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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 ran for Idaho state senate in 2008--didn't win I've written a number of history books, as well as scholarly and popular articles, (see my web page).
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Saturday, July 02, 2005
Satirical, But Frighteningly Close To Reality From Scrappleface: (2005-07-02) -- Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-MA, today criticized President George Bush's as-yet-unnamed replacement for retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor as a "brutal, Bible-thumping, right-wing ideologue who hates minorities, women and cocker spaniels."If you don't read Scrappleface regularly, you are missing some of the sharpest satire ever written. How does he do it? Ann Coulter For Supreme Court! (No, I'm Not Serious) IBM used to write mainframe operating systems usin a theory of, "Write Two, Throw The First One Away." The idea was that you would learn so much from the first one that the second one would be far better. (Whether OS/MVT for the IBM 360/91 was the first one or the second one was always open to debate, I suppose.) Or perhaps nominating Ann Coulter for the open seat could be called the decoy manuever. Gullyborg makes the argument here: Bush should nominate Ann Coulter. She is constitutional scholar with a J.D. from a respectable law school. That's more than most of our Justices have had, historically.And any judge (even many of Governor Brown's appointments to the California courts) would look downright judicial in language and temperament compared to Ann Coulter. Don't get me wrong: Coulter's writing is very entertaining, and sometimes even fair--but definitely not what I would want from a judge. Weird Mail Bounces Mr. Wagner and Mr. Dezner--I tried to respond to your emails, but had some difficulties with servers not recognizing your email accounts, and Site sbcglobal.net (207.115.20.20) said data: 399 TCP Read failed (Connection reset by peer)Not quite sure what that one means, although I suppose if I spent some time digging through the Internet RFCs, I could figure it out. Concentration Camps For Those With The "Wrong" Sexual Orientation? This is just horrifying. Someone is proposing that people with a certain sexual orientation--and who loudly proclaim it--should be locked up against their will. Rev. Fred Phelps at it again? No, this is from the Washington Blade, the gay newspaper: Lock up the ‘ex-gays’Sorry, but the psychiatrist who led the movement to get homosexuality removed from the list of mental disorders disagrees with you. His study of homosexuals who have made a serious effort to change not just their behavior, but their sexual orientation, has been published in Archives of Sexual Behavior, and: Although examples of "complete" change in orientation were not common, the majority of participants did report change from a predominantly or exclusively homosexual orientation before therapy to a predominantly or exclusively heterosexual orientation in the past year as a result of reparative therapy.Screaming as loudly as he can in print, the Washington Blade columnist continues to show the essentially totalitarian nature of the homosexual activist movement: In light of all the evidence that these reparative techniques are ineffective and, in fact, dangerous to the mental health of young gays, it’s time for these camps to be shut down.Golly, gee, I can just imagine the sort of treatment that they would receive, and from whom. Thanks to Different River for bringing this to my attention. Labels: homosexuality Friday, July 01, 2005
Economic News As I've mentioned, we have somewhat contradictory evidence on the health and direction of the economy. Today's magic numbers suggest that the economy is growing, which probably means interest rates will go up: NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. manufacturing gained momentum in June while consumer sentiment improved, reports showed on Friday, offering evidence that the economy is strong enough to allow the Federal Reserve to continue raising interest rates to keep inflation in check.This would ordinarily concern me a lot--and I notice that at the end of the day, the 30 year Treasury yield is at 4.303%--up a bit from yesterday. (I confess that I have contributed, in a pathetically small way, to the ISM index, by ordering casters and plastic stock for my telescope accessory business.) The consumer confidence numbers also suggest growth is coming: While manufacturing skirted contraction in June, American consumers' moods were buoyed by easing gasoline prices and a bit of a rise in the stock market.However, the good news for those of who have not yet sold our homes or locked in rates on our new homes: However, Norbert Ore, the ISM executive in charge of the survey, said the June reading was probably a stronger level than the index could sustain in the second half of the year. Is There Something in the San Francisco Bay Area's Water? I mentioned a few days ago a bizarre statement by Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-CA), who is from the Bay Area in which she argued that she understood the rule of law from watching the TV drama Law & Order. I've often mentioned my former misRepresentative, Lynne Woolsey (D-CA), also from the Bay Area. Now every blogger and his or her brother is guffawing over Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), also from the Bay Area, making a complete and utter fool of herself at a news conference, where she demonstrates that she doesn't understand anything related to the Kelo decision, legislative efforts to overrule it, and best of all, her respect for the Supreme Court: Ms. Pelosi. It is a decision of the Supreme Court. If Congress wants to change it, it will require legislation of a level of a constitutional amendment. So this is almost as if God has spoken.Excuse me, Ms. Pelosi, just because those robes make them look a little like priests, doesn't mean that they are speaking for God. My Wife Says We Live in a Sesame Street Educational World Like me, she isn't happy about the extent to which education has become entertainment-oriented. I do hope that this video explaining the exceptions to the hearsay rule using Lego people isn't what law schools are going to be using in ten years. I found the pointer here, from a real genuine law professor. SobekPundit Is Funny! This item here includes a whole bunch of pictures. They are all work-safe, but you may find yourself laughing enough to attract unwanted attention from your boss: The Man at GOP and the City has a photoshop/caption contest up, featuring a girl with a shirt that reads:Then follows many astonishing pictures of famous Democrats with hilarious captions, such as, "What is that thing attacking Sharpton's head?" Making the National Endowment for the Arts Part of the War on Terror SobekPundit explains how to make the National Endowment for the Arts into a part of the War on Terror--thus justifying its place in the budget: Ace complains that it is "impossible to capture a terrorist using art," in response to news that the National Endowment for the Arts is getting increased federal funding, while Bush's defense request is getting underfunded by seven billion dollars.He has a number of other suggestions along these lines. Finally: a way for liberals and conservatives to find common ground about the NEA. If Darth Vader Blogged... This is what it might read like: My name is Anakin Skywalker, and I am responsible for the death of my mother, because I broke our bond to pursue my ambition. I am responsible for the death of my wife, the mother of my child, the only woman strong enough and smart enough to win my faith. I am responsible for the death of Jedi Master Obi-wan Kenobi, who once tried to show me the real meaning of friendship and loyalty. And then there was Qui-gon Jinn who could have been like the father I never had, but Palpatine stole him from me. Voter Fraud I've long been bothered by the "lock" that the Democrats have on the black vote--it is just hard to imagine that 90% of blacks in America really see the Democrats as their protectors, and the Republican Party as the enemy. The voter fraud cases in East St. Louis, however, makes me wonder if the problem is that the Democrats are just outbidding Republicans: Kern's name was brought into the trial by the prosecution's contention that the East St. Louis Democratic machine needed to pay $10 instead of $5 to voters to overcome a perception that Kern was a racist. In the November election Kern, a Democrat, won the race for chairman of the St. Clair County Board.What would it cost to get these voters to elect a KKK member? $20? How much would it cost to get them to vote for a black Republican? $50? Gateway Pundit has a nice summary of the problem: At least 16 St. Louis area Democrats have been found guilty of election crimes in the last 7 months!This includes convictions for threatening to kill witnesses in these cases, and one Democrat still being held for attempting to murder a witness. Chipping Away At The DC Gun Control Law Alphecca has a long piece about a measure that just passed the House that would allow residents of the District of Criminals to have their guns assembled, not locked up, and even loaded, in the even that criminals break into their homes. It is a first step towards returning the District to the United States of America. Its gun control laws resemble a Third World country right now. As a general rule, I don't keep any of my long guns (except a Remington 870 with an eight round magazine) loaded at home. They are locked up in a very secure Browning gun safe. This was not the case when the Night Stalker was murdering and mutilating people ten minutes drive from my home. Our apartment looked a bit like a post-apocalyptic science fiction film for the final weekend before his capture. I was not alone in my concern; local stores were completely empty of long guns, deadbolts, and door chains. Crime rates where I am now are so low that, had I not grown up in Los Angeles, I would probably not even have any loaded guns at all. (Of course, if I hadn't grown up in Los Angeles, I probably wouldn't even own any guns.) I do keep several loaded handguns, locked up, but available on very short notice (mostly because these are my carry guns when I go to places where I wish to avoid becoming mountain lion chow). There is very little risk of home invasion in Boise. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the highest gun ownership rates in the U.S. aren't those good ole boys in the South, it is the states of the Mountain West. Anyone stupid enough to do a random home invasion in Idaho is unlikely to be a repeat offender. I've been in at least one Boise home where there is a belt-fed machine gun in the living room. I rather doubt that would be the first choice for home defense, but I can guarantee that there will be no repeat offenders there! Still, Boise in a month probably has as many serious crimes as the District of Criminals has some single nights. If I were crazy enough to live in DC, I would want to have my guns properly secured, but definitely loaded--and the belt-fed machine gun in the living room wouldn't sound completely crazy. Thanks to Instapundit for the pointer. UPDATE: A reader tells me: Some engineering students at the university I went to had a classic single male interior decoration motif for their living room: How Did You Do That? Here is someone that, based on what he was able to do with a nail gun by accident, that I would not want to have a firearm, a car, a stapler--maybe even a ballpoint pen: LANCASTER — A Lancaster construction worker who slipped on the job, triggered a nail gun that shot six of the long projectiles into his head and neck, will join his doctor today to discuss his recovery.Great X-ray.  