’s brains because of a primitive superstition regarding love between persons of the same sex. If you ask me, a desire to mold your child into being a person who satisfies your own selfish desires is the defect, not homosexuality. On “Moderate Islam”
Steven Cook has an excellent article in Foreign Policy on the mistake that Western policymakers make when they urge “boosting moderate Islam”. Given the wildly different criteria for what constitutes “a moderate,” policymakers will run in circles trying to determine who is a moderate and worthy of support, and who is not. One person’s moderate is another person’s radical, and another person’s moderate is little more than a patsy of the West. A policy built on support for moderate Islam is only asking for trouble. This is one of those insights that is just blindingly obvious, yet doesn’t actually appear to be part of the debate. It’s definitely something worth thinking about. Read the whole thing, especially its descriptions of “moderate” Muslims who aren’t really friends of the West. It also really gets to the point that we should be focusing on trying to persuade unfriendly governments to support our policies, and work on infiltrating and dismantling terrorist organizations–not trying to encourage the dominance of one religious sect over another. (link via Andrew Sullivan) Psychic Information Began Child Abuse Investigation
A Canadian mother was recently subjected to a child abuse investigation on the grounds that a psychic informed a school district employee that a child was being abused. The mother of an autistic girl says the public school board was “completely unprofessional” to formulate a theory that her daughter was being sexually abused based on a psychic’s perception. Considering that a child abuse allegation can follow someone around for life even if they are vindicated, this is a particularly deplorable act. This is the twenty-first century! It should be a matter of shame and social stigma that somebody believes in psychic abilities and trusts a psychic enough to act on the “information” provided. The fact that some con artist’s word led to an investigation that might have separated a mother from her daughter is simply disgusting. Welcoming Our Robot Overlords
It appears that the British military, in conjunction with private industry, has begun building Skynet: With the launch of a new communications satellite, the British military has completed a highly advanced network that will allow robotic military units to be controlled at long range. Sound vaguely familiar? They actually named the thing Skynet. When the T-1000s come knocking, keep an eye out for the “Made in UK” sticker. Okay. Deep breaths. Somebody just needs to upload a copy of a tic-tac-toe game into the network and get it to play itself. Stat!
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