tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-50980308844956568522024-03-05T15:34:11.001-08:00LogicologySean W. Malonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07652434357640171842noreply@blogger.comBlogger322125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5098030884495656852.post-86990762131972960872018-10-28T17:58:00.000-07:002018-10-29T11:55:15.160-07:00Political Violence, Blame, and the MediaAlright... I guess I'm gonna kick a hornet's nest.<br />
<br />
In the last few months, we've seen numerous acts of politically motivated or targeted violence. Some of these cases have been plastered all over the news for days or weeks. Some others have been met with deafening silence... and which is which hasn't exactly been random.<br />
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<b>What you've probably heard:</b><br />
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-- October 2018: <a href="https://nypost.com/2018/10/27/inside-accused-mail-bomber-cesar-sayoc-jr-s-violent-history/">Trump-supporting lunatic Cesar Sayoc, Jr.</a> attempted (but completely failed to) to send (non-functional) bombs to over a dozen Democratic leaders including Obama, Clinton, Maxine Waters, Eric Holder, etc. As we learn more about this story, it becomes increasingly clear that Sayoc has a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/27/technology/cesar-sayoc-facebook-twitter.html">long history of threats and violence</a> going back to at least the mid 90s.<br />
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-- October 2018: Anti-semite Robert Bowers shot and <a href="https://apnews.com/23b04dc5e5af4129b544ab50cbba3dd6">killed 11 people and injured 6 others</a> at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, and although he <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/robert-bowers-gab-pittsburgh-shooting-suspect-today-live-updates-2018-10-27/">seems to have been anti-Trump</a>, the ADL has already <a href="https://www.adl.org/sites/default/files/documents/Final%20ADL%20statement%20Senate%20Judiciary%20Committee%20on%20combatting%20religious%20hate%20crime.pdf">blamed Trump</a> for creating the environment that encouraged Bowers' actions... for some reason.<br />
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-- October 2018: <a href="https://nypost.com/2018/10/02/packages-sent-to-pentagon-test-positive-for-ricin/">Envelopes testing positive</a> for Ricin (an incredibly dangerous poison for which 22 micrograms/kilogram of bodyweight constitutes a lethal dosage) were sent to Secretary of Defense, Gen. James Mattis.<br />
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-- April 2018: <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2018/4/25/17277496/incel-toronto-attack-alek-minassian">Self-described "Incel" Alek Minassian</a> drove a fan into a crowd in Toronto and killed 10 people. He is considered "right-wing", although "Involuntary Celibacy" has no inherent connection to politics.<br />
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And of course, all this is in context of the Charlottesville Riot from last year, where...<br />
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-- August 2017: Neo-Nazi James Fields killed Heather Heyer and injured 19 others with his car at the Charlottesville "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unite_the_Right_rally">Unite the Right</a>" rally after he drove through a crowd of protesters. What you probably don't know is that his trial is set for November, and he was <a href="https://nypost.com/2018/10/27/man-charged-with-running-over-protester-in-charlottesville-assaulted-in-jail/amp/">recently assaulted in prison</a>.<br />
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And while this isn't actually a known example of political violence, you'll recall:<br />
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-- October 2017: Stephen Paddock opens fire on a crowd of country-music fans in Las Vegas from his room on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel, killing 58 people and causing injury to 851 others either directly or via the resulting panic. This was the deadliest mass-shooting in US history, and yet <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Las_Vegas_shooting#Final_Investigative_Report">no motive is known</a>, little information has been released to the public, and the press coverage died out relatively quickly.<br />
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I include it in this list because it sparked another national gun-control debate, this time over whether or not it should be legal to own bump stocks.<br />
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You'll probably also have heard about a number of cases of <a href="http://gothamist.com/2018/10/23/proud_boys_arraigned_nyc.php">street violence involving the "Proud Boys"</a>, although many of these skirmishes were actually <a href="https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/397177-proud-boys-group-run-out-of-la-bar-by-democratic-socialists-calling">caused by Antifa and Democratic Socialists of America</a> activists -- though you'd rarely know from the way most reporters frame these events.<br />
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And you'll have probably heard of various racist/anti-Semitic threats and acts of vandalism against Jewish community centers, churches, and other political targets, which are often assumed to be a product of Trump's rhetoric.<br />
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<b>What you probably <i>haven't</i> heard:</b><br />
<br />
-- October 2018: Ricin envelopes were not just sent to James Mattis, but also to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/02/us/politics/ricin-pentagon-mail-poisoning.html">President Trump</a>, along with <a href="https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2018/10/02/ted-cruz-housto%20-office-hit-with-white-powdery-substance-n2524805">Senator Ted Cruz </a>and Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral John Richardson. Not only that, but as of <a abcnews.go.com="" href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5098030884495656852" https:="" id="58254992" olitics="" ricin-scare-prompted-castor-seeds-us-official="" story="">FBI arrested a suspect in Utah</a>, William Clyde Allen, believed to have sent all the packages in a coordinated effort. Allen confessed to sending all four letters, but we also learned that - similar to the inoperable bombs allegedly sent by Cesar Sayoc, Jr. - none seemed to contain actual Ricin, but rather Castor Seed from which Ricin is made.<br />
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-- October 2018: In Las Vegas, a Democratic activist working for American Bridge 21st Century named <a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/oct/17/man-jailed-after-scuffle-with-nevada-governor-camp/">Wilfred Michael Stark assaulted Kristin Davidson</a>, campaign manager for Nevada's Republican gubernatorial candidate, Adam Laxalt. Stark had previously been arrested for similar activity at a GOP rally in Virginia.<br />
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-- October 2018: In Minnesota, Republican state-representative <a href="https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2018/10/15/campaign-sign-vandal-assaulted-house-rep/">Sarah Anderson was chased and punched</a> by a man ripping up GOP campaign signs, and two days earlier, Republican candidate Shane Mekeland <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/news/two-minnesota-republican-candidates-assaulted/">suffered a concussion after being punched</a> in the back of the head while having dinner at a local restaurant.<br />
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-- October 2018: The Republican Party Headquarters in Manhattan, New York was vandalized with spray-paint, smashed windows, and <a href="https://dailycaller.com/2018/10/12/nyc-gop-headquarters-vandalized/">a threatening note</a> that read: "Our attack is merely a beginning. We are not passive, we are not civil, and we will not apologize."<br />
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-- October 2018: Jackson Cosko, an intern working for Democratic Senator Sheila Jackson Lee was charged by the United States Capitol Police with <a href="http://thefederalist.com/2018/10/04/democrat-congressional-staffer-arrested-doxxing-gop-senators/">"Doxxing" Republican Senators</a> Mike Lee, Orrin Hatch, and Lindsey Graham. While doxxing itself isn't violence, it has frequently led to <a href="https://dailycaller.com/2018/10/07/cory-gardner-family-doxxed-wife-beheading/">serious harassment</a> and violence as people have access to personal information such as the home addresses, phone numbers, and email address of the victims.<br />
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-- October 2018: Florida man, Jame Royal Patrick, Jr. was <a href="https://www.local10.com/news/crime/florida-man-charged-with-threatening-senators-over-kavanaugh-vote">arrested for making death threats</a> to people who supported Bret Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court.<br /><br />--[UPDATE] October 2018: <a href="https://www.wesh.com/article/shots-fired-into-volusia-county-republican-headquarters-police-say/24402544?fbclid=IwAR1wcku31o1JLIpRxf9CoTSxIJyT5hsvFYMM6sXAm1u50o115gAwUKMsNS8">Shots were fired</a> at the Republican party campaign office in Daytona Florida, breaking the windows. Fortunately, no one was in the office.<br />
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-- September 2018: GOP campaign offices in <a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/sep/7/gop-office-set-fire-wyoming/">Laramie, Wyoming</a> were set on fire by arsonists. The same thing happened in <a href="https://www.snopes.com/news/2016/10/17/republican-campaign-headquarters-in-north-carolina-firebombed/">Hillsborough, North Carolina</a> back in 2016, so this is nothing especially new.<br />
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-- September 2018: In San Francisco, a man named <a href="https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/Castro-Valley-festival-stab-attempted-rudy-peters-13221444.php">Farzad Fazeli attempted to stab</a> Republican campaign worker Rudy Peters with a switchblade while he was working at an election booth at a Castro Valley town festival.<br />
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-- July 2018: <a href="https://townhall.com/tipsheet/timothymeads/2018/07/07/man-charged-with-terroristic-threats-after-attempting-to-harm-gop-campaign-staffer-n2498133">Martin Astrof was arrested</a> for threatening to kill GOP campaign staffers and President Trump.<br />
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-- July 2018: Someone vandalized the Lincoln, Nebraska (my hometown) GOP headquarters by <a href="https://www.ketv.com/article/nebraska-republican-party-office-vandalized-overnight/22036222">smashing its windows with a brick</a> and spray-painting "ABOLISH ICE" on the sidewalk.<br />
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And of course I'd hope you remember...<br />
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-- October 2017: In Alexandria, Virginia, James T. Hodgkinson (a Bernie Sanders fanatic angry with the results of the 2016) died with a <a href="https://dailycaller.com/2017/10/06/gop-baseball-suspect-committed-act-of-terrorism-fueled-by-rage-against-republican-legislators/">list of Republican targets in his pocket</a> in a shootout with police after <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/14/us/steve-scalise-congress-shot-alexandria-virginia.html">he shot four people</a>: lobbyist Matt Mika, legislative aid Zack Barth, Capitol Police officer Crystal Griner, and Republican Congressman Steve Scalise who nearly died. The shooting took place at a baseball diamond where several Republican Senators and Congressmen were practicing for the annual Congressional Baseball Game for Charity.<br />
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There have also been numerous examples of Antifa violence throughout the United States, many of which (ie. the recent<a href="https://youtu.be/pbqqefsfC14"> takeover of multiple streets in downtown Portland</a>, Oregon) have not had anything whatsoever to do with protesting "fascists" or any kind of right-wing activity at all, including numerous examples of <a href="https://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2017/08/17/cnns-tapper-antifa-has-assaulted-a-number-of-journalists-too-n2370023">attacks on journalists</a>.<br />
<br />
So...<br />
<br />
<b>Why am I talking about this?</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
I'm mainly talking about this because the way this stuff is reported drives me insane, and it affects us all in really important ways. Mass media essentially determines which of these examples of politically-motivated violence are important and worth talking about, and which are not.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZiWSRZWj4CIuAswRU8AvFkfw4WWh2yqk52c4XcS7QIfW6dg_vJnc8IIl0Lkysf06OF-UpDXdlQ1otoPjg-GtT8fZwoVQYgoUPFu4R5TdRZhHTU_5TTvCKach-Zv06Z1eEqbdudFwo5kE/s1600/media_bias.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="413" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZiWSRZWj4CIuAswRU8AvFkfw4WWh2yqk52c4XcS7QIfW6dg_vJnc8IIl0Lkysf06OF-UpDXdlQ1otoPjg-GtT8fZwoVQYgoUPFu4R5TdRZhHTU_5TTvCKach-Zv06Z1eEqbdudFwo5kE/s320/media_bias.jpg" width="275" /></a>If the news that gets reported doesn't bother to tell readers and viewers about angry left-wing lunatics who assault Republican campaign workers, set fire to GOP offices, or shoot Republican congressmen, and if reporters and pundits don't care to spend much time about a series of threatening letters testing positive for ricin poison or threats of and/or the actual attempted murder of Republicans over their political views, then the people who consume news will not know about those kinds of things.<br />
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And of course, this would be fine if reporters and pundits did the same thing whenever a right-wing lunatic did something insane, but.................. That's not what happens.<br />
<br />
Most of the mainstream media (arguably with the support of all of the major social networks and even <a href="https://pjmedia.com/trending/google-search-results-show-pervasive-anti-trump-anti-conservative-bias/">Google</a>) devote tremendous attention to every instance of right-wing violence while utterly ignoring comparable cases coming from left-wing perpetrators. As a result, it's hard for the average person to know what's actually happening in the world, and they end up with a completely one-sided understanding of the current state of political violence.<br />
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It also makes it easy for political partisans to split themselves into bubbles that each have entirely different sets of facts.<br />
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Liberals/Progressives will hear of every instance of someone who could even remotely be considered "right-wing" doing anything wrong yet remain entirely isolated from the slightest hint that people who share their ideology have ever done anything wrong at all. Conservatives are in a slightly better position, in that it's nearly impossible to avoid hearing about right-wing political violence, but the more social media dominates people's information streams, the easier it is for them to similarly wall themselves off from information that makes them uncomfortable.<br />
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Point is, there are legitimate reasons for <i>everyone</i> to be seriously concerned with the quality of reporting that we normally see with respect to this kind of activity.<br />
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Part of being well-informed is being able to put things into context and gain a meaningful perspective, and that can only happen when you have <i>all </i>the information... not just half of it as we so often get.<br />
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Only getting half the story makes it easy to blame your political opponents for everything that's going wrong in the world, but it's also a mistake. If Trump - for example - is to blame for people like Cesar Sayoc, Jr.'s failed bombing spree, is Bernie Sanders to blame for James Hodgkinson? Is Maxine Waters responsible for Farzad Fazeli? Is Hillary Clinton or Eric Holder the cause of the arson and vandalism?<br />
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If you think that Trump's rhetoric is causing right-wing violence, surely it stands to reason that the similar heated rhetoric coming from the other names I just listed should be to blame for the left-wing variants of these kinds of crimes?<br />
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Of course, if you only ever saw one side or the other, it would be extremely easy to think that the only people who are out there doing terrible things are your political opponents, and from there you can concoct a grand theory as to why based on how evil the other party is without much challenge when another possibility is simply that it's the individual criminal who is <i>responsible for their own actions</i>.<br />
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There's another problem here as well...<br />
<br />
<b>Vanishing Trust</b><br />
<br />
When mass media displays such a clear bias - and please make no mistake, <a href="http://fortune.com/2015/11/02/liberal-media/">whether fully intentional or not</a>, <a href="http://freakonomics.com/podcast/how-biased-is-your-media/">that's <i>exactly </i>what this is</a> - then the people who are on the losing end of that bias are not going to be happy. And since they're actually <i>justified </i>in their complaints, it's very easy for them to convince people who have less skin in the game that media isn't trustworthy as well.<br />
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All this does is push people further to the extremes, which makes it easier for the biggest lunatics to find reasons to believe even crazier conspiracy theories and find reinforcement for their belief that violence is the appropriate response.<br />
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I want this to stop, and while there's no magic bullet, I don't think that will happen until the reporting on these kinds of subjects gets better and more people are more fully-informed about <i>everything</i> that is going on in our world - not just the parts that confirm partisan biases..</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.sean-malone.com</div>Sean W. Malonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07652434357640171842noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5098030884495656852.post-84841740576422233972018-09-04T21:00:00.000-07:002021-09-05T10:36:11.806-07:00Immigration Is Actually ComplicatedImmigration issues have obviously been in the news a ton the last few weeks, as Trump's new "zero tolerance" policies at the border have resulted in thousands of minors being separated from their parents. According to some reports, many of these kids are being housed in make-shift detention facilities that sometimes lack proper air-conditioning or even acceptable sanitation.<br />
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The most insane thing I've read so far has been that some of these people are being <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/21/us/undocumented-migrant-children-detention-facilities-abuse-invs/index.html">force-fed psychotropic drugs</a> disguised as vitamins.<br />
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Making matters worse, President Trump <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/16/politics/trump-separation-families-negotiating-tool/index.html">recently suggested</a> that the detentions are in some ways a negotiation tool, particularly against Democrats who he said need to get on board with his preferred immigration policies in order to stop this from happening.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYy48kAj0J274Q1NislttGCtzelWZMhZOtRCSopZ0Ka5jQA-l-0d-1GTUzS3XwWvbeQvsHTBAmzCtbtX4kZ9EuW8a0bDGjahgJSxOjaqR005IlfkGbWGVn0_M7QHi-9Gwle3c13beHKmo/s1600/Trump-Tweet-01.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="319" data-original-width="665" height="191" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYy48kAj0J274Q1NislttGCtzelWZMhZOtRCSopZ0Ka5jQA-l-0d-1GTUzS3XwWvbeQvsHTBAmzCtbtX4kZ9EuW8a0bDGjahgJSxOjaqR005IlfkGbWGVn0_M7QHi-9Gwle3c13beHKmo/s400/Trump-Tweet-01.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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Democrats, on the other hand, are calling all of this stuff "cruel and inhumane", and some people are even making hysterical comparisons to Nazi concentration camps.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6T7c2H-rUCOR6x6QIErdCwRs4ugVOKymuE-Mz_1TK5H_fa6eXGY236bW8oxW42prjp53L_i8urXQANyCT6z9K7h5pgZoSi1y6zn94mowjzuxCRuUVkOQS3nWHVFa-xr2tqo64Tnt7FIQ/s1600/Daily-Presser-Concentration+Camps.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="255" data-original-width="997" height="101" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6T7c2H-rUCOR6x6QIErdCwRs4ugVOKymuE-Mz_1TK5H_fa6eXGY236bW8oxW42prjp53L_i8urXQANyCT6z9K7h5pgZoSi1y6zn94mowjzuxCRuUVkOQS3nWHVFa-xr2tqo64Tnt7FIQ/s400/Daily-Presser-Concentration+Camps.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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This has turned into one of the most polarizing issues imaginable, and yet in spite of the absolutely deafening level of anger and hyperbole coming from every angle, I don't think anybody has stopped to seriously consider how difficult an issue this subject actually is.</div>
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"What are you talking about!?", you say, "Separating kids from their parents isn't a difficult issue, it's always wrong!"<br />
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And... I get it. <br />
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The images we've seen in the press are heartbreaking. Crying children, young people in "cages", sad parents who are being arrested just for trying to get a better job or seek asylum while escaping horrifying conditions in their home countries... It's all awful to watch.<br />
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I'm sure for a lot of people the imagery alone is enough to make a lot of people think differently about immigration.<br />
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There are some challenges, though. <br />
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For one thing, a lot of the imagery we've been seeing in the media is extremely deceptive. One of the first major photographs that tens of thousands of people shared on social media was of a crying child in a cage from Jose Antonio Vargas' Twitter:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoT6lhZAWibLt5w1Z7FNvW6M3QNKq697bjHHZPI-nVOybE5rftz_LUZZTCMmoao3z16RUX1PK7XDxj1DJykWO0xPGVbIyJIBAnyb4iY2XBGTT53-RF7sKrdxUP_l8BYazXqsA68HiOFGo/s1600/Vargas-Cage+Kid.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1406" data-original-width="949" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoT6lhZAWibLt5w1Z7FNvW6M3QNKq697bjHHZPI-nVOybE5rftz_LUZZTCMmoao3z16RUX1PK7XDxj1DJykWO0xPGVbIyJIBAnyb4iY2XBGTT53-RF7sKrdxUP_l8BYazXqsA68HiOFGo/s640/Vargas-Cage+Kid.png" width="428" /></a></div>
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Trouble with this is... It's not actually a kid detained under current Immigration and Customs Enforcement policies. To the contrary, it was an image taken during an anti-Trump protest on June 10th. That didn't stop over twenty-five thousand people from sharing it or nearly 40 thousand from liking it.</div>
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This is what kicked off a lot of the outrage about this issue. Nobody likes seeing kids in cages, so that became the driving narrative immediately.<br />
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The other seriously viral image of a crying child was taken by Getty staff photographer, John Moore:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLc0Bt0yTI8QBTJg27vdZtkA7Vz9njrlGbCgaz2perjongFIMyqsDaVu8EbSmELQQPh3lT6Fy-tcNwxMYlaefubXuPFZ7FR7w3iYWotKSm8TejgqWIG0QwMEBUHdod9tlPqhbdVGmoLwA/s1600/crying-girl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLc0Bt0yTI8QBTJg27vdZtkA7Vz9njrlGbCgaz2perjongFIMyqsDaVu8EbSmELQQPh3lT6Fy-tcNwxMYlaefubXuPFZ7FR7w3iYWotKSm8TejgqWIG0QwMEBUHdod9tlPqhbdVGmoLwA/s640/crying-girl.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Time Magazine subsequently used this image as the basis for a new cover, depicting President Trump as the cause of this child's misery, along with the caption "Welcome to America."</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBI5zT3O2K3T_dRJ0vCNALSQlqBvuYFXrVWkvhNX0NkLyszLYHPheGPouxvvlqiYdVZ8tQ35CmVW4YM1a28uTVkomgq_kzjoULDwRDOZUEGpR39rIYzCkpQw269hX_RdYeZqXE6IyhSqo/s1600/trump-immigration-final.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1201" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBI5zT3O2K3T_dRJ0vCNALSQlqBvuYFXrVWkvhNX0NkLyszLYHPheGPouxvvlqiYdVZ8tQ35CmVW4YM1a28uTVkomgq_kzjoULDwRDOZUEGpR39rIYzCkpQw269hX_RdYeZqXE6IyhSqo/s320/trump-immigration-final.jpg" width="240" /></a><br />
The problem with this image is that once again, the truth behind it is not as it first appears.<br />
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Firstly, the backstory behind the mother being in America is nearly a poster-case for conservatives who criticize illegal immigration and elected Trump partly on the basis of more tightly controlling the border.<br />
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In this case, the mother was not here because she was in grave danger and seeking asylum, or because economic conditions in her home country of Honduras were so dire that she couldn't do anything else. She also didn't apply for asylum in any of the ten US consulate locations throughout Mexico that were available for that purpose. Instead, she left her family and her other children, hiring a coyote to get herself and her daughter across the United States border.<br />
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Then she was arrested.<br />
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But even given that, the child and mother were never separated during the arrest and subsequent detention.<br />
<br />
That's not to say that every story being told about the child detentions is false or that it's not happening. Trump didn't invent immigration restrictions, but his "zero tolerance" policy is new and it's meant a significant increase in border arrests. And with that has come over 2,000 children detained in the last couple months. It would not be surprising in the slightest to find that many of these kids were being housed in substandard conditions as there's just no way to ramp up this kind of activity without expanding into random warehouses and temporary facilities that aren't always going to be amazing.<br />
<br />
Watching kids get caught up in all this is the biggest tragedy of the whole affair, and if - like me - you don't approve of immigration restrictions, then it's hard not to see it as a nightmare that's wholly preventable by changing immigration policy.<br />
<br />
The tricky part is, if you <i>do</i> support immigration restrictions, then it's still a tragedy but it's not one of Trump's making... Instead, it's only preventable once the parents of these children quit trying to enter the United States illegally.<br />
<br />
That's only part of what makes the issue so complicated, but before I can get into the rest of it, I want to take a second and talk about immigration itself, and why I support opening the borders to other people as much as humanly possible on both philosophical or practical grounds.<br />
<h3>
<b>The Philosophical Case for Open Borders</b></h3>
I believe (as I've <a href="http://seanwmalone.blogspot.com/2014/04/thick-thin-or-just-libertarianismplus.html">written here</a> numerous times) that for the concept of "human rights" to mean anything at all, they must inherently be universal.<br />
<br />
I normally talk about that in terms of the distinction between negative rights and positive rights privileges, and the way in which rights themselves should be able to be equally applied to everyone simultaneously. For example, if I establish a right to property, this means I'm asserting both an expectation that nobody is allowed to steal from me and also a responsibility to myself not to steal from anyone else. The only thing we're all required to do under this framework is... Nothing. Negative rights are rights against some external action... It's a right to be "free from" coercion.<br />
<br />
Thus, the moral concept of, "don't steal from anybody" can be universally applied simultaneously and everyone is made better off as a result.<br />
<br />
This is in contrast to claims of rights to some kind of material outcome - ie. the "right" to home-ownership/shelter, clothing, equal incomes, health care, etc. Because material wealth must be produced by others, the only way to equalize it is by taking from some people and giving it to someone else. This framework is impossible to establish universally, and as a result I am loathed to call them "rights", but refer to them instead as special privileges which cannot exist apart from coercion.<br />
<br />
Without digressing further into those issues here, something I probably don't talk about enough is the idea of universality in terms of nations and tribes.<br />
<br />
For a "human right" to be a "right" at all, it must be universally applicable all the time. And for it to be "human", it must be universal to all humans - no matter where they're born, where they live, what skin color they are, what religion they believe, what language they speak, or anything else.<br />
<br />
All this is to say: Immigration restrictions are clear violations of human liberty and all kinds of corollary rights.<br />
<br />
On some level, I think we all know this.<br />
<br />
Americans would not, and generally do not, tolerate the imprisonment or detention of people who haven't done anything to violate the rights of other citizens. Although it probably happens more today than it should, cops are not legally allowed to arrest someone just for walking from one side of the street to another. Nor can they do this to people who move from one town to another within the same state, or even moving from one state to another state.<br />
<br />
I should know, as I've done this many, many times.<br />
<br />
Over the course of my own life, I've personally moved to <i>twenty three </i>different homes inside the United States. Most of the times I've done this in my adult life have had to do with seeking (and finding) better opportunities and higher standards of living <br />
<br />
And ya know what? Not one single time have I ever been stopped at the border of a city or a state and detained for any length of time because I wasn't "allowed" to move from one place to another. As an American citizen I get to roam free across 3.8 million square miles of beautiful open countryside.<br />
<br />
In fact, the only things that mattered to any of those moves were the voluntary, contractual associations I had with current and future landlords, and now my mortgage holder.<br />
<br />
Thankfully, I live in a country where I face a very low probability of being imprisoned unless I've actually harmed someone else, and that's how it should be.<br />
<br />
But... That's not how immigration controls or border security works. Instead of applying the right to liberty (and its corollary right of free movement) universally to anyone around the world, the government limits the protection of this right only to its own citizens. This makes liberty not something that we're treating as a universal right, but rather as a right limited only to people who were lucky enough to be born here.<br />
<br />
We'll get back to that later, but the point here is that I cannot support this on a fundamental philosophical level.<br />
<br />
That said, there's also the practical matter of immigration being tremendously valuable to society.<br />
<h3 style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<b>The Practical Case for Open Borders</b></h3>
It's hard to overstate the benefits of immigration from an economics standpoint.<br />
<br />
More people mean more hands and more brains, more production and consumption, more specialized skills and the expansion of our ability to produce wealth and meet everyone's needs as a society. It also means more ideas and perspectives to mix and intermingle, thus creating more innovations and entrepreneurship.<br />
<br />
Economist Bryan Caplan was interviewed by The Economist a while back and estimated that a world of open borders would likely be about <a href="https://www.economist.com/the-world-if/2017/07/13/a-world-of-free-movement-would-be-78-trillion-richer">$78 Trillion richer</a> than it is today.<br />
<br />
This would be a nearly unfathomable increase in global prosperity, and the reasons why are fairly clear, as the article explains: <br />
<blockquote>
The potential gains from open borders dwarf those of, say, completely free trade, let alone foreign aid. Yet the idea is everywhere treated as a fantasy. In most countries fewer than 10% of people favour it. In the era of Brexit and Donald Trump, it is a political non-starter. Nonetheless, it is worth asking what might happen if borders were, indeed, open.<br />
<br />
To clarify, “open borders” means that people are free to move to find work. It does not mean “no borders” or “the abolition of the nation-state”. On the contrary, the reason why migration is so attractive is that some countries are well-run and others, abysmally so.<br />
<br />
Workers in rich countries earn more than those in poor countries partly because they are better educated but mostly because they live in societies that have, over many years, developed institutions that foster prosperity and peace. It is very hard to transfer Canadian institutions to Cambodia, but quite straightforward for a Cambodian family to fly to Canada. The quickest way to eliminate absolute poverty would be to allow people to leave the places where it persists.</blockquote>
The point here is that most of the time, it's the institutions and not the people themselves that disrupt productivity and wealth-creation. I've been working on a documentary about this as it pertains to the institutions in Senegal vs. the rest of the world for the last few months, and what you will see in the film (and can see if you look around the world without it) are a whole lot of people who are very entrepreneurial and driven, but who are being crushed by a massive tax and regulatory burden, low property rights protections, and the immense amount of corruption that comes whenever the state has so much power over people's economic and personal lives.<br />
<br />
Ideally, we'd live in a world where all those other terrible countries were "fixed", but the reality is that we could fairly easily improve tens of millions of lives and dramatically expand the productivity and wealth available in the world simply by allowing more people to move to places where the institutions are better.<br />
<br />
On a personal note, it took me <i>two years</i> to be able to hire a photography intern from Spain because our immigration laws are idiotic, and he's already created a tremendous amount of value in the short time he's been in the US. I could have benefited from his services last year, but I didn't.<br />
<br />
But of course, this doesn't mean immigration is without problems, as conservatives are quick to point out.<br />
<h3>
Potential Problems With Immigration</h3>
This is where things get complicated, and also where most progressives and libertarians seem to be checking out of the conversation right now. In my current experience, these two groups are spending an immense amount of time denying that any problems could even possibly exist.<br />
<br />
See also this ridiculous video from Nancy Pelosi trying to tell a woman whose son was brutally murdered by an illegal immigrant outside of Houston that sanctuary cities only ever contain law-abiding individuals and that these kinds of crimes don't happen in those places.<br />
<br />
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<br />
This is arguably every bit as heartbreaking (if not more, depending on who you ask) as the stories of children being separated from their parents at the border.<br />
<br />
This woman has lost her son forever.<br />
<br />
Libertarians and progressives need to let these kinds of stories sink in for a little while before they rush to outrage over child detention. This stuff happens, it is devastating, and it's why a lot of people don't really care that preventing illegal immigration is tough on families.<br />
<h3>
Immigration & Crime</h3>
Of course this would be the point at which lots of people would start pointing out that immigrants have lower rates of criminality, lower rates of welfare, and generally tend to be more solid contributors to society than native citizens. Alex Nowrasteh as spent a lot of effort compiling data about this stuff, and back in February the <a href="https://www.cato.org/publications/immigration-research-policy-brief/criminal-immigrants-texas-illegal-immigrant">Cato Institute produced a paper</a> showing the differences in conviction rates for different groups using 2015 data from Texas.<br />
<br />
For homicide, we see the following:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8R95OK1bcfmwuAxRK2gugBT7UyckFsg0Zbwzdi3Q1Kh_jXhocD2nXYsRM92g3erGKK0_KDWDuwURbthbSXJDEaMC5oFDt2BTc3Pq_Rkbv67vVdycg43Gr4vddU5EYqjz-XUqFaK61bWI/s1600/cato-homicides-2015.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="394" data-original-width="658" height="380" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8R95OK1bcfmwuAxRK2gugBT7UyckFsg0Zbwzdi3Q1Kh_jXhocD2nXYsRM92g3erGKK0_KDWDuwURbthbSXJDEaMC5oFDt2BTc3Pq_Rkbv67vVdycg43Gr4vddU5EYqjz-XUqFaK61bWI/s640/cato-homicides-2015.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
And, for sexual assault, we see this:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix-HBHU1WdcXNCsmwl6aaMaPM0pHjSeEX38CIFCrXWhrBfwL2bY2MWLjukaBBZgpAe7sLyi-t4l-cKVly7U7yiQaMRldDa8lXQViXJ5krLS0HTTNoyvMtoVb1aXVYt-ZzjFaqSEwibcmM/s1600/cato-sexualassault-2015.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="396" data-original-width="658" height="384" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix-HBHU1WdcXNCsmwl6aaMaPM0pHjSeEX38CIFCrXWhrBfwL2bY2MWLjukaBBZgpAe7sLyi-t4l-cKVly7U7yiQaMRldDa8lXQViXJ5krLS0HTTNoyvMtoVb1aXVYt-ZzjFaqSEwibcmM/s640/cato-sexualassault-2015.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
This is also the point where people like Alex and Bryan Caplan would correctly point out that natives <i>also</i> break laws and murder people, and in fact they tend to do so at higher rates even than legal immigrants.<br />
<br />
I think these rejoinders fall flat for a few reasons:<br />
<ol>
<li>These charts clearly depict a situation where <i>illegal </i>immigrants are way more prone to crime than <i>legal </i>immigrants, which confirms a general hypothesis a lot of people have expressed over the years: These two groups of people are different.<br /><br />Personally, I'd be willing to bet this is always going to be the case. <br /><br />Those who come here legally self-select into the highest performing categories and this should not come as a surprise because they're specifically the ones willing to work the hardest inside the law to get here, which is quite difficult. They're also selected by the system to be the best candidates for entry in general - people who have attributes that "we want more of" in the United States. <br /><br />People who come here illegally are almost by definition not going to be the most law-abiding or high skilled people. And since the whole point for conservatives is to crack down on the illegal immigration, their non-strawman point seems to be "Sure, let in the high skilled, low crime, good people from other countries, but keep out the bad ones who can't get past our screening system."</li>
<li>Excising the United States of all illegal immigrants may not prevent natives from committing similar crimes, but it does theoretically reduce the population of criminals by a significant degree. We can't really deport home-grown criminals (because... to where, and who would take them?) but we can deport people who are here illegally. So perhaps it's possible that the mother in the video above might have lost her son some other way or to some native murderer, but she <i>knows </i>she wouldn't have lost him the way she did if the border had been more tightly controlled and the specific murder hadn't made it in.</li>
<li>The data behind these numbers is also not nearly as solid as we might imagine. Just thinking through the way the criminal justice system works, US citizens are pretty easy to track and find, what with the lengthy paper trail they tend to leave. As are legal immigrants. Illegal immigrants? Not so much. And there's a shockingly large amount of unsolved crime out there, so it's pretty easy to imagine (or just assume) that a decently large chunk of that unsolved crime is being committed by illegal immigrants who don't get caught or perhaps flee back to their home countries to avoid conviction.</li>
</ol>
Point being, with a much less porous border, you could argue fairly persuasively for a lot of people - even with Cato's paper claiming the contrary - that you'd prevent a tremendous amount of crime, even though of course you wouldn't be able to stop all of it.<br />
<br />
Plus, besides "normal" crimes there's also the question of securing our borders against terrorists which has obviously been an issue before. Three of the 9/11 hijackers were in the United States illegally (I believe having overstayed their Visa allowances).<br />
<br />
Again, libertarians might say something along the lines of, "Well, look. Terrorism is a tremendously small problem statistically speaking, and there many terrorists have been living here legally or have even been 'home-grown' such as Timothy McVeigh."<br />
<br />
But once again, while this is true, it doesn't stop people from credibly thinking that the tighter our border security is, the fewer <i>additional</i> terrorists will get in.<br />
<br />
And they have a point.<br />
<br />
Timothy McVeigh was already here, sure...But per the "low-immigration, pro-immigrant" (read: anti-immigration) <a href="https://cis.org/How-Terrorists-Get">Center for Immigration Studies</a>:<br />
<blockquote>
To gain a more complete picture of the threat and of the holes in our immigration system, we must examine acts of terrorism in this country over the last decade. Including the September 11 hijackers, 48 foreign-born militant Islamic terrorists have been charged, or convicted, or have admitted their involvement in terrorism within the United States between 1993 and 2001. In addition to September 11, the plots examined here include the murder of employees outside of CIA headquarters in 1993, the first attack on the World Trade Center in the same year, a plot to bomb the Brooklyn subway system in 1997, plots to bomb New York City landmarks in 1993, and the Millennium plot to bomb Los Angeles International Airport. Almost all of them have now been linked in some way to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda organization. To be sure, other terrorist threats exist. However, because the threat it poses dwarfs that of any other terrorist group, foreign or domestic, the emphasis here will be on al Qaeda.<br />
...<br />
Terrorists have even exploited America's humanitarian tradition of welcoming those seeking asylum. At the time they committed their crimes, 16 of the 48 terrorists considered in this analysis were on temporary visas (primarily tourist visas); another 17 were lawful permanent residents or naturalized U.S. citizens; 12 were illegal aliens; and 3 of the 48 had applications for asylum pending.</blockquote>
So, I think the closed-borders argument would go something like this:<br />
<blockquote>
<i>Close the holes in US border security and perhaps 31 out of 48 terrorists would not have been able to commit their crimes.</i></blockquote>
Of course, it's also not just crime and terrorism that people are worried about. They're also worried about social cohesion, economic impacts, political effects and other changes that come from an influx of people who speak different languages and don't understand local culture.<br />
<br />
A lot of these things are hard to predict, but the claims I hear most often are that:<br />
<ul>
<li>Social cohesion will go down with an influx of immigrants, thus tearing at the fabric of existing communities in America.</li>
<li>Immigrants will be competing with Americans for jobs, and that this will particularly affect America's working poor who already are most likely to be in a position to be working in low-skill, low-paid occupations.</li>
<li>Immigrants will come here and bring the terrible institutions from their home countries with them, voting in policies that wrecked their local economies (because they don't properly understand the connection between social institutions/policy and economic outcomes). </li>
</ul>
The last one often gets stated by conservatives as "they'll vote for Democrats!", but I'd like to steelman this argument a bit and make sure that I'm responding to the most substantial version of this claim.<br />
<br />
All three of those problems are legitimate concerns (though, you'd never know it if you look at my Facebook feed).<br />
<br />
Let's talk about them for a bit.<br />
<h3>
Social Cohesion</h3>
I've produced tons of videos that touch on this over the last couple years, but trade and immigration are fabulous ways of helping disparate groups of people to get along with each other and improve peace and social cooperation around the world. One of the best contributions writer Thomas Friedman has ever made to the world of ideas is advancing what he ended up calling the <i>Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Resolution</i> in his book "The Lexus and the Olive Branch".<br />
<br />
The basic idea here is that as countries trade with each other and as more people interact with each other via economic exchange, the more they get to know each other, trust each other, and rely on each other for their standards of living.<br />
<br />
This is, of course, also commensurate with the point that Leonard Read made in "I, Pencil". Not any one of us could make even something as simple as a pencil by ourselves, but through the power of price signals and profit within the context of trade, we can bring people together with disparate skills and resources from all over the world to produce goods & services for us... And they don't even have to know who we are or care. Each time we do that, though, especially if we can be a part of the cultural exchange, we'll learn to trust and appreciate other people from other parts of the world even more.<br />
<br />
Now... This is true. However, it doesn't happen overnight and a lot of studies apparently find that social cohesion (usually defined as generalized trust of one's community) has an inverse relationship to increased racial/ethnic diversity.<br />
<br />
Per Oxford University's Migration Observatory:<br />
<blockquote>
Most of the empirical literature on this subject finds that the relationship between diversity and trust is negative – the more diverse a community is, the less likely individuals in it are to be trusting. The trend seems to hold especially strong for the US. Costa and Khan (2003) established with the General Social Survey that people in more diverse neighbourhoods trust their neighbours less and are less likely to be politically or communally involved. Alesina and La Ferrara (2000, 2005) found that trust in general and more specifically interpersonal trust is lower in more racially heterogeneous communities in the US. Stolle et al. (2008) comparing US and Canada observed a strong negative effect of diversity on trust; however, they also found that contact may neutralize but not make this relationship positive. Most notably, Putnam (2007) argues that diversity seems to alienate people in general and in his words pushes them towards ‘hunkering down’ i.e. towards segregation and isolation.</blockquote>
This is a genuine challenge to open immigration advocates, and to be honest, I don't have a fabulous rejoinder to it.<br />
<br />
I'm confident that over time, people who get to know each other, live near each other, and become economically interdependent <i>will</i> eventually form a cohesive social group and their social bonds will become much stronger, but while we're waiting for that to happen, the society itself could tear itself apart and wind up becoming even more segregated than ever - which <i>is</i> something I've observed living in major cities for more than a decade. There are some communities that cross racial and ethnic lines, sure, but there's also a ton of self-segregation.<br />
<br />
I also think the internet makes it easier for people to self-segregate and become economically interdependent with a large trading network of people who are all over the world yet share your various pre-existing traits such as skin color, religion, language, culture, etc.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKFM-VlGfikENy_TE3Pfywiq5BIjJkhONfpE83gOBZ2dOte8NBCuQMsRwiRAd31_YGjZjKu9Nc2v2K79hXgNGz5buD98hhAcWuP7MnqGN_ZdmyAMAwGrKNOlZ55wDWnqWQomIed1EkHec/s1600/bowling-alone.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="324" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKFM-VlGfikENy_TE3Pfywiq5BIjJkhONfpE83gOBZ2dOte8NBCuQMsRwiRAd31_YGjZjKu9Nc2v2K79hXgNGz5buD98hhAcWuP7MnqGN_ZdmyAMAwGrKNOlZ55wDWnqWQomIed1EkHec/s320/bowling-alone.jpg" width="207" /></a></div>
I used to scoff at Robert Putnam's book "Bowling Alone" as simply missing the fact that while people may not be going bowling as a neighborhood anymore, they're playing Halo 3 on headsets with everyone they know instead. I still maintain that criticism, but I've also come to think that a downside of social media in particular is that it allows us to be social without interacting with our actual, physical neighbors.<br />
<br />
We get to expand our friend-group, but we can now do it inside a tightly controlled bubble of our own choosing.<br />
<br />
Most people seem to use this power to isolate themselves from contrary points of view or from people they don't already believe are part of their tribe - whatever that tribe happens to be. If <i>anything </i>is going to screw up broad social cohesion in a diverse society, it's that.<br />
<br />
Immigration can, therefore, be a very disruptive force in people's communities by reducing trust and creating lines of division that maybe didn't exist before. Lots of it in a short period of time seems likely to put a greater strain on social cohesion than a slow drip. A few families at a time can be effectively assimilated, but hundreds all coming in at once? I'm not so sure.<br />
<br />
I don't think libertarians and progressives are wise to dismiss this concern as unimportant, but I have yet to see any serious grappling with the problem from any of the more vocal advocates I know in the last several weeks.<br />
<h3>
Competition for Jobs</h3>
This one's a lot easier to deal with. <br />
<br />
Yes, immigrants will compete with native-born Americans for jobs, but all the available evidence suggests that when immigrants come here, they are incredibly entrepreneurial. <br />
<br />
About <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2011/06/19/40-percent-of-fortune-500-companies-founded-by-immigrants-or-their-children/#14655d284a59">40% of Fortune 500 companies</a> were founded by immigrants. Comparative studies show that first and second generation immigrants create far more businesses and are more financially successful than their native born counterparts within racial and ethnic lines. This becomes pretty apparent when you live in really diverse areas of major cities. The most buzzing and entrepreneurial places are the ones where there's a large concentration of brand new immigrants - and why wouldn't it be when those people are coming here with the very specific goal of improving their lives?<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4PWM4U1gN9oVscJ28LOVJNqNgnYpSiyxcMpyAsOYSQIxR50Ic7qlcBRoRAV101zjnLTq5K6ihu-sGPYrT2xyvnAmhd7sRejZUpjfWEKCrA66BCMZuQxB83xMwfr7cAD9UJ4WS6iXdl4c/s1600/Sergey-Brin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="534" data-original-width="950" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4PWM4U1gN9oVscJ28LOVJNqNgnYpSiyxcMpyAsOYSQIxR50Ic7qlcBRoRAV101zjnLTq5K6ihu-sGPYrT2xyvnAmhd7sRejZUpjfWEKCrA66BCMZuQxB83xMwfr7cAD9UJ4WS6iXdl4c/s320/Sergey-Brin.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This crazy immigrant employs 85,000 people!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
As I said above, immigrants do not just represent more mouths to feed, they also represent more <br />
hands, skills, specialties, comparative advantages and ideas. More people means more brains with which to solve more problems more creatively.<br />
<br />
Yes, an influx can be disruptive, but the long run economic benefits are quite clear as Bryan Caplan discussed above. So from a policy standpoint, I think the key here is simply to make sure that we are sufficiently promoting a dynamic economy with low barriers to entry, lots of opportunities for education and training, and that we don't use the state to preference one group over another or to subsidize stagnation - which we often do now.<br />
<br />
As long as people are able to move about the economy, immigration - even substantial levels of immigration - should not pose a serious economic threat, and at the same time we know it has immense economic benefits.<br />
<br />
However... The next one's a bit tougher to answer.<br />
<h3>
Bringing Bad Social Institutions</h3>
This one might be the most challenging problem, although in my experience it's also the one most totally scoffed at and ignored by pro-immigration advocates.<br />
<br />
First, let's establish a base premise:<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><i>Culture is a product of spontaneous order.</i></b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
That means that it's not controlled by some omnipresent central committee, rule book, or god, but is rather simply the aggregate product of what everyone living in a given society actually believes and how they behave. In short: <i>We are our own culture</i>.<br />
<br />
Now, let's establish a secondary premise:<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><b>Our political system flows from our culture and they are inseparable.</b></i></div>
<br />
The norms, customs, and beliefs that are held by the majority of people in society will determine what norms, customs, and beliefs are instituted into law. For most of US history, we've benefited from a culture that was broadly pro-freedom. As a result, the US was not originally saddled with a government that had power over speech, religion, or most anything in the economic realm. It did not adopt a system of central planners, and it did inherit many particularly strong protections of critical rights in line with John Locke's "Life, Liberty, and Property" natural rights philosophy.<br />
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This has always been the best thing about America, and the only times that America's government has gotten better rather than worse have been the times where the courts or politicians formally recognized that these rights weren't sufficiently protected or weren't being protected to an equal degree among different groups of people.<br />
<br />
Most people who were born in America have been immersed in some aspects of these ideas from birth, and they've benefited tremendously from the social outcomes that these ideas about how society and government should function have provided to them.<br />
<br />
We have been the most innovative and entrepreneurial nation in the history of the world, primarily because our people have been free to do what they wanted to do without state interference and they have always been able to retain the product of their labor to a degree almost no one else ever had or has since.<br />
<br />
Not to go into a soapbox rant about the benefits of property rights, capitalism, free trade, but this stuff has been insanely important and has allowed America to become unfathomably wealthy.<br />
<br />
<i>However...</i> Not everyone else in the world has grown up with this kind of culture.<br />
<br />
Many people from other parts of the world have grown up in societies where the government has nearly unlimited power over their lives, and where they've been taught from birth that the way to succeed is to work within the corrupt systems they inhabit through graft and bribery. Many people from other parts of the world have grown up in societies where the people who are wealthy are the most ruthless or brutally violent. Many people from other parts of the world have grown up in societies where religious extremism and Dark Ages views about women or homosexuals are the norm. Many people from other parts of the world don't have any way of really even understanding the philosophical underpinnings and values of a place like America.<br />
<br />
And again, remember that "culture" is not a static, unchanging thing independent of people. It is only the byproduct of the beliefs and values of all the individuals who live in a particular place.<br />
<br />
Speaking as someone who tries to contribute to shaping culture for a living, it's already <i>extremely </i>difficult to cultivate good values among people who already live here and bringing millions of people into the United States who don't speak English and grew up under <i>very different</i> types of societies only makes it less likely that a culture filled with people who believe in free speech, freedom of religion, solid property rights, free enterprise, and limited government power is going to continue to exist.<br />
<br />
This is a potentially enormous problem that I'm not sure anyone's really got an answer for.<br />
<br />
If, for example, an influx of people from socialist nations in South America or Africa come here, or if perhaps a huge number of fundamentalist Muslim refugees from Syria or Iraq show up in the United States, our culture is going to change... And it's absolutely not clear that it's going to change for the better.<br />
<br />
This goes beyond just the question of whether or not neighborhoods will be more or less trusting. It goes to what our entire legal and political system could look like in 20-30 years.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsnTjuWj6nT_XSyKypbv-Gqp_tqTWMhzAwCl13wGrFBL3_31tNFph7ChszNJSEXhVMc8nXF6XEd3HUkXyhgAJMXbP1oBRj_LxJ2mW6gnRXSTlYjg7GJTQmgaCvprb4tzvQUyI1bV-2Mlg/s1600/160426140057-05-arab-spring-egypt-restricted-super-169.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="619" data-original-width="1100" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsnTjuWj6nT_XSyKypbv-Gqp_tqTWMhzAwCl13wGrFBL3_31tNFph7ChszNJSEXhVMc8nXF6XEd3HUkXyhgAJMXbP1oBRj_LxJ2mW6gnRXSTlYjg7GJTQmgaCvprb4tzvQUyI1bV-2Mlg/s320/160426140057-05-arab-spring-egypt-restricted-super-169.jpg" width="320" /></a>And before you say, "Well the people fleeing awful socialist countries or Muslim theocracies <br />
probably don't believe in those systems anymore," I would tell you that this argument is not built on a decent understanding of how people actually think and form philosophical worldviews.<br />
<br />
Even people who accept that their home countries have turned to such garbage that they have to leave often have no idea <i>why</i>, because it actually takes quite a bit of work and study to figure that stuff out. Consider that Egyptians participating in Arab Spring (as seen in the photo above) knew they wanted to rid themselves of Hosni Mubarak, but once Mubarak was forced out of office and the autocracy was overthrown, have Egyptians created a liberal democracy with strong protections of individual liberty and property rights?<br />
<br />
No. They have not.<br />
<br />
This shouldn't be surprising. The only way to get from the corrupt authoritarianism of Egypt to the democratic traditions of the Western world that protect individual rights to life, liberty, and property, is for enough of the entire society to actually understand and embrace those values to turn it into politics. But people don't think about this stuff that deeply. Even when they know that the system they have isn't working, that doesn't mean they understand how to build a system that would work.<br />
<br />
Africa and South America in particular are full of examples of this problem. In the 1960s, all these colonialist power structures got torn down, which many people assumed would be a boon for liberty in Africa, but in their place most nations got socialist dictators!<br />
<br />
Likewise, people who have lived in the United States their entire life and benefit from institutions that were put in place decades or centuries ago often have no clue <i>why</i> their own living standards are so high. This stuff just isn't that obvious to most people, and people can absolutely decide to leave their home country without changing their beliefs about its fundamental values.<br />
<br />
I know many people personally for whom this is the case.<br />
<br />
A dear friend of mine from France has openly acknowledged to me in conversation numerous times that his birthplace has created a toxic environment for entrepreneurship and business, and he recognizes that he could not have any hope of making a great living doing what he's incredibly good at in France. He moved to the US for opportunity, and he's contributed a ton of value to everyone here ever since, yet he's <i>still highly sympathetic</i> to most of the heavily restrictive economic policies the French government is best known for. <br />
<br />
In spite of knowing about the horrible outcomes in the country he came from, my friend still believes in the very policies that ultimately caused him to leave.<br />
<br />
Why?<br />
<br />
Because the connection between restrictive policies and poor outcomes just isn't as obvious or intuitive as a lot of libertarian policy wonks like to think it should be, and because when you grow up your whole life in a culture that surrounds you with stories defining the values that are important, you tend to hold onto those values wherever you go. Even if they suck.<br />
<br />
Do some people figure it out? Absolutely.<br />
<br />
Will everyone, or even most? Don't bet on it.<br />
<h3>
So where does that leave us?</h3>
I'm honestly not sure.<br />
<br />
We haven't even covered other difficult topics such as the incentives provided by our welfare system or the strain new immigrants put on government services, which will always be primarily paid for by natives and legal immigrants. Nobel Prize-winning economist and libertarian stalwart Milton Friedman discussed this problem directly in an email to the Polish Minister of the Treasury, Henryk A. Kowalczyk:<br />
<blockquote>
Immigration is a particularly difficult subject. There is no doubt that free and open immigration is the right policy in a libertarian state, but in a welfare state it is a different story: the supply of immigrants will become infinite. Your proposal that someone only be able to come for employment is a good one but it would not solve the problem completely. The real hitch is in denying social benefits to the immigrants who are here. That is very hard to do, much harder than you would think as we have found out in California. But nonetheless, we clearly want to move in the direction that you are talking about so this is a question of nitpicking, not of serious objection.</blockquote>
Now, to be clear, Friedman still believed the net-effects of immigration were sufficiently positive to justify these costs. Lots of economists and libertarian political theorists have since taken Friedman to task for not being pro-immigration enough and/or not advocating what they call "keyhole" solutions - that is, policies that would widen the opportunity for more immigration over time - such as a highly porous border that explicitly allows lots of <i>illegal</i> immigration.<br />
<br />
That said, I think a lot of critics who take this approach are deluding themselves that these kinds of approaches are smart or workable.<br />
<br />
For one thing, eroding public faith in laws as an intentional policy "solution" does not strike me as a particularly sound long-term strategy if you also care about having a society that gives a shit about its cultural and political institutions. For another, as we've clearly seen from having a fairly porous border already (DHS estimates about 11 million illegal immigrants are currently living in the US), there are tons of people out there who see this kind of solution as a severe affront to the sanctity of their community, to the upholding of authority, and define it as an "invasion" that is tearing at the fabric of our civilization.<br />
<br />
And honestly, that's what a lot of this whole blog post is about... Libertarians and progressives who favor open borders can't simply ignore the fact that the majority of the population doesn't agree with them and that a significant minority is actively, vehemently opposed to what they're advocating.<br />
<br />
So all I really know at this point is that this subject is actually really goddamn complicated, and social media outrage stories don't really do well with complexity.<br />
<h3>
It's All More Complicated Than You Think</h3>
Even with respect to the idea of children being "put in cages" or separated from their families, the issues aren't nearly as cut and dry as a lot of my friends and people in the media seem to want everyone to believe.<br />
<br />
A lot of those kids are unaccompanied to begin with, and they either don't have parents anywhere near the United States, or they have parents or guardians who aren't willing to come get them for fear of being arrested and deported themselves. But besides that, any parent who commits a crime is going to be separated from their kid and it certainly doesn't make any sense to put children in with populations of adults in a prison.<br />
<br />
And once we recognize this, we have to acknowledge that if you try to take border security seriously as Trump clearly does, then you're going to be arresting a lot of people and as a result you're going to have to figure out what to do with a lot of those kids when government facilities aren't enough. More border crackdowns are inherently going to turn up kids and if you don't know what you're doing with them, you're going to end up with the problems we have... Even if you think that the overall border crackdowns are a good idea.<br />
<br />
It's also not entirely clear what stories to believe regarding treatment.<br />
<br />
