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Clayton Cramer's BLOG |
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Clayton's commentary on news and events of the day. Broadly speaking, I'm a conservative with libertarian sympathies (getting more conservative as my children get older).
 Never forget! I'm running for Idaho state senate I've written a number of history books, as well as scholarly and popular articles, (see my web page).
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Thursday, March 06, 2003
The Real Story Is Buried A Little Deeper... This AP story has a disturbing headline: "Teen with AIDS arrested after failing to inform partners of disease." It's a sad enough story: Prosecutors charged Amber Jo Sours with the four-year felony after police identified four men who claimed they had sex with her and didn't know she carries the disease.But the deeper tragedy is buried a bit deeper in the story: Sours has been in the juvenile court system since she gave birth to a child at the age of 12. It was not known how Sours may have contracted the disease. Where Do These Idiots Come From? Coverage from the Toledo Blade: Before launching a military strike against Iraq, Americans should consider their own history to remember how powerful the mix of religion and politics can be, U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D., Toledo) said.The Green Mountain Boys were organized to fight against the authority of New York State government, because of disputes about land titles in what is now Vermont--not the British royal government. When the Green Mountain Boys seized Fort Ticonderoga from the British in 1775, they did so without killing anyone--and certainly without killing any civilians. The Continental Congress was so disturbed about this that they briefly considered returning the guns and the fort to the British government. "One could say that Osama bin Laden and these non-nation-state fighters with religious purpose are very similar to those kind of atypical revolutionaries that helped to cast off the British crown," Miss Kaptur said.We could say that, but it wouldn't be true. There are some shameful and embarrassing incidents attacking Tories in the Revolutionary period. There is nothing comparable to the beheading of Daniel Pearl, or the Bali nightclub bombing, or the 09/11 attack on the World Trade Center in terms of wanton killing of non-combatants. In Iraq and other Arab nations where revolutions are potentially brewing, religious fervor will play a vital role in shaping political events, she said, and the United States must be careful "not to get caught in the crossfire."Just a moment: the antiwar movement's argument against war with Iraq includes, among other claims, that Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein would have nothing to do with each other because bin Laden's movement is based on Islamic fundamentalism, while Hussein is a secularist. But here this idiot is claiming that our struggle with Iraq is because of Islam? "I think that people of faith understand that for many of the terrorists, their actions are acts of sacred piety to the point of losing their lives. And I think that people of faith understand that there is a heavy religious overtone to the opposition."Many Muslims insist that these actions of the terrorists are not expressions of Islamic faith, but only use Islam as an excuse for their crimes. Now we have this idiot claiming that 09/11 is an act of "sacred piety" by Muslims. Which is it? If the United States ousts Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and seizes the land, it would not resolve the underlying problems leading to political and social upheaval, she said.Seizes the land? Our government is talking about three months of occupation before turning Iraq over to the UN for reorganization. Does anyone seriously think the U.S. would want to be a long-term occupying power of any Arab nation? "Even if we take the ground, we do not share the culture," she said, "and in the end we have to learn to coexist in a world with religious states that we may not agree with and find ways to cooperate."Coexist: doesn't that require a little willingness on the part of bin Laden and Iraq to coexist? Coexist does not mean, "invade neighboring countries, kill thousands of people, and demand that the West adopt Islam." How did this idiot get elected? Miss Kaptur, a lifelong member of Toledo’s Little Flower Catholic Parish, said her political and moral views were influenced by her family’s tradition of Roman Catholicism and service in the U.S. Marine Corps and Army infantry.This idiot doesn't know anything about "Just War Theory." To prevent oppression and victimization of others is one of the legitimate uses of war under not only Catholic Just War Theory, but also under Islamic Just War Theory. Wednesday, March 05, 2003
