Some Lies Really Aren't So Terrible: On Socrates' Noble Lie In American Political Thought

"If a prince wants to maintain his rule he must be prepared not to be virtuous" --Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince "Lie often enough and boldly enough, and people will find it difficult not to believe you" -- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Unless you're a very strange person, most people would say that they would perfer an honest politician to a dishonest one. We say that we don't like lies or the people who tell them. We tell ourselves that "honesty is a virtue" and believe that it is a sin to spread false witness Our Congress impeached President Clinton, not because he recieved oral sex from a White House intern, but because he lied about it under sworn testimony. We say that people who have no capacity for honesty do not belong in politics and we often sour on elected leaders who are shown to have betrayed the public trust. The Founders advocated a system of open government. Jefferson believed that, if the people are well-informed, they will be able to use their rational judgment to render right decisions concerning how government is run. An open system is essential to securing democracy. But, the seeds of the Enlightenment and the American system are rooted in the philosophy of the ancient Greeks, including Socrates' ideal city in The Republic. Both Socrates and the Founders sought to create a city based on the ultimate Good of the people. In his description of the ideal city, Socrates states that, in the interest of achieving a state of virtuousness (the Good), the loyalty of the people to the city must be secured. A state of loyalty must be created and maintained through the telling of stories or Noble Lies. These stories, Socrates claimed, would (if they are the correct kind of stories) ensure the undying loyalty of the people to the state. Socrates believed that lying has political usefulness. According to Socrates, a philosopher (who is by nature a lover of wisdom) loves Truth. The philosopher knows that, without Truth, man is unable to lead the kind of life that he is supposed to lead, which is, according to the ancients, the life of virtue and intellectual fufilment. Socrates also said that the aim of the state is the achievement of the Good and ultimately of the Happiness of the community as a whole. Like the Founders, Socrates believed that the city should be led by the wise. The goal of the wise ruler (in The Republic, the philosopher-king) is to create a city that promotes the public Good and wards off the threat of anarchy. However, a philosopher is a wise man, and a man who is wise is well aware of the value of a well placed lie. A wise man, unlike the garden-variety liar who may lie about trivial matters, knows how and when to lie. And, who is is lying to. The who is you and me. If the leader's duty is to secure the public Good and to secure the loyalty of the people to the state, he needs to create the want to be loyal to the state. Socrates says the the leader does this by the telling of myths -- what Socrates calls Noble Lies. Noble Lies, Socrates says, are no ordinary lies. Although Noble Lies are like ordinary lies in that Noble Lies are deliberate falsehoods that are told, unlike ordinary lies, Noble Lies are told for a specific purpose. Namely, Noble Lies are told to bind the loyalty of the people to the state. People, Socrates says, are prone to making bad political choices. Common people, according to Socrates, have a lack of knowledge of political affairs and are easily manipulated. People are incapable of making important political decisions without prejudice or impulsiveness. These lies are meant to command the obediance of the ruled. When it comes to matters concerning the obediance of the people, Socrates believed the there was no need to tell the people the exact truth.

Socrates says, "....could we... somehow construe one of those lies that come into being in the case of need ... some noble lie, to persuade, in the best case, even the rulers, but if not them, the rest of the city?" (The Republic, 414 b).

Noble Lies are not pure fabrications, but are tales of the right sort that will most effectively make people feel loyal to the state. Socrates says that the public must be taught the right sort of art, music, gymnastics (physical education), and the right sort of general education. This right sort of education, Socrates says, should be the type that stirs up feelings of patriotism. People, Socrates states, should feel that the state is their mother and should feel stronger emotional ties to their homeland than they should feel towards their biological families, friends, or lovers. But why is this so? Socrates says that there are certain qualities that rulers possess that the average citizen does not possess, namely those who rule possess the right kind of knowledge and wisdom that the average person does not have and cannot comprehend. Our own Founders believed that the best rulers were wise men, and that wise men (when at the head of the state) were likely to pursue the Good and Happiness of the people. Although our system is democratic, it is not without Noble Lies. The American political system is (supposedly) based on the idea of open government. A democracy, if it is to survive, requires a free exchange of ideas. These ideas are what the people act on -- we vote on ideas, we vote for particular candidates based on their ideas. We say that American "values" embody the ideas of fairness, tolerance, liberty, and equality. It is important, then, that these ideas be presented accurately. But, the Founders also held apprehensions about the ability of the people to make rational decisions regarding the state. The American system is based on the idea of citizen participation. Unlike Socrates' ideal city that is ruled by a philosopher-king, the United States is governed by elected representatives who legislate on behalf of the people.

In Federalist 71, Alexander Hamilton writes that government should not be swayed by "every sudden breeze of passion... every transient impulse the people may recieve from the hearts of men". Hamilton continued, when occasions present themselves in which the interests of the people are at variance with their inclinations, it is the duty of the persons whom they have appointed to be the guardians of those interests to withstand the temporary delusion in order to give them time and opportunity for more cool and sedate reflection.

What Hamilton is saying is that the people are prone to thinking with their hearts more often than they think with their heads, and that a group of people who are not swayed by the same petty passions should lead. Hamilton, like Socrates, calls these people "guardians".

In Federalist 63, Madison writes, ....suspend the blow mediated by the people against themselves, until reason, justice, and truth can reagin authority over the public mind?