As we discussed above, a lot of the images in the press and on social media have been shared in error. But it's not just imagery, last night a prominent and consistent anti-Trump (and pro-immigration) voice on my Facebook shared a story about rapes and sexual assaults being committed by guards and border detention facilities.<br />
<br />
Predictably, everyone reacted with horror and outrage, often directly at Trump. Problem is... <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2014/10/03/justice/texas-immigrant-detention-allegations/index.html">That report was from 2014</a>.<br />
<br />
I find that political outrage tends to turn people into confirmation bias machines, and makes them garbage at fact-checking... Because, really, why bother? If the image or story perfectly fits your pre-existing narrative, fact-checking is only ever going to be a disappointment.<br />
<br />
But as I said at the beginning, the cost of failure is that people who aren't as laser-focused on the issues as you are <b>stop believing you</b>.<br />
<br />
Adam Carolla <a href="https://www.podcastone.com/episode/ACS-Part-2-Fight-Talk-Rotten-Tomatoes-Controversy-and-Hot-Dog-Water">recently talked about this on his podcast</a>, and I think it warrants a listen. Start at about 9 minutes and 25 seconds into the show.<br />
<h3>
Final Thoughts</h3>
I'm sorry to say that I don't have a good answer to any of this.<br />
<br />
I'd love to say that everything was perfectly clear and easy, and that there's some set of words and phrases that I could give you to say how you convince people that immigration is a net benefit to society and that even though, <i>yes</i>, sometimes an immigrant comes here and commits a heinous crime, that absolutely does not mean that we should restrict all immigration.<br />
<br />
I'd like everyone to see other people as individuals and not only as members of identity groups ("foreigner", "American", "immigrant", "Muslim", etc.). If we did this, conservatives would have to acknowledge that the vast majority of immigrants are great, and the progressives and libertarians would have to acknowledge that some of them are not so great.<br />
<br />
I'd also like everyone I know personally to accept that there are actually some downsides to immigration and quit acting like the only people who see any negatives in immigration are racist morons who can't get a job.<br />
<br />
But most of all, I want everyone to just <i>listen to each other </i>a hell of a lot better than they are and realize that most of what's happening is an utter failure to communicate.<br />
<br />
Conservatives believe that the stability of our society is upset by immigrants. Libertarians believe that restricting immigration is an unacceptable abuse of power over individuals. Progressives believe that preventing immigrants from coming to the US is oppressive and harmful to the poorest people.<br />
<br />
All three groups have a point.<br />
<br />
As for my own opinion, I'm as strong a supporter of immigration and generally open-borders as I have ever been... Because I see people as the most supremely valuable resource to any society. More immigration means more diversity of perspectives and ideas, more productive hands, and more opportunities to connect with other cultures and improve our own. I also see the downsides as mostly minimal compared to the benefits.<br />
<br />
This would all be even more true in a society that was more economically free and had a lower rate of welfare dependency, but we work with the society we have.<br />
<br />
As for concerns about immigrants bringing in poor values... Well, friends... Look around. Poor values are already here, and we're going to need to figure out how to reverse that trend immediately but as far as I can tell it has nothing to do with immigration. Most of the worst ideas flooding our kids' brains are coming from our entertainment, news media, and universities, not from the dude running the taco stand on the corner.<br />
<br />
<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.sean-malone.com</div>Sean W. Malonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07652434357640171842noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5098030884495656852.post-39756084524897160292018-04-28T12:26:00.000-07:002018-04-28T12:31:12.681-07:00According to Will Wilkinson, violent protests on campus aren't a threat to free speech, but this girl's graduation photo is.A couple weeks ago, I got into a discussion on a thread with long-time Facebook friend and now NY Times commentator, Will Wilkinson about this "controversial" graduation photo taken by University of Tennessee-Chattanooga student Brenna Spencer:<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkNn6zfWO9iihKv0UGSEebnYy25E2O2BboJInSxeMpXxdIq6ZneJCBke4WU78JFUEboFB-UmBqjVNndcYhNjg4PqMzBS6ccMepWjEQQ-HLYQOyslBz4KDpGdifJfHvHY7YIXPLmj88niA/s1600/brenna-spencer.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="450" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkNn6zfWO9iihKv0UGSEebnYy25E2O2BboJInSxeMpXxdIq6ZneJCBke4WU78JFUEboFB-UmBqjVNndcYhNjg4PqMzBS6ccMepWjEQQ-HLYQOyslBz4KDpGdifJfHvHY7YIXPLmj88niA/s640/brenna-spencer.png" width="640" /></a><br />
<br />
On Twitter/Facebook, Wilkinson wrote:<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHlfO4KD17E1bMT8sHgrtn92KPjE3ftqHlKPPNMaGu_2VUpeCIcpBU7cjUhZ0E7LYcgL9GrVrf1LN6v5yjLs3dkdRuKbi74I7Uo9FxO_C-XkUbkgD0em4M0r3K7j-Yk5yJmmBgmjviiV4/s1600/wilkinson-tweet.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHlfO4KD17E1bMT8sHgrtn92KPjE3ftqHlKPPNMaGu_2VUpeCIcpBU7cjUhZ0E7LYcgL9GrVrf1LN6v5yjLs3dkdRuKbi74I7Uo9FxO_C-XkUbkgD0em4M0r3K7j-Yk5yJmmBgmjviiV4/s640/wilkinson-tweet.png" width="564" /></a><br />
<br />
We'll come back to this issue in a lot more detail in a moment, but first I want to set the stage.<br />
<br />
Will Wilkinson is the VP of Policy Research at the Niskanen Center, a relatively new DC-based think tank that styles itself as "libertarian" but tends to advocate policies and ideas that are anything but.<br />
<br />
They've also been blasted for publishing or re-publishing studies and reports that are of shockingly poor quality, including recently one by Jeffrey Sachs which claimed that "liberals" were more likely to be victims of firings based on political speech than "conservatives".<br />
<br />
There were two major problems with Sachs' report that should have been immediately obvious.<br />
<br />
1) It failed to take into account the massive disparity in the raw number of liberal vs. conservative college professors. <br />
<br />
According to a September 2016 study by Mitchell Langbert, Anthony J. Quain, and Daniel B. Klein which looked at the voter registration data for 7,243 history, law, economics, journalism, and psychology faculty and found that just 314 had registered as Republican, while 3,623 were registered Democrats which puts the overall ratio at about 11.5:1. <br />
<br />
They go on to note:<br />
<blockquote>
"The D:R ratios for the five fields were: Economics 4.5:1, History 33.5:1, Journalism/Communications 20.0:1, Law 8.6:1, and Psychology 17.4:1. The results indicate that D:R ratios have increased since 2004, and the age profile suggests that in the future they will be even higher. We provide a breakdown by department at each university. The data support the established finding that D:R ratios are highest at the apex of disciplinary pyramids, that is, at the most prestigious departments."</blockquote>
So naturally, any study that purports to describe the frequency with which problems are happening to a given population should at the very least take into account massive differences in population size rather than providing raw numbers. <br />
<br />
If the question is who is more likely to be fired for speaking their mind, then it's pretty important that we're comparing the groups of people on a per capita basis.<br />
<br />
Sachs didn't do that, and Niskanen didn't care.<br />
<br />
2) As another friend, history professor Phil Magness pointed out, at least 3 of the cases of liberals supposedly being fired for political speech were misrepresented -- and they were huge, well-known cases, so a more in-depth review of Sachs report would be likely to uncover more padding.<br />
<br />
Quoting Phil:<br />
<blockquote>
1. The database claims that Ward Churchill was fired for "unpatriotic" speech. This is not true. Churchill was actually fired for research misconduct following the discovery that he had engaged in plagiarism and the fabrication of evidence in his published academic work.<br />
<br />
2. The database claims that Melissa Click was fired for being "anti-conservative." Also not true. Click was fired after being indicted for physically assaulting a student on campus.<br />
<br />
3. The database claims Kevin Allred was fired for making "anti-white" political tweets. He was actually fired for a series of tweets in which he threatened mass shootings and running Trump supporters over with his car. Threatening violence would seem to fall well outside of the protections of free speech or academic freedom.<br />
<br />
I would argue that all three of these terminations were justified for reasons unrelated to "free speech."</blockquote>
I think most people would agree with Phil on this, I'd be willing to be that if we looked even more closely at the examples presented by Sachs, we'd find a larger pattern of misrepresenting cases - and that this tendency would not be random.<br />
<br />
But Wilkinson used this study to back up a previous claim recently made by the Niskanen Center that there was no free speech "crisis" on college campuses.<br />
<br />
In spite of the fact that progressives significantly out-number any non-progressive voices on college campuses in every discipline and in some cases as much as 20:1, and in spite of the fact that there are now dozens of cases of large mobs of progressive students and faculty members shouting down conservative speakers and several instances of professors using or supporting the use of violence such as with Melissa Click and more recently with Randa Jarrar calling for the use of literal terrorism in order to support her agenda, according to Wilkinson, it's the conservatives who are the <i>real</i> threat to free speech.<br />
<br />
And of course, this all plays back into his reaction to Brenna Spencer's graduation photo.<br />
<br />
Wilkinson accuses Spencer - as a white, Trump-supporting conservative in the South - of playing the victim when she is, in fact, the oppressor.<br />
<br />
I found this to be a particularly ridiculous reaction for several reasons, not least of which being that I don't see anything remotely wrong with Brenna Spencer's photo to begin with, and posited that the only way you'd think of it as a free speech-chilling threat of any kind is if you believe that regardless of context, the mere sight of a gun would be terrifying to her fellow classmates.<br />
<br />
I find this to be an especially odd claim to make in a state like Tennessee, because most of the students attending the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga probably grew up around guns and regardless of their general political leanings are likely far more familiar with firearms and rural culture than students at most universities.<br />
<br />
Even now, I find it hard to imagine a scenario in which I should have ever even seen or known about this photo. When I graduated high school, as a drummer, I took several graduation photos with drums in various configurations... I look at Spencer's photo as basically the same thing, because I'm not an emotional child who faints at the sight of a gun.<br />
<br />
So I asked whether or not it just might be possible that far from trying to be a provocateur, Brenna Spencer was <i>actually, genuinely</i> trying to positively express a value - in this case gun ownership - that she felt was under attack.<br />
<br />
I further noted that this photograph was taken/shared <i>after</i> we'd already been subjected to two months of national "conversation" stemming from the school shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL. Following weeks of seeing nothing but people like David Hogg calling the NRA "terrorists", and demanding legislation that would curtail the rights of gun-owners, it's not that much of a stretch to imagine someone like Brenna Spencer feeling defensive about her right to bear arms and if you understand that, you should be able to understand why she might want to express her views publicly as she was exiting college.<br />
<br />
In fact, this seems to me like the most obvious and clear motivation for Spencer to take and distribute the image.<br />
<br />
She did <i>not</i> seem to be deliberately "triggering" progressives as Wilkinson asserted, and furthermore, if an image like this <i>is </i>enough to trigger other students and offend or upset them, that just seems like evidence that those students were way too thin-skinned to begin with.<br />
<br />
Wilkinson responded to my comments with a long statement told from his experience teaching in Tennessee. Subsequently, I was challenged by another person on the thread to reply to it. Thus... What follows is Wilkinson's comment, intercut with my public response.<br />
<br />
It's quite long, so here's the abstract:<br />
<br />
<i>While I think Will makes some decent points in the abstract, this specific case does not remotely demonstrate what he thinks it does, there are plenty of alternative ways to look at this specific case, he rests his core points on a lot of really shaky conceptual arguments, and in the end he resorts to arrogant moral grandstanding.</i><br />
<br />
With that said... Here we go:<br />
<blockquote>
<i><b>Will: </b></i><i>"Many, many, many universities are state schools in conservative states and draw tons of conservative students, who come from places more conservative than the town the school is in, and way more conservative than the ethos of the school itself. But these members of the state's politically and culturally dominant class feel entitled to institutions as conservative as the ethos of the state they dominate, and totally ridiculously feel that the fact that they aren't makes them victims of prejudice."</i></blockquote>
<b>Me:</b> This may be true in some instances, but seems like a total misreading of the photo in question, wherein the girl is actually part of a group of people that tend to be marginalized and attacked constantly by all the dominant cultural institutions: Media, (National) Politics, Entertainment, and Academia.<br />
<blockquote>
<i><b>Will: </b></i><i>"Campuses are places where members of traditionally victimized and marginalized classes feel relatively safe demanding equal recognition and protection of their rights as persons and citizens, which members of the dominant class invariably finds threatening."</i></blockquote>
<b>Me:</b> Ok, to the first part, but... I think a citation is definitely needed for the "members of the dominant class invariably find[ing] this to be threatening", since quite a large number - possibly even the majority - of the "dominant class" is vocally supportive of providing that equal recognition and equal protection of rights. <br />
<br />
This isn't 1961.<br />
<blockquote>
<i><b>Will: </b></i><i>"The more effective egalitarian demands are likely to be (at elite schools, because the graduates stand a chance of actually wielding influence) the more threatening the dominant group finds it."</i></blockquote>
<b>Me:</b> Again, citation needed. <br />
<br />
The dominant group at literally all the "elite schools" ARE in favor of these egalitarian demands. And to call a lot of the demands in question "egalitarian" is, itself, a bold claim. Please explain to me how what happened to the Christakis or Weinsteins is an example of egalitarianism, or to Charles Murray, or to Christina Hoff Sommers, and on and on and on... And that's before we get to any of the actually inflammatory speakers that were disinvited like Milo, etc.<br />
<br />
To the contrary, many of these demands seem to seek special class protections which go far beyond a situation where everyone is actually equal.<br />
<br />
And they have majority popular and institutional support in the places where these things are mostly in play.<br />
<br />
Translation: The people who are rejecting this stuff or who are pushing back are rarely if ever the "dominant" group, unless you think that social conditions and attitudes are identical to what they were 50-60 years ago.<br />
<blockquote>
<i><b>Will: </b>"Casting the people asking for equality as oppressors who victimize the class they are dominated by is a venerable trick to protect traditional power relations by inverting the direction of and responsibility for injustice."</i></blockquote>
<b>Me:</b> Ok.<br />
<br />
Two points... First: 20 year old girls aren't responsible for historical oppression, and, second: How is the photo cited an example of this even if they were?<br />
<blockquote>
<i><b>Will: </b></i><i>"It's a way of not only denying actual injustice, but of deepening it by implying that forward moral progress requires that the the dominant class resist and roll back the subordinate classes' effective political power."</i></blockquote>
<b>Me:</b> Again, how is the photo cited in any way representative of this problem?<br />
<br />
If you want to talk about the history of gun rights, it was the pro *control* side that used power to oppress minorities. Or had we all forgotten the push to regulate guns as a response to the Black Panthers?<br />
<blockquote>
<i><b>Will: </b>"At schools like UTC, the black kids have grandparents who suffered through Jim Crow. The idea that it can be literally physically dangerous to challenge white people is drilled into them, because it is true."</i></blockquote>
<b>Me:</b> I'd buy that this can be true for some people, but I've lived all over the United States and made friends with all kinds of people and see absolutely no evidence from my experiences that this is true for the majority or en masse.<br />
<br />
Are we not living in the same world where Kanye West used his time at the Grammy's to say that then President Bush hates black people?<br />
<blockquote>
<i><b>Will: </b>"When a white kid in my class insisted that northern Africa "isn't real Africa" -- we were doing the Aeneid and I was emphasizing the African roots of Western civilization -- the black kids (who were VERY engaged by the idea that West tradition is partly African) literally started looking down, or acting slightly distracted, as if they weren't listening and didn't notice anything had been said."</i></blockquote>
<b>Me:</b> That's a sad story. Still not sure what it has to do with the photo used as an example of the phenomenon in question. <br />
<blockquote>
<i><b>Will: </b></i><i>"But they heard and knew exactly what that kid was saying: that *their* ancestors are outsiders to the Western tradition, and have no claim to the dignity and civilization of Alexandria and Cleopatra. Nobody said a peep. Why not?"</i></blockquote>
<b>Me:</b> Because it's awkward? Because they're insecure college kids in what's probably a 101 class? Because the specific kid who spoke up was convincing or more socially dominant? Because they partly agree or have been taught a similar idea, in that typically Egypt and Libya are seen as a somewhat more Middle East and not "African"? Because Will did not sufficiently create an environment in his class that invites these kinds of challenges?<br />
<br />
I'm normally inclined to take the first-person account at face value, but it's not like there aren't other explanations beyond the one that fits exactly into Will's pre-existing ideology.<br />
<blockquote>
<i><b>Will: </b>"Well, this young lady's picture is a nice illustration. Her people (white Republicans) run Tennessee, the whole damn thing, except for the bigger cities, like Nashville and Memphis and Chattanooga, and even these places are run by relatively conservative white people. White people in Tennessee make the laws and they enforce them."</i></blockquote>
<b>Me:</b> <i>Finally</i>, we're getting to how the photo comes into play... But already he's tying it to stuff that this girl has zero connection to or control over.<br />
<blockquote>
<i><b>Will: </b>"Now, Donald Trump is a populist who relentlessly associates whiteness with Americanness and non-whiteness with marginal or non-Americanness, communicating pretty clearly that non-urban white people are entitled to protect their outsized share of power. That's the core of his message."</i></blockquote>
<b>Me:</b> Per Washington Post's article: <b><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/09/25/mostly-black-neighborhoods-voted-more-republican-in-2016-than-in-2012/?utm_term=.bacc9a464101">Mostly black neighborhoods voted more Republican in 2016 than in 2012</a>'</b><br />
<blockquote>
"That red line for white neighborhoods is very important and bolsters the focus on white voters after the 2016 election. But that blue line, showing more heavily black neighborhoods voting more Republican than in 2012, has been under-recognized.<br />
<br />
There are two reasons this might have happened. The first is a change in support among black voters that favors the Republican. The second is a decrease in black turnout, meaning that the white voters in those neighborhoods who were more likely to back Trump carried more weight in the results."</blockquote>
In other words, while voter turn out was down, the black voters that remained weren't uniformly turned off by Trump. I don't generally ask (or care) how my friends vote, but anecdotally, I have multiple black friends who were sympathetic to (if not voted for) Trump, including a couple very close friends.<br />
<br />
Where Will sees Trump as relentlessly associating whiteness with Americanness, it's possible that other people saw Trump as unifying an idea of "Americanness" against foreignness and the joint fears of economic competition and terrorism?<br />
<br />
My view is that people tend to see what they want to see with Trump. But I'll accept Will's point for the sake of argument. Still not sure what it has to do with the photo.<br />
<blockquote>
<i><b>Will: </b>"So here's this privileged college-student member of Tennessee's dominant political faction in a Trump shirt with a gun in her waistband. What's displaying the gun *about*? It's not *wrong* to say "pride in the exercise of a constitutional right." But it's just monumentally dense to leave it there."</i></blockquote>
<b>Me:</b> Is it, though? <br />
<br />
Trump and "big picture" stuff that college professors tend to see that no one else cares about aside, we've just spent the last 2 months living through a non-stop media barrage of anti-gun, anti-2nd Amendment voices at the national level.<br />
<br />
Nearly the <b>entire </b>tenor of the "national conversation" around guns consists of reporters and anti-gun people routinely calling pro-gun people child murderers and blaming corruption (as opposed to a sincere opposition) and corporate lobbying for the fact that AR-15s have not been banned yet.<br />
<br />
If this girl is graduating college now, then she's just spent her entire semester listening to people tell her she's a bad person for being a gun owner.<br />
<br />
Perhaps <b><i>that </i></b>has more to do with her post than the 2016 election of Donald Trump?<br />
<br />
Perhaps she got tired of seeing David Hogg's face every time she fired up Facebook or Twitter?<br />
<br />
Who knows, right?<br />
<blockquote>
<i><b>Will: </b>"This young woman is in the heart of a decent-sized historically segregated southern city next to the lovely glassy, art museum flashing a handgun. Even outside the context of a Trump shirt, the gun is a straight-up threat to those who would challenge the inequities of the status quo power structure."</i></blockquote>
<b>Me:</b> This is straight-up nonsense. Childish nonsense. I'll go into detail in a different comment if necessary, but I think it's the dumbest part of this whole post.<br />
<br />
[EDITORIAL NOTE: Expanding on this point, this part of Wilkinson's long comment is the dumbest, most childish part of his whole claim because it assumes that the presence of an inanimate object as held by a 21-year-old white college student is inherently threatening regardless of context. Under this assumption, basically anytime a white person holds a gun for any reason - at the range, at a shooting competition, in a movie, whatever - they're a symbol of racist power struggles dating back centuries.<br />
<br />
Worse still, this infantilizes minorities to an extreme degree, asserting that all this historical baggage is dredged up in people at the mere sight of a firearm. This is nothing more than the bigotry of low expectations, and it's made doubly tragic by the fact that Wilkinson is in charge of teaching students.<br />
<br />
As had I said earlier in the overall thread, anyone who thinks that should join me at QuickShot or Stoddard's Range in Atlanta, where the majority of patrons and staff are black. In my experience, people in the South are far more familiar with, and thus comfortable with, firearms. The result is that they do not feel "threatened" by non-threatening situations like that which is clearly the case in Brenna Spencers graduation photo.<br />
<br />
Anyone threatened by that photo would be among the most fragile, weak-willed people I've ever encountered, and unlike Wilkinson, I don't believe that "People of Color" are inherently that fragile.]<br />
<blockquote>
<i><b>Will: </b>"(Go watch an hour of NRA TV videos if you don't believe that this is what's up.)"</i></blockquote>
<b>Me:</b> Not one single gun-owner I know or have talked to has shared with me an "NRA-TV" post as a justification for their rights. Not once. And I know a LOT of gun owners & Second Amendment supporters.<br />
<br />
The NRA is loud, but as far as I can tell, the only reason they "represent" anyone is because they get headlines and airtime from hyperventilating reporters who see them as the enemy.<br />
<br />
[And once again, this doesn't have anything to do with Brenna Spencer]<br />
<blockquote>
<i><b>Will: </b>"But she's also correctly confident that her heavily cultivated whiteness and femininity defuse the sense of threat (that's what Dana Loesch is for), which is why she can do something that really would put one of her black male classmates at risk of being murdered by the police."</i></blockquote>
<b>Me:</b> Murdered by the police at a photoshoot? For college graduation photos? Black kids take photos with guns a lot. Will's stretching like taffy on this point.<br />
<br />
Take Antonia Okafor, for instance:<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgblj3ICBXwkku5TuxN9Z1D7OngsW7uIAsTfmi9OxPLLZ9PzaaTKwWD6V88wt7NAu3-d5cNDBfNNuwPq42lDWVdP2Rl9tl0eLtoopd2lkuzPpX_CHPuXPQSuAcQF0iBcztfmGsh6ZJmJkk/s1600/antonia-okafor1.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="464" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgblj3ICBXwkku5TuxN9Z1D7OngsW7uIAsTfmi9OxPLLZ9PzaaTKwWD6V88wt7NAu3-d5cNDBfNNuwPq42lDWVdP2Rl9tl0eLtoopd2lkuzPpX_CHPuXPQSuAcQF0iBcztfmGsh6ZJmJkk/s640/antonia-okafor1.png" width="640" /></a><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg-_n8q2X-IXec6buodmWVR_On7qgRlNt1GMWi_i8Tr-AQoY2VwmsqvKI8XD9GPLY99fOEwHNWa5DNXUkbwoqS1LvfZnlCPzjXxCv1b4VYzq897RY9IZcDtIsO8f-TCnjxwV014B27ztc/s1600/antonia-okafor2.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="380" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg-_n8q2X-IXec6buodmWVR_On7qgRlNt1GMWi_i8Tr-AQoY2VwmsqvKI8XD9GPLY99fOEwHNWa5DNXUkbwoqS1LvfZnlCPzjXxCv1b4VYzq897RY9IZcDtIsO8f-TCnjxwV014B27ztc/s640/antonia-okafor2.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
<br />
And Antonia is hardly alone. You might remember this infamous photo from a few years back.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKB1hmsNcHv0LhkZmJatEvit_RVzucx_ckJW_rgX6e9SPl7LS_rOK9MFFb5i7DTeWY7qpz-PzBgZoP46btX6zzn8oTGt05DPQvrtattLn-MowKte9JjOmi6zKUWSWMvGdp7T8wEn0NS9A/s1600/brothers-facebook-gun-pose.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="632" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKB1hmsNcHv0LhkZmJatEvit_RVzucx_ckJW_rgX6e9SPl7LS_rOK9MFFb5i7DTeWY7qpz-PzBgZoP46btX6zzn8oTGt05DPQvrtattLn-MowKte9JjOmi6zKUWSWMvGdp7T8wEn0NS9A/s640/brothers-facebook-gun-pose.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
<br />
Will doesn't seem to be able to differentiate between the dangers of a kid displaying a gun while interacting with a cop in any kind of situation where that could <i>actually </i>be construed as a threat, and the context of taking what are essentially props to a private photo shoot. <br />
<br />
Fortunately, I've worked as a photographer and video producer for a long time and I can differentiate between the two.<br />
<br />
It's actually not that hard, though, so I'm not sure why a supposed academic is struggling with it.<br />
<blockquote>
<i><b>Will: </b>"A black kid about to graduate college would NEVER do this because they're literally NOT FREE to do it without imperiling their freedom and safety."</i></blockquote>
Again... Wrong. Good prose, but wrong. See above.<br />
<blockquote>
<i><b>Will: </b>"But she is free to do it, because she is a well-to-do white southern lady, and does. It is an ostentatious display of unequal power, unequal protection of basic rights, and a signal of the willingness to use violence to protect these inequalities, but winkingly portrayed as an underdog's plucky act of defiance against injustice."</i></blockquote>
It's definitely easier for pretty girls to get away with stuff like this. I don't suppose we want to get into a conversation about male privilege, here, but anyway.... Wow.<br />
<br />
[Wilkinson's just made Brenna Spencer the representative for the entire history of power and oppression in the South. Poor miss Spencer is now the poster girl for white power and inequality, and her photo (scroll up to the top if you forgot which one we're talking about, I won't blame you given the hyperbole on display here) is a symbol of violence in defense of her people's oppressive regime.<br />
<br />
At this point, I've got nothing left for Wilkinson's point but sarcasm and contempt.]<br />
<blockquote>
<i><b>Will: </b>"If you think this sort of thing doesn't carry over to campuses in places like Chattanooga and make students fearful of freely speaking their minds, you're wrong."</i></blockquote>
I don't think I am.<br />
<blockquote>
<i><b>Will: </b>"If you don't think the point of "political correctness" is to resist this fear and create a sense of safety for people who have less power, you're wrong."</i></blockquote>
Yeah, again... I don't think I am.<br />
<blockquote>
<i><b>Will: </b>"And if you think that the expression-chilling effects of PC on campus is worse than the expression-chilling effects of ongoing invidious inequalities in basic rights and effective political power, as illustrated in this photo, you're wrong."</i></blockquote>
Definitely not wrong on this.<br />
<blockquote>
<i><b>Will: </b>"And if you look at this photo and say, "I don't see the problem," you're part of the problem."</i></blockquote>
Blow it out your ass, Will.<br />
<br />
<hr />
<br />
Reading through Will's comments again, you'll note that my patience runs out the more he resorts to moral grandstanding and starts accusing people (me) of malicious intentions.<br />
<br />
After way too many years of having these kinds of conversations, I've come to realize that people who do that have little intelligent to add. When you rest your argument on trying to paint your opponent as evil, rather than on solid logic built on factual premises, you're skipping past the hard part of thinking and going right to rationalizing your pre-existing beliefs instead.<br />
<br />
Increasingly, I get the impression that this basically defines Wilkinson and the Niskanen Center in general.<br />
<br />
Today, when challenged on the Jeffrey Sachs report on Phil Magness' thread, Wilkinson had no response to his critics (many whom were much more successful academics) other than a snarky dismissal.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4kVICEUDWGZ5vJycrtmiRp3EQyNmwDUHvrgk46T9yW8sVoKTYD0owkdS9Sl_UeBCs92cK0AeRTEJ_reztBQDvounS481_b_26BgWwgiEj0-YOrCyl2aljrzxRmCllQe1JOccvXGb4moE/s1600/wilkinson-oh+you+guys.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="124" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4kVICEUDWGZ5vJycrtmiRp3EQyNmwDUHvrgk46T9yW8sVoKTYD0owkdS9Sl_UeBCs92cK0AeRTEJ_reztBQDvounS481_b_26BgWwgiEj0-YOrCyl2aljrzxRmCllQe1JOccvXGb4moE/s640/wilkinson-oh+you+guys.png" width="640" /></a><br />
<br />
I guess this is what we're reduced to.<br />
<br />
To the broader point, if your evidence for the claim that the real "threat" to free speech is coming from conservatives like Brenna Spencer, because of photos like this, you are not engaging in a serious argument. If your evidence for the idea that progressives are more frequently fired for their political speech is riddled with basic errors, and your claim that there isn't really a free speech "crisis" ignores basically everything that's going on at colleges & universities around the country or relies on quibbles over the definition of "crisis", you might be engaging in motivated reasoning.<br />
<br />
And if your response to your critics is to be dismissive or call them bad people, your arrogance is out of control.<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.sean-malone.com</div>Sean W. Malonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07652434357640171842noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5098030884495656852.post-1172025888860885852017-11-19T05:50:00.000-08:002017-11-19T05:50:26.019-08:00Communicating Consent<h3>
<b><br /></b></h3>
<h2>
<b>What is consent?</b></h2>
<div>
<br />
I'm sure this will come as a shock to some, but in spite of all my white male privilege, I've spent a great deal of time thinking about this question over the past 20 years.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
But ever since the Harvey Weinstein, #MeToo dam broke and Hollywood started eating itself alive with accusations of non-consensual sexual conduct -- and as that spills out into other parts of society -- I've been thinking a lot more about what consent really is and how people give their consent in actual practice.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
And look, I know what you're thinking:<br />
<div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"C'mon, that's easy! Consent is when a person consciously approves or gives their permission to whatever actions or situations are going on."</blockquote>
<div>
True enough. Gold star.</div>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
That's a simple enough definition, and of course, consent is actually the most essential basis to my own ethical philosophy. Although people often don't talk about it this way, consent is baked into libertarian ideas at their absolute core. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
My own philosophical journey literally began by asking myself the question, "Who owns me?" and subsequently, "Is it possible to rightfully own or control other people?" </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
These are the kinds of questions that many people sort of flippantly think have obvious answers, but once you really think through what it means to say, "No one can rightfully control another person without their consent", you end up challenging a lot of presumptions about the role of government along the way -- which is how I ended up where I am now. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
But in reality, while everybody quickly rejects the idea of chattel slavery, most people don't actually believe that individuals have rightful ownership over themselves and their property in any principled or meaningful sense. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
At best, most people think that they (typically expressed through politics & government) get quite a bit of say over what individuals can do with their lives. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgDC8H5pEIV1i8SBa3laoi5aKBMwg1MzNme3jNtWJj8pQ8m9klfGmgJy4c3ervbyrMsfwQTJO0FBoiKPl0rQxSjxZfUuQkA5x01AWavbiWqUrXY2_GMOf6XCKsxfquPP7sGIPslokwlMs/s1600/waiting-room.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="701" data-original-width="898" height="249" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgDC8H5pEIV1i8SBa3laoi5aKBMwg1MzNme3jNtWJj8pQ8m9klfGmgJy4c3ervbyrMsfwQTJO0FBoiKPl0rQxSjxZfUuQkA5x01AWavbiWqUrXY2_GMOf6XCKsxfquPP7sGIPslokwlMs/s320/waiting-room.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is what the community overpowering<br />
the individual looks like.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Historically, this touches almost everything about a person -- from where they can live, to what they can do with their property, to what careers they're allowed (ie. licensed) to have, and until incredibly recently even who they're allowed to marry and what they're allowed to do in the bedroom. Your choices aren't really you're own to make, regardless of how little real impact they have on anyone else beyond mere aesthetics. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
They're subject to the whim of the committee. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In today's world, almost everything individuals do is controlled in one way or another by other people -- via the state. And this control is exerted against the consent of individuals all the time. But because it's done through the auspices of government and the political process, most people accept these things as legitimate.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
That's what makes libertarian philosophy <i>different </i>from other political philosophies.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The essence of individual liberty as a basis for ethics says that <i>every </i>individual is the rightful owner over their own mind, body, and (legitimately acquired) property, and as such <i>everything </i>that happens with respect to human interaction should be <i>voluntary -- </i>read: consensual.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Anything else is a crime.<br />
<br />
Without consent, touching becomes assault; sex becomes rape; property transfer becomes theft... Even murder is distinguished from suicide on the basis of the lack of consent.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Other ethical philosophies see the idea of "harm" as central to whether or not certain certain behaviors are allowed. </div>
<div>
<br />
Take John Stuart Mill, for example.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN6dEQ3qtnWyaqww2VHcz2o6Nn-NGkbxpeJtQzN058SmNgIZng6k6QMns2iR9Y_bU7VePzSK_s-mkUWLhfN2GWs5l8r0pLNfRGWlWqL_KN6FyTSdhKnAtdhSy62QohRiVAcTFw1bQ7q9M/s1600/mill-harm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="312" data-original-width="800" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN6dEQ3qtnWyaqww2VHcz2o6Nn-NGkbxpeJtQzN058SmNgIZng6k6QMns2iR9Y_bU7VePzSK_s-mkUWLhfN2GWs5l8r0pLNfRGWlWqL_KN6FyTSdhKnAtdhSy62QohRiVAcTFw1bQ7q9M/s640/mill-harm.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
I disagree.<br />
<br />
For me, virtually the <i>entire </i>means of assessing whether or not something should be considered a crime depends uniquely on whether the people involved consented to their interactions.<br />
<br />
The extent of "harm" as it would be externally defined doesn't even really enter into whether or not something <i>is </i>a crime at all... Though it does play a large role in my understanding of how <i>severe </i>something is once established as a genuine crime.<br />
<br />
The reason for this is because "harm", in and of itself, is highly subjective and can take place within a consensual context. It can also be accidental or created in situations where there is no acting moral agent. MMA fighers get harmed participating in the sport; fans of BDSM can get bruised and scratched during sex; anyone in a relationship can come away with painful emotional scars... But all those things happen within the context of consent.<br />
<br />
Additionally, plenty of harmful things happen to people every day that don't involve moral agency -- accidents, acts of god, etc. A crime requires a criminal, and the lightning bolt that struck my house this summer can't be arrested and tried for property damage.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Point is, harm <i>alone </i>isn't enough to render something a crime, but human agency coupled with the lack of consent is.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In short... In my political philosophy, <i>consent is everything</i>.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div>
Of course, one odd thing about this for me is that once I came to this conclusion, I started noticing that most people are shockingly inconsistent about what they care about with respect to consent. Consent is seen as vitally, outrageously important in some contexts -- ie. sexuality -- yet it's <i>completely </i>ignored in others. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
For example, imagine someone doesn't consent to paying taxes or sending young people off to die in war... No one cares.</div>
<div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
This intrigues me.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
We treat sexual consent as uniquely, almost preternaturally sacrosanct such that even the slightest unwanted sight of a nude body part (even if it's just a representation in a photo or a cartoon) is tantamount to PTSD-inducing assault that should never be experienced by unsuspecting children or adults.<br />
<br />
Yet we think of consent in so many other kinds of interactions as optional at best, often depending solely on the whims of the majority. Why?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I have some thoughts on this involving both religious puritanism and evolutionary history, but I'll leave you to ponder that question while we move on to a bigger, more important (yet deceptively difficult) one:<br />
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
<h2>
<b>How do you actually know when someone has given you their consent?</b></h2>
<div>
<br />
Now that we've established how important gaining consent is, let's go deeper. How do we <i>actually</i> get people's consent in the real world?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Don't worry, I already hear your casual dismissals... </div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Well that's easy! They say yes out loud, dummy. And if they don't, then you take it as a no!" </blockquote>
<div>
So many people think this is obvious and the only thing you need to know, that there are hundreds of memes on the internet about it.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8IJ9JnsXiKxF6Ky3-7Cs3ZJ-yOecCxAdWfGEbnH3sbnjK_5GpxCAjUWtZBLnuWLRvXH9qAjmBWWKFw2HSc8fVMzF864iQFpPRlQqJzOiSw8YJHT-RK8q-HSJDlWE4FmHZAxRobPwgG88/s1600/silence.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="810" height="353" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8IJ9JnsXiKxF6Ky3-7Cs3ZJ-yOecCxAdWfGEbnH3sbnjK_5GpxCAjUWtZBLnuWLRvXH9qAjmBWWKFw2HSc8fVMzF864iQFpPRlQqJzOiSw8YJHT-RK8q-HSJDlWE4FmHZAxRobPwgG88/s640/silence.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
But...... Is this really as obvious as you think it is?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In most of your day-to-day interactions, do people verbally tell you when they consent to your interactions with them? Do you <i>tell</i> others when you approve or disapprove of what they're doing?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
If someone at work asks you if it's cool if they borrow your stapler, do you say "Yes, you have my permission to borrow the stapler"? Or do you, perhaps, say nothing and offer a nod or even something so subtle as a fleeting glance of approval.</div>
<div>
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<div>
When you're out to the bar with your buddies, and one of them says "Who wants another round!?", do you always say "I do, please provide me with another beer!" or perhaps do you sometimes say nothing and merely hold up your empty glass? Maybe you don't even do any more than make eye contact and smile.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
When meeting a new person, do you <i>ask people</i> before you go for a handshake, a hug, or a kiss on the cheek? Or... Are your actions defined by a much more complex interplay between cultural customs, body language, and your ability to recognize facial expressions?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The fact is, a great deal of human communication is non-verbal. </div>
<div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTBOLIuRdo6OmykiXKUG1L8jGUx4fqTfcM2gE7Mnp1QaYGe9lb_I20hxaj6Dzj1NBK53AmPvX2YQN4RbXeC21f7txbL_IPl2op2NSfqWXOCbEFAhyphenhyphen_jXG2nUn_1x7jn7xHxmKR9KzBRt4/s1600/Mehrabian-Formula.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="644" data-original-width="640" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTBOLIuRdo6OmykiXKUG1L8jGUx4fqTfcM2gE7Mnp1QaYGe9lb_I20hxaj6Dzj1NBK53AmPvX2YQN4RbXeC21f7txbL_IPl2op2NSfqWXOCbEFAhyphenhyphen_jXG2nUn_1x7jn7xHxmKR9KzBRt4/s320/Mehrabian-Formula.jpg" width="318" /></a></div>
<div>
It's difficult to say precisely how much, of course, but according to Dr. Albert Mehrabian (author of "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Silent-Messages-Implicit-Communication-Attitudes/dp/0534000592/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1510522829&sr=1-1&keywords=silent+messages&dpID=41B2yZiwArL&preST=_SX218_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch">Silent Messages</a>" and some of the seminal work on the subject in the 1970s), just 7% of human communication is fully verbal, 38% is non-verbal (tone and volume of voice, intonation, etc.) and as much as 55% is purely visual, ie. body language.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Follow-up studies by Michael Argyle (<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Bodily-Communication-Michael-Argyle/dp/0416381502">Bodily Communication, 1988</a>) have suggested that non-verbal cues can communicate 4.3 times as much as speech in certain contexts.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I'm not going to get too bogged down in the percentages here, but it's important to understand that interpersonal communication involves a huge amount of non-verbal context. As a film-maker, I rely <i>heavily</i> on my understanding of how tone and body-language (among other things) affect the viewer's perception of a message.<br />
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But here's the thing... Like everything else we communicate with each other, consent is frequently given or refused <b>non-verbally</b>, especially in informal or personal situations.</div>
</div>
<br />
Businesses overcome the nebulous nature of non-verbal consent by drafting explicit contracts and hiring lawyers to write up complex documents outlining the terms of various agreements as well as the costs for violating those terms. Formalized rules of decorum and courtship that apply in certain high society settings (see also: anything by Jane Austen) can also help overcome uncertainty in these situations... But if we're being honest with ourselves, this simply <i>doesn't make sense in most situations</i>.<br />
<br />
A perfect example of this phenomenon happened this week.<br />
<br />
I was standing outside a venue of an event talking to a friend about non-verbal communication and some of the other thoughts that led to this blog-post while he was smoking a cigarette. And as if solely to give me a perfect example of how people <i>actually </i>communicate with each other, his girlfriend -- standing next to us, but engaged in a totally separate conversation with another person -- silently reached out her hand towards the cigarette that was in his.<br />
<br />
Without even breaking eye-contact with me, my friend handed her the cigarette. She took a drag and passed it back to him just as quickly.<br />
<br />
She made a non-verbal request (ie. "Can I have the cigarette?") and he replied ("Yes"). She made her intentions known and he gave his consent. Not a single word was spoken, nor did either of them turn to actually look at each other in the process.<br />
<br />
Yet........... It could not have been clearer <i>in context</i>. That kind of context is really what matters here, and it's the biggest part of the conversation that's completely tossed aside when we act like people will just verbally express themselves all the time. They won't, and we shouldn't expect them to. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
And therein lies the rub.<br />
<br /></div>
<h2>
Sexual consent and non-verbal communication</h2>
<div>
<br />
Here's where this conversation is going to take a challenging turn. Prepare yourself.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I know I'm going to be radically (and I suspect deliberately) misunderstood by an awful lot of people on this part, but I'm wading in to these shark-infested waters anyway.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
For a litany of unavoidable, good, and a few puritanically stupid reasons, people care <i>way more</i> about sexual consent than they do about consent in virtually any other situation. The recent explosion of accusations against powerful figures in Hollywood and elsewhere is a pretty good example of this. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
And as someone who sees ethics almost entirely through the lens of consent, many of the allegations that have come out in the last several weeks have been seriously horrifying.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6Dp9lgt5hKm-ZbCVDrDhu2jplw3_MvUeV4mztlCCkOxbKvcscDKt9a9yF4_Z5Zp-Tr_ea-UFm_Qkfua4r8Sq7LaSwU5AkPCzRWegVt7bvB5rkz8YbrXBp0oDUfAa09uWmIcPI28oVTu4/s1600/lupita-03.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1199" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6Dp9lgt5hKm-ZbCVDrDhu2jplw3_MvUeV4mztlCCkOxbKvcscDKt9a9yF4_Z5Zp-Tr_ea-UFm_Qkfua4r8Sq7LaSwU5AkPCzRWegVt7bvB5rkz8YbrXBp0oDUfAa09uWmIcPI28oVTu4/s320/lupita-03.jpg" width="239" /></a>I've read a ton of thoroughly disgusting stories about Harvey Weinstein and his interactions with women which are crystal clear in their moral depravity. Lupita Nyong'o's <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/19/opinion/lupita-nyongo-harvey-weinstein.html">description of her experiences</a> were particularly terrible, but there have been dozens of such accounts at this point.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
There's little room for confusion in most of them and so it's incredible to see a lot of these crimes coming to light (albeit often way too late to do anything about them legally). However, I wanted to highlight Lupita's story because for the purpose of this essay on the nature of <i>communication</i>, I think her example is also highly instructive.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Unlike many of the other victims of these sexual assaults and rapes, Lupita repeatedly and pointedly told Harvey Weinstein "no" at several stages throughout their interactions. She didn't leave it up to non-verbal cues to convey what she wanted and thus eliminated much of the potential for miscommunication. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
She says:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Before long, he said he wanted to take off his pants. I told him not to do that and informed him that it would make me extremely uncomfortable. He got up anyway to do so and I headed for the door, saying that I was not at all comfortable with that."</blockquote>
<div>
Gross.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
We'll sort of come back to all this at the end, but I seriously applaud Lupita for doing this. Most women, it seems, are not nearly so direct or clear with men in these situations.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
But here's the part where you'll hate me...</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Contrast Lupita's actions with some of the accounts of comedian Louis CK's exhibitionist masturbation fixation. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6LSvo5pReyz0Ejj2RmWwX5wtrJiJm5GsMapIgUIgtJqPHadQlc7yq1BDZYOQzwqbv71O8-Ro8m7yzVJLHpKjy4DYBB2tF0zR4n8lIvf1HdnyA1TPOuIL8eTXRGVXO7QASrKQr4wINe7A/s1600/goodman-wolov.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1067" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6LSvo5pReyz0Ejj2RmWwX5wtrJiJm5GsMapIgUIgtJqPHadQlc7yq1BDZYOQzwqbv71O8-Ro8m7yzVJLHpKjy4DYBB2tF0zR4n8lIvf1HdnyA1TPOuIL8eTXRGVXO7QASrKQr4wINe7A/s320/goodman-wolov.jpg" width="213" /></a>The first story in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/09/arts/television/louis-ck-sexual-misconduct.html">the NY Times article </a>about his multiple sexual assaults of various women is about Julia Wolov and Dana Goodman, a comedy duo who accepted Louis CK's invitation to his hotel room after their show at the Aspen Comedy Festival in 2002.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The report describes the invitation as one with the stated intention of "hanging out" late at night for a "nightcap" after all the bars had closed (let's say after 1:00am). This isn't exactly uncommon in the world of entertainment and the NY Times claims that at least to Goodman & Wolov, CK's "intentions seemed collegial". </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
And look... I obviously wasn't there, so it's hard to say... But a late-night drinking session <i>in a hotel room </i>with a successful/famous comedian who's made his living making references to his own sexual proclivities and masturbation habits should provide at least <i>some </i>context as to what Louis' real intentions likely were, shouldn't it?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
What's more, the account of the situation goes on to say that when Louis CK asked (also important) to take out his penis, the women laughed and gave him a thumbs-up (apparently assuming that it wasn't a serious question) instead of saying "No".</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
And then, Louis CK proceeded to get naked and masturbate in front of them... Which I don't really feel like anyone who's seen his shows should be that surprised by.<br />
<br />
I mean.................. Have you seen his stand-up?<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpu5NM0Mg8GOUZeK-x8hucKwLi5zlTvFR0ZkKpUfVKZpqMTegRCQOSl_0fpiQ6F9chB-7s-jql-xBAKNaUXG2TU56rUjMU87pTTMfDVadaITeBAsdcilcdk3_QE9t9XQUq1rakU4fGZps/s1600/louis-ck.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="338" data-original-width="600" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpu5NM0Mg8GOUZeK-x8hucKwLi5zlTvFR0ZkKpUfVKZpqMTegRCQOSl_0fpiQ6F9chB-7s-jql-xBAKNaUXG2TU56rUjMU87pTTMfDVadaITeBAsdcilcdk3_QE9t9XQUq1rakU4fGZps/s640/louis-ck.gif" width="640" /></a></div>
<div>
<br />
Apologies to my comedian friends, but in general, they're just not normal people.<br />
<br />
I provide all this as an example because, <i>according to the reports I've read, </i>it seems like there were a <i>LOT </i>of non-verbal/contextual miscommunications on <b>both</b> sides and I think that perhaps instead of (or perhaps in addition to) making Louis CK our momentary whipping boy, we could take a moment to reflect on this stuff a bit more thoughtfully.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Again, I understand that I'm <i>supposed</i> to think of everything as if there's only ever a victim and an oppressor and there's a big bold line in between and all this stuff is always super obvious. But a lot of life really doesn't fit into that small a box. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
It seems that Louis CK wasn't totally clear about his intentions for inviting the women to his room, I assume because he at least is socially aware enough to know that most women would unequivocally say no if he was that direct or asked out of any other context and would refuse to join him in a private space if they knew he just wanted to get naked and jerk off in front of them.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
But simultaneously, by accepting a late night invitation to "hang out" and party with alcohol (and, I'd be willing to bet, stronger substances) in Louis' room,<i> and </i>by laughing and continuing to keep things light instead of expressing their disgust at the question Louis asked, the women may have miscommunicated their desires as well.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
And please... Before you cry "victim blaming!", I am <i><b>not </b></i>making this point to say that these women were "at fault". They weren't.<br />
<br />
The onus is fundamentally on the Louis CK as the initiator to get permission to move forward, and it's fair to think that the weirder or more complicated the request, the more explicit that permission should be. That is, again, why business people sign contracts. Implicit consent and trust in those relationships is not enough to confirm that all parties are on the same page. BDSM people often write contracts with each other as well, to solve the same kinds of problems.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
But I do think we should actually consider how <i>everyone </i>involved in a situation like this communicated their preferences, and not just assume that the miscommunication is intrinsically the fault of the man or that there aren't multiple potentially valid viewpoints in play.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Louis wasn't as big a name as he is today, but he was still pretty successful at the time, and if I had to, I'd bet that he's also tried this trick with many, many women over the years. I'd also bet that most of the time, it's worked.<br />
<br />
And reading between the lines a bit in his public "apology", it's not even clear that Louis knows what he really did wrong. He accepts that he made people uncomfortable in his apology, but he mainly chalked it up to taking advantage of his success and fame:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"...what I learned later in life, too late, is that when you have power over another person, asking them to look at your dick isn't a question. It's a predicament for them. The power I had over these women is that they admired me. And I wielded that power irresponsibly."</blockquote>
<div>
His assertion here is that simply because he was "admired", he had power over these people.<br />
<br />
But man... That line bothers me a lot. I'm really not convinced that we should be so quick to take that line of reasoning at face value.<br />
<br />
Firstly, it's smug as hell... But it's also a bit disconcerting, considering that for men not blessed to be in roughly the top 1% of physical attractiveness, the primary means we <i>all </i>have of attracting sexual and romantic partners is through demonstrating our fitness in other ways -- ie. attaining wealth or social status, demonstrating skill and charisma through creativity or humor, etc.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
If using your social status to gain access to sexual opportunities is tantamount to sexual misconduct or assault, the vast majority of humanity is metaphorically -- and very much <i>not</i> literally -- screwed.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Permit me at this moment a brief tangent on...<br />
<br /></div>
<h2>
The reality of human sexual selection</h2>
<div>
<br />
Consider this super-fun bit of data from OK Cupid:<br />
<br /></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA2wlmau0si4g2eX6K3JXYSr2D9ofFMyIh_4UDAy8nK_X6ak83cJEDNnleW-tAL8txN_Qk1P2n967XEz2dKrg7Tb9KZyrNqz50GBOrpRmJjOrkOURXF2EGLdydeYAsiUSlEBLIIfAN7os/s1600/Ok-Cupid-01.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="330" data-original-width="432" height="488" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA2wlmau0si4g2eX6K3JXYSr2D9ofFMyIh_4UDAy8nK_X6ak83cJEDNnleW-tAL8txN_Qk1P2n967XEz2dKrg7Tb9KZyrNqz50GBOrpRmJjOrkOURXF2EGLdydeYAsiUSlEBLIIfAN7os/s640/Ok-Cupid-01.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<div>
<br />
This graph depicts a near 1:1 correlation between OK Cupid users' ratings of other members' looks and their personalities.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
What's that mean, you ask?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
It means that most of us are totally lying to ourselves when we say that looks don't matter, and that we are able to detach our views of a person's ideas and behavior from how hot they are. It's not exactly a mind-blowing observation, but in addition to <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-much-is-being-attractive-worth-80414787/">better pay; more friends; and higher levels of personal happiness</a> it's one more area where physically attractive people gain an automatic advantage in life.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Attractiveness drives our beliefs about a person's non-physical attributes like personality.<br />
<br />
The hotter someone is, the more people will <i>also</i> believe that they're beautiful on the inside. Some of you will scream "Correlation isn't causation!" at this point, but given all the other evidence surrounding this kind of stuff, I'm pretty comfortable saying that in this case it absolutely is. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
If you're hot, people like you more, they trust you more, and they rate everything about you more positively. Sorry, less-attractive people... Beauty-privilege is real.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
But that's not all... Here's something else to wrap your brain around. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
According to data from Tinder:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"...a man of average attractiveness can only expect to be liked by slightly less than 1% of females (0.87%). This equates to 1 “like” for every 115 females. The good news is that if you are only getting liked by a few girls on Tinder you shouldn’t take it personally. You aren’t necessarily unattractive. You can be of above average attractiveness and still only get liked by a few percent of women on Tinder. The bad news is that if you aren’t in the very upper echelons of Tinder wealth (i.e. attractiveness) you aren’t likely to have much success using Tinder. You would probably be better off just going to a bar or joining some coed recreational sports team."</blockquote>
The accompanying chart is a little disheartening.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-eeNcqYOMxRaO1Zk6InKR_dqdnBJ64Yyr8TtGL_g14h26Cq0PYrWgNxHs3eZyUQP2XBaWYmVmB_SzSBwHHtfxJpQzJiAwGX3ZQaoiXWNbASYvOhasB_ECouuO5HB915Bn1kdiDcaaIO0/s1600/Tinder.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="615" data-original-width="1024" height="384" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-eeNcqYOMxRaO1Zk6InKR_dqdnBJ64Yyr8TtGL_g14h26Cq0PYrWgNxHs3eZyUQP2XBaWYmVmB_SzSBwHHtfxJpQzJiAwGX3ZQaoiXWNbASYvOhasB_ECouuO5HB915Bn1kdiDcaaIO0/s640/Tinder.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div>
<br />
Really stop and think about this for a moment... Unless you're one of the most physically attractive people alive (particularly as a man, but this is also true to a lesser degree for women), you are competing with an immense number of people for excruciatingly few potential sexual partners. As per the chart above, men are at an <i>incredible </i>disadvantage in this regard.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
And as a result, men have developed various coping mechanisms to deal with this inequity -- some considerably more successful than others.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Generally speaking, men tend to differentiate themselves by becoming useful -- they struggle to get ahead in their careers and earn larger salaries than other men or do more meaningful/important work. But some also employ strategies of making themselves more attractive through more creative pursuits like humor (ie. making women laugh) and other showcasing other demonstrable skills such as playing music. Other men may differentiate themselves by demonstrating physical skills through sports, dancing, or perhaps hunting and fishing.<br />
<br />
There's a fairly clear evolutionary basis for all of this.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
And it's in line with the one idea that that I think Men's Rights people get exactly right: male objectification.</div>
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<div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLc8dG1AA_t-5GPzljn1-SnYx3reZvAKLecXNca7Rbr4MLK-KUS3S7-EtxRWheVuxKZbSaqsbWa1AevqFyYLbZ62eEdhDwS7_VH99qGg86r1nGDglljx80JztQyecxZgayashtrKgMNJA/s1600/firefighters.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="638" data-original-width="960" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLc8dG1AA_t-5GPzljn1-SnYx3reZvAKLecXNca7Rbr4MLK-KUS3S7-EtxRWheVuxKZbSaqsbWa1AevqFyYLbZ62eEdhDwS7_VH99qGg86r1nGDglljx80JztQyecxZgayashtrKgMNJA/s320/firefighters.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
While women are indeed often seen as "sex objects", men are <i>just as frequently </i>seen as "success objects". That is, if women's purpose is to be sexy and have babies, men's purpose is to work hard and provide for those babies (see also: "<a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00289878">Men as Success Objects and Women as Sex Objects: A Study of Personal Advertisements</a>" by Simon Davis)</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Both forms of objectification come with costs and benefits, but for some reason we're only really allowed to talk about the one that affects women.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Anyway... The bigger problem here is that for some men, becoming successful or demonstrating flashy, creative attributes is just not a viable option. Thus, we have a percentage of men incapable of presenting their value to women in more constructive ways who instead adopt strategies of simply being more aggressive, cat-calling, and chasing women down on the street, etc. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
These are (some of) the men to watch out for, and it goes without saying that most women are turned off and often even scared or intimidated by that approach.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Personally, as someone who's nowhere near the top 1% of male attractiveness, I have had to rely on my intelligence, sense of humor, and a number of creative skills -- all of which I eventually turned into a relatively successful career -- in order to attract women. And even with that, things were still really difficult when I was in the dating pool. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Unsurprisingly, my success with dating apps like OK Cupid was negligible at best.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
If, like me, you need to rely on your wit and intellect to attract women, and women only "swipe right" on the most attractive men, there's just no way to make that system work to your advantage unless you simply lie about what you look like and post fake pictures of yourself -- which of course, some women & men absolutely do.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The point of all this is that developing and demonstrating quality personality traits and other skills is quite literally the <i><b>only thing </b></i>most men can do to overcome the desperate disadvantage of not being physically attractive.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
