Facism - Top Ten Signs

This is absolutely scary...



"Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it." George Santayana

John Bolton Defends War

Here is an interesting clip of American ambassador John Bolton defending the Iraq war, and some heated exchanges from an Iraqi citizen and Tony Benn of the UK. I think it demonstrates how flimsy the U.S. justifications for the Iraq war really are, and how strong the world opinion is against American unilateralism.



HT: CM

Elections 08 - Home Stretch

As we enter the home stretch for the 2008 presidential elections, things are very interesting indeed! On the Democrat side, Hillary and Obama are running neck and neck, with Obama having the momentum in the early primaries, but Hillary holding a solid lead in the national polls. On the Republican side things are even more convoluted, with five candidates still in strong contention! Clearly Huckabee has the most momentum, as his Baptist background is holding a strong appeal to party conservatives, however both Romney and McCain have shown recent gains, coming at the expense of the fading Giuliani and Thompson. See the national trends below from RealClearPolitics.com.




I am still holding to my original prediction that Clinton and Romney will win their respective parties nomination, but there has been some interesting developments in the weeks since I first made that call. On the democrat front, Obama has continued to develop momentum and now shows a real potential for overtaking Clinton and gaining the parties nomination. He brings a freshness and depth of character that seem to hold real appeal to the voters in the early primaries. The main concerns seem to center around his perceived lack of toughness, as he tends to shy away from the more vicious style of politics that are so often utilized in the highly polarized U.S. government. He seems to genuinely value discourse and consensus building over power plays and backdoor maneuvering. Many critics feel that this is a liability for him in the trenches, where idealism perishes as quickly as a snow cone in Texas! What do you think? Is Obama's approach to politics naive and a sign of in-experience, or is it a return to the very core of what a healthy political process should be about?

Here is a trend of the Democrat Iowa primary poll results, showing Obama's recent climb (again from RCP)



I am definitely interested in how Obama does in these early primaries. While the national polls still clearly show Clinton leading, things could change quickly if Obama pulls out some convincing wins. My personal opinion is that they are both strong candidates and would fare well in the general election.

On the Republican side, things are as hectic as I have ever seen in the run-up to a presidential primary. Typically by this point in the process the field of candidates is whittled down to only two, or at most three viable candiates. Clearly Fred Thompson has lost significant momentum, and can probably be ruled out of contention. Guliani, while still leading in the national polls, is also rapidly loosing steam and IMHO will not end up in strong contention. I just don't think his character and values line up well with the Republican voting base.

That leaves Huckabee, McCain, and Romney. Each has their handicaps. Huckabee is a relative unknown who has risen to popularity primarily on his Christianity and conservative morals, but questions surrounding his judgement and experience are starting to gather steam. McCain seems too crusty to win a popularity contest, but his unquestionable experience, integrity, and depth of character continue to keep him in the race. Some pundits predict that the top candidates will implode leaving McCain as the best viable candidate. Romney, my pick for winning the Republican primary, would be a shoe-in if it wasn't for his Mormon faith. It remains to be seen how much this will effect the primary, but he continues to look strong in several early primaries and may gain momentum if Huckabee stumbles in the weeks ahead.

Here is a trend of the Iowa Republican primary polls from RCP.



Who is your favorite candidate from the two parties?

Human Value

I have continued to mull some of the responses to the Texas Vigilante shooting in Texas, both on this blog and elsewhere in the blogosphere. I find it quit interesting that many people feel that since these two men from Colombia were here illegally and had criminal backgrounds they deserved to die. It appears that their value as human beings was reduced by both demerits, to the point that being shot in the back with a 12 gauge shotgun as they were fleeing is "justice." It is important to keep in mind that these men were unarmed and committing a burglary, they were not threatening the well-being of anyone. Even the neighbor was clear that he was "not going to let them get away with this," not a concern for his safety as much as a desire to mete out justice.

This sliding scale of human value seems to be everywhere today. For instance, most of us don't blink when we hear that 23 insurgents were killed today, but we likely pause if we hear 6 American soliders were killed by a roadside bomb. In fact, I would wager that no person truly values all human life equally! For instance, a parent is biologically predisposed to value the lives of their children over the lives of strangers. I wonder if the same goes for cultures? Are we programmed to instinctively value people who are similar to us over people who are different?

Of course the social manifestation of such a sliding scale has resulted in some of the worst acts of human history, including slavery and the holocaust. In both cases it seems that the underlying racism was based on perceived differences between the human value of each respective group. As soon as we have objectified a group of people to "insurgents", "japs", "n*ggers", "illegals", etc, we have removed our own moral barriers to acting inhuman to them. It seems this human tendency to objectify the "other" is one we must continually struggle against!