The Founders and the ancient Greeks liked the idea of the virtuous statesman who rules when the people cannot rule themselves. He has the authority to assume control over the state in the absence of wiser men. Now, Socrates says that the philosopher-king has the duty to tell Noble Lies to the people to secure their loyalty to the state. We would like to believe that our Constitution, which says that power rests in the will of the people, does not allow a ruler to assume control over government. This is not so. The Founders also believed that not only does the executive have the power over government, but that he should, from time to time, lie to the American public to secure obediance and loyalty to the state. In Federalist 70, Hamilton writes that the executive branch of government (the president) possesses certain duties that allow him to do his duties as president. These duties are: decision-making, activity, secrecy and dispatch. The ability for the executive to use decision and secrecy means that he possesses the right to lie to the people if the lie enables him to do his duty as president. If anyone believes that Americans do not tell themselves Noble Lies, here are a few ideas for you: we believe that this is the land of opportunity. We believe that any man, regardless of his station in life, his color, gender, or creed, can succeed and move ahead in society. This is a form of Noble Lie. Although it is true to an extent, we told ourselves this same "you can get it too, if you pick yourself up by your bootstraps" story when our society was not free and equal. It's also worth noting certain patriotism-inducing myths such as George Washington and the cherry tree, Betsy Ross, and Uncle Sam.There is a reason why we call ourselves a "melting pot"-- we're supposed to see ourselves as "Americans" first, and as members of our own families or ethnic/racial group scond (or not at all). But, there are people who will say that lying, especially lies that rob a people of its ability to know what exactly its government is up to, is pernicious and that no good will come of lying to the people, be it noble or not. But, as Socrates observed, it's not the lie that we need be mindful of, it is the intent of the lie and who is telling it. Socrates said that the ultimate goal of Noble Lies is to achieve the ultimate Good. Those who are telling the lies are not just kings but philosophers. Philosophers, Socrates believed, were virtuous men. So, a virtuous man wouldnot fell an inclination towards telling his people lies that are harmful, primarily because harmful lies detract from the common Good. Virtuous men do not tell unvirtuous lies. Lastly, as we've seen with the latest batch of released documents courtesy of WikiLeaks, telling the truth to everyone can have disturbing effects, especially in the realm of international relations. Everyone need not know everything. There are some things that people need not know. A world where all truth is told can be an unpleasant one at best and a dangerous one at the least. Lies are not all the same, and as Socrates argues, some lies are necessary. Lies are not pernicious because of their being lies, they are pernicious on account of their intent and to some degree, on who is telling them. A lie told for the sake of mere deception or to mislead is often wrong or even dangerous. But, a lie told to guide or to comfort, or a lie that is told for the sake of a greater Good can be conducive to achieving the greater Good. And this case, some lies really aren't so terrible.

Change You Can't Believe In

We're 2 years into the Presidency of Obama. That's cool and all, but I thought that when we elected the nation's FIRST AFRICAN-AMERICAN PRESIDENT that things would be slightly different now. Things are pretty much the same. It's like Bush never left office. I'm not entirely blaming the president. I know that there's a bit to be upset about, and there are still more than a few people who think that he shouldn't be in the office at all -- but my problem, for the record, has more to do with the politics than my problem has to do with the president himself. I have a real bug up my keister when it comes to the political Left. Let's be straight here, I don't have a problem with the run-of-the-mill Joe or Jane liberal; afterall, I still call myself a Liberal. Unapologetically so. My beef, if you will, is with a smaller segment on the Left side of the political spectrum. They tend to call themselves "progressives". I remember hearing Marilyn Manson talking about his experiences on the Ozzfest tour. He said that sometimes dealing with goth and metal fans was worse than dealing with people who weren't into the metal scene. The problem was dogma. If you're on the Ozzfest tour, there's a certain aesthetic that you're supposed to have. The music is supposed to sound like this or that... whatever set of rules had been approved by real metal fans. If you in any way deviate from that set of characteristics, you won't get a warm welcome. Same goes for politics. If you say that your politics are on the Left, out come the referees with their rule books ad scorecards ready to tally your score. They have to see if your politics are in line with the pre-approved philosophy of what a Leftie is supposed to think (like). Since I like to think that I am a Liberal, I fancy the idea that I use my sense of reason to independently arrive at my own point of view. This is the way that I think that most Liberals think. This is the genesis of the problem. See, when you come out to any group of supposed like-minded people, those people tend to get the feeling that they own you. If you're hanging out with fellow Liberals and you don't read Noam Chomsky, or you're not with the save Darfur crowd, or that you're having second thoughts about this whole global warming thing, you're likely signing your own ideological death warrant. You probably won't be invited to the next PDA rally. I've heard many Liberals say that Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Ann Coulter have turned Lberal into a 4-letter word, but I say that the Left has done plenty of tarnishing on its own. You don't gain too many fans to your point of view when one of your idols refers to the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks as "mini Eichmanns". It doesn't help you if the perception of your point of view isn't "America first", but "blame America first". Look, I'm not a vegan. I'm pro death penalty. I'm for tighter borders and I'm a capitalist. Sometimes saying these things around my fellow Liberals isn't a good idea. To some, my well-reasoned choices are a sign that I'm not a Liberal, but a neo-con knuckledragger. But I think this is exactly what Marilyn Manson was getting at. You can come up with your own take on what you believe -- you can be as big a fan of Ozzy as anyone else out there, but because you've decided to go your own way you don't belong. Liberals can bitch and moan about how much Conservatives have smeared them but you can't complain when there are more than a few of you who mantain the Americans are nothing more than greedy, fat, uncultured, Walmart-trolling idiots. Portentious fingerwagging does not gain fans. You can't win friends and influence Republicans if the same workers of the world you're urging to unite are the same workers you're saying are fat and stupid and the reason why things have gone wrong in the developing world. I'm not saying that all Liberals are always wrong. Look, I like Thom Hartmann, and Jim Hightower. I listen to Ed Schutz and Stephanie Miller. I think that Dennis Kuchnich and Bernie Sanders are probably the only two members of Congress who are worth a damn. I lamented when Russ Feingold was unelected, but for pete's sakes, you gotta realize that Liberals absolutely do not have to think alike! I hear Lefties say that they're all into tolerance and diversity until your ideas diverge from theirs. I was talking to an Amy Goodman listener some time ago, and I said that I highly suspect that Mumia is in fact guilty of murdering the police officer (for which he was sentenced to death row). You would have thought that I had confessed to personally killing Anne Frank. I tried to explain that I thought that, even if he did do it, the crime did not warrant the death penalty, but the fact that I had insinuated the possibility the Mumia had committed murder was enough to end the conversation right then and there. I understand that to have a particular ideology you have to have some beliefs that adhere to a certain set of principles. But I also understand that I don't have say that I'm into Arundhati Roy or yoga and recycling to prove to someone that I am what I say that I am. Although I am kinda glad that Olbermann left MSNBC.

