Tuesday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Tuesday, November 21, 2023
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31 comments
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
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Libertarian Pilgrims Set Sail For Argentina In Search Of A Better Life
@Sleeping Dog: Good riddance, and may the bears be hungry.
@Sleeping Dog: We are about to see the old adage (I made it up and I’m old), “Libertarian governance will result in epic failure but Libertarians will not let it influence their absolutists beliefs in the slightest.” A year after this clown exits the Argentinian stage the Libertarian community will have completely erased it from their collective memory and will stride confidently on with total certainty in their tragically erroneous and naive understanding of how the world works.
@MarkedMan:
Each summer there is a libertarian ‘festival,’ which is generally pretty much a freak show, this year the Boston Globe gave it extensive coverage, among the amusing quotes in one of the articles was an organizer complaining how most attendees aren’t libertarians, but nihilists, who just want to do whatever they want to do, others be damned.
Yup, that about sums up NH’s experience with the libs.
@MarkedMan: But but but it worked so well for Ayn Rand.
@Sleeping Dog:
I can’t stop laughing
@Sleeping Dog: Okay, just making sure….
Does everyone realize the Babylon Bee is a right-wing parody site?
Well, I see the vigorous back and forth over the Israel / Hamas conflict flared up again the last couple days.
A couple of points: Again, the rules of civil society are nonexistent in macro-tribal conflicts.
You might wish gravity to be in space because it’s a dominant force here on the surface…but it ain’t there.
Morality, in these exercises, is considered only as much as it supports the driving interests of the warring tribes. Hamas, has an interest in using civilians casualties as their survival strategy to continue operations against Israel. Israel has an interest in possessing the land “from the river to the sea”. (Which btw is also Hamas and Palestinian interests.
Those are the conflict parameters folks, not war crimes or civilian casualties. Hamas would frankly sacrifice 10x more children to achieve their goal…why should Israel be shaped by the deliberate Hamas strategy to continue the fight?
The adherents that morals should drive conflict behavior are saying they want 50 more years of open air prison. One of the tribes MUST go. Yes, it’s primal and uncivilized, but such is the human condition in fits and spurts.
So, yes…the winner is the one that imposes their will…whether moral or immoral.
I am a black man in America of African decent, a twice loser. My people were sold to white slavers after they had been defeated in battle by other African…then brought to America and dominated by white men for centuries. We lost (to immoral peoples). Until we didn’t. Individually, there were man winners..just not enough and not in the right things to flip the tide.
Over time, the human experience does bend toward justice. It’s not a pretty ride to get there, and the bus doesn’t stay there forever. The Palestinians will be ok in the long haul…but not as long as they stay in Palestine. And make no mistake, Israel will pay a hidden cost for their treatment of them. There is always a cost for brutality to other humans.
@Kylopod:
Oh yeah, and a RW religious site to boot, but occasionally they are on target.
@Kylopod: Heh. Hadn’t followed the link.
Xlon’x apologists are out in force, claiming the Xtarship dual blow up was a raging success.
It was better than the first attempt, largely because doing worse was difficult. Consider the launch pad and the water deluge. I’ve read a number of claims the first attempt, with scant protections of the pad, was to find out whether protections were needed.
So Xlon had to find out what everyone else knew already? Well, you know, making a car out of a solid piece of metal or plastic would cost less and be more efficient. Do we really need that huge piece of glass in front to protect against wind?
Imagine if Boeing’s 777X or Airbus’ A350 had crashed or blown up on their first test flight, and then on the second. How well would you think they were doing?
There are differences, not least in the energies and risks involved in planes as opposed to rockets. Partly this points at deficiencies that seem to be inherent to rockets. But this is the same company that has managed not to lose a single Xalcon 9 in flight, no matter how many prototype and test articles were lost in development. That’s where you want to have all your explosions, not in deployment.
I watched the B5 animated movie, The Road Home, over the weekend.
It validated my recent practice not to read about a movie I want to see, and not look at trailers or reviews either. In this case, I might have built up expectations.
Oh, it’s a perfectly nice movie. I may even see it again years from now. But it adds nothing to the B5 story or universe, and it’s 100% fan service.
BTW, I was left with the impression the protagonist we follow through the movie, and the timeline he presumably returns to, is not the John Sheridan we saw for several seasons on B5, but rather hails from some parallel timeline.
Why? because the jumpgates produce a different visual phenomena, the Shadows are different, and the bridge of the White Star shown was little like the one we saw on TV.
I’ll forego criticisms, except one: they got voice actors that passed reasonably well for those who’ve passed away since the show ended production in the 90s, except for G’Kar. He sounded nothing at all like Andreas Katsulas.
History is full of situations where everyone “knew” something that wasn’t in fact true. Here is the New York Times in 1920 dissing Robert Goddard:
To me, that SpaceX would challenge the conventional wisdom (which never had its limits tested) in the pursuit of lowering the cost of putting things in orbit is not a bad thing.
@Sleeping Dog: Oh, man. No fair getting my hopes up like that! SIGH.
