Globally Rational

Two hundred and thirty-two years ago today, Thomas Jefferson announced the Americans’ future right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”  But people often forget the next part of the Declaration of Independence, where he states “that to preserve these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just power from the consent of the governed.

The term “consent of the governed,” unfortunately, was never defined.  Does it mean that everybody has to agree to the government?  Or that more than half of the people have to agree?  Or just that the people have the right to get rid of a government if we want?  Jefferson, of course, was insinuating a majority-rule democracy… but is that the only way to make it work?

As many of you already know, we don’t live in a truly democratic society.  In a true democracy, there would be no President or Congress… every decision would be made by majority rule.  There’s no way for us to make that work in such a big country, so we go for the closest thing we can: a representative democracy where we spend half of our time worrying about elections and the other half complaining about how our favorite candidate didn’t get elected.  So, I thought about it… is there any other way?

Well, I couldn’t think of anything good.  But I did think of an option that might work:

What if we just had official monthly approval ratings for our leaders?  Instead of doing the usual elections, we could require everybody to take an hour every six months to decide whether or not they approve of the current President or congressman or mayor or governor.  When the approval ratings drop below a given number (say, 40%), then it’s time for an election.  If the people are happy with their leader, then we don’t need to waste time replacing him.  That way, he won’t have to waste all of this time campaigning as long as he’s doing a good job.

Of course, it would have to be more complicated than that.  And it probably wouldn’t work… but why?

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Welcome to the 68th edition of Carnival of the Liberals! It was very difficult to choose a reasonable number of articles from the many submissions that I received, but I think I managed to cut it down to the point where it’s not overcrowded.

I also included some comments about each article. I’ll have to say that I was very happy with the quality of the posts, and I expect that you’ll find each of the next 15 articles to be a very interesting read.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the CotL people for letting me host this edition. Also, thanks to all of the bloggers who submitted articles; I hope to see more of your quality work in the future.

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current events

Timothy Martin presents Habeas What? posted at Mouthful of Politics, saying, “This article examines the recent Supreme Court decision returning habeas corpus to Guantanamo detainees.”

Shan’s comments It’s nice to see that the right-leaning Supreme Court still occasionally considers the spirit of the Constitution instead of always being politically charged.

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The Ridger presents Hiding the hate posted at The Greenbelt, saying, “”We don’t anyone to know we’re bigots - it might hurt our business.” You think? I hope!”

Shan’s comments I can’t say that I’m surprised. Bigots know that they’re bigots… and they don’t want everybody else to know about it

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liberalism

Madeleine Begun Kane presents Is Olbermann Turning Into O’Reilly? posted at Mad Kane’s Political Madness.

Shan’s comments: I liked this idea; although I agree with most of Olbermann’s ideas, I think he’s become just another angry ranter who always only presents one side of a debate. As long as you’re ignoring your opponents’ arguments, how do you expect to make any difference? It seems that Olbermann is just there to sell his show to fellow liberals… I wish he’s use his position of power to actually persuade some swing voters instead of (literally) yelling at his opponents

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Alonzo Fyfe presents Atheist Ethicist: The Pledge Project: A Memorial Day Dilemma posted at Atheist Ethicist.

Shan’s comments This article doesn’t fit with the usual theme of my blog (talking about issues with a rational, fact-based perspective), but it is a very interesting essay. It’s also a bit older than what the Carnival usually accepts, but I decided to accept it because it’s a great read.

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APH presents Urbanism Legend: Zoning Creates Density posted at Market Urbanism, saying, “In many different contexts, I have heard people argue that liberalizing zoning restrictions will cause “overdevelopment” or high density development filled with low income people. Even in relatively low density areas, people make the sensationalist argument that if zoning restrictions were lifted, high rises would be built in their community, creating congestion and overburdening infrastructure.”

Shan’s comments This article, unlike the last one, fits perfectly with the Globally Rational spirit. I wish more people actually looked at the real economic analysis behind their political decisions… but instead, politicians just try to appeal to people’s emotions

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Greta Christina presents The Messed-Up Teachings of Jesus posted at Greta Christina’s Blog, saying, “A critique of the liberal Christian idea that the teachings of Jesus support progressive ideals, such as peace and tolerance. It provides an extensive list of Jesus’s teachings from the New Testament that run completely counter to some of the most treasured principles of most modern progressives… such as free speech, independent thought, sexual and marital privacy, resisting oppression, and respecting people with different beliefs.”