That is to say... <i>I really think Louis CK is wrong.</i></div>
<div>
<br />
The problem is <b>not </b>that he had "power" over these women simply because he was successful and was therefore "admired" by them. Yes, it gives him an advantage that other men don't have in attracting sexual partners, but it doesn't rob them of their ability to consent.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
To say that is giving CK an out he doesn't deserve. Plus it infantilizes the women involved and it turns a positive aspect of sexual competition into a negative.<br />
<br />
And going back to the beginning of this section, think about this:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7cx5-pbvHcRoXc6NIaqebU7DximqnoLlE-Zt8ZNhC_1n7FFoXkK9FMQflCldeNSuZ2o4o-Zn5gXURZ_XvGTdZQ2rFpgdNjKkw5eUdXcfRrDyjBNauZ58Q8m8JmOtFIm-gzNqCXXmZjQ4/s1600/sexy-chris.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="380" data-original-width="612" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7cx5-pbvHcRoXc6NIaqebU7DximqnoLlE-Zt8ZNhC_1n7FFoXkK9FMQflCldeNSuZ2o4o-Zn5gXURZ_XvGTdZQ2rFpgdNjKkw5eUdXcfRrDyjBNauZ58Q8m8JmOtFIm-gzNqCXXmZjQ4/s320/sexy-chris.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">(Pratt, Hemsworth, Pine, Evans... take your pick!) </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
If being attractive were all it takes to create a power imbalance capable of rendering genuine consent impossible -- and thus create a <i>criminal</i> sexual situation -- then we should be looking a lot more closely at physical attractiveness. We'd have to look at the sexy Chris's of the world and say that <i>every </i>time they've hooked up with anyone should be considered sexual assault or rape because their incredible good looks give them a far more significant "power" over women than Louis CK could ever dream of possessing.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
But it gets worse.<br />
<br />
If we're going to do <i>that</i>, then we would <i>also </i>be forced to start asking questions about the nature of consent as it applied to men in the face of exceptionally attractive women... And you <i>really</i> don't want to go down that rabbit hole.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Women have <i>vastly </i>more power in the sexual selection process than men (see also: Tinder data... and blatantly obvious reality).</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixHS64X81jkicYUePLM0YXrkuof74WV8Go5y8YB-t4f5pLqjq0lXZgxR9VodS_7SlIV27aZD5rbtjqDWNEVhv-0Puz3qC7dYLLfbO68o3tabW_pb_DrcoNMTHH572L2Ds5VJFg_DHIt08/s1600/scarlett.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1155" data-original-width="866" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixHS64X81jkicYUePLM0YXrkuof74WV8Go5y8YB-t4f5pLqjq0lXZgxR9VodS_7SlIV27aZD5rbtjqDWNEVhv-0Puz3qC7dYLLfbO68o3tabW_pb_DrcoNMTHH572L2Ds5VJFg_DHIt08/s320/scarlett.png" width="239" /></a></div>
<div>
Given that fact, surely someone like Scarlett Johansson would be constantly "abusing her power" by sleeping with men less attractive than she was (say, anyone below Ryan Reynolds), because under <i>the same exact logic, </i>her sheer beauty would easily influence their decision to say yes to whatever she wanted sexually, no matter how blissfully weird it might be. Hell, she'd be abusing men by even asking them for platonic favors given how few would have the fortitude to resist in exchange for even a shot at getting to be around her.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Ironically, nobody will ever do this because as a species we struggle to even imagine that good looking people could do anything wrong, but I hope everyone can see why the whole idea is ridiculous.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Genuine power imbalances that are built into a relationship (ie. teacher/student; adult/child; employer/employee; etc.) <i><b>absolutely can and should be </b></i>understood to distort the nature of consent and in many cases these imbalances can even make legitimate consent impossible. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
But if we start considering the mere fact of being incredibly successful (or incredibly beautiful) as a consent-destroying problem of power dynamics, then we're' building a philosophical house of cards that will quickly lead to the conclusion that <i>every </i>interaction between people is involuntary and can never be anything else.<br />
<br />
That said... This does seem to be an actual goal of a lot of the SJW crowd, which sees every aspect of humanity through the lens of oppressor and oppressed, but this line of thinking is lunacy. It is, in part, how some 3rd-Wave "Radical" Feminists have come to the bizarre conclusion that <a href="https://witchwind.wordpress.com/2013/12/15/piv-is-always-rape-ok/">all heterosexual intercourse is "rape"</a> (warning: don't click that link if you value your sanity).</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Anyway... Intelligent definitions are <b>really</b> important here. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
If you want the idea of a power imbalances to be a meaningful barrier to legitimate consent -- and you should -- then it <i>can't </i>refer to all differences of social status or attractiveness. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So... No........ </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Louis CK's relative success is <i>not </i>why was wrong to pull out his penis and masturbate in front of various women. The problem isn't that because of his fame and hilarious jokes, he was just sooooo damn irresistible to women that they couldn't say no. That's just arrogant garbage. If he had genuine power over those women -- if he was their boss, or if there was some evidence that he used his success to threaten or punish them, then maybe. But I don't think that was really at issue here.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Consent <i>was</i> possible in Louis CK's case(s). He just didn't really bother to make sure he had it with anybody before getting naked. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<i>THAT </i>is what he did wrong. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
However... Returning to the issue of miscommunications, I'm about to dig deeper on an even <i>more</i> difficult and controversial question:<br />
<br /></div>
<h2>
What if Louis CK genuinely thought he <i>did </i>have Goodman & Wolov's consent?</h2>
<div>
<br />
Yeah, I know. You're already cracking your knuckles, ready to fire off a killer comment or Tweet letting everyone know how terrible I am and that "you're literally shaking" with rage at the idea that I'd even<i> consider</i> the question at all.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Do what you gotta do, but I'm going to ask the question anyway, and here's why.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
My reading of CK's apology letter suggests that at the time, he thought that by asking for their permission to masturbate in front of them and through the women's reactions to that question (laughing, staying in the room), he believed he had gotten their consent.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Quote (with emphasis):</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"These stories are true. At the time, I said to myself that <b>what I did was okay because I never showed a woman my dick without asking first</b>, which is also true."</blockquote>
<div>
But of course, he didn't have their consent and acknowledges (or comes close to acknowledging) that later on. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I'm speculating a bit here, but I suspect that the way Goodman & Wolov describe the situation is very different from what was going on in CK's head at the time. To them, their laughter and inaction came from a place of shock, confusion, awkwardness, and dismay.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
That makes sense, of course. It's a perfectly common reaction to such a bizarre and awkward situation.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
But what if that reaction -- in the context of already having accepted CK's invitation to a private party with him in his hotel room -- inadvertently miscommunicated their consent? </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Seriously... Is that really so impossible?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqufOoNnaUgR2TNKldrcSDa6C1r7C_l-91brZQfoy6vpfqlKwal9E9px23RAcSFJhq8HTazY8vnNK8VuV3sC3pTcvihK7Q9BrYO3wPT6uDMzUVDM0o00KVcapNo_arnxtTgBVC_3x-d-0/s1600/shame.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="279" data-original-width="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqufOoNnaUgR2TNKldrcSDa6C1r7C_l-91brZQfoy6vpfqlKwal9E9px23RAcSFJhq8HTazY8vnNK8VuV3sC3pTcvihK7Q9BrYO3wPT6uDMzUVDM0o00KVcapNo_arnxtTgBVC_3x-d-0/s1600/shame.gif" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">For shame, yo.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
One thing I've observed from several recent conversations is that a lot of people simply see Louis CK's sexual proclivities themselves as highly taboo. Masturbating in front of women is, by its own nature, <i>disgusting</i>. And for a lot of people I've talked to, that's all they really need to know. Anybody who would want to do that is clearly a sex-pervert who should be considered a criminal.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
But what if we try to take our own judgments out of the equation?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b>Here's what I come up with. <i>You ready?</i></b></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The ugly truth is, I think it's actually fairly plausible that CK never intended to hurt anyone, but rather simply (but very seriously) <i>misread </i>the situation he was in. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Furthermore, I think it's quite possible that this may have happened in part due to intoxication (lower inhibitions and deadened ability to read non-verbal cues), and also because he had may have been in many similar (perhaps more clearly consensual) versions of that situation before. Perhaps dozens of times over several years.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I don't think I'm going out on a particularly flimsy limb to suggest that Louis CK has asked <i>many </i>other women to participate in his masturbatory exhibitionism.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div>
Beyond all that, consider that he <i>asked </i>Goodman & Wolov if he could do it, and (according to their own statements) they laughed and allowed him to proceed without stopping him until he'd concluded on his own. To that end, I think that the women did themselves a tremendous disservice by not immediately and clearly expressing their discomfort and disgust the way Lupita Nyong'o did with Weinstein.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So yeah, my bet is that Louis CK probably <i>did </i>think he had their consent. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<i>However</i>... I <b>also </b>don't get the impression that Louis CK actually cared that much about whether or not the women were uncomfortable or what they wanted in that situation. Especially if it's true that he immediately started disrobing after asking the question and nothing else took place in between. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
That alone would put him far into the wrong in this situation, regardless of any avoidable miscommunication caused by the women.</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
But for the sake of argument, ask yourself this: </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
What if Louis CK genuinely <i>thought</i> he had attained the women's consent? Does that matter? Would it make you think differently about the situation? Does the idea of Louis' guilt become more complicated if that's true?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Is there <i>any </i>room for confusion or nuance in these situations or is the end result all that matters?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
A lot of people I'm seeing out there seem to think that the answer to this question is a resounding, unequivocal "no"... It doesn't matter that Louis CK (or any of the <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/weinsteins-impact-list-men-accused-sexual-misconduct-51230660">long list of other men accused of sexual misconduct</a>) may have <i>believed</i> he had gotten consent for his actions.<br />
<br />
As long as there are women saying they didn't consent after the fact, there is just no room for gray.<br />
<br />
And that brings me to why I'm using Louis CK as an example right now. We <i>all </i>want to believe that we'd never make the same mistakes he made, but I think that's pretty damn easy to say when it's not your private failings being publicly flogged.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Social media outrage is as easy to participate in as it is disingenuous... But the brutal truth is....<br />
<br /></div>
<h2>
Sex & relationships are confusing!</h2>
<div>
<br />
This is probably going to be the least popular thing I'm going to say on a post filled with highly unpopular thoughts... But I think that the reality of human relationships is that they're messy as hell and social and sexual situations are positively <i>filled</i> with major opportunities for miscommunication and confusion.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
And these things are <b>not</b> the exclusive fault of men. Or women.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<i>None </i>of us are any good at this at all, and sometimes when we get it wrong, we can really hurt people.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Going back through what I've written here so far, I hope you see a method to my madness. Most of human communication is non-verbal. Consent or rejection of consent is conveyed in tons of different ways and context matters a great deal. Men also face tremendously bad odds at finding sexual partners.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
A smile and a gentle touch, or a person just moving a little closer to you can indicate consent, even when nobody says the word "yes"... Just as a grimace and folded arms or a bit of distancing body language can indicate a lack of consent even if no one says the word "no".</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div>
We all send mixed signals all the time for conscious and subconscious reasons, and what somebody <i>thinks </i>you're communicating may not be what you really mean and vice versa. Communication experts often talk about how important it is to align your verbal statements with the non-verbal ones -- ie. making sure that your body language and your facial expressions line up with what you want someone to <i>hear</i> you saying. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
One of my favorite examples of body language hangs in massive scale at the NY Times bureau office in Washington, DC.<br />
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQSP6LgceGXz8ayq5NzNc09NK_zBtWpjRgEZAqds0HsjDg8LbXwcosSaRdwcP-MdZ1as0AHWdWpsQiFDG0kRdCITF8uGVGwDXp-PyOHBnjbge6f1v2nPhi4nB5Af_ITWbpQyXuh_a7QsQ/s1600/LBJ.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="497" data-original-width="1600" height="196" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQSP6LgceGXz8ayq5NzNc09NK_zBtWpjRgEZAqds0HsjDg8LbXwcosSaRdwcP-MdZ1as0AHWdWpsQiFDG0kRdCITF8uGVGwDXp-PyOHBnjbge6f1v2nPhi4nB5Af_ITWbpQyXuh_a7QsQ/s640/LBJ.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"The Johnson Treatment", George Tames (NY Times)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div>
<br />
I'm sure Lyndon Johnson had a lot to say to Sen. Theodore F. Greene out loud in this moment... But if he had said nothing at all, his intent to intimidate could not be more clear. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Anyone who thinks that every interpersonal interaction must be accompanied by a verbal yes or no simply doesn't have a realistic view of how human beings actually communicate with each other. And as such, anyone who says that the <i>only</i> instance where someone should proceed with a sexual advance is where they get a direct statement of consent (or a written contract as some universities are attempting to institute), is <i>at best </i>supremely naive, or worse, a charlatan looking for someone to sue.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
We're not going to suddenly and radically alter the way people convey their intent to one another. And we shouldn't want to.</div>
<div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
It <i>might </i>be true that universal verbal consent would make things more direct and clear (but this isn't obvious given how much tone, inflection and body language play into people's understanding of verbal cues), but apart from being an unrealistic expectation that will never actually happen in the majority of human interactions, it would also introduce an element of formality to relationships that can make things considerably more awkward and inorganic during the most tentative and critical stages of any new relationship.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
How many of you have been involved with people who refused to even say the word "boyfriend" or "girlfriend" out loud for months, worried that just the words themselves would convey too much baggage even though they'll date and sleep with you exclusively anyway?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Formalizing relationships... <i>Talking about them</i> consciously and directly... Makes them real. And in my experience, that's even more uncomfortable for people than saying nothing and letting things run their course more naturally. I think a really difficult truth that some folks are going to have to come to terms with here is that most people aren't actually that comfortable being totally verbal or direct all the time.<br />
<br />
Among other things, it exposes their insecurities.<br />
<br />
But all this inevitable non-verbal communication comes with a cost, and that cost is potential misunderstandings and confusion.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFHQQr8lXRShEqcBxt1_idmoVxGLUW-9MICt8kbntZTdnyNZiUtpVnR3L3lSaAeCmmMUdB73-os_WXcL9GbJng0WphtZ63a639y-FfV0_aCxtAxaIfpFwgyVY7_cXMJy306tNXxOYDV7U/s1600/zits-problem.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="242" data-original-width="760" height="201" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFHQQr8lXRShEqcBxt1_idmoVxGLUW-9MICt8kbntZTdnyNZiUtpVnR3L3lSaAeCmmMUdB73-os_WXcL9GbJng0WphtZ63a639y-FfV0_aCxtAxaIfpFwgyVY7_cXMJy306tNXxOYDV7U/s640/zits-problem.gif" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
Speaking for myself, I've never remotely considered exposing myself to someone the way that Louis CK or Weinstein have done, but I've certainly radically misread situations with romantic prospects plenty of times in the past. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Here's a partial accounting:</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>I've leaned in for a kiss or gone for a hug that wasn't reciprocated or wanted. </li>
<li>I've been in several situations where I believed that women were interested in me romantically based on their actions (or my perception of their actions) when in fact, they were just trying to be nice or get something from me. </li>
<li>I've taken women out on incredibly expensive dates thinking they were interested, only to find out that they were never interested to begin with and my efforts just came off as trying too hard.</li>
<li>I've been deliberately tricked into believing that a girl I had a crush on liked me, because her friends thought it would be funny. High school was so great.</li>
<li>I've been in highly intimate situations where it seemed like things were leading to sex, then with no warning or reason they weren't (exceptionally frustrating), then after a while they were again. Awkward and mystifying.</li>
<li>I've been in situations where I've spent all night flirting with women thinking of them as potential longer-term partners, and that flirtation <i>has </i>even led to something physical, but then as quickly as a day later they were gone from my life -- disinterested in anything more. </li>
<li>I've even dated people for weeks or months at a time who all but disappeared the minute something more emotionally serious materialized between us.</li>
<li>I've been devastated by breakups and deeply hurt by people who didn't reciprocate my feelings the way I expected them to, and I've been totally crushed by women who left me to wonder why things fell apart. </li>
<li>I had the supreme misfortune of confessing my love for someone who, minutes later on the very same night, told me me that she was moving out of the country with a boyfriend who I didn't think was as serious. Big news all around!</li>
<li>And.... Ya know... I've been cheated on by someone I genuinely thought I was going to marry. That hurt... A lot.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div>
<div>
And while I've handled most of those moments in my life pretty well, I handled a few of the others <i>really </i>poorly. Embarrassingly so in a few cases.<br />
<br />
Those who know me, or who have read to this point in this book-length blogpost should understand that I'm someone who is often compelled to keep digging and trying to understand things long after the point I should have stopped -- and that has definitely carried over into dealing with the pain and confusion of a broken heart after a break-up.</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The bigger point is that in those cases where my actions hurt someone else, that was never my intent nor even on my radar at the time... Just as I give most of the women who have hurt me by miscommunicating their interests the benefit of the doubt and assume that they didn't do it deliberately (unless I know for a fact they did... which has happened).<br />
<br />
Some of these problems were my fault. Some of them were the woman's fault. But the vast majority were just a complicated mixture of bad communication, lack of clarity, misunderstandings and irrational action borne of insecurity, desire, pain, or fear.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Looking back on my dating life, it's mostly a goddamn mess with the occasional bright spot and continued to be so right up until the point where my best girl <i>friend </i>finally took the initiative to express her romantic interest in me and became my best <i>girlfriend</i>. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
But the thing is, I don't know anyone who can't say the same thing... And that's because...........<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
<h2>
<b>ALL of this is confusing as hell.</b></h2>
</div>
<div>
<br />
I know for a fact that I'm not alone in all of this.<br />
<br />
Signals get crossed all the time, and the result is a blur of intentions and desires that are sometimes highly contradictory or rapidly shift from moment to moment. It's easy to think that these situations are easy and that consent is binary and obvious -- yes or no -- but in truth, most romantic situations are way more complex than that. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
And by the way... OF COURSE THEY ARE!</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
We <i>all </i>totally suck at knowing what we actually want, and sexual situations are tremendously difficult because they're imbued with all kinds of social implications and greater meaning that can't be fully known in advance by anybody involved. All this stuff is built on quicksand -- a constantly shifting foundation that lives and breathes and can come together or fall apart with the slightest breeze. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
This all brings me to...<br />
<br /></div>
<h2>
What we should be "teaching men" (and women):</h2>
<div>
<br />
I repeatedly hear women claim that sexual assault and rapes would be ended if only we "taught men not to rape". This is, to put it bluntly, one of the dumbest things I've ever heard.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
We <i>already teach men not to rape!</i></div>
<div>
<i><br /></i></div>
<div>
I've been a male in the United States for over 34 years. I've never been anything else. I grew up with men. I have deep personal friendships with other men from all walks of life. Not a single person I have ever met in my life has been confused about the idea that rape is wrong. I can promise you this. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
And as a society we treat rapists and accused rapists <i>incredibly</i> severely, in spite of all the claims to the contrary. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Men convicted of rape face some of the harshest prison sentences, and in prison, the only people other prisoners treat worse than adult rapists are child rapists -- who are <a href="https://justicecrunch.com/ex-cons-reveal-exactly-what-really-happens-to-child-abusers-in-prison/">routinely beaten</a> and even killed in jail.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Rape and sexual assault is also the go-to crime for (lazy) dramatists looking to generate immediate hatred for a villain in a story. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
There's a screenwriting principle from Blake Snyder called "Save the Cat", which is basically a story-teller's way of showcasing a protagonist's good qualities in a simple, easy-to-understand way. The guy who saves a cat stuck in a tree (or any comparable benevolent act) is immediately seen as the hero. A good guy. I think a corollary for villains could just as easily be called "rape the girl"... <a href="https://letterboxd.com/queencockatiel/list/movies-with-sexual-assault-rape-in-them/">There are tons of examples</a> of this in films.<br />
<br />
And that <i>works </i>because most people see rape as worse and more viscerally evil even than murder.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So this idea that we live in a society where men think it's ok to rape women because they were taught the wrong things is... frankly... <i>complete bullshit</i>.<br />
<br />
Sorry, feminists. No.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Most men <i>already know </i>that rape and sexual assault is wrong. And the ones that don't aren't going to get the memo from a guidance counselor's pamphlet. Nor are the prime targets for what I am about to say next. If you think sexual assault and rape is cool, the rest of this post is not going to be useful to you because you're simply not interested in consent in any form.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
But that still leaves us with a mess of confusion and issues that still need to be unpacked. What is it that we <i>do</i> need to teach men to reduce situations where people fail to gain consent in their social interactions?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The biggest thing we need to teach people is...<br />
<br />
<h2>
<i>How to communicate with each other.</i></h2>
</div>
<div>
<br />
After many conversations, I've come to realize that the majority of men have no clue what women experience, and yet the vast majority of women also have absolutely no clue how difficult it actually is to be an average male vying for female attention. I'm going to be generalizing a lot here, so note that if aspects don't apply to you or there are extraneous circumstances that don't seem to apply... They probably don't.<br />
<br />
Men -- including me -- don't usually appreciate or understand the way their advances come across.<br />
<br />
At the same time, many of the things women are frequently annoyed by -- being constantly hit on, catcalled, and whatnot -- are, in my view, a nearly direct result of the incredible imbalance in sexual selection.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Again, go revisit that OK Cupid and Tinder data.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Men of average attractiveness on Tinder are getting <b>1 like for every 115 women they approach</b>. The odds are wildly out of their favor and it's not even close. So they experiment and take as many chances as they can. For a lot of people, this means hitting on a <i>lot</i> of women in the hopes that just one will like them back.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Or................. It means resigning oneself to a life without sex or love. The stakes really are that high.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
But they have no idea how to talk to women effectively, and to make maters even worse, some of the attempts at attracting sexual partners that work with one woman may not work with anyone else. So it's hard to even learn how to approach dating and sexual situations more successfully <i>in general </i>even when you have some successes. It's not like the lessons you learn with one person will necessarily even translate to the next relationship.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Add to all this the issue of non-verbal communication and miscommunication and you have a situation positively primed for men and women to misread situations and hurt each other unintentionally... and even without malicious intent (which is a different conversation) a percentage of these mistakes still end up being very serious. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So... What do we do?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
One man's opinion and all, but... I really think we need to teach EVERYONE how to read social cues and get better at understanding body language, facial expressions, and tone of voice.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGfuZXPqmcXqOLxgw80cLpO63e1h-72ZSoL6mJU7QpkIroOTnojSDrgUmye1pPrMhQUiPYIl3uZuJ53BKgE4133vhfkX2xxOvRFKJS98zYFsuNGd3TuHoH2cHbst75Fgn_UAwRX2cLGKU/s1600/body-language-infographic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1132" data-original-width="812" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGfuZXPqmcXqOLxgw80cLpO63e1h-72ZSoL6mJU7QpkIroOTnojSDrgUmye1pPrMhQUiPYIl3uZuJ53BKgE4133vhfkX2xxOvRFKJS98zYFsuNGd3TuHoH2cHbst75Fgn_UAwRX2cLGKU/s640/body-language-infographic.jpg" width="459" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I thought about adding links to more resources on understanding body language,<br />
tone of voice, and other aspects of this issue, but it's not something I think you can<br />
actually learn by reading. Get off the computer, look up from your phone, and<br />
<b>talk to people</b>.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
We all need to get vastly better at communicating with each other, and to do that, we need to be honest about how that communication takes place. Signing "consent contracts" and stopping in the middle of a passionate moment to have a rational, fully informed conversation about what's ok and what's not, are not likely.<br />
<br />
It just isn't.<br />
<br />
Men need to learn how to bypass the awkward, off-putting trial and error in dating and get actionable, quality advice on how to approach women early on in their lives so that the inevitable miscommunications don't turn into crimes. I'm not a proponent of PUAs or "The Game", but I've come to sort of appreciate that what Neil Strauss was trying to do with that book was help men understand some of these things and stop flailing about like idiots.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
If we could get something like that that didn't also end up being a guide-book for sleazebags, that would be great.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
But women <i>also </i>need to understand that most men are not very good at this and quite a lot of the time things they perceive of as intense or threatening really aren't. They need to understand and try to empathize with the fact that this stuff is enormously challenging for most men, and the odds are fantastically against them... Especially if they aren't extremely physically attractive -- which, by the way, we all should also note affects the way we interpret the same actions from different people.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Also... What women may perceive as intentional or malicious behavior by men is sometimes men desperately trying anything they can to procreate (even if the end result isn't babies) and not to end up alone.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
As a result, just as men need to learn to be considerably better at reading signals, listening to what women are saying, and slowing down/stopping when they start picking up on discomfort... Women need to align their words and non-verbal messages to communicate their interests, desires, and their consent or dissent far more clearly than they often do. If something makes you uncomfortable, express that in the moment.<br />
<br />
Don't wait until later and don't just ghost the men in your life when they do something weird.<br />
<br />
<div>
Situational awareness is also critical, and that's a common thread with a lot of these stories as well. When a man invites a woman to his home or hotel room in the middle of the night instead of a mid-day lunch at a crowded restaurant, that's usually a signal that you should pay attention to.</div>
<div>
</div>
</div>
<div>
But in the end, this all comes down to genuine <i style="font-weight: bold;">empathy</i>.<br />
<br />
As much as possible, we all need to be a hell of a lot better at not only communicating with each other... We ALSO have to try to see the situation from other people's perspectives, and not rush to anger or accusation when something happens that we don't like.<br />
<br />
No matter who initiates the encounter, we all have to listen more, assume less, be more patient, and more cautious... But the we also have to have the guts to talk to people when they do stuff we don't like instead of saying nothing in the moment and Tweeting about them later.<br />
<br />
Far from enabling more non-consensual interactions, these two things in conjunction -- more communication plus more leniency & empathy -- will help us establish a clearer, brighter line between serious cases of malicious, intentional sexual assault, harassment, and rape and awkward or hurtful interactions borne of misunderstanding.<br />
<br />
That's the only way most of us idiots are going to learn how to be better, and until this happens, a lot of people are going to hurt each other unintentionally.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Consent is critically important to <i>every</i> aspect of life... But if you don't actually <i>communicate</i> it clearly, we're going to be stuck with more shitty situations like we've seen in the news for the last several weeks.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.sean-malone.com</div>Sean W. Malonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07652434357640171842noreply@blogger.com0Atlanta, GA 30324, USA33.81842 -84.35946260000002933.712866000000005 -84.520824100000027 33.923974 -84.198101100000031tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5098030884495656852.post-33316921815017379272016-08-06T06:45:00.001-07:002016-08-07T15:05:56.142-07:00MOVIE REVIEW: Suicide Squad [SPOILERS]<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpGCy08VE98kTebIfbwI1HA335Ubn4ps7dW2467uEm5xgTLVN_kKLwEAOib1zM5SpnFG61bhTJ8lesG6RYA11WUwZ1Y8sSA9fm1nmudlWeoxeVLDtOcwCKh0nBpLYY9HRSogr04Na7msY/s1600/suicide-squad-movie-2016-poster.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpGCy08VE98kTebIfbwI1HA335Ubn4ps7dW2467uEm5xgTLVN_kKLwEAOib1zM5SpnFG61bhTJ8lesG6RYA11WUwZ1Y8sSA9fm1nmudlWeoxeVLDtOcwCKh0nBpLYY9HRSogr04Na7msY/s320/suicide-squad-movie-2016-poster.jpeg" width="216" /></a></div>
Okay.<br />
<br />
Suicide Squad review time, and there will be blood.<br />
<br />
I'm going to warn you up front. I'm kind of pissed... and there will be spoilers here. I just don't care, this movie was a goddamn mess.<br />
<br />
It's so bad, I really don't know where to begin.<br />
<br />
The first act is an unmitigated disaster. Every single character introduction is severely botched. It's some of the clumsiest, worst writing I've ever seen in any film. It's so lazy, in fact, that writer/director David Ayer just created a template and used exactly the same system for everyone.<br />
<br />
It's the epitome of formulaic.<br />
<br />
We meet Deadshot in his prison cell. Cue cliched pop music. Amanda Waller literally tells us what he can do. We cut to a flashback of him doing what he does. We cut back to Waller explaining his weak-ass "emotional" backstory. Then we see another flashback of him getting arrested by Batman and sent to the prison he's in now.<br />
<br />
We meet Harley Quinn in her prison cell. Cue cliched pop music. Amanda Waller literally tells us what she can do. We cut to a flashback of her doing what she does. We cut back to Waller explaining more backstory. Then we see another flashback of her getting arrested by batman and sent to the prison she's in now.<br />
<br />
We meet Killer Croc in his prison cell. Cue cliched pop music... You get the idea. <br />
<br />
There's zero finesse. No artfulness. No thoughtfulness. It's all just ineptly stated exposition followed immediately by a visualization of that exposition in a sequence that serves no purpose other than to repeat what we just heard. It happens for almost every character we meet and there are a <i>lot</i> of characters in this movie.<br />
<br />
It's one of the worst violations of the "show, don't tell" principle in film-making I've ever seen.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyO9rKLxwE_8HDcCtG3vVUQFw5o_w9HJAGpiWHLsk5iQb8FM6qbKRmrdg9kUq-AVqutNH8kDQG2KNjEE3ZuFvx2RI8WEOe2w-36hb1-fRY3seD5wlz7TSLcQ2vQ3SQFqa1XzW7RTE4M0Q/s1600/100928.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="249" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyO9rKLxwE_8HDcCtG3vVUQFw5o_w9HJAGpiWHLsk5iQb8FM6qbKRmrdg9kUq-AVqutNH8kDQG2KNjEE3ZuFvx2RI8WEOe2w-36hb1-fRY3seD5wlz7TSLcQ2vQ3SQFqa1XzW7RTE4M0Q/s320/100928.jpg" width="320" /></a>And what's even more frustrating is that the movie misses every major opportunity to use these character introductions to build suspense or actually lay the groundwork for what could have been dramatic reveals later on.<br />
<br />
For example, as Amanda Waller is explaining Diablo to her Department of Defense dinner guests, she references his fire-controlling abilities by saying something to the effect of:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"You should see the security footage, it's incredible."</blockquote>
Now... Smarter and better film-makers might have just left a line like that as a tease - suggestively letting us know that he is a character capable of amazing things that we haven't seen yet. That way, those amazing abilities could be revealed to us later in the film - perhaps in the third act when more firepower (pun intended) is actually called for.<br />
<br />
Inexplicably, this movie doesn't do that kind of thing at all. <br />
<br />
Instead, Ayer follows Waller's little joke by <i>immediately</i> cutting to the aforementioned security footage which shows us <b>exactly</b> what he can do. So when it's finally time for him to show the extent of his raw power to the the rest of the group in the key moment, it falls completely flat... Because it's not a surprise or spectacle to marvel at.<br />
<br />
This is particularly a shame because Diablo is one of the most interesting characters in the movie - a superhuman gangland king turned pacifist, satisfied with spending his remaining life in prison as atonement.<br />
<br />
But ya know what? That's <i>not even the worst character introduction</i>.<br />
<br />
Not 10 seconds after Katana - a fundamentally useless character whose role could have been cut out entirely with no impact on the film - first appears on screen, we're treated to a ludicrously irrelevant flashback of her battling the Yakuza in Japan as an explanation for why she's a little late to the mission, and when we return to the scene from that trip down memory lane, Rick Flag follows that up with some poorly worded line about how her husband was killed and his soul lives in her sword to explain even more of her backstory to everyone else.<br />
<br />
It's <i>all</i> just straight-out spoken exposition that doesn't even serve a purpose to the overall story.<br />
<br />
And I get it... It's hard to introduce so many characters. There are a <i>ton</i> in this movie. The actual "Suicide Squad" (which, by the way, is a phrase literally used in the film) itself consists of:<br />
<ul>
<li>Deadshot (Will Smith)</li>
<li>Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie)</li>
<li>Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje)</li>
<li>Diablo (Jay Hernandez)</li>
<li>Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney)</li>
<li>Slipknot (Adam Beach)</li>
<li>Katana (Karen Fukuhara)</li>
<li>Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman)</li>
<li>and Enchantress (Cara Delevingne) before she goes off the chain</li>
</ul>
Plus we have Amanda Waller (Viola Davis), Batman (mainly played by Ben Affleck's stunt double), Enchantress's brother Incubus (Alain Chanoine), and a <i>shockingly</i> forgettable Joker (Jared Leto).<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP8cqQQrdnbk1LR8jFf-Ybjq-H4wOFZPwO9GutGCXDGspRDdwFQieE-WrSXe_sQzthe7Ldeb1aegLK7BMdOYp2cERjc9iEgEINTae2OWVBVRC_J8CJlDhdq34jvyizHmwbrNzHK0q_6VY/s1600/imagen-sin-titulo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="359" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP8cqQQrdnbk1LR8jFf-Ybjq-H4wOFZPwO9GutGCXDGspRDdwFQieE-WrSXe_sQzthe7Ldeb1aegLK7BMdOYp2cERjc9iEgEINTae2OWVBVRC_J8CJlDhdq34jvyizHmwbrNzHK0q_6VY/s640/imagen-sin-titulo.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
These characters aren't all necessary, but I get why some of their stories would need to be rushed. That's not the problem. The problem is that it doesn't seem like anybody at DC even bothered to <i>try</i> to deal with introducing these characters intelligently.<br />
<br />
And it doesn't really get any better.<br />
<br />
Once we meet them, their motivations are incredibly inconsistent and none of them is particularly believable as a villain or a bad guy. Keep in mind that this is <i>supposed</i> to be a movie about murderers and thieves whose only connection to each other is a ruthless government agent who has them all by the balls. They're only working together because Waller will literally blow their heads off if they don't. At the very least, what this should mean is that the core tension (and even the comedy) in the film should come from the fact that these people can't get it together as a team. But strangely, that never seems to be a big problem for them.<br />
<br />
They all seem to like each other right away, and they actually have far fewer problems with team dynamics than The Avengers.<br />
<br />
In fact, I would argue that Suicide Squad actually goes way out of its way to paint each of these characters as sympathetic. Even Killer Croc - who, in the comics is a brutal, monstrous cannibal who tears people apart - is mostly shown as a misunderstood misfit who got abused by people calling him a freak as a child. Waller claims that these are the "worst of the worst", but I've personally met people I was more afraid of. <br />
<br />
Meanwhile, the plot makes absolutely no sense.<br />
<br />
It's genuinely not worth going into much detail about that. You already know what you really need to know anyway - imprisoned bad guys are recruited by a nefarious government operative to undertake an insane mission and save the world.<br />
<br />
The big unsurprising twist (again, spoilers) is that Enchantress - an archeologist named June, possessed by an evil 6,000 year old witch - is only "good" because her magical heart is controlled by Waller, who threatens to destroy the witch if she doesn't work for her. When that goes predictably awry, Enchantress reanimates her brother Incubus by releasing his soul from a bottle and having him possess some random businessman in a train-station and together, they shoot a mysterious blue light of the variety we've now seen a hundred times up into the sky that opens a portal to some other dimension which will do........ something.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_s7khxDsBTrN0e2X6Gju7D-3WN0koZ7Cdr_FDjve4nOLzjRkhis_QUNgOummdZknVcr95r-MZ8QCKRKTNRJ8e8j-TJ4tbXeA21eHD0KEBAmOwVH3HT2Zq-lSYMliZdnTa9uuo9-tDvjo/s1600/Suicide-Squad-Trailer-Enemy-Explosion.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_s7khxDsBTrN0e2X6Gju7D-3WN0koZ7Cdr_FDjve4nOLzjRkhis_QUNgOummdZknVcr95r-MZ8QCKRKTNRJ8e8j-TJ4tbXeA21eHD0KEBAmOwVH3HT2Zq-lSYMliZdnTa9uuo9-tDvjo/s640/Suicide-Squad-Trailer-Enemy-Explosion.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">WoooooOOOooo... Bluuuuue liiiiiiiights!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I honestly still have no idea what the actual threat is.<br />
<br />
When Incubus comes back to life, Enchantress tells him that humans no longer worship them as gods and that now, they worship machines. So, she says, they will build a machine... But as far as I can tell, at no point during the rest of the film do they attempt to build anything remotely resembling a "machine".<br />
<br />
Even if they had done what they said they were going to do, I find it hard to imagine a more boring premise.<br />
<br />
Worse still, while the villains' powers and motivation are thin and poorly established, it is at least clear that Enchantress and Incubus are wildly more powerful than the entire Suicide Squad team. So much so, that the only way they actually lose is by completely forgetting to use most of their abilities for no reason at all.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWYoBDWsK98eNVlVc8DU5U0tanypQZF3vuP6L6LxFYbhgF9PeWE6qQRNMNwIsS85qaLgBdBw_FnanSn8IvRYagPc-kUlKSiDhvYfLXgYypw8zPgfa7quSQoK3J9dwa6OUrdEdtNCGvS9M/s1600/landscape-1460339640-suicide-squad.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWYoBDWsK98eNVlVc8DU5U0tanypQZF3vuP6L6LxFYbhgF9PeWE6qQRNMNwIsS85qaLgBdBw_FnanSn8IvRYagPc-kUlKSiDhvYfLXgYypw8zPgfa7quSQoK3J9dwa6OUrdEdtNCGvS9M/s320/landscape-1460339640-suicide-squad.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">What if all the characters just showed up like this? Then<br />
we could learn more about them throughout the rest of the<br />
movie...</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
In a better movie, we'd have seen two hours of bad guys struggling to work together, trying to escape and abandon the mission, and fighting amongst themselves. We'd have seen a group of selfish people who have no interest in saving the world fail to execute their mission and find themselves in an increasingly dangerous meat grinder. They would have to make the impossible choice between getting obliterated by the villain, getting their heads blown off by Waller, or killing each other. We should be entering the third act with a disjointed group whose only hope is to use their individual skills as part of a team to win.<br />
<br />
In a better movie, the characters would just wake up in a creepy room like Carey Elwes in Saw - all mystery and no context. Then we'd get to know who they are <i>by their own actions</i>, slowly and subtly throughout the rest of the story. They would build relationships with each other over time, not just decide randomly that they're one big family for no reason. <br />
<br />
In a better movie, complex themes about the nature of good and evil, the humanity of criminals, and the nefariousness of secret government agencies might be explored. <br />
<br />
But we didn't get a better movie. We got a frustratingly terrible movie which I was genuinely tempted to walk out of several times.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj70jkVu868jYp2GHVbVx4tsE-_Rr7gqsfx4kGgRWEutpJFTcaHDOOOTpGfsuDGw1yo15wn1l_aW2SHXa6NFjmZT9C4UmOBxjdoqcyV9yh3AGsCf34zZ8fNabgNPWrXb5GOFm9FiBW7-Zs/s1600/batman-assault-on-arkham-2014.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj70jkVu868jYp2GHVbVx4tsE-_Rr7gqsfx4kGgRWEutpJFTcaHDOOOTpGfsuDGw1yo15wn1l_aW2SHXa6NFjmZT9C4UmOBxjdoqcyV9yh3AGsCf34zZ8fNabgNPWrXb5GOFm9FiBW7-Zs/s320/batman-assault-on-arkham-2014.jpg" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Just watch this. It's actually good.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
When I got home, I put on DC's excellent animated Suicide Squad movie, "Assault on Arkham", just to wash the taste out of my mouth - and sure enough, every aspect of that film is superior to this one at half the run-time. If this movie had just been a live-action version of that script, it would have been an infinitely higher quality film to what I just saw.<br />
<br />
What DC is doing with their cinematic universe is completely unconscionable at this point.<br />
<br />
Like Man of Steel and Batman v Superman, Suicide Squad is a movie that (mostly) looks good. It's got a fantastic core cast who all seem really well suited to their various roles. There are good beats and moments here and there - including a couple in this film where I actually chuckled or smiled. It's even got an overall premise that few other movies and certainly no recent comic book movies have had, which should make it a fresh take on the genre in the same way that Guardians of the Galaxy or Deadpool offered more originality. <br />
<br />
There was so much potential here and <i>yet again</i>, DC has squandered their opportunity with terrible writing and poor direction.<br />
<br />
I'm done. The next one does not get the benefit of the doubt.<br />
<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.sean-malone.com</div>Sean W. Malonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07652434357640171842noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5098030884495656852.post-25156931021775033492016-07-14T15:08:00.004-07:002016-07-14T15:08:28.668-07:00Five Suggestions for Better Creative Media<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>The following is a short speech that I was invited to give yesterday at Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform coalition meeting at FreedomFest in Las Vegas. I only had three minutes on stage, and a lot of this had to be cut on the fly for time, so I wanted to share what I intended to present in its more complete form here</i>:</span><br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiazjZm2U84S3kOEPMgGRUweVqxhyphenhyphenskkhHRIjYF5GHx8bk-TniS2PDtyKoGcRClE8f_z72795RGd4eVFSZ1O7NlRrJmiga2rVz11QLVjSaIfpybyaPwUI8DRQyoiPWcDcNpdGw1pV-EFTU/s1600/IMG_20160712_143455.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiazjZm2U84S3kOEPMgGRUweVqxhyphenhyphenskkhHRIjYF5GHx8bk-TniS2PDtyKoGcRClE8f_z72795RGd4eVFSZ1O7NlRrJmiga2rVz11QLVjSaIfpybyaPwUI8DRQyoiPWcDcNpdGw1pV-EFTU/s640/IMG_20160712_143455.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
For those who don't know me, my name is Sean Malone.<br />
<br />
I have a Bachelors degree in music composition from the University of Nebraska, and a Master of Arts in composition for film & media from New York University, and I worked as a professional in the entertainment industry in New York and Los Angeles for five years, before shifting my career goals to advancing libertarian ideas.<br />
<br />
In 2010, I worked full time as a hired gun, producing media for non-profit advocacy groups.<br />
<br />
In 2011, I built the first media production capability at the news website, The Daily Caller. For the last four and a half years, I worked for the Charles Koch Institute, building a media production capability and growing a creative team inside the organization.<br />
<br />
I've won several awards for documentary film-making and have had my work screened all over the United States. My work has generated millions of views, and in a couple weeks, I will be moving to Atlanta, Georgia to take on a new role as Director of Media for the Foundation for Economic Education.<br />
<br />
But today, I'm only here to speak for myself.<br />
<br />
After more than 6 years working to create compelling media geared toward advancing a more free society, one thing I've been truly surprised by while working within this network is how frequently economists and political analysts are actually the ones writing scripts and leading the development of creative content instead of people with training and experience in the creative arts and communication.<br />
<br />
Far too often, decision-makers throughout the liberty movement - many of the people in this room - use creative media not to reach new audiences, but to preach to the choir. <br />
<br />
I believe that as a direct result, the organizations dedicated to promoting a more libertarian future wind up producing a lot of videos, podcasts, memes, and other types of content that appeal mainly to ourselves - and worse, often only to the most wonky, academically sophisticated among us. Meanwhile, we struggle to reach the mainstream audiences that we need to reach if we hope for our ideas to shape culture and politics in this country and around the world.<br />
<br />
<i>We have to do better, and I think we can.</i><br />
<br />
In the spirit of offering solutions, I have <b>5 suggestions</b> to improve creative media in the liberty movement that I've learned from doing the work:<br />
<h2 style="text-align: center;">
One.</h2>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Recognize that the folks in this room don't always have the same interests and preferences as everyone else in America.</b></blockquote>
You are usually <i>not </i>your audience - and that's good.<br />
<br />
But it means we can't keep making stuff that appeals only to our own preferences as people who have often read dozens (hundreds?) of books on philosophy, economics, and political theory and expect it to be liked by everyone else.<br />
<br />
Videos should rarely be expected to explain everything in detail or go into the pedantic trivia of names and vocabulary libertarians are often excited by.<br />
<br />
<i>Praxeology. Marginal benefits. Opportunity costs. Calculation problem. </i><br />
<br />
These aren't phrases most people know... And they <i>don't need to know them </i>in order to understand and value individual liberty.<br />
<br />
Videos aren't academic white papers. Nor should they be.<br />
<br />
What they should be doing is connecting people to your ideas on an emotional level. Get people to care first. Once they do, they will want to learn more.<br />
<h2 style="text-align: center;">
Two.</h2>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>If your organization is publicly facing, please consider trying to hire people with a legitimate background in creative fields - film, music, art, advertising, etc. - and then trust them to do their jobs.</b></blockquote>
As people with a good understanding of economics, I'm sure most of you understand the ideas of decentralized knowledge and comparative advantage. Don't underestimate the value of other people's expertise. Economists, professors, philosophers, policy analysts, lawyers -- they're all crucial to the work we do in this movement. But they don't understand audiences or conveying emotion through art the way people who have spent their lives doing this kind of work do.<br />
<br />
And by the way, <i>always </i>ask to see applicants' portfolios of previous work, and make sure you know exactly what they contributed to those projects. That's far more important than any on-paper resume.<br />
<br />
If you don't know what to look for, bring in a consultant like me, or my friends at Taliesin Nexus, the Moving Picture Institute, or from production companies in your area.<br />
<h2 style="text-align: center;">
Three.</h2>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>In order to attract <i>and </i>keep creative talent, one of the best things you can do is try to cultivate an environment that rewards creativity.</b></blockquote>
This means being willing to play, to experiment, to set aside time and space to brainstorm ideas, and allow those ideas to play out before shutting them down.<br />
<br />
Be prepared to embrace some risks.<br />
<br />
There are no guarantees that anything will be a huge hit, but one sure-fire way to fail is to play it safe.<br />
<br />
Usually, the worst thing that will ever happen to a bad bit of creative content is that people won't watch it or share it. It won't burn the building down.<br />
<br />
So live a little and don't be afraid to do something interesting.<br />
<h2 style="text-align: center;">
Four.</h2>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Be yourselves, and allow your content to have its own voice.</b></blockquote>
Authenticity is the currency of online media especially, and viewers can spot something overly message-tested a mile away.<br />
<br />
In the paraphrased words of David Mamet, what comes from the heart goes to the heart -- but what comes from the head, goes to the head and is ultimately perceived as manipulation.<br />
<h2 style="text-align: center;">
Five.</h2>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Lastly… Be positive.</b></blockquote>
I can't stress this enough.<br />
<br />
We spend far too much time telling people they're wrong, and talking only about problems we see with the world. And while it's true that you can get people's attention with shocking negativity, you can't keep it unless you offer them a way forward.<br />
<br />
As soon-to-be Director of Media at the Foundation for Economic Education, I plan to employ every one of these lessons in the work we'll be doing over the next few years. I hope that you will all join me in improving the culture of creative media within the liberty movement.<br />
<br />
Thank you.<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.sean-malone.com</div>Sean W. Malonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07652434357640171842noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5098030884495656852.post-81806023916203039132015-06-20T16:21:00.000-07:002015-06-20T16:58:15.202-07:00On Charleston, Race, and Violence in AmericaI haven't posted on this blog in quite a while. In fact, since I've been periodically writing about art & culture at <a href="http://www.smashcutculture.com/">www.smashcutculture.com</a>, I've all but abandoned this platform except when something terrible (like getting detained by the Port Authority Police in New York for no reason) happens.<br />
<br />
And indeed... Here I am, writing because something terrible happened.<br />
<br />
In this case, it's the horrific shooting in Charlston, SC. For the sake of posterity, and possibly those living under a rock, at about 8pm, on July 17th, 2015, a disaffected 21-year-old high school dropout named Dylann Storm Roof walked into the Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church and killed nine people.<br />
<br />
I don't think it's an understatement to call it one of the most despicable crimes to happen within my lifetime.<br />
<br />
According to current reporting, Roof hoped to start a race-based civil war in the United States, and explicitly targeted a black church because, according to his former friends, "...blacks were taking over the world," and, "Someone needed to do something about it for the white race."j<br />
<br />
This, to me, seems like the embodiment of the <a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/terrorism">literal definition</a> of "terrorism", whether legally defined as such or not.<br />
<br />
From my reading of the <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/06/18/everything-known-about-charleston-church-shooting-suspect-dylann-roof.html">Daily Beast's synopsis of what we know of Roof</a>, I described him as a heavy alcohol user into hard drugs, a racist with grand dreams of inciting a civil war, a loner but not conforming to any narrative of the bullied teen lashing out. This description shows him as complex in a compounding number of awful ways... Every person who seems to have known him could likely have known what he would do, but at the same time might not have wanted to believe it. I would like to believe none would have supported it. Roof certainly seems to have had a number of psychological issues, but he also seems to have adopted one bad and wrong idea after the next.<br />
<br />
And those ideas and bad choices ultimately led him to kill nine innocent people.<br />
<br />
Cynthia Marie Graham Hurd (54); Susie Jackson (87); Ethel Lee Lance (70); Depayne Middleton-Doctor (49); Clementa C. Pinckney (41); Tywanza Sanders (26); Daniel Simmons (74); Sharonda Coleman-Singleton (45); and Myra Thompson (59).<br />
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I should note here that I don't know any of these people.<br />
<br />
I simply cannot know the pain their families are experiencing right now, and in no way do I pretend to have any concept of what anyone in that part of the country is feeling today.<br />
<br />
Moreover, I am an atheist. I'm also a white guy who grew up in the Midwest/Pacific Northwest and I don't think I know anyone who's been murdered. I have no direct tie to this community or this experience at all.<br />
<br />
However, through my work as a film producer, I've come to be rather close with the founders and pastors of a church in Tupelo, Mississippi that's probably not altogether that different from the one in Charleston. Through them, I've seen a lot of love and kindness, and a ton of hard work put in to make their community a better place, and if the folks at the Emmanuel AME Church were anything like my friends, I think I might begin to understand a tiny bit of the loss a lot of people in Charleston are feeling right now.<br />
<br />
But even still, I recognize that I can't <i>really</i> know what they're going through.<br />
<br />
And for me, that makes the massacre itself very difficult to comment on. I've stayed out of most (not quite all) of the discussions I've seen on social media so far and I've not written much of anything about it until right now.<br />
<br />
I'm heartbroken, incredulous, angry and sad.<br />
<br />
Like most people, I wish this kind of stuff didn't happen. There is simply nothing to be said about the shooting except that it was evil, horrifying, and that I have nothing but sympathy for the families of the victims - who, given their response, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/19/us/charleston-church-shooting-main/">are some of the finest people imaginable</a>.<br />
<br />
Apart from <i>saying</i> things, I do also think <a href="http://www.charleston-sc.gov/index.aspx?NID=1330">it's important to help the people of Charleston</a> recover and showing our support in more tangible ways... Currently, it seems like the best way of doing that online is through the Pinckney Fund (<a href="http://www.palmettoproject.org/">http://www.palmettoproject.org/</a>), but I'll try to go back and update this if more information becomes available.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">*****</span></div>
<br />
In spite of all the legitimate outrage I feel about this, what I don't want to do at this point is rush to judgments about people and situations I have just admitted I know very little about.<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmP6QT9xPeP4bw1y8Pu0AY_k1wA12hSR_ty7w-7M5t_kFcIMHPE-pZt4DUP2vaif6U1zI1bJdmNeZTXNnld9pZALpntmM1915FcdMVsZfCpDsrtYfarSkjKbSXcMWYRhhuhfs49n-Mnh0/s1600/150618-dylann-roof-booking-820p_f0e6a7ee60cbc10d19a8a2315a6d46df.nbcnews-ux-2880-1000.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmP6QT9xPeP4bw1y8Pu0AY_k1wA12hSR_ty7w-7M5t_kFcIMHPE-pZt4DUP2vaif6U1zI1bJdmNeZTXNnld9pZALpntmM1915FcdMVsZfCpDsrtYfarSkjKbSXcMWYRhhuhfs49n-Mnh0/s200/150618-dylann-roof-booking-820p_f0e6a7ee60cbc10d19a8a2315a6d46df.nbcnews-ux-2880-1000.jpg" width="170" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wrong.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
From the reports I've read so far, it seems like Dylann Roof had family and friends at one point, and it's tempting to point a finger at them and claim that they could have seen this coming, and could have done more to reach him. It's tempting to ask why a father would give a .45 caliber pistol to an angry teenager.<br />
<br />
It's tempting, but probably wrong.<br />
<br />
I don't know any of those people and I don't know what they did or did not do to help Dylann Roof before it came to this. It's not for me to pass judgment in that way.<br />
<br />
I also think it's extremely unwise to try to jam this event into any pre-existing narrative you want to fit it into.<br />
<br />
So far, I've seen people within just hours of the first reports of the shooting <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/18/politics/hillary-clinton-barack-obama-charleston-gun-reform/">blame the supposed lack of gun control legislation</a>, <a href="http://bearingarms.com/charleston-killer-chose-church-target-gun-free-zone/"><i>too much </i>gun control</a> (the church was essentially a gun-free zone), <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/06/20/mitt-romney-remove-confederate-flag-south-carolina-statehouse-capitol-grounds/29031185/">the state flag of South Carolina</a>, <a href="http://www.wnd.com/2015/06/big-list-of-drug-induced-killers/">prescription drugs</a>, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/18/dylann-roof-south-carolina-charleston-shooting-suspect">illegal drugs</a>, <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3129887/Dylann-Roof-21-suspected-murdering-nine-race-hate-church-crime-got-gun-birthday-arrested-twice-year-drug-trespassing-charges.html">Dylann Roof's parents & family</a>, the <a href="http://www.newsmax.com/Health/Brain-Health/charleston-shooting-dylann-roof/2015/06/19/id/651353/">mental-health system</a>, and a <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/18/charleston-shooting-mental-health_n_7616460.html">whole culture of racism</a> - conveniently all conforming perfectly to what they would have said before the shooting.<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuULn4b4o-5GwqaBGGU_7qDv76ppJk6ik9Af0aNEHe26gkIPBGlqhtNC0M-5Ni-eBReNO5v0Q4a6hYpn7BXmjhRmSI_foARW206uMED4Yh0zowEv_7LNOnxBgNznWW7bnsQgMkga3E5bU/s1600/Screen-Shot-2015-06-20-at-11.56.33-AM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="297" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuULn4b4o-5GwqaBGGU_7qDv76ppJk6ik9Af0aNEHe26gkIPBGlqhtNC0M-5Ni-eBReNO5v0Q4a6hYpn7BXmjhRmSI_foARW206uMED4Yh0zowEv_7LNOnxBgNznWW7bnsQgMkga3E5bU/s320/Screen-Shot-2015-06-20-at-11.56.33-AM.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Note: Eric Garner's case is still 100% insane.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
One of the worst things I saw were questions about why Dylann Roof wasn't immediately shot and killed by the police like (supposedly) a black person obviously would have been, as if the goal should be for police in America to kill <i>more</i> suspects. Ugh. Notably, Roof didn't get shot by police during the arrest because he immediately surrendered, and I'm actually glad he did as I want him to have to look his victims' families in the eye during his trial.<br />
