The essence of rights is that they are intrinsic to human beings. They are how we see ourselves, our essence, our nature. Importantly they are independent of circumstance; they are not products or services and they have no motive. Tall or short, rich or poor. executive or farmer, rights apply equally. They cannot be granted and material factors, especially technology, are not a component. They are not temporal; one right does not emerge over time or become more appropriate in one epoch than another. Nor are they geographic; the rights of a man in Somalia are those of a man in New York. Rights are misunderstood. They are qualities, not aspirations. The disguising of social aims as human rights undermines the rights.
This said, only a politician completely ignorant of the nature of human rights could pen the Fourteenth Article of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union which states that everyone has the right "to receive free compulsory education." Free" and "compulsory". Or The United Nation Declaration 16 that everyone has "the right to marry and to found a family." Are Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar abusing these rights? Does a childless couple have a claim? Does an unhappy bachelor have a claim against a much-married starlet?
And all of this nonsense fills the ancient proverb: With trivialization comes disrespect. But the real question is, does disrespect lead to trivialization?
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Between Barack and a Hard Place
Politics have become more difficult over the last years. The Democrats have become imitators of the old Progressive movement with high mindedness and the arrogance of leadership; the Republicans are carping and inept. But the real problem is our superficiality. Ours will be an election where crucial questions about the proper behavior of government will be decided on through the debates on birth control, talk show hosts' crudeness and forged birth certificates. I'd rather they go back to kissing babies.
In a way this degeneration is understandable: Obama offers a very polarizing view of the nation. His view is out of history. It is a different vision than Americans are used to historically and consequently inspires some significant response. The historical view of government in this country is that it is always a potential danger. Power in governmental form was seen as inherently risky, with the tendency of that power to expand and become oppressive. As the bedrock of America was liberty and freedom, this antagonistic view is understandable. Obama, and all Progressives historically, turns this on its ear. They think that the government has the potential to be a positive, productive force in the country. Obama's interview where he talked about the government's "negative" responsibilities--what, by the constitutional limits, it could not do--should be expanded and offset by positive responsibilities, what the government should do. This notion--government manned by intelligent, methodical men of vision and integrity solving problems--is the opposite of the view of the founders of the United States. As Madison said, "But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary." This thinking--unusual in the Western world--makes up a large part of the thinking of the American citizens and it is both deep and profound. The problem in this election is that there is no articulate candidate who believes it, and there is no candidate who believes it who is articulate. Amazingly, the Madison position has become reactionary and stupid in the eyes of its opponents. Consequently the important debate degenerates.
Progressives do not learn from failure, they think only the wrong levers were in place or the right ones were not pulled hard enough. But very wise men thought "the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself." That should be overturned with caution.
In a way this degeneration is understandable: Obama offers a very polarizing view of the nation. His view is out of history. It is a different vision than Americans are used to historically and consequently inspires some significant response. The historical view of government in this country is that it is always a potential danger. Power in governmental form was seen as inherently risky, with the tendency of that power to expand and become oppressive. As the bedrock of America was liberty and freedom, this antagonistic view is understandable. Obama, and all Progressives historically, turns this on its ear. They think that the government has the potential to be a positive, productive force in the country. Obama's interview where he talked about the government's "negative" responsibilities--what, by the constitutional limits, it could not do--should be expanded and offset by positive responsibilities, what the government should do. This notion--government manned by intelligent, methodical men of vision and integrity solving problems--is the opposite of the view of the founders of the United States. As Madison said, "But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary." This thinking--unusual in the Western world--makes up a large part of the thinking of the American citizens and it is both deep and profound. The problem in this election is that there is no articulate candidate who believes it, and there is no candidate who believes it who is articulate. Amazingly, the Madison position has become reactionary and stupid in the eyes of its opponents. Consequently the important debate degenerates.
Progressives do not learn from failure, they think only the wrong levers were in place or the right ones were not pulled hard enough. But very wise men thought "the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself." That should be overturned with caution.
Monday, March 5, 2012
What Happened With the Stimulus
In Commentary magazine, two economics professors from Stanford, Cogan and Taylor, have published an analysis of the two stimulus packages, by Bush in 2008 and Obama in 2009, to see their respective effects.
President Bush’s February 2008 program totaled $152 billion. President Obama’s bill, enacted a year later, was considerably larger at $862 billion. This money went to individuals and to local governments; very little was used by the federal government to buy goods and services. After Keynes, it is assumed that an increase in available money results in increased spending and increased GDP. After more than three years since the crisis flared up, unemployment is still very high and economic growth is weak.