Maybe we can sponsor a table at the next Porcfest to encourage this??
Shortly after I arrived at Panera this morning as I was heading to the restroom a male employee standing on the customer side of a counter just a few feet in front of me fell backwards and hit his head on the divider behind him and was in a seizure. The sound of his head hitting the wooden divider was loud. I stood over him and yelled out “seizure here call 911”. Before the words were out of my mouth two customers who clearly knew exactly what they were doing were kneeling by the victim and rendering assistance. One woman cradled his head and kept telling him that he was ok and to not try to get up. Someone got a towel and it was put in his mouth so he wouldn’t bite his tongue. The lad slowly came around and had no idea where he was or what had happened. When told he had had a seizure he replied “What’s that?” The woman caring for him finally let him sit up slowly. “You are going to be dizzy.” she said.
“Do you have epilepsy?”
“What’s that?”
When the ambulance came the woman who had been assisting the victim knew one of the EMT’s and was able to explain what had happened. (Small town or just coincidence? No tellin’)
Hope the guy is OK.
@Jay L Gischer:
I think the Times issued a correction in 1969, around July…
In profiles of the Future, I think, Clarke tells of an analysis in the media around Godard’s day as well, that proves it’s impossible to accelerate a chemical rocket enough for its payload to reach orbit. The analysis is completely correct. It’s absolutely impossible.
It only overlooks that if the payload is another rocket, then that second one will be way higher and moving way faster, so it could continue accelerating and climbing and easily reach orbit with a smaller payload. Today we call them stages.
@Jim Brown 32:
And that “winning” didn’t start happening just because out of thin air. It happened specifically because black leaders chose to press moral imperative, as a strategy.
The people who pretend morality is irrelevant in conflict do not seem to understand that prosocial behaviors have tangible, pragmatic benefits. The postindustrial human experience bending towards justice isn’t magic, it’s Darwinism. Doing the right thing — making moral choices — is itself a powerful motivator and coalition builder and in the modern era makes one more likely to survive.
Lincoln did not issue the Emancipation Proclamation only because it was just and right, but because he knew doing so would turn the War into an existential, moral battle. MLK, Rosa Parks, John Lewis and the rest didn’t just eschew violence and terrorism because it’s morally wrong, but also because those amoral choices would have hindered their cause.
Anyone who does not understand that the violent amorality and unethical behavior of Netanyahu/Liked is directly linked to Israel’s deteriorating security situation is not paying attention. Israel should constrain and control itself not just to cater to moralists, but because doing so will make Israel more safe, more supported, and more likely to win than being vicious barbarians will.
Or they can repeat America’s intial post 9/11 errors. Because creating ISIS and insurgencies with unfocused retaliatory barbarism worked out so well for us.
@DK: I disagree. Morals have little sway at that level of societal conflict.
These issues MOVE on the balance of power and self interest. They become shaped once in motion by individuals who do (or not) possess a moral compass
In the civil rights struggle, there became a critical mass of black warriors that returned from overseas combat and weren’t going to put up with any shit.
It’s easy to choose a Dr King when you see Malcolm X behind him loading the magazines.
Ole Cleetuses of this country didn’t give a rats ass about decades of eloquent moral appeals to give up slavery or Jim Crow. Abolitionists remained a small, fringe activist group.
What changed? A lot Ole Cleetus getting whacked in the Civil War was a start. Then, Black men started performing military service, albeit segregated, until Ike desegregated the military in 1949. So the 60s saw a butt ton of Black World War 2 and Korea vets that weren’t afraid to mix it up with white men and a bunch of white vets that knew the cowardly negro myth was bullshit.
So white America faced a choice, public accommodation or conflict. They chose the path of least resistance….and they will continue to choose that path–as long as there are enough people of color and white allies with the ability to push the find out button should Ole Cleetus decides to Fuck Around.
@Jim Brown:
Interesting point. I’m not sure how it intersects, but my cracker impression was that black students that I taught over across the change of the millennium leaned more toward Malcolm than toward Martin. (Then again Portland, OR may simply have a significantly larger–or noisier–Black Muslim community.)
@DK:
One of the key elements of our reaction to 9/11 was the “Flypaper Theory” — we fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them here, and the fight over there acts like flypaper keeping the terrorists in the area.
Part of what kept the American people from constantly demanding new rounds of vengeance after each loss was that it was far away, and the civilians were someone else’s civilians. And it still took us over twenty years to get bored and just leave Afghanistan, accomplishing very little in the end.
Israel is making the same mistakes we did except really, really close to their own population centers.
@Jim Brown:
Strong disagree. It’s not easy to choose non-violence, morality, and strategic thinking. Lashing out wildly and angrily is much easily.
And to choose MLK over Malcolm X, there has to be an MLK there in the first place. If violence had been the only option, it would not have worked. If MLK had been the only option, he still would have succeeded.
Which makes sense only if you live in a fantasyland where white America would have sided with black people over Cletus in a violent struggle.