<br />
I also saw people <i>immediately</i> rush to criticize "the media" for not calling Dylann Roof a "thug" (insinuating a racist double-standard, although <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/19/dylann-roof-death-penalty_n_7622342.html">prominent people <i>have</i> used that term to describe him</a>), and mere moments later, others asked why we're not calling him a "terrorist"... Which we basically all are at this point.<br />
<br />
Except for <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2015/06/19/why-we-shouldnt-call-dylann-roof-a-terrorist/">this guy</a>, Philip Bump, who advocates not calling him a terrorist because such language elevates his status in a way that he shouldn't warrant:<br />
<blockquote>
"To the extent that labeling his actions as racial terrorism helps America come to terms with the fact that the ideology he assumed is dangerous and urgent, fine. And to the extent that labeling his actions as legal terrorism results in a stiffer punishment, also fine. But each of these is predicated on our insistence that terrorism is somehow a higher order of evil than simply murdering elderly people for being black even as they held their Bibles in a church. It implies that his mass murder was one thing, but that his scaring us was [what] made things more problematic. Perhaps we should demonstrate to him -- and every other angry young man like him -- that we aren't scared of his dumb Internet rhetoric. Not in the least."</blockquote>
More seriously, though... If the news of a tragedy like this is less than 12 hours old, maybe we shouldn't expect newsrooms across the country to have a fully developed style guide on how to describe a tragedy like this or the people involved. These kinds of events <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-09-17/mass-shootings-fuel-fear-account-for-fraction-of-murders">are exceptionally rare</a> <a href="http://spectator.org/articles/59521/there-really-epidemic-mass-shootings">and terrible</a>, and everyone - especially in the early stages of reporting on it - is just doing the best they can to figure out how to do their jobs.<br />
<br />
No... Actually.... Let me go one step further.<br />
<br />
Not only should we <i>not </i>expect reporters to have perfect knowledge so early after a huge event, we <i>should </i>actively want them to demonstrate humility under these circumstances.<br />
<br />
One of the biggest problems news media has in this country is a drive to instantaneous judgment and over-reporting on pure speculation. Within a few hours of this shooting, there were reports - rumors more than anything - that Dylann Roof targeted the church because he was a racist. But unless you were <i>actually there</i>, as a reporter, it would be extremely irresponsible of you to immediately judge a shooter's motivations before you even had so much as a confirmation of his identity.<br />
<br />
We now know that he was not only there for that reason, but keep in mind that at that point, we didn't know <i>anything </i>about the situation other than the fact that 9 people were dead and the police were chasing a suspect.<br />
<br />
Yet there were people on my feed who already seemed to have perfect knowledge of both the causes and solutions to this tragedy.<br />
<br />
Nonsense.<br />
<br />
Making those kinds of assumptions has little positive value at all, and these kinds of hysterical public responses have a really detrimental effect not only on people's accuracy in understanding these situations, but also on people's long-term ability to carefully think through causes & effects. We forget or selectively remember all kinds of important events and details, and then we deliberately try to fit new information into a framework of our pre-existing ideas regardless of whether or not it actually makes any sense to do so.<br />
<br />
On Facebook, one former colleague of mine said the Charleston massacre was, and I quote:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;">"...clearly a harbinger of a larger murderous anti-black ideological movement in this country."</span></blockquote>
Really? As horrifying as this shooting is, where is the evidence for that claim?<br />
<br />
A couple years ago, investigative reporter Radley Balko, one of the leading voices on criminal justice reform, wrote a well-sourced piece called, "<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/24/black-america-2013_n_3639934.html">The Good News About Race & Crime in America</a>".<br />
<br />
Here's a key bit:<br />
<blockquote>
"Civil rights leaders and progressive activists have cited Zimmerman's acquittal and the proliferation of robust self-defense laws as evidence of a "war on black men" -- or, similarly, that it's now "open season on black men." Meanwhile, Zimmerman supporters and many on the political right have used the case to bring up old discussions of black-on-black murders in places like Chicago, and to argue that violence in black America is spiraling out of control. Both positions are cynical, and both tend to pit black and white America against one another.<br />
<br />
But both are also wrong on the facts.<br />
<br />
First, about the alleged "war on black men." The argument here is that laws like Florida's "Stand Your Ground" are encouraging white vigilantism, and moving white people to shoot and kill black people at the slightest provocation. But there just isn't any data to support the contention. Black homicides have been falling since the mid-1990s (as have all homicides). Moreover, according to a 2005 Bureau of Justice Statistics report, more than 90 percent of black murder victims are killed by other black people. And if we look at interracial murder, there are about twice as many black-on-white murders as the other way around, and that ratio has held steady for decades.<br />
<br />
However, it also isn't true that black America is growing increasingly violent. Again, black homicides, like all homicides, are in a steep, 20-year decline. In fact, the rates at which blacks both commit and are victims of homicide have shown sharper declines than those of whites. It's true that Chicago has had an unusually violent last few years, but this is an anomaly among big American cities. The 2012 murder rate in Washington, D.C., for example, hit a 50-year low. Violent crime in New York and Los Angeles is also falling to levels we haven't seen in decades."</blockquote>
In the article, Radley also references a Scripps Howard study that talks about these crime rate trends:<br />
<blockquote>
"The Scripps Howard piece also takes a regional approach: 'Contrary to popular stereotypes, interracial killings are relatively rare in rural Deep South states, occurring at a rate well below the national average. Several crime experts agreed this rise reflects increasing social contact between Americans of different races occurring in many, but not all, communities.'"</blockquote>
[Sidenote: The above is an important quote in context, but read Radley's full article to understand more about the Scripps Howard study's flaws]<br />
<br />
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Anyway... In addition to those fantastic trends on violence, it's also true that more people than ever - currently 87% according to Gallup - think interracial marriages are just fine. This is just the kind of thing you'd expect <b>not </b>to see if there was a growing, murderous trend of white supremacy in the United States.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGHaZQuoIMhZGQCkYhrTpSqxbZ3UuprBv9S38Ne7SMJc8uLqMBr_bwwppcX31jqsE-oOO1skAEHfc5udQqhi48hWx9a38-ohizPN3VHerUQTI3p4dP4J0iejIMo8W9Ik2-j5AaDCT0P5w/s1600/interracial+marriage.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="378" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGHaZQuoIMhZGQCkYhrTpSqxbZ3UuprBv9S38Ne7SMJc8uLqMBr_bwwppcX31jqsE-oOO1skAEHfc5udQqhi48hWx9a38-ohizPN3VHerUQTI3p4dP4J0iejIMo8W9Ik2-j5AaDCT0P5w/s640/interracial+marriage.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
Now.<br />
<br />
There <i>are</i> clearly still a lot of problems with racism in this country, and I don't want to sugarcoat anything here. Allow me to repeat that:<br />
<br />
<b>There are still a lot of problems with racism in America. </b><br />
<br />
Apart from the measurable disparities in income, education, crime rates, and experiences with the criminal justice system, Gallup polls are now showing an <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/180257/major-problem-race-relations-sharply-rises.aspx">increasing trend of people worried about race relations</a> in America. Trust for the police is understandably on the decline, and far more so among blacks than whites.<br />
<br />
Here's the thing, though... I honestly have to wonder how much of those trends are driven by the media and by sensationalist claims like the one I boldly quoted above?<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWd1h4sGZ2WjMEAE8QnYBL3TvYI14hxtm8poaSp8k-uKCbmd-6LjrnhGeGq2-pX0E-lrFJQFqlQmujWiCnglCqv7FsyKihK6dW_KpyzZFNN_HjeALFq9_nd8BgF4i-Cc2cdbwp7k0XQX0/s1600/8132WKkHcjL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWd1h4sGZ2WjMEAE8QnYBL3TvYI14hxtm8poaSp8k-uKCbmd-6LjrnhGeGq2-pX0E-lrFJQFqlQmujWiCnglCqv7FsyKihK6dW_KpyzZFNN_HjeALFq9_nd8BgF4i-Cc2cdbwp7k0XQX0/s320/8132WKkHcjL.jpg" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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The truth is, most of the media reports on violence in very, <i>very</i> different ways depending on the narrative they want to portray, and what if a lot of those narratives are just... well... <i>wrong</i>?<br />
<br />
My dear friend Mary Katharine Ham (and her buddy, Guy Benson) have an excellent new book out right now called "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/End-Discussion-Outrage-Industry-Manipulates/dp/0553447750">End of Discussion</a>" that actually gets into this problem in some depth.<br />
<br />
Chapter 7 of their book is titled, "(Different) Rules for 'Radicals': Double Standards on Violence and Rhetoric", and it begins by telling the story of a shooting in 2012 that to be honest, I knew next to nothing about. I suspect most people know little about it, even though it's actually quite similar to this one in a lot of ways.<br />
<br />
The beats are eerily familiar:<br />
<br />
A young man with a gun and a political agenda entered a religious organization with the goal of murdering as many people as possible to prove to the world that their existence would not be tolerated.<br />
<br />
The difference? The organization in this story was the Family Research Council, a social conservative group who opposed gay marriage; and the shooter a gay-rights activist named Floyd Lee Corkins II, who brought with him a hundred rounds of ammunition and 15 Chik-Fil-A sandwiches that he intended to stuff in the mouths of all his victims. He was, fortunately, stopped by the building manager Leo Johnson, before he could murder anyone.<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5EsP5PdOICDA3Ji-_Fx6oGDRgo2u1iJk02f8QN2jYLTc89NT9SRhbU-POdwXZowpJ1q8jMMzgfLG956XdfeQRlDlDjdLjG0Z6D3FJ6WbljntHcrPhsIXuP0so4M7vOvpj2qPtZleqjeQ/s1600/o-FLOYD-LEE-CORKINS-facebook.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5EsP5PdOICDA3Ji-_Fx6oGDRgo2u1iJk02f8QN2jYLTc89NT9SRhbU-POdwXZowpJ1q8jMMzgfLG956XdfeQRlDlDjdLjG0Z6D3FJ6WbljntHcrPhsIXuP0so4M7vOvpj2qPtZleqjeQ/s320/o-FLOYD-LEE-CORKINS-facebook.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Also wrong, and by the standard definition, a terrorist.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Leo Johnson took a bullet in the arm for his trouble, but no "national conversation" was started about the violence-inciting rhetoric of the left - even though <a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/fbi-video-domestic-terrorist-says-he-targeted-conservative-group-for-being-anti-gay/article/2528072">Corkins literally selected his target due to the Southern Poverty Law Center</a> having labeled FRC as a "hate group" for their opposition to gay marriage, yet they've never advocated or participated in any kind of violence against gay people.<br />
<br />
I figure there are two big reasons why most people probably don't remember this.<br />
<br />
The first is simply that Corkins' plans failed. He didn't kill a dozen people and stuff sandwiches into their mouths, and thus, as macabre as this really is, there were no bodies to show on the nightly news. However, I also suspect that had the roles been reversed and a conservative extremist working off a list supplied by the Family Research Council attacked an gay organization, it would have dominated national news for a week regardless of whether or not he'd actually succeeded.<br />
<br />
And turns out, Mary Katharine's book supplies an awful lot of evidence that this would, in fact, have been the case.<br />
<br />
From their book:<br />
<blockquote>
"Gabriel Malor, a lawyer and blogger in Washington, D.C., has spent several years cataloging the various violent incidents attributed to the political Right during President Obama’s term in office that later turned out to be either apolitical or inspired in part by liberal politics:<br />
<br />
“Media assumptions that violence is right-wing are routine—and routinely wrong,”he wrote in a 2012 New York Post column precipitated by the occasion of ABC News investigative reporter Brian Ross’s speculation in the aftermath of the Aurora, Colorado, mass shooting that killed twelve that accused shooter James Holmes was a member of the Tea Party. He was not, but Ross’s casual association of the two with no verification is representative of the media’s reactions to such incidents.<br />
<br />
Malor offers this troubling list and explains the tautology that leads to these repeated mistakes:<br />
<br />
“Media figures sincerely believe the right wing is violent, so naturally they assume that violent people must be right-wing.”<br />
<ul>
<li><i>September 2009: </i>The discovery of hanged census-taker Bill Sparkman in rural Kentucky fueled media speculation that he’d been killed by anti-government Tea Partiers. In fact, he’d killed himself and staged his corpse to look like a homicide so his family could collect on life insurance.</li>
<li><i>February 2010: </i>Joe Stack flew his small plane into an IRS building in Austin, Texas. The media immediately suggested that the anti-tax rhetoric of the Tea Party led to the attack. In fact, Stack’s suicide note quoted the Communist Manifesto.</li>
<li>That same month, a professor at the University of Alabama, Amy Bishop, shot and killed three colleagues at a faculty meeting. The gun-loving Tea Party came under immediate suspicion. But Bishop was a lifelong Democrat and Obama donor.</li>
<li><i>March 2010: </i>John Patrick Bedell shot two Pentagon security officers at close range. The media went wild with speculation that a right-wing extremist had reached the end of his rope. Bedell turned out to be a registered Democrat and 9/ 11 Truther.</li>
<li><i>May 2010: </i>New York authorities disarmed a massive car bomb in Times Square. Mayor Bloomberg immediately speculated that the bomber was someone upset about the president’s new health-care law. The media trumpeted the idea that crazed conservatives had (again, they implied) turned to violence. In fact, the perp was Faisal Shahzad, an Islamic extremist.</li>
<li><i>August 2010: </i>Amidst the debate over the Ground Zero Mosque, Michael Enright stabbed a Muslim cabdriver in the neck. It was immediately dubbed an “anti-Muslim stabbing,”with “rising Islamophobia”on the political right to blame. In fact, Enright, a left-leaning art student, had worked with a firm that produced a pro-mosque statement.</li>
<li><i>September 2010: </i>James Lee, 43, took three hostages at the Discovery Channel’s headquarters in Maryland. The media speculation was unstoppable: Lee was surely a “climate-change denier”who’d resorted to violence. Oops: He was an environmentalist who viewed humans as parasites on the Earth.</li>
<li><i>January 2011: </i>Jared Lee Loughner went on a rampage in Tucson, Ariz. Again the media knew just who to blame: the Tea Party and its extremist rhetoric. In fact, Loughner was mostly apolitical—a conspiracy theorist who, to date, has been judged too mentally incompetent to stand trial.</li>
</ul>
In 2013, Malor added the initial reaction to the Boston Marathon bombing to the list. Because it happened on April 15, many in the media immediately speculated it was a crime of antigovernment or tax protesters commemorating either Tax Day or Patriot’s Day. In fact, the date holds significance for Muslim Chechen separatists, whose cause the Tsarnaev brothers embraced.<br />
<br />
We’ll add another instance you probably haven’t heard of: in the early morning hours of September 11, 2014, someone attempted to firebomb the district offices of Missouri congressman Emanuel Cleaver, a Democrat.<br />
<br />
An investigation determined that the perpetrator was a twenty-eight-year-old white male who held very intense political opinions, such as: "The Missouri congress has been a willing partner in the US governments [sic] capitalist war hungry agenda." Ah. The dude was a Far Left "Occupy" type. Rather than touching off a national civility emergency, the arrest of Eric King was met with ordinary, mostly local, news coverage."</blockquote>
To be clear, I don't share all this to make light of any of these cases, or to make light of Charleston in any way, shape or form. Nor is it to insinuate that (Ah ha!) all the <i>truly </i>violent people are leftists. I don't think that's the case at all. In reality, I don't think that mass murder of any kind fits neatly into those kinds of boxes. Reality is rarely so simple.<br />
<br />
Most cases aren't even "about" anything specific. Most of the time, there's no political statement, no big social change goal, no grand scheme... Usually it's just an insane person.<br />
<br />
But the media's double standard is fascinating to me.<br />
<br />
I think it sort of gets to the heart of how a lot of people in America might ultimately think about Charleston. If all they've ever been led to believe is that violent crime against black people is on the rise (even though it's not), and that there are racist "hate groups" lurking around every corner (also not true), then the Dylann Roof shooting fits right into that narrative.<br />
<br />
If all that is true, then he's not just a lone, deranged terrorist with delusions of grandeur, he's part of a rising pattern of evil.<br />
<br />
It's not - at that point - just about him anymore, it's about "society". It's about racial disparities in education, and criminal justice. It's about Trayvon Martin, Mike Brown, Eric Garner, Freddie Gray... It's about #blacklivesmatter.<br />
<br />
Suddenly, Dylann Roof is emblematic of everything that's wrong with the United States.<br />
<br />
And well...... Maybe I'm being too optimistic here, but I just don't think he is. Consider for a second that even in <a href="http://reason.com/blog/2015/06/20/charleston-shooter-dylann-roofs-racist-m">Roof's own demented "manifesto"</a>, he wrote:<br />
<blockquote>
"I have no choice. I am not in the position to, alone, go into the ghetto and fight. I chose Charleston because it is most historic city in my state, and at one time had the highest ratio of blacks to Whites in the country. We have no skinheads, no real KKK, no one doing anything but talking on the internet. Well someone has to have the bravery to take it to the real world, and I guess that has to be me."</blockquote>
I know this is going to sound nuts to a lot of people, but isn't this - <i>in some way </i>- a bizarre sign of progress? In one of the most historically segregated cities in America, Dylann Roof couldn't even find a community of racists big enough or active enough to carry out his insane plan.<br />
<br />
That's the sliver of good buried inside a flood of terrible evil.<br />
<br />
So maybe the lesson we should take away from all this is that when the dust settles, there are actually way fewer murderous racists out there than there are good people who want to live peacefully with all of our neighbors, regardless of our various differences. We're all in this together, and maybe now would be a good time to remember that.<br />
<br />
At least... That's what I'd like to think.<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.sean-malone.com</div>Sean W. Malonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07652434357640171842noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5098030884495656852.post-53890426354076036792014-12-29T21:49:00.001-08:002014-12-29T22:10:52.640-08:00Dear Mr. Cantwell...I'm not normally one to jump into the internecine squabbles of seventh tier embarrassments like this, but I recently revived an older video of mine and it was immediately the subject of a <a href="http://christophercantwell.com/2014/12/19/re-how-not-to-talk-to-people-about-liberty/">lengthy diatribe</a> by the libertarian "movement's" <a href="http://attackthesystem.com/2014/12/24/libertarian-welfare-queens/">resident charity case</a>, Christopher Cantwell. If you don't know who he is, well... That's not terribly surprising, and also, you're a luckier person than I.<br />
<br />
Anyway, the video in question was a crowd favorite from The Libertarienne Show called <i>"How Not To Talk About Liberty"</i>.<br />
<br />
Watch it here:<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/x8menIEXynk" width="560"></iframe><br />
<br />
Impressively, Cantwell's screed got just about everything humanly possible wrong about the video and the intent behind it. And what's always fun for me... He attributed it wholesale to the ladies on-screen, and didn't even realize that I wrote and produced it. <i>Pro-tip: </i>Most of the time, there are people behind the camera who actually do most of the work. Just sayin'.<br />
<br />
For some reason, I decided to respond at length in the comments of his blog post, but shockingly, he seems to have refused to publish my remarks.<br />
<br />
I already shared them with friends on Facebook for a bit of a laugh, but I figured I'd better record them here for posterity's sake. It also includes my first-ever public explanation of why I essentially shut down The Libertarienne Show YouTube channel, so that might be note-worthy as well.<br />
<br />
Without further adieu, I bring you...<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>My reply to Mr. Cantwell</b></div>
<br />
Dear Christopher Cantwell,<br />
<br />
First... You should know that while both Marianne and Cathy contributed some funny ideas, they did not write or produce the "How Not To Talk To People About Liberty" video.<br />
<br />
I did.<br />
<br />
Secondly... You should know that I'm unequivocally <i>not</i> a left-libertarian, and in no way is this video about "left-libertarianism" or "social justice". For those who don't know me, see the following for more on what I believe in that regard: <a href="http://seanwmalone.blogspot.com/2014/04/thick-thin-or-just-libertarianismplus.html">Thick... Thin... Or Just LibertarianismPLUS?</a><br />
<br />
You are mistaken regarding the purpose of the video.<br />
<br />
It is about how so many libertarians - yourself very much included, and more than I could possibly count - often fail to adequately communicate libertarian ideas to non-libertarians who do not already share in a preconceived understanding of what the philosophy is, or even what "liberty" itself actually means as a concept. It is a hopefully comedic effort to talk about the *presentation* of libertarian ideas, not to be confused with the baggage of left-libertarianism that you presume the video to include.<br />
<br />
Thirdly, I suppose you might be interested to know that the video "disappeared" for a while because I made it and everything else Cathy Reisenwitz is in on that YouTube channel private.<br />
<br />
I did this rather intentionally for reasons you might even appreciate. You see, at the time, I took the video down because Cathy had suddenly and disruptively quit our show to pursue a path that I actually found to be abhorrent in many ways. Ironically perhaps, she essentially became your equal opposite extreme and I did not want to lend any support to that career.<br />
<br />
I had since been asked numerous times by many fans what happened to this video, and for a long time I would simply tell them the truth: That I had taken it down so as to not give Cathy any added support. But recently, when Marianne Copenhaver asked me as a personal favor, I decided to revive it from the "dustbin of history" in which you seem to prefer it would have remained.<br />
<br />
Incidentally, part of my decision to revive it was made on the basis that Cathy (whom I have not spoken with in over a year and a half) seems to have dropped out of "public life" as an activist and public speaker in libertarian circles.<br />
<br />
All that said... This video was written and conceived as a way to joke about the numerous ways in which libertarians are completely tone-deaf in their attempts to spread the ideas they hold most dear. Both "left" and "right" are offenders, and I don't consider myself part of either group.<br />
<br />
It would be difficult to boil down my decade of experience working in commercial entertainment and now non-profit advocacy film production, the perspective I gained through studying music and film-making in college and graduate school, or to share all the lessons I've learned as a successful producer of libertarian media content... But I can say with certainty that the one thing most libertarian advocates seem to be utterly incapable of doing is understanding how to effectively read a room.<br />
<br />
When many, if not most, people in America are generally afraid of guns, and think of people who open-carry at rallies and wave guns around in public as dangerous nutjobs, it's not the best strategy to build your hopes of influencing people toward a libertarian stance on gun rights by putting those people on the poster. Instead, as a suggestion, you might find more success promoting heroic human interest stories about the ways in which guns have been used to defend people against criminals - and by "criminals", I don't mean meter maids, just so we're clear.<br />
<br />
Likewise, most people in America really aren't that into polygamy or polyamory, they're uncomfortable with the kind of libertine social culture a lot of "left" libertarians promote, and basically no one likes to be called racists, bigots, sexists or anything else deliberately inflammatory toward their motives. So building an outreach strategy around those kinds of statements is also virtually guaranteed to fail.<br />
<br />
And believe me, I also warned Cathy that the path she chose was a poor one for a reason, and not just because I find most of the collectivist bullshit and resistance to intellectual challenge she wanted to import from leftist feminism to be ludicrous, but because it was guaranteed to be divisive and create more enemies than friends.<br />
<br />
What's sad to me is that neither you nor Cathy seem to have properly grasped the lessons jokingly written into the video you're criticizing, and perhaps neither of you understand why it's apparently amusing for the fifty thousand or so viewers who watched it within a month or so of its creation.<br />
<br />
In no way is the point to endorse "statism", though thank you very much for so aptly demonstrating part of the video's point.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA5HsaWV8MGuv3nOLWnFmeD2tc_KZLRXSxiPD45Bd-7t7ZQZpb9-DTui9BdrmJ_GoMZo_61enFQydH5qRCgbF6k4_xra0EMXsw8-9luMsNESpy1tjEt2ApIDqoBC_5kOYZ0z-PemqPXxw/s1600/Cantwell02.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA5HsaWV8MGuv3nOLWnFmeD2tc_KZLRXSxiPD45Bd-7t7ZQZpb9-DTui9BdrmJ_GoMZo_61enFQydH5qRCgbF6k4_xra0EMXsw8-9luMsNESpy1tjEt2ApIDqoBC_5kOYZ0z-PemqPXxw/s1600/Cantwell02.png" height="174" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Annoying for Liberty"</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
No... It is to make light of the fact that so many libertarians (like yourself) don't realize that the only way to wind up with a more libertarian world in *reality* is to win hearts and minds, and that to do that, you can't yell at people like a raving lunatic, oblivious to their concerns. instead, you have to essentially do the opposite. You have to listen to others, find out what matters most to *them*, and present your case in a way that appeals to the values they hold most dear.<br />
<br />
This really is basic, Dale Carnegie 101 stuff, after all... And the fact that you don't understand this point is precisely why you ended up (fortunately only briefly) as <a href="http://thecolbertreport.cc.com/videos/dvppp6/difference-makers---the-free-keene-squad">the laughingstock of America on the Colbert Report</a>. You didn't win any friends for libertarianism with that... But you did make a lot of people think we're all idiotic assholes.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw5ouJ50_NPDiVyNG8pK9CVfJyXNTx3wikUP4OBl_vQfha3GvkBh8OELFOcHljNo6TIbkG3bD3jPzITNJYwqZpW0CCob96YMB42WWYJMtVV-OR2ZIHOKBRuwN6IBkHBYp6G-koW7ObLqA/s1600/Cantwell03.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw5ouJ50_NPDiVyNG8pK9CVfJyXNTx3wikUP4OBl_vQfha3GvkBh8OELFOcHljNo6TIbkG3bD3jPzITNJYwqZpW0CCob96YMB42WWYJMtVV-OR2ZIHOKBRuwN6IBkHBYp6G-koW7ObLqA/s1600/Cantwell03.png" height="175" width="320" /></a><br />
You gave ammunition to one of the most influential shows in America to paint libertarians as, in Stephen Colbert's words, "Shitstains" and "huge douchebags." It's that kind of completely out-of-touch outreach "strategy" - if you could break the meaning of that word beyond all repair - that sets our ideas back in the minds of other Americans and moves us farther and farther away from the goal of a more free society for everyone.<br />
<br />
So thanks for that.<br />
<br />
Best regards,<br />
<br />
- Sean W. Malone<br />
Producer<br />
www.citizena.tv<br />
www.honestenterprise.tv<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.sean-malone.com</div>Sean W. Malonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07652434357640171842noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5098030884495656852.post-7493358753307821632014-10-28T19:04:00.000-07:002014-10-29T10:16:58.709-07:00The TSA Stole My Belt Buckle... For Safety.I am livid. Angry. Filled with rage.<br />
<br />
A few minutes ago (as of this posting, a few hours), I lost my favorite belt buckle to the TSA at Los Angeles International Airport, because - they claimed - it was a "replica" of a gun.<br />
<br />
What kind of a gun, you might ask?<br />
<br />
A 1950s Flash Gordon-style RAYGUN!! A fictional weapon. A child's toy.<br />
<br />
Here it is:<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://instagram.com/p/unkV3TjoF3/" style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word;" target="_top">The #TSA at #DCA tried to take this belt buckle this morning. For safety.</a></div>
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A photo posted by CitizenA Media (@citizenamedia) on <time datetime="2014-10-26T13:59:05+00:00" style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px;">Oct 10, 2014 at 6:59am PDT</time></div>
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On my flight out to LA, I dealt with the same issue with an imperious and stupid TSA supervisor who tried to take the buckle under the same pretenses at DCA until I protested long enough for her to get the top level supervisor in the terminal.<br />
<br />
I wrote about that event on Facebook when it happened two days ago:<br />
<blockquote>
"Now that I'm in a restaurant in Philly, I have time to share more of the stupidity. First, they did a bag check, which happens to me every time I fly anyway, so who cares. When I walked over, the guy said, "Yeah, there's something in there that's kind of shaped like a gun," to which I replied, "Yeah. It's a belt buckle."<br />
<br />
He pulled it out of the bag and looked at it. Yep. Belt buckle. He didn't seem like an idiot, but he called his supervisor over, who instantly made it clear to me that she was one of those petty authoritarian, logic-impaired idiots you often come to expect in positions of middling power in law enforcement. Her word was law... Even when, you know, it wasn't actually law. She said, "Listen, you can either go back out of security and put this in your check luggage (which I don't have), or we'll confiscate it."<br />
<br />
But this is honestly my favorite belt buckle, and I'm me, so - realizing I was speaking with a woman with the brainpower of a block of Parmesan cheese - I looked at her and said, "You understand that this is a belt buckle, right? It is not a danger to the safety of anyone nor is it against the law to carry. I have also traveled with this belt buckle all over the country and it's never been a problem. So please explain to me how exactly you would justify taking it."<br />
<br />
Her response was to suggest a hypothetical scenario. "What if", she postulated, "you take this object out of your bag and point it - like a gun - at a police officer? He would have no choice to assume that it was a gun, and take action against you."<br />
<br />
Now... Let's leave aside for a second that the entire premise behind this argument is that police officers are too dumb and hopped up on their own power that they can't recognize a dangerous weapon from a belt buckle in the shape of a 1950's toy ray gun. I'm glad she recognized this reality, but I don't think she really processed what it says about law enforcement in America. But leaving that aside... Why in the hell would I ever take my belt buckle and point it at a police officer?<br />
<br />
To this, she had no answer.<br />
<br />
She also had no answer to the point that even if I did that, it would represent a danger to me and not, say... an airplane full of people.<br />
<br />
At this point, she got red in the face and loudly declared that she wasn't going to argue with me or "have a debate about this". "You have two options. That's it," she said. So I asked to speak with *HER* supervisor. Fine. She took the belt buckle and walked it over to some other guy far out of earshot and talked to him for a bit while someone else came over and talked to me. Also seemed like a fairly reasonable guy.<br />
<br />
Eventually the woman came back, curtly handed me the buckle and said, "Here you go. Have a good flight, sir.""</blockquote>
By the way, while fighting me over my belt buckle, the TSA had absolutely no problem with the straight razor blade I had in my suitcase for shaving. Not that they should, but... At least terrorists have actually used razor blades in a major attack. I cannot say the same about a belt buckle made to look like a Flash Gordon prop.<br />
<br />
Needless to say, on my return flight to DC, I assumed that I would deal with the same nonsense and kept the buckle outside of my bag and put it in one of the plastic tubs, hoping that it would be easier for them to clearly see what it was and why it was posed absolutely no danger to anyone.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, I had left my hotel too late and LA traffic was terrible as per usual, so by the time I arrived at the airport, my plane was already boarding. So when the officers took the buckle and called their supervisor to ask about what they should do, I simply did not have time to battle them up the chain of command again. Instead of miss my flight, I had no choice but to leave it with them.<br />
<br />
I'm also kicking myself (<a href="http://seanwmalone.blogspot.com/2014/10/hands-against-wall-my-experience-with.html">again</a>) for not recording the whole thing. I was so busy looking at the clock and worrying about missing my flight that I just wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible. Plus, I think that in spite of everything I've seen and experienced, and in spite of everything I know to be true about the growing police-state in America, and my philosophical beliefs, I think I STILL subconsciously hold onto a mental model of people in uniform that says, "If you've done nothing wrong, you've got nothing to worry about."<br />
<br />
This mental model is and always has been incorrect.<br />
<br />
But seriously wrap your minds around what this means. Our "Transportation Security Administration" cannot recognize the difference between the following things:<br />
<ol>
<li>A belt buckle and a prop replica.</li>
<li>A fictional/toy gun that has never existed in human history outside of sci-fi & fantasy stories, and a firearm/weapon that actually exists.</li>
<li>An object that poses a danger to others... and... a goddamn belt buckle.</li>
</ol>
I ran the whole way to my gate with my pants falling down as my belt had no way of fastening, and barely made my flight. I was the last person to board the plane.<br />
<br />
Do I really need to go on a long-winded jag about how ridiculous this is? The TSA is busy protecting you from the scourge of novelty belt buckles. Meanhile, their track record of stopping an actual threat: <b><a href="http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/end-tsa">terrible</a>.</b><br />
<br />
But on the upside, the TSA is really good at one thing: <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/tsa-thefts/"><b>stealing items from travelers' luggage</b></a>.<br />
<br />
Are you angry? I am.<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.sean-malone.com</div>Sean W. Malonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07652434357640171842noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5098030884495656852.post-61258854090329395732014-10-11T21:37:00.000-07:002014-10-12T07:31:20.273-07:00Hands Against the Wall: My experience with out-of-control Port Authority Police<b><span style="font-size: large;">On Thursday, October 9th, 2014, I boarded the Northeast Regional Amtrak from my home in Washington, DC to Penn Station in New York City. </span></b><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b>
<b>A day which began with incredible promise ended with my hands against the wall of a building while being accosted and intimidated by an aggressive, out-of-control, Port Authority Police Officer - in spite of having committed absolutely no crime.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b>
<b>This is my story:</b></span><br />
<br />
Allow me first to begin by talking about why I was in New York.<br />
<br />
I was in NYC that night to attend the annual Fellows Dinner for <a href="http://www.thempi.org/">The Moving Picture Institute</a>. For those who don't know, MPI is an incredible organization dedicated to developing the careers of talented, aspiring filmmakers who are interested in promoting freedom through entertainment media, with financial support and mentoring opportunities.<br />
<br />
I became a fellow of their Rising Filmmaker Program in 2010, when I was awarded a grant to produce two films on the history and philosophy of the Bill of Rights. While no one would look back on those two short films as anything special, MPI's support at that time enabled me to change the trajectory of my career in entertainment and <a href="http://seanwmalone.blogspot.ca/2009/10/melding-interests.html">achieve my goal</a> of becoming a full-time multimedia producer for libertarian causes.<br />
<br />
Without The MPI's support, I would not be where I am today.<br />
<br />
Their annual fellows dinner is an opportunity to connect with donors and other filmmakers - many of whom are good friends from NYC or Los Angeles that I don't get to see very often. A lot of these folks - myself included - are documentarians, journalists, and narrative filmmakers; and we're all freedom fighters. Here's a list of some of the projects MPI has supported over the years: <a href="http://www.thempi.org/mpi_films/">http://www.thempi.org/mpi_films/</a><br />
<br />
MPI itself was co-founded by Thor Halvorssen, a Venezuelan freedom advocate who also created the <a href="http://humanrightsfoundation.org/">Human Rights Foundation</a> and the <a href="http://www.thefire.org/">Foundation for Individual Rights in Education</a>; and who has presented on human rights abuses at venues around the world, including the United Nations. Thor is a bold and courageous man.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjX5SjoE8Zk">WATCH him take on the Venezuelan representatives at the UN</a> when they absurdly tried to gain a seat on the UN's human rights council.<br />
<br />
I ate dinner at Thor's table during the event, in fact.<br />
<br />
My point in sharing all of this is not just to show how proud I am to be associated with The MPI (extremely) or to explain to everyone what kind of an event I was at (ie. intimate fancy gala, not frat party); but also to fully contextualize what happened <i>after</i> my friend and I left Tribeca Grill to return to our hotel.<br />
<br />
This setup is so everyone can clearly understand precisely how ironic (or at least poetic) our interaction with the police state that is New York City really was that night.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">So, here's what happened.</span></b><br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj2uBOkw4SgaDtemm6r0JniwemQOSCXwILn2wzrHm-lIKC_ku-s7GQAc0DmimnHbjHS-pA8rLfty2bd2F7bbfoTsh1Gs5XsUz6ZfryKzNxRke5DeMadPxcgMS1tcTN7NzbOt9s1_KzJQ0/s1600/IMAG0368.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj2uBOkw4SgaDtemm6r0JniwemQOSCXwILn2wzrHm-lIKC_ku-s7GQAc0DmimnHbjHS-pA8rLfty2bd2F7bbfoTsh1Gs5XsUz6ZfryKzNxRke5DeMadPxcgMS1tcTN7NzbOt9s1_KzJQ0/s1600/IMAG0368.jpg" height="181" width="320" /></a></div>
The event started at 6:00 PM with a cocktail reception. They held a short film screening at the Tribeca Film Center's theater at 7:00, followed by a 7:30 private dinner.<br />
<br />
By about 11:00 PM, dinner was over, and guests were mingling and enjoying connecting with each other. At this point, the staff started nudging us out the door so they could clean up and go home themselves. Since MPI had put most of the out-of-town folks (including myself) up at the SoHo Grand hotel about a half a mile away, many of us decided to go back there and continue our conversations at the hotel bar.<br />
<br />
I ended up walking back with a DC friend, Matthew Szewczyk, who moved to Los Angeles a couple years ago to work as a commercial director.<br />
<br />
As you can see on the map below, the Tribeca Grill and the hotel aren't too far away from each other, but the streets are disrupted by some parks and the Canal Street entrance to the Holland Tunnel, so the easiest way to get there is a little circuitous.<br />
<br />
And therein lies our mistake.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-NZ68gpFFG39c5XxLIavmcFGlXp62VsJgSyvtYgaO6I7eBvQtUoTa2vHESi4rIPjZnXZTbEXssK6HIhJcyUuFrVfKW_eo4s2fZSgsMBqBA6jzvTArmqF9LzrR2VLXezHmA8hP8RBrD90/s1600/tribeca-map.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-NZ68gpFFG39c5XxLIavmcFGlXp62VsJgSyvtYgaO6I7eBvQtUoTa2vHESi4rIPjZnXZTbEXssK6HIhJcyUuFrVfKW_eo4s2fZSgsMBqBA6jzvTArmqF9LzrR2VLXezHmA8hP8RBrD90/s1600/tribeca-map.png" height="640" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
Instead of heading directly East from the Tribeca Film Center, Matt and I walked uptown along Hudson Street.<br />
<br />
We were engaged in conversation, and although I used to work and go to grad school in this area, I wasn't really paying attention to the fact that we'd gone too far. We'd walked a ways up before I realized that we'd have a painful time getting across Canal, and suggested that we just cut across over to West Broadway from wherever we were if we could.<br />
<br />
So we turned down Vestry Street and headed to the end of the block, hoping to get across that way instead. Alas, there was a low fence at the end of Vestry, which at the time, we assumed was just there to stop cars from going the wrong way onto the street marked on the map as I-76.<br />
<br />
At that point, Matt suggests that we just hop the low fence and keep going. Not ideal, but it seemed fine to me, so we tossed our program booklets and DVD from the dinner over the fence and my friend started to jump over.<br />
<br />
As he got about halfway over the fence, we heard a man on a bullhorn from across the street shouting at us not to go that way.<br />
<br />
Of course, our books and such were already on the other side, and Matt was halfway over already so he shouted back that he would just get his books and we'd go back the way we came... Which is exactly what happened. He landed on the other side, grabbed the booklets and DVD, handed them to me and climbed right back over to the acceptable side.<br />
<br />
No harm, no foul... Or so we thought.<br />
<br />
A few seconds later, as we began walking back out the way we came, a couple of goons wearing coveralls that had some kind of Port Authority markings on them showed up and told us to stop while they and the guard-stand guy across the street with the bullhorn figured out "what to do with us." They didn't ask us if we would stick around for a few minutes, they simply demanded that we don't go anywhere.<br />
<br />
These men were not police. They did not present any identification. They did not have any authority of any kind to detain us. And they were not being polite.<br />
<br />
Keep in mind also that this is taking place at the end of a dark, unpopulated dead-end street in New York City, in the middle of the night.<br />
<br />
It was extremely creepy.<br />
<br />
As my friend and I continued to walk up the street, the goons said that cops were already on their way to talk to us. We heard the sirens. They weren't lying.<br />
<br />
At this point, we knew that we'd be interacting with police officers.<br />
<br />
Now... Note that Matt and I are <i>both </i>people who spend a lot of time working in an issue space as filmmakers who take human rights, liberty, and the growing American police state extremely seriously. Way back in 2010, I <a href="http://youtu.be/z7sVBHbc_kk">produced a short piece on police abuses</a> in America being more worrisome than international terrorism and small-government political activism.<br />
<br />
Since then, I've produced and contributed to films that deal with police abuses ranging from my documentary, "No Vans Land", which (among other things) touches on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PI7tJ3GS1E">intimidation and violence against immigrant entrepreneurs competing with taxis and city buses</a>, to work with the Institute for Justice exposing the practice of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hytkAaoF2k">police profiting from taking people's property</a> without so much as a conviction via civil asset forfeiture, which was <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kEpZWGgJks">recently brought to the national spotlight</a> by John Oliver's "Last Week, Tonight".<br />
<br />
Matt is currently working on a film about drone surveillance called "<a href="https://www.facebook.com/Therighthandofgodfilm">The Right Hand of God</a>".<br />
<br />
But even if we weren't particularly attuned to this stuff, we've all recently seen horrendous abuses in New York City, with <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/01/justice/new-york-choke-hold-death/">an NYPD officer choking Eric Garner to death</a>; who, by all accounts a sweet man whose heinous crime was selling untaxed cigarettes on a street corner in Staten Island. Not to mention <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/08/14/after-ferguson-how-should-police-respond-to-protests/">the recent shooting of Michael Brown</a> in Ferguson, Missouri, which sparked massive riots and exposed tremendous corruption throughout the St. Louis area police force.<br />
<br />
We both intellectually know the risks of dealing with police very well, and we were prepared for what was likely coming our way.<br />
<br />
The first thing Matt did was ask was if I had any drugs on my person. As someone who has never smoked a cigarette, let alone been high or had the slightest interest in drugs of any kind, the answer was - of course - no. The second thing he did was suggest that we should both get out our phones and begin recording video of what was about to happen.<br />
<br />
Matt pulled out his phone and began recording just as a squad car with lights flashing and sirens blaring rolled up to the curb next to us. I did not get my phone out in time, not that it would have mattered, given what happened next.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDGRNjG2zFX0UuRUuE79OSW2zRYijazj_jECk1HTkQEAVaKsn1NDxhXG1ydXsU2woi1OWxAwY4RQ8eu4cc76n-nkrFHjYzMT2ToIubylmbZHQDWaRP1m-F1FesPIvVHayfdD9n1QSemMM/s1600/pasquale-carpentiere.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDGRNjG2zFX0UuRUuE79OSW2zRYijazj_jECk1HTkQEAVaKsn1NDxhXG1ydXsU2woi1OWxAwY4RQ8eu4cc76n-nkrFHjYzMT2ToIubylmbZHQDWaRP1m-F1FesPIvVHayfdD9n1QSemMM/s1600/pasquale-carpentiere.jpg" height="200" width="176" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Officer Pasquale Carpentiere</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Mere seconds later, an officer of the Port Authority Police Department - Officer Pasquale Carpentiere, PAPD Badge #: 2562 - jumped out of his cruiser, and shouted at us to turn around and put our hands against the wall of the nearest building. We immediately complied.<br />
<br />
Matt still had his phone in his hand, with the camera pointed toward the officer.<br />
<br />
And wouldn't you know it... The <i>very first thing</i> the officer did was jam his knee into my friend's back, shoving him against the wall and attempt to confiscate his phone. At this point, my friend protested and tried to hang onto his phone, but the officer got extremely aggressive, violently taking the phone from his hands while shouting at both of us telling us to comply and stop resisting. In no way had either of us "resisted" anything, though once the officer took my friend's phone, we both clearly told him that he had absolutely no authority to do that and that he was in violation of the law.<br />
<br />
For those who don't know, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/13/filming-police-officers_n_5676940.html" style="font-weight: bold;">It is 100% legal (and extremely important!) to record police officers on duty.</a><b> </b><br />
<br />
Officer Carpentiere did not acknowledge this point or return the phone. Instead, he claimed that we were being non-compliant with his requests (completely false), and that my friend's phone "might have been a taser".<br />
<br />
Utter. Nonsense.<br />
<br />
My friend's phone was out and visible from the very beginning, his hands were up and held against a wall, and neither of us made any motion whatsoever toward the officer. From the moment Officer Carpentiere arrived, we complied with each of his demands. There is absolutely no way he could have possibly mistaken the phone for a taser.<br />
<br />
Even if he did briefly believe it to have been dangerous, within a few seconds of holding it he would have known that it was not. Yet, once he confiscated it, the officer did not return the phone to my friend immediately upon inspection.<br />
<br />
Again, we registered our protests against this action.<br />
<br />
Matt reminded the officer that it was unconstitutional to take private property without cause, and that in no way was it acceptable. The officer's response? Something very close to: "Are you a lawyer? No? Well then, shut your mouth."<br />
<br />
It was clear that the phone would not be returned any time soon, so my friend suggested that I take out my phone from my pocket and begin recording the rest of our interactions. A great idea, except that the minute I began to do so, Officer Carpentiere shoved me against the wall and grabbed my wrist while aggressively telling me that either I could keep my phone in my pocket where it was, or he would take it as well.<br />
<br />
I opted to keep it in my pocket. Who knows what the officer would have done with it.<br />
<br />
Ever since this encounter I have wondered if I should have had my phone out from the beginning so that I could have captured a second camera angle and kept a more tangible record of what happened to us. Upon reflection, I don't think it would have mattered.<br />
<br />
After the initial round of intimidation and displays of force, Officer Carpentiere took my friend's phone and both of our IDs back to his squad car with him as he sat down to "write a summons".<br />
<br />
The whole time the officer was sitting in the car, Matt was asking to have his phone back, and for a "white shirt" (supervising officer) to be called to the scene. At one point, Carpentiere told us that he would give the phone back when he was done, and because of my friend's "belligerence", he would take as long as he felt like.<br />
<br />
When Officer Carpentiere finally returned with the summons and the phone, easily over 15 minutes later, it was clear why he held onto it. The recording Matt had made of the officer's aggressive behavior was gone. Deleted by the officer. I know Matt will do his best to recover the data, but that may not be possible.<br />
<br />
Had I immediately filmed these events, it seems most likely that I'd have had my recordings deleted as well.<br />
<br />
The officer's behavior was unethical, disgusting, and - again - <b>ENTIRELY ILLEGAL.</b><br />
<br />
By this point, a second officer - Officer Miller - had arrived to support his compatriot. Miller seemed to be a different type of cop compared to Carpentiere. Our interactions with him were not immediately hostile, he did not raise his voice or treat us violently.<br />
<br />
I wonder very much whether or not, had he been the first responder, things would have gone the way they did. Who knows.<br />
<br />
Ultimately, Matt was given a summons to appear in NYC court for "trespassing". I wasn't. We were told that this was because the officer had reviewed security camera footage (or talked to someone who had), and that I wasn't on tape going over the fence. I suspect it may have also had something to do with the difference in my demeanor vs. my friend's. As you might imagine, once his phone was taken and he took a knee to the back, Matt wasn't exactly happy.<br />
<br />
I tend to be pretty even-keeled in stressful situations, and spent most of the time trying to make sure that we didn't get shot or arrested for no damn reason. Freedom-fighter or not, I'm not particularly interested in dying at the hands of a stupid cop power-tripping on his own aggressive machismo.<br />
<br />
And make no mistake... There were several points where I believed this to be a legitimately possible outcome, given the way Officer Carpentiere behaved towards us from the beginning.<br />
<br />
45 minutes or so into our nightmare, the supervisor arrived. I did capture that entire interaction on camera.<br />
<br />
See below:<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/4vIVuW9ZTSI" width="560"></iframe><br />
<br />
There are a couple things I'd point out about this. For one thing, I'd note that the very first thing the supervisor did when he arrived on the scene was have a private conversation with Officer Carpentiere outside of our listening or recording range. I don't know what was said, but it made it fairly clear from the outset how the conversation would go.<br />
<br />
I'd note also that the supervising officer says a lot of stuff that would make sense if events had unfolded the way he assumed.<br />
<br />
For those who don't watch the video, the supervisor assumes that Matt made some quick movements toward his pocket that set-off the negative interaction with Officer Carpentiere. Based on that assumption, most of what he says is understandable - if I were a police officer, I too would be wary of someone in a dark alley reaching for something I couldn't see. I might even react "with prejudice."<br />
<br />
But... That's not what happened.<br />
<br />
Matt's phone was <i>already out and in plain view</i> when the officer arrived! And as he could see literally everything we were doing at all times and we had complied with each one of his requests immediately (not to mention the fact that the call he would have received could only have referred to us possibly being in a place we weren't supposed to be, with nothing actually criminal, violent, or in any way threatening having taken place), there was never any question of danger to the officer except to the extent that the mere act of recording his actions <i>itself </i>posed a threat.<br />
<br />
I've since pondered some other curious aspects of the experience that make the notion that Officer Carpentiere was reasonably acting out of concern for his safety absolutely ridiculous.<br />
<br />
Consider that not once did he pat either of us down. Matt's question about drugs turned out to be pointless... Even if we did have drugs on us, Carpentiere didn't even look for them. He didn't ask us if we were carrying any weapons. If he had patted me down, he might have even noted something odd or questionable in my pockets that night. Apart from my wallet, keys, and cellphone; I was carrying about a dozen USB flash drives (preloaded with my two most recent documentaries, to share with attendees of the dinner), which would have probably seemed strange had he bothered to check my blazer.<br />
<br />
And that's the thing... He didn't care about any of that. He didn't even ask us why we were there or what we were doing. It was quite clear that the officer did not believe we were a danger to him in any way.<br />
<br />
The <i>only</i> thing he cared about seemed to be the phone and the fact that we were recording him.<br />
<br />
In the end, waiting for the supervisor was kind of a waste of time. Predictably, his sole purpose was to back up Officer Carpentiere. He gave Matt an opportunity to file a formal complaint, but the likelihood that that will go anywhere seems slim to none.<br />
<br />
Eventually we concluded our conversation and left. By the time we made it back to the hotel, many of our peers were wondering where we had been, and we had quite the story to tell.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Final thoughts...</span></b><br />
<b><br /></b>
Remember... This whole ordeal occurred for no other reason than because two guys took a wrong turn while walking back to a hotel from a gala dinner for people who make films about human freedom. That's it. And yet, the best thing I can say for this entire experience is that we didn't get killed.<br />
<br />
So what have I learned, if anything?<br />
<br />
For one thing, I'm now a lot more acutely attuned to the visceral reality of dealing with police. It's one thing to empathize and report other people's experiences as a documentarian. It's quite another to live one of your own.<br />
<br />
I'm also not so convinced that recording police encounters is necessarily a viable option in most cases. If having your phone out immediately turns a bad situation into a dangerous one as it did for us, and the only record of police abuse is deleted by the officer while you are required to press your hands against a wall or lie on the ground, then it really doesn't do anybody a whole lot of good. There are a bunch of apps that purport to help people with these kinds of things, but as far as I can tell, they're mostly based on automatic/real-time uploading of video files to the internet.<br />
<br />
But what if you don't have strong enough signal for that to work, or what if it doesn't go through in time?<br />
<br />
A better app, in my view, would be one where you could start a video recording and have it continue to run until you enter a password, or your phone dies. Had my friend or I had something like that the other night, it's likely that we'd have proper proof of this officer's abuses - including his attempts to stop or delete the recording.<br />
<br />
That said, I am much more likely now to record (from a safe distance) any encounter I see someone <i>else </i>having with police. I would encourage absolutely <i>everyone</i> to do the same.<br />
<br />
Do <b>not</b> assume that because police have stopped or are detaining or arresting someone, that the person has done something wrong. While my friend and I were up against the wall for a half an hour, numerous people walked by. I don't know what they thought of us, but at one point, my friend shouted "No drugs! Just books!"<br />
<br />
At this point, I honestly think it's safer to assume that police are just as likely to be shaking someone down for no reason as they are to be "protecting and serving" in any meaningful way.<br />
<br />
Lastly, I would like to take a moment and acknowledge that if my friend and I were not well-spoken, educated, white guys, the whole situation would likely have played out extremely differently. I do my best to treat all police as individuals, just like I do everyone in life, but the statistics are what they are. Police violence and "officer-involved shootings" are <i>far</i> more likely to happen in cases where the victim is non-white.<br />
<br />
This experience makes me even more empathetic to this problem.<br />
<br />
I wasn't drunk. I don't do drugs. I'm not a violent or aggressive person in any way. I'm practically a pacifist, and mostly a teetotaler. I don't own any guns, and although I would love to carry a multi-tool or a knife on me most of the time, even that has been beaten out of me by years of interactions with security guards at airports and State/Federal buildings. I was wearing nice clothes, and spoke calmly to every person I dealt with that night.<br />
<br />
The <i>worst</i> thing either Matt or I had been accused of - and the reason for which police were called to the scene in the first place - was hopping a fence, picking up a couple books, and hopping right back over when we were told not to.<br />
<br />
Yet... We spent our night with our hands up and our heads down, getting yelled at and threatened with jail and the confiscation of our property by police like we had just robbed a liquor store.<br />
<br />
If it can happen to us, it can <i>absolutely</i> happen to anyone.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">And now, with that... I'm happy to take any and all questions. I will also try to edit this post to include more links and additional video if we can recover the important stuff.</span></b><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.sean-malone.com</div>Sean W. Malonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07652434357640171842noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5098030884495656852.post-62736387641423034542014-04-26T15:19:00.004-07:002021-08-02T21:43:24.051-07:00Thick... Thin... Or just LibertarianismPLUS?This is going to be <i>exceptionally </i>long. It's an essay that has been floating around in my brain for several months, and I'd like this to be the only time I write a piece like this for a long, long time so I wanted to do it right.<br />
<br />
I haven't submitted an official entry into the "Is libertarianism enough?" debate up to this point for a few reasons, but for the most part, I have simply been too busy to do it justice.<br />
<br />
Mostly I've been busy making this:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/3kDsLbH-YNM/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3kDsLbH-YNM?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<br />
<br />
Since January, I've produced multiple films, notably this new half-hour documentary for my <a href="http://www.honestenterprise.tv/">www.honestenterprise.tv</a> project called "Locked Out"; I attended a film festival with "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PI7tJ3GS1E">No Vans Land</a>"; caught up on what's happening in entertainment at SXSW in Austin; I gave a talk about occupational licensing after a screening for law students in Illinois; and a whole lot more.<br />
<br />
There are more important things going on than get into the latest bit of bickering about who is and who is not a qualified libertarian. To be honest, I wish everybody involved in this particular fight could, or would, say the same... But to my chagrin, these issues persist and at least in my social sphere, a lot of terrible ideas keep getting promoted and I suppose I should actually say something about it.<br />
<br />
So.... As a quick overview for those who aren't totally familiar with what we're talking about:<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">THICK LIBERTARIANISM</span></b><br />
<br />
There are many in the libertarian community who would suggest that "libertarianism", as a philosophy, does not offer enough guidance on how to be a good person, and they would like to enhance libertarian ethics with an additionally prescribed set of social preferences, behaviors, and in many cases - outcomes. Some might call this "thick libertarianism".<br />
<br />
To explain what this means, I go to anarchist writer, Anthony Gregory, from a conversation I had with him about the topic: <br />
<blockquote>
"Thick libertarianism comes from Charles Johnson and Roderick Long. They are philosophers. Thickness is a concept in philosophy generally. It's been totally misunderstood by its critics. I don't understand why honestly. <br />
... <br />
All thick libertarianism means itself is that the philosophy is not totally reducible to the NAP (Non-Aggression Principle)."</blockquote>
To paraphrase a little bit, the idea of "thick" libertarianism in its raw form, is simply that "other values" beyond simply initiating force against others are important to libertarianism.<br />
<br />
Unlike many people who are currently on board the "we should all be thick libertarians" train, Anthony views "thick" libertarianism in a pretty broad way. It's not just about enhancing libertarianism with a specific set of social preferences (ie. liberal egalitarianism, feminism, leftover ideas from the dregs of critical theory, etc.). In our conversation, he explained that a person who claimed that Austrian economic theory is more a part of libertarianism than Chicago School economics would be every bit as "thick" a libertarian as someone who claimed that libertarians must also embrace feminism or care about "social justice", because in each case, the person is claiming that there is more to libertarianism than simply not initiating force against others.<br />
<br />
Or... To quote Charles Johnson, one of the original users of the term in this context, <br />
<blockquote>
"...not only left libertarians defend the claim that libertarianism should be integrated into a comprehensive critique of prevailing social relations; so do paleolibertarians such as Gary North or Hans-Hermann Hoppe, when they make the equal but opposite claim that efforts to build a flourishing free society should be integrated with a rock-ribbed inegalitarian cultural and religious traditionalism."</blockquote>
In this conception of the word "thick", any set of concerns beyond freedom from government coercion that is greater than zero would be enough to label someone a "thick", or at least "thicker" libertarian.<br />
<br />