John Lott Causing Trouble Again This time by having the nerve to actually look to see how much of a safety problem fireworks really are: Media coverage makes the issue seem much bigger than it is: A computerized search of the top 100 newspapers found more than 100 news stories in June warning that fireworks could be deadly or hazardous if used improperly. Television wasn't much different. CNN on Tuesday headlined its segment: "A look at the dangers of fireworks." But, despite this slanted coverage, on average just six people a year died in fireworks-related incidents from 2000 to 2003. And many of those deaths occurred at professional fireworks displays.I would suggest that the states with fireworks bans had those laws because there was because they had populations prone to being stupid with fireworks. The higher rate of deaths doesn't means that the laws were irrational or didn't work; they may have been an overreaction to a small number of stupid people hurting themselves or others. Why are people stupid with fireworks? I'm afraid for the same reason that are stupid with guns, cars, nail guns, and anything other piece of machinery known to man: Teaching the public about how to use fireworks safely is preferable to bans. Moreover, William Weimer, vice president of Phantom Fireworks, makes a pretty simple point: A lot of the accidents result when people drink too much alcohol. As he put it, "If you've been drinking, you should have a designated igniter, just like you should have a designated driver."I do wonder how many of the states with fireworks bans did so because of the fire hazard, as opposed to safety hazard. Oh Heavens, Someone Is Listening To NPR! I'm going to take this sentence out of context just for a cheap laugh before getting serious: Ms. Rehm, who has been host of "The Diane Rehm Show," a news and interview program, on public radio for 25 years. "Is it done to frighten people to somehow alert them to the fact that they are being watched?"Oh the horror! Someone is listening to her! The actual news story is the horror that someone other than other leftists is actually paying attention to PBS and NPR: A researcher secretly retained by the chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to monitor liberal bias in public radio and television set his sights on several media personalities, including Bill Moyers, Tucker Carlson, Tavis Smiley, David Brancaccio and Diane Rehm, according to documents made public Thursday.What next? Will we next see research to determine if the sky is blue or the Earth is round? The left is all upset because the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has suddenly shown some interest in seeing some balance on NPR and PBS. Now, I understand their concern. The left has had extraordinary influence on NPR and PBS for many years. Roughly 10% of the American public had the other 90% paying taxes to propagandize in favor of all the left's pet projects, along with a few programs that were not political. I certainly don't want NPR and PBS to end up as a mouthpiece for the Bush Administration--I would rather that it just learned to operate without a tax subsidy of any sort. The left already controls NBC, ABC, CBS, and CNN. Why do they need taxpayer funding for NPR and PBS? These are an elitist broadcasting service that occasionally runs some interesting and well-done programs--but much of what they run is Bill Moyers and even farther to the left propaganda. UPDATE: Jonah Goldberg, who worked for PBS for a number of years, confirms that it is indeed very liberal: And … it’s liberal. It just is. To say it isn’t is just plain batty. The shows we associate most with PBS are run by liberals — some of them great journalists and some of them miserable partisan hacks — and they tend to tackle questions from a liberal perspective. The people who run PBS are liberals. The decision-makers are liberals, and — contrary to funhouse logic of PBS’s left-wing critics — the fact that these executives sometimes opt to put conservatives on the air doesn’t change that fact. It might mean, as some leftist critics claim, that PBS execs don’t have the courage of their convictions. Or it might just mean that they’re trying to make the network more balanced and respond to a perceived need.Goldberg goes to argue that while it isn't quite as bad as some conservatives claim in terms of political bias, the real problem is that it is a rich old people's network--and that wasn't the original purpose of it: The liberal-conservative thing, however, is a sideshow. Public television was created to help poor people, educate young people, and to promote diversity on TV. Today, the average PBS viewer is in his late 50s. Somewhere around two-thirds of the poor have cable or satellite TV. Even more have DVD or VCR players. When PBS was created in 1967, it increased the number of television stations by 25 percent. Today PBS stations constitute a rounding error among the choices available to most consumers. Suicide & Antidepressants I've long been concerned about this--not that antidepressants cause suicide, but because antidepressants may lift a depressed person's mood enough to let them engage in the sort of planning that suicide requires. Most people that are severely depressed spend a lot of time sleeping, and often