Globally Rational

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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I saw an article today suggesting that, for the first time, the average TV viewer is now over 50 years old. I think it’s interesting to note that top TV characters, on the other hand, seem to be getting younger as time progresses. If you look at the progression from “I Love Lucy” to “The Brady Bunch” to “Cheers” to “Friends”, it seems obvious that the most popular comedy-type shows feature younger and younger characters.

Here are some of the top comedy shows of the 20th century, along with the ages of the main characters during the show’s first season. I chose all of the comedy shows that have at some point been the #1 show in America by ratings, not including shows about families or kids (if I didn’t have enough examples for any particular decade, I threw in some shows that may never have been #1 but are still really good):

1950’s: “I Love Lucy” (main actors were in their 40’s)
1960’s: “The Andy Griffith Show” (Andy was 35-45), “Gunsmoke” (main character was 35-40), “Bewitched” (the husband was 35-40)
1970’s: “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” (Mary was mid-30’s), “Laverne and Shirley” (They were both mid-30’s), “Three’s Company” (mid-30’s)
1980’s: “Cheers” (Sam was mid-30’s), “Who’s the Boss” (Tony was mid-30’s)
1990’s: “Seinfeld” (Jerry was mid-30’s), “Friends” (they were all mid/late-20’s)
2000’s: “Scrubs” (JD was mid-20’s), “Chuck” (mid-20’s)… sorry, these are the best two I could come up with for the 2000’s because the rest of the good shows all feature a wide range of ages (marketing people are starting to figure out how to target a broad demographic).

You’ll notice a similar trend if you look at medical shows (Marcus Welby M.D. was over 60, Quincy M.E. was 50something, while House M.D. is 40something and his assistants are mid-20’s), legal shows (i.e. “Matlock” vs. the cast of “Boston Legal”), or any other specific genre. And look at the people who have sold the most music albums by decade:

1950’s: Harry Belafonte, Henry Mancini, some movie soundtracks
1960’s: Mostly soundtracks, the Monkees, Jimi Hendrix, Iron Butterfly
1970’s: Simon and Garfunkel, Neil Young, Elton John, Led Zeppelin, others of similar age
1980’s: AC/DC, Aerosmith, Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, others of similar age
1990’s: Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, Tupac, others of similar age
2000’s: Linkin Park, Usher, Eminiem, others of similar age

They are all around 25-30 years old at their peaks. So it seems like we like our TV characters to get younger, but our taste for musicians’ ages aren’t really changing. That means that it’s not just the aging population that is being reminiscent of younger days; the real cause is something else…

That “something else”, in my opinion, is the evolution of the field of marketing. Here are the reasons why I think that the marketing applies to TV characters more than to musicians:

–TV networks have a limited number of programs that they can show in any 24-hour period (music labels, meanwhile, can produce as many albums as they want). So, the TV studios have to make sure to appeal to as many people as possible with each show, while record labels can make different albums for each demographic.
–Garage bands can still “come from nothing” by just making good music with no regard to marketing. TV shows, on the other hand, are produced in a boardroom.
–Each TV show has to appeal to a wide demographic in order to look juicier to advertisers.
–People tend to just turn on the TV and watch whatever is most appealing. When they buy music, it’s much more premeditated.

People are getting better at selling things to us. Honestly, I like the product… I love watching many of today’s TV shows. Still, I won’t deny that most of those shows have lost the soul that broadcast television once had. If Andy Griffith (or even Jerry Seinfeld) tried to turn his comedy into a TV show today, the networks would laugh at him.

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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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We hear politicians talk a lot about “a lady I met who couldn’t afford to pay for xxx” or “a man in Ohio who lost his job”.  I’ll accept that unemployment rates are a little bit higher than last year, but we can find stories like that at any time, even if the economy is booming.  The question I’d like to ask is this: as a society, are we really worse off than we were in 2000?

The Dow Jones is higher today than it was then, even if you adjust for inflation.  The dollar may be a bit weaker, but that’s more of an international issue than a domestic one; also, the “housing crisis” and the “recession” are supposed to affect other countries just as much as they affect the US.  Gas prices are high, but that’s just supply and demand.  As a nation, is the average person doing better or worse?

Gregg Easterbrook, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, argues (in a Wall Street Journal article) that we’re better than ever:

• Housing prices may have dropped, but that’s only because they surged a few years ago.  People always talked about the “housing bubble”, but people ignored it until the bubble decided to burst.  Easterbrook points out that the average house value today is still about 30-40% higher than it was in 2000 (before the price boom).
• The unemployment rate (~5.5%) is pretty low by historical standards.
• Income is still rising faster than inflation.
• The definition of a recession is “two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth”.  We still haven’t even had one such quarter… the economy may not be growing as fast as before, but it’s still growing.

I think a big part of our problem is that people think the economy is worse than it is.  In a recent survey, 79% of Americans were worried that we may go into a depression (not a recession)… I don’t think they realize exactly how extreme a depression is.  The media hype is fueling our tendency to act like we’re in a recession, which fuels the possibility of a real recession.

The reason why we’re worried is because we’ve become accustomed to the “Great Moderation” of the last couple of decades; economists agree that normal economic volatility has decreased substantially in recent years.  Because of this, every slight downturn seems much worse than it actually is.

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I called in to NPR’s Talk of the Nation today to discuss my opinion on America’s negative image overseas.  I think that the guest, Fouad Ajami of Johns Hopkins, hit the point perfectly… instead of boring you with an article, I’ll link you to the story:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91812972

If you click “listen now” and forward to about 5-6 minutes into the conversation, you’ll hear a caller named “Shan from Missouri”… that’s me.