Baa Baa Baa

This past month has been pretty exciting, eh? Lots of talk about conspiracies.... I was listening to the Alex Jones ahow a couple of days ago, and he was talking about the "V for Victory" campaign. He said that the remedy for 1984 is 1776, which may or may not be true. But what I started thinking about is the whole business of conspiracy theories in general. In conspiracy circles, at least among some of the most eager of adherents, some, during their most vitriolic moments, often refer to the American people as "sheeple". Sheep+people=sheeple. What they mean is that they think that most Americans follow whoever leads them like sheep. Most people are exactly as Nietzsche said, motivated by the "herd mentality". The sentiment is that, after decades of being feed mind-numbing diets of MSG, aspertame, high fructose corn syrup, dumbed-down infotainment, and substandard political "leaders" the American public has been rendered passive, accepting whatever directive GOVERNMENT tells them, led like sheep to slaughter. Because most people are inclined to blindly follow any sweet-talking demagogue, following rather than questioning, many conspiracy theorists tell their cohorts to beware of the herd. It's not just conspiracy theorists who have had this point of view. Socrates and Nietzsche both rattled the cages of conformity. George Orwell wrote of a society led by "groupthink". Right now, I'm hearing The Police song "Synchronicity II" in my head (listen to the 2nd verse). Everybody's got their list of examples of herd mentality triumphing over common sense. If everybody jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge, would you? This is a problem for us because Americans aren't supposed to be conformists. We're supposed to be a nation of self-sufficient, self-determined, self-made, rugged individuals. We're a people who praise the self-made man who, with the sole support of his own bootstraps, pull themselves from the bottom rungs to the highest reaches of success. This is the American story. Of course, there's plenty of philosophy to back this up: Rousseau wrote of the state of nature where man relied on his own smarts and autonomy to provide for himself. In fact, Rousseau wrote that man is by nature so independent, that he only need companionship for the brief duration that it requires to complete the reproductive act. The deal is, is this totally independent man never existed. Nor does he exist now. When you think about it, the idea that man is by nature solitary sounds kind of counter intutitve. It seems that a creature that does not need anyone other than himself would never feel loneliness, but we do. In Sunday school, we're taught that we're our brother's keepers, and that we will be judged by how we treat others. Getting in to Heaven is more of a group effort then we'd like to admit. We tell ourselves that people who spend too much time alone end up nutty. A lot of the talk, besides talk about conspiracy theories, about the unpleasantness in Arizona has been a lot of asking why no one that knew that dude did anything to get that guy help. Might not want to admit it, perhaps for fear of being overtaken by the herd, but humans are herd animals. We call our herds families or society or our culture. We know that conformity is a good thing. If we did not conform, our social bonds would dissolve and we'd end up in the bad kind of anarchy. You know, the kind where only Mel Gibson can help us out anarchy. Americans are a label-loving society. And the fact that we are such conformists makes us all the easier to label. We love keeping up with the Joneses and hate being the odd man out. We say that we love those who march to the beat of a different drummer, but only if that person plays a tune that we like. I don't know if I'm coming up with anything revelatory here, but I noticed that even those who are down on the public at large on their onformity rely heavily on conformity when it comes to their own beliefs. Conspiracy theorists want to be heard. They want to be believed. Dare I say, they want to be followed. That's why they put out videos, have radio shows, and go on TruTV talking about the goings on at Bohemian Grove. I don't know how many people have seen this, but I've had the supreme displeasure of witnessing duelling conspiracy theorists (this one is easy to set up: find one friend that thinks that the WTC was brought down by explosives and one who does not. Sit back and watch the tempers flare and the sparks fly). I think that any conspiracy theorist would have to admit this, but it's not the problem whether people are "sheeple" or not. What the issue is who they choose to follow. It's whether you believe that we're being assaulted by the New World Order or whether you choose to believe that nothing nefarious is afoot. Each side wants conformity to their point of view. To get the people to rise up and overthrow the puppet masters, you need people who will follow -- that's a brute fact. You know, now that I'm thinking about it, there's something else that seems quite odd about the whole 1984/1776 thing... In Orwell's 1984, Big Brother had a slogan, "Freedom is Slavery". And the answer to Big Brother's message is 1776. That's of course, a reference to Thomas Jefferson's words in the Declaration of Independence, where he wrote that all men have a right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness". So, the solution is to follow the words of a man who actually owned slaves, right? I mean, 1984 was just a book. But, then, that's a whole other conversation.