U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Three Strikes Laws If you haven't already seen the coverage, here's some. There are really two separate issues with California's Three Strikes Law (and the similar laws elsewhere). 1. Is it unconstitutional to send a person with three felony convictions to prison for 25 years to life--even if the last felony was non-violent? 2. Does it make sense to do so? The Supreme Court is really only supposed to be deciding the first question. There are all sorts of laws that are clearly constitutional, and yet there might be a strong argument that the legislature, or in the case of California, the people, are idiots. Examples of such laws: sodomy laws; three strikes; bans on obscene material (which the courts have narrowed substantially, without wiping out the concept). But the Supreme Court is not supposed to be a last court of appeal aginst democracy, unless the stupidity in question is a violation of the Constitution. Concerning California's Three Strikes Law: yes, I would have been happier if all three felony convictions had been violent felonies, instead of only requiring the first two to be violent. The reason that it was written the way it was is that Richard Allen Davis, the scum that murdered Polly Klaas, and drove passage of the initiative, had a long history of both violent and non-violent felonies. One of the goals was to make sure that violent felons would get locked up the next time they screwed up--two violent felony convictions should be enough. If you haven't learned your lesson by then, the chances seem excellent that you aren't going to learn your lesson. Now, some people argue that the vast majority of violent felons stop being serious problems by the time they hit their 40s, and we are just wasting resources locking them. For many, this is doubtless true. But which ones? There are enough horrifying examples of violent predators still doing horrible crimes in their 60s and 70s that I don't think it is wise to leave them out. Finally, I always love to see what incredibly stupid things the liberals will say on occasions like this: "This makes it extremely difficult if not impossible to challenge any recidivist sentencing law," said University of Southern California law professor Erwin Chemerinsky, who represented one of the men in Wednesday's cases. "If these sentences aren't cruel and unusual punishment, what would be?"Let's see, Professor Chemerinsky, I can come up with a list: drawing and quartering;I wish Professor Chemerinsky would spend some time taking a history class or two, so he wouldn't sound like an ignorant twit. Not A Very Nice Thing To Say About Germans... But I'm sure the Czechs have their reasons. In a Telegraph article from December about the problem of drunken British guys going to Prague to take advantage of cheap beer, cheap brothels, and cheap hotels: Many are in favour of the British men, even if they cause havoc. "If the British take advantage of the cheapness of our city that's OK. It's economics," said Inspector Daniel Kolar of the Prague police. "In any case, they are more pleasant drunk than the Germans are when they're sober." Tuesday, March 04, 2003
A Very Clever Virus Spreader, Disguised to Look Like Microsoft Sent It Out I just received this piece of email, with an attached executable. Had I been in a hurry, or if I didn't know that Microsoft doesn't distribute patches this way, I might have assumed it was a legitimate update from Microsoft. Look at the language carefully--it's not quite right, but it's not too far off. Someone is working very hard to screw up as many computers as possible: Microsoft Corporation Customer It's Nice To Know The CIA Has a Sense of Humor From an article in the U.K. Telegraph: The military commander of al-Qa'eda, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, was being interrogated yesterday at a top secret American base known only by its CIA nickname, the "Hotel California".Of course, the song lyrics actually say, "You can check out anytime you want, but you can never leave." The Intellectual and Moral Superiority of the Poet Edward J. Renehan, Jr. has a nice piece over at Tech Central Station about the mobilization of poets against the coming war, reminding us that poets have a very, very poor track record on morality. Renehan doesn't mention Ezra Pound, one of the greatest poets of the 20th century, a Fascist, and a traitor, but he does remind us that poets weighed in heavily at the beginning of World War I--one of hte least morally defensible wars in history. Some of Renehan's examples are new to me, some are not. One of the ones that I already knew well, however, is the ultimate expression of how incredibly dumb great poets can be, and that's Rupert Brooke's gem: Now, God be thanked Who has matched us with His hour,The artsy crowd likes to pretend that they are so much better than the rest of the human race, forgetting that when a reasonably competent water colourist came to power in Germany, the results were...unpleasant. Remember: You Can Always Trust The Police Chief At least, that's what gun control supporters say when we argue that the police chief shouldn't have unlimited discretion in issuing concealed weapon permits. The San Francisco Police Department scandal is part of why some of us aren't terribly sympathetic to this claim that the gun control advocates keep making. As you may be aware, the police chief and six of his top staff have temporarily stepped aside "without pay while they fight charges that they conspired to obstruct the investigation into a brawl involving three off-duty officers." One of those off-duty officers was the son of one of assistant police chief Alex Fagan, Sr. The San Francisco Chronicle has a whole separate page devoted to this scandal, here. Monday, March 03, 2003
Humor This arrived in my email: Two Arabs are chatting. One of them has his wallet out and is flipping through pictures. |