If I am wrong and human value really is dependent on some extrinsic factors, perhaps we should define a worth spectrum? For instance, 1 U.S. soldier = 75 Iraqi "insurgents" in overall human value, or 1 U.S. citizen equals 20 "illegal aliens," or 1 U.S. taxpayer = 5 people on welfare. If we could establish a tidy spectrum of human value, this would greatly aid our Country in making policy decisions, enacting new legislation, allocating budgets, deciding to go to war, etc. We could simply ask, what is the human value of the respective decisions? If we go to war with Albania, we might loose 700 U.S. soldiers, but gain natural resources that would benefit millions of Americans. If this resulted in the deaths of 20,000 albanians, but the U.S. to Albanian worth ratio was 1:25, clearly the decision would be prudent and justified.

Arousing the Wrath of Texas

My earlier post on the Texas Vigilante has inadvertently attracted the wrath of some Texas patriots. In comments to my original post, their arguments are heated to say the least, including slandering other commenters. Honestly, I don't mind personal attacks on my own material, its a blog for goodness sakes! It has proven to be an interesting insight into the Texan notion of "justice" and their sliding scale of human value, although granted I am sure this sample of Texan's is not representative of all residents of that vast state (for instance, latino's make up 35% of the state's population and I wager would take a different stance).

Read the comment thread of the original post at your own discretion due to the vitriol content.

Crack Cocaine Sentencing

In a historic decision, the Supreme Court decided this past Monday to give federal judges more latitude in sentencing individuals convicted of possessing or trafficking crack cocaine. For many years there has existed a disparity between the sentencing guidelines for crack and for powdered cocaine. Crack is predominantly found in black communities, while powdered cocaine is predominantly found in white communities. A clearly racist disparity was challenged by several federal judges and eventually found its way to the Supreme Court. This is a great win for civil rights and racial equity!

World Statistics Clock

This is pretty interesting, albeit depressing!


Poodwaddle.com

Iowa NPR Debates

NPR hosted an Iowa radio debate last night, the full two hour broadcast can be heard here. For the most part it was fairly uninformative, with candidates breaking little fresh ground in the three areas of discussion: Iran, China, and Immigration. On the issue of China, former Senator Gravel (basically a no-show in the polls), had a great statement about the competitive approach the U.S. takes toward China, a country with rampant extreme poverty.

Clearly, none of [the other candidates] are running for China — president of China — because this amount of demagoguery is shameful.
Here, the Chinese people have a problem. And when we continue this rhetoric of beggar thy neighbor, where our interests always come first, there should be the interests of human beings, the interests of human beings...because when you have a foreign policy that's beggar thy neighbor, we all become beggars. And so when they talk about the currency of China, what about the — what manipulations we do? What about the American companies that dump things abroad?

I thought Mr. Gravel raised a good quote, that perhaps was more powerful in the audio version than in the text (see ~47:00 in the audio to hear his statement). Indeed, it seems so much of American policy is based on protecting American interests alone. Certainly you rarely hear any politician talk about China's interests. Of course, a government is tasked with protecting it's countries interest's abroad, but to what extent should this be balanced with concern for all humankind? By focusing on increasing America's prosperity, at the expense of others, we will cause inevitable long term conflict. So a government that truly sought to provide long term stability and prosperity for its people would seek to help other countries achieve the same, wouldn't you think.

Except for that little bugger called scarcity.... Now I know that scarcity is often overblown by fear mongers. The world currently has all the resources required to feed, cloth, and shelter every human being, with plenty to spare. The problem is that we are not satisfied with only meeting our basic needs, thus we engage in fierce turf wars to divide the world's riches. At what point will we in the United States repent of our gross overuse of the world's resources? At what point will we require our politicians to act in ways that value all human beings, not just the ones that happen to live within our border's?

Anyway, just ranting a bit this morning. As far as the debate goes, I don't think any candidate really separated themselves on the issues. It will be interesting to read the pundit analysis over the rest of the week.

Financial Justification to Buy a Hybrid

Here is some excellent financial justification to finally make the transition to a hybrid. My family can't yet afford the switch, but we are looking to make the plunge in the next year or two.

What about you? If you are considering buying a hybrid, what is your time-line? If gas prices increased to over $4/gallon, would that hasten your transition?

Texas Vigilante

The killing of two men in Texas has become a lightening rod for those who oppose Texas's notorious support of citizen's using lethal force for "self-defense." The two latino men were stealing from his neighbor's house and crossed his yard, when the 70 year old man decided to confront them. Some have applauded the man's actions as heroic, claiming that burglars will think twice before stealing in that neighborhood again. Personally, I agree with the 911 dispatcher that no property is worth a human life (the dispatcher was the real hero in my opinion, even though he wasn't able to prevent the man's actions).

It is pretty sad to live in a society that allows this type of action to happen, especially since it appears to be within his legal right (will be decided in the courts). I am sure the older man was upset and not thinking clearly, but he definitely knew that the laws had changed and was prepared to take advantage of them. I personally think he should be charged with 2nd or 3rd degree murder, there was absolutely no reason for those two young men to die.

What do you think, was this justice served or an even worse crime?