Tom W. Bell of Agorophilia proposes “victim disarmament” as an alternative to “gun control,” and he asks his readers to help spread the use of the alternative. I hereby vow to do my part.
Defense as the Ultimate Social Service
After posting “Not Enough Boots” I remembered Strategy for the West, by Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir John Slessor. There, Slessor says:
It is customary in democratic countries to deplore expenditures on armaments as conflicting with the requirements of the social services. There is a tendency to forget that the most important social service that a government can do for its people is to keep them alive and free.
Not Enough Boots
Mike Rappaport of The Right Coast despairs about Iraq:
[I]t does seem to me that we are now clearly losing in Iraq in large part because the President and Secretary of Defense refused to put enough troops in a couple of years ago. Hardly the first time people will have heard this, but it is the first time that I feel convinced of it.
Perhaps it is not even too late now militarily to put more troops in, but politically the White House seems unlikely to do so. They don’t seem to understand that when it comes to war, it is essential to win. And they are not doing that.
Combined with the Lebanon situation, it is enough to make you despair. Five years out from 9-11, and things look pretty dangerous.
Rappaport, like many another conservative, seems to have been hypnotized by the incessant drumbeat of defeatism in the mainstream media. But he points, nevertheless, to a significant truth: At a time when our forward military strategy requires a larger ground-combat force than it did after the end of the Cold War, that force (i.e., the Army and Marine Corps) remains at the low, post-Cold War levels reached during the Clinton era. Here, courtesy of infoplease, is a history of active duty manpower levels since 1940:
Year Army Air Force Navy Marine Corps Total 1940 269,023 160,997 28,345 458,365 1945 8,266,373 3,319,586 469,925 12,055,884 1950 593,167 411,277 380,739 74,279 1,459,462 1955 1,109,296 959,946 660,695 205,170 2,935,107 1960 873,078 814,752 616,987 170,621 2,475,438 1965 969,066 824,662 669,985 190,213 2,653,926 1970 1,322,548 791,349 691,126 259,737 3,064,760 1975 784,333 612,751 535,085 195,951 2,128,120 1980 777,036 557,969 527,153 188,469 2,050,627 1985 780,787 601,515 570,705 198,025 2,151,032 1990 732,403 535,233 579,417 196,652 2,043,705 1991 710,821 510,432 570,262 194,040 1,985,555 1992 610,450 470,315 541,886 184,529 1,807,177 1993 572,423 444,351 509,950 178,379 1,705,103 1994 541,343 426,327 468,662 174,158 1,610,490 1995 508,559 400,409 434,617 174,639 1,518,224 1996 491,103 389,001 416,735 174,883 1,471,722 1997 491,707 377,385 395,564 173,906 1,438,562 1998 483,880 367,470 382,338 173,142 1,406,830 1999 479,426 360,590 373,046 172,641 1,385,703 2000 482,170 355,654 373,193 173,321 1,384,338 2001 480,801 353,571 377,810 172,934 1,385,116 2002 486,542 368,251 385,051 173,733 1,413,577 2003 490,174 376,402 379,742 177,030 1,423,348 2004 494,112 369,523 370,445 177,207 1,411,287 2005 488,944 351,666 358,700 178,704 1,378,014 2006 (June) 496,362 352,620 353,496 178,923 1,381,401 NOTE: Figures for 1998 through 2006 include cadets/midshipmen.1. Military personnel on extended or continuous active duty. Excludes reserves on active duty for training.
Source: Department of Defense.
Information Please® Database, © 2006 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
The problem isn’t so much with the present administration (though it can be faulted) as it is with the unwillingness of adminstrations and Congresses since the end of the Cold War to provide adequately for the common defense.
More generally, the problem lies in the mindset that takes the end of a war as a signal to demobilize — as we did after World War I, World War II, Vietnam, and the Cold War. It is considered dangerous to prepare for the last war. But it is even more dangerous to assume that the next war will not happen, or that it will be easier than the last.
Englishman Douglas Jerrold, speaking to the Empire Club of Canada in 1949, put it this way:
“But”, say the strategists, “what is the use of attempting to build up ground forces, because who knows what the next war is going to be like, and anything we do now will be out of date?” That is always the argument used in progressive circles for doing nothing. It is what the politicians call “statesmanship”, but statesmen call it by a harder name. There is no record in history of a war which has been lost by preparing for the last war; on the contrary, wars are always lost by those who, failing to do this, inevitably make no preparation at all. If we take the last two great wars, 1914 and 1939, the immense initial successes of the German forces were due solely to the fact that they, and they alone had prepared for the last war. In 1914 they had prepared for the Russo-Japanese War, the war of entrenchments and massed field artillery, and in 1939 they had prepared for the new mechanized war which was used by the British in the Battle of Cambrai in 1917. Had the British and French in 1940 had even half the number of tanks that they employed at Cambrai in 1917, the battle of France would have been won and not lost.