lack the capacity to do anything that requires planning. This article confirms that: WASHINGTON (AP) - The Food and Drug Administration issued a second public warning Friday that adults who use antidepressants should be closely monitored for warning signs of suicide, especially when they first start the pills or change a dose.I had a friend in California who started taking Prozac for his depression. (Why was he depressed? His wife, who had been molested as a child, had essentially gone celibate on him.) He started having disturbing dreams where he was in a box, in a church, throwing grapes at people, and then eating them. What do we call a box in a church that holds a person? A coffin. Since he was a gun owner, it isn't too difficult to figure out that the "grapes" were 230 grain FMJs. Anyway, when I pointed out what the dreams indicated, he stopped the Prozac--and these disturbing dreams stopped as well. This friend of mine was an MFCC, so perhaps he was a bit more able to see the connections that I was pointing out, and respond in an appropriate and sensible manner. Some of the other cases in which depressed people have gone on homicidal/suicidal rampages while taking antidepressants may have involved people who weren't introspective enough to understand what was going on. Finally! O'Connor Is Retiring Yes, Supreme Court Justice O'Connor, not the other Sandra O'Connor who retired. She had a reputation for being a conservative, but it is apparent from her concurring opinion in Lawrence using the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause that she is no conservative. Her objection to the Texas sodomy law was that it discriminated against homosexuals. Since the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted at a time when homosexuality was the subject of widespread legal discrimination, it is inconceivable that the Congress that passed it, and the states that ratified it, believed that it was intended to strike down such laws. She signed the Romer v. Evans (1996) opinion as well taking the same position: that the people of Colorado were not allowed to amend the Colorado Constitution to limit the authority of the government. This amendment did not mandate any discrimination, nor did it make homosexuality a criminal offense. It only prohibited the government from adding homosexuality to the list of minority groups protected by antidiscrimination laws. Use the same reasoning that O'Connor signed onto in Romer and Lawrence. Political activists persuade city officials to adopt an antidiscrimination ordinance that protects alcoholics and drug addicts from discrimination in employment, housing, and jobs. The people of the state, not comfortable with the far reaching consequences of such a measure, and because they hold prejudices concerning how responsible and trustworthy alcoholics and drug addicts might be, pass a constitutional amendment that bans the state or local governments from adding alcoholics and drug addicts to antidiscrimination laws. By the reasoning in Romer, this would be a violation of the equal protection clause, because it treats alcoholics and drug addicts differently. I'm sure that I am going to get a lot of flak about this. If you want to argue that homosexuality isn't like alcoholism or drug addiction, that's an argument about whether the people of Colorado voted rationally or not--not about whether equal protection prohibits the laws from making distinctions between classes. Our laws have lots of class-based discrimination based on prejudices. We prohibit convicted felons from owning firearms, based on a prejudice that says that they are likely to be a hazard to public safety. We have laws that take away your driver's license for drunk driving, based on the prejudice that says that you are likely to be a hazard to others. We have state laws that prohibit minors from buying or possessing firearms, based on the prejudice that says minors are more likely to misuse guns. I am sure that you can think of more examples like this, where an entire class of citizens are subject to unequal treatment, and which the Court has not struck down, and isn't going to strike down. The Court (and Justice O'Connor) in both Romer and Lawrence decided that it disagreed with the will of the people of Colorado and Texas, and that it was going to substitute its judgment about homosexuality for the judgment of the people. Superlegislature is not the Supreme Court's job. Thursday, June 30, 2005
How Big Was That Fish? My daughter sent me this with the note: "First Bubba the giant lobster, and now this...it makes me never want to go near a lake or ocean ever again." It is the largest freshwater fish ever caught: Thai fishermen netted a catfish as big as a grizzly bear, setting a world record for the largest freshwater fish ever found, according to researchers who studied the 646-pound Mekong giant catfish as part of a project to protect large freshwater fish.The picture looks like something you might find on a postcard about fishermen and their tall tales. Here's A Very Confrontational Way To Describe The Bond Market This Boston Globe article almost makes it sound like a conspiracy. I've highlighted the words and phrases that are emotionally loaded: Bond market calls Fed bluff on rate hikesAt the end of the day, the 30 year Treasury yield is 4.216%. This is an astonishing yield, considering that the federal funds rate, at 3.25%, is now less than a point lower. Great Quote From a Reporter Who Interviewed Bush Instapundit pointed to this great sentence in an article by a Times of London reporter who interviewed President Bush: In person Mr Bush is so far removed from the caricature of the dim, war-mongering Texas cowboy of global popular repute