Shan’s comments I like this article, but you should be sure to take it for what it’s worth. I’m not Christian, but I do like many of Jesus’s original teachings… what this article reminds us is that many of those “original teachings” have evolved and been bastardized by some modern Christian sects

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opinion

Educatorblog presents Do Teachers Influence Blackness? posted at An (aspiring) Educator’s Blog, saying, “A post about race in the classroom.”

Shan’s comments A great idea and a well-developed post. I think many people underestimate the value of teachers in a person’s life… I can definitely say that some of my teachers had a huge impact on the way that I look at the world today. This is one of my favorite articles in this carnival

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Mike Haubrich, FCD presents Detainees Deserve Trials posted at Tangled Up in Blue Guy, saying, “So, what is the deal with Habeas Corpus and the Supreme Court?”

Shan’s comments I couldn’t decide which Guantanamo Habeas Corpus post was better (this one or Timothy Martin’s post earlier in this carnival), so I included them both

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Matthew presents Justice posted at Conservatives and Normals . Com - The Blog, saying, “What is justice and is it individual or social?”

Shan’s comments This post explores one of my favorites topics: the use (and distortion) of semantics to justify people’s pointless ideas. Before we go around throwing around powerful buzzwords like “justice”, we should realize exactly what we’re trying to say

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vjack presents Atheist Revolution: Strengthening American Infrastructure is a Matter of National Security posted at Atheist Revolution.

Shan’s comments People often forget that there’s much more to national security than just killing all of the bad guys. This post is a nice reminder that there are plenty of important ideas within the broader field.

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Doctor Biobrain presents What I Learned From Rush Limbaugh posted at And Doctor Biobrain’s Response Is…

Shan’s comments Quality piece about what Limbaugh (and others like him) seem to be trying to accomplish

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politics

Jeffrey Stingerstein presents » Oh No! John McCain Is Trying to Lose My Vote! Disillusioned Words: atheism, art and politics posted at Disillusioned Words.

Shan’s comments Apparently, John McCain hasn’t read the Constitution. I’m not surprised… he graduated at the bottom of his class, so I doubt that he got an ‘A’ in Political Science 101

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Mike Haubrich, FCD presents Bush is Not the Decider posted at Tangled Up in Blue Guy, saying, “Bush doesn’t want to open an e-mail. Leadership FAIL”

Shan’s comments When I first heard about this, I was astonished. I guess that, after almost 8 years of Bush, I shouldn’t be surprised

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Mike Haubrich, FCD also presents I Would Rather Be Anywhere Else posted at Tangled Up in Blue Guy, saying, “Power in the hands of an imperialist, even if the intentions are initially good, leads to abuse of power. The rule of law should supercede the rule of man.”

Shan’s comments This is another article referring to the Guantanamo Habeas Corpus issue, but this one draws an important parallel between the present and the past. It’s always depressing to see us repeating the past

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opinion

larryniven presents What’s that first step, again? posted at Rust Belt Philosophy, saying, “My blog examines arguments in mass media for argumentative fallacies. In this post, I deconstruct yet another conservative op/ed piece designed to downplay global warming.”

Shan’s comments A good reminder of how to respond to some of the pointless anti-environment arguments.

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And that’s it. Thanks to everybody who submitted articles and, of course, to the carnival staff for allowing me to host this edition. Hopefully, you’ll be seeing this carnival at Globally Rational again sometime in the future.

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People often talk about how they prefer “natural” cures or “natural” foods or other things of a “natural” nature. I’m not one of those people.  I don’t deny the value of preserving the environment… but as far as the difference between eating “organic beef” (I won’t even bring up the fact that all beef is technically “organic”) and regular beef, I don’t see the benefit.  Personally, I’d rather eat a cow that received antibiotics to kill all of the bacteria.