The following graph shows disposable personal income--with the addition of the stimulus--beside consumption expenditures. (It includes a little blip in the silly "Cash for Clunkers" idea and how it did virtually nothing in the economy.) What is obvious is that increasing income did not increase expenditures.
Why? Why didn't the money, 1.14 trillion dollars, stimulate the economy? Why didn't the Keynesian prediction come true?
Nobel Prize–winning economists Milton Friedman and Franco Modigliani explained years ago that individuals do not increase consumption much when their income increases temporarily. Instead, they save most of the funds or use the money to pay back some of their outstanding debts.
So the federal government borrowed 1.14 trillion dollars and gave it to households and local governments who then used the money to pay down their debts.
In essence, the increased money the federal government borrowed was used to reduce net borrowing by households and local governments.
One of the qualities of Progressivism is confidence in management techniques. Management, leadership, vision--these are all aspects of the movement that relies upon expertise in government, that defies the cynicism that the governmental world is too complex for definitive management. This stimulus idea--from both parties--has been a gigantic failure and should give the citizen caution, if not their politicians.
President Bush’s February 2008 program totaled $152 billion. President Obama’s bill, enacted a year later, was considerably larger at $862 billion. This money went to individuals and to local governments; very little was used by the federal government to buy goods and services. After Keynes, it is assumed that an increase in available money results in increased spending and increased GDP. After more than three years since the crisis flared up, unemployment is still very high and economic growth is weak.
The following graph shows disposable personal income--with the addition of the stimulus--beside consumption expenditures. (It includes a little blip in the silly "Cash for Clunkers" idea and how it did virtually nothing in the economy.) What is obvious is that increasing income did not increase expenditures.
Why? Why didn't the money, 1.14 trillion dollars, stimulate the economy? Why didn't the Keynesian prediction come true?
Nobel Prize–winning economists Milton Friedman and Franco Modigliani explained years ago that individuals do not increase consumption much when their income increases temporarily. Instead, they save most of the funds or use the money to pay back some of their outstanding debts.
So the federal government borrowed 1.14 trillion dollars and gave it to households and local governments who then used the money to pay down their debts.
In essence, the increased money the federal government borrowed was used to reduce net borrowing by households and local governments.
One of the qualities of Progressivism is confidence in management techniques. Management, leadership, vision--these are all aspects of the movement that relies upon expertise in government, that defies the cynicism that the governmental world is too complex for definitive management. This stimulus idea--from both parties--has been a gigantic failure and should give the citizen caution, if not their politicians.
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Sunday Sermon 3/4/12
Two terribly difficult readings today, the Transfiguration and Abraham and Isaac. Interestingly both appear on a mountain.
In the Old Testament reading, Abraham is told by God to take his only son, Isaac, his child by Sarah late in her life and the progenitor of the future generations promised him, to sacrifice him on a mountain. Abraham does it, even to poising the knife over the boy before being stopped by God.
In the New Testament reading, Christ is transfigured between Moses and Elijah before three apostles and then tells them not to tell the story until He rises from the dead. There is a lot of confusion among the apostles; they don't really understand what any of this means and Peter, in his incredible, comic and consistent representation of Everyman, wants to build little houses on the mountain to house the transfigured three.
Much has been made of the first reading. Kierkegaard uses this story as the defining difference between an accepting, passive man and the active man of active faith. What is fearsome is the possibility of error, that you may be wrong--or deceived.
The second reading seems to try to help. Who is the Transformation for? Does Christ benefit from this encounter? No, this seems to be for the apostles' benefit. As inept as the apostles are, there are some significant lessons for them that even they can understand. First, Christ's visitors are dead. The Jewish tradition was very vague on resurrection and here Christ visits with Moses and Elijah, icons of the Old testament, and seems to state that there is another world unseen by mortal man and Christ is intimately involved in it. His ministry extends beyond the shocking earthly miracles he performs; there is something universal going on. More, they are told to keep quiet about this until He rises from the dead. The Transfiguration is not an event, it is part of a sequence of unveiling the nature of Christ and his message and Christ's death and Resurrection are integral to it. (Interestingly, Peter alludes to the Transfiguration in his epistles but passively, as if everyone knows about it. Maybe he was embarrassed.) This event apparently is a major event in the Eastern Church; stigmata never appears in the Eastern Church but transfiguration does. Finally, as if the earlier heavenly announcements were not enough, a voice from heaven again affirms that Christ is the Son of God. Mercifully, Abraham's "leap of faith" is made considerably shorter for the apostles.