that it shakes one’s faith in the reliability of the modern media.Instapundit's dry wit is well used here: You don't say. Great Speech; You'll Never Guess Who Gave It It is a great speech, and emphasizes not WMDs, but Hussein's support of international terrorists--and you should definitely show it every Democrat and liberal you know, and ask them if they would vote for someone with these sort of beliefs. Then tell them who gave the speech: It would be naive to the point of grave danger not to believe that, left to his own devices, Saddam Hussein will provoke, misjudge, or stumble into a future, more dangerous confrontation with the civilized world. He has as much as promised it. He has already created a stunning track record of miscalculation. He miscalculated an 8-year war with Iran. He miscalculated the invasion of Kuwait. He miscalculated America's responses to it. He miscalculated the result of setting oil rigs on fire. He miscalculated the impact of sending Scuds into Israel. He miscalculated his own military might. He miscalculated the Arab world's response to his plight. He miscalculated in attempting an assassination of a former President of the United States. And he is miscalculating now America's judgments about his miscalculations.Democrats whining about Bush talking about Iraq and terrorists better discuss this matter with Senator John Kerry. Fed Raises Federal Funds Rate Again Another 1/4 point increase, to 3.25%. This is not a surprise. The goal has been to bring up long-term interest rates to keep the economy from overheating (which would cause demand-pull inflation) and discouraging speculative housing excess. It doesn't seem to be working: The Fed's short-term rate increases normally produce an increase in long-term rates, which are set by financial markets. However, that hasn't occurred during this cycle of increases. Treasury's benchmark 10-year bond was at 4.8 percent a year ago and now is around 4 percent.As of 1:09 PM Mountain time, the 30 year Treasury yield remains stubbornly at 4.250%--not much changed from yesterday. AP has a nice little chart showing what has happened to various interest rates as the Fed raised the federal funds rate this year and last. One year CD yields prety much tracked the federal funds rate. Home equity loans have risen about the same amount (although at a higher level, of course, reflecting the risks). Auto loan rates have gone up a bit; so have 30 year fixed mortgages--but not as much as you might expect, because long-term Treasury yields aren't rising. There's a nice summary from Kenny Meiselman of JBHanauer & Co., a bond specialist company that arrives in my inbox regularly: Economic pressures are not the only factors driving U.S. yields lower. Equally, if not more influential to our own rates are the activities of foreign central banks and domestic pension funds. Foreign central banks continue to support our trade deficit through the purchase of dollar denominated securities, specifically, U.S. Treasuries. The dollars being sent overseas due to U.S. consumption of foreign goods, is coming back into this country via foreign central banks reinvesting U.S. Dollars into the Treasury market. Additionally, domestic pension funds have begun to align assets with future liabilities. Long-term U.S. Treasuries are the best investment when long-term stability is needed. These two forces are combining to put what seems to be never ending upward price pressure on long-term U.S. Treasuries.The AP news story went on to point out that eventually, all the raising of short-term rates will pay off in a long-term rate increase: Many economists believe that mortgage rates should begin rising gradually as the Fed keeps pushing short-term rates higher. They are forecasting 30-year fixed-rate mortgages around 6.5 percent by the end of this year, up about 1 percentage point from current rates.As long as investors, both foreign and domestic, are buying up long-term Treasury bonds, the Fed's fiddling with short-term rates has only a limited effect. At some point, either those investors will empty their piggy banks, or a strengthening dollar will cause them to cash in their gains. If this happens in any significant volume, other investors might be tempted to do likewise. A flood of Treasury bonds on the market would drop the price, raise the yield--and drive up mortgage rates. Depending on circumstances, the change could be quite dramatic--and the effects on the more insane housing prices in Florida, California, and a few other overheated markets could be quite painful. Don't run out and buy that $450,000 1100 square foot slum house and expect to resell it for $500,000 in three months, okay? The Genocide in Zimbabwe Winds of Change has a very long thoughtful piece about why Joe Katzman has had a very un-Canadian change of heart about the right to keep and bear arms: As many of you know, I'm from Canada. We have a pretty different attitude to guns up here, and I must say that American gun culture has always kind of puzzled me. To me, one no more had a right to a gun than one did to a car.The rest of this very long article is about why the left is giving Mugabe a pass on his program of mass starvation. The left doesn't really object to mass murder, of course--they've done a lot of it in the twentieth century, and always have made excuses for it: in the Ukraine in the 1930s; Pol Pot's killing fields; the Chinese famines of the 1960s caused by Mao's deranged Great Leap Forward. Here I Know What They Are Saying About Me It's an excerpt from Jack Cashill's new book: In April 2001, Bellesiles capped his season of honors by winning Columbia University's highly coveted Bancroft Prize for American history. But while the rest of the