Amazing What You'll Find... When You Look

I never thought that I'd be saying that Sarah Palin is right about something, but when former Alaska governor and Vice-Presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, was asked during an interview which of which of the founders was her favorite one. She answered, "all of them". I don't know if what she said wasn't a bullshit answer (because it's impossible to know exactly what's inside someone's head), or whether it is even possible to like all of the founding fathers, but I'm not exactly on the, "there goes that Palin being stupid again bandwagon". Some took her answer as a sign of her political ignorance; that Sarah palin is one of those way-too-many Americans who have no clue about their country's political institutions, yet feels the need to prattle about them as if they're an expert on all matters foreign and domestic -- the type of people who, when you ask them who their favorite founding father is, answer, "all of them". Like I said, I don't know Palin personally, so I can't speak to the degree of her political ignorance. There are plenty of people who are extremely unaware of what their government does. I'm not even getting anywhere near the more obscure political questions like, "who are the 9 Supreme Court justices?" or, what year was the 16th Amendment passed, and why do some people object to its constitutionality, or, name your representative. Look, I know that there is a great deal about this country that I don't know (and I have a political science degree). And I know that there are plenty of people who think that Thomas Jefferson wrote the Constitution who are more politically active and know the ins and outs of the political process than people who have spent their academic careers studying government. By the way, Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution. Now, because I had to write papers on the subject, I know that the Constitution was inspired not only by the Native American tribes, like the Iroquois, but also tips its hat to the philosophy of pre-Enlightenment thinkers such as John Locke. Not to mention, that the American public got its first gander at the Constitution through The Federalist Papers, written by James Madison, John Jay and Alexander Hamilton, collectively known as Publius. And of course, Publius "borrowed" its name from one of the founders of the Roman republic, Publius Valerius Publicola. I'd venture that most Americans are unaware of that fact. That's kind of sad, because it's really worth knowing. I can't say for sure that Sarah Palin is one of them, but there are too many Americans who don't know much about their government. There are too few people who are acquainted with American political philosophy and the nation's owner's manual, the Constitution, not even in civics class. I didn't read the Constitution until I reached college. Seriously. I only know what I know now because I got myself a polysci degree ( I mention for the second time. Trust me, I'm not bragging). Given what I've heard from the mouths of people on both sides of the political spectrum, I'd say that there are plenty of other people who got cheated in civics class, just like me. There are people who say, "the Constitution says this" and "the founders said that", and they have no idea what in the hell they're talking about. All you do know is that they're busy paraphrasing some Left or Right-wing talk show host who has no idea what they're talking about. All you hear these days is regurgitated Glenn Beck, Noam Chomsky, Sean Hannity, Alex Jones, or Amy Goodman. It's frightening what people don't know because they've not looked for themselves. There are people who are unaware not just of the basic how-to of the government, but are completely devoid of what the philosophy is behind the founding documents. People might not think that it matters to know that Enlightenment philosophy (partially) influenced the Constitution, but it does matter more than we may think. It's important to know where the ideas come from. It's important to know that our founding fathers thought that a free and just government was the most obvious choice of government, despite what Socrates had to say about democracy. It's important to know that, in the wake of the failure of the Articles of Confederation, the founders knew that a country cannot function without a strong central government (yes, I said a strong central government). Thomas Jefferson wrote that governments are created to protect the rights of men. Govenrment cannot secure rights if men do not feel secure enough to pursue the higher ends of his nature. Harry Jaffa says that the primary question of the American government was how to secure the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. By the way, it's very fashionable to go about speaking as if a strong government is inherently bad. It is not. Jefferson and the Founders knew that a strong government is necessary to secure the ends of government, namely protecting the right of the people to life, liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. To enjoy any of our inalienable rights the people must (first) feel secure. the only way to ensure security is to have a strong centralized government. Of course, the intention isn't that the government be so strong that the rights of the people are trampled over by a tyranical government. The founders were smart enough to provide for countermeasures -- voting, free press, right to assemble, balance of power and judicial oversight, to name a few tricks in the bag, as Publius quotes Montesquieu, "there can be no liberty where the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or body of magistrates" (Federalist 47). So what does this have to do with Sarah Palin? The thing is, is that not all of the founders thought the same. Jefferson is a darling of the Libertarian set, who claim that the best government is the government that governs least. On the other hand, Alexander Hamilton was a fan of the elite who wanted to install Washington as a king. John Adams was a Christian. Benjamin Franklin was a member of the Hellfire Club, a organization infamously connected to the idea of hedonism as a way of life. They weren't all the same, yet each has influenced how we, as a nation, have developed (for better or for worse) in to the nation we are at this point in our history. When I look back at the contributions of the founders, how each has influenced what we have here right now, it is difficult to pick out just one. There is so much to admire in many of them. Perhaps sarah Palin wasn't so much ignorant as she was taking a broader view. She might have appreciated the contributions of the founders as a whole, rather than nitpicking over which one is better, like ranking which character of Jersey Shore is your favorite or whether you think Brad and Angelina or Brad and Jennifer make a better couple. If this is indeed the case, it might do us all some good to be more like Sarah Palin. ...... it might.

Sucks To Be You

"Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God" (Matt: 19:24)

"Don't give me that dogoody good bullshit" Pink Floyd, "Money".

Despite my Liberal inclinations and my Leftist fantacies, I am painfully aware of this one thing: THE UNITED STATES IS A CAPITALIST COUNTRY. No, really, I get it. It is. We love money here. And one of the great things about being here is the fact that there are opportunities to make money. Lots of money. Oprah money.

Although I took econ in high school, and I remember something about the objective in our culture is to "make money", I don't remember learning very much beyond that point, nor do I remember learning much about the creator of capitalism, the Scottish economist, Adam Smith.

Honestly, I didn't read Smith until I got to college -- in a philosophy class.

I also know that I am not the only American who has had this experience.

What I had learned in school is that being a capitalist means that, if I made a shitload of money and other people didn't, that the appropriate response to their misfortune is "sucks to be you!". I had plenty of teachers on this kind of capitalism, mind you. I learned from the media that "greed is good", and that if I made a whole lot of money that I could get on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous ( I guess it's getting on something like Real Housewives now). I learned that pursuing one's interests above all is not only the key to success, but the only truly American way to do it.

Funny how sometimes you learn that you didn't know what you thought you knew when you actually read something.

Like the American Founders, Smith was a product of the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment emphasized science and reason, which was meant to counter the prevailing belief in stuff like superstition and the diving right of kings -- stuff that told people that wherever they found themselves was their lot in life, and that if you were born poor, you were consigned by God to be poor. The Enlightenment threw all those old ideas out and relpaced them with new ideas like, any one can be as rich as a king (and if you really know how to play the game, even richer). The idea was that man could improve on himself. He could be inventive and that by using the skills of an entrepreneur, he could make himself rich. This sounds ok so far. But here's the deal...