We have got to realize that we have imperative obligations in this matter. The whole of history is one long lesson of the fatal and irrevocable consequences of not being prepared militarily, and there is no technical, financial or other reason why we should not be adequately prepared. Today it is a matter of will power and will power only, and a matter of instructing public opinion in the elements of the necessities of the case.
Hear, hear!
An Opportunity for Libertarian Relevance
Republicans should do the wise thing and back the Libertarian Party’s candidate for Tom DeLay’s seat, as Don Luskin suggests. Such a move — if successful, or nearly so — might encourge the LP to follow some sage advice and back those major-party candidates who are closest to their views, instead of wasting time and money by running LP candidates, who are almost always doomed to defeat. A Republican-LP rapprochement would be good for the libertarian cause, in that it would push the Republican Party back toward its limited-government tradition. Only die-hard libertarian purists could object.
Conspiracy Theorists’ Cousins
The nut-cases who believe that 9/11 was an “inside job” won’t be deterred or converted by facts and logic, but perhaps their paranoia will not spread too far if Debunking 9/11 Myths: Why Conspiracy Theories Can’t Stand Up To The Facts is well publicized. Austin Bay writes about Debunking at TCS Daily:
[It] expands to book-length a collection of articles Popular Mechanics published in March 2005. The book contains new appendices and updated analyses. . . .
[T]he book follows a “Claim” and “Fact” format. Here are excerpts from the section entitled “Melted Steel”:
“Claim: … ‘We have been lied to,’ announces the Web site AttackOnAmerica.net. ‘The first lie was that the load of fuel from the aircraft was the cause of structural failure. No kerosene fire can burn hot enough to melt steel.’ The posting is entitled ‘Proof Of Controlled Demolition At The WTC.’ …”
“FACT: … Jet fuel burns at 1,100 to 1,200 degrees Celsius … significantly less than the 1,510 degrees Celsius typically required to melt steel. . . . However, experts agree that for the towers to collapse, their steel frames didn’t need to melt, they just had to lose some of their structural strength — and that required exposure to much less heat…”
The “Fact” section includes analysis from structural engineers, a professor of metallurgy and explosives experts.
The 9/11 conspiracy theories have overt and covert promoters. Some are more nuisance than threat. Howard Dean verbally toyed with 9/11 conspiracy theories when he was playing primary election footsie with hard-left constituencies. . . .
[Popular Mechanics editor-in-chief James] Meigs analyzes eight 9/11 conspiracy-spinner techniques. I’ll mention two:
- Attempts to “marginalize opposing views.” Meigs says thousands of eyewitness 9/11 accounts and the analyses of numerous universities and professional organizations (including Underwriters Labs and the American Society of Civil Engineers) are dismissed as “the government version.”
- Circular reasoning. Meigs writes that ” … among 9/11 theorists, the presence of evidence supporting the mainstream view is also taken as proof of conspiracy.” He concludes: “Like doctrinaire Marxists or certain religious extremists, conspiracists enjoy a world view that is immune to refutation.”
Meigs’ analyses of “demonization” and the “paranoid style” are particularly crisp and compelling.
That should be that, but . . .
Bay’s mention of Howard Dean’s pandering to “hard-left constituencies” leads me to the conspiracy-theorists’ cousins:
- First, there are the Leftists, who will seize on any excuse to bash a Republican administration. Such Leftists are not true conspiracy-theorists; they would not countenance an “inside job” theory were Al Gore or John Kerry in the White House. They are merely unprincipled, and unhinged in their own way. (See this and this, for example.)
- Then there are the radical libertarians, who do not subscribe to “inside job” theories. No, their conspiracy theory runs on a parallel track: The undeniably evil state is interested only in power, and it seizes on every opportunity to accrue more power. Thus it overblows the threat of terrorism and takes away our liberties, a slice at a time. (See this, for one example.)
Radical libertarians would be a greater threat to liberty than conspiracy nuts and Leftists, were there more than enough rad-libs to fill a high-school football stadium. Why? Because they seem more plausible than conspiracy nuts and Leftists; that is, they do not foam at the mouth.