In these two readings, on these two mountains, heaven meets earth.
In the Old Testament reading, Abraham is told by God to take his only son, Isaac, his child by Sarah late in her life and the progenitor of the future generations promised him, to sacrifice him on a mountain. Abraham does it, even to poising the knife over the boy before being stopped by God.
In the New Testament reading, Christ is transfigured between Moses and Elijah before three apostles and then tells them not to tell the story until He rises from the dead. There is a lot of confusion among the apostles; they don't really understand what any of this means and Peter, in his incredible, comic and consistent representation of Everyman, wants to build little houses on the mountain to house the transfigured three.
Much has been made of the first reading. Kierkegaard uses this story as the defining difference between an accepting, passive man and the active man of active faith. What is fearsome is the possibility of error, that you may be wrong--or deceived.
The second reading seems to try to help. Who is the Transformation for? Does Christ benefit from this encounter? No, this seems to be for the apostles' benefit. As inept as the apostles are, there are some significant lessons for them that even they can understand. First, Christ's visitors are dead. The Jewish tradition was very vague on resurrection and here Christ visits with Moses and Elijah, icons of the Old testament, and seems to state that there is another world unseen by mortal man and Christ is intimately involved in it. His ministry extends beyond the shocking earthly miracles he performs; there is something universal going on. More, they are told to keep quiet about this until He rises from the dead. The Transfiguration is not an event, it is part of a sequence of unveiling the nature of Christ and his message and Christ's death and Resurrection are integral to it. (Interestingly, Peter alludes to the Transfiguration in his epistles but passively, as if everyone knows about it. Maybe he was embarrassed.) This event apparently is a major event in the Eastern Church; stigmata never appears in the Eastern Church but transfiguration does. Finally, as if the earlier heavenly announcements were not enough, a voice from heaven again affirms that Christ is the Son of God. Mercifully, Abraham's "leap of faith" is made considerably shorter for the apostles.
In these two readings, on these two mountains, heaven meets earth.
Saturday, March 3, 2012
Cab Thoughts 3/3/12
97% of Marcellus water is not being treated, diluted, and discharged into local waterways. It's being put into the deep ground. The changes in the water in fracking areas are from acid mine drainage and coal scrubbers, not fracking.
I met a bartender today who opened his bar at 8 a.m. and left at 11 a.m.. His bar was filled with men and women going to work. The common drink was a doubleheader and a beer together, often two sets. Then off to work, some office workers, some laborers. Several were roofers.
The Braun decision is a mystery. How could he possibly be let off and how could anyone take testing seriously after? The sports editorials are virtually incoherent, firing away at anyone for anything but having a hard time coming to grips with what seems to have happened here.
The economic problems in Europe are apparently quieting down a bit but the basic problem, the failure of the welfare state, seems to be a forbidden topic. How else can one explain what is happening? The debt expansion and its attendant contraction has not even happened yet so that is not the problem. There are simply too many economic promises made and too little money to fulfill those promises. So working Germans pay for Greek retirement.
I wandered through an episode of The Housewives of Orange County last night. Pretty raunchy. It seemed to be an effort to create a sort of locker-room for women. While I hope it was just scripted sensationalism, maybe women are as tasteless as men.
A plank in Junger's thinking about war is the common feeling of comradeship and compassion. I remember the al-Qaeda interviews with their commanders saying the American disadvantage was their comradeship, their refusal to leave a wounded man behind. I wonder if Junger's generalities apply to religious wars or to primitive people. I do not remember the very tribal American Indian as showing much brotherhood either.
In the decade before the Americans went to Afghanistan, 400,000 civilians were killed in civil strife, in the decade after the Americans arrived, 10,000 were killed.
The owners of 106 coal plants, with 331 coal units at them, announced that those plants would retire--or have been retired since January 2010. The plants represent 42,895 megawatts or 13% of the coal fleet. represents about 3.3% of all electricity generated from all sources. The retiring plants also account for 9% of the carbon dioxide coming from all coal plants. It should also be noted that America builds typically 15,000 to 20,000 megawatts of new generation every year. The closings do not pose any threat to grid reliability. That is an accident. The slack is being taken up by the huge, surprising growth of natural gas conversion. Those plants were to be attacked by the regulators whether it had a negative impact or not.
I met a bartender today who opened his bar at 8 a.m. and left at 11 a.m.. His bar was filled with men and women going to work. The common drink was a doubleheader and a beer together, often two sets. Then off to work, some office workers, some laborers. Several were roofers.