history world cheered, graduate student Clayton Cramer and other "gun nuts" busied themselves checking facts. "I could flip his book open at random and find a significant error," says Cramer. As Cramer notes wryly, "It took me 12 hours of hunting before I found a citation that was completely correct." The truth, as Cramer knew, was exactly the opposite of Bellesiles' thesis: Guns were widespread in the early America, highly valued and not state-controlled.It is somewhat amusing that I keep seeing books that talk about my part in the Bellesiles scandal (such as Past Imperfect), but I can't seem to get my book about guns in early America published. Some of the rejections are pretty astonishing. One publisher explained that no one really believed Bellesiles's claims even before the scandal brought him down. (That's why Bellesiles won two different prestige history prizes for his claims, as well as spectacular reviews in dozens of newspapers and history journals.) A number of trade publishers have praised the level of historical research that went into my book--and they aren't interested, because it is too academic--which really means that there's no market for a book about the development of gun culture in America. (The many dozens of you that have emailed me indicating that you would be overjoyed to buy a copy are obviously delusional.) University presses say that "it's not right for them." What does that mean? I know that it can't be writing style. I've recently read a several history books from trade publishers that are grossly and obviously not as well written, with clumsy and sometimes unclear sentences that require several re-reads to understand. Could it be that publishers don't like any reminders that it is pretty easy for a fraud like Bellesiles to get a book published by a company like Knopf? Before any of you suggest that I try some of the conservative publishing houses, like Regnery--I've tried them all. Conservative publishing houses aren't interested in anything related to gun history. Gun enthusiast presses like Stackpole aren't interested--at least I assume that, since they don't even respond to query letters. If worst comes to worst, when my contract with my literary agent expires in a few months, I'll just put it up on the web, and hope that putting some google ads at the top of each chapter will bring in some money. What Are They Saying About Me? It is all in French: Il faudrait peut être que certaines personnes arrêtent de prendre pour comptant les films d'Hollywood et regardent de plus près la réalité.UPDATE: Thanks to all the readers who either used a machine translation service, or who knew enough French. Here's one reader's response: My french is a little rusty, but here's a rough translation of the paragraphs:Some people need to stop taking Hollywood films seriously and pay attention to reality.For example, in the Far [Old?] West, crime rates were much lower in the unsettled Western states than in the civilized Eastern cities. Clayton E. Cramer and David B. Kopel found that "of five cattle towns known for their violence, all had less than two criminal homicides per year. The typical crimes of modern big cities (theft, robbery and assault) were almost unknown. People didn't even bother to lock their doors and murder was rare, the exception of course being young men who shot each other in frequent duels to settle their grievances.The thread appears to be a debate between "La Grande" and "Kupee". Kupee is the anti-gunner, who trots out the standard anti-gun propaganda: Guns are for killing, you might kill your neighbor, the "free market" in guns is a sign of a violent society.La Grande (who might be a woman, since the username is in the feminine form) appears to be quite knowlegeable about guns and makes several good points. She quotes statistics about concealed carry in the US and effectively rebuts Kupee's simplistic arguments. Other anti-gunners chime in later in the thread but she seems to hold her own against them. Persuasion Brian Leiter makes an astonishing claim in defending his rude and insulting style of argument: I am sometimes presented with the following criticism: "Your rhetorical style won't persuade anyone who doesn't already agree with you." That is no doubt true, but, as we've just remarked, it is quite rare to persuade anyone by a careful, reasoned argument--indeed, so rare, that I don't see it as worth the effort to try to do so on a blog. Even quite intelligent individuals, people with PhDs from MIT no less, turn out to be completely unable to follow a rational argument!No one knows for sure--but I know that civil, rational argument has often persuaded me. I have never been persuaded by an argument that relies on ad hominem attack; quite the opposite. It often makes me less inclined to listen to the substance, because I figure that the presenter must be either too emotional to make a rational argument, or too afraid that their rational argument won't stand up to analysis. You can get a bit of feeling for how Leiter regards disagreements by reading his purpose in blogging: In any case, my goal in posting on various political topics is simply to alert like-minded readers to ideas and evidence and arguments which help strengthen their convictions regarding the truths they've already understood or glimpsed, as well as to give some expression to our collective outrage and dismay.This sounds suspiciously like religious fanaticism: "Don't bother me with the facts or differing points of view, I know what I believe." More worrisome is Leiter's statement of what he wants for those who do not share his zealous beliefs: I really wish that the unlike-minded folks would simply "go away."Why is that in quotes? Should we read