Rad-libs are quick to assign evil motives to the state, without examining the evil motives of our enemies or acknowledging the necessity of state action against those enemies (given that we do not live in the stateless nirvana to which rad-libs aspire). Rad-libs are quick to minimize the dangers of terrorism by comparing the risk of being killed by terrorism to such risks as dying in an auto accident or falling off a ladder — as if one could nullify terrorism by driving or climbing ladders more often.
Finally, rad-libs fail to acknowledge the likelihood that the low risk of being killed by terrorism is owed to those very actions that rad-libs assail as inimical to liberty (e.g., NSA surveillance, “sneak and peak” warrants). They prefer death in a pure state of liberty, which is not liberty at all.
Good News Sometimes Comes in Small Packages
It’s not headline news, but it’s good news for employers and for employees — who benefit when their employers are allowed to operate their businesses for a profit. PointofLaw.com has the story:
Courts in [California] had been in the forefront of chipping away employers’ right to terminate employees at will, a process I documented in my book The Excuse Factory some years ago. But the trend has been in retreat in recent years, and earlier this month the state Supreme Court delighted employers with a ruling declaring that when a company tells a worker that employment is at will, it means just that. . . .
The California Supreme Court . . . threw out the appellate precedent which had creatively conjured a tenure promise out of the very effort to deny one. . . .
Being offered a job, with no guarantee of getting to keep it forever or of it never changing its character. Imagine that.
Yes, imagine that. It might be an incentive to do a good job, help your employer turn a profit, and earn more money as a result. The chipping away at the doctrine of at-will employment by the courts has enabled the “worst and the weakest” to keep jobs for which they are not qualified or that they do poorly, to the detriment of their fellow employees.
The Purpose-Driven Life
The Purpose-Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For?, by Rick Warren, has been on The New York Times‘s list of best-sellers (in the Hardcover Advice category) for 184 weeks. I hadn’t heard of the book until today, when I happened to channel-surf by an interview with the author. The title of his book flashed on the screen and piqued my curiosity. I didn’t linger to watch the interview, but instead turned to the web for enlightenment. Here is Amazon.com‘s review:
The spiritual premise in The Purpose-Driven Life is that there are no accidents—God planned everything and everyone. Therefore, every human has a divine purpose, according to God’s master plan. Like a twist on John F. Kennedy’s famous inaugural address, this book could be summed up like this: “So my fellow Christians, ask not what God can do for your life plan, ask what your life can do for God’s plan.” Those who are looking for advice on finding one’s calling through career choice, creative expression, or any form of self-discovery should go elsewhere. This is not about self-exploration; it is about purposeful devotion to a Christian God. The book is set up to be a 40-day immersion plan, recognizing that the Bible favors the number 40 as a “spiritually significant time,” according to author Rick Warren, the founding pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, touted as one of the nation largest congregations. Warren’s hope is that readers will “interact” with the 40 chapters, reading them one day at a time, with extensive underlining and writing in the margins. As an inspirational manifesto for creating a more worshipful, church-driven life, this book delivers. Every page is laden with references to scripture or dogma. But it does not do much to address the challenges of modern Christian living, with its competing material, professional, and financial distractions. Nonetheless, this is probably an excellent resource for devout Christians who crave a jumpstart back to worshipfulness
That’s all well and good if you like your self-help with a heavy dose of Warren’s brand of religiosity. For those of you who are not inclined in that direction, I recommend Victor E. Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy, which I read (and re-read) some 20 years ago. Frankl survived a Nazi concentration camp, and he uses his experiences there to introduce what he calls “logotherapy,” or “meaning-therapy.” As Frankl puts it, logotherapy
focuses on the meaning of human existence as well as on man’s search for such a meaning. According to logotherapy, the struggle to find a meaning in one’s life is the primary motivational force in man.
I will not try to summarize Frankl’s psychotherapeutic approach, which he outlines in the second half of the book, except to say that he addresses such topics as the meaning of life, the meaning of existence, the meaning of love, and the meaning of suffering.
Even if you’re not interested in logotherapy, the first half of this inexpensive book ($6.99 in paperback at Amazon.com) — which recounts Frankl’s experiences in the concentration camp — is well worth the price. The story is candid without resorting to graphic sensationalism, and it sets the stage for Frankl’s explanation of logotherapy in the second half.