The idea that white America could not have and would not have violently crushed a violent black resistance is a fallacy. It’s nice chest-beating to think black WW2 soldiers “not putting up with shit” would have been enough, but come on. The ones who would have “found out” in a scenario where black Americans would have chosen violence over pressing moral imperatives would have been black America.
For one, the first thing we would have found out is that our erstwhite white allies would have abandoned us. Terrorism and violence is a not a great coalition-builder, hence why moral arguments were an indelible part of our civil rights strategy.
Long story short, the path chosen by Palestinian and Israeli leadership isn’t working, is not going to work, and won’t make Palestinians or Israelis more safe. A fight to the death is the stuff of movies, not 21st century reality.
@Jay L Gischer:
I’m reasonably sure Xuxk’x XpaceS (what?) will get Xtarship to orbit sometime next year. It will also be capable of carrying great big payloads, and maybe it will lower launch costs.
I’m also reasonably certain Xlon won’t be able to get massive amounts of people to Mars in his lifetime. He may be able to provide the hardware for a few missions, maybe he will even finance them. I hope he goes in one.
@DK:
That the US responded with “unfocused retaliatory barbarism” is not apparent to me.
Evidential point 1: Saudi Arabia continues to exist.
Nor, according to British involved I have spoken to, was US policy in either Afghanistan or Iraq “unfocused barbarism”
And that’s assuming that you take Iraq 2003 to be a post 9/11 response in the first place.
The basis for an eventual crisis was fairly clear from e.g Operation DF of 1998: Hussein was unable to resist “doing the defiance dance”.
@Kathy:
I haven’t heard of any solution to the long term radiation exposure, so, yeah, I’m fine with Elon going, preferably alone.
@gVOR10:
He has to go alone.
Once he loads his ego onboard, there’s no room left for anyone or anything else, not even oxygen.
@DK: Siiiigh, They did side with us. They didn’t want Cleetuses little status boost from Jim Crow to cause bigger problems….so Cleetus got thrown under the bus and the more civilized Cleetuses moved to subtler forms of discrimination–which are paper tigers to Black people who aren’t still victims of learned helplessness.
The surety of a black rebellion being put down was always a myth. There are too many of us and our communities were and are too interdependent. We didn’t know any better and drunk the kool-aid of scare tactics for decades. Until a group of black men who went to war came back not afraid of the white racist. Once he was confronted, the racist–but not racist enough to do anything about it (i.e 98% of whites) stepped aside for progress. They ain’t going to help but they also wont work hard to stop progress.
A person actually trained in assessing these things would know that there wasn’t the internal mass nor energy in the white community to simply destroy us. It would be a poison pill to their own power and interest. Unlike, say the Native American community, who were external and had no interdependent relationship with the United States.
You seem to think cultural change comes from the top…you are wrong. They are reflected from the top. Cultural leaders are a feedback mechanism for the people actually changing the culture. Black people won the civil rights struggle block by block and neighborhood by neighborhood. My Grandmother walked into a white-only laundry mat and dared anyone to kick her out or trying anything. If they did,she had 3 ex-Marine sons they had deal with. Better to let the old lady wash than deal with any smoke for having her arrested. The laundry mat was then opened to all.
Dr King and Malcolm were figureheads that represented exactly the type of energy in the streets. Without the everyday contributions of common folk together with principled whites saying Enough!…King and X are simply 2 more eloquent men advocating an approach to the struggle, they weren’t the first or even the best…they were there at the right time.
@JohnSF:
Um…that we didn’t attack the country the terrorists were actually from seems to me a very obvious indicator of lack of focus.
@Jim Brown 32:
Because we made the right choices that allowed coalition building. White allyship is not a given, never has been.
No, you are wrong. Leadership, morals, and strategy matter. I recall an interview with Andrew Young, where he advised young black activists that change did not just happy. His words were something along the lines of (paraphrasing): “Someone has to take charge. It was a handful of dedicated people dragging the rest of the community along.”
It was not magic. And I think Andrew Young would know how to asses the situation, as he was actuallt there, leading.
No. Dr. King was the best, with unique qualities and strategic thinking. No one else could have accomplished what he accomplished. Hence why no one did till he came along.
Thus far, Israel and Palestine have not been able to disregard ethical and moral considerations to instead bomb, kill, maim, and occupy their way to peace and security. It’s just not working. And it’s not going to. Because morals and ethics do matter.
Work got heavy early today.
Tomorrow I’ll post my latest marinated chicken thighs recipe. It went well, but I think it would be best to make them in an air fryer. Pending one, I may try them in the oven next time.
@DK:
Come on; neither al Qaeda nor al Qaeda allies ruled in Riyadh.
Attacking Saudi Arabia would have been idiotic.
As opposed to getting some security policing tightened up; which happened.
AQ’s primary base of operations was Afghanistan.
@JohnSF:
That doesn’t mean the whole tale re. AQ links to the establishments in Arabia was not dissimulated; it was. But invading Arabia would not have resolved that, either.