Sure, I understand that you don’t want to be pumped full of drugs every time you eat a hamburger.  But luckily, I also understand that antibiotics are cleared out of the cow’s system before it’s slaughtered… unless you have a mutant cow with no kidneys, in which case the antibiotics would kill the cow before it’s slaughtered.  In the end, you’re effectively choosing between a piece of meat that may be infected and another piece of meat that’s exactly the same except for the fact that it’s not infected.

I realize that people are afraid of ionizing radiation in their food… but what about the fact that all of the radiation decays from the food well before it hits the shelves?  You may not like the idea of genetic engineering… but how does it actually affect anything except for the price of the food?  Yeah, growth hormones sound “unnatural”… but the hormone is denatured when you cook the meat, so why would I care?

If a beaver builds a dam, it’s natural… but if a human even builds a swimming pool, it’s not.  If a bee extracts honey from flowers, it’s natural… but if a human extracts sugar from apples, it’s not.  If a bird builds a nest, it’s natural… but if a human builds a house, it’s not.

But if the heat starts a forest fire, it’s somehow a problem; if we don’t put it out, then Smokey Bear will come and yell at us.  Who says that we have a right to stop the natural life cycles of the forests?  Is it the same person who says that only beavers are allowed to build dams and only birds and bees are allowed to build domiciles?  Where do we draw the line?  Is it “natural” to make spears and hunt animals?  And where do monkeys fall in all of this mess?  Recently, we’ve found chimps using tools… should we be telling them to go back to the natural way of doing things?

Try to get everybody to only eat organic food.  See how long it takes before we experience a Malthusian catastrophe.

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This is just a reminder that Globally Rational will be hosting the July 2 edition of Carnival of the Liberals, a fortnightly event which showcases the best recent articles by liberal bloggers.  The deadline for submitting an article is midnight CST on July 2, so get your submissions in ASAP!

Here are some relevant links:
Submission page
Carnival home
Previous editions of the carnival

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This is another in my set of “Sunday Rewinds”, where I re-post one of my favorite articles that I wrote back when nobody was reading. FYI, the status of North Korea has changed a little bit since I first wrote the article.

Wikipedia defines “terrorism” as “violence against civilians to achieve political or ideological objectives by creating fear.” Here are some examples of accepted terrorist organizations:

• —Al-Qaeda, for obvious reasons.
• —The Irish Republican Army (IRA), which conducts violent attacks in an attempt to promote the independence of Northern Ireland from the UK.
• —Hamas, a political party that is said to sponsor violence against Israel.
• —Khmer Rouge, a violent Communist group that controlled Cambodia for part of the 1970s.
• —The Ku Klux Klan, which is responsible for ethnic/racial violence in the US.

Anyway, you get the point. But what about state-sponsored terrorism? We spent a lot of time, resources, and money fighting many of the small groups: for instance, we fought al-Qaeda and the Khmer Rouge directly (with heavy casualties) and we fought Hamas by supplying money and weapons to their targets. Meanwhile, we ignore state-sponsored issues:

• —China’s atrocities against Tibetans speak for themselves, but China is still hosting the Olympics and is still one of our biggest trading partners. They also don’t let the local media tell their residents about the violence, while the Great Firewall of China prevents any Chinese residents from accessing international news.
• —North Korea is as dangerous as ever and, unlike al-Qaeda and Iraq, they have weapons of mass destruction. We seem to just ignore them.
• —Israel still continues to kill far more Palestinian civilians than vice versa. Why do we continue to pay for them to do it?
• —We ignore state-sponsored terrorism in countries like Rwanda and Ethiopia/Eritrea, but we are all over it every time it touches Yugoslavia. My guess is that it’s because it’s much easier for white America to be sympathetic with white Yugoslavia. It’s also interesting that the news never mentions that the terrorism in Yugoslavia was primarily non-Muslims killing Muslims, but they always mention religion when Muslims kill non-Muslims. The same thing happens in Israel… it’s never “Jews killing Muslims”, but you hear a lot about “Muslims killing Jews/Israelis”, even though the former is much more common than the latter.
• —And, of course, there are the allegations of US sponsorship of terrorism, which seem to be irrefutable. Take a look at the link.