The Feds and "Libertarian" Paternalism
President Bush today signed into law the Pension Protect Act of 2006. Why the federal government — or any government in the U.S. — is in the business of regulating and insuring pension plans is another whole story, as they say. (See this for a general treatment of the erosion of the Constitution’s meaning. See this about liberty of contract, which applies to the States.)
In reading McGuireWoods’s detailed summary of the act, I am especially struck by this:
The Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) has permitted automatic enrollment of employees in 401(k) plans since 1998. The PPA adds a number of provisions to the Code and ERISA to facilitate and encourage automatic enrollment.
A victory of sorts for “libertarian paternalists.” A defeat for liberty and, in particular, liberty of contract and the right to make decisions and learn from their consequences.
Related post: Another Voice Against the New Paternalism (with links to several other related posts)
Carnival of Links
I collect interesting links, group them by topic, and dump each related set of links into a draft post. Then, using the links as a starting point, I convert the draft to a full-blown post, as I have time.
I still have many interesting links in my collection that I probably won’t build into full-blown posts. Rather than hoard or discard those links, I present them here, organized by topic and with brief descriptions.
Liberty and the State
Mere Libertarianism: Blending Hayek and Rothbard: Agree or not with the author’s premises and conclusions, it’s an informative comparison of the two main schools of libertarianism.
Anarchism: Further Thoughts: An analysis of the varieties of anarchism and the faults of each.
Tax Rates Around the World: A brief post about the disincentivizing effects of high tax rates.
Paternalism and Psychology: A different look at the wrongness of “libertarian paternalism.”
Principles and Pragmatism: Why one libertarian blogger prefers idealism to pragmatism.
Lochner v. New York: A Centennial Perspective: (go to download link for full paper) The author of this long paper suggests that Lochner‘s much reviled “substantive due process” holding is in fact the basis for key Supreme Court decisons (e.g., Griswold v. Connecticut, Roe v. Wade, and Lawrence v. Texas).
Terrorism, War, and Related Matters
Apply the Golden Rule to Al Qaeda?: Why it makes no sense to apply Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions to terrorist detainees.
Captain Ed’s archive on Saddam’s Documents: A collection of posts about Saddam’s WMDs and terrorist ties.
The ACLU and Airport Security: How the ACLU is trying to depict behavior profiling as racial profiling.
Infinite Hatred: Considers and rejects the idea that it is futile to kill terrorists.
They, the People: An essay that parses the degrees of conflict and suggests that all-out war is the best way to change the hearts and minds of the enemy.
The Brink of Madness: A Familiar Place and The Mideast’s Munich: War with the Mullahs Is Coming: Two persuasive arguments that the West’s present mindset is like that which prevailed at the time of the Munich Agreement in 1938.
Sustaining Our Resolve: A sober but upbeat assessment of the prospects for the Middle East and the war on terror, by George P. Schultz.
Is the Bush Doctrine Dead?: An analysis by Norman Podhoretz.
Code Red: In which the writer tackles several anti-war and anti-anti-terror shibboleths.
Presidential Signing Statements
Bush’s Tactic of Refusing Laws Is Probed: An article about a panel of the American Bar Association’s so-called probe of Bush’s signing statements. (This WaPo article is anti-Bush, of course, but it sets the stage for the next two links.)
Enforcing the Constitution: A brief post defending signing statements.
The Problem with Presidential Signing Statements: A longer analysis of signing statements that also defends them.
Ideas
The Fifty Worst (and Best) Books of the Century: A distinguished panel of libertarian-conservatives compiles a list of the worst and best. The lists of worsts seems about right. The list of bests includes too many boring “classics.”
“Fake but Accurate?” Science: A scathing indictment of the “hockey stick” curve — which purports to show that global warming is only a recent phenomenon — its author, and its coterie of defenders.
The Problem of the Accuracy of Economic Data: An exposition of the spurious precision of economic statistics and analyses based on them.
Taking On Torture
There is a reason for the United States to abjure torture. That reason can be summarized thusly: We could allow torture in exigent circumstances (e.g., to save the life of a kidnapped child who has been buried in a sealed container, where the perpetrator is in custody and is unwilling to disclose the child’s location). But if we do that, it is likely that the precedent will result in the use of torture in circumstances where an innocent person is tortured to no avail.
