Idyll Reflections

A Must Read Comic: I guess Superman has a lot of pent-up anxieties. Or maybe his writers do...It's an event of comic proportions.

Ethics and "Waging Peace"

If you're looking for something to trouble you about the "peace" movement, check out this piece by David Krieger, in which he is unwilling to recognize the difference (if, that is, he perceives a difference to exist) between the Germany of the Third Reich and the America of 2003. However, it was a pleasant surprise to hear how students would refuse to sabotage the nuclear research of America. In dealing with the unjust and cruel, peace at any cost is slavery.
While there may be some ideological similarities between the Third Reich and contemporary America, I see these as increasingly coming from the "left" side of the political spectrum, with its emphasis on political correctness, racial prejudice, unreasonable emotional rage, desire to homogenize in politics, educational elitism, desire to deprive the average citizen of personal protection, dependence upon a bureaucratic government, etc. etc. etc. That is, coming from the very side that Mr. Krieger probably supports.

Moving on Past Civil Discourse into Rage

Al Gore's speech (here's Matt Drudge's transcript of what Gore actually said; here's the prepared text--there are telling differences) at NYU are, like most of Mr. Gore's speeches, terribly opaque. Mr. Gore clearly has mastered the craft of inserting tacks into marshmellowpuff prose. I found particularly striking his insinuating endorsement (through the quotation of George A. Akerlof) of the view that the administration of George W. Bush is the worst that this country has ever had.
Another delightful point was his continued harping on a lack of American commitment to the Kyoto Protocol, even though a vast majority of the signers of the protocol are themselves not in compliance. Indeed, the emissions of the United States are, in fact, growing at a lower rate than a number of the Kyoto member countries. Kyoto, like many international treaties, is about politics; not its ostensible topic. This speech contains a number of intriguing points, which I will further discuss in the future.

Marital Touchstones

Although I do not agree with a number of its conclusions, this article by Stanley Kurtz does provide some fascinating (and, in my opinion) disturbing information about the anti-marriage movement. We have another demonstration of a sixties "ideal" festering inside our ivory towers.
I find the notion of a relationship registry an extremely telling one. More and more, we are synthesizing notions of politics/government and culture. The formation of such a registry seems a further demonstration of such synthesis. Though such a synthesis is more common in European countries--European governments are, on the whole, more totalitarian than their American counterpart--it is making progress in our own United States, especially on the political left. One sign of this progress can be seen in the case of anti-American "free speech." In the course of criticizing the Iraq war and, often, the Bush administration, many leftists turned on their own criticizers as trying to infringe their "free speech." I find that argument very troubling, for it lays the foundations for really undoing our liberties of speech, thought, etc. By saying that one cannot in the free market of ideas criticize someone without violating their Constitutional rights, one is, in effect, saying that a free and open discussion is not desired; the democratic process and the working of liberty are thereby rendered unwanted by such spokespeople. Of course, I realize that many such appeals to a violation of free speech are merely used to obfuscate the fact that their argument is unappealing/lacks any real force, but the fact that such a tactic should be used is nevertheless troubling.
Furthermore, I have some belief that this "progressive" union of culture and politics may very well lead to tyranny. It seems to me that political liberty does partially require some isolation of political government from the private life of a citizen. Otherwise, the desire to "do good" on the part of the government will lead to a total invasion of the individual's liberty of life.

While watching television last night, I watched a few minutes of a debate about ballistic “fingerprinting,” itself a term of some doubt; unlike those of a human, ballistic “fingerprints” can change through relatively normal wear and tear. In the course of this debate, a Massachusetts state legislator, Cheryl Jacques (D) repeated an old joke among Massachusetts legislators: “If you want to study something, then you really want to kill it.” While I do not really doubt that fact that the aegis of the “study” has been used to table unwanted legislation for decades, I find the tenor of the statement increasingly troubling. Whereas it was before an ironic joke, it seems well on its way to becoming an adage.
Blind feeling is more and more usurping the position of right reason and sympathetic consideration. While feeling does certainly have a place in ideology, I very much doubt its priority of place in policy. Policy should, in some way, attempt to unite the common sentiments of men and women into a common compromise. The laws should attempt to forge a common unity. Otherwise, the righteousness of democracy and, indeed, the utility of civilization itself are threatened.
Although I concede that no individual can be sure of all the results and consequences of a law, the would-be forger of laws should endeavor to consider the facts fully and fairly. When one studies a law, one may be trying to kill it (one is forcing it to stand the test of compiled experience and thought), but this death is a just one if the study is rightly done. To shroud oneself in the pridefully righteous language of inarticulate, peculiarly personal feeling (i.e. “I know what’s right; the facts have nothing to do with it.”) is to threaten one of the key pillars of a deliberative democracy/republic: articulate, public speech.

(As for the actual policy of universally ascertaining ballistic fingerprints, aside from any problems of principle I may have with it, I very much doubt its practical efficacity. The report of the Attorney General of California (!) places deep doubts on the ability of this practice to help law enforcement, and those states which have instituted it have found it to be of no real help. In fact, such fragile "fingerprints" may do more harm than good from a practical standpoint. From an ideological and practical position, I harbor deep suspicions of even more government supervision of our day-to-day citizens.)