The Braun decision is a mystery. How could he possibly be let off and how could anyone take testing seriously after? The sports editorials are virtually incoherent, firing away at anyone for anything but having a hard time coming to grips with what seems to have happened here.
The economic problems in Europe are apparently quieting down a bit but the basic problem, the failure of the welfare state, seems to be a forbidden topic. How else can one explain what is happening? The debt expansion and its attendant contraction has not even happened yet so that is not the problem. There are simply too many economic promises made and too little money to fulfill those promises. So working Germans pay for Greek retirement.
I wandered through an episode of The Housewives of Orange County last night. Pretty raunchy. It seemed to be an effort to create a sort of locker-room for women. While I hope it was just scripted sensationalism, maybe women are as tasteless as men.
A plank in Junger's thinking about war is the common feeling of comradeship and compassion. I remember the al-Qaeda interviews with their commanders saying the American disadvantage was their comradeship, their refusal to leave a wounded man behind. I wonder if Junger's generalities apply to religious wars or to primitive people. I do not remember the very tribal American Indian as showing much brotherhood either.
In the decade before the Americans went to Afghanistan, 400,000 civilians were killed in civil strife, in the decade after the Americans arrived, 10,000 were killed.
The owners of 106 coal plants, with 331 coal units at them, announced that those plants would retire--or have been retired since January 2010. The plants represent 42,895 megawatts or 13% of the coal fleet. represents about 3.3% of all electricity generated from all sources. The retiring plants also account for 9% of the carbon dioxide coming from all coal plants. It should also be noted that America builds typically 15,000 to 20,000 megawatts of new generation every year. The closings do not pose any threat to grid reliability. That is an accident. The slack is being taken up by the huge, surprising growth of natural gas conversion. Those plants were to be attacked by the regulators whether it had a negative impact or not.
Friday, March 2, 2012
Junger and War
Sebastian Junger is on tour promoting his book "War." The book is the written account of the months he spent with an American infantry unit in the Korengal Valley in eastern Afghanistan; this experience also appeared as a feature length documentary called "Restrepo." The valley is ten kilometers by six and the source of twenty percent of all the combat in all of Afghanistan. The savagery, the danger, the suffering and discomfort is episodic but astonishingly frequent; sometimes there are fifteen firefights a day.
This is a violent story about violent men. But Junger's talk was not on the specifics of his book but rather the general idea of war, its origins and qualities. He is a better writer than a speaker but he was heartfelt, reflective and deeply involved. It is likely that a speech like this could not be given on a campus or in New York because he sees war as a fact of life. Indeed, he accepts war as more than inevitable; it is the outgrowth of some of our better qualities. To paraphrase the words of countless interviews, "The experience of war is something I hate but I would not trade."
In Junger's view, the warrior is virtually free of philosophy; he is, on the other hand, completely devoted to his fellows regardless of their circumstances. War is a tribal event writ large that is fueled by brotherhood and compassion, two of man's greatest qualities. These two elements drive the warrior in war and befuddle him in peacetime. The returning warrior consistently is confused by what he sees in peace as trivial, the lack of import. Against the backdrop of war, peacetime decisions are silly, random and essentially meaningless. It is not adrenaline he seeks, it is meaning, the same meaning and the same intensity that he experiences in his tribal unit. (Junger's academic background is anthropology.)
Junger is searching for a middle ground, the territory where the tribe can be expanded to include the enemy's better heart because he knows that both sides of the battlefield have it. It is brotherhood and compassion that stokes the fire of war; there seems to him to be no reason that it cannot be used as a bridge to fuel peace. The denial of tribes, their inherent threat but great humanness, will never allow us to harness it. (An interesting example he gives is the American legislative system which has boiled down to tribal antagonism that, if unchecked, could be very destructive.)
But Junger's experiences were incomplete. Last year his friend and fellow journalist, Tim Heatherington, was killed by a mortar shell on an assignment Junger was to share with him. Junger was devastated. A friend called and said of all the things he had learned about war, this was the missing piece: "The horror of war is not the risk that you will die, it is the certainty that some of your friends will." He says he will not return to battle again.
Many soldiers returning from combat experience with what is called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder where depression and estrangement dominate them. But other experience the opposite, called Post-traumatic Growth, where sensations, experiences and appreciation of life are heightened. The fullness of life is in the hazards of life. Listening to Junger, as he searches aloud, stirs the memory. Finally, one begins to remember: "reaffirmation of the will to live in the face of death, and the joy of its inexhaustibility when so reaffirmed"--that is Nietzsche's immortal definition of tragedy. Tragedy, "with its strange power to present suffering and death in such away as to exalt." And this occurs in Aeschylus' plays as in those of no other tragic poet.