Fair enough... I'm mostly fine with this definition, though it is pretty broad and rests on at least one dubious claim. The premise that libertarians are concerned with "aggression", or the initiation of force, <i>only </i>when it is carried out by the state is horribly flawed.<br />
<br />
In fact, I would argue that that view explicitly confuses the philosophy in an extremely important way.<br />
<br />
Libertarians believe that all human beings should be bound by the same ethical rules regarding the use of force, and it is <i>because</i> these ethical rules are considered to be universal that we reject initiations of force against innocent people by government actors as well. Whatever is unethical for the private individual - ie. theft, murder, kidnapping, etc. - <i>remains</i> unethical when that individual has put on a government uniform. This separates us from most other political philosophies, since most inconsistently grant special authorities to the political class because they treat ethics as conditional on a person's role in society.<br />
<br />
As a primer, a few years ago <a href="http://redshiftmedia.com/">Red Shift Media</a> made this great animation to explain this idea:<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/PGMQZEIXBMs" width="640"></iframe><br />
<br />
Note both that the "NAP", such as it is, is a <i>conclusion</i> based on the premise of self-ownership, and that it <i>starts</i> with the private violations of liberty and proceeds to the more obfuscated state violations.<br />
<br />
Nearly <i>everyone</i> of any libertarian persuasion - as a foundational tenet of the philosophy - abhors coercive or rights-violating behavior wherever it is found, and in over 15 years of participating in this community, I have not met a single person who believes that it is the exclusive domain of the state.<br />
<br />
Have you ever met a libertarian who criticizes police brutality, but thinks that private domestic abuse is totally fine? Have you ever met a libertarian who thinks that taxation is unethical, but stealing someone's car is totally cool?<br />
<br />
I sure haven't.<br />
<br />
So I think it is a critical error to define libertarianism's core as being only - or even chiefly - concerned with "state" violence. It may be true that libertarians tend to spend more time talking about the state than private actors, but this certainly doesn't mean libertarians don't <i>care</i> about private coercion, it merely reflects a reality that the state is vastly more of a threat than random acts of private violence against people & property.<br />
<br />
The vast majority of libertarians I've ever met - even the thinnest of the thin - still don't support private acts of aggression as a matter of principle. And everybody has concerns beyond the issue of aggression, because we're all actually multi-faceted individuals.<br />
<br />
Without biasing the results, I would bet quite a lot that if you got together a bunch of self-identifying libertarians and surveyed them with questions like... <br />
<ul>
<li>Do you believe that certain kinds of social behaviors are more or less conducive to political freedom?</li>
<li>Do you believe that government is the only institution that can be coercive?</li>
<li>Do you oppose the initiation of force or coercion in social interactions as well as interactions with the state?</li>
<li>Even if non-aggression is the only thing that matters to make a society "libertarian", is that the only concern that you have when considering what makes a society that you want to live in?</li>
<li>Is child abuse wrong?</li>
</ul>
...their answers, in order, would almost uniformly be: <br />
<ul>
<li>Of course.</li>
<li>No. </li>
<li>Absolutely.</li>
<li>Duh.</li>
<li>Yes!</li>
</ul>
I believe this would be true of the overwhelming majority of libertarians regardless of whether or not they considered themselves thick, thin, or mesomorph.<br />
<br />
Everybody has preferences. And everybody I have ever met as a libertarian who has spent more than five minutes thinking about society realizes that there are numerous types of additional, non-coercive, behaviors which are broadly helpful to encouraging more freedom, yet which have nothing to do with libertarianism directly.<br />
<br />
Here is a relevant example. <br />
<blockquote>
Assume that <b>Society A </b>and <b>Society B </b>share the same legal protections on freedom of speech. You will not be arrested, prosecuted, or thrown in jail for anything that you say in either society. <br />
<br />
<b>Society A </b>is inviting of debate and civil discussion, and does not shout down opposing or unpopular viewpoints. People in <b>Society A </b>seem to genuinely enjoy boisterous and sometimes vigorous conversation, even when people's opinions are oppositional. <br />
<br />
<b>Society B </b>is hostile towards contentious discussion & debate, but the people do not support their disapproval with legal or social coercion. If you say something the people of <b>Society B </b>dislike, they will not threaten or act aggressively toward you, your family, or property. They will avoid you, maybe tell you to shut up, and make you feel unwelcome.</blockquote>
Given the above scenario, I would argue that the overwhelming majority of libertarians would say that they would both <i>prefer </i>to live in Society A, and that Society A seems more conducive to keeping speech free over the long term than does Society B.<br />
<br />
I would also argue, however, that while Society A is <i>preferable </i>for many reasons, it is not "more libertarian" than Society B in any meaningful sense.<br />
<br />
Neither society condones coercion at the state or societal level. So the preference of A over B isn't a preference built around a "libertarian" concern, but around extra-libertarian concerns which are - in some ways - tangential, but non-essential to defining the philosophy. Tons of behaviors and traits can be positive or negative for an individual or (arguably) a society <i>without</i> having anything at all to do with libertarianism.<br />
<br />
Practically speaking, this distinction matters a great deal, and not only do I think this separation of concepts is <i>okay</i>, I think it's good.<br />
<br />
More on that later, but first, a brief interlude:<br />
<span style="color: #073763;"><b>========================================================================</b><br />
</span><br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: #073763;"><b>SIDE NOTE: WHAT DOES 'COERCION' MEAN?</b></span><br />
<span style="color: #073763;"><br />
</span> <span style="color: #073763;">Since it's caused a massive amount of confusion to many people lately... <b>Coercion</b> is a specific term referring to a specific type of behavior. In short, I'm happy with the following definition:</span><br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: #073763;"><i>noun</i> </span><br />
<span style="color: #073763;">:: the practice of persuading someone to do something by using force or threats.</span></blockquote>
<span style="color: #073763;">However, since this definition was recently perplexing to someone I was talking to, let me follow this up by further defining that <i>force</i> in this context clearly means:</span><br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: #073763;"><i>noun</i></span><br />
<span style="color: #073763;">:: strength or power exerted upon an object; physical coercion; violence: to use force to open the window; to use force on a person.</span></blockquote>
<span style="color: #073763;">And... The word, <i>threat</i> refers specifically to:</span><br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: #073763;"><i>noun</i> </span><br />
<span style="color: #073763;">:: a statement of an intention to inflict pain, injury, damage, or other hostile action on someone in retribution for something done or not done.</span></blockquote>
<span style="color: #073763;">I am defining these terms not to invite even more debate over what they "actually" mean, but because quite frequently I have found that it is entirely impossible to have a discussion with a certain group of people wherein I use the word "coercion" and they don't conflate that concept with a million other - sometimes totally contradictory - ideas.</span><br />
<span style="color: #073763;"><br />
</span> <span style="color: #073763;">If you don't like my definition... Fine. But for the purposes of the discussion I'm trying to have right now, I will be using the word frequently, and I want to be absolutely clear about what I mean.</span><br />
<span style="color: #073763;"><br />
</span> <span style="color: #073763;"><b>Coercion is <i>physical violence</i>, and <i>threats of pain, injury, or other damage through the means of physical violence</i>.</b></span><br />
<span style="color: #073763;"><br />
</span> <span style="color: #073763;">We could theoretically have a more nuanced conversation about the specific point at which non-force or indirectly forceful behaviors become harassment and coercion, but these are special situations which describe a small subset of human interaction and which often need to be addressed case by case. They are the gray area, but it's not as much area or as complicated to define as many people think.</span><br />
<span style="color: #073763;"><br />
</span> <span style="color: #073763;">The important thing is that coercion does not generally encompass other concepts like (normal/mild forms of) "shaming", "seduction", "encouragement", "enticement" or any of the other ways in which people try to influence behavior without resorting to violence or threats of violence.</span><br />
<span style="color: #073763;"><br />
</span> <span style="color: #073763;">Capiche?</span><br />
<span style="color: #073763;"><br />
</span> <span style="color: #073763;">Okay.</span></blockquote>
<span style="color: #073763;"><b>========================================================================</b></span><br />
Now that that's out of the way, here's why my side-note matters:<br />
<br />
Libertarianism as an ethical philosophy is highly concerned with the <i>concept</i> of coercion, so we need to be clear about what that means. There are <i>many</i> varieties of libertarian thought that extend from numerous philosophical traditions, so there are a lot of premises one could rely on to reach the same conclusions, but fundamentally, the essence of it was summed up by John Locke four-hundred years ago: <br />
<blockquote>
"All mankind... being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions."</blockquote>
Or as I like to say it.... Libertarians hold a pretty basic ethic: "Don't hurt people, and don't take their stuff." <br />
<br />
Alternatively, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy describes libertarianism broadly as a philosophy predicated on the idea that people are self-owners, and: <br />
<blockquote>
"...that each agent has a right to maximum equal empirical negative liberty, where empirical negative liberty is the absence of forcible interference from other agents when one attempts to do things."</blockquote>
This is the core.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj33PtlVawTIOoy85jl8yBfXkCActkhDdYaUqYR7FIqYf5e8kxNt0w7_GXynF4-z33NkIJdIQOBNkntwrF9qFlUbTtFEFyncD__RUGAHywaR8QNcVQb-2Br-Dk12P1ZGOcG8b5UEh3hua8/s1600/L5b2TeB.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj33PtlVawTIOoy85jl8yBfXkCActkhDdYaUqYR7FIqYf5e8kxNt0w7_GXynF4-z33NkIJdIQOBNkntwrF9qFlUbTtFEFyncD__RUGAHywaR8QNcVQb-2Br-Dk12P1ZGOcG8b5UEh3hua8/s1600/L5b2TeB.jpg" width="320" /></a>Libertarianism is a political philosophy that deals rather specifically with the appropriate role of violence against individuals and their legitimate property in society. It outlines how people should interact with each other in very broad terms, and says - in essence - that the only ethical interactions between people are voluntary.<br />
<br />
American Libertarianism is a negative rights tradition... It's not merely the support of "liberty", whatever that means to whomever is using the term.<br />
<br />
The dividing line is coercion: Harming someone or threatening them in order to get them to do what you want is, therefore, <i>anti-libertarian</i>.<br />
<br />
The Non-Aggression Principle is really just a shorthand for this concept.<br />
<br />
This is often misunderstood, I think... Both by people who like and dislike the idea of the NAP. The Non-Aggression Principle is not a premise or an axiom (although it can be axiomatic). It is a conclusion about what's ethically best for humans. And really, it's a paraphrasing of many conclusions.<br />
<br />
And honestly, it's not even my favorite description of the libertarian ethic, but as shorthand goes, I think it's fine.<br />
<br />
You can be a libertarian and believe an enormous variety of other things about life and the pursuit of happiness. The <i>only</i> thing you cannot do is advocate for the use of coercion in order to support your other goals.<br />
<br />
And this brings us back to "thick" vs. "thin" libertarianism.<br />
<br />
The position I support, as outlined above, is what most people would refer to as a fairly "thin" philosophical position... I have no other concerns beyond a person's use of force when I am considering libertarianism <i>qua libertarianism.</i> As I will explain in a second, I think that this broadness and openness to a multitude of personal preferences is what makes it a good and robust political philosophy.<br />
<br />
<i> </i> But for many people, a thin libertarianism just isn't enough. Which brings me to...<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">LIBERTARIANISM+</span></b><br />
<br />
In one of the most prominent recent essays on this topic, Will Moyer's "<a href="http://willmoyer.com/the-limits-of-libertarianism/">The Limits of Libertarianism</a>", Moyer sums up his point as follows:<br />
<blockquote>
"While eliminating the state is a massive multi-generational project, it is in many ways only the first step. Human flourishing is the ultimate goal. And if libertarians think they can dust off their hands and head home just because the state is in ashes, they’re wrong. The state is the most obvious and brutal source of power and hierarchy, but it’s far from the only one. The state is a giant engine for deforming human culture, and what’s left over once it’s smashed isn’t a foregone conclusion. It will be up to humans to reshape and remake culture and society in the way that suits us best. This will have to include examinations of race, class, gender, sexuality, relationships, religion, social institutions, and traditions in the absence of the state apparatus. It will have to include disassembling other forms of hierarchy – both violent and non-violent."</blockquote>
In cartoon form, Moyer is basically saying this:<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhum5pADMjl0bSjAOR9f-0MwIvAGLaRhJEv_15AObjTwnt-7Xzh5Z9ecOnrx_plwfvl5TIz-p-qkTYrMmT6_qebyODejuT2iAo-30Dl7-jEoULLdwaG6NxgScl75EKOq1CYProgbw1ku2M/s1600/libertarian_freedom.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="620" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhum5pADMjl0bSjAOR9f-0MwIvAGLaRhJEv_15AObjTwnt-7Xzh5Z9ecOnrx_plwfvl5TIz-p-qkTYrMmT6_qebyODejuT2iAo-30Dl7-jEoULLdwaG6NxgScl75EKOq1CYProgbw1ku2M/s1600/libertarian_freedom.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It's a whole other blog post to explain why this is wrong, but lets start with the obvious: The state is the great amplifier of bigotry and poverty. Don't believe me? Go back up to the top of this and watch "Locked Out".</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Here we have the essence of what I think <i>most people </i>think modern "thick libertarians" actually believe, <i>and</i> where I think the real problems come in.<br />
<br />
And regardless of whether or not you consider Moyer's to be the only type of "thick" libertarianism (it's obviously not), it's certainly the only one anybody is really talking about right now. Perhaps you live a very different experience than I do, but <i>loads</i> of people talk to me on a daily basis about importing leftist egalitarian social values (and embarrassingly poor economics) into libertarianism... But literally no one talks to me about Hans-Hermann Hoppe.<br />
<br />
So this is where we have to shift focus.<br />
<br />
The issue is no longer simply about whether or not "thick" libertarianism <i>in general</i> makes sense - and I really think it doesn't - now we have to talk about a specific iteration of thick libertarianism... The type advocated by the Will Moyers of the world.<br />
<br />
I would describe it as follows:<br />
<br />
In this iteration, it's not enough to oppose the initiation of force or the coercion (which again, <i>yes</i>, "coercion" does mean something specific!<i>)</i> of people into doing things we wish them to do against their will and allow the world to be whatever it ends up being through voluntary means. To be better people, we must all <i>also </i>push for a world to conform to Moyer's specific view of what is best - which means "disassembling" all forms of "hierarchy"... Or in the parlance of "left-libertarian" high priest, Kevin Carson, "<a href="http://c4ss.org/content/14459">No Masters, No Bosses</a>".<br />
<br />
But here's the thing... What is "best" for society is unknown, highly debatable, and hotly debated.<br />
<br />
For me, it's a <b>good thing</b> that libertarianism is not a prescriptive philosophy beyond rejecting the use of coercion and initiating violence!<br />
<br />
It doesn't tell you what religion you have to be, what you have to think about global warming, or whether or not you should spend your time gardening and hiking in the woods or playing video games in your air conditioned man-cave. It doesn't dictate to people what types of ends they should be using their freedom to pursue, merely that everyone should always be free to pursue the ends of their choosing - provided that they don't inhibit anyone else's freedom to do the same.<br />
<br />
What's so great about this is that it's the one political philosophy where Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindi's, Atheists... Hell, even Raelians, can come together and choose their own versions of what makes a fully-realized human, and pursue those independent philosophical ends.<br />
<br />
I think this is libertarianism's biggest <i>strength</i>, not a weakness.<br />
<br />
All this talk of what libertarians "should" believe beyond the idea that their interactions with others should be voluntary, only serves to divide what is otherwise the biggest tent imaginable - the ideal of human freedom. <br />
<br />
So, circling back to the "No Masters, No Bosses" idea and the elimination of hierarchies, not to mention the infusion of tragically collectivist feminism, intersectionality, critical theory, and all the other leftist claptrap that is currently en vogue in some parts of the libertarian community is a little troubling to me.<br />
<br />
Can you be a libertarian and hate hierarchies? Of course.<br />
Can you be a libertarian and a feminist? Yep.<br />
Can you be a libertarian and spend all day talking about privilege? Sure.<br />
Can you be a libertarian and think that racism is the defining issue of our time? Absolutely.<br />
<br />
"Should you" be a libertarian and all of those things? Wellllllllllllllllllllll........ I'm not so sure.<br />
<br />
One of the things that makes libertarian ideas more robust when actually applied in societies is that freedom and individualism leads to - <a href="http://reason.com/blog/2013/01/20/nassim-taleb-talks-antifragile-libertari">in Nassem Taleb's words</a> - a kind of "anti-fragility".<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/ehXxoUH1AlM" width="640"></iframe><br />
<br />
This is an extremely Hayekian sort of a point, but in short, the fact that a free society is one in which everyone is pursuing their own values and goals and where different people are experimenting with different models of entrepreneurship, financial arrangements, marital & personal relationships, different types of social communities, and applying their own unique twists on every other aspect of life is <b>good</b>, precisely because none of us knows perfectly what is "best" for ourselves and certainly not for others.<br />
<br />
We're all pursuing different aims, and the aggregate of different people's actions is what we call "culture", "the economy", and rather importantly: "society". And what is beautiful about the libertarian political philosophy is that it opens the door to millions - billions, even - of individual experiments on how best to live life.<br />
<br />
Since the only unifying trait libertarians - to be libertarians - must share in common, is a commitment to allowing voluntary interactions between people to take place unabated, everyone who does not impose their will on others by force or threats of force can be rightly considered "libertarians" and exist under the tent together.<br />
<br />
But this doesn't, and indeed, probably <i>cannot </i>mean that we all actually <b>agree</b> with each other on what "best" looks like.<br />
<br />
Libertarianism is - contrary to its detractors' claims - <b>NOT a utopian philosophy</b>.<br />
<br />
Unity, equality of outcomes and status, and other egalitarian concerns really only come from the barrel of a gun.<br />
<br />
A free society is a diverse society. Sorry.<br />
<br />
So some people may very well hate hierarchies and want to earn their living working in a communal cooperative, horizontally-structured, worker-owned business. But then, many others do like hierarchies... The bosses bear the risk, reap most of the rewards, and are responsible for tough decisions, while the employees are rewarded less financially, but often earn a comfortable living without the stress of management or the huge risk of failure.<br />
<br />
Some businesses may function best horizontally - <a href="http://www.inc.com/welcome.html?destination=http://www.inc.com/issie-lapowsky/zappos-gets-rid-of-managers.html">the folks at Zappos</a> seem to think so. But many others don't, because they need fewer cooks in their management kitchen.<br />
<br />
To demand that everyone must abandon all hierarchies - even voluntarily - is to miss the Hayekian lesson at play here.<br />
<br />
The same problem exists when "left-libertarians" start telling everyone that they <i>must</i> take up metaphorical arms against the so-called "Patriarchy", or adopt feminism and critical race theory into their world-view. Apart from the fact that most of the arguments presented from those schools of thought feature more holes than the best block of Jarlsberg, telling other people what they "should" believe in order to be better - or "thicker" - libertarians is still kind of ridiculous.<br />
<br />
Social preferences also vary widely.<br />
<br />
Some people want to be monogamous, some polygamous, some gay, some straight, some bisexual or pansexual, some people are asexual. Some people like guns, others like sports, some like the ballet and art museums, some people like to surf, others like to sit at home and play video-games...<br />
<br />
In the immortal words of Hoban Washburne: <br />
<blockquote>
"Some people juggle geese!"</blockquote>
<i>And that's ok!</i><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
</div>
But here's the real shocker... It's <i>even </i>ok when you think other people's preferences are negative. Individuals have just as much right to believe that certain behaviors in themselves and others are <i>wrong</i> as they do to believe some are <i>right</i>. And as long as they don't use violence to impose their views on other people, they can voice their opinions and advocate for their version of the kind of society they want to see.<br />
<br />
That is, this is how people behave in a peaceful society... And I'm a libertarian because I don't want any other kind.<br />
<br />
Decentralization is good. Humility is good. We <i>don't </i>all know what's best.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3byPv0-vbNn54usNyQmak-PBmPp3rT_87AV8izlkYTQwjGW6LhsY23rTdP_nrrTWl3x9J0E2ZJhFDXvno8sxOP7Lvha8tcek5-ZU2InvIK0UJN9jl9nh-fPaJBBIuJk8oC8NHSJKgyV8/s1600/tumblr_m5tzpeFide1rqlfp9.gif" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="172" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3byPv0-vbNn54usNyQmak-PBmPp3rT_87AV8izlkYTQwjGW6LhsY23rTdP_nrrTWl3x9J0E2ZJhFDXvno8sxOP7Lvha8tcek5-ZU2InvIK0UJN9jl9nh-fPaJBBIuJk8oC8NHSJKgyV8/s1600/tumblr_m5tzpeFide1rqlfp9.gif" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Thick-libertarians to everyone else... Who needs friends?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Demanding that all "libertarians" suddenly adopt a single set of additional, non-essential, preferences in order to conform to one vision is really missing the point of what it means to be free individuals and is pointlessly divisive within an already fractional and marginalized community.<br />
<br />
This doesn't mean that self-identified left-libertarians can't comment on other people's lives, or that they can't have an opinion on what's good or bad for other people to do. Of <i>course</i> they can, and I think <i>should,</i> advocate for the world they want to see.<br />
<br />
Without employing violence, or threats of violence, everyone is still left with a myriad number of ways to get people to come around to their preferences. Enticing people into liking what you like is great. Persuasion & seduction are totally fine. But so too are the non-coercive forms of negative reinforcement - like shaming and mockery, even ostracism in some cases.<br />
<br />
So Will Moyer can rail against heirarchies. My former partner can spend her days misinforming people with the latest fact-free Tumblr slacktivism crusade. But this should be <i>separate</i> from the issue of libertarianism. Creating a new "Libertarianism+" as I'd like to call it just doesn't make any sense. In case you miss the reference, I'm comparing this newfound left-libertarian "thickness" to Atheism+ the PZ Myers-led infusion of lefty progressivism into Atheism, as if a lack of belief in a god requires someone to agree with specifically progressive ideas on tax-policy.<br />
<br />
As an atheist and a libertarian, I think such ideas are completely idiotic.<br />
<br />
Thus I also think it's idiotic to believe libertarians should also retain a set of leftist egalitarian social values. It ruins everything robust and anti-fragile about the philosophy while polarizing people into factions, creating enmity, and sowing discord.<br />
<br />
And on top of that, many of the ideas most of those folks are supporting are absurd to boot.<br />
<br />
Personally, I think you're a <i>much</i> better person if you are nice to people, and don't treat anyone any differently on the basis of anything other than traits like honesty, generosity, intelligence, and kindness.<br />
<br />
But if you choose another set of values to live by, and by which to judge your relationships with others, as long as you don't impose those values on everyone else by force, you can still be a libertarian... Yes, even if you have beliefs I think are incredibly stupid, or even mean.<br />
<br />
Just don't threaten violence, injury, pain, harm, torture, imprisonment, etc., or actually carry out those threats in order to get people do what you want them to do, and you get to be a part of the libertarian tent.<br />
<br />
It's that simple.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>BEST PRACTICES IN MARKETING</b></span><br />
<br />
Ok. One more thing.<br />
<br />
Now that I've established that I think "thick" libertarianism of any kind is kind of a mistake, depending on how broadly you view that idea; and now that I've explained why I think that the type of thickness most people are advocating for right now tends to be especially absurd, I want to make a couple points about marketing.<br />
<br />
This is <b>not</b> a point about libertarian philosophy. It's a point about how people <i>perceive</i> libertarians and what we can do to affect that perception.<br />
<br />
I've been talking about this issue publicly for over 5 years. In 2009, on this blog, I wrote about why "<a href="http://seanwmalone.blogspot.com/2009/11/time-for-free-marketers-to-learn-about.html">It's Time for Free Marketer's to Learn About Advertising!</a>" and I have been putting my money where my mouth is ever since.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYpl3i7NYxG5kfIwMslIl6807KmssNOI6BAKjt2m-0a9SCI6kJPdL7lappXF0mAhmn4HucZwXSBQe-7-65GZyk6hRrkGm6XVFxIJ4KPAUOJAT61kKFdABFPndcy8eHjcEhL93R87AvQYU/s1600/Marketing+Inspiration-04.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYpl3i7NYxG5kfIwMslIl6807KmssNOI6BAKjt2m-0a9SCI6kJPdL7lappXF0mAhmn4HucZwXSBQe-7-65GZyk6hRrkGm6XVFxIJ4KPAUOJAT61kKFdABFPndcy8eHjcEhL93R87AvQYU/s1600/Marketing+Inspiration-04.jpg" width="247" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is NOT a philosophical point about<br />
libertarianism. It's a practical point about<br />
marketing libertarian ideas.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The kind of person you are and the way you carry yourself in your interactions with others matters, and the fact is, most people do not judge a philosophy of any type by it's content. They judge it based on the actions and words of its adherents, and by their interactions with the people who fit the philosophy's label.<br />
<br />
If people's primary association with libertarians leads them to believe that we are a bunch of obnoxious, rude, mean, bigoted jerks who lack empathy or concern for others, they will assume that this is a product of our philosophy. If the majority of libertarians they meet believe in conspiracy theories, they'll assume our philosophy is the province of conspiracy loons.<br />
<br />
So purely as a point of marketing, there are some people I wish were more prevalent and vocal about libertarian ideas, and many people I wish would not talk about it with anybody.<br />
<br />
For better or worse, if you're a libertarian, you're a part of our community and you're contributing to community culture. We are not separate from culture. We <i>are</i> culture. What we do defines it. And as a part of our community, you're representing everyone - not just yourself - every time you talk to people about it. So just take some time and think about what you say and how you say it.<br />
<br />
Here are a few do's & don'ts from my perspective.<br />
<br />
<b>DO:</b><br />
<ul>
<li>Try to be polite, kind, and patient</li>
<li>Present your ideas positively, offering solutions and benefits instead just talking about problems</li>
<li>Be welcoming of all people and conversations</li>
<li>Have a high threshold for stress and frustration</li>
<li>Pay attention to pop-culture and current events</li>
<li>Have fun and maintain a sense of humor</li>
<li>Make friends, not enemies</li>
<li>LISTEN TO OTHERS</li>
</ul>
<div>
<b>DON'T:</b></div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Be angry, unnecessarily spiteful, or rude</li>
<li>Say unnecessarily offensive things</li>
<li>Generalize based on race, gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation</li>
<li>Promote conspiracy theories and tenuous connections between events and people</li>
<li>Be overly negative or condescending</li>
<li>Lie or build your case on fallacies or false evidence</li>
</ul>
</div>
None of us will ever be perfect about any of this, but being concerned with the experiences of others is valuable, and if you want to support any set of ideas publicly, you must be credible. And while my Do's & Don'ts won't make you better at being a libertarian, I think they will make you a better advocate for libertarianism.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1Q-Cd6GRHnEl8qAjqCYrO4mMAdKuX5JaQQYS1_SBkwEZBBXj0x-K_xLLt-HoUMmYOGmV_1RreLJxtb8J9AqXZnZMju6oW7JXGkT5ZUlDX3viSM8IveGDkGaAuSiHqiyPe9OxOW4Ql_Jk/s1600/Marketing+Inspiration-02.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1Q-Cd6GRHnEl8qAjqCYrO4mMAdKuX5JaQQYS1_SBkwEZBBXj0x-K_xLLt-HoUMmYOGmV_1RreLJxtb8J9AqXZnZMju6oW7JXGkT5ZUlDX3viSM8IveGDkGaAuSiHqiyPe9OxOW4Ql_Jk/s1600/Marketing+Inspiration-02.jpg" width="308" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The "customer" is the one you want to buy your ideas.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<i>Please,</i> do consider the things you believe and the way you act, especially if you want to increase human liberty broadly. The goal shouldn't just be to get as many people riled up as possible... The goal should be to get new people curious and interested in your ideas <i>without</i> - wherever possible - alienating anyone. That's how we get net gains... and <i>net gains</i> are the goal.<br />
<br />
Red-meat rallying cries and polemic bromides may get some people excited, but they turn other people off just as quickly. This is as true for radical feminists as it is for conservative Christians.<br />
<br />
In short... Just try to be cool, guys.<br />
<br />
Finally, the last piece of advice I have ties everything back to the beginning of this post. There is one more thing that I desperately wish everyone would start doing and really take to heart.<br />
<br />
To be blunt, nearly everyone who currently spends most of their time telling other libertarians what they "should be doing" to promote freedom in society has absolutely no credibility.<br />
<br />
There's an epidemic of people seriously lacking in money-mouth.<br />
<br />
People who don't have any experience working with, talking to, or presenting ideas publicly to people who aren't already in the club without alienating 50% of their audiences and creating enemies have <i>absolutely </i>no business telling other libertarians how it's done. Until these folks stop exclusively criticizing their allies from inside the bubble, and actually start trying to present ideas to the unconverted in a meaningful way, there's just no reason to take most of these people seriously.<br />
<br />
Internal challenge and debate is important, but remember that the point of the whole thing is about engendering a free society and to do that people across the political and philosophical spectrum need to be <i>convinced </i>to become more libertarian. That doesn't happen if all we do is bitch at each other.<br />
<br />
If you spend all your time writing essays (like this one, ironically enough) analyzing "the movement" and telling other people in our own community what they're doing wrong, you're not spending that time actually making a case for freedom to the people who matter - the people who don't already understand and agree with the core ideas.<br />
<br />
Don't just keep bickering with your friends. Make a movie, write a book, do a podcast or a radio show, learn an academic discipline and teach a class, do some original reporting...<br />
<br />
Do <i>something</i>, and do it for non-libertarian audiences.<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.sean-malone.com</div>Sean W. Malonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07652434357640171842noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5098030884495656852.post-20900452139614239932014-04-06T16:41:00.000-07:002014-04-06T19:58:08.312-07:00Freedom, Brendan Eich, and the Outrage Machine<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJgXn5fhuMKNKYUeSuHAEsIV7SS_47tv8riacmnlTZ00_CpBvDRpkGkWFF-NzrEBEwNBkLkhDifQylNOcVPqudeQFuQp1bGf6K9eX8iVEv2uT-SIrQZ2GY1jFXMLNY6oxrbFiu3mVoIWo/s1600/brendan-eich.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJgXn5fhuMKNKYUeSuHAEsIV7SS_47tv8riacmnlTZ00_CpBvDRpkGkWFF-NzrEBEwNBkLkhDifQylNOcVPqudeQFuQp1bGf6K9eX8iVEv2uT-SIrQZ2GY1jFXMLNY6oxrbFiu3mVoIWo/s1600/brendan-eich.jpg" height="200" width="200" /></a>Recently in the news, Mozilla (makers of the Firefox web-browser, among other pretty good products) hired a new CEO - Brendan Eich - who, apart from being an excellent computer programmer (he created JavaScript) and by most accounts, a fine manager of technology companies, is also an opponent of gay marriage. In 2008, he apparently donated $1,000 in support of California's Proposition 8 to ban gay marriage in the state.<br />
<br />
California requires non-profit organizations to disclose their donor lists, so some folks looked it up and when word recently got out, the internet threw a massive hissy fit and demanded that Mozilla fire him as CEO.<br />
<br />
Even the dating website <a href="https://www.blogger.com/www.okcupid.com">OKCupid</a> stopped making their site available via Firefox in protest. Instead of finding an inbox full of unsolicited pick up lines, OK Cupid users trying to access the website via Firefox saw this image:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi3SLbi-Sc11xX2OEOb8tNiyUW4nLXTpuY2F6NMsNa536gtW4X2ZAtsngeQRdsDUzS4RQcKgioFc8CntQaXQoCHTLKp0wwD4NdTcrXJKogNQ6HtMX2jzKazlpmcTgKwhlFYGJIcqARDxo/s1600/ok-cupid.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi3SLbi-Sc11xX2OEOb8tNiyUW4nLXTpuY2F6NMsNa536gtW4X2ZAtsngeQRdsDUzS4RQcKgioFc8CntQaXQoCHTLKp0wwD4NdTcrXJKogNQ6HtMX2jzKazlpmcTgKwhlFYGJIcqARDxo/s1600/ok-cupid.jpg" height="320" width="304" /></a></div>
A few days later, Eich <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/04/03/brendan-eich-steps-down-as-mozilla-ceo/">announced</a> that he would resign.<br />
<br />
This caused a lot of uproar from a lot of different people. Many Christians are predictably upset because they feel like it's yet another battle in the "war on religion". Several conservatives I know have taken to derisively pointing out supposed liberal "hypocrisy" and lack of "tolerance".<br />
<br />
And to be honest, they have a point about the hypocrisy.<br />
<br />
Some other notable people who - in 2008 - likewise supported the essence of Proposition 8 publicly included Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and strangely, yet nobody in the progressive crowd called for Obama to be fired. And his job is actually relevant to this kind of discussion.<br />
<br />
Apart from that, some progressive friends are excited because to them it's a victory for Social Justice™ and comeuppance for those nasty religious conservative bigots. A few are excited because they do have a war on religious people (well... Christian religious people), and see Eich resigning as a victory for that too.<br />
<br />
Some reactions are more interesting. D.J. Grothe, a gay friend of mine and the head of the atheist/skeptic organization, the James Randi Educational Foundation, found Eich's resignation to be disconcerting. He wrote:<br />
<blockquote>
"Terrifying in a free society. Should everyone who shared his wrong-headed pro-Prop 8 views at the time (he donated $1,000) now be drummed out of a job? The majority of Californians agreed with him then. When a victim group is made sacred and gains some power, there is inevitably an overreach to punish those whose unsupportive convictions aren't "approved." The way to advance social justice should not be punishing those who don't align ideologically, but by changing minds through good argument."</blockquote>
Later, gay blogger Andrew Sullivan said:<br />
<blockquote>
"If this is the gay rights movement today – hounding our opponents with a fanaticism more like the religious right than anyone else – then count me out. If we are about intimidating the free speech of others, we are no better than the anti-gay bullies who came before us."</blockquote>
Both of those points are important, and I think quite true in some meaningful ways... but to be honest, I think George Takei expressed as close to my view as anybody:<br />
<blockquote>
"Well, that was fast. OkCupid's strong stance surely helped. And staffers at Mozilla who'd protested, and company directors who'd resigned as a result of his appointment, can now work in a hate-free zone.<br />
<br />
And a quick civics primer: Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences. This man donated money to a campaign designed to keep LGBT people from full equality and to deny our families equal rights under the law. He was free to make that choice, but we are free to hold him accountable. If he'd donated money to White Supremacists to help outlaw interracial marriage, there'd be little outcry over his ouster."</blockquote>
Tragically, George Takei can sometimes be a stopped clock on freedom issues. Right twice a day, but wrong the rest of the time. This is - fortunately - one of those times that he's right. <br />
<br />
For me, this is a nuanced issue, only because I think it's a little petty and possibly callous to try to oust Brendan Eich for such a small donation to a cause that millions of other people also supported in California. But from a libertarian standpoint, I not only don't have a problem with it, I'm going to happily use it as an example that demonstrates a point I've made for years: Freedom of association & markets will destroy bigotry and discrimination.<br />
<br />
Prop 8 passed when I was living in California. I was a voter at that time (I'm not anymore) and I voted against it. Incidentally, the year I voted against Proposition 8, I earned a <i>spotless </i>record of being on the losing side of every single initiative and candidate I voted on in the state. Among other things, I voted against a bond for cops, against an <a href="http://reason.com/archives/2012/07/02/5-reasons-the-california-high-speed-rail">expensive train boondoggle</a>, and for the decriminalization of marijuana.<br />
<br />
The voters of California went the other way on everything... Including gay marriage.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifkKNrIufLenD3ltq1BsbCMWvfacnxoKzdTzd1XBxXMxzZa339Eemk7AkW-AsmLPzxLTWlhlJ-qs5sH8M0Xq1wsm1QMcOS81dasvI7d6qW6dfCcgRFjDApqXQIpwFwTc5vos9-eEJoTck/s1600/ted-olson.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifkKNrIufLenD3ltq1BsbCMWvfacnxoKzdTzd1XBxXMxzZa339Eemk7AkW-AsmLPzxLTWlhlJ-qs5sH8M0Xq1wsm1QMcOS81dasvI7d6qW6dfCcgRFjDApqXQIpwFwTc5vos9-eEJoTck/s1600/ted-olson.jpg" height="200" width="160" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Theodor Olson</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I'm also <i>very </i>proud to say that one of the main attorneys who ultimately got Proposition 8 struck down in court, Ted Olson, works for Koch Industries as well. There's a documentary out about that right now called "<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3264024/">The Case Against 8</a>" if anyone is interested.<br />
<br />
The point is, in no way do I have any love for people who want to restrict others' right to freedom of association and contract, which clearly includes the right of anyone to marry whomever they want. If you're human and can be considered of sound mind and held responsible for your actions, you should be able to arrange your life however you see fit and enter into agreements with others in any way you wish - provided, of course, that you don't harm or impede others' ability to do the same.<br />
<br />
I would be happiest to see marriage taken out of the realm of the state entirely. No more government-issued marriage licenses, no special benefits for married people, etc., but until that happens, it's not too much to ask that the law is applied evenly.<br />
<br />
So... I'm not interested in defending Brendan Eich's views.<br />
<br />
What's more, Brendan Eich's political donations were to a cause that directly restricted human freedom, which changes the nature of his role from merely voicing an "opinion", to contributing (albeit in a very small way) to government restrictions on people's freedom of association. That is something that should be stopped.<br />
<br />
But it <b>was </b>stopped. Prop 8 was struck down.<br />
<br />
And this is where my view gets more nuanced. Prop 8 should never have been an issue. In a free society, people get to choose whom they interact with and under what terms... Period. A free society does not give the state power to be selective about who is allowed to sign any type of contract, including for marriage, and who isn't. So, a free society would not have given Brendan Eich's political contribution any power in the first place.<br />
<br />
But we don't live in that society.<br />
<br />
Instead, we live in a society where the state <i>is</i> involved in being selective about things like marriage. So it was completely within the realm of political possibility for groups to lobby for making sure the state restricted some people's right to association and contract. And that gave people like Brendan Eich the power to turn their opinions into force.<br />
<br />
Or more specifically, into maintaining the de facto status quo of forcibly restricting gay people from legally marrying each other.<br />
<br />
But... Society has also moved forward (ie. towards freedom) on this issue. And as usual, it's moved on a hell of a lot faster than the political system. Now we live in an America where, if not the literal majority, the majority of cultural leaders no longer tolerate anti-gay restrictions... Or, it would seem, the people who want to impose them. Even if - like Brendan Eich - those people weren't really integral to the creation or passage of the laws in question.<br />
<br />
When Mozilla hired Eich as CEO, backlash against his personal political views was strong enough to scare that company's board of directors into asking him to step down. An example has been made, and as far as I can tell, it was all done without the force of the state needing to be involved.<br />
<br />
The market had spoken.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
But - and this is crucial to understand here - Eich <i>wasn't </i>censored. He wasn't thrown in jail for his views. He wasn't banished or exiled, and he wasn't physically harmed or coerced. Nothing which was rightfully his was taken from him.<br />
<br />
Mozilla owns the job, not Eich. And after seeing the reaction of their customers to his appointment as CEO, the people who control Mozilla decided that Eich wasn't right for them after all, thus hopefully placating their users; the only people they are really obliged to make happy, assuming that they hope to remain in business for long.<br />
<br />
This is truly a first-rate case of how the market tears down wrongful discrimination, while government only ensconces it. And as an example of the power of voluntary society to rid the world of bad ideas, I appreciate what happened here.<br />
<br />
However......... With all that said, I think it's kind of sad that this particular case went the way it did.<br />
<br />
Eich hardly seems like a worthy target of outrage. He gave a paltry sum of money to a cause he believed in; which was also (stupidly) within the scope of the law, and which was still supported by popular opinion at the time. Plus, Eich's job has no bearing on gay-related politics. It's not like Eich was about to elected to political office where his views could turn into laws that restrict others' lives. He's just tasked with running a tech company that he helped to build, and which as far as I can tell, never even discriminated in its hiring practices or business dealings.<br />
<br />
So are we really so intolerant of dissent from the approved views that we'll lash out in outrage whenever someone supports an idea we dislike?<br />
<br />
Is simply denying Eich a CEO job punishment enough, or should he atone for his thought crimes further in some way? Should he be allowed to have a job at all? What about the people who ultimately do hire them? Should we boycott their products? What if they only hire him as a janitor?<br />
<br />
What penance will placate this particular mob?<br />
<br />
I don't know... And honestly, I'm getting tired of the outrage machine that has infected so much of American society. Some will call me a "thin" libertarian, or perhaps a "brutalist" for this point, but we need to be a little more laissez faire about people who don't agree with our personal moral standards. It's ok that some people don't think homosexuality is right. It's ok if not everyone agrees on morality or has differing viewpoints on the ways individuals, and humans as a species, <i>should</i> behave. It's ok to have plurality of ideas on human society and interaction. It's just not ok to use force to have your way at the expense of all other views.<br />
<br />
A free society can handle dissent and disagreement, and it can handle people who have stupid reasons for disliking others.<br />
<br />
For the most part, the people we disagree with need to be convinced otherwise, not just bullied or ousted from employment. Though I do think shaming can be a useful tool in the arsenal of those wishing to see changes in public opinion. Stetson Kennedy proved that well enough when <a href="http://seanwmalone.blogspot.com/2010/02/new-blog-series-bad-movie-logic.html">Superman fought the KKK</a> on the radio.<br />
<br />
But let's pick our battles more carefullly.<br />
<br />
I will always be the first to stand up against anyone who wishes to use an authority of law & violence to restrict other people's freedoms. I stood against Eich's desired policy aims in California at the time, and I stand against them today. But beyond that, I think the desire to see someone like Eich experience lasting harm and to banish him from other parts of life is itself motivated by hatred, anger, and malevolence... Not out of a desire to see freedom for gay people expanded.<br />
<br />
So when it comes down to it, I agree with Takei in that freedom of speech does not mean freedom from experiencing consequences from what you say or do. But I think there remains an open question as to what those consequences should really be. Surely we don't want to live in a world where every person who thinks something that the masses dislike must be shamed and boycotted into poverty.<br />
<br />
I want to see more interaction and inclusion, not more division and animosity whenever people differ in core beliefs. I welcome the opportunity to talk to people like Eich. Even if I could not convince him that gay marriage is a lovely thing on its own, I would hope I could convince him that using the state to restrict their freedom of association is a bad idea.<br />
<br />
In short, I would hope to make him more of a libertarian.<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.sean-malone.com</div>Sean W. Malonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07652434357640171842noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5098030884495656852.post-65033434563332408022014-02-17T20:15:00.002-08:002014-02-17T20:18:18.693-08:00LEGO Update: What do the critics say?Oi vey.<br />
<br />
More libertarian delusions popped up today about The LEGO Movie, so I thought I'd look to see if I'm, in fact, right in my assumption that non-libertarians aren't seeing it through a libertarian lens. There are plenty of reviews out now - the film has an impressive 96% on Rotten Tomatoes - so I figured that a smattering of pull quotes from non-libertarian reviewers might be interesting.<br />
<br />
Specifically, I wanted to grab anything that constituted a statement about themes & messages. There area few categories that these fall into. The most common seems to be related to my first-place noted theme "Play with LEGOs, they're super fun!!" plus several observations of the irony of a movie that is, itself, epic product placement with an overt anti-corporate message. <br />
<br />
Note:<br />
<blockquote>"Is it a touch off-message that—in connection with this giddy paean to individual imagination and not following instructions—Lego is releasing a series of complex movie-themed construction sets (The Getaway Glider, Cloud Cuckoo Palace, etc.)? Well, yes it is. But what can you do? It’s strictly business. Lord Business."<br />
-<i>Christopher Orr, The Atlantic</i></blockquote><blockquote>"It certainly works as a feature-length Lego commercial, but it also doubles as a feature-length reminder of how toys can serve as catalysts for creativity, letting kids get lost in worlds the toymakers never imagined."<br />
-<i>Keith Phipps, The Dissolve</i></blockquote><blockquote>"...the picture celebrates the product while sending it up and subverting corporate and consumer culture of which the The Lego Movie itself is a part."<br />
-<i>Henry Fitzherbert, Express</i></blockquote><blockquote>"Mostly the film does the madness for you and it isn’t just a product-placing madness. A certain Danish toy giant will benefit – no one can doubt – from the flocking through turnstiles of the entire world filmgoing population (judging from box office returns so far). But in a 100-minute fit of colour, comedy and surreal invention, the good craziness overpowers the greedy kind."<br />
-<i>Nigel Andrews, The Financial Times</i></blockquote>Another thing a lot of reviewers talk about is simply the childhood nostalgia of it all.<br />
<blockquote>"Most of all, the film reminds us that no matter how old we are, we can still tap into our childhood curiosity."<br />
-<i>Rich Cline, www.contactmusic.com</i></blockquote><blockquote>"It's possibly one of the most entertaining films about nostalgia to emerge from the studio system since Disney decided to crank the The Muppets back into bittersweet action in 2012."<br />
-<i>Chris Blohm, www.littlewhitelies.com</i></blockquote><blockquote>"The film functions as a massive homage to a shared childhood experience, amplified and projected on the bigscreen. So, while the result is undoubtedly the single most product-centric film of all time, it’s also just hip and irreverent enough to leave audiences feeling as though its makers managed to pull one over on the business guys. They’ve gotten away with something, upholding and expanding the worldwide Cult of Lego — the plot literally serves to cement the right and wrong way to play with the product — while good-naturedly skewering consumer culture at large."<br />
-<i>Peter Debruge, Variety</i></blockquote>Note here that the Variety reviewer (<i>again, this is Variety</i>!) sees 1) nostalgic fun of children playing LEGOs in a film that is built around LEGO product-placement; and 2) a moderately ironic anti-corporate/anti-consumer message. It's there... Though it is certainly not a terribly heavy or awful one.<br />
<br />
That's not to say no one saw a free-play & creativity vs. control & fascism message. A few of them certainly recognized that:<br />
<blockquote>"The movie also delivers a nice message about balancing creativity with a follow-the-rules approach to life."<br />
- <i>Bill Zwecker, Chicago Sun-Times</i></blockquote><blockquote>"They must outsmart and outrun the evil President Business, better known as Lord Business, who wants the piece for himself to maintain order and separation between all the Lego realms. So yeah, he’s kind of a fascist tyrant. But in the hands of Will Ferrell, he’s also hilariously self-serious.<br />
...<br />
'The Lego Movie' message of thinking for yourself and trying new things may sound a lot like theme of “The Croods” last year, but it presents this notion in a much more lively and clever manner."<br />
-<i>Christy Lemire, www.christylemire.com</i></blockquote>But again, since President/Lord Business is the avatar of Fascism, what exactly is that saying to kids? "Think for yourself, try new things... Don't be a fascist, like those evil businessmen."<br />
<br />
There's also a whole subset of reviewers who see the film - as I did - as certainly a lot of fun, but otherwise essentially mindless with a stock bad guy businessman. <br />
<blockquote>"Serving as the idealistic heart of the picture is Emmet (endearingly voiced by Pratt) a sweet but generic regular guy of a LEGO minifigure with a prodigiously empty mind, blissfully content to let instruction manuals be his guide.<br />
<br />
And that’s just the way President Business (Ferrell) wants it. A control freak of a CEO with world domination on his mind, his obsessive disdain for creative expression has turned him into the maniacal Lord Business, whose bidding his carried out by the swivel-headed Bad Cop/Good Cop (Liam Neeson)."<br />
-<i>Michael Rechtshaffen, Hollywood Reporter</i></blockquote>So............ I say again. I <i><b>do not</b></i> see an obviously libertarian message here. It doesn't appear that very many reviewers - certainly not the mainstream ones - see it either. The little bit of free-society jive in the movie is overshadowed by several far more important themes, and the lesson for little kids are basically what I said in my first post.<br />
<br />
I'm not saying it's not a fun movie, or that you shouldn't go see it. By all means... Go! Have fun. Apparently, you should see the 3D, because I'm told it's great. But good lord, libertarian friends... Quit reading hidden messages into anything and everything.<br />
<br />
At least, don't assume that anybody else is seeing what you see.<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.sean-malone.com</div>Sean W. Malonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07652434357640171842noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5098030884495656852.post-72422589598265228602014-01-29T19:45:00.003-08:002014-01-29T19:51:19.378-08:00Hey ACLU, why not try reading the bill first?Apparently the ACLU writer, Jenny Lee, who wrote a recent article titled: "<a href="https://www.aclu.org/blog/reproductive-freedom-womens-rights/alabama-hospitals-pregnant-women-sorry-honey-we-wont-help">Alabama Hospitals To Pregnant Women – "Sorry, honey, we won’t help you here.</a>" couldn't actually be bothered to read the bill she was reporting on.<br />
<br />
Her article kicks off with some first-rate fear mongering:<br />
<blockquote>
"It's what every pregnant woman fears. There she is excited to be pregnant for the first time. She is finally getting over the morning sickness, and she and her husband have just shared the happy news with their friends and family. Then, one night the unimaginable happens. She is lying in bed and she begins to feel immense pain and cramping. She knows something isn't right. She goes to the bathroom and she sees blood. Quickly, she wakes up her husband and the two of them rush to the emergency room.<br />
<br />
All miscarriages can be devastating. But, for women in Alabama, this nightmare could soon get a lot worse. This week, the Alabama Senate is set to consider a cruel bill (HB 31) that would permit the hospital staff, including any doctor, nurse, counselor, or lab technician, to refuse to participate in any phase of patient medical care related to ending a pregnancy, even if that is what a patient like this woman needs to protect her own health and future fertility.<br />
<br />
Yes, you heard that right. Under this law, if you or a loved one is pregnant and go to an emergency room in Alabama because of serious complications, every medical professional in that emergency room could refuse to help you if the care you needed to protect you from serious harm to your health required ending the pregnancy."</blockquote>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTORgSR2XoGK46hhWhL1k8QF5dQfDYm7LpJmH9b6mxyWrXsIhmHNV1na-YGHtEO9N0l0U3ykZoKPUWJ7rsuhZyqIc17PNW-ia1c_QZWbUOT3AkwI2wF8vdG6_ra29qwTefBdEEotVqRvQ/s1600/Liar-Liar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTORgSR2XoGK46hhWhL1k8QF5dQfDYm7LpJmH9b6mxyWrXsIhmHNV1na-YGHtEO9N0l0U3ykZoKPUWJ7rsuhZyqIc17PNW-ia1c_QZWbUOT3AkwI2wF8vdG6_ra29qwTefBdEEotVqRvQ/s1600/Liar-Liar.jpg" height="320" width="213" /></a></div>
But.................... In reality, you did <b>not </b>"hear that right". Or perhaps more accurately, she <b><i>lied to you.</i></b><br />
<br />
Unlike Ms. Lee (and virtually everyone on Facebook who passed along her horror story), I decided to follow the link through to the bill itself and see what it actually had to say. Turns out, while I have some major criticisms of it as a libertarian, it absolutely would not do anything that the ACLU is claiming it would do.<br />
<br />
If you want to follow along from the source, check out "<a href="http://alisondb.legislature.state.al.us/acas/searchableinstruments/2014RS/Printfiles//HB31-eng.pdf">HB31: Health Care Rights of Conscience Act</a>".<br />
<br />
Fortunately for me, I was waiting for a new documentary edit session to render, so I had a little time to kill, and the bill ended up only being 7 pages long, so it was actually a fairly quick read. As a result, I felt compelled to do a breakdown of each section of the bill on Facebook, and since I've already done the work, I'll share it here for posterity.<br />
<br />
The following are direct quotes from the bill itself, along with my editorial comments, starting from the top.<br />
<blockquote>
A BILL TO BE ENTITLED AN ACT<br />
<br />
Relating to health care, to allow health care providers to decline to perform any health care service that violates their conscience and provide remedies for persons who exercise that right and suffer consequences as a result.<br />
<br />
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF ALABAMA:<br />
<br />
<b>Section 1. </b><br />
This act may be known and cited as the Health Care Rights of Conscience Act.</blockquote>
So far so good. Making sure that people are free to make their own decisions and follow their own consciences regarding what they do for a living. This is a good thing if you don't like slavery... and I don't.<br />
<br />
But, of course, the "stated purpose" of laws usually isn't the same thing as what it will actually do. So let's see what the new rules actually say, shall we?<br />
<blockquote>
<b>Section 2. </b><br />
The Legislature finds and declares:<br />
(1) It is the public policy of the State of Alabama to respect and protect the fundamental right of conscience of individuals who provide health care services.<br />
(2) Without comprehensive protection, health care rights of conscience may be violated in various ways, such as harassment, demotion, salary reduction, termination, loss of privileges, denial of aid or benefits, and refusal to license, or refusal to certify.<br />
(3) It is the purpose of this act to protect religious or ethical rights of all health care providers to decline to counsel, advise, provide, perform, assist, or participate in providing or performing certain health care services that violate their consciences, where they have made their objections known in writing.<br />
(4) It is the purpose of this act to prohibit discrimination, disqualification, or coercion upon such health care providers who decline to perform any health care service that violates their conscience and who object in writing prior to being asked to perform such health care services.</blockquote>
<b>(1) </b>One would think it would be their policy to make sure everyone in EVERY field was uninhibited from pursuing their own values in their private and professional lives, but fine, good...<br />
<br />
<b>(2) </b>I don't entirely agree that all of these things qualify as a rights violation - since an employer also has rights and should be able to fire you if you refuse to do the job they want you to do, but since this is just establishing a set of premises from which the law is being written, cool...<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>(3) </b>Again, stated purpose vs. results? We'll see... But I am totally behind the stated purpose. You cannot morally compel someone to participate in something they believe is immoral. Just as it is horrific to conscript an army, surely it is also morally appalling to conscript health care workers into performing acts against their will. Doing so is, in fact, tantamount to indentured servitude/slavery, which any libertarian should obviously oppose.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>(4) </b>Now here's where things get a little tricky... Anti-discrimination laws are problematic because they are often violations of the rights of employers. However, as anti-discrimination laws go, this one doesn't seem so bad.... What it's saying here is that a hospital or clinic administrator can't punish or force someone to perform a procedure against their will, but also, the employee has to establish their objection *in writing* in advance.<br />
<br />
As far as I can tell, this is just establishing that people have the right - as they should - of negotiating a contract that establishes which procedures they're willing to do and which they aren't. For example, if a doctor refused to perform circumcisions, he could write that into his contract and no hospital administrator could force him to do so afterward. <br />
<br />
That's good, right?<br />
<blockquote>
<b>Section 3.</b><br />
The following words and terms shall have the meanings ascribed to them in this section, unless otherwise required by their respective context:<br />
(1) CONSCIENCE. The religious, moral, or ethical principles held by a health care provider.<br />
(2) DISCRIMINATION. Discrimination includes, but is not limited to: Hiring, termination, refusal of staff privileges, refusal of board certification, demotion, loss of career specialty, reduction of wages or benefits, adverse treatment in the terms and conditions of employment, refusal to award any grant, contract, or other program, or refusal to provide residency training opportunities.<br />
(3) HEALTH CARE PROVIDER. Any individual who may be asked to participate in any way in a health care service, including, but not limited to: A physician, physician's assistant, nurse, nurse's aide, medical assistant, hospital employee, clinic employee, nursing home employee, pharmacist, researcher, medical or nursing school faculty, student, or employee, counselor, social worker, or any professional, paraprofessional, or any other person who furnishes or assists in the furnishing of health care services.<br />
(4) HEALTH CARE SERVICE. Any phase of patient medical care, treatment or procedure that is limited to abortion, human cloning, human embryonic stem cell research, and sterilization, and is related to: Patient referrals, counseling, therapy, testing, diagnosis or prognosis, research, instruction, prescribing, dispensing or administering any device, drug, or medication, surgery, or any other care or treatment rendered or provided by health care providers. Health care service does not include notifying a member of a health care institution's management of a patient inquiry about obtaining a health care service that a health care provider believes may violate his or her conscience.<br />
(5) OBJECT IN WRITING. To provide advance notice in 16 a signed written document to an authorized agent of his or her employer, board, or other oversight agency of a particular health care provider. The notice shall be provided within a reasonable time, but in no case less than twenty-four (24) hours prior to any service or procedure objected to under this section by the health care provider.<br />
(6) PARTICIPATE. To counsel, advise, provide, perform, assist in, refer for, admit for purposes of providing, or participate in providing, any health care service or any form of such service. Participate does not include compliance with a health care institution's policy and procedure which states that a health care provider must notify a member of the health care institution's management of a patient's inquiry about obtaining a health care service that the health care provider believes may violate his or her conscience.</blockquote>
Definitions of terms are good. I'm sure there could be some debate around this, but I have no objections here. They're even pretty specific definitions compared to most bills I've ever read.<br />
<br />
Here comes the real meat of this thing...<br />