As an answer to that objection, there is Alan Dershowitz’s proposal to legitimate and regulate torture (as summarized at Wikipedia):
Although [Dershowitz] claims to be personally against the use of torture, he believes that authorities should be permitted to use non-lethal torture in a “ticking bomb” scenario, regardless of whether international law permits it, and that it would be less destructive to the rule of law to regulate the process than to leave it up to the discretion of individual law-enforcement agents. Under his proposal, the government would not be allowed to prosecute the torture subject based upon information revealed under that interrogation method. “If torture is going to be administered as a last resort in the ticking-bomb case, to save enormous numbers of lives, it ought to be done openly, with accountability, with approval by the president of the United States or by a Supreme Court justice”. [A CNN interview of Dershowitz on this subject is here.]
Relatedly, Tom Bevan of the RealClearPolitics Blog writes about an exchange between Charles Krauthammer and Michael Kinsley:
Last December Charles Krauthammer argued the following in a Weekly Standard cover story:
However rare the cases, there are circumstances in which, by any rational moral calculus, torture not only would be permissible but would be required (to acquire life-saving information). And once you’ve established the principle, to paraphrase George Bernard Shaw, all that’s left to haggle about is the price. In the case of torture, that means that the argument is not whether torture is ever permissible, but when–i.e., under what obviously stringent circumstances: how big, how imminent, how preventable the ticking time bomb.
Michael Kinsley responded the following week, calling Krauthammer’s argument a case of “salami-slicing:”
You start with a seemingly solid principle, then start slicing: If you would torture to save a million lives, would you do it for half a million? A thousand? Two dozen? What if there’s only a two-out-of-three chance that person you’re torturing has the crucial information? A 50-50 chance? One chance in 10? At what point does your moral calculus change, and why? Slice the salami too far, and the formerly solid principle disappears.
If the reports out of Pakistan are true [that Pakistan used torture to develop the intelligence that led to the breakup of the plot to take down 10 UK-U.S. flights], this theoretical debate just became much more interesting, because we now have a very real slice of salami. If more than four thousand lives were saved as a direct result of intel obtained using torture, does that make it justified? I think it’s clear what Krauthammer would say. But what about Kinsley? Are four thousand innocent lives a big enough slice of salami for him?
Krauthammer seems to subscribe to something along the lines of Dershowitz’s proposal. Kinsley does not, because he is worried about proportionality. In Kinsley’s case, the proportion must be, say, tens of potential victims saved for every act of torture. That’s akin to the foolish notion that it is better that ten [or 100] guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer. But, as I put it here,
Better for whom? It’s better for the guilty, who may claim more victims, but certainly not better for those victims. [See also this post.]
With respect to torture, the right proportion, under the right circumstances, is one to one. Why should the life of, say, one kidnapped child be sacrificed because we are unwilling to condone the torture of one known perpetrator? Where’s the morality in that?
It seems to me that given the circumstances now surrounding the United States, we should openly adopt a policy along the lines of Dershowitz’s proposal, as opposed to posturing piously about torture à la John McCain.
Other related post: A Rant about Torture
An Argument Against Abortion
Don Marquis, a professor of philosophy at the University of Kansas, is the author of “Why Abortion Is Immoral” (Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 86, No. 4 (Apr., 1989), pp. 183-202). The full text of Marquis’s paper seems to be unavailable on the web, except for a fee (here).
This post gives a thumbnail version of Marquis’s argument, based on an interview of Marquis by Hugh LaFollette, host of the (defunct) program Ideas and Issues at WETS-FM. The interview, which lasts about 25 minutes, was broadcast on February 8, 1997. Here’s a synopsis:
To understand what’s wrong with abortion, start by asking what’s wrong with murder. It is depriving a person of a future of value, if a person has such a future. That is the best explanation of why we think it’s wrong to kill except in exigent circumstances. For example, it would be merciful to kill a person who is trapped in a burning car and dying in agony. (Presumably, killing murderers in the service of justice and enemies self-defense are similarly defensible because such acts protect lives of value.)
Given the wrongness of killing (in most circumstances), it’s wrong to kill an infant because it deprives the infant of its future of value. Similarly, it’s wrong to kill a fetus, for the same reason.
What about the objection that an adult has interests but a fetus does not? A fetus is an undeveloped human being that will have interests.
What about the objection that an adult is conscious and aware, whereas a fetus in early stages of development is not. The fetus will be conscious and aware, just as a person in a termporary coma will be conscious and aware. If killing the person in a coma is wrong, killing an early-stage fetus is wrong for the same reason.
What about contraception? Contraception does not end the life of a definite individual with a future. There is an individual after conception, but not before.