It’s hard to make a conclusion with such a small data set… but it’s good food for thought. This tells you a lot about how the US, as a nation, feels about various groups. We tend to ignore all evidence that is contrary to whatever issue it is that we want to support. We want to support China, so the Tibetans are irrelevant and the Olympics will continue. We want to support Yugoslavia, so we make Rwanda less important (the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia was very efficient and took care of the issues… the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, on the other hand, has accomplished almost nothing). I don’t mean to suggest that we shouldn’t help Israel or Yugoslavia… but I think we should find a way to help Tibet and Rwanda at the same time instead of discriminating heavily in favor of one or the other.

Leave a comment and tell me what you think about this one. There are many possible explanations and conclusions, and I think we’d all like to see different opinions.

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“Democracy” is a popular buzzword here in the US.  Everybody assumes that if a country is “democratic”, they are also automatically “free”.  While I don’t oppose the idea of freedom and liberty, I don’t think that they should be naturally associated with the word “democracy”.

In America, democracy and freedom both showed up at the same time.  As far back as I can remember, I’ve been taught that we must agree with the Declaration of Independence’s suggestion that “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” just spur automatically from the fact that “to preserve these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just power from the consent of the governed.”  But in fact, that’s not what Jefferson was saying… he didn’t say that democracy creates freedom, but rather that free societies should be democratic.

So why is it that the US pushes the world to create “democratic” societies instead of creating “free” societies?  That’s what we’ve been advocating in Pakistan, Iraq, Eritrea, and many other countries where the elected government is (or soon will be) unimaginably corrupt and self-serving.  Meanwhile, here in the US, everybody assumes that an elected government must have the interests of the people in mind… after all, they want to get re-elected, right?

Maybe not… case in point: Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe.  After rigging the first election to make it seem like he didn’t lose clearly, he intimidated the rest of the country to the point where his opponent was forced to withdraw from the run-off election.  Now, Mugabe is declaring victory despite the fact that he obviously distorted the results of the voting to a point where he seemed like a landslide winner when everybody knows that he is highly unpopular.

So why do we try to enforce democracy instead of freedom in countries like Iraq?  Well, I think the reason is obvious… Americans don’t really understand that there is a difference.  Democracy can be enforced by guns, while freedom can only be enforced by schools.  As long as you can convince the American population that you’re doing one or the other, they’ll be happy… so why not just put in a nominal government based on a superficial popular vote?  After all, it’s much easier to buy guns than it is to build schools.

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McCain’s top VP prospect, Bobby Jindal, apparently believes that Intelligent Design is “the very best science.” When talking about the subject, he mentioned that “The way we’re going to have smart, intelligent kids is exposing them to the very best science and let them not only decide, but also let them contribute to that body of knowledge.”

So apparently, he seems to believe that we not only need to teach Intelligent Design in schools (as he mentioned earlier in the speech), but that kids should be able to “contribute to that body of knowledge.” I’m curious… since when are we allowed to “contribute” to Intelligent Design theories? I was always under the impression that the Bible (and other religious texts) are non-negotiable… how can kids contribute to the body of Christian knowledge?

He also mentioned that he doesn’t want “any facts of theories withheld from [his kids] because of political correctness.” Personally, I was always under the impression that we keep religion out of public schools for reasons much more important than “political correctness.” I thought that we lived in the “Land of the Free” where you could get through school without being subject to a certain mandatory religion.

Sure, we can teach our kids religion… I’m not opposed to religion as a concept. But this is the sort of education that should be restricted to personal homes. If you want to teach your kids to be Hindu or Mormon or Baptist or Muslim, it’s not my problem… but if you want to feed a certain religion to my kids, it’s suddenly a big deal. Kids go to school to learn facts based on empirical evidence, not to learn a certain prophet’s interpretation of the truth.

Are you ready to see Bobby Jindal as the next Dick Cheney?

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We all hate child molesters.  Even child molesters hate child molesters.  We can all agree that they deserve whatever sort of punishment we can give them… but where do we draw the line?

Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal recently signed a bill allowing chemical castration for convicted sex offenders.  While the law borders the realm of “cruel and unusual punishment”, I can see plenty of positives too…

PROS: Child molesters are sick.  They tend to be repeat offenders, and the reason is because of their natural tendencies.  As much as I’d hate to suppress somebody’s natural tendencies, I think it’s necessary in cases like this one… chemical castration means that these people will never commit these sorts of acts again.  And it means that people are less likely to do it in the first place.