<blockquote>
Section 4. <br />
(a) A health care provider has the right not to participate, and no health care provider shall be required to participate, in a health care service that violates his or her conscience when the health care provider has objected in writing prior to being asked to provide such health care services. <br />
(b) No health care provider shall be civilly, criminally, or administratively liable for declining to participate in a health care service that violates his or her conscience except when failure to do would immediately endanger the life of a patient. <br />
(c) It shall be unlawful for any person, health care provider, health care institution, public or private institution, public official, or any board which certifies competency in medical or health care specialties to discriminate against any health care provider in any manner based on his or her declining to participate in a health care service that violates his or her conscience, where the health care provider has made his or her objections known in writing. Provided further, students may be evaluated based on their understanding of course materials, but no student shall be required to perform a health care service or be penalized because he or she subscribes to a particular position on one or more of the four health care services.<br />
(d) Notwithstanding any other provision in this act, in a life-threatening situation where no other health care provider is available or capable of providing or participating in a health care service, a health care provider shall provide and participate in treatment, care, or procedures until an alternate health care provider capable of providing or participating in the emergency treatment, care, or procedures is found or otherwise becomes available.<br />
(e) Except as otherwise provided in this section, a hospital, as defined in Section 22-21-20, Code of Alabama 1975, or other health care entity, and any employee, physician, member, or person associated with the hospital or other health care entity is immune from liability for any damage caused by the refusal of a health care provider to participate in a health care service defined in this act at a facility owned, operated, or controlled by the hospital or other health care entity.</blockquote>
<b>(a) </b>Good! If you object to performing certain actions, and do so in writing (ie. establish legally binding contractual terms that exclude you from certain procedures) then no one has a right to violate that contract. This is excellent.<br />
<br />
<b>(b) </b>You're not liable for the consequences of not doing X procedure when you've objected (again, in writing, prior to the request for service) on moral or conscientious grounds. Naturally, this makes sense. Again, taking the circumcision example. If I was a doctor, and said up-front that I would absolutely not be performing any circumcisions, families could not sue me over this... And they shouldn't be able to. You cannot compel me to perform a service I find morally objectionable - unless you're prepared to endorse slavery, and I hope you're not.<br />
<br />
<b>(c) </b><i>NOW HERE'S THE PROBLEM!!!</i><br />
<br />
If I have a right to pick which services I will and will not perform, a hospital manager/owner has the right to only hire people who are willing to perform all the procedures that they want to provide at their hospital... If I object to abortion, then you can't compel me to perform one. But if you run a hospital and you want to be sure you offer abortions, I can also not rightfully compel you to hire me.<br />
<br />
Again... From a libertarian perspective, this is all about giving individuals their own autonomy. No slavery. It's really quite simple... But in Section 4, provision C, this bill goes too far. <br />
<br />
That said, government funded/run hospitals confound matters somewhat. More on that if anybody asks.<br />
<br />
<b>(d)</b><i><b> </b>HERE'S ANOTHER PROBLEM (ISH)</i>:<br />
<br />
In this provision, people's moral objections are suspended and indentured servitude is instated in times of life-threatening emergency. Strictly speaking, this is anti-libertarian and problematic. Like the problem in provision C, this problem would be solved by fully private clinics and hospitals, but to be honest, it seems like a pretty decent compromise.<br />
<br />
The hospital can't discriminate against you or fire you for not agreeing to perform certain procedures that you find morally objectionable, BUT, you have to perform them no matter what, in the event that someone is about to die. <br />
<br />
Not the worst thing that's ever happened. But it's basically two wrongs trying to make a right. It could be better, but it's not that bad.<br />
<br />
<b>(e) </b>Limited liability for people who have contractually refused to perform certain services. Again, this is fine. You should not force someone or legally punish someone for electing not to do something they find morally objectionable.<br />
<br />
Now... Sections 5-9 are perfunctory stuff that I don't really have any real comments on. As I said, the meat of it is what's written above, so I'll stop there and you can read more if you'd like<br />
<br />
In the final analysis, here's what I found.<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>This bill does not make miscarriages, or indeed, ANY procedures "illegal".</li>
<li>This bill does not prevent people from seeking abortions, circumcisions, stem cell treatments, or literally any type of procedure that exists anywhere on planet earth. There is no restrictive language what-so-ever that would make any specific procedure illegal.</li>
<li>It does attempt to guarantee that health care professionals are not treated as slaves or indentured servants and forced to participate in procedures that they find objectionable. Chalk up several points on the libertarian scoreboard for Alabama on this attempt. Slavery is wrong, m'kay?</li>
<li>It does have a major weak spot in two ways..<br />a. It prohibits hospital administrators and health care employers from discriminating against people who do not share their beliefs, which violates their right to association, and subsequently means that they may have to keep people on staff who refuse to perform procedures that are officially offered by the hospital/clinic/etc. This is unfortunate.<br />b. The prohibition in (a) is partially made up for by a second clause that forces people to perform morally objectionable procedures in life-threatening situations, which means that from a patient's standpoint, the worst they should legally be able to experience is the minor inconvenience of asking one doctor to do an abortion, or a circumcision, or whatnot; being told "no", and subsequently needing to find a different doctor for the same procedure. However, if they're in real trouble, say they need an abortion or the mother and baby will die, then the doctor has to perform that procedure anyway, regardless of his beliefs.<br /><br />But... To my mind, (a) + (b) more or less cancel each other out... Again, two wrongs don't make a right, but in this case, they add up to a bit of a wash for actual consequences.</li>
<li>Even if the bill did anything remotely like what was claimed by the ACLU, the likelihood of a majority of doctors literally anywhere in the United States actively trying to deny treatment for miscarriages is a ridiculous claim that I'd challenge anyone to provide some shred of support for... I'm certain that support won't be coming from the ACLU's writing staff.</li>
</ol>
All in, I'd say this bill isn't that bad. Could be better, but it does not - in any way - say what the ACLU headline said it did, nor what the lady who I originally saw posting about it claimed.<br />
<br />
I'm getting rather tired of a media culture built on outrage and misinformation... Aren't you?<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.sean-malone.com</div>Sean W. Malonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07652434357640171842noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5098030884495656852.post-2372268886334720452013-12-03T17:54:00.003-08:002013-12-03T22:00:40.868-08:00"Let's just wait and see what happens..."Once upon a time (by which I mean, 2009), I stumbled on a great essay by Georgetown Law Professor, Jonathan Hasnas that purported to describe <a href="http://faculty.msb.edu/hasnasj/GTWebSite/FeelsLike.htm">what it feels like to be a libertarian</a>. In it, he wrote:<br />
<blockquote>
"I’ll tell you. It feels bad. Being a libertarian means living with an almost unendurable level of frustration. It means being subject to unending scorn and derision despite being inevitably proven correct by events. How does it feel to be a libertarian? Imagine what the internal life of Cassandra must have been and you will have a pretty good idea."</blockquote>
Hasnas goes on to say...<br />
<blockquote>
"Libertarians spend their lives accurately predicting the future effects of government policy. Their predictions are accurate because they are derived from Hayek’s insights into the limitations of human knowledge, from the recognition that the people who comprise the government respond to incentives just like anyone else and are not magically transformed to selfless agents of the good merely by accepting government employment, from the awareness that for government to provide a benefit to some, it must first take it from others, and from the knowledge that politicians cannot repeal the laws of economics. For the same reason, their predictions are usually negative and utterly inconsistent with the utopian wishful-thinking that lies at the heart of virtually all contemporary political advocacy. And because no one likes to hear that he cannot have his cake and eat it too or be told that his good intentions cannot be translated into reality either by waving a magic wand or by passing legislation, these predictions are greeted not merely with disbelief, but with derision.<br />
<br />
It is human nature to want to shoot the messenger bearing unwelcome tidings. And so, for the sin of continually pointing out that the emperor has no clothes, libertarians are attacked as heartless bastards devoid of compassion for the less fortunate, despicable flacks for the rich or for business interests, unthinking dogmatists who place blind faith in the free market, or, at best, members of the lunatic fringe.<br />
<br />
Cassandra’s curse was to always tell the truth about the future, but never be believed. If you add to that curse that she would be ridiculed, derided, and shunned for making her predictions, you have a pretty fair approximation of what it feels like to be a libertarian."</blockquote>
I've long known Hasnas' frustration. I feel it day in and day out. <br />
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And lately, with the flood of people losing the insurance coverage they used to have and being forced into dramatically higher insurance plans or onto the mostly non-functional government-created and subsidized "exchanges", this frustration is starting to boil over. I want to scream at people sometimes. Because starting way back in 2007-2008, when people started getting really excited about so-called health care "reform", I started writing and debating about that issue with anyone and everyone, and did so through the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.google.com/#q=site:+seanwmalone.blogspot.com+healthcare&safe=off">Search this blog for "Healthcare"</a>, and you'll find a trove of essays and articles, most of them complete with citations and links to supporting documentation and economic arguments.<br />
<br />
I've done my best to be fair, and to present the opposing case as accurately as I could, and I've stayed away from sensationalizing the issue or talking unnecessarily about "death panels" or "socialism" in the crass sense. I don't even like using the term "ObamaCare". <br />
<br />
I'm not that kind of a thinker or a writer. I never have been. <br />
<br />
But I have been sounding the alarm against what should have always been the perfectly <i>obvious </i>consequences of the legislation for years. And now many of those consequences are here biting people in the ass. Millions of people are losing their insurance coverage, which is a predictable consequence of a law that made their existing policies <i>illegal</i> to sell or buy.<br />
<br />
Isn't that kind of... well... the point?<br />
<br />
The PPACA created conditions where people who were voluntarily selling a particular set of health care insurance coverage at a price other people were voluntarily willing to pay were no longer allowed to do so. The politicians - Obama, Pelosi, Baucus, and everyone else - implicitly claim that they <i>know better than those people</i>.<br />
<br />
The buyers were stupid. The sellers: Immoral.<br />
<br />
Voluntary exchange be damned, Americans weren't wise or smart enough to make their own choices in an already severely restricted and government-controlled insurance market. The little bit of choice they had left had to be taken away... For their own good. At least that's the sales pitch when stripped of it's doublespeak.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ4wNScXkNd9aIY3-pRYRukpJinWGvD0XQCUpu964tB5XLb_TgSqkFReZqQSIRzRXqCgnuGsoDr5iSl3RnZlfCbWAqcaQCFuDqCva1MxVk_jp1XcMRlsxtwEwkkmGjorKeRQgq0hHeABE/s1600/obamacare-it's-gone.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ4wNScXkNd9aIY3-pRYRukpJinWGvD0XQCUpu964tB5XLb_TgSqkFReZqQSIRzRXqCgnuGsoDr5iSl3RnZlfCbWAqcaQCFuDqCva1MxVk_jp1XcMRlsxtwEwkkmGjorKeRQgq0hHeABE/s320/obamacare-it's-gone.jpg" width="320" /></a>Now Obama is sad. He's "sorry" that millions of people have been losing their insurance plans. Not sorry enough to admit fault, of course, but certainly sorry enough to lay out some new platitudes about how unfortunate this all is and level yet another populist bromide against those awful, mean insurance companies. It's their fault, don't you know?<br />
<br />
It's not the fault of the law that literally made the more affordable plans they'd offered illegal and forced them to create new - compliant - plans that had to cover dozens more treatments, throw out all sane actuarial models, and cover people who we already knew were going to be extremely costly to the other members of the insurance pool.<br />
<br />
None of that could possibly have made insurance <i>less</i> affordable, even though anyone who can do a tiny bit of arithmetic might have realized it would.<br />
<br />
And of course, the fact that the law also requires people to buy these expensive health care plans or pay a fine couldn't possibly increase the demand for services, which even a cursory understanding of economics suggests would increase the price. That is, unless the supply of health care services went up as well, but thanks to new taxes on medical technology, heavy handed regulations on producers of medical services, and no actually positive incentives for health care providers to join the industry... the supply of health care technology and services is just going down.<br />
<br />
As I've said approximately 87 billion times in the last few years:<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">More Demand + Less Supply = HIGHER PRICES.</span></b></div>
<br />
Really, guys. It's not that hard. I promise.<br />
<br />
And that brings me to the title of this post. "Let's just wait and see what happens" is the incessant refrain from people who have absolutely no counter argument to reality, but who <i>desperately - </i>and from what I can tell, purely partisan reasons - cannot bring themselves to believe that the utopian policy promises their favorite politicians have made won't come true.<br />
<br />
Obama is an upstanding, smart man. He's charismatic. He's well-meaning. The <i>goal </i>of making sure as many people as possible in America can get whatever health care they need to stay in tip-top shape is noble, right? Promises were made and they sounded good.<br />
<br />
But that's <i>not how reality works. </i><br />
<i><br />
</i> The problem is, instead of addressing the counter-arguments sufficiently (if at all), and instead of observing the data rolling in that's right in front of your face, you say, "Hey, man, let's just wait and see what happens!"<br />
<br />
Yes.<br />
<br />
Let's just keep pushing out the timeline. Eventually things will turn around, and the reality that you don't want to be true will - from nothing but wishful thinking - stop being true. And it's not just about this issue. It's been the same thing over and over, throughout the past several years.<br />
<br />
Cash for Clunkers won't stimulate the economy, you say? "Wait and see what happens." Oh. Ok... Fine, let's wait around to find out that, yep, it was worthless. See the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/10/31/almost-anything-would-have-been-better-stimulus-than-cash-for-clunkers/">Washington Post</a>:<br />
<blockquote>
"But, as it turns out, the critics were on to something. A new analysis from the Brookings Institution's Ted Gayer and Emily Parker found that the program was fairly inefficient as economic stimulus and mostly pulled forward auto sales that would have happened anyway. It also cut greenhouse-gas emissions a bit — the equivalent of taking up to 5 million cars off the road for a year — but at a steep cost."</blockquote>
What about the auto bailouts? "Just wait and see what happens, man." Waited... And what do we find? Yet again, costs grossly outweigh the benefits. Cato and others have done <a href="http://www.cato.org/publications/congressional-testimony/lasting-implications-general-motors-bailout">excellent analysis on this point</a>.<br />
<blockquote>
"Any verdict on the auto bailouts must take into account, among other things, the illegal diversion of TARP funds, the forced transfer of assets from shareholders and debt-holders to pensioners and their union; the higher-risk premiums consequently built into U.S. corporate debt; the costs of denying Ford and the other more worthy automakers the spoils of competition; the costs of insulating irresponsible actors, such as the autoworkers’ union, from the outcomes of an apolitical bankruptcy proceeding; the diminution of U.S. moral authority to counsel foreign governments against market interventions; and the lingering uncertainty about policy that pervades the business environment to this day."</blockquote>
...and don't forget about the $55 billion hit American taxpayers are taking on that "investment" as well. <br />
<br />
What about government "investments" to help other key industries like energy? We waited and found Solyndra, They failed and cost taxpayers millions with nothing to show for them. <br />
<br />
What about minimum wage hikes? Again, we wait, and they raise unemployment rates, lower hours worked by part-time workers, and generally price the most vulnerable people in society right out of the labor market.<br />
<br />
What about bank bailouts and general stimulus packages? Didn't they save the economy? Sure... If by "save", you mean prolong the pain for 5+ years and set us up for even bigger financial problems in the future, yeah.<br />
<br />
Each time someone tells me that we should just "wait and see what happens", they're ignoring what has happened repeatedly throughout recorded economic history and they're ignoring the arguments actually being made that explain why their genius plans are doomed to fail. So they fall back on this position of ignorance, like we just can't know or even make an educated guess about what will happen. Logic and evidence is irrelevant when your vision is unconstrained by reality.<br />
<br />
I'm tired of it. I'm exhausted and frustrated. It doesn't feel good at all to say "I told you so", when what I told you was that millions of people would be harmed by the policy you support.<br />
<br />
I don't <i>want </i>to see millions of people hurt by other people's stupidity anymore.<br />
<br />
Sadly, it's only the tip of the iceberg on the harm coming from insane policies that have only been expanded and strengthened over the past several years. Spending most of your life watching a train-wreck unfold that no one bothers to understand well enough to stop, even though you're screaming at the top of your lungs telling them to avoid the pain, takes a toll.<br />
<br />
<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.sean-malone.com</div>Sean W. Malonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07652434357640171842noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5098030884495656852.post-56071292908181431972013-09-14T09:18:00.002-07:002013-09-14T10:39:44.209-07:00Much Disappoint.Today, I sent a note to someone on Facebook essentially announcing my "unfriending".<br />
<br />
I've literally never written anything like this before, but this was someone who I had "friended" originally because I had believed he would add to the rich intellectual tapestry that is my Facebook feed. That sounds grandiose, I know, but I mostly use Facebook as a way to connect to people on an intellectual level.<br />
<br />
The friends I seriously interact with on Facebook are mostly economists, political theorists, journalists, and a host of really interesting artists, musicians and writers. I have a very high concentration of published authors, professors, and other influencers of public thought and opinion.<br />
<br />
I <i>love this</i> about Facebook.<br />
<br />
The unique thing about the platform - for me - is that I can connect with all of these kinds of people, and discussions aren't limited by time, distance, or character limits. If you have good people around you, you can see a range of viewpoints and discussions that you'll never, ever, see in one room anywhere else. So when I specifically "friend" someone for the purpose of increasing the quality of intellectual discourse, and after a period of months discover that they have completely failed to earn their reputation... It's really disappointing.<br />
<br />
Originally, I was planning on redacting the name of this person. I thought maybe it'd be rude, but after reading his thoroughly childish and disrespectful responses to my letter, I've changed my mind.<br />
<br />
Read this:<br />
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<br />
What you've just read were the responses of a major columnist who blogs at the NY Times Economix blog and whose writing has appeared in numerous publications. He's written a few books about history and - interestingly enough - worked for the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations as a policy analyst, I believe focusing on Tax Policy.<br />
<br />
Somewhere along the way, he became convinced that conservatives were all stupid and evil.<br />
<br />
He explains this transition in an American Conservative column published in November 2012, called "<a href="http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/revenge-of-the-reality-based-community/">Revenge of the Reality Based Community</a>". In the article, he describes his disillusionment with the Republican party, and the rejection he experienced from that community when he began to publish criticisms of their policies under George Bush. <br />
<br />
Among some truly absurd praise of Paul Krugman and Keynesianism, he wrote:<br />
<blockquote>
"At this point, I lost every last friend I had on the right. Some have been known to pass me in silence at the supermarket or even to cross the street when they see me coming. People who were as close to me as brothers and sisters have disowned me.<br />
<br />
I think they believe they are just disciplining me, hoping I will admit error and ask for forgiveness. They clearly don’t know me very well. My attitude is that anyone who puts politics above friendship is not someone I care to have in my life."</blockquote>
I get it. He got scorned by his former "lovers" and had a zealous conversion experience leading him away from previous beliefs... All the things that make someone bitter and angry toward the community that used to welcome them. So he lashes out at his former friends on Facebook and elsewhere.<br />
<br />
After several months of interacting with Mr. Bartlett's posts, I find that they're uniformly devoid of intellectual merit. Instead of combating ideas with arguments and evidence, he takes pot-shots at strawmen, and labels everyone with whom he disagrees as one type of awful person or another. What I thought would be a person who was going to post insightful, intellectually rigorous arguments challenging many of the orthodox policy positions held by conservatives (ie. the kinds of things I often like to post to my group of friends, in order to challenge some of the conservatives I know to rethink their positions) turned out to be a person who had nothing to offer at all.<br />
<br />
So what, right? It's just a stupid guy on Facebook.<br />
<br />
No... That's the thing. It's not. It's a guy who has a huge platform. A guy who writes in the New York Times on matters of economic policy. A guy who ostensibly has a bunch of intellectual credibility and insider political connections and who gets to use those connections to sway the opinions of other influencers.<br />
<br />
And <i>this</i> is the level of intellectual honesty he displays!?<br />
<br />
This is someone who would rather talk about where I used to work than what I actually said. He's someone who'd rather label me "right wing" to dodge a criticism, than simply respond with the respect I showed him. Someone who, when presented with even the slightest challenge to his fallacy-ridden, hubristic, and intellectually dishonest means of communicating with other people, would rather stamp his feet like a five-year-old child than acknowledge the criticism.<br />
<br />
No wonder he praises Krugman... He's clearly modelled his whole notion of "intellectual debate" directly from his playbook.<br />
<br />
From where I sit, this behavior is almost certainly an enormous indictment of his more academic work.<br />
<br />
Why should I trust the opinions of someone who cannot even bring himself to address a person's actual arguments, and who will resort to dismissive retorts built around well-poisoning and ad hominems instead of addressing his critics? If all you can see in any intellectual disagreement is an "enemy" to be squashed by any means necessary, and you're perfectly fine misrepresenting them, misquoting them, and labeling them as beneath contempt... How can I take your supposedly "academic" work seriously at all?<br />
<br />
Bartlett complains a lot about the "Republican echo-chamber" and "epistemic closure" (which I don't even think he's wrong about, by the way).<br />
<br />
But he seems to be tragically unaware of the irony.<br />
<br />
At any rate, reading Bartlett's page and now having this interaction makes me wonder if the reason for his loss of friends had less to do with them wanting to avoid dealing with "reality", and more to do with simply not wanting to be around a jack-ass who actually seems to believe his own hype.<br />
<br />
Mr. Bartlett has since blocked me on Facebook immediately following the above interaction.<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.sean-malone.com</div>Sean W. Malonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07652434357640171842noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5098030884495656852.post-24853448087462561482013-09-12T11:54:00.001-07:002013-09-12T14:00:10.158-07:00Alternet is an Idiot... Again.It's time for Round 3 of "Alternet is an Idiot"!<br />
<br />
For the uninitiated, here's <a href="http://seanwmalone.blogspot.com/2011/05/alternet-is-idiot.html">Round 1</a>, and <a href="http://seanwmalone.blogspot.com/2012/01/alternet-is-idiot-v20.html">Round 2</a>.<br />
<br />
This time, they have created a test to see if the libertarians in your life are "hypocrites", and let me tell you... It's fabulous. It's called "<a href="http://www.alternet.org/economy/11-questions-you-should-ask-libertarians-see-if-theyre-hypocrites?paging=off">11 Questions You Should Ask Libertarians to See If They're Hypocrites</a>". That's a bit of a weird title, considering the author asks wayyyy more than 11 questions. I guess I shouldn't be surprised to find out an Alternet writer can't count properly, but whatever.<br />
<br />
According to RJ Eskow of Alternet, we - libertarians - "have a problem".<br />
<blockquote>
"Their political philosophy all but died out in the mid- to late-20th century, but was revived by billionaires and corporations that found them politically useful. And yet libertarianism retains the qualities that led to its disappearance from the public stage, before its reanimation by people like the Koch brothers: It doesn’t make any sense."</blockquote>
I'm sure this would come as a surprise to the numerous libertarians - including myself - who did in fact exist absent any knowledge of the Kochs or anything else during the late 20th Century, but even if it were true, perhaps we might attribute the growing resurgence of libertarian thought to be partially the consequence of the overbearing statism that has so pervaded American society and government over the last several decades.<br />
<br />
Of course... That would conflict with this website's other persistent claims that the second half of the 20th century were marred by libertarian, free-market "fundamentalism" and that everything from wars to financial collapse were a result of these - otherwise completely non-existent - libertarians.<br />
<br />
Oh well. Honestly, I'm too tired of this game to go through every idiotic thing the author claims is true about libertarianism.<br />
<br />
The caricatures found in the article are many, predictable, and tedious. Here's a snapshot:<br />
<ul>
<li>We're all for being selfish. </li>
<li>Our ideas have no ties to reality. </li>
<li>Cato, Koch, and Reason are all scary boogeymen. </li>
<li>We're shills for big-money interests.</li>
<li>We think rich people are the best people and poor people are stupid. </li>
<li>We want to destroy the environment. </li>
<li>We worship Ayn Rand.</li>
</ul>
<br />
Blah. Blah. Blah. <span style="font-size: x-small;">Blah. Blah. </span><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Blah. Blah...</span><br />
<br />
There is so much epic stupidity and ignorance found throughout this article that I have no interest in working my way through it point by point. One of my favorite bits in the lead-up to the point is this:<br />
<blockquote>
"Randian libertarianism is an illogical, impractical, inhumane, unpopular set of Utopian ravings which lacks internal coherence and has never predicted real-world behavior anywhere."</blockquote>
Yeah.<br />
<br />
An economy and society crippled by regulations with lovingly compassionate titles actually written by and for a select group of politically connected cronies which insulate them from competition and privilege them with bailouts and state protections <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123146363567166677.html">wasn't at all predicted in Atlas Shrugged</a>...<br />
<br />
Noooooooooope. Not at all.<br />
<br />
Anyway, the central point here is that we are big old hypocrites. Or, most of us are. So <s>idiot</s> Eskow conveniently provides us with a helpful litmus test to see whether or not we are, or are not, hypocritical. Unfortunately, he inserts all of his questions into a thick fog of sophistry, so it's a little hard to directly answer.<br />
<br />
That's why I felt like it'd be a good idea to reformat the test to make it easier to actually take. For all my libertarian hypocrite friends.<br />
<br />
<b>The Libertarian Hypocrisy Test (re-formatted to actually look like a test):</b><br />
<br />
Alternet idiot writes the following to set it up:<br />
<blockquote>
"Let’s say we have a libertarian friend, and we want to know whether or not he’s hypocritical about his beliefs. How would we go about conducting such a test? The best way is to use the tenets of his philosophy to draw up a series of questions to explore his belief system."</blockquote>
For the purpose of this test, let's - totally irrationally - assume that RJ Eskow actually understands even the most basic concepts that underline the "tenets of" libertarian philosophy. He clearly doesn't, but that's completely commonplace for these kinds of polemics, and hell... it's his test, so he can frame it how he wants.<br />
<br />
Let's go through the questions. I'll share my answers... Feel free to answer each question for yourself.<br />
<blockquote>
<b>Question 1: "</b>Are unions, political parties, elections, and social movements like Occupy examples of “spontaneous order”—and if not, why not?"</blockquote>
Yes.<br />
<br />
Though, there is a small caveat here. Spontaneous order refers to the act of humans interacting with each other voluntarily and setting up norms, institutions, and rules without involving the initiation of force. It's a process, not an outcome. Of the listed groups of people, unions & major political parties frequently use force to impose outcomes on people - by, for instance, using tax-payer's money to fund party conventions, or punishing people with fines & jail for not hiring union workers, etc. Theoretically, however, a union could - and should - be a great example of a spontaneous order that arises to improve the conditions of working people under a situation where there might otherwise be power-imbalances favoring the employer.<br />
<blockquote>
<b>Question 2:</b> "Is a libertarian willing to admit that production is the result of many forces, each of which should be recognized and rewarded?"</blockquote>
Of course production is the result of many different types of activities. How banal. Even the most basic understanding of how markets work should include a solid recognition of the complexity and interconnectedness found throughout the entire structure of production in every industry, for every purpose. Libertarians are typically the most cognizant of the myriad "forces" (a bad word choice) that go into producing goods & services.<br />
<br />
What do you think "I, Pencil" is all about?<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
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As for "rewarding" each of these things... I'm not really sure what Eskow is actually asking here.<br />
<br />
In a free market, services and goods are provided via bidding and voluntary negotiation with individual suppliers. People are rewarded in accordance with those negotiations and in relationship to the value they're adding to the buyer or seller.<br />
<br />
Sometimes that value is low to the buyer and high to the seller - like an intern working for free to gain on-the-job training and work-experience. Sometimes the value is very high to the buyer and very low to the seller - like the knowledge and experience someone like Mark Cuban might bring as a consultant to a small start-up. There just isn't one unified answer of what constitutes a good price.<br />
<br />
These are all pretty simple issues of supply and demand.<br />
<br />
Not sure what is even here to be "hypocritical" about... Which I suppose is why a couple follow-up questions are necessary here.<br />
<blockquote>
<b>Question 3: </b>"Retail stores like Walmart and fast-food corporations like McDonalds cannot produce wealth without employees. Don’t those employees have the right to “coordinate their actions with those of others in order to achieve their purposes”—for example, in unions?"</blockquote>
Of course. Coordinate away.<br />
<br />
However... McDonald's also doesn't have any obligation to deal with the union. That's the part of a free society and freedom of association that cuts both ways. Real hypocrisy would be to believe that unions had the right to organize labor and offer a list of demands, but employers had no right to say to say no and hire other people.<br />
<br />
...which... I suspect would be pretty easy for McDonald's. Just sayin'.<br />
<blockquote>
<b>Question 4: </b>"Is our libertarian willing to acknowledge that workers who bargain for their services, individually and collectively, are also employing market forces?"</blockquote>
Uh. Yes. How many times do we have to answer this question? It's just the same one, over and over.<br />
<br />
YES! <br />
<br />
People in a libertarian society are absolutely free to organize themselves into labor unions, to engage in collective bargaining, to shame their employer for bad conditions, to write articles, picket, buy TV and magazine ads, and state their case as loudly and publicly as they'd like, and to try to get the best deal they can possibly negotiate for their services.<br />
<br />
I have never in my life met a libertarian who thinks otherwise. The <i>only</i> thing we have a problem with regarding unions is their propensity to use the law to force employers to deal with them when they don't get their way, and to use the law to compel people into membership.<br />
<br />
Are we done with unions yet?<br />
<blockquote>
<b>Question 5:</b> "The bankers who collude to deceive their customers, as US bankers did with the MERS mortgage system, were permitted to do so by the unwillingness of government to regulate them. The customers who were the victims of deception were essential to the production of Wall Street wealth. Why don’t libertarians recognize their role in the process, and their right to administer their own affairs?"</blockquote>
Who's role in what process? What?<br />
<br />
Fraud should be punished. Breaking contracts, coercing people into signing unconscionable contracts through deception, and stealing people's money should be punished. <br />
<br />
I must be missing something since I don't see a cogent question here.<br />
<blockquote>
"That right includes the right to regulate the bankers who sell them mortgages."</blockquote>
Ohhhhhhhhhhhh.... Ok.<br />
<br />
Wait...... No... I still don't really understand how this is supposed to expose "hypocrisy" for libertarians. Maybe I need some more clarification from the author.<br />
<blockquote>
"Libertarians say that the “free market” will help consumers. “Libertarians believe that people will be both freer and more prosperous if government intervention in people’s economic choices is minimized,” says Cato.<br />
<br />
But victims of illegal foreclosure are neither “freer” nor “more prosperous” after the government deregulation which led to their exploitation. What’s more, deregulation has led to a series of documented banker crimes that include stockholder fraud and investor fraud. That leads us to our next test of libertarian hypocrisy: <b>Is our libertarian willing to admit that a “free market” needs regulation?</b>"</blockquote>
Oh! I see. What I thought was the question wasn't the question.<br />
<br />
The answer to the actual question is: Yes. But not in the way the author thinks.<br />
<br />
Markets do need regulation. What they don't need is the chaos created by government-imposed regulations and special protections. I understand that the author is confused by this idea... That's mostly because he's an idiot and believes that regulation is synonymous with government-created policy.<br />
<br />
It's not.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW9-T0HyDKj_ftJd8GfRB6SobDAz7YqZgox-GTSeeVOaYnJRwEEvqcixqaL7CZ88cPjZ8sWIxLKZCHd1WxeR7E8fnNtljK-E3j3WUF95jtYKmdJJLsD4PGR6a76f3RSNxQPYnX5JzwpoE/s1600/Deregulation.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW9-T0HyDKj_ftJd8GfRB6SobDAz7YqZgox-GTSeeVOaYnJRwEEvqcixqaL7CZ88cPjZ8sWIxLKZCHd1WxeR7E8fnNtljK-E3j3WUF95jtYKmdJJLsD4PGR6a76f3RSNxQPYnX5JzwpoE/s320/Deregulation.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Every single instance of an act passing which removed<br />
or modified one piece of "regulation", included vastly<br />
more new laws which increased the overall regulatory<br />
burden on the financial industry.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Financial deregulation causing the financial crisis is 100% bollocks.<br />
<br />
Firstly <a href="http://seanwmalone.blogspot.com/2008/10/brief-history-of-us-economy-bailout.html">because no such meaningful deregulation actually happened</a>, and secondly, because the real problems came out of other policies and protections provided to major financial institutions by their pals in government. Things like implicitly and explicitly guaranteed bailouts, special protections against losses on highly leveraged assets, laws which actively promoted sub-prime lending,<br />
<br />
Unacceptable risks were taken because profits were guaranteed by law to remain (mostly) private while losses were to be socialized. This moral hazard creates an environment rife for abuse and fraud.<br />
<br />
What I'd like to see done to fix this problem is two-fold.<br />
<br />
1. <i>Actually</i> free the financial market.<br />
<br />
This doesn't mean special handouts and countless regulations that favor big firms over small ones. It means let companies actually compete for people's financial business, and let them go bankrupt when they make bad choices. This puts a lot more pressure on banks to be wiser with other people's money.<br />
<br />
2. Prosecute the hell out of the fraud and actual cases of deception. Let customers who were cheated actually sue banks, and reduce the limits of managerial liability such that the people making decisions about the actions of the bank have some skin in the game.<br />
<br />
Re-align the incentives so they actually make sense. Do <i>not</i> just create another layer of incompetent, easily corruptible bureaucracy that works to write rules favoring the biggest, richest and most well-connected bankers at the expense of everyone else.<br />
<br />
Oh... And while we're at it, let's free up the currency as well and end the Fed.<br />
<br />
All in all, Cato is right. A more free economy would be far better at protecting consumers than the less-free one we've increasingly had my whole life. <br />
<br />
By the way... Remember back at the top where the author said that libertarians had all but disappeared in the late 20th-Century? If true, how was it that we got a bunch of totally libertarian "deregulation" passed? Just curious how that would be possible if all the libertarian ideas disappeared. Let's just ignore the contradictions though, shall we.<br />
<br />
Moving on.<br />
<blockquote>
<b>Question 6: </b>"Does our libertarian believe in democracy? If yes, explain what’s wrong with governments that regulate."</blockquote>
I'm going to assume that by "believe in democracy", our idiot actually means "believe that democracy is a really great system that morally legitimizes government actions."<br />
<br />
If so, then... No.<br />
<br />
Libertarians believe in the non-initiation of force.<br />
<br />
There are plenty of democracies around the world that produce awfully anti-libertarian and illiberal outcomes... including our own here in the US.<br />
<br />
I might turn the question around on the <s>idiot</s> author, actually. If you like democracy for its own sake, and you think there's something magical about it that makes the laws produced by such a system legitimate, do <i>you </i>ever object to any laws?<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLBQ4ifyKFwgCTRT8i-YBYhTV-kImcwsoZfS21AGH9m8Zq2EqIGp9o5M-6Mg6RSKsM-fwv19wlTdol-egF2MIwwfn4jBppB3zhyFnKIV-Ub24rXi78udcx-ezMTIgh8h7eP4XgvEDkJTI/s1600/like+a+box+of+chocolates.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLBQ4ifyKFwgCTRT8i-YBYhTV-kImcwsoZfS21AGH9m8Zq2EqIGp9o5M-6Mg6RSKsM-fwv19wlTdol-egF2MIwwfn4jBppB3zhyFnKIV-Ub24rXi78udcx-ezMTIgh8h7eP4XgvEDkJTI/s320/like+a+box+of+chocolates.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Do you reject democratically produced outcomes which make women and minorities second-class citizens, or criminalize the harmless activities of gay people? Do you object to the drug-war? Do you recognize the legitimacy of democracies which produce thoroughly theocratic governments?<br />
<br />
Democracy isn't a magic bullet that makes everything anybody votes on morally sacrosanct.<br />
<br />
If people at Alternet actually believe that it is, they're much bigger idiots than I thought, and obviously, I already have no respect for their intelligence as it is.<br />
<br />
The problem with any form of government - <i>including </i>democracy - is that ultimately the outcomes rest on forcing the minority into acquiescing with the majority opinion regardless of what that opinion is. Libertarian minarchists tend to recognize that no system is going to be perfect, and entertain the idea that a Democracy with strong and immutable protections placed around individual liberties (ie. the purpose of the Bill of Rights) which are not subject to Democratic whim may be the best possible system.<br />
<br />
I will entertain that argument. I don't accept it on faith, however, and I certainly do not think there's anything beautiful about Democracy by itself.<br />
<blockquote>
<b>Question 7:</b> "Does our libertarian use wealth that wouldn’t exist without government in order to preach against the role of government?"</blockquote>
Oh. This one is always fun.<br />
<br />
It's a great question because it forces an "hypocritical" answer that is impossible to escape given the very conditions libertarians are advocating against. It's like calling a slave a hypocrite for advocating abolitionism while still sleeping in their master's barn.<br />
<br />
Basically it's the political philosophy version of grabbing someone's arm and slapping their own face with it, while saying "Quit hitting yourself!"<br />
<br />
Allow me the opportunity to keep 100% of the money that is currently taxed from me, allow people to actually create companies and markets for the goods & services government currently monopolizes by violent coercion, and then let's talk about the hypocrisy of this activity.<br />
<blockquote>
<b>Question 8: </b>"Many libertarians will counter by saying that government has only two valid functions: to protect the national security and enforce intellectual property laws. By why only these two? If the mythical free market can solve any problem, including protecting the environment, why can’t it also protect us from foreign invaders and defend the copyrights that make these libertarians wealthy?"</blockquote>
Frankly, the debate between minarchists and anarchists about the optimal means of promoting a free society is far beyond the intellectual capacity of this writer and his website. Debates between libertarians about whether or not intellectual property counts as property that can be defended by a government are also beyond his comprehension.<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr28OZQwtAlWSX8LaVpl_8w5ZPjlOjfmp_ZISqFDq6mIEnfDWyuYctWwYgFJesV1y6U1M2DrlRbHnG5mtHV06XsyutDBEAdc6wX5JX2skMQCPv9odj3ovOETexutF8QbQwmdzvkHs0nJ8/s1600/rothbard.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="273" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr28OZQwtAlWSX8LaVpl_8w5ZPjlOjfmp_ZISqFDq6mIEnfDWyuYctWwYgFJesV1y6U1M2DrlRbHnG5mtHV06XsyutDBEAdc6wX5JX2skMQCPv9odj3ovOETexutF8QbQwmdzvkHs0nJ8/s400/rothbard.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">^anarchist</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I will simply note that <i>many</i> libertarians believe that government has a role in protecting people's lives, liberty, and property via establishing courts and police. One argument in support of minarchy in this regard is that anarchy would leave a vacuum of power typically filled by the most violent person who can terrorize the greatest number of people. A very, very small government limited to protecting individual rights would then be an improvement if the goal is to maximize individual liberty and allow people the greatest autonomy over their own lives.<br />
<br />
There are anarchists who argue otherwise and think that the government is by definition an entity that abridges people's individual liberty, and thus cannot be expected to defend it, or really do anything but grow from minarchy into autocracy.<br />
<br />
On the IP note, the author goes on to say this:<br />
<blockquote>
"For that matter, why should these libertarians be allowed to hold patents at all? If the free market can decide how best to use our national resources, why shouldn’t it also decide how best to use Peter Thiel’s ideas, and whether or not to reward him for them? After all, if Thiel were a true Randian libertarian he’d use his ideas in a more superior fashion than anyone else—and he would be more ruthless in enforcing his rights to them than anyone else. Does our libertarian reject any and all government protection for his intellectual property?"</blockquote>
This one generally does. I even <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2012/01/18/should-copyright-laws-exist-at-all/">published an article</a> about it.<br />
<br />
It's a hotly debated issue though, and certainly not one so easily settled by a moron who doesn't even understand the basics of libertarian philosophy.<br />
<br />
Anyway... Here's another fun assertion setting up another great hypocrisy question:<br />
<blockquote>
<b>Question 9 & 10: </b>"Our democratic process is highly flawed today, but that’s largely the result of corruption from corporate and billionaire money. And yet, libertarians celebrate the corrupting influence of big money. No wonder, since the same money is keeping their movement afloat and paying many of their salaries. But, aside from the naked self-interest, their position makes no sense. Why isn’t a democratically elected government the ultimate demonstration of “spontaneous order”? Does our libertarian recognize that democracy is a form of marketplace?"</blockquote>
Because the outcome of elections rest on being able to initiate force against all those individual people who did not vote for your candidate or your government.<br />
<br />
Shouldn't this be obvious?<br />
<br />
The libertarian position rejects the initiation of force on the basis that individuals have the moral right to engage in whichever actions and behaviors they think are best with their bodies & property, provided that they don't prevent others from doing the same... It's as close to a universal position as it's possible to get.<br />
<br />
I do what I do, you do what you do, and we can cooperate together or act separately as we each see fit as long as neither one of us initiates force against each other.<br />
<br />
It's the essence of a peaceful society.<br />
<br />
Elections create conditions where some individuals assert their moral right to control the apparatus that makes rules and initiates force against all the individuals within the territory dominated by that government. But government isn't some kind of magic filter where rights I don't have by myself (ie. I have no right to force you to do what I say just because I say it), can be granted to elected officials.<br />
<br />
Let me use a concrete example. You don't have the moral authority to murder me right now. By getting 100 people together who all vote on whether or not they can murder me, each of whom individually has no moral authority to even cast a vote on that issue, you don't magically create that authority.<br />
<br />
Democracy isn't a marketplace, and it's a grotesque misunderstanding of what markets are if you don't recognize the difference between coercing people who disagree with you into either participating in your value system or going to jail, and offering people the opportunity to trade with you and walking away if the trade is unacceptable to either party.<br />
<blockquote>
<b>Question 11: </b>"We’re told that “big government” is bad for many reasons, not the least of which is that it is too large to be responsive. But if big governments are bad, why are big corporations so acceptable? What’s more, these massive institutions have been conducting an assault on the individual and collective freedoms of the American people for decades. Why isn’t it important to avoid the creation of monopolies, duopolies and syndicates that interfere with the free market’s ability to function?"</blockquote>
For the gajillionth time. <b>The <i>initiation of force</i> is unacceptable. </b><br />
<br />
Bigness really doesn't have anything to do with it.<br />
<br />
Big <i>government </i>is particularly scary and awful because government is at its core nothing but violence. The more powerful that government is, the bigger it is, and the more control it has over everyone's daily lives, the more violence we're inserting into human interactions.<br />
<br />
Do this or go to jail.<br />
Don't do that or go to jail.<br />
Pay this fine, or go to jail.<br />
Pay your taxes, or jail.<br />
Stay out of this area, or go to jail.<br />
Answer my question, or go to jail.<br />
<br />
...and if you don't want to go to jail?<br />
<br />
<i>We'll shoot you dead.</i><br />
<br />
The reason "big" corporations aren't worrisome to me <i>in general</i> is because they cannot force me to interact with them. No company can require me to buy their products or send me to jail. At least, they cannot without colluding with government. To the extent that <b>any </b>corporation uses the state to create rules, and all the special protections I mentioned earlier, which favor their expansion and crush their competitors, I'm very concerned.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbwoqB9sAz5RittZf5WGQHp8JfxOGC4kKQsy9BLPWvKyY6PT0qBlYuMxXjlRcmIk-Oeo5RvwFxoNGGo4aKcY5e64Y3m8vTXR-lI7yJc6JJfND8Xx-3HYqS9xNOXP5KBlBGBZu9SAsnIww/s1600/cronyism-e1364044217702.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="253" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbwoqB9sAz5RittZf5WGQHp8JfxOGC4kKQsy9BLPWvKyY6PT0qBlYuMxXjlRcmIk-Oeo5RvwFxoNGGo4aKcY5e64Y3m8vTXR-lI7yJc6JJfND8Xx-3HYqS9xNOXP5KBlBGBZu9SAsnIww/s320/cronyism-e1364044217702.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
I'm not concerned because of their "bigness", however. Plenty of not-so-big companies are raking in all kinds of ill-gotten gains.<br />
<br />
I'm also not especially worried about monopolies that form without government assistance and protection. Firstly, because they're exceptionally rare. Free markets are pretty robust, and monopolies eventually become non-competitive as they get bigger and less agile. Markets are filled with great examples of entrepreneurs creatively destroying behemoth competitors when the barriers to entry are low.<br />
<br />
Barriers to market entry are virtually always products of government interference into the market - often on behalf of incumbent businesses. <i>That</i> is where the danger lies.<br />
<br />
Monopolies qua monopolies can be bad for consumers, but the fact that they're bad for consumers tends to mean they die off very quickly as a new competitor that creates more value for buyers enters the market and poaches the monopoly company's unsatisfied clients.<br />
<br />
So... Find me an example where a monopoly existed for any prolonged period of time that was <i>both</i>:<br />
<ul>
<li>Hated by consumers, and...</li>
<li><i>Not</i> protected from competition by the government</li>
</ul>
...and <i>maybe</i>, this argument would have some merit. Not much, but at least more than zero.<br />
<blockquote>
<b>Question 12: </b>"Does our libertarian recognize that large corporations are a threat to our freedoms?"</blockquote>
Sure! But again, this is <i>only </i>to the extent that the corporation is actually advocating the use of violence to get what they want.<br />
<br />
To quote one of my all-time favorite lines from Milton Friedman (scary, libertarian economist!) from a 1978 interview he did for Reason Magazine (evil, Koch-funded libertarians!!):<br />
<blockquote>
"Business corporations in general are not defenders of free enterprise. On the contrary, they are one of the chief sources of danger....Every businessman is in favor of freedom for everybody else, but when it comes to himself that's a different question. We have to have that tariff to protect us against competition from abroad. We have to have that special provision in the tax code. We have to have that subsidy."</blockquote>
Please ponder this for a second.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0tgntso5nACYHpT5i6km-VyW-F9mcL0NC4yWXFFC6YvdqM9CbyD04PldJRRpSFbmGim3PNit51iN4zicEZ259uUblrk4mkMCLDBB4lIVzChOD4z9Xperw_0Awyx8ZmE6mlBTfC2OODKY/s1600/Friedman.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0tgntso5nACYHpT5i6km-VyW-F9mcL0NC4yWXFFC6YvdqM9CbyD04PldJRRpSFbmGim3PNit51iN4zicEZ259uUblrk4mkMCLDBB4lIVzChOD4z9Xperw_0Awyx8ZmE6mlBTfC2OODKY/s320/Friedman.png" width="320" /></a></div>
This is one of the heroes of modern libertarianism - who, by the way, was quite active during the very period the Alternet article claims had no libertarians - speaking 35 years ago. Far from deifying "big business", rich people, or corporations in general, he is criticizing them for favoring government privileges over freedom for everyone.<br />
<br />
Big businesses that use the state to create barriers to market entry for their competitors, businesses that request bailouts and corporate welfare paid for by taxpayers who go to jail if they don't comply, businesses that lobby for subsidies, and income guarantees, and who support all kinds of regulations on their industries - which is how regulation <i>actually</i> comes about in most cases - which make compliance very hard for small entrepreneurs and insulates the big political cronies from competition... <i>These</i> are corporations to be feared.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisrZBVm8vZvU2xLhmN5HU2jI05h2Nbr2Zc9p76gUVNiNJVIMjuw675B3F6u-TjcMuPndpg1etj4VNkVqKEQjUr_CDlQosMae54nFV8p7tmR2MaG3wg2bATS23rUVOvOlYB79i8coZfTAc/s1600/bastiat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="182" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisrZBVm8vZvU2xLhmN5HU2jI05h2Nbr2Zc9p76gUVNiNJVIMjuw675B3F6u-TjcMuPndpg1etj4VNkVqKEQjUr_CDlQosMae54nFV8p7tmR2MaG3wg2bATS23rUVOvOlYB79i8coZfTAc/s320/bastiat.jpg" width="320" /></a>But in the end, it's not the corporation itself that grants the favors or writes the laws. It's all the politicians and people in government. At the end of all of this, it all comes back to the powers granted to (or more often simply taken by) the state.<br />
<br />
The power to regulate is the power to destroy, and that power is almost always used against the little guy in <br />
support of the wealthy incumbent who's paying for the politicians' next election.<br />
<br />
People who don't understand this constantly misunderstand the libertarian position on business and regulation.<br />
<br />
Oh... And now we have some "Extra Credit Questions" as well! Goodie.<br />
<blockquote>
<b>Bonus 1: </b>"Ayn Rand was an adamant opponent of good works, writing that “The man who attempts to live for others is a dependent. He is a parasite in motive and makes parasites of those he serves.” That raises another test for our libertarian: Does he think that Rand was off the mark on this one, or does he agree that historical figures like King and Gandhi were “parasites”?"</blockquote>
Uhh... False.<br />
<br />
Rand was opposed to <b><i>forcing</i> </b>people to do what <i>you</i> think counts as "good". She was absolutely in favor of people engaging in charitable activities when they voluntarily elect to do so. Taking a single quote out of context, and without understanding her point is just bad form.<br />
<br />
And to go on with this nonsense, and set up a bizarre false dichotomy whereby agreeing with Ayn Rand (on something completely misstated by the author no less) means you must reject the good works of someone like Martin Luther King? It's gone from just being abysmally stupid to actually shameless.<br />
<br />
For the record, here's a pretty important quote by Ms. Rand that might shed some light on her feelings about MLK:<br />
<blockquote>
"Racism is a doctrine of, by and for brutes. It is a barnyard or stock-farm version of collectivism, appropriate to a mentality that differentiates between various breeds of animals, but not between animals and men... [It is] the notion that a man’s intellectual and characterological traits are produced by his internal body chemistry, which means, in practice, that a man is to be judged, not by his own character and actions but by the characters and actions of a collective of ancestors."</blockquote>
As far as I know, she was generally a fan of Dr. King. The Ayn Rand Institute is, writing:<br />
<blockquote>
"On Martin Luther King Day--and every day--we should focus on the proper antidote to racism and the proper alternative to racial thinking: individualism. We need to teach our children and all our citizens to look beyond the superficialities of skin color and to judge people on what really matters, namely, 'the content of their character.'"</blockquote>
Yeah... That sounds like some truly "adamant" opposition to "good works" to me.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
Failing to understand that Rand - and actual libertarians (she's an Objectivist, and rejected other forms of libertarianism, FYI) - advocate all kinds of voluntary action, but reject coercion, should be embarrassing, and asserting that libertarians (or at least Ayn Rand) rejected doing "good things", because you grossly misunderstand this idea, is just... well... idiotic.<br />
<br />
What's hard to understand about this?<br />
<br />
Since it seems that the Alternet crowd has the intellect of a small child, let me try to simplify this:<br />
<br />
<b>Voluntary action = good.</b><br />
<b>Coercion = bad. </b><br />
<br />
If you want to engage in charity, and help other people, and you are not forced to do so by someone who will throw you in jail if you don't, that's awesome by any libertarian standard. What's more, Martin Luther King, Jr. had a number of fairly libertarian tendencies as well - for example, his iconic quote on civil disobedience:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHgJpk-taKZBi-FfMoc5Rx9qnTcecyJHvamSDjlNmDMr0PEhAlXWmIkEfwaj3rxojwRUAQ_pJ4VAU9pDOFMZIlnMBabvFgJVIRmbDp-v7TfD0YPvDbaY4blP7L4i6qvNBlGm1T1AsWhjU/s1600/MLK.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHgJpk-taKZBi-FfMoc5Rx9qnTcecyJHvamSDjlNmDMr0PEhAlXWmIkEfwaj3rxojwRUAQ_pJ4VAU9pDOFMZIlnMBabvFgJVIRmbDp-v7TfD0YPvDbaY4blP7L4i6qvNBlGm1T1AsWhjU/s1600/MLK.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
King did not say, "Hey, if the law was created democratically, it's A-OK!", and why would he? Most of the laws affecting his community were racist and extremely harmful, and entirely created via majority-rule, democratic elections. Democracy cannot replace individual freedom if you want to have a peaceful society where anybody is actually able to "do good".<br />
<br />
Lastly...<br />
<blockquote>
<b>Bonus 2: </b>"Libertarianism would have died out as a philosophy if it weren’t for the funding that’s been lavished on the movement by billionaires like Thiel and the Kochs and corporations like ExxonMobil. So our final question is: If you believe in the free market, why weren’t you willing to accept as final the judgment against libertarianism rendered decades ago in the free and unfettered marketplace of ideas?"</blockquote>
I suppose listing the hundreds of academic and philosophical works, papers and other scholarly articles on the subject of libertarian philosophy written by people who were neither funded nor had anything to do with either of those people wouldn't be convincing?<br />
<br />
It certainly would be too time consuming for me at this point.<br />
<br />
Notably, when I reasoned my way into believing that people were rightfully autonomous individuals and that freedom & property rights were the root of a prosperous society, Peter Thiel wasn't a billionaire, and I'd never heard of the Koch Brothers. I just read a lot of history, some economics, and thought long and hard about philosophy, starting with the question, "Do I own myself?"<br />
<br />
That said, I do work for one of them now, and it's awesome.<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.sean-malone.com</div>Sean W. Malonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07652434357640171842noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5098030884495656852.post-36349639391411457402013-08-31T07:36:00.001-07:002013-08-31T07:36:21.008-07:00New Project: Video Production Education.As I begin this post, I'm sitting in a hotel room in Orlando, Florida.<br />
<br />
Yesterday, I gave a talk to a conference which was geared towards helping ordinary people from around the country get better at producing multimedia content - for the purposes of enhancing their own local political activism. The format was a little off-the-cuff, and to be honest, I would have organized it much differently than it was... but I still think I conveyed some helpful information.<br />
<br />
A lot of what I talked about came from material I'd presented in other settings.<br />
<br />
For example, I talked about dramatic structure a bit, and showed everyone this chart I made a while back, when I was giving a talk on narrative story-telling and how to construct a comprehensible story:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6lU0L5Ami-vUBb6Uu152ILbwQ57FZoLB61xIj6yS9uZy_VLDoDLnpvnevEfs32PXZyumJum_jiALl9yRHxia_9_ZXZfiKKSmBsSGLBCgLSJ5JEOaQ2EcHtf6qSX91nTkYyN13-cruxag/s1600/Dramatic-Structure.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="420" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6lU0L5Ami-vUBb6Uu152ILbwQ57FZoLB61xIj6yS9uZy_VLDoDLnpvnevEfs32PXZyumJum_jiALl9yRHxia_9_ZXZfiKKSmBsSGLBCgLSJ5JEOaQ2EcHtf6qSX91nTkYyN13-cruxag/s640/Dramatic-Structure.jpg" style="cursor: move;" width="640" /></a></div>
The problem with this, is that without having some serious time to devote to explaining this chart, which I didn't really have, it really just ends up being a lecture that goes right over people's heads. I mean - even though it seems simple enough to understand in the context of writing a novel, or a play, it leaves open a bunch of major questions - such as: How do you incorporate this structure into a documentary? Into a news package? Into a YouTube comedy video?<br />
<br />
Do you even need to? Maybe there are different forms to consider that work better? When is no form at all an appropriate choice?<br />
<br />
How do I explain the complexity of all that to a room of people who are really there to find out how to set up a basic podcast studio, or learn how to get better quality man-on-the-street interviews than their iPhones allow them to get?<br />
<br />
The truth is, there are a lot of resources out there available for film-makers to learn "Hollywood" techniques on film & video production, but not very many - or any, as far as I know - which are specifically geared towards not only helping people use their cameras better, but which also help people understand how to create better quality content at a really basic level, or for news & documentary content.<br />
<br />
What good does knowing what a Follow-Focus is for do for you, if you don't really even know how to manually set focus on the camera you have?<br />
<br />
Not much, I would guess.<br />
<br />
So with that in mind, I think I'm going to start writing a lot more about production techniques, and I'm going to try to structure my writings in a way that is actually useful from start to finish. I'll include instructional videos where I can, and as time permits me to make, and work through the methods, techniques, and ideas needed to elevate people's home-movies into clear, well-produced audio & video productions.<br />