The Enlightenment stressed reason as it's primary motivator. That is, reason was vaulted as paramount among the virtues. So far so good. But, this thinking led to the idea that there are some people who just can't ( for some reason or another) reason like other people. And if this is so, there must be some sort of explanation. This of course led to the idea that some people were naturally inclined to think better, and since thinking was a virtue and virtues are a sign of excellence, people who were better thinkers were not only better thinkers, but better people. This notion got a big help from Darwin's theory of natural selection, which was, by way of the likes of folks like Herbert Spencer, turned from the natural world, to the social world. So, societies that were better thinkers were better societies. Those better societies were superior to other less-thinking societies. So, if you couldn't think, using Darwin's theory (as applied to people) you had inherited a set of bad genes. Not just you, mind you, but your entire culture had done so. And people who are stupid don't succeed, and if you don't succeed, you can't get rich. So, if you're poor, your biology made you poor. You're not "fit" as Spencer would say. This ethic was best expressed by Dicken's Ebeneezer Scrooge. When Scrooge is asked if he will give to charity, he says he is not in the business of making idle people merry and that the poor will have to do with what they have . When Scrooge is told that thre poor will die if they do not get help, he says (rather famously) that they had better get to it and "decrease the surplus population". Scrooge is merely repeating the capitalism-meets-Darwinism vibe of the latter half of the 19th century. He believes that not only are the poor to blame for their condition, but that they are taking up room and worse yet, sponging off of hard working capitalists like himself.

It's by no mistake that we are supposed to be outraged by Scrooge's comment. What he says isn't only cruel, it's not capitalist philosophy, either.

Although Smith wrote that self-interest is the prime motivator for acting in the market, he believed that men would automatically also benefit the whole. Men, Smith believed, had an intuitive sense to work toward the common good. In benefitting ourselves, we also benefit society as a whole. Smith writes that no society can flourish if a part of its people are poor and miserable. Smith writes that with the improvement of the "lower ranks" of society, the entire society is likewise improved. He says that we should not think of tis as troublesome but as an advantage. The pursuit of capital is not a free-for-all, nor should wealth be gained while the greater population suffers. Business, Smith observes, is not to go unregulated. Smith wrote that business should be conducted as if all transactions were conducted under the watch of an "impartial spectator". Smith wrote that the spectator is, in reality, the watchful eye of the individual over his own actions (this is tied to the oft mentioned idea of the "invisible hand". The supposedly invisible market forces that influence the behavior of capitalists and capitalism). However, Smith recognized that actual government regulation of markets is necessary to ensure that business is conducted in a manner that does not harm the greater society. Smith knew that, given the ability to collect large sums of personal wealth, greed can impede one's ability to regulate what one consumes. That is, Smith recognized the fact that rich people tend to be greedy and will consume more than their fair share of resources. We need regulation to " restrain our selfish, and to indulge our benevolent affections...". Smith wrote that we need regulation to make" nearly the same distribution of the necessities of life, which would have been made, had the earth been divided into equal portions among its inhabitants". For Smith, unlike what we hear in the popular discourse, being a capitalist didn't mean that we should, or even that we have the right to allow others to fall by the wayside while others clearly make and consume more than they will ever need. Don't get me wrong, I'm not claiming that Smith was nearer to Socialism than he is to the "capitalism" that we practice here in the U.S. I don't think he'd be a fan of any sort of socialistic distribution of wealth scheme. What I think that Smith is saying is that when we value money over other people, we are bound to get into trouble. That trouble, unfortunately, tends to affect more than just the handfull of greedy people who may have thought that they can, or should get more than everyone else. You don't have to watch TV for long to see that unobstructed greed isn't just wrong in some sort of abstract, moral sense. It's wrong in that people die and nations are brought to the brink of collapse when we think of capitalism as a "take what you can when you can" (that's a line from The Secret Of NIHM) way of running markets. Adam Smith wanted us to have the opportunity to get rich, but he wanted us to be cautious about what we may put on the line in our pursuit as well.

I'll end here with another Smith quote,

"People of the same trade seldom meet together even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices".

Gee, it's not like that's happened recently.

You Say You Want A Revolution?