What about the status of the mother who is carrying a fetus. Isn’t her life worth consideration? Shouldn’t she have a choice? Liberty always is constrained by moral considerations. In this instance, it is right to restrict the liberty to abort, because abortion is wrong.
More detailed summaries of Marquis’s argument against abortion can be found here and here.
Related posts:
I’ve Changed My Mind
Next Stop, Legal Genocide?
Here’s Something All Libertarians Can Agree On
It Can Happen Here: Eugenics, Abortion, Euthanasia, and Mental Screening
Creeping Euthanasia
PETA, NARAL, and Roe v. Wade
Flooding the Moral Low Ground
The Beginning of the End?
Peter Singer’s Fallacy
Taking Exception
Protecting Your Civil Liberties
Where Conservatism and (Sensible) Libertarianism Come Together
Conservatism, Libertarianism, and Public Morality
The Threat of the Anti-Theocracy
The Consequences of Roe v. Wade
The Old Eugenics in a New Guise
The Left, Abortion, and Adolescence
Law, Liberty, and Abortion
Oh, *That* Slippery Slope
Abortion and the Slippery Slope
The Cynics Debate While Babies Die
The Slippery Slope in Holland
The Slippery Slope in England
The Slipperier Slope in England
The Slippery Slope in New Jersey
If Liberty Depends on Democracy, We’re Doomed to Slavery
Seven dwarfs more famous than US judges: poll
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Three quarters of Americans can correctly identify two of Show White’s seven dwarfs while only a quarter can name two Supreme Court Justices, according to a poll on pop culture released on Monday.
Democracy is “Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives.” LIberty is “Freedom from unjust or undue governmental control.” Yet, as we know very well, “the people’s representatives” have piled one and another form of unjust and undue governmental control on us since the advent of TR and his cousin, FDR.
The conflation of “democracy” and “liberty” must stop. They are most decidedly not the same thing.
An Un-Happy Birthday to Social Security
Social Security turns 71 today. It’s still unconstitutional.
Related post: Social Security: The Permanent Solution
Leni Riefenstahl Redux
Mike Wallace does for Iran’s Ahmadinejad what Leni Riefenstahl did for Hitler.
Testing, Testing
From the Associated Press:
Chertoff says U.S. needs more authority
WASHINGTON – The nation’s chief of homeland security said Sunday that the U.S. should consider reviewing its laws to allow for more electronic surveillance and detention of possible terror suspects, citing last week’s foiled plot.
Michael Chertoff, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, stopped short of calling for immediate changes, noting there might be constitutional barriers to the type of wide police powers the British had in apprehending suspects in the plot to blow up airliners headed to the U.S.
But Chertoff made clear his belief that wider authority could thwart future attacks at a time when Congress is reviewing the proper scope of the Bush administration’s executive powers for its warrantless eavesdropping program and military tribunals for detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
“What helped the British in this case is the ability to be nimble, to be fast, to be flexible, to operate based on fast-moving information,” he said. “We have to make sure our legal system allows us to do that. It’s not like the 20th century, where you had time to get warrants.”
The outcry from “civil libertarians” is bound to be loud and shrill. “Civil libertarians” are focused exclusively on the protection of “rights” for the sake of, well, protecting “rights.” They take no interest in actually protecting fundamental rights: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
P.S. Score one for the defenders of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in their battle against the American “Civil Liberties” Union. The right not to be bombed triumphs over the “right” not to be searched in NYC.
Related post: Privacy: Variations on the Theme of Liberty
Baseball Managers: A Recyclable Commodity?
It’s a commonplace that major league managers are fired by one team only to be hired by another. The managerial history of the current crop of managers is given below. Here’s an overview:
- 12 of the 30 managers have managed only 1 team
- 9 have managed 2 different teams
- 6 have managed 3 different teams
- 3 have managed 4 different teams.
A closer look:
- 40 percent (12) of the present managers have managed only 1 team
- the other 60 percent (18) have managed an average of 2-2/3 different teams (a total of 48 managing stints)
- 8 of those 48 managing stints have spanned 10 or more seasons; 17 stints have spanned 5 or more seasons
- the 18 team-switching managers have switched 30 times (1-2/3 times per manager)
- the average gap between stints has been 3 seasons
- 40 percent (12) of the switches were immediate (during a season or in consecutive seasons)
- the immediate switches involved 50 percent (9) of the managers who have managed 2 or more teams.
Are major-league managers a recyclable commodity? I report, you decide.