Aeschylus, the inventor of tragedy, a great warrior who survived a great war.
This is a violent story about violent men. But Junger's talk was not on the specifics of his book but rather the general idea of war, its origins and qualities. He is a better writer than a speaker but he was heartfelt, reflective and deeply involved. It is likely that a speech like this could not be given on a campus or in New York because he sees war as a fact of life. Indeed, he accepts war as more than inevitable; it is the outgrowth of some of our better qualities. To paraphrase the words of countless interviews, "The experience of war is something I hate but I would not trade."
In Junger's view, the warrior is virtually free of philosophy; he is, on the other hand, completely devoted to his fellows regardless of their circumstances. War is a tribal event writ large that is fueled by brotherhood and compassion, two of man's greatest qualities. These two elements drive the warrior in war and befuddle him in peacetime. The returning warrior consistently is confused by what he sees in peace as trivial, the lack of import. Against the backdrop of war, peacetime decisions are silly, random and essentially meaningless. It is not adrenaline he seeks, it is meaning, the same meaning and the same intensity that he experiences in his tribal unit. (Junger's academic background is anthropology.)
Junger is searching for a middle ground, the territory where the tribe can be expanded to include the enemy's better heart because he knows that both sides of the battlefield have it. It is brotherhood and compassion that stokes the fire of war; there seems to him to be no reason that it cannot be used as a bridge to fuel peace. The denial of tribes, their inherent threat but great humanness, will never allow us to harness it. (An interesting example he gives is the American legislative system which has boiled down to tribal antagonism that, if unchecked, could be very destructive.)
But Junger's experiences were incomplete. Last year his friend and fellow journalist, Tim Heatherington, was killed by a mortar shell on an assignment Junger was to share with him. Junger was devastated. A friend called and said of all the things he had learned about war, this was the missing piece: "The horror of war is not the risk that you will die, it is the certainty that some of your friends will." He says he will not return to battle again.
Many soldiers returning from combat experience with what is called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder where depression and estrangement dominate them. But other experience the opposite, called Post-traumatic Growth, where sensations, experiences and appreciation of life are heightened. The fullness of life is in the hazards of life. Listening to Junger, as he searches aloud, stirs the memory. Finally, one begins to remember: "reaffirmation of the will to live in the face of death, and the joy of its inexhaustibility when so reaffirmed"--that is Nietzsche's immortal definition of tragedy. Tragedy, "with its strange power to present suffering and death in such away as to exalt." And this occurs in Aeschylus' plays as in those of no other tragic poet.
Aeschylus, the inventor of tragedy, a great warrior who survived a great war.
Thursday, March 1, 2012
A Modest Proposal of Sexual Trust
The Americans ask their candidates for political office to put their investments on hold while in office. The president usually has a trust that he can not influence; recent events have revealed that the legislators are less scrupulous. The idea sounds like a sensible, if naive, effort to suspend activity which might create embarrassment or a conflict of interest while the candidate is in office but is reversible once he leaves his position.
A modest proposal: A recurring problem among our politicians is their sexual wanderings. Extra-marital affairs, sexual advantages gained from the position of office, exhibitionism, abuse of employees and homosexual seduction of minors have all been unfortunate public stories involving political leaders over the last years. There is, however, a logical and practical solution: Pituitary agonists. Pituitary agonists exhaust pituitary production of hormones that stimulate sexual hormone production, essentially removing sex hormones, libido and its unwelcome public governmental consequences. And it's reversible. When the politician leaves office and the drug is stopped, the hormones return to normal.
Like their finances, the politician's sexual interest and function would simply be placed on hold.
A modest proposal: A recurring problem among our politicians is their sexual wanderings. Extra-marital affairs, sexual advantages gained from the position of office, exhibitionism, abuse of employees and homosexual seduction of minors have all been unfortunate public stories involving political leaders over the last years. There is, however, a logical and practical solution: Pituitary agonists. Pituitary agonists exhaust pituitary production of hormones that stimulate sexual hormone production, essentially removing sex hormones, libido and its unwelcome public governmental consequences. And it's reversible. When the politician leaves office and the drug is stopped, the hormones return to normal.
Like their finances, the politician's sexual interest and function would simply be placed on hold.
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