When I was a philosophy student, I participated in this shindig called "ethics bowl". What ethics bowl isn't as important than to say that I had a teammate who was an avowed anarchist. Really, he was. I don't think that he was the type that wants to burn down buildings or wants chos and disorder as much as I think that he believed that people were better off governing themselves. I think that he believed, in the long run, governmental power was more pernicious than it is useful. There is a general feeling out there, not just among anarchists, but among Libertarians, Conservatives, even among Liberals and Progressives, that all government is in some way inherently bad. They are guided by the mantra "the government that governs best governs least". As soon as governments gain power, they believe, man loses his freedom. These people are easy to spot. They're the people who spell "government" GOVERNMENT. And a growing number of Americans see GOVERNMENT as a failure. This is not just a Tea Party sentiment. From Rush Limbaugh to the late Howard Zinn, not only are Americans (and their political spokespeople) distrustful of GOVERNMENT, they believe that government is at best incompetent and at worst dangerous. Ronald Reagan famously said, "government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem". And the GOVERNMENT has wasted no time proving Reagan's sentiment. Intelligence failures, the Katrina debacle, runaway deficit spending, crony capitalism, the potential ELE oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and the expanding, invasive role into the lives of average Americans has a growing number of people not only agreeing with Reagan's sentiment, but agreeing with Grover Norquist's sentiment of wanting to shrink government to the size that it can be drowned in a bathtub. The recent primary victory of Tea Party fav, and son of Ron Paul, Rand Paul, in Kentucky is a testiment to the fact that more Americans are thinking of their government as the GOVERNMENT. Maybe the people should be alone to rule themselves. This idea is by no means a new one. As Americans, we are raised with the notion that people are or should be, for the most part, able to care for themselves. This is the way man's nature truly is, some say. Where we go wrong, is that we institute GOVERNMENT, that, given it's nature to take freedom away, busies itself with making otherwise independent creatures wholly subservient and dependent on it. Listen to enough talk radio, and you'll hear how we're supposed to be. It actually sounds a little like Rousseau's depiction of man in the state of nature. According to Rousseau, man, in the state of nature (that is, before civilization), cared for himself. He enjoyed unlimited freedom, and success depended upon his ability or own willingness to do for himself. Man, in his natural state, did not require supervision from an institutional authority. This is about as close to a Garden of Eden as man can get. However, like the fabeled Garden, Rousseau's nature man did not exist. The story is an allegory, an idealized notion of how man should be -- how man is in his heart (as we all feel the longing for total liberty). Unfortunately, as anyone who has ever tries to hang a seiling fan alone has discovered, there are some things that individuals simply cannot do for themselves. We cannot defend our borders as single people (although there are some people who believe this is possible), we need governments to secure our borders for us. A single man cannot fight against an entire nation. Therefore, we need governments to create armies to protect and defend us. We cannot survive alone in a world, where all fight against all, where Hobbes says that life is "nasty, brutish and short". We need protection. We would rather give up some of our freedom in exchange for safety and security. This is why man agrees to be governed. We also know that no matter how much we try to educate some, there are people who simply will not or cannot not make rational decisions. Governments take all suggestions of how to govern and mitigate as to which course of action is the best for the people to take. The Founders were well aware of this fact. Just ask yourself why the franchise was so limited at the Nation's founding? This is why Bentham believed that government should occasionally take an activist role. If the common good can be achieved by government occasionally acting as a GOVERNMENT, then the government should do so. And our government has certainly done so; the Reconstruction amendments following the Civil War, civil rights legislation, Supreme Court decisions reversing segregation, etc. Government should always be at the ready to reverse bad decision making when the people either cannot or will not do it themselves. Of course, the government does not have unlimited power. We may have forgotten this, but our government was created to protect our rights, not to grant them. The Rights of the People are not doled out by men in Washington, but handed to us by our Creator. Our Rights are inalienable (that means we can't even give them away voluntarily). But, like government, our rights are not absolute. We can have them taken from us by way of due process. And we know that our rights end as soon as they infringe on the rights of another person. I cannot execute a person for walking across my property, even if I post a sign that says "No Tresspassing". My rights to have an unmolested lawn do not overide another person's right to life. At their heart, all governments require some degree of coersion to achieve their ends (which is protecting and promoting the common good). I think that this fact is what sets some people off about GOVERNMENT -- it's the fact that they feel compelled to do anything at all. You can feel the spirit of Rousseau's nature man in your heart, but you have to recognize that if you wnat to live in a country of 300,000,000 people, you're going to have to do some things that you don't wan to do, and that you are definitely not always going to get what you want. Great political thinkers: Plato, Locke, Rousseau, Marx, the American Founders, even Reagan, recognized that government is necessary. American Founder (and big GOVERNMENT enthusiast) Alexander Hamilton, said if men were angels that governments wouldn't be necessary. Well, men aren't. Even Reagan said that the aim wasn't to destroy government, but to find a way to make it work. The big question is how do we go about finding a government that protects liberty, serves the common good, promotes justice, and serves the wider group? The plain truth of the matter is that democracy is messy. It's prone to tyranny and bad governance. But, as Winston Churchill observed, as bad as democracy is, it still beats out every other bad form of government. We the people are in charge of this democracy. This is why we cannot fully blame our elected politicians nor can we fully call ourselves blameless when government goes wrong. To run a successful government, it takes lots of responsibility and alot of homework. Our task is not to drown government, but to do as Reagan said and find a way to make it work. So, my advice for anyone who complains about how much they hate GOVERNMENT and how much they's like to see the drowning, simply think of the places where the drowning has already taken place. And then ask yourself, is there some reason why you're not already in Somalia?