something dark in this? Fanatics who share Leiter's beliefs have never been afraid to make their political opponents "go away," and on a quite permanent basis. You can really get a feel for Leiter's whole style of blogging by reading what he has to say about anyone that disagrees with him: America has become an astonishingly backwards and reactionary country over the last two decades, but huge swaths of the country are still not brainwashed, not cowed, not fooled by the daily servings of moral parochialism and factual distortions from Fox TV, and CBS, and NBC, and InstaIgnorance, and The New York Times, and on and on. The pathological liars and intellectual buffoons of the right haven't succeeded in making a real dent, yet, on the universities (though they have their sights set on them, as we had occasion to note many times before).Orin Kerr has done a nice job of discussing the reasons to be calm and civil on a blog: First, my sense is that Leiter underestimates the number of his readers who are smart people open to persuasion on big political questions. Leiter is right that lots of people are hellbent on sticking to their guns, whether those guns are left or right. They will take on any argument they find that helps the cause, and there are lots of blogs both on the left and right to help them. What makes the blogosphere interesting, I think, is that there are a surprising number of people who are somewhere in the middle, or who have tendencies one way or the other but doubt their instincts and want to learn more.Let me make my own variant of this reason to be civil. I would never argue with Brian Leiter in an attempt to persuade him; he has made it very clear that anyone that disagrees with him is a fool: That is no doubt true, but, as we've just remarked, it is quite rare to persuade anyone by a careful, reasoned argument--indeed, so rare, that I don't see it as worth the effort to try to do so on a blog. Even quite intelligent individuals, people with PhDs from MIT no less, turn out to be completely unable to follow a rational argument!He assumes that those who do not agree with him are "completely unable to follow a rational argument!" Perhaps, they do not find Leiter's argument rational--and Leiter is unprepared to admit the possibility that his argument is not persuasive. Perhaps, however logical Leiter's argument is, it leads to conclusions that are so contrary to their own personal experience that they conclude that Leiter's argument is based on invalid assumptions. "An ounce of experience is worth a pound of theory" is the princple on which most of the population operates. This may be why ideas that sound beautiful, but don't work in the real world--of which Marxism is the best example--are most popular among intellectuals, and least popular among ordinary people. Intellectuals are, as a class, far too enthused about beautiful theories. Like Lucy in Peanuts: "I love humanity! It's just people that I can't stand!" When I debate an opponent, I don't do it primarily to persuade my opponent of the error of his ways. Sometimes that happens, but pride often prevents an opponent from recognizing that his argument or position is defective. Sometimes, arguing a point opens an opponent up to later reflection, or because cumulative experience causes the opponent to reconsider his position. Certainly, I have changed my position on a number of significant issues over the years, and often for that reason. The primary reason to debate a position, however, isn't one's opponent, but, to steal the THX1138 sound system motto, "The audience is listening." Make your argument well, and do it in a manner that is respectful and polite. At a minimum, it will cause those in the audience who disagree with you say, "Gee, this guy isn't the flaming moron that I thought. And he seems like a nice person, too." Engage in the sort of rude and personal attack that Leiter regards as appropriate, and it will almost certainly sway most of the audience to the other side. Professor Leiter: please continue the name-calling (such as calling me "pathetically dumb"). Anyone that finds this appealing, persuasive, or enjoyable, I do not want on my side. Wednesday, June 29, 2005
Get Ready to Cry It's an account from a surgeon in Iraq of his team's efforts to save a young soldier airlifted from an IED (improvised explosive device) attack. There are a lot of people making horrifying sacrifices right now. Anyone who plays politics with this war (as some liberals are doing) is doing something inexcusable. Neutrality Between Religion and Non-Religion: More Evidence The Supreme Court was quite insistent that the First Amendment mandated "governmental neutrality between religion and religion, and between religion and nonreligion," and I have pointed out previously how incorrect that is. Did you know that the federal government reserved section 29 of each township in Ohio for the support of religion? See American State Papers, House of Representatives, 11th Congress, 3rd Session Public Lands: Volume 2, p. 220, document 187: It appears to the committee, by the statement of the petitioners, that the third township of the eighth range in the Ohio Company's purchase is a fractional township, being intersected near the centre by the boundary line that separates the track purchased from the donation tract conveyed to the said company; that the said fractional township does not contain the section No. 29, set apart for the support of religion in the several townships in the said purchase, whereby the inhabitants are deprived of the benefit of the ministerial lands.As late as 1833, you find Congressional bills that make reference to this, such as HR 653, 22nd Cong., 2nd sess. To authorize the