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We hear a lot of propaganda aimed at convincing the American people that Arabs are evil, the war is justified, and America is the best thing that ever happened to the world. Some people believe it all, and some people (i.e. the people who are probably reading this) believe none of it… but did you ever think that just some of it might be true?

All other things aside, the slogans “Land of the Free” and “Land of Opportunity” really do describe two of America’s very unique traits. We often take these facts for granted, but the amount of freedom and opportunity available to the American population is unmatched in the rest of the world. Here, we can speak out for what we believe in (although recently, we’re been losing that privilege). Here, you can be whatever you want to be if you set your mind to it. After you hear those things a million times, you tend to take them for granted… but this is the only country where it’s true.

In most countries (even in Europe), the average person does not believe they can be anything they want to be. If you’re born under a tin roof in Indonesia, you’ll probably die under a tin roof in Indonesia. If you speak out against the King in the Middle East, you’ll be detained. If you openly practice Buddhism in Tibet, you’ll be suppressed by the Chinese. If you try to leave your poor village in Pakistan to go to college, you’ll starve before anybody gives you a scholarship/loan. And that’s why the US became the world’s foremost economic and scientific power (I mentioned yesterday how we became the world’s foremost military power).

Recently, more countries have started granting more liberties and have attempted to produce more opportunities. In the process, Germany and Japan have risen as intellectual powers, while London’s financial sector is bringing economic prowess to the UK. Although the US is still leading the world, the rest of these countries are taking our strengths - our belief in freedom and our endearment of the old rags-to-riches story - and implementing them into their own policy. They’ll slowly start to chip away at our status as the world’s best country for scientific discovery and economic advancement… but it will make the world a better place.

Interesting note: the indices that measure democracy and freedom of the press both report that the US is no longer a leader in these two issues (we’ve been dropping quickly in the last few years). If we don’t fix this, we’ll destroy everything we stand for and, eventually, we’ll also lose our place as a leader in liberty and opportunity. The way to fix a declining democracy with fading freedoms is to be aware of the problem… if we know what’s going on and we follow these indices, we can prevent ourselves from slipping.

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I was browsing Fark.com today (as I often do) and noticed that they classified Pakistan’s recent increase in military spending in their “scary” category.  Personally, I don’t even see why that story was important enough to get noticed by Reuters, but apparently numbers scare people.

If you look at the actual story itself, you’ll see that the spending increase was only a total of 7%.  When you consider the fact that Pakistan faced 7% inflation in 2007 and 11% in the first half of 2008, it seems like a 7% spending increase is actually more like a net decrease.  But if a person wants to make the story seem “scary”, all they have to do is take some things out of context; Fark used a tagline of “Pakistan increases military spending to 300 billion rupees, plans to outfit military with large shields and extra health potions”.  300 billion rupees sounds like a lot more than its equivalent in US Dollars ($4.4 billion); in fact, there are over 200 people in the world who have enough money to pay that entire budget out of their own pockets.

I won’t deny that Pakistan’s military may be too powerful for the country’s own good.  But what choice do they have when their rival neighbor (India) is spending 6 times as much on their military and boasts 6 times as big of a population?  And why is Pakistan’s action labeled as “scary” when India actually increased their spending even more (10% increase, despite only 6% inflation)?

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I saw an article today in USA Today suggesting that the legacy of Sandra Day O’Connor, America’s first female Supreme Court justice, has been fading since she retired in January 2006 (after a tenure of over two decades).  The article mentions that the new Court has “undercut several of her most important rulings on issues such as abortion rights, campaign finance law and government policies intended to help racial minorities.”  Among other things, the article mentions the following changes in the Court’s policies since O’Connor retired and Chief Justice William Rehnquist died:

• Shifted course on abortion rights: The court upheld a federal ban on the abortion procedure opponents call “partial birth” and backed away from a 2000 O’Connor opinion that required an exception in such laws to protect the health of the mother.

• Retreated on integration: The court made it harder for public school districts to assign students to schools outside their neighborhoods to achieve racial diversity. In 2003, O’Connor had cast the swing vote to allow affirmative action in higher education and stressed the importance of racial diversity.

• Altered its approach to campaign-finance law: The court opened the door to corporate and union financing of broadcast ads right before an election. It moved away from a standard O’Connor had crafted to regulate campaign financing and made it harder for Congress to limit donations in elections. In doing so, the justices said campaign finance regulation could undermine free speech.

What interests me the most about this article is the fact that the Supreme Court’s political leanings have obviously changed thanks to the justices appointed by President Bush II.  While Rehnquist and O’Connor were known to make apolitical decisions on a case-by-case basis, their replacements (John Roberts and Samuel Alito, respectively) are generally considered as members of the Court’s “conservative wing”.  Since when is a legal system, particularly the Supreme Court, allowed to have a “conservative wing?”

It’s about time that we start appointing justices based upon their accomplishments rather than their political leanings.  Aside from the Presidents Bush, all US Presidents have appointed justices who make highly rational, apolitical decisions.  Why do we let it fly when an active member of either political party is allowed to join the Court?  Alito, Roberts, and Clarence Thomas (who was appointed by Bush Sr.) are the only current justices who weren’t approved by at least 85% of Senators (Alto had 58%, Roberts had 78%, and Thomas had a mere 52%).  The other six justices made it in almost unanimously… why is it that the Bushes couldn’t do the same thing that Ford, Reagan, Nixon, and Clinton were able to do?

The purpose of the Judicial Branch of the US government is to interpret and enforce the laws.  As long as the members of the highest court are affiliated with a political party, how can we possibly guarantee neutrality?

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