Yes, Mr. Rotten. I Get the Feeling I've Been Cheated

Thinking about all this health "reform" debate. There are people out there eho are saying that they want their "country back" (from whom, I ask), and that we have to get back to the Constitution, whatever that means. I listen to what some of these people are saying, and sometimes I feel that some of them have no idea what they are talking about. I'll be the first to admit here. I'm no scholar. I'm not an expert on the Constitution (although I've actually read it), nor am I in any position to dictate what and who can or cannot speak against or criticize the government. But, I do on occasion watch television, and I gotta say that there are some of us who really need to read before they speak. There's a sentiment out there (both here and abroad) that Americans (of which I am one) are stupid. All one needs to do to confirm this is to go to YouTube and look for "stupid Americans". When our global neighbors called former president Bush a "cowboy" they weren't being friendly. I don't think that most Americans are stupid. Misinformed, yes. Ignorant, definitely. Undereducated... my God yes! It may upset us to admit it, but there are people out there who are just plain apathetic. It's not that they're stupid people, it's just that they don't care. I don't think that I'm stupid. And I take offense to anyone who says that "Americans" (as a blanket term) are. What I know that I am, however, is I am undereducated. I don't think this was by accident, either. Call it a conspiracy theory, but I think that somewhere in my learning, someone decided that I had learned enough, and then proceded to stop teaching me and my generation. When I look back on my education, it started off well enough. Teachers stopped teaching. I know that it was this because I hadn't lost the want to learn (that didn't happen until high school). Sure, my teachers were nice people, but they didn't seem very motivated to do the thing that they had been hired to do (i.e. teach). By the time I got to high school, the want to learn anything had been bled out of me. No joke, during my US government class we watched The Price Is Right. This was the class where I was supposed to learn how to be a citizen, but instead I learned that the Navy guy always wins the final showcase. In fact, I don't remember reading anything beyond the Preamble of the Constitution during my entire stay in public education. Funny, because so far as I've been able to tell, the Constitution is the owner's manual for the country. The writer of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, was an advocate of public education. In his Report of the Commissioners for the University of Virginia, Jefferson wrote what he felt that the objectives of a primary education should be. Jefferson wrote, " To enable to calculate for himself, and to express and preserve his ideas, his contracts and accounts, in writing... to improve by reading, his morals and faculties... to understand his duties to his neighbors and country... to know his rights". Jefferson felt that the purpose of an education was to teach people how to be citizens. "To form the statesmen, legislators and judges, on whom public prosperity and individual happiness are so much to depend". I don't see how my teachers could have looked themselves in the mirror every morning knowing that they had in no way taught their charges how to operate such a complicated machine as the United States of America. Maybe it's because vampires don't have reflections (ha, ha). I know that, if a child fails to learn, that oftentimes that child is blamed for not learning. But I know for a fact that at least until I hit the tenth grade that I wanted to learn. I loved reading. I still do. I remember that, when I was in elementary school, I used to win all sorts of RIF (reading is fundamental) awards, and I did it because if you read so many books during the school year, you'd get to pick out a book (for free!). But to say that my teachers were the ones that were lazy would be too easy. It was something beyond that. It seems that the unwillingness to teach went beyond one or two lazy teachers -- it was systemic. Someone didn't (or doesn't) want us to learn. They say that stupid people are easy to control. That when a dictatorship takes over a country, they get rid of the intellectuals first because the intellectuals are the people who are most likely to question what the dictatorship is up to. But in a democracy, there's the idea that everyone is equal. That everybody has a fair shot at success, no matter from what class a person comes from. If we work hard and we use our noggins, we can succeed. This sounds great, but there's this little economic program that we adhere to called capitalism. And as we all know, one of the big ideas in capitalism is scarcity. If everyone gets everything, then nothing is scarce. When you have an economy driven by want, people gotta want what they ain't got. Which menas some people ain't gonna get. So we can say that we're a meritocracy and that all it takes is elbow grease and the right education to get ahead, but the problem is, is that somebody out there has to clean the toilets and wipe gramp's butt at the nursing home. There has a disincentive to achieve built in the system. There has to be something that lets some get ahead and holds others back. But the real kicker is that nobody can know this. So we tell kids either a) that they can succeed no matter who they are or where they come from, or 2) (and I think this one happens more often than not) nothing. We simply stop educating them. Of course, we keep telling kids the old song and dance. The one I heard goes like this: Our democratic ideal are rooted in the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment stressed a break-away from the beliefs of the dark ages (in superstitions and scholaticism) to beliefs in science and progress and that man is ruled by reason. Through his rational mind, man can progress. This sentiment is most supremely expressed by Thomas Jefferson's statement in the Declaration of Independence "All men are created equal". Blah, blah, blah. We know now that when Jeffersin wrote that he was only a fourth telling the truth. We know that as the man wrote one of the greatest documents conceived from a human mind, he was probably looking out of one of his many windows at Montecello, with a full view of the slaves that labored in his fields. Of course, we know that in addition to Jefferson, that the Founders included the likes of James Madison, the "father" of the Constitution, and Alexander Hamilton, who, the more I read about, the more I'm a fan of Aaron Burr. Madison and Hamilton, who co-wrote the Federalist Papers with John Jay, believed that government was better rested in the hands of those who were fit to rule (think Plato's philosopher-kings, here), rather than allowing the people to rule. Hamilton wrote," ...our countrymen have all the folly of the ass and all the passiveness of the sheep". Hamilton continues,"All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are rich and well-born, the other the mass of the people... The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct permanent share in the government..." This is what Hamilton, the dude on the $10 bill, thinks of us. Democracy didn't get rid of the idea of an elite that rules while we, the rabble, sit passive like sheep, it merely hid it from view, and gave it a veneer of "choice". My favorite founder, Alexander Hamilton wrote," Can a democratic assembly who annually revolve in the mass of the people be supposed steadily to pursue the public good?". Not to be outdone, James Madison believed that "the more capable" should rule government, and that government should be led by a "benevolent philosopher". If the Enlightenment was at all inspired by the writings of the ancient Greeks, then for every Jefferson who wrote that the people should be educated to rule, there was a Madison or Hamilton who believed that to rule meant that one had to naturally be fit to do so. This idea hasn't changed. When i use the word "rule", I'm not talking about anything more than the ability of an individual to rule himself. Self-rule, believe it or not, is rooted in our ability to think for ourselves. And in turn, our ability to think for ourselves is rooted in our education. Of course, no one wants to admit that they believe in social Darwinism or that they believe in neo-platonist ideas of who is and who are not naturally fit to rule -- especially if one is a politician. So as politicians worry about campaign contributions, whether or not someone will uncover their secrets (whatever they may be) or the diatribes of Glenn Beck, so-called intellectuals need no be so quiet. Echoing the sentiments of Plato and Hamilton, Walter Lippman wrote "the public must be put in its place" and "responsible men... [must] live free of the trampling and the roar of the bewildering herd". People, according to Lippman, are "ignorant and meddlesome outsiders", who have no business getting in the way of those who run society, namely the elite. But things aren't so easily kept under control in the age of television and other multimedia. So how do you maintain an elite while people are able to figure out what you're doing? Simple. it is accomplished by the manufacturing of consent (Edward Bernays said that the engineering of consent is the "very essence of the democratic process"). You don't rule by the fist and the sword. You simply sway the public's interest from the important things, like paying attention to exactly who is running their country, to paying attention to the latest feud between Jon and Kate or what "Speidi" is up to lately. The Romans figured out that what the people really want is bread and circus. And that's exactly what we get. All the while, we hear that we live in a democracy and that we have the right to choose, and so long as we work hard and play by the rules, we'll get what we deserve. That's what we are made to believe. We're not educated with the idea in mind that we'll be better choosers in elections, we're educated so that we'll be better choosers of the next American Idol (I know, people pick on American Idol alot. So what? Do you think that Simon Cowell cares one damn that I hate his show?). When you live in a country where students at the University of Michigan riot because they stopped serving beer on campus (this actually happened), it's time to stop criticizing people like the French, who, when they riot, are actually rioting about something. The point is that it is exactly as President Obama said, when we are content with being uneducated, we not only shortchange ourselves, we undermine our country as well. If we are going to own this democracy, and if we intend to participate in it, it is our obligation to know how she works.To be the informed citizenry that Jefferson wrote about. To understand that, when Jefferson wrote "We the People", he meant all of us. We are not seperate from the government, but that the government is us. But then, none of what I'm saying hasn't been said before. But it certainly is worth repeating.