__________
The managers and their teams and seasons (including partial seasons):
Felipe Alou
Montreal Expos, 1992-2001
San Francisco Giants, 2003-
Dusty Baker
San Francisco Giants, 1993-2002
Chicago Cubs, 2003-
Buddy Bell
Detroit Tigers, 1996-1998
Colorado Rockies, 2000-2002
Kansas City Royals, 2005-
Bruce Bochy
San Diego Padres, 1995-
Bobby Cox
Atlanta Braves, 1978-1981
Toronto Blue Jays, 1982-1985
Atlanta Braves, 1990-
Terry Francona
Philadelphia Phillies, 1997-2000
Boston Red Sox, 2004-
Ron Gardenhire
Minnesota Twins, 2002-
Phil Garner
Milwaukee Brewers, 1992-1999
Detroit Tigers, 2000-2002
Houston Astros, 2004-
Joe Gerardi
Florida Marlins, 2006-
John Gibbons
Toronto Blue Jays, 2004-
Ozzie Guillen
Chicago White Sox, 2004-
Mike Hargrove
Cleveland Indians, 1991-1999
Baltimore Orioles, 2000-2003
Seattle Mariners, 2005-
Clint Hurdle
Colorado Rockies, 2002-
Tony LaRussa
Chicago White Sox, 1979-1985
Oakland Athletics, 1985-1995
St. Louis Cardinals, 1996-
Jim Leyland
Pittsburgh Pirates, 1986-1996
Florida Marlins, 1997-1998
Colorado Rockies, 1999
Detroit Tigers, 2006-
Grady Little
Boston Red Sox, 2002-2003
Los Angeles Dodgers, 2006-
Ken Macha
Oakland Athletics, 2003-
Joe Maddon
California/Anaheim Angels, 1996, 1999
Tampa Bay Devil Rays, 2006-
Charlie Manuel
Cleveland Indians, 2000-2002
Philadelphia Phillies, 2005-
Bob Melvin
Seattle Mariners, 2003-2004
Arizona Diamondbacks, 2005-
Jerry Narron
Texas Rangers, 2000-2001
Cincinnati Reds, 2005-
Sam Perlozzo
Baltimore Orioles, 2005-
Willie Randolph
New York Mets, 2005-
Frank Robinson
Cleveland Indians, 1995-1997
San Francisco Giants, 1981-1984
Baltimore Orioles, 1988-1991
Montreal Expos/Washington Nationals, 2002-
Mike Scioscia
Anaheim/Los Angeles Angels, 2000-
Buck Showalter
New York Yankees, 1992-1995
Arizona Diamondbacks, 1998-2000
Texas Rangers, 2003-
Joe Torre
New York Mets, 1977-1981
Atlanta Braves, 1982-1984
St. Louis Cardinals, 1990-1995
New York Yankees, 1996-
Jim Tracy
Los Angeles Dodgers, 2001-2005
Pittsburgh Pirates, 2006-
Eric Wedge
Cleveland Indians, 2003-
Ned Yost
Milwaukee Brewers, 2003-
Two Views of Liberty
1. The purist:
Liberty — the right to do as one wishes as long as one does not harm others — is an inherent right, something that humans are born with. Therefore, no one need prove than liberty is superior to statism or other totalitarian philosophies (e.g., Islamism). Liberty would reign in a world of statelessness, where all relations and transactions are consensual.
2. The realist:
The precise contours of liberty depend very much on agreement about harms, which are defined through politics (interpersonal and intergroup bargaining). Liberty, thus defined, is sustained by defending it politically and, as necessary, with force. The justification for liberty (or more rather than less of it) depends very much on evidence that it is superior to statism or other totalitarian philosophies.
Not all nations and peoples subscribe to the notion of liberty. Those who do must be prepared defend it against those who do not, even to the point of acting preemptively. Moreover, the government of a nation must be prepared to defend liberty over the objections of some of its citizens — and by means that not all will applaud.
Liberty — like economic and scientific achievements — requires leadership as well as cooperation, it does not simply “happen.” The ideal world of stateless consent is just that: an ideal. The real world is fraught with predators, persons of ill will (e.g., persons whose allegiance is to party rather than nation), and dupes. Predators succeed in crushing liberty where a nation’s politics are dominated by dupes and persons of ill will.