CONS: Where do we draw the line?  Today it’s child molesters and castration… what will it be tomorrow?  There is a reason why the Constitution outlaws “cruel and unusual punishment”… the point is so that we can avoid a scenario where innocent people are castrated.

What do you think?

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Ralph Nader just publicly accused Barack Obama of trying to “talk white” and not making a big deal out of issues such as “payday loans, predatory lending, asbestos, [and] lead”. He went on to say that Obama “wants to show that he is not … another politically threatening African-American”. My favorite is the following statement:

“He wants to appeal to white guilt. You appeal to white guilt not by coming on as black is beautiful, black is powerful. Basically he’s coming on as someone who is not going to threaten the white power structure, whether it’s corporate or whether it’s simply oligarchic. And they love it. Whites just eat it up.”

I can have a field day with this, but I promise not to be too harsh:

—-Since when is it possible to talk in colors? Do I “talk brown” because my skin is brown? Obama was raised by his white mother (and her white parents) after his parents’ divorce… so if he was raised in a white household, why would he not “talk white”?

—-I agree that Obama wants to show that he’s not politically threatening. Since when does a politician want to appear to be a threat? I can’t remember the last time I saw somebody make a serious run for President without making it obvious that he/she was not a threat.

—-Nader seems to think that Obama is “appealing to white guilt” by saying that he is “not going to threaten the white power structure”. I’d go as far as to call this comment “racist”… does Nader seriously believe that Obama is a threat to the white power structure? I didn’t even realize that white people had their own power structure. Is it whites-only? Can I join? How does somebody apply to become a member? And why would Obama want to threaten it?

—-When was the last time that payday loans, predatory lending, asbestos, and lead were major election issues? Nader seems to think that just because Obama is black, he should be focusing on “black” issues. He clearly said the following:
“There’s only one thing different about Barack Obama when it comes to being a Democratic presidential candidate. He’s half African-American. Whether that will make any difference, I don’t know. I haven’t heard him have a strong crackdown on economic exploitation in the ghettos.”
So, apparently, Obama should be thinking about ghetto issues just because he’s black. Ignore the fact that he was born in Honolulu, grew up in Hawaii and Indonesia, and went to school at Harvard. Obama should stay true to his “roots” by focusing on the “ghetto”.

Nader seems to think that Obama should be acting blacker. Apparently, he’s only acting white so that he can get votes (because, as Nader’s track record will show, he doesn’t think that votes are important in a Presidential race). It seems that despite the fact that Obama was raised by a white person in Hawaii and Indonesia, Nader believes that he should act “black” just because of the color of his skin.

I usually try to be more balanced in my articles… but I just can’t tolerate blatant racism from a major Presidential candidate.

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And the answer is Nelson Mandela.  Apparently, the US was against the anti-Apartheid movement because the South African white supremacists were our friends.  After it became apparent that South Africa’s racist philosophies were bad, the world came to accept Mandela as a hero… but we still never got around to taking Mandela off the US terrorist list.  In fact, some people still think he’s a terrorist, even after the US gave him a Medal of Honor in 2003.

I think it’s interesting to consider how much things change over the years.  Sure, Mandela was a little violent during the 1960’s… but he wasn’t anywhere near as bad as the Apartheid government.  Years later, people unanimously hail him as a leader in the fight against racism and global harmony.  40 years from now, what will we be saying about some of the people who are seen as questionable today?

There are a lot of people who are generally very influential.  Some of them, such as Hitler and Milosevic, are obviously bad.  Others, such as Mandela and Jimmy Carter, are obviously good.  But what about the people who are still too fresh in our memories to make any solid conclusions (for instance, much of the current players in Pakistani politics)?  What will we think about them in the future?

I want to make a suggestion.  Before you decide that a person is evil (like we said about Mandela), think about what they do and why they do it.  It’ll tell you a lot about the person… for instance, some Pakistani politicians are motivated by greed and power struggles, while others are motivated by a true dedication to making the world a better place.  Similar things can be said about more violent figures (including people who are actually terrorists)… if we actually try to look at things from their perspective, even if we don’t agree with it, we can go much farther in our attempts to make peace.

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