The Trouble With Democrats

President Obama is supposed to address the nation tonight about "health care reform". I cannot say quickly enough that I do not care. I used to be all jazzed up for the prez. I used to be for the Democrats in general, as I was and still am an unapologetic Liberal. I started to not care right around the time that Al Franken was finally seated as the senator from Minnesota. I think if I hadn't been in a state of I-don't-care-dom, I would have been more upset when Senator Kennedy passed away (you know what's kind of odd? Kennedy was in the senate longer than any of his brothers had lived. Food for thought). The Dems have the White House (which has made watching Glenn Beck all the more interesting), and both houses of congress. They say that there are more registered Democrats than Republicans nationwide. So why do I feel like I'm part of a loser party? I've noticed that even when the Republicans lose, they win. Even when they've been soundly trounced, they absolutely will not admit defeat. It's kind of like the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. He's there, with his arms and legs cut off, but he's still talkin' smack to Arthur. He won't admit that he's been defeated, even when it's clear that he can't fight. He believes that he can win -- and in a way, he does. The idea being that so long as you don't admit that you've lost, you haven't. Kind of like our strategy in Afghanistan. The strategy of non-admission is also a Repbllican strategy -- and an effective one at that. The idea to being successful, politically, even when you're on the losing end of the debate, is to "frame" the argument. You may have the lousiest argumen, but as long as it's taken up on your terms, you're halfway to winning the debate. Framing sets the tone. It says what language that we're going to use and how. Edward Bernays, the father of public relations, (and author of Propaganda!, Crystalizing Public Opinion, and The Engineering of Consent), said, "You have to know your public and figure out how to make it respond". Everything, Bernays and his brethren believed, is a matter of public relations, whether the poor folk out there know it or not. Bernays and his PR buddies invented the miracle of spin. Bernays, a nephew of Sigmund Freud, used his uncle's methods of psychoanalysis (that all human action was governed by unconscious desires) to sway the public's tastes and opinions. Here's a little on how Bernays thought: He believed that the public was a "herd to be led", and that "those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power in our country". Bernays believed that the crowd (that's you and me) isn't ruled by reason, but by the spinal cord. People, Bernays believed, are moved by appeals to the emotions, and not by rational arguments. Bernays believed that people were like herds of animals and therefore most responsive to leadership (that leadership, of course, that specializes in manipulation of the people's emotions). A perfect example of Bernaysian thinking is "The Mindmaker Song" from Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. No Kidding. Of course, the most successful spin artist never admits that he is spinning (which is why Bill O'Reilly calls his show a "No spin zone"). A true bullshitter calls himself a straight-talker, who is going to tell it like it is, because he knows that his audience will stand for nothing less than the truth. The Republicans have become especially good at pulling this off. Strangely, the Democrats have not. Democrats, unfortunately, seem to come off as a bunch of Barton Finks when they attempt this strategy. That is, they come off as fakers. Although Obama won the election and the Democrats have both houses, when polled, this country tends to trend to the center, if not towards the Right. We're a fairly conservative people. They say that Reagan appealed to Democrats during the 1980 presidential campaign by appealing to values instead of issues. That is, Reagan used appeals to the spinal cord rather than to the intellect to win against Jimmy Carter. Reagan appealed to the hard-workin' everyman, the blue-collar workers and the regular housewives of America. These people were the "silent majority" that Nixon courted when he was president. The majority of Americans who were plain folk who believed in down-home values and the simple life. They weren't a part of the, as the Conservative Club for Growth said of Howard Dean in 2004, "tax-hiking, government expanding, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, volvo-driving, New York Times-reading, body-piercing, Hollywood-loving, left-wing freak show". Reagan's Democrats were the people forced to accept Affirmative Action giving their jobs away. They were forced to pay for welfare queens, and to support gay rights, and white, heterosexual, male-hating feminists who wanted to promote abortion and an anti-Christian agenda. They were forced to accept God-hating atheists, tree huggers, bleeding-heart liberals, freedom-hating socialists of all stripes, activist judges, bureaucrats, overpaid government workers, illegal aliens, and unions. See how I framed that? How can you possibly carry on a sensible debate with anyone who says you're a man-hating anti-American socialist, who wants to open the borders and let anyone from anywhere come in and destroy this great land, what's left of America? It doesn't matter if you have a sensible plan for actually solving any problem ( a weak economy, rising crime, illiteracy, etc), if you lack the proper values, your argument is dead in the water. Values matter most. Reagan, and every Republican since, is a warrior in the "culture war". It's those who love God and country against all who wish to destroy this great union. They must defend family values (which are never quite defined -- I suppose for fear that many Republicans will be descovered as having violated them) against the culture-destroying influences of multiculturalism, diversity, and political correctness. The issues don't matter because no matter the issue, people who lack American values will always undermine liberty and democracy. Try as they might to stick to the issues, Democrats will always lose out. First, these issues are boring when you discuss them in terms of numbers and formal, logically sound arguments. Second, Republicans are not at all squeemish about wringing the arms of anyone who strays from the party line. They will betray their own. The Democrats, because they do things like thinking, are often subject to things like forgiveness and the 'let's give the guy a chance' way of thinking (which explains why Dems have been so nice about Joe Libermann).To get a good hear of what I mean, listen to Democracy Now!, then listen to Laura Ingraham. It won't take long to tell the difference. It seems that the Democrats have perfected a losing strategy. And this is the strategy: Democrats try to give reasons for what and why they believe. By reasons, I mean they attempt to give legitimate, rational, perhaps logically valid reasons for taking up or rejecting any position or point of view. This fatal flaw is rooted in the philosophy of the Enlightenment. Back in the 18th century or so, some dudes thought it would be really nifty to drop all that medieval thinking and actually use reason to discover things like truth and such. Kant said that the motto of the age should be "dare to know". This is the beginning of the problem -- knowing things, and encouraging other people to "know" things. All that knowing requires (all the epistemologists speak up) Truth. Truth is a necessary condition for knowledge. This is what the Dems do, they appeal to truth