<br />
I'll be talking about everything from story-development through distribution... But I might not be doing it at this blog. I need to think about it a bit before I start, but if I do this the way it probably needs to be done, I may very well need to create a proper online course through Udemy, Kahn, or Skillshare or something like that, and I'll probably shift over to a CitizenA Media blog.<br />
<br />
I'd like this to be useful to people, though, so what I really want to know from everyone out there reading this is: What problems have you encountered that you've not been able to solve? What can I help you with?<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.sean-malone.com</div>Sean W. Malonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07652434357640171842noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5098030884495656852.post-20736043804538916282013-07-18T18:53:00.000-07:002013-07-23T08:51:00.486-07:00Bad Journalism at HuffPo and Think Progress? Shocking!So, last week, my employer - The Charles Koch Institute - started running this video as an "advertisement" just in the Wichita, KS area. Take literally one minute and watch it:<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/gpLfQvRmf2E" width="560"></iframe><br /></div>
<br />
This 60-second spot is a cut-down version of a video that CKI had produced a couple years ago (slightly before my time), which you can check out on YouTube. Embedding has been disabled on it, but you can watch it by clicking here: http://youtu.be/v1U1Jzdghjk<br />
<br />
A few days ago, my dad - knowing that I've been working on a film that I've been trying to get released for quite a while - asked me if this was it (it's not), and forwarded me a fairly critical Huffington Post story about the video which basically just conveyed language & ideas taken straight from a predictably negative Think Progress blog on the video/Wichita campaign. <br />
<br />
Setting aside for a moment the lazy journalism involved in basically copying & pasting an ideological blog and passing it off as reporting, the content of the HuffPo article itself is just absurd.<br />
<br />
I'm in the process of moving right now and I hadn't had time to read or formulate a more comprehensive response to my dad's email yet, but as Think Progress continues to hammer away at CKI for the video, I figured maybe I'll just write this up here instead.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: #990000;">Before I begin, please note that these are my thoughts only, and are not endorsed by CKI nor are they meant to publicly or officially represent the organization in any capacity what-so-ever. I do not speak for the Institute, only for myself. <br /><br />Cool?<br /><br />Ok, cool.</span></b><br />
<br />
That said... The Think Progress/Huffington Post piece is riddled with economic falsehoods, obfuscation & misdirection, and outright logical fallacies and deserves a closer look.<br />
<br />
In an article originally titled: "<b>Koch Brothers Commercial Claims...</b>"<b> </b>but which is now more accurately titled; "<b><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/11/koch-brothers-commercial_n_3581017.html?utm_hp_ref=email_share">Charles Koch Foundation: An Income Of $34,000 Puts You In The Wealthiest 1 Percent</a></b>", here's what David Winograd of HuffPo had to say:<br />
<blockquote>
If you earn $34,000, that puts you in the wealthiest 1 percent of the world, according to the Charles Koch Foundation.<br />
<br />
That's one of many assertions made in a new ad that attempts to undermine government policies that protect low- and middle-income Americans. You can watch the ad, which is produced by Koch's conservative non-profit group, here: [VIDEO you saw above]<br />
<br />
Of course, earning $34,000 in the U.S. won't get you very far in most parts of the country. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that a family of three needs an income of at least $44,617 a year to cover basic living expenses in the cheapest parts of the country. In Wichita, Kansas, where the commercial is currently being aired, according to Think Progress, a family of three would need to make $53,721 to get by. That's far more than $30,000 a year that two parents earning minimum wage would make.<br />
<br />
Minimum wage is one policy that billionaire Charles Koch would like to see eliminated. In a recent interview with the Wichita Eagle, Charles Koch described the federal minimum wage as one of the policies that “creating a culture of dependency” and added that it “reduces the mobility of labor.”</blockquote>
Not a lot of words, but I guess that makes it a bit easier on this side.<br />
<br />
First off, let's start with the easy stuff... "The Koch Brothers" didn't produce or pay for this video at all. Charles Koch did through the Charles Koch Foundation. <br />
<br />
That's not to say David Koch probably doesn't agree with its contents, but they aren't conjoined twins! I've been here for 2 years and David has had exactly <i>nothing </i>to do with my day-to-day activities. Never met him, never heard him speak, he's never been in the office, his name isn't on the door... It may not matter to most people, but it's just sloppy reporting and it's an easy thing to get right unless your goal is to use language to heighten the nefariousness of the activity by insinuating a conspiracy among a unified pair of evil billionaires.<br />
<br />
Speaking of evil billionaires, the Huffington Post recommended some other content for me to check out after I finished reading the article. How thoughtful of them! <br />
<br />
I guess they figured I'd enjoy this slideshow:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNeKhtQ9YH5IVXawtAUykEFUixna87TfAEwU1Crjg9-1aPn8zuWOhiwoGUahFO0OP6dWLq6rF-DIP79reKW7zxzSvBOHEKxshLtusPWN71w6Lb6B_Jax84xBf_jCpgNMFhHNbnsW7aIAk/s1600/huffpo-evil+ceos.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNeKhtQ9YH5IVXawtAUykEFUixna87TfAEwU1Crjg9-1aPn8zuWOhiwoGUahFO0OP6dWLq6rF-DIP79reKW7zxzSvBOHEKxshLtusPWN71w6Lb6B_Jax84xBf_jCpgNMFhHNbnsW7aIAk/s1600/huffpo-evil+ceos.png" /></a></div>
<br />
The appearance of this specific slideshow on a post about Charles Koch's non-profit activities is just coincidental, of course. Nor does it have any effect on the way readers look at the central topic of the article. Nooooooooope... Not at all...<br />
<br />
Ugh.<br />
<br />
Anyway, the headline has been changed, so at least that pet peeve isn't as much of an issue anymore, and yet even so, the very first sentence is shoddy journalism.<br />
<br />
Why's that?<br />
<br />
Well... Cause the $34,000 figure isn't "according to the Charles Koch Foundation", it's according to economists at the World Bank. Highly comparable figures are also confirmed by any number of other global research organizations that study this kind of stuff. <br />
<br />
I'm sure it would surprise few people to learn that I'm friends with many of the economists who probably contributed to the data in the original video that got repurposed for the Wichita ad, and in my experience they all strongly prefer to base their conclusions off of data-sets produced by entities like World Bank, IMF, St. Louis Federal Reserve, and other widely-respected and generally "neutral" sources - or data-sets produced by partisan "progressive" outfits like - ironically enough - the Economic Policy Institute or Center for American Progress.<br />
<br />
Don't believe me? Here are a bunch of other articles referencing the fact that $34,000 per year puts you in the 1% wealthiest population in the world.<br />
<ul>
<li>CNN:<br />
<a href="http://money.cnn.com/2012/01/04/news/economy/world_richest/index.htm">"Americans make up half of the world's richest 1%"</a> [January 4th, 2012]</li>
<li>UK Daily Mail:<br />
<a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2082385/We-1--You-need-34k-income-global-elite--half-worlds-richest-live-U-S.html">"America IS the 1%: You need just $34,000 annual income to be in the global elite... and HALF the world's richest people live in the U.S."</a> [January 5th, 2012]</li>
<li>Yahoo:<br />
<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/attention-protestors-youre-probably-part-1-153806044.html">"Attention, Protestors: You're Probably Part of the 1%"</a> [October 28th, 2011]</li>
</ul>
So... While the HuffPo article certainly makes it <i>seem</i> like this is a poorly sourced claim made up out of the blue by dastardly partisans looking to manipulate you, the truth is that it's a widely accepted figure created by a well-respected organization and which was reported by plenty of major news outlets. It was not merely "asserted", as the article claims.<br />
<br />
In fact... None of the information we used in the rest of the video (or the longer original from which it was cut) came from any particularly biased sources or is otherwise indefensible.<br />
<br />
It's also unarguably true that real world evidence all strongly correlates economic freedom (i.e. property rights, mostly uninhibited freedom to buy/sell/trade, stable currency, low taxes, etc.), to higher incomes per capita, higher standards of living, and everything else we tend to think is pretty good. Economic freedom rankings are produced by the Fraser Institute in Canada, which is one of only two organizations I'm even aware of which even attempts to compare economic freedom internationally, and they're by far the best. All their data is publicly available and the way they do the rankings is based on a pretty clear formula, so it's not even all that subjective.<br />
<br />
And here's the thing... Nothing the reporter quoted from Think Progress actually refutes any of that!<br />
<br />
They just say - and I wouldn't disagree - that American families have a higher expectation and prefer even higher incomes. Fortunately, the median household income in the US was $52,762 as of 2011. The overwhelming majority of Americans are not only in the "top 1% of the world", we're far above the threshold. Obviously more than that is better, especially for families, but that wasn't the point of the ad - the point of the video is that we can look around the world and see how clearly prosperity is correlated to economic freedom, and how America's ranking has fallen dramatically in the last 15 years.<br />
<br />
Either way, the whole article is framed as some kind of skeptical challenge, but it presents no actual challenge at all. Odd, huh?<br />
<br />
Then the discussion turns again towards Minimum Wage - which is not only <i>not</i> mentioned in the video - but which Think Progress is just flat-out wrong about when they promote it as some panacea for improving the lives of working people. Charles Koch is correct, and they are not. Miminum Wage HURTS poor people by denying them opportunities to work.<br />
<br />
I've covered this a zillion times in a zillion forums, including this one - when 5 years ago I presented 50 years worth of journal articles in a blog titled: "<a href="http://seanwmalone.blogspot.com/2009/07/minimum-wage-50-years-of-fail.html">Minimum Wage: 50 Years of Fail</a>"<br />
<br />
Empirical data <i>clearly and repeatedly</i> shows that minimum wage increases correspond to lower levels of employment, reduced payroll hours, and other depressive consequences that predominately affect the least skilled, youngest and poorest people in our society.<br />
<br />
The <i>only</i> study that actively countermands this is one by David Card and Alan Krueger (who you might remember as part of the Obama administration) and although it's widely discussed, it's a study that has been thoroughly refuted and was methodologically flawed from the outset. <br />
<br />
As my buddy, Antony Davies who teaches economics at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, noted:<br />
<blockquote>
"What non-economists are often unaware of is that the Card-Krueger study didn't look at employment among minimum wage workers. It looked at managers' intentions and recollections about employment. A follow-up study (published in the same journal) by Neumark and Wascher duplicated Card and Krueger's study using the same population, and the same techniques. But, instead of asking managers what they intended (or remembered) doing in response to the minimum wage change, Neumark and Wascher looked at actual payroll data.<br />
<br />
They found what economic theory predicts -- the increase in the minimum wage resulted in unemployment among minimum wage workers."</blockquote>
Furthermore, this isn't even an area where there's much internal disagreement among the economics profession. <a href="http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2009/02/news-flash-economists-agree.html">According to Greg Mankiw</a> (who wrote what is literally the most widely used college economics textbook in the world), across many polls of the profession, studies have shown that <b><i>79%</i></b> of economists agree with the following statement:<br />
<blockquote>
"A minimum wage increases unemployment among young and unskilled workers."</blockquote>
That's not to say that the consensus is guaranteed to be right, but c'mon. The theory is sound, the evidence supports it, and the overwhelming majority of economists agree that Minimum Wage increases unemployment rates.<br />
<br />
So, I mean... If what you want to do is <i>hurt </i>poor people by reducing their opportunities, then by all means - go ahead and follow the advice of Think Progress.<br />
<br />
Anyway, the bigger problems here are that journalists and pundits write about this stuff using insinuation, bad logic and lazily connect ideas that are actually unrelated. CKI's video is about America's trajectory in economic freedom and it uses an international comparison because, well... that's the whole point! As the government increasingly controls more and more of our economy, we can look to other parts of the world and see the consequences.<br />
<br />
They aren't pretty.<br />
<br />
So maybe we could have a conversation about that, instead of constantly promoting ancient and long discredited fallacies of folk economics and ginning up fear of the dreaded "rich guy"? Huh HuffPo? How about it?<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.sean-malone.com</div>Sean W. Malonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07652434357640171842noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5098030884495656852.post-65743676090844896492013-06-16T22:11:00.000-07:002013-06-17T08:50:04.431-07:00MOVIE REVIEW: Man of SteelOn February 13th, 2010, I wrote a blog-post about the news that there would be a new Superman film, "rebooting" that franchise, and that Christopher Nolan may be attached as a story producer. Among other things, <a href="http://seanwmalone.blogspot.com/2010/02/superman-returns-again.html">I wrote this</a>:<br />
<blockquote>
"Real bad guys don't think they're doing bad things! They think that they are saving the world. They almost always have the best of intentions, not the worst... Lex Luthor believes (not unreasonably, I might add) that Superman is the advance guard for a malevolent alien invasion. He's a little paranoid, he's holds many grudges and he's an egomaniac - but his motivation is often well intended... At least in his own mind.<br />
<br />
Hollywood doesn't do that kind of character complexity very well most of the time... Especially not in movies produced by Jon Peters. But as a result, the whole thing<i> [Superman Returns]</i> is laughably stupid. And yes, I know I'm talking about "comic books".<br />
<br />
But like any fantasy & science-fiction writing, the issue isn't about the believability or reality of the technology or magical abilities - it's about the human character development. Sci-Fi is allegorical... That's kind of the whole point! <br />
<br />
...<br />
<br />
Christopher Nolan seems to grasp this concept. The powers, the fantasy, are not what's important - what's important is that the world itself has internal consistency and that the people who inhabit it behave like real people. None of the Superman movies have succeeded on that score. Characters have been one-dimensional, the internal logic of the world Superman inhabits has been repeatedly violated, and directors, writers & producers have chased after cheap laughs and idiotic plot lines.<br />
<br />
So yeah, I really hope that Nolan can bring the understanding of character and realism to the franchise - as I am still waiting for a Superman movie that isn't completely absurd - but I worry that he will take Superman into the darkness in a way that is inappropriate."</blockquote>
I was a little worried that Zack Snyder wouldn't get that... and that he wouldn't really get who Superman is. I am thrilled to say that I was (mostly) wrong.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhng_YcdES60XXAVlLbxB9kALxDxa6hBCxzDIlbFxllx7jSnpZmD-ByXEL28cY3WFHT0r-ovsR6T8yCOjB7FDKcL94zQmRngJZ1bvPGyllRf_Qa0vB21ONQZYtXPoQNzNeh7_ffuCOQVAk/s1600/superman_in_man_of_steel-HD.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhng_YcdES60XXAVlLbxB9kALxDxa6hBCxzDIlbFxllx7jSnpZmD-ByXEL28cY3WFHT0r-ovsR6T8yCOjB7FDKcL94zQmRngJZ1bvPGyllRf_Qa0vB21ONQZYtXPoQNzNeh7_ffuCOQVAk/s640/superman_in_man_of_steel-HD.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Paging Alex Ross.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The story itself isn't linear, which I liked. Rather than drag down the film with 40 minutes of exposition, we jump straight into the action on the dying planet of Krypton, then cut right to a 33 year old Clark Kent (or we may assume) working as a fisherman in the arctic. It's only in flashbacks spread out through the film that we get to see the story of Clark's upbringing in Kansas... His childhood, his interactions with his adoptive father (played perfectly by Kevin Costner), and his gradual discovery of who he is and what he can do.<br />
<br />
As I suspected, "Man of Steel" is a lot darker in certain ways than you might expect to see with Superman, but overwhelmingly, the essence of what Superman is and the kind of story-writing I always want to see with that character is what you get with the movie.<br />
<br />
I've been <a href="http://seanwmalone.blogspot.com/2012/06/character-story-economics-in-comics.html">talking about this, for a long, long time</a>... But stop and really think about who Kal-El is, and you'll understand why I've been so let down by the writing for Superman.<br />
<br />
First off, he's not actually "alone" like so many of the iterations of the story foolishly portray him to be.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXpAzpzO7b8xYU4YahCZfOoxQ12jwio6wqhZE_03kftchMW-J9Fv5qqYJSV9BI3AyX9PCw5z95xnrRYCjrHURBeaBYiIINKcXs_leZILgPGZXGD6T-fWWnKT0bMaLaoA5tt_X5CKNb_WI/s1600/Man-Of-Steel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="188" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXpAzpzO7b8xYU4YahCZfOoxQ12jwio6wqhZE_03kftchMW-J9Fv5qqYJSV9BI3AyX9PCw5z95xnrRYCjrHURBeaBYiIINKcXs_leZILgPGZXGD6T-fWWnKT0bMaLaoA5tt_X5CKNb_WI/s320/Man-Of-Steel.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"I grew up in Kansas, I'm about as American as it gets."</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
He's got wonderful, loving and inspiring human parents who are all he knew since he was an infant, and who played a profound role in his morality and character development. Then, as he grew up, he gained access to archives prepared by his birth-father Jor-El (played by a hammy - but good - Russell Crowe) & mother Lara (Ayelet Zurer), and ultimately learned that his Kryptonian parents loved him just as much as Jonathan & Martha Kent (Diane Lane) did.<br />
<br />
Most human children should be so lucky.<br />
<br />
So to play him off like some sad - or even creepy - lost puppy (like Bryan Singer did in Superman Returns) makes <i>absolutely no sense</i>.<br />
<br />
Clark's struggles are much more interesting than simply being an "orphan". Superman may be the child of a doomed planet, but he's not alone and he was raised in a wonderful home with good values, so he's not really all that much of an orphan anyway.<br />
<br />
What he <i>actually</i> is, is a man with unbelievable power.<br />
<br />
But what's equally uncommon, is that he's also a man with unfailing integrity. Truth, Justice and the American Way (I know, my libertarian friends, nationalism sucks, but what we're talking about here isn't that Supes is a stooge for the state, but that he actually really does believe in freedom & self-determination). He's the guy who actually understands that with all his immense power really did come immense responsibilities.<br />
<br />
This is Superman's struggle... and while I think Snyder could have developed this point a lot more, "Man of Steel" was the first movie I've seen to even deal with the issue at all.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7VhSh3kHme38qTjog6E0AmbsMGrESPiJVbGOl7JeaMmLhc5TZI6FdLEF2HgZVJy_89qUsnML9lrAD40RN91qLFFj8UsmwlWFnOFqYui9WbBGENgBpKLTHg_rR8w6MO8Wc_stKPltmZUA/s1600/man-of-steel-kevin-costner-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7VhSh3kHme38qTjog6E0AmbsMGrESPiJVbGOl7JeaMmLhc5TZI6FdLEF2HgZVJy_89qUsnML9lrAD40RN91qLFFj8UsmwlWFnOFqYui9WbBGENgBpKLTHg_rR8w6MO8Wc_stKPltmZUA/s320/man-of-steel-kevin-costner-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
This Superman is a man who struggles with not fully knowing where he comes from and what he can do, his need to keep that part of himself a secret, while still trying to protect the people around him. Kal-El's power means that every single choice he makes is hugely important - yet, he's not omniscient and struggles with knowing for sure what the right choices even are. And most of all, Clark must tip-toe through the world, just to interact with people safely. He lives in a perpetual state of extreme self-control. In one flashback, where Clark is getting bullied by some of his classmates for being a weirdo (and honestly, teenage Superman couldn't be anything but a weirdo), we get a great moment where as an audience, we can do nothing but empathize with how difficult it must be to be one of the most powerful beings in the universe and yet be just as emotionally vulnerable as everyone else.<br />
<br />
Few people could handle that kind of pressure, let alone actually live up to it without simply going crazy and wrecking the world - and that's what's interesting about the character.<br />
<br />
It's what I love about the character. Superman is <i>far</i> more complex emotionally than most modern writers and comic book fans give him credit for... at least, he should be, and is when written right.<br />
<br />
So to see these kinds of questions even brought up in "Man of Steel" is so exciting to me, and Henry Cavill turns out to be a spectacular casting choice for this role. He's confident, kind, and utterly believable. And it doesn't hurt that when he's shirtless, he looks like this:<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvubl4XBNciPGJRLbDCY9Bnoaj2g-Z9RIREEmHIM4zDiwF5ZPMvaTkC7OpVXju-sotYrGyTxKEslSEx3f_IZ3LLcwu3lzay6ZEZ36ssfpzVAg5_JN-fsixiw7VH5iIwh44grC4kwEjMiU/s1600/manofsteel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvubl4XBNciPGJRLbDCY9Bnoaj2g-Z9RIREEmHIM4zDiwF5ZPMvaTkC7OpVXju-sotYrGyTxKEslSEx3f_IZ3LLcwu3lzay6ZEZ36ssfpzVAg5_JN-fsixiw7VH5iIwh44grC4kwEjMiU/s1600/manofsteel.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Man of Steel, indeed.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
But that's not all... Superman is nothing without a good villain!<br />
<br />
Comic book writers at DC have struggled with this problem for years, but given how powerful Superman <br />
actually is, having him battle some local thug is usually pointless. He's an intergalactic powerhouse, not a beat cop. The threats he deals with need to be correspondingly huge if the challenge is to be remotely believable. So for approaching a century, writers have racked their brains trying to find worthy adversaries for the Man of Tomorrow.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPcATRPdcs180UZkeIUZbkLQSfsrLc80SNhTji09rVa17tsneeotGihGh_9i480q29MmYyMCFj_qqiY1UaEMzRL7coN_3rOCyurELwFq6oXy2ZwOyj1vSaSlhCqYznuaM4X0MsUOB0G3E/s1600/Darkseid+Byrne+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPcATRPdcs180UZkeIUZbkLQSfsrLc80SNhTji09rVa17tsneeotGihGh_9i480q29MmYyMCFj_qqiY1UaEMzRL7coN_3rOCyurELwFq6oXy2ZwOyj1vSaSlhCqYznuaM4X0MsUOB0G3E/s320/Darkseid+Byrne+2.jpg" width="206" /></a>Lex Luthor's ruthless genius and expertise in science, engineering & business make him a good human nemesis. Doomsday's Kryptonite knuckles and mindless brutality made him a formidable enough foe to actually kill Kal-El... And really, that's nothing compared to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darkseid">Darkseid's</a> Omega Force.<br />
<br />
So... Go back to what I said at the beginning.<br />
<br />
A real bad guy isn't a cartoon. People who do bad things don't usually wake up in the morning and go,<br />
<blockquote>
"And so he says to me, you want to be a bad guy? And I say Yeah Baby! I want to be bad!"</blockquote>
(Only the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ba5nzadGx_I">Evil Midnight Bomber</a> does that. <a href="http://www.thetick.ws/embquotes.htm">Boom, baby, boom</a>!)<br />
<br />
Seriously though... People who do the most damage in society are the ones who single-mindedly believe that they are doing the <i>right</i> thing, <i>and</i> (this is important), that anything they do to achieve their goals is justifiable.<br />
<br />
Michael Shannon's "General Zod" is that villain. And, he's easily the best part of the film.<br />
<br />
Here we have a man who was genetically designed by the central planners on Krypton to <i>be</i> Krypton's military leader. His sole purpose is to be the man who protects the Kryptonian people from all enemies - foreign and domestic - and he takes that job very, very seriously. When the council of politicians (who seem to be just as big of asshats on Krypton as they are on Earth) fails to act decisively in preventing the imminent collapse of the planet - after taking actions that Jor-El, chief scientist of the planet advised against - Zod attempts a coup d'état, killing the head of the council.<br />
<br />
Why? Because he's "evil"? No. Because his job is to save Krypton and "that's what needs to be done".<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPROSt8xPsoFnxNhVueC01PAAnXVhoquFanyr-X5xMz4f1zZRQbnOhwZELTQa8tSOuUimI4r71o4C2rJHLQAH7StI4horHYL9JgQIM-14xCPbrDFRA3DYcCEzjBXgDCyhC4LcewsNZdDE/s1600/michael-shannon-zod.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="175" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPROSt8xPsoFnxNhVueC01PAAnXVhoquFanyr-X5xMz4f1zZRQbnOhwZELTQa8tSOuUimI4r71o4C2rJHLQAH7StI4horHYL9JgQIM-14xCPbrDFRA3DYcCEzjBXgDCyhC4LcewsNZdDE/s320/michael-shannon-zod.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"I will find him!!!!"</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Then, when Jor-El takes the Codex (a skull-like object containing Kryptonian genetic material and which is clearly of high importance to the survival and expansion of the species) and sends it to Earth with Kal-El, Zod chases Jor-El back to his house, attempts to stop the launch of the spaceship and ultimately vows to find Kal-El, wherever he ends up.<br />
<br />
And 33 years later, he does.<br />
<br />
Oh boy.... He does.<br />
<br />
Michael Shannon is fantastic in this role. I imagine he doesn't especially like being type-cast as "crazy intensity" guy, but he really does it better than just about anybody, and this is so, so, soooo important to a story like "Man of Steel".<br />
<br />
Superman needs an adversary who is not only powerful enough to be a legitimate threat to the world and to him (and the sheer destruction in the 2nd & 3rd acts is proof enough on this point), he needs an adversary who's motivations actually make sense. Zod is saving his people. Even though Kal-El is Kryptonian, Zod sees him as collateral damage to a mission that is absolutely crucial to the greater good of the Kryptonian species.<br />
<br />
He is - in his mind - the good guy. The entire time. And that's really important!<br />
<br />
At this point, you're probably thinking that I see "Man of Steel" as a near-flawless film. Unfortunately... It is not. For one thing, while I actually think Amy Adams did the best job of anyone who has yet played "girl reporter Lois Lane", her character was still a bit under-developed and when it's clear that she and Clark are going to be more than "reporter and source", it comes a bit out of left-field. For another thing, there's a lot of dialogue that goes a bit over-the-top in the cliche department. I don't mind it that much, and I didn't come to see the film for it's riveting dialogue anyway... but still. It is a weakness.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt7jZ2ddZKRYIn8GIxbsIR-WBG_k4j_rKwkfdthyphenhyphenVe1x47pd6FFcDpnGr-im8L_K02hSvV528c3zZOU4d6Hh3MMIiAY2cTaPd-c4jKBdX7buodFAlVhw4MVcQVZAylQXm11Qs_wjInRsM/s1600/277_7207_ucp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt7jZ2ddZKRYIn8GIxbsIR-WBG_k4j_rKwkfdthyphenhyphenVe1x47pd6FFcDpnGr-im8L_K02hSvV528c3zZOU4d6Hh3MMIiAY2cTaPd-c4jKBdX7buodFAlVhw4MVcQVZAylQXm11Qs_wjInRsM/s400/277_7207_ucp.jpg" width="273" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Oh, the things I know about the history of media...</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Another weakness is that the US Military sucked up a boatload of tax-money for promotional tie-ins with "Man of Steel", and it shows. Given the screen time they got for their contributions, US Air Force logo might as well be on the damn cups at every movie-theater showing this flick. The National Guard is now using this promotion as a recruiting tool with their cringe-worthy "<a href="http://www.soldierofsteel.com/">Soldier of Steel</a>" campaign. Of course, that's hardly the only product-placement in the movie. IHOP gets some noticeable (although often kind of hilarious) screen time as well.<br />
<br />
Don't get me wrong - I've got nothing against product placement. Superman Radio in the 1940s was brought to my grandparents by "Kellogg's Pep" after all!<br />
<br />
But it shouldn't take you out of the story, and here from time to time, it does.<br />
<br />
All in all, though, most everything was handled pretty well.<br />
<br />
We didn't get stuck with a painful origin story for the millionth time. Lois & Clark don't spend the movie making googly eyes at each other. Clark doesn't spend his time whining about how he really wants to tell Lois the truth, but can't (*ahem* Smallville). We aren't subjected to camp and obvious ridiculousness the whole time at the whim of producers who didn't even care about the source-material. The villain is appropriately badass, and represents a <i>serious</i> challenge to Superman. Superman himself is incredible, human, inspiring and has an emotional core that will be easy to develop in further installments. The casting is bang-on. The effects work - while a bit overplayed - is all top-notch, and most everything about the plot mostly makes sense... With the exception of a few "Jor-El ex Machina" moments.<br />
<br />
Oh, plus!<br />
<br />
Let's all breathe a collective sigh of relief for the fact that neither Tim Burton, nor Nicholas Cage, were involved and not once do we get a giant spider, or polar bear wrestling. All of those things <i>could</i> have happened in this movie, but didn't. Whew!<br />
<br />
Best of all... "Man of Steel" isn't just another dumb re-hash of a movie from 1978 that never deserved the acclaim and adoration it's still clinging onto in the first place. Yeah, I know. Blasphemy. Whatever.<br />
<br />
If you're looking for practical advice on whether or not you should see the movie, all I can say is that I will definitely be seeing it again in theaters, and I sincerely hope the powers that be let Zack Snyder continue with the franchise and build on what they've done here in a way that gives the progenitor of all superheroes the respect his character's legacy deserves.<br />
<br />
I'm hopeful.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH2rjwKnm53geH0zEQ_MfeQbfBxNrug-uc-laPlQ9DBOWZhrZ9D7gMF9-TCzQUxgW1O8yxCjs9-eAmc2nUkWKFve-tlZkYNDe4KMr_lqXdNajEupwQb1YpwQfB2rzEL39YTMchQwKb5yo/s1600/desk-toy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH2rjwKnm53geH0zEQ_MfeQbfBxNrug-uc-laPlQ9DBOWZhrZ9D7gMF9-TCzQUxgW1O8yxCjs9-eAmc2nUkWKFve-tlZkYNDe4KMr_lqXdNajEupwQb1YpwQfB2rzEL39YTMchQwKb5yo/s640/desk-toy.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This guy sits on my desk. In case you hadn't figured it out yet... I am actually a really big fan.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
[PS. The film also brings up another topic that I won't spend any time on right now- but on which I'm very tempted to devote another post to, or perhaps make a video about, very soon. That topic is one I've discussed on this blog before: "<a href="http://seanwmalone.blogspot.com/2008/12/blog-from-archives-sci-fi-inconceivably.html">Sci-fi and Inconceivably Advanced Societies</a>". The last time I talked about this issue was years and years ago, and this film provides an excellent opportunity to update those thoughts.]<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.sean-malone.com</div>Sean W. Malonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07652434357640171842noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5098030884495656852.post-13837143513552945702013-06-01T18:19:00.001-07:002013-06-01T23:33:18.308-07:00Just Stop Being Offended.I have some useful advice for basically everyone that will make their lives a lot easier and less stressful. Here it is: Just stop being offended.<br />
<br />
Now, this may seem impossible to some of you... and I understand that it might be difficult, but I assure you, it is both possible and necessary if you no longer wish to have your mental and emotional well-being constantly compromised by other people whose words and actions are beyond your control.<br />
<br />
What's more, I've found over the years that some people are not just offended by things intended to be offensive, but instead, seem to be looking for reasons to take offense to anything and everything that anybody does.<br />
<br />
For example... Just today, one of my favorite Facebook friends posted a Salon article about the supposed homophobia present in Disney movies: "<a href="http://www.salon.com/2013/06/01/why_are_there_no_gay_disney_characters_partner/">Why are there no gay Disney characters?</a>"<br />
<br />
And sure... There aren't any gay Disney "princesses", and no sweeping same-sex love-affairs in their whole universe really. Perhaps that's a tragedy... But I actually have far too many other (and I think actually much more substantive) criticisms of most of the messages contained in Disney movies to spend a ton of time on why there aren't any overtly gay characters.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinG20jSaGJCCDmGRLENAcbi1BhLeEmxPWkGgLsSmgQ2XekcqJDeLVrWhH-XsncHNvhwJcELmmWMOSmfDBtwqsQ5dZUUdtunIJfhjo2j0M_vmVq8LqvHYx1YSFX2J4MxykuZh_j2hJ05Lc/s1600/wreck-it-ralph.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinG20jSaGJCCDmGRLENAcbi1BhLeEmxPWkGgLsSmgQ2XekcqJDeLVrWhH-XsncHNvhwJcELmmWMOSmfDBtwqsQ5dZUUdtunIJfhjo2j0M_vmVq8LqvHYx1YSFX2J4MxykuZh_j2hJ05Lc/s320/wreck-it-ralph.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
However, that article did have a lot of linked content, and one of those links took me to another article about the supposed "gay slurs" and perhaps nascent homophobia found in Disney Animation Studios' wonderful film, "Wreck-it Ralph".<br />
<br />
Here's the thing, though... I <i>loved</i> Wreck-it Ralph and noticed absolutely nothing in it that could be remotely described as "homophobic". In fact, to the contrary, the film has two central themes (first, that you get to choose who you want to be and don't need to be stuck in the roles society has defined for you... and second, that you're ok as you are, even if people think you're a little weird) and both are - or conceivably should be - inspiring to anyone who is a little outside the norm.<br />
<br />
Gay people obviously included.<br />
<br />
That said, of course I'm not gay, so perhaps I just wouldn't ever be able to pick up on the kind of homophobic references someone who's been attuned to it his whole life might more easily recognize. So... Here's what author, Chris Bogia, had to say in "<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-bogia/wreck-it-ralph_b_2220403.html">They Wrecked It: Reflecting on Homophobia in Disney's Wreck-It Ralph</a>":<br />
<blockquote>
"I was crestfallen when the game's villain turned out to be yet another mincing gay stereotype. At first I let it go -- I really wanted to enjoy Wreck-It Ralph.<br />
<br />
That's when Ralph, the lovable hero (depicted perhaps uncoincidentally as an exaggeratedly tough masculine guy), quips about the King of Candy's palace color story, pink. A gag is had at the defensive king's lispy expense: "IT'S SALMON!" Pink would have been a bad choice for a palace made of candy?<br />
<br />
Then it gets much worse.<br />
<br />
After some limp-wristed gesticulating by our villain, Ralph grabs him, shakes him, and calls the confectionary monarch a "nelly wafer" (it's like Nilla Wafer, get it?)<br />
<br />
"Nelly."<br />
<br />
That word is hardly thrown around these days, and I'm sure most young kids seeing Wreck-It Ralph wouldn't know what it means. However, when entered into Google for anyone that didn't already know it's definition, here it is:<br />
<br />
"Offensive Slang: Used as a disparaging term for an effeminate homosexual man."<br />
<br />
There's very little grey area here. The hero of the Disney animated movie I just saw shook the mincing, effeminate villain and called him a homophobic slur (after already insulting his decorating taste!)."</blockquote>
Ok. I think I see the problem now. Maybe Bogia just doesn't know anything about the history of film, and perhaps he was actually <i>looking </i>for something to be offended by.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbTs9NkyybzO0zdzVIowHmZ1wx34xMey8fDxN2LKXKKaqnW3roYy5E14HCZXszT_cj1E5eZbGVzSOihyd-LIRyHJQvAe0QgUTA7IRg9zD_pMfUEq0yHbH5-Q-K5wEHOXwGZMxYkuWWgGE/s1600/ed+wynn.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbTs9NkyybzO0zdzVIowHmZ1wx34xMey8fDxN2LKXKKaqnW3roYy5E14HCZXszT_cj1E5eZbGVzSOihyd-LIRyHJQvAe0QgUTA7IRg9zD_pMfUEq0yHbH5-Q-K5wEHOXwGZMxYkuWWgGE/s200/ed+wynn.jpg" width="151" /></a>First of all, King Candy (not "The King of Candy"... an error that makes me question whether or not Mr. Bogia really paid that much attention to the film) isn't actually a "gay stereotype" at all.<br />
<br />
He might be lispy and effeminate in certain ways, but he is - in fact - a virtually spot-on impersonation of 1930s-1950s comedian and character actor, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Wynn">Ed Wynn</a>, as voiced by the utterly fantastic Alan Tudyk.<br />
<br />
Ed Wynn started in Vaudeville in the 1920s, and became a well-known radio actor by the 1930s. And of course, the film & television industry grew directly out of those two traditions by the 1940s... and some people, like Wynn, stuck around.<br />
<br />
Although you might not have seen Ed Wynn's performances on "The Twilight Zone" or "What's My Line?", I can pretty much assure you that you do, in fact, know his work as the Mad Hatter in Disney's classic 1951 animated feature, "Alice and Wonderland":<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/ROqlhMEWA70" width="560"></iframe><br /></div>
<br />
Wynn certainly isn't mocking gay people, he's doing Vaudeville schtickle while voicing one of the most absurd characters in Disney's pantheon. And of course, the fact that Wynn's voice is so heavily tied to Disney feature animation, and the fact that the King Candy character is based almost directly on Wynn's Mad Hatter, makes it hardly surprising that Alan Tudyk would be doing a ridiculously over-the-top lispy homage.<br />
<br />
Also, on a purely aesthetic note, I'd simply point out that there's just nothing about Wynn's lisp or inflection that is stereotypical "gay man". Not all lisps are created equally.<br />
<br />
Compare Wynn's Mad Hatter (which is basically just... Ed Wynn), to say... Mario Cantone (a little NSFW):<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/PM0LYdcz9a8" width="420"></iframe><br /></div>
<br />
Also... Try to forget that Mario Cantone is actually a gay man, thus rendering the whole notion of this lisp as an inherently insulting stereotype a bit weak.<br />
<br />
The point here is that when people do the "gay lisp" to mock (or celebrate!) gay people, they're doing Mario Cantone, Nathan Lane, or maybe Harvey Fierstein... They're not doing the Mad Hatter.<br />
<br />
These are different things.<br />
<br />
So... Right out of the gate, there's probably nothing intentionally homophobic or offensive by the vocal character of King Candy. To me, Bogia's interpretation of it as homophobic strikes me as at best a simple misunderstanding of the characters being referenced and an ignorance of cinema.<br />
<br />
No crime there... But.... It's hard for me to imagine getting offended by that.<br />
<br />
And, fair enough, Mr. Bogia says that didn't bother him that much, but that what really got to him was Ralph's use of the word "Nelly" in the phrase, "Nelly Wafer". Yet, curiously, Mr. Bogia leads his explanation of why this is offensive by noting that "the word is hardly thrown around anymore". As far as I'm concerned, that's a massive understatement. Except through extensive Googling, would you have ever assumed that word to be a gay-slur?<br />
<br />
I've heard the word "Nelly" used in literally only one context - and it's an ancient one: "Nervous Nelly".<br />
<br />
My guess is that your experience lines up with mine pretty closely. Furthermore, in the context of "Nervous Nelly", there's really no sense of sexual orientation being involved. Effeminate, sure... Wimpy, definitely... But...... Gay?<br />
<br />
Not really.<br />
<br />
But even if it did have that connotation, it's a connotation that absolutely no one in the audience - and I'm guessing on the writing team - had any knowledge of. Instead, while I was reading Bogia's article, I suspected that what was more likely was simply that sometimes writers are looking for unique, silly or clever ways of working dialogue into the story that both fits the tone and makes sense.<br />
<br />
The character's name is "King Candy". He's surrounded by candy. He has two donut guards named Wynnchell <span style="font-size: x-small;">(<i>*cough* Wynn *cough*</i>)</span> and Duncan. The <b>entire</b> universe being inhabited is filled with puns!<br />
<br />
Beard Papa was a security guard.<br />
<br />
Speaking as a scriptwriter, I would be looking for every available opportunity to cram another candy-related pun into the movie. So to assume that "Nelly Wafer" is a gay slur, you really have to assume quite a bit else as well.<br />
<br />
Namely, that:<br />
<ol>
<li>The writer had ever heard it used as such (which, I seriously doubt, as it's incredibly obscure)</li>
<li>That there are literally no other possible interpretations (obviously false),</li>
<li>That the writer was to some extent deliberately sneaking in homophobic or anti-gay messages into a movie about being true to yourself and accepting yourself you are.... even if you have giant hands or glitch all the time.</li>
</ol>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN-Ckyzsoe0_dkRVYOsWu9SmdUl6jeLvlf13BEBhbbdhbwcwlz7ZRfFaxUrQK7I5wKiwzH3BYGzM9wa0odSF_a0pZq29enGSEYlZoCeaUcUYYhDltjlzw7opDg1Y9hy1jiYMY8tLEISlY/s1600/King-Candy.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN-Ckyzsoe0_dkRVYOsWu9SmdUl6jeLvlf13BEBhbbdhbwcwlz7ZRfFaxUrQK7I5wKiwzH3BYGzM9wa0odSF_a0pZq29enGSEYlZoCeaUcUYYhDltjlzw7opDg1Y9hy1jiYMY8tLEISlY/s1600/King-Candy.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">See?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
None of those things seem especially likely to me... And what's more, I went looking on <a href="http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/King_Candy">Disney's wikia</a> <span id="goog_1591415422"></span>about Wreck-it Ralph, and curiously enough, instead of "Nelly Wafer" being listed under the "other names" section, the word is actually "Nilly Wafer". They also directly confirm my observation that the character is based on Ed Wynn's Mad Hatter.<br />
<span id="goog_1591415421"></span><br />
What's more, I also looked at a copy of the screenplay. Here's the scene [emphasis mine]:<br />
<blockquote>
<b>RALPH</b><br />
Well, maybe I’ll just have to have a little talk with the winner then.<br />
<br />
<b>KING CANDY</b><br />
Is that a threat I smell-- beyond the halitosis you so obviously suffer from?<br />
<br />
<b>RALPH</b><br />
Listen <i>Nillie Wafer</i>, I’m not leaving without my medal.<br />
<br />
<b>KING CANDY</b><br />
Yes, you are. Wynnchel, Duncan, get him out of that cupcake and on the first train back home. And if I ever see you here again, Wreck-it Ralph, I’ll lock you in my fungeon.<br />
<br />
<b>RALPH</b><br />
Fungeon?<br />
<br />
<b>KING CANDY</b><br />
Fun Dungeon. It’s a play on words.... Nevermind. Now, I’ve got a glitch to deal with, thanks to you. Goodbye Wreck-it Ralph. It hasn’t been a pleasure.</blockquote>
Nillie/Nilly (as in... "Nilla", obviously). Not Nellie.<br />
<br />
So it's even more likely that Mr. Bogia is getting upset because he <i>heard</i> something in John C. Reilly's performance that merely <i>sounded</i> to him like something that virtually no one else in the world would even know was insulting.<br />
<br />
And again... It's just a pun.<br />
<br />
Is there any reason to believe for a second that it's some covert slight against gay people? A secret homophobic slur or a gay-bashing "dogwhistle"? Really?<br />
<br />
Can common sense enter into the picture at some point? For some people, the answer to that question is unfortunately.... No.<br />
<br />
Far too many people I encounter on a regular basis seem to be <i>looking </i>for a fight or to get their feelings hurt. Maybe I should be more sympathetic to people who grew up as victims of frequent insults and bullying, but this really brings me full circle.<br />
<br />
It's up to Chris Bogia whether or not to be offended by things that happen in life. It's up to <i>all of us</i> to choose how to react to the world outside our control. And spending your life on constant high-alert that people might <i>sometime...<b> somewhere</b>... </i>be saying hurtful things about you as an individual or as part of some specific group just isn't healthy.<br />
<br />
It leads people - like perhaps Mr. Bogia - to see insults and offenses where none truly exist. For those of you who will yell at me about being white, straight and male... I'm guilty as charged. I don't know what Chris Brogia's life has been like (neither does he know what mine is like... I've been "bullied" and mocked too, you know), and I cannot judge the way he <i>feels</i> about anything. His feelings are his own. But I can say that regardless of how he felt, the offenses he's reacting to are <i>imagined</i>.<br />
<br />
The solution to this is to remember a few things about life.<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><b>First: </b>Nobody thinks about you as much as you think about yourself. The world doesn't - contrary to every feeling you might have - revolve around you. So don't assume that everything is some secret coded message designed to make fun of you or make you feel bad.</li>
<li><b>Second:</b> The <i>only</i> person you can control is yourself. So get a grip. Unless someone actually <i>means</i> to offend you, try not to be offended. In spite of what you might wish to believe, it's not actually everyone else's responsibility to know in advance what may or may not hurt your feelings and tip-toe around them at all times. It's not fair or even possible to expect others to read the minds of every person they meet and avoid every touchy area for each and every one of them. You can't and don't do it for them... Don't expect everyone else to do it for you.</li>
<li><b>Third:</b> When someone <i>does</i> say something actually offensive, and they <i>mean</i> for it to offend you, take a step back and ask yourself whether or not the source or the content of the offense is even worth the headache. Is the offending person someone whose opinion you actually care about? Was this person just lashing out in anger during an argument? Did they know you would be offended by what they said and say it anyway? Are a few words you didn't want to hear worth ruining your day over?</li>
</ul>
<br />
In short. Just STOP being offended so much.<br />
<br />
If you do, you'll make the world a much better and less stressful place for yourself, you'll avoid assuming the worst in everyone else, you'll also reduce your level of narcissism, <i>and</i> you'll completely dis-empower everyone who seeks to get under your skin by saying mean things to you,<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.sean-malone.com</div>Sean W. Malonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07652434357640171842noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5098030884495656852.post-13610707374377979072013-06-01T14:29:00.003-07:002013-06-01T17:08:53.053-07:00On Presenting Libertarianism<b>NOTE: This blog-post was originally written January 14th, 2013... It has been updated somewhat to reflect additional information and changes to my life in the intervening 6 months. With that in mind, I want to have an in-depth conversation about Libertarian Marketing.</b><br />
<b><br />
</b> <br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">* * * * *</span></b></div>
The back story to what I'm about to discuss is a little complicated, but <strike>this past weekend</strike> way back in January, I produced a video with Cathy Reisenwitz, which was a response to what we felt was a somewhat sexist and tactically counter-productive video by the popular libertarian vlogger, Julie Borowski, on the subject of why there aren't more female libertarians.<br />
<br />
This is Julie's video:<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/nASPjBVQkQk?list=UUzIjg5vIfBGcdyLWu6lhXxw" width="560"></iframe><br /></div>
<br />
...and this was our response:<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/a49r8iGdOJ0" width="560"></iframe><br /></div>
<br />
Our video ultimately became the first episode of what is now, essentially, "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/thelibertarienne">The Libertarienne Show</a>", a (now bimonthly...ish) webseries that I've been producing on YouTube ever since - and for which, quite sadly to me, Cathy is no longer my partner and host.<br />
<br />
This, along with a few other responses to Julie's video (including <a href="http://bleedingheartlibertarians.com/2013/01/no-girls-allowed/">this bomb-thrower</a> by Sarah Skwire & Steve Horwitz), threw some fuel onto the growing fire of a debate among a number of libertarians over a few issues. One of the biggest - yet most uninteresting - issues that exploded at that time was over whether you can or <i>should </i>be a social conservative and still be a libertarian.<br />
<br />
This actually seems like a non-issue to me in philosophical terms... You can. <i><b>Of course</b></i>.<br />
<br />
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As long as you do not try to force other people to hold the same personal preferences about religion, sex, culture, language, etc. as you have, you may believe whatever you want and still be considered a libertarian. You <i>can</i> (theoretically) be the <i>most</i> socially conservative, or the most socially liberal person in the world. You <i>can </i>be kind, charitable and caring, or you could be stingy, greedy and cold-hearted.<br />
<br />
As loathed as I am to say this, you can even be a racist or a sexist (or happily, an anti-racist and sexist).<i>.. </i>and still be a <i>"libertarian". </i><br />
<br />
Libertarian philosophy has little to say about anything directly except the role of force in society. If you think it's not ok to initiate force or to use government to do it on your behalf, you're in the club!<br />
<br />
So that's the first issue. But for me, it's really not the important issue.<br />
<br />
The second big issue debated was over the original question... Why, precisely, there aren't many libertarian women out there. But honestly, even though Cathy went on radio shows and spoke at ISFLC as a byproduct of our video on that topic, I'm really not that interested in that question either. At least not precisely...<br />
<br />
What I am interested in is the way ideas are presented, and why presentation matters.<br />
<br />
So, what's ultimately important to me is that <i>regardless</i> of whether or not you "can" be a proper "libertarian" and believe different things about culture, sex and religion, the way you present yourself if you wish to be a representative of "libertarians" in a public forum matters a ton.<br />
<br />
Sure. You <i>can </i>be a jerk and also be a libertarian, but you <i>shouldn't</i>... for two major reasons:<br />
<ol>
<li>Being a jerk isn't a very good way to be as a human (regardless of political philosophy)</li>
<li>If you are a jerk and you represent a political philosophy, all those who interact with you and are put off by your behavior will associate that behavior with other people who support your political philosophy - thereby tarnishing not only your reputation but that of others.</li>
</ol>
Fortunately, Julie isn't a jerk!<br />
<br />
I don't know her very well, but in all of our interactions, she's seemed to be a very sweet and kind person. I actually like her a great deal. She's certainly bright and usually a decent representative for other libertarians. Sometimes, she's a downright fantastic representative, actually. Check out her video on "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jJQJRKnu2I&list=UUzIjg5vIfBGcdyLWu6lhXxw&index=7">Why a $9 Minimum Wage is a Bad Idea</a>" as one fabulous example.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr9ghIilLzYJ9FSStNDKeU6aG5Kq-8SfIxhb3v23PPz8APVd_u8yIrxPi0z_DblMEo8QYKfPtqBnMmjnW3E4ON7r5AIPSNpUZmR0p9LKGJtZ5B87ljtuDtXws5VIK86Mmgn_Nyd936tZE/s1600/03sweater-span-articleLarge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="176" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr9ghIilLzYJ9FSStNDKeU6aG5Kq-8SfIxhb3v23PPz8APVd_u8yIrxPi0z_DblMEo8QYKfPtqBnMmjnW3E4ON7r5AIPSNpUZmR0p9LKGJtZ5B87ljtuDtXws5VIK86Mmgn_Nyd936tZE/s320/03sweater-span-articleLarge.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ultimate sweater-vest champion, Rick Santorum. Also<br />
the nemesis of everything most people actually like.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
However... The implicit social conservatism and mockery of popular social/cultural mores and personal preferences that the video Cathy & I responded to seemed to express <i>does</i> (in my view) reflect poorly on the rest of us.<br />
<br />
I found that to be a little odd, since she began the video by suggesting that the reason there aren't more female libertarians is because libertarian ideas aren't well-represented in mainstream pop-culture. It seems to me that if your goal is to increase the presence of your ideas in pop-culture, insulting some of the most mainstream magazines (i.e. Cosmo) and social mores out there doesn't advance that goal at all.<br />
<br />
Consequently, all of this aspect of the discussion created a new debate about "marketing", and opinions started flying.<br />
<br />
And now that the backstory is all caught up, that brings me to the real subject of this post.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Presentation & Marketing</b></span></div>
<br />
A lot of libertarians fundamentally don't understand why presentation matters or even acknowledge that it's an issue we can do anything about. <strike>A few days ago</strike> Quite a while ago now (again... mea culpa!), Bryan Caplan chimed in with the argument that certain types of personalities just won't be very receptive to libertarian conclusions, no matter what "marketing" you do.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2013/01/women_liberty_m.html">At EconLog</a>, Caplan wrote the following:<br />
<blockquote>
"Thinking people tend to have "hard heads" and "hard hearts," while Feeling people have "soft heads" and "soft hearts." Unsurprisingly, then, Feeling people tend to hold more anti-market views. I've similarly found strong evidence that males "think more like economists." This gender belief gap increases with education, consistent with a simple model where male and female students gradually learn more about whatever their personalities incline them to study."</blockquote>
While I don't disagree that there are differences in personality that predispose people to being better economists or philosophers vs. artists and creators (<a href="http://seanwmalone.blogspot.com/2012/12/three-uses-of-knife.html">and I've recently written extensively about this</a>), I disagree entirely that these facts necessarily mean that certain <i>conclusions</i> about the world will or will not be accepted.<br />
<br />
And I certainly <b>do not </b>believe that there is something intrinsic about being male or female that predetermines a person's political conclusions. The fact that an academic of Caplan's caliber would even say that is really disappointing to me.<br />
<br />
As such, I wrote a lengthy post on Facebook in response to a guy who cited Caplan's arguments as "proof" that marketing is irrelevant, and that anyone who <i>doesn't</i> "get" libertarian ideas intuitively and isn't likely to be persuaded by white papers and plainly stated logical arguments <i>won't</i> ever get it.<br />
<br />
Steve Horwitz re-posted my comments shortly thereafter, saying:<br />
<blockquote>
"<i>Sean Malone just nails it in a comment on another thread. I have cut some specific references, but otherwise not changed a word because I couldn't have said it better myself:"</i></blockquote>
Here's what I had written:<br />
<blockquote>
"I don't agree that being "soft headed" has anything to do with being a good or a bad candidate for "recruitment to libertarianism", nor do I believe that being "soft headed" leads to anti-market views necessarily. I believe that libertarians ... package libertarianism in such a way that tends to lack any appeal to empathetic thinking, and THAT is what turns people who have a more empathetic approach to life - regardless of their gender.<br />
<br />
What you're saying is blaming the audience for not liking what you've presented to them. But it's your presentation that's the problem. This whole line of reasoning that says that empathetic people are going to want government to control everything is ludicrous.<br />
<br />
Government is a violent killer and imprisoner of sons & daughters, husbands & wives. It's a destroyer of opportunity, wealth, homes, families, lives. There is NOTHING about the nature of thinking empathetically or being "soft" in that way that should necessarily lead anyone to be anti-market or pro-state. Libertarians over the last several decades are 100% to blame for the piss-poor presentation of libertarian ideas as exclusively the province of male intellectuals.<br />
<br />
That realization was, in fact, precisely why I got into the line of work I'm in.<br />
<br />
I saw the presentation of libertarian ideas, and how abysmally poor it is at reaching anyone who doesn't innately want to view the world as a logic problem to be solved and of that small subset of people who are exceptionally rational, even only a few reason through with premises that lead them to libertarianism anyway. The overwhelming majority of people in this world are people who think emotionally and empathetically, and are not very analytical or critical in the way they approach their decision-making.<br />
<br />
Instead of throwing your hands up in the air and say that those people just aren't capable or "suited" to being libertarians, perhaps you might consider that the reason those people don't automatically gravitate towards supporting freedom is because people - like you in this case, unfortunately - act in ways that completely turn them away."</blockquote>
The always brilliant John Papola (co-creator, with Russ Roberts, of EconStories "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0nERTFo-Sk">Fear the Boom & Bust: A Hayek vs. Keynes Rap Athem</a>"), echoed my comments:<br />
<blockquote>
"The art of communication is crafting your message so that it is understood by the listener and the art of persuasion is making it compelling. Story is overwhelmingly about humanizing parable and is the single best engine for communication AND persuasion. We may wish to spend more time actually TRYING these techniques before dismissing people for the softness of their heads. It is the great challenge of humanity to translate emergent order and the abstract beauty of the market ecosystem (the "macrocosm") to our fellow creatures whose natural inclinations are to project their personal experiences at the family level (the "microcosm") to the broader society. Ours is the harder task. It's easy to say "let's all act like one big earth family". It FEELS great. On a spiritual level it can even be true. But in the material world, it's a path to deception and despair. Our challenge is to make our case in the context of people's natural biases. It IS about marketing. And it's crazy to dismiss the power of great marketing when our kin have barely tried it while others have demonstrated its effectiveness so clearly."</blockquote>
This - unsurprisingly - sparked a whole other discussion on Steve Horwitz' page, and eventually Bryan Caplan added to that debate as well... Among other things directed specifically to me, Prof. Caplan wrote:<br />
<blockquote>
"I wish you were right, Sean. But the evidence is against you. Personality predicts opinions fairly well on a very wide variety of issues, most with nothing to do with libertarianism. While we can *imagine* great emotional appeals in favor of liberty, that's no reason to think they will actually convert lots of Feeling people.<br />
<br />
To repeat, I wouldn't be surprised if better marketing had a substantial effect. But high confidence that better marketing is a full solution is not warranted."</blockquote>
As I said in my reply, I think Caplan misreads "the evidence".<br />
<br />
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<br />
People learn in different ways, and they respond differently to different types of arguments and presentations of ideas. Building somewhat on Howard Gardner's theory of "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligences">Multiple Intelligences</a>", even on a basic level, teacher education all over the world now recognizes that different students need different teaching approaches.<br />
<br />
None of this means a person is more or less likely to accept <i>specific </i>conclusions, it just means they're more or less likely to respond well to certain approaches. A person who learns <i>visually</i> will be better able to learn accurate conclusions and attain competency in science or mathematics if the subjects are <i>taught visually</i> instead of analytically through a textbook or lecture.<br />
<br />
We know all this. Conceivably, Caplan is aware of this as well.<br />
<br />
Libertarians who may be naturally inclined to become economists and think like economists have, unfortunately, spent all of their energies on outreach ignoring anybody who doesn't naturally think the way they think and have mostly just cultivated the people they know how to easily talk to. This has been to the overall detriment of the libertarian community, which is now much less diverse in personality (and in choice of profession) than it otherwise could have been.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinK-Kaf3mMRDnDGZfCYTevtzIXcEEM-uxviXLBrCYBgrcRRn6pY5KBq6fxWSza9xrkgNZg5E54ZUe0oqaFyasixPG-I2jlkoz9nHKzLCgj1FBi-5gHzmev4Er8m9V-cKwvSYMhsVjGr9E/s1600/tumblr_mdpn61Jy3N1rlw6qlo1_500.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinK-Kaf3mMRDnDGZfCYTevtzIXcEEM-uxviXLBrCYBgrcRRn6pY5KBq6fxWSza9xrkgNZg5E54ZUe0oqaFyasixPG-I2jlkoz9nHKzLCgj1FBi-5gHzmev4Er8m9V-cKwvSYMhsVjGr9E/s200/tumblr_mdpn61Jy3N1rlw6qlo1_500.png" width="200" /></a>But. Caplan still disagrees. So he posed what he calls a <a href="http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2013/01/make_the_feelin.html">"simple challenge"</a>:<br />
<blockquote>
"Several critics replied that this is just a failure of imagination on my part. If you can make an idea appealing to Thinking people, you can make it appealing to Feeling people. Just skillfully repackage the product, and you're done.<br />
<br />
I'm skeptical, but I'd love to be proven wrong. So I propose a simple challenge to pave the way to my refutation: Tell me how to sell the abolition of the minimum wage to the typical Feeling American. <br />
<br />
Please don't give me any "hard heads, soft hearts" answers. Give me "soft heads, soft hearts" answers. You're trying to persuade Oprah Winfrey, not Data from Star Trek after he gets his emotion chip."</blockquote>
The thing is, though... This isn't a "simple challenge", at all!<br />
<br />
Part of the issue with presentation - especially to those with "soft heads" and "soft hearts" as Caplan put it - is that it's not really about rhetorical argumentation. It's not a single re-brand or advertisement that influences the way people think about these ideas - and <i>especially</i> in the face of literally decades of great marketing for non-libertarian positions.<br />
<br />
As my friend Jeff likes to say, this is about "drops on a rock".<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQzMWsziP2AWruIr34Any0IwE2LqL204iAiIYNvNzTTBqOwde4iAHa5sbBt5NvtHEX7G4iBQjen4HFaG43gDdWhZNjDyqwbMTA3zkrrUiW_soOfaUlBKyTgH9ovMla1WK5JnYKKUOLhcE/s1600/sabrina_1954_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQzMWsziP2AWruIr34Any0IwE2LqL204iAiIYNvNzTTBqOwde4iAHa5sbBt5NvtHEX7G4iBQjen4HFaG43gDdWhZNjDyqwbMTA3zkrrUiW_soOfaUlBKyTgH9ovMla1WK5JnYKKUOLhcE/s320/sabrina_1954_1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Watch this movie. Now.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
One of my most well-supported arguments is that people have been influenced somewhat slowly over time through consistent and frequent exposure to persuasive, narrative, stories that offer a perspective negative to markets and positive to government. This has come from "consumer reports" on nightly news, writers of film & television, college professors and other cultural influencers.<br />
<br />
Further, I would argue that people in the US didn't just wake up one day and have a split between economists and artists. In fact, one of my favorite pro-business/market scenes of any film ever comes from Billy Wilder's romantic comedy, "Sabrina" from 1954.<br />
<br />
Consider the following exchange between William Holden and Humphrey Bogart:<br />
<blockquote>
<b>Holden:</b> "You've got all the money in the world."<br />
<b>Bogart: </b>"Making money isn't the main point of business. Money is a by-product."<br />
<b>Holden:</b> "What's the main objective? Power?"<br />