Legislature of the State of Ohio to sell the land reserved for the support of religion in the Ohio Company....This seems to be the bill that created this, from Journal of the Senate of the United States of America, 1789-1873, December 30, 1801: Mr. Tracy gave notice that he should, to-morrow, ask leave to bring in a bill to carry into effect the appropriations of lands in the purchase of the Ohio company, in the northwestern territory, for the support of schools and religion, and for other purposes.Any notion that the First Amendment demanded neutrality between religion and nonreligion would seem to be contradicted by the actions taken--apparently without criticism or suit. This Is Just To Upset My British-American Acquaintance in Europe Robert J. Samuelson's column in the Washington Post points out that the Kyoto Treaty and associated environmental screeching is just hypocrisy: Almost a decade ago I suggested that global warming would become a "gushing" source of political hypocrisy. So it has. Politicians and scientists constantly warn of the grim outlook, and the subject is on the agenda of the upcoming Group of Eight summit of world economic leaders. But all this sound and fury is mainly exhibitionism -- politicians pretending they're saving the planet.Now, Samuelson is a proponent of a number of Big Government efforts to deal with greenhouse gases, but at least they aren't built completely on delusion or corruption. Professor Zywicki over at Volokh Conspiracy points out: Kyoto is nominally an environmental treaty--although the effect on global warming is thought to be very small, perhaps on the order of a reduction in temperature of 0.15 degrees C in 2100, or putting off the same warming trend by 6 years. But once you look into the details of the treaty, at this point it seems clear that its primary purpose as drafted (and why Europe is so keen on ratification by the U.S.) is economic, and, in particular, for Europe to gain economic advantages versus the United States. Labels: global warming Promoting Diversity By Suppressing Dissent I mentioned recently a case that seems to involve Allstate punishing an employee for writing an article that didn't give the proper respect to homosexuality. Different River linked to it, and raised the ante, with an example of a Kodak employee fired for similar reasons, although because the Kodak employee dissented using company email, there is at least a plausible case that the employee was legally in the wrong. Still, after you read the article, you realize the extent to which corporate America has decided that the need to make a small number of gay activists happy (a fraction of the 2% or so of the population that is gay) is taking precedence over the value and concerns of the roughly 60% of the population that disapproves of homosexuality. Some People Are Too Stupid To Stay Out of Jail Different River links to Dr. Tony's blog, where he describes a recent experience in the Emergency Room when two people come in, one of them feigning illness, in order to rob the ER's drugs. I won't reproduce it--the language of the inept criminals is a bit raw--but you have to wonder how stupid someone is who pulls a gun on a doctor, threatens to rape one of the nurses--and then lets the doctor put in IVs so that the doctor can give them "really good drugs." Yeah, Dr. Tony gave them really good drugs: "This the best, man. This here's called Mid-az-o-lam," I answered, stretching the word. "It will blow you away. You ain't never had anything like this before. Strictly medical grade. I can't give you too much, as you be slammin'." Slow Learners If I am to believe this news story, assuming that he is telling the full truth, Homeland Security isn't just mistreating this guy--they are wasting resources: June 28, 2005 — A suburban businessman says Homeland Security has gone too far. He has filed a lawsuit against the government. Akif Rahman is a U.S. born citizen who says he has been wrongfully detained by border agents on four separate occasions. Rahman claims his rights were violated by Homeland Security workers. GDP Rises 3.8% in First Quarter of 2005 This is good news--better than expected: The first-quarter's showing was slightly better than the 3.7 percent growth rate that economists were forecasting before the report was released.This is the sort of thing that could eventually cause long-term interest rates to rise--and when that happens, the housing boom is going to cool a bit. As of 10:00 AM Mountain time, 30 year Treasury yields are 4.222%--a bit up from yesterday, but still quite low. Keep your eyes open, and be prepared to take action to lock in current low mortgage rates--and if you are planning to buy a house, buy it because you are planning to live in it--not because you expect to resell it three months for 10% more than you paid. What Are Iraqis Saying? I really encourage people to read the various Iraqi bloggers. They aren't all pro-American, but they provide some insights into what Iraqis are feeling. THE MESOPOTAMIAN: Just a quick note, to the American public: this is no time to lose heart, the fight is just now changing gear. We the Iraqis are confident of winning this battle. This so-called “insurrection” may be characterized as the “Unpopular Revolt” rather than the opposite. It is doomed to failure. We have never pretended that this can be achieved overnight. It takes time and struggle, but to those who think that the insurgency is growing I would like to say this: It is the power of the people that is growing, it is the strength and effectiveness of the new patriotic security forces that is growing, such forces that are for the first time in our history representative of the majority of the people. Time is on th |