Related: Consent of the Governed and the many posts linked therein, especially these:
Practical Libertarianism for Americans (links to a series; see especially The Origin and Essence of Rights)
The Meaning of Liberty (a series gathered in a single post)
Actionable Harm and the Role of the State
Varieties of Libertarianism
A Message to Our Domestic Enemies
Yesterday I quoted Alan Furst. In light of last night’s events in the UK, I repeat what Mr. Furst said:
[G]ood people don’t spend much time being good, mostly they want to mow the lawn and play with the dog, whereas bad people spend all their time being bad, or thinking up ways to be worse. Then, one day, the good people have to turn around and do something, or the whole thing will go off the cliff.
Any person or institution who stands in the way of detecting and preventing terrorism is traitorous. Do you read me, George Soros, Mikhail Moore, Cindy Sheehan, The New York Times, and the ACLU?
UPDATE: There should be a special place in hell for leakers.
Related post: Com-Patriotism and Anti-Patriotic Acts
The Problem of Good vs. Evil
[G]ood people don’t spend much time being good, mostly they want to mow the lawn and play with the dog, whereas bad people spend all their time being bad, or thinking up ways to be worse. Then, one day, the good people have to turn around and do something, or the whole thing will go off the cliff.
Alan Furst, author of several best-selling novels about espionage, set in Europe before and during World War II. From an interview posted at TCS Daily.
Com-Patriotism and Anti-Patriotic Acts
This post isn’t about compatriots, who are persons who happen to be citizens of the same nation. This is about com-patriots — persons who happen to be citizens of the same nation and who share a moral commitment to the defense of that nation and its ideals. This post is necessarily also about anti-patriots — citizens who do not evidence the same moral commitment. The nation in question, of course, is the United States.
What, then, is American com-patriotism? I begin with this definition of patriotism:
Love of and devotion to one’s country.
Which I expand to get American com-patriotism, which is decidedly not mere flag-waving. It is:
- A devotion to the ideals of life, liberty, and property, to which the nation was dedicated by the Declaration of Independence.
- An understanding that the attainment of the Declaration’s ideals is served through the Constitution’s essential principles: (a) a limited role for government in the affairs of citizens; (b) mutual defense of the life, liberty, and property of citizens.
- Defense of the nation’s ideals against enemies — foreign and domestic — by upholding the principles of the Constitution.
There are many legitimate ways by which a citizen may contribute to the defense of the nation’s ideals; for example: reasoned questioning of the aims, policies, and actions of government; honorable service in the armed forces; or reasoned challenges to those who seek to use the levers of government to deprive their citizens of liberty and property. Such are com-patriotic acts.
But it is not com-patriotic to speak or act in blatant disregard of the nation’s founding ideals and principles of governance; for example:
- It is reprehensible to publish in The New York Times (or any other newspaper) detailed accounts of various necessarily secret efforts to combat terrorism. (Some would, with justification, call it treasonous.)
- It is hypocritical to profess love of country and then to oppose efforts to combant terrorism — without offering feasible alternatives — simply because you abhor Republicans generally and the Republican president particularly.
- It is arrogant of the fat-cats who inhabit Congress to cry crocodile tears about the plight of this year’s fashionable underdog, and then to make that underdog’s supposed plight yet another excuse for assuming powers not granted by the Constitution — at the expense of all diligent non-underdogs.
- It is abhorrent that the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court subvert the clear meaning of the Constitution, as they acquiesce in the arrogance of Congress and commit their own feats of arrogance, solely for the purpose of assuaging their personal (non-legal) preferences) and in complete disregard of the rule of law.
Such acts endanger the lives, liberty, and property of peaceable, honorable Americans. Such acts flout the Constitution. They are not to be tolerated. They must be called what they are: anti-patriotic. That is what I will call them at every opportunity.
Related reading: American Exceptionalism (Wikipedia), Points of No Return (Eternity Road)
Related posts:
Patriotism and Taxes
Why Sovereignty?
Shall We All Hang Separately?
Foxhole Rats
Treasonous Speech?
Foxhole Rats, Redux
Know Thine Enemy
The Faces of Appeasement
Whose Liberties Are We Fighting For?
Words for the Unwise
More “McCarthyism”
More Foxhole Rats
Moussaoui and “White Guilt”
The New York Times: A Hot-Bed of Post-Americanism
Post-Americans and Their Progeny
Certain Unalienable Rights
The First Roosevelt
American Royalty
“Peace for Our Time”
Anti-Bush or Pro-Treason?
Consent of the Governed
Kelo, Revisited
Parsing Peace
Slopes, Ratchets, and the Death Spiral of Liberty
Politics and Prosperity 