<b>Bogart:</b> "Ah! That's become a dirty word."<br />
<b>Holden:</b> "What's the urge? You're going into plastics. What will that prove?"<br />
<b>Bogart:</b> "Prove? Nothing much.<br />
A new product has been found, something of use to the world. A new industry moves into an undeveloped area. Factories go up, machines go in and you're in business. It's coincidental that people who've never seen a dime now have a dollar and barefooted kids wear shoes and have their faces washed.<br />
What's wrong with an urge that gives people libraries, hospitals, baseball diamonds and movies on a Saturday night?"<br />
<i>[Bogart calls in his secretary]</i><br />
<b>Holden:</b> "You make me feel like a heel."</blockquote>
This wonderful moment of support for business & markets in popular media was in a successful film in 1954 starring Audrey Hepburn and two of the biggest male movie stars in the history of the business - written by one of the greatest play & screenwriters there ever was.<br />
<br />
And the film was critically acclaimed, to boot!<br />
<br />
Billy Wilder was nominated for an Academy Award that year both for Best Direction <i>and</i> Best Story & Screeenplay.<br />
<br />
The male hero in Sabrina is a rich, successful businessman who spends too much time at the office, but is a moral, worthy man. The guy who <i>doesn't</i> wind up with the girl (one of the most beautiful in cinematic history, by the way!) was a trust-fund Lothario living off the wealth his brother created.<br />
<br />
You won't find that in the films of today.<br />
<br />
In the 60s and 70s, the ideas expressed in art and popular media started to change. I've got theories on why, but my real point is simply that when that changed, and when people started growing up with media that promoted the idea that business and markets were evil and government solutions were preferable, the culture began to seriously change. This exploded in the 80s - partially as a rejection to tough economic conditions.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6azG1cfWJI8Th5qBuv_ehdK-3OTcdxOV8Z2C-r43ZJ0rhA7MIu6aeXPKh9cwaI_3xIZCc7V2NtASVbASKR9K_avy6t00_jGiUrE0kNTlcx2vbS2Hg2G0LCkMtpLxhbqVilR6VqGPHtyw/s1600/wall_street.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6azG1cfWJI8Th5qBuv_ehdK-3OTcdxOV8Z2C-r43ZJ0rhA7MIu6aeXPKh9cwaI_3xIZCc7V2NtASVbASKR9K_avy6t00_jGiUrE0kNTlcx2vbS2Hg2G0LCkMtpLxhbqVilR6VqGPHtyw/s320/wall_street.jpg" width="220" /></a></div>
In any case... By the time people grow up, they've often consumed thousands of hours of media that presents a negative view of the market. If you're a "hard-headed" individual - i.e. you use reason and analysis to come to your opinions about the world - then perhaps those hours of entertainment watched will have no effect on you, assuming you were interested in spending your time watching movies or going to plays and enjoying popular art at all. But if you're <i>not</i> "hard-headed" in that regard, it's my contention that those thousands of hours <i>will</i> influence you - <b>and</b> you're probably someone who spends more time consuming media than someone who wants to read philosophy textbooks.<br />
<br />
So markets are vilified. Business is vilified. However... Plenty of non-economic, <i>yet still libertarian,</i> ideas are actually ascendant in popular culture... gay rights, drug legalization, etc.<br />
<br />
Not coincidentally in my view, most popular media presents those ideas in a positive light, and not for any intellectual reason, tons of "soft-headed, soft-hearted" people now accept that marijuana is ok, gay marriage and homosexual relationships are ok, and more individual freedom to choose the life-style they want is usually good for people.<br />
<br />
But... We all need to realize that it's thousands and thousands of hours, hundreds of separate pieces of media in film, television, radio, live performances & print, which influence people over the course of their lives.<br />
<br />
So presenting a single story about minimum wage isn't exactly the "solution". This is a long-term issue.<br />
<br />
As such, I find it incredibly different to really respond to Caplan's "simple challenge". I know there's no way for me to offer a single, catch-all, story that is a magic bullet for people who think empathetically and are "feeling" personality types.<br />
<br />
I might even suggest that the reason Caplan seemed to believe that that might be possible is precisely because he is "hard headed". Those types of people (and I am in a lot of ways among them) often find a single, well-reasoned and expertly supported argument to be convincing enough. The idea that a single, exceptionally emotionally-compelling story would be conclusively convincing to "soft headed" people might seem normal to Caplan, but that's just not how it works.<br />
<br />
I could - and frequently do - write and produce stories that I believe might be a step in the right direction. For example, here are a couple videos I've produced supporting entrepreneurial freedom based around sharing a business owner's personal experiences instead of just presenting a series of facts - as most of my economist friends would prefer.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/mPJlOiKo6e8" width="560"></iframe></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/ePiNfceCB8M" width="560"></iframe></div>
<br />
I've got a very exciting project on the horizon which will be made public pretty soon that expands on this idea. I've also written narrative scripts and tons of other stories that offer arguments to what Caplan calls "soft-headed" people.<br />
<br />
But... I know that I cannot offer any legitimate answer to Caplan's actual request, because there is no single story that works. Using emotional story-telling to reach people about libertarian ideas - or any ideas - is about touching the hearts of your audience members. Every audience member is going to respond to different stories based on how well they connect to their own experiences and beliefs. That's not a rational argument, or something that can be done in the abstract. A story has to resonate directly... and that's hard to do, and absolutely <i>not </i>even a little bit "one-size-fits-all".<br />
<br />
And this is partly what interests me the most. As a rather explicitly libertarian media producer, I find myself caught between a rock and a hard place constantly.<br />
<br />
On the one hand, I'm surrounded by people who seem to finally understand that they have a serious marketing problem and struggle to get most ordinary people to actually care about - and thus, buy into - better ideas about economics & political philosophy. On the other hand, it seems that virtually <i>none</i> of those people respond to the kinds of stories and arguments that actually move "normal" people, and thus they're typically unable to fully appreciate or understand exactly <i>how</i> things need to be changed in terms of our presentation.<br />
<br />
...or they still don't even know why we should bother to change our presentation in the first place.<br />
<br />
So it's turned out that even though I now have a position where I can make a lot of what I think is best, it's still an uphill battle to get anybody to put the resources and support behind it to actually have those products be produced at a high level, or get seen by anybody - which really inhibits their effectiveness.<br />
<br />
All Caplan's post and the surrounding arguments did for me was remind me that my crusade is far from over. There's a lot of work yet to be done - not just in reaching out to non-libertarians, but also to get more of our own community to actually understand why they're so bad at this stuff.<br />
<br />
Don't worry though. I'll win eventually!<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.sean-malone.com</div>Sean W. Malonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07652434357640171842noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5098030884495656852.post-15454935203627250802013-06-01T12:28:00.003-07:002013-06-01T20:20:22.078-07:00I, Pencil: The MovieI should have actually published this blog months and months ago when the video came out... I've failed massively at consistently blogging for a while, but in a fit of procrastination today, I've rediscovered a bunch of worth-while posts that I should have never left unpublished. So, quite a bit late... I give you the following.<br />
<br />
For years, people have been attempting various efforts at making a short film version of Leonard Read's classic essay, "I, Pencil".<br />
<br />
I'm sure I haven't seen every attempt, but I've seen a lot of them and not a one compares to this beautiful little film made by Nicholas Tucker for the Competitive Enterprise Institute:<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/IYO3tOqDISE" width="560"></iframe><br />
<br />
This video is the first film in what I am lead to believe is an on-going series exploring the concepts behind the essay which incorporates voices of some of my favorite economists and thinkers, like Larry Reed, Art Carden, Deirdre McCloskey, and Walter Williams:<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/yFeGNX06Zmk" width="560"></iframe><br />
<br />
What's more, I cannot imagine a better statement than this by my friend Larry Reed.<br />
<blockquote>
"Every second we're alive, we benefit from the products of voluntary, spontaneous cooperation. This is the modern world. It's miraculous. It's intricate. And it gets better every day - so long as people are free to interact with each other.<br />
<br />
If we can leave the creative energies of human-kind uninhibited, there's no limit to what we can accomplish."</blockquote>
This reflects a vision of the world that is not only completely true, but broad and all-encompassing. Too often, I find that people - perhaps like the goldfish who can't conceptualize the water in its own tank - fail to see the millions of independent, voluntary and completely spontaneous transactions that take place every day facilitating the lives we all take for granted.<br />
<br />
The keyboard I am typing on now is the consequence of an untold dozens, perhaps hundreds of individual people's labor, and perhaps thousands of individual people's supporting efforts, and not a one of those individuals (save perhaps the lone salesman who I paid for this machine) knows a thing about me, nor cares for me at all.<br />
<br />
Each one acted in their own interest, working for money, for food, for personal enjoyment or interest, for a better life for themselves, for their families... That's it. And the end result of all of these transactions is something that benefited me.<br />
<br />
It's incredible, and it needs to be celebrated more often.<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.sean-malone.com</div>Sean W. Malonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07652434357640171842noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5098030884495656852.post-7739810484143990562013-05-27T14:14:00.000-07:002013-05-27T14:54:39.633-07:00I'm mad at you, Ayn Rand!<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpwxggvcTMuMwShkeOXY4-4pj5tShIqYhkU82WcJbMUqSlcc3OYZSToMM79mLm0wGG8ScPiK2U-PHekUZN0uJGfwQj2oughC9v6EBeQDcJrWIBAcCh68Ktvi8bdAvP2JEd_J0OXAR3tdM/s1600/Ayn+Rand+Postage+Stamp.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpwxggvcTMuMwShkeOXY4-4pj5tShIqYhkU82WcJbMUqSlcc3OYZSToMM79mLm0wGG8ScPiK2U-PHekUZN0uJGfwQj2oughC9v6EBeQDcJrWIBAcCh68Ktvi8bdAvP2JEd_J0OXAR3tdM/s320/Ayn+Rand+Postage+Stamp.png" width="213" /></a>As happened <a href="http://seanwmalone.blogspot.com/2013/05/socialism-forever-conversations-with.html">just a bit ago today</a>, I am told constantly by liberals, socialists and other generally anti-market types, that free market icon Ayn Rand accepted Social Security money and Medicare payments in her old age.<br />
<br />
They usually say this to me as if they're breaking earth-shattering news to me (they're not), and as to imply that I should be appalled, devastated and personally offended (I'm not).<br />
<br />
<div>
<div>
Usually this fact is seen as some evidence of both the benevolence of the state, which provided for a sick old lady who - had she gotten her way - would have died in the street otherwise; and as evidence of Ayn Rand herself being a stupid hypocrite who should obviously be dismissed entirely as a thinker.<br />
<br />
It is, of course, evidence of neither.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Once and for all, let's think through the logic on both points, shall we?<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">1. The "Benevolent State"</span></b></div>
<br />
As <a href="http://autonomyforall.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-main-issue-of-ayn-rand-accepting.html">one liberal blogger put it</a>:<br />
<blockquote>
"That's the failure here; Rand needed society's help. Rand ran headlong into the very premise of why Medicare was created in the first place: The for-profit insurance market is very very bad to the elderly and particularly to those already stricken with serious diseases like cancer.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Naturally, Rand showed no signs of rethinking anything in the face of her own personal failure to survive in the world she would see created. If prominent intellectuals sitting on piles of royalties for perpetually successful books can't survive unaided by Big Government in Randland, who can?"</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
But really, this is a silly argument. And here's why:<br />
<br />
<b>1. She didn't need the money... probably.</b><br />
<br />
Ayn Rand made a ton of money from direct sales and the royalties from her books & screenplays, and I'm assuming she had enough money to take care of herself without the payments. This is a bit 3rd hand, but the blog quoted above estimated Rand's net worth to have been $500,000 when she died in 1982. That'd be about $1,171,000 today.<br />
<br />
It's pretty easy to argue - contrary to that blogger and others - that private insurance and her savings alone would have been more than enough to pay for her cancer treatments without "aid" from the state. So I don't even think Ayn Rand "needed" the state in this case at all.<br />
<br />
<b>2. Medical and insurance costs are highly inflated thanks to the state.</b><br />
<br />
I've gone through this point in extreme detail in multiple previous blog-posts, but the basic argument is this... As a consequence of restricted quotas on medical licensing, to the high cost of drug approval, to special taxes on medical devices & technology, to insurance mandates, restrictions on national and international markets in health care, direct subsidies and payments from the state for about 50% of all health care services and a dozen other highly significant policies - health care in the United States is vastly more expensive than it needs to be.<br />
<br />
Additionally, because there is no functioning price system in American health care, the incentives to increase supply or get serious about prioritizing the highest valued uses of medical care in consumption are all screwed up.<br />
<br />
So.... If Rand had actually gotten her way, arguably health care itself would be far more affordable than it is today - further widening the gap between the Medicare/Social Security payments Rand received and what she actually "needed" to live out the rest of her life.<br />
<br />
MORE importantly, this would mean health care was cheaper for <i>everyone</i>. Not just for comparatively well-to-do writers.<br />
<br />
...and that is precisely what most statists don't understand about this stuff. The state has created conditions that make health care (and everything else) a <i>lot </i>more expensive than it would otherwise be, and this inflates the cost of living for everyone - sometimes out of the realm of affordability for a lot of people.<br />
<br />
In the immortal words of Harry Browne:<br />
<blockquote>
"Government is good at one thing: It knows how to break your legs, hand you a crutch, and say, 'See, if it weren’t for the government, you wouldn’t be able to walk.'"</blockquote>
Even if she was doing ok, financially, Rand's standard of living is depressed as a result of these kinds of things just like everyone else. But there's even more to this story...<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">2. "Hypocrisy"</span></b></div>
<br />
In truth, it's not really the idea that Ayn Rand "needed" Social Security and Medicare payments in her old age that people <i>really</i> care about. <br />
<br />
The real thing people gloat about is the supposed "hypocrisy" of it all. And on the surface, I suppose it seems legitimate. I mean... Woman who rails against the welfare state accepts benefits from the welfare state in her old age?<br />
<br />
Hypocrite! Right?<br />
<br />
No. Wrong. And again... Here's why:<br />
<br />
Rand was primarily opposed to any system in which money was taken by force from a dispersed group of people to pay for programs that benefit only a few. Yet, she spent her entire life paying taxes, even though she did not believe in the overwhelming majority of programs the taxes are used to pay for. Money was taken from her by force for purposes she would not have deemed moral.<br />
<br />
Later in life, she reclaimed some of her previously-stolen money.<br />
<br />
Basically, I'd consider Rand accepting Social Security and Medicare payments to be a lot more like her own version of the actions of her character Ragnar Danneskjold from Atlas Shrugged than anything else... Albeit with much less exciting swashbuckling.<br />
<br />
Ragnar, for the multitudes of liberals who know nothing of Rand's actual writings, was a philosopher-turned-pirate who attacked government vessels carrying gold. Ragnar would then steal exactly the amount of gold illegitimately taxed away from people living in Galt's Gulch and then return it to them. To quote Ayn Rand's Ragnar himself:<br />
<blockquote>
"What I actually am, Mr. Rearden, is a policeman. It is a policeman's duty to protect men from criminals – criminals being those who seize wealth by force. ... But when robbery becomes the purpose of the law...then it is an outlaw who has to become a policeman."</blockquote>
The point is this: It's not <i>at all </i>hypocritical to reclaim the money that was stolen from you in the first place when your whole philosophy argues that it's immoral to steal.<br />
<br />
If you advocate a world with no theft - notably including theft by the state in the form of taxation - then anything that reunites property with its rightful owners is fine. In a world where the state is engaging in legalized plunder (to paraphrase Bastiat), then it's morally right to get as much of your stolen money back as you can.<br />
<br />
And there's virtually no chance Rand got back any more from the Social Security or Medicare system than she put in over her 77 years of living.<br />
<br />
So in reality, I'd call Ayn Rand a hypocrite if she did <i>not</i> try to get as much of her own money back from the government as she could - especially when the overwhelming majority of it is put to uses she'd find totally abhorrent.<br />
<br />
To say that she should not have done this on the grounds that it was "hypocritical" as so many liberals claim, while not also making the simultaneous claim that she should not have been taxed in the first place, is to say that people should be forced to give the government tons of money for reasons they disagree with and would not support, and yet also have utterly no hope of ever seeing it returned to them.<br />
<br />
What a horrific argument!<br />
<br />
People have their resources taxed away from them every single day and mostly for purposes that only beneficial to politicians and concentrated special interest groups. Getting some of that money back at the end of people's lives is a weak consolation prize for accepting lower standards of living for a lifetime and a political class and their cronies run wild.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">* * * * *</span></b></div>
So. Why am I "mad" at Ayn Rand? </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Because the fact of her taking Social Security and Medicare payments has lead to me having dozens of discussions every year about the things I've just gone out of my way to explain and discuss. She gave liberals ammunition to dismiss her over-all political views and to distract from the areas of her life and philosophy that are <i>actually</i> worth criticizing (and there are several of those).<br />
<br />
I wish she hadn't done it, purely because of the stupidity of the arguments that her actions have created.</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.sean-malone.com</div>Sean W. Malonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07652434357640171842noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5098030884495656852.post-85177679746500977722013-05-27T11:55:00.004-07:002013-05-27T12:00:06.990-07:00"Socialism Forever": 'Conversations' with an Anarcho-Communist/SyndicalistWas talking to Facebook friend Anthony about private roads, after he shared a stupid meme insinuating "tea partiers" caused budget cuts which then caused the recent Washington bridge-collapse. <br />
<br />
And then... Basically out of the blue, this happened.<br />
<br />
What you're about to read is not really a "conversation", but we'll call it that for the sake of the blog post. I haven't engaged people in this way in a very long time online (mostly because I'm just too damn busy and it's not worth my limited time to do), but I will say this... it's pretty representative of every other time I've unearthed a communist on the internet.<br />
<br />
The following is the uncut exchange beginning with the very first comment Mimi wrote through the last thing she said after I decided to leave the conversation. I've altered nothing, and I can assure you there was no baiting in my previous posts.<br />
<br />
<b>Enjoy</b>:<br />
<br />
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<a class="UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=833943&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/Logicologist" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088025}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][0]" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Sean Malone</a><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088025}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][1]"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088025}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]"><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088025}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[0]">1. I don't support that strategy, so... what's your point?</span><br id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088025}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[1]" /><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088025}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[2]">2. That pales in comparison to the nearly 50 million killed by Mao. Or the hundred+ million socialist regimes have accomplished.</span></span></div>
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<a class="UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=100001265097871&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/mimi.poposka" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088033}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][0]" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Mimi Poposka</a><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088033}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][1]"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088033}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]">Oh not to mention toppled democratically elected presidents all over the world and invaded Iraq for its oil resulting in the aggregate death of over 1 million innocent ppl</span></div>
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<a class="UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=833943&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/Logicologist" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088040}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][0]" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Sean Malone</a><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088040}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][1]"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088040}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]"><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088040}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[0]">Yeah. Again. I'm well aware of all of that and don't disagree with criticizing American foreign policy on any of those grounds. That actually doesn't change the fact that the record of socialism is literally about a hundred times worse... and that it's a system which creates the worst inequities and poverty mankind can experience.</span><br id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088040}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[1]" /><br id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088040}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[2]" /><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088040}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[3]">If you think that what you're doing is offering a counter argument, then I'm sorry, but... you're not.</span></span></div>
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<a class="UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=100001265097871&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/mimi.poposka" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088046}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][0]" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Mimi Poposka</a><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088046}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][1]"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088046}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]">and its about time ....</span></div>
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<a class="UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=833943&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/Logicologist" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088047}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][0]" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Sean Malone</a><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088047}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][1]"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088047}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]">What you are doing instead is saying "Hey, look over there!! That other thing is bad!!"</span></div>
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<div class="" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088048}.0.[1].0.[1]">
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<a class="UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=833943&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/Logicologist" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088048}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][0]" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Sean Malone</a><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088048}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][1]"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088048}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]"><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088048}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[0]">"You are just a typical foxnews fool, but guess what ...the Chinese economy is about to overtake the US by 2020 and you will soon lose your superpower status"</span><br id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088048}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[1]" /><br id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088048}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[2]" /><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088048}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[3]">Oh jesus... That's hilarious. On every level possible.</span></span></div>
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<a class="UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=100001265097871&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/mimi.poposka" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088052}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][0]" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Mimi Poposka</a><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088052}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][1]"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088052}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]">what is YOUR alternative?</span></div>
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<a class="UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=833943&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/Logicologist" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088054}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][0]" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Sean Malone</a><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088054}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][1]"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088054}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]">Noooooooooo.... that definitely wouldn't be true, since there is nothing remotely "sound" about the reasoning for socialism. Nor is it remotely sustainable - as we've seen countless times in world history. And of course, it's obviously unsustainable, as it amounts to a system that is built around poor incentives which encourage over-consumption and discourage production.</span></div>
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<a class="UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=100001265097871&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/mimi.poposka" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088055}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][0]" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Mimi Poposka</a><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088055}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][1]"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088055}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]"><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088055}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0"><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088055}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[0]">Forgive me 2026 lol I made a 6 year error lol</span><a class="" href="http://citywire.co.uk/money/goldman-sachs-china-to-overtake-us-economy-in-2026/a550329" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088055}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[1]" rel="nofollow" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">http://citywire.co.uk/money/goldman-sachs-china-to-overtake-us-economy-in-2026/a550329</a></span></span></div>
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<a class="UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=833943&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/Logicologist" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088060}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][0]" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Sean Malone</a><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088060}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][1]"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088060}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]"><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088060}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[0]">"MY" alternative is freedom. </span><br id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088060}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[1]" /><br id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088060}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[2]" /><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088060}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[3]">Something that you're clearly unprepared to even have a dialogue about, given your inability to even discuss these kinds of issues without STARTING at an ad hominem place.</span></span></div>
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<a class="UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=100001265097871&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/mimi.poposka" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088063}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][0]" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Mimi Poposka</a><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088063}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][1]"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088063}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]">WHAT is YOUR answer then ? Capitalism ??? are you insane ?</span></div>
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<a class="UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=833943&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/Logicologist" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088070}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][0]" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Sean Malone</a><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088070}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][1]"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088070}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]"><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088070}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[0]">And two points about China.</span><br id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088070}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[1]" /><br id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088070}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[2]" /><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088070}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[3]">1. It's only improved after moving AWAY from socialism, and...</span><br id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088070}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[4]" /><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088070}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[5]">2. It's not nearly so rosey a picture as you're pretending. China is pretty unlikely to overtake anything until it deals with it's serious lack of economic and social freedoms. </span><br id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088070}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[6]" /><br id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088070}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[7]" /><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088070}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[8]">It's funny that you're a big fan though considering that it's actively moving away from the policies you support.</span></span></div>
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<a class="UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=833943&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/Logicologist" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088075}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][0]" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Sean Malone</a><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088075}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][1]"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088075}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]">Mimi. I'm sorry, you're not remotely worth my time today. If you'd started out by having a dialogue rather than with ad homs and strawmen, then maybe you would have been... but it's going to take way too much time to even begin to get through to you and I've learned that lesson too many times already to continue.</span></div>
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<a class="UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=100001265097871&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/mimi.poposka" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088080}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][0]" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Mimi Poposka</a><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088080}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][1]"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088080}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]">If you dont have an alternative then STFU</span></div>
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<a class="UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=100001265097871&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/mimi.poposka" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088081}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][0]" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Mimi Poposka</a><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088081}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][1]"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088081}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]">I have a Finance degree and a postgrad in public policy</span></div>
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<a class="UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=833943&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/Logicologist" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088083}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][0]" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Sean Malone</a><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088083}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][1]"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088083}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]">I'm not the one "talking out of my ass", Mimi. I just happen to think your'e far too angry, ignorant and dense to actually have a conversation with.</span></div>
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<a class="UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=100001265097871&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/mimi.poposka" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088086}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][0]" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Mimi Poposka</a><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088086}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][1]"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088086}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]">you can not even tell me which socio-economic system you prescribe to ...so you are actually not worth talking to</span></div>
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<a class="UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=833943&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/Logicologist" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088093}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][0]" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Sean Malone</a><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088093}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][1]"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088093}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]"><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088093}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[0]">Of course I can. I would support a true free market built around clear private property, social & economic freedom (i.e. freedom to choose what to do with your body, time and stuff without the interference of the state forcing you to do something else) and mutually beneficial contractual agreements (i.e. trade) being the standard interaction between people. </span><br id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088093}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[1]" /><br id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088093}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[2]" /><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088093}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[3]">Peace, voluntary trade, markets, freedom.</span></span></div>
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<a class="UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=100001265097871&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/mimi.poposka" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088096}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][0]" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Mimi Poposka</a><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088096}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][1]"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088096}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]">Then you are an Ayn Randian Right wing libertarian piece of shit</span></div>
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<a class="UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=100001265097871&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/mimi.poposka" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088101}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][0]" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Mimi Poposka</a><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088101}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][1]"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088101}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]">its low lives like you who make the world a worse place for everyone</span></div>
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<a class="UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=833943&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/Logicologist" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088102}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][0]" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Sean Malone</a><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088102}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][1]"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088102}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]">Oh. Ok... I must be a "Right wing libertarian piece of shit" then, that's certainly a good argument for why I should actually bother to engage in conversation with you.</span></div>
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<a class="UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=100001265097871&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/mimi.poposka" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088106}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][0]" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Mimi Poposka</a><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088106}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][1]"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088106}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]">Freedom means having healthcare education and food ... it means we all help one another and equally share the burdens we encounter</span></div>
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<a class="UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=833943&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/Logicologist" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088107}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][0]" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Sean Malone</a><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088107}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][1]"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088107}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]">That is explicitly NOT what "freedom" means. But feel free to try again when you can not only use words accurately, but when you can do so without automatically calling your "opponent" the worst names you can think of.</span></div>
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<a class="UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=100001265097871&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/mimi.poposka" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088109}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][0]" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Mimi Poposka</a><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088109}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][1]"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088109}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]">I hate Ayn Rand types so forgive me for not being able to stand your idiotic rant when you obviously lack the logic and education to have an opinion and need to go back to the Tea bagging you came from</span></div>
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<a class="UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=833943&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/Logicologist" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088114}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][0]" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Sean Malone</a><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088114}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][1]"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088114}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]"><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088114}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[0]">1. Not really an "Ayn Rand type".</span><br id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088114}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[1]" /><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088114}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[2]">2. Didn't go on an "idiotic rant"... you did that.</span><br id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088114}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[3]" /><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088114}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[4]">3. I have clearly demonstrated more knowledge and logic than you on just this thread.</span><br id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088114}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[5]" /><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088114}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[6]">4. Not a "tea bagger".</span><br id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088114}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[7]" /><br id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088114}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[8]" /><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088114}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[9]">...anything else you can get wrong today? Or.... Are you just going to keep assuming you know what everyone else thinks without bothering to listen to them or even ask any questions you want an answer to?</span></span></div>
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<a class="UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=833943&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/Logicologist" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088117}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][0]" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Sean Malone</a><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088117}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][1]"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088117}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]"><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088117}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[0]">Who gives a shit whether or not Ayn Rand got social security, by the way? </span><br id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088117}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[1]" /><br id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088117}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[2]" /><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088117}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[3]">1. She opposed the program, but that didn't matter since she had money stolen from her all her life to pay for it and it would have actually been against her philosophy to NOT get that money back.</span><br id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088117}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[4]" /><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088117}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[5]">2. What does that have to do with anything?</span></span></div>
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<a class="UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=833943&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/Logicologist" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088119}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][0]" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Sean Malone</a><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088119}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][1]"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088119}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]">Actually I told you exactly which I'd support. Perhaps you missed it when you were busy calling me more names.</span></div>
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<a class="UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=100001265097871&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/mimi.poposka" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088120}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][0]" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Mimi Poposka</a><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088120}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][1]"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088120}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]">You need to do a lot more reading in order to come to a proper educated and informed opinion</span></div>
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<a class="UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=100001265097871&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/mimi.poposka" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088123}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][0]" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Mimi Poposka</a><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088123}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][1]"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088123}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]">firstly you need to research all systems objectively</span></div>
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<a class="UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=833943&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/Logicologist" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088127}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][0]" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Sean Malone</a><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088127}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][1]"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088127}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]"><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088127}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[0]">"firstly you need to research all systems objectively"</span><br id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088127}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[1]" /><br id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088127}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[2]" /><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088127}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[3]">HAHAHAHAHA holy shit... did you really just say this unironically? Oh. My. God. That was amazing.</span></span></div>
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<a class="UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=833943&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/Logicologist" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088139}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][0]" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Sean Malone</a><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088139}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][1]"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088139}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]">Of COURSE I KNOW ABOUT THE CONTAINMENT POLICY you idiot.</span></div>
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<a class="UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=100001265097871&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/mimi.poposka" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088143}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][0]" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Mimi Poposka</a><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088143}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][1]"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088143}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]">so then you are a ...... ?</span></div>
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<a class="UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=833943&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/Logicologist" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088147}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][0]" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Sean Malone</a><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088147}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][1]"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088147}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]"><span class="UFICommentBody" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088147}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0"><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088147}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[0]"><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088147}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[0].[0]">Your problems of "getting into depth" are not built around my non-existent ignorance of the ideas or world history you presume to condescend to me about. I have ample knowledge of both having debated these things almost 15 years now.</span><br id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088147}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[0].[1]" /><br id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088147}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[0].[2]" /><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088147}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[0].[3]">Your problem is t</span></span><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088147}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[3]"><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088147}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[3].0"><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088147}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[3].0.[0]">hat you have no interest in a rational, intelligent or honest conversation, and instead prefer to ASSUME you know what I think, and then call me names based on not only your assumptions about me, but your anger towards ideas you don't understand.</span><br id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088147}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[3].0.[1]" /><br id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088147}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[3].0.[2]" /><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088147}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2].0.[3].0.[3]">And now you have an obsession with labels that doesn't even make any sense.</span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<a class="UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=100001265097871&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/mimi.poposka" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088148}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][0]" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Mimi Poposka</a><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088148}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][1]"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088148}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]">you cant even define what you are so how can I take you seriously</span></div>
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<a class="UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=833943&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/Logicologist" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088150}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][0]" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Sean Malone</a><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088150}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][1]"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088150}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]">I CAN and did define "what I am". But the label is irrelevant.</span></div>
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<a class="UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=833943&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/Logicologist" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088152}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][0]" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Sean Malone</a><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088152}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][1]"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088152}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]">You're a fucking cartoon character at this point.</span></div>
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<a class="UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=100001265097871&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/mimi.poposka" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088153}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][0]" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Mimi Poposka</a><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088153}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][1]"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088153}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]">Label means a lot actually</span></div>
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<div class="" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088156}.0.[1].0.[1]">
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<div class="UFICommentContent" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088156}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0]">
<a class="UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=833943&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/Logicologist" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088156}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][0]" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Sean Malone</a><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088156}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][1]"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088156}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]">No. It doesn't.</span></div>
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<a class="UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=833943&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/Logicologist" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088157}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][0]" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Sean Malone</a><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088157}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][1]"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088157}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]">Ideas matter.</span></div>
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<a class="UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=100001265097871&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/mimi.poposka" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088158}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][0]" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Mimi Poposka</a><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088158}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][1]"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088158}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]">you are a media producer lol</span></div>
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<a class="UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=100001265097871&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/mimi.poposka" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088160}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][0]" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Mimi Poposka</a><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088160}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][1]"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088160}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]">that is your label</span></div>
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<a class="UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=833943&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/Logicologist" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088163}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][0]" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Sean Malone</a><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088163}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][1]"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088163}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]">Yes. For a policy organization and other organizations that do economics and public policy research, but even if that wasn't true, I still could know as much or more than you about these topics.</span></div>
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<a class="UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=100001265097871&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/mimi.poposka" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088165}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][0]" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Mimi Poposka</a><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088165}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][1]"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088165}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]">and very happy with this position</span></div>
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<a class="UFICommentActorName" data-ft="{"tn":";"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/hovercard.php?id=100001265097871&extragetparams=%7B%22hc_location%22%3A%22ufi%22%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/mimi.poposka" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088173}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][0]" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Mimi Poposka</a><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088173}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][1]"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][4][1]{comment613570091988392_7088173}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[0].[0][2]">yes you could know much more than me who dedicated a decade to political theory and ran my own international affairs hub for 6 years and has a finance degree and a postgrad in public policy ... sure you americans know it all from foxnews</span></div>
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<br />
Now.... I should have probably completely stopped interacting earlier, but honestly, I'm intrigued by the existence of people like this.<br />
<br />
You'll notice that there's absolutely no intellectual humility, no desire or willingness to discuss or engage on ideas, there's a focus only on labels over substance, inventing litmus tests and bare assertions of authority in Mimi's posts... All while her actual <i>arguments</i> are nothing but crass ad hominems and strawmen.<br />
<br />
At no point does she seem to genuinely want to know what I actually think - or why - and instead, she's perfectly happy to call me an "Ayn Randian Right wing libertarian piece of shit".<br />
<br />
Now... She's not interested in telling me <i>why</i> I'm wrong, either. All she does is tell me that I am wrong, and that I am obviously a "brainwashed lemming", a "foxnews fool", and - my favorite common refrain from people who can't defend their positions with reason or evidence - just a "media producer" who couldn't possibly know anything about anything. Then there's the bizarre dragging of Ayn Rand (who I did not mention one time) and her acceptance of social security and medicare into the discussion, even though that had nothing to do with anything.<br />
<br />
In truth, sometimes I find myself lowering myself to the level of these people (although I <i>rarely</i> ever initiate this kind of tone), but mostly I find this to be really amusing. A woman who claims to have a "finance degree and a postgrad in public policy" cannot have a remotely rational discussion about economics and public policy.<br />
<br />
Is it sad? Embarrassing? Maybe it's just predictable...<br />
<br />
I don't know anymore, and although I hate to say it, this the whole thing is <i>exceptionally</i> common in my discussions with socialists and communists and has been for years. <br />
<br />
I really don't know how they manage to make it through academic programs in public policy or finance or anything else. It seriously just makes me suspect that the majority of academic programs are simply echo-chambers utterly devoid of emphasis on critical thinking and formal (or even informal) logic.<br />
<br />
For years I spent a lot of time debating with people about these kinds of things. I've mostly stopped doing that at this point in my life, because of experiences like this.<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.sean-malone.com</div>Sean W. Malonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07652434357640171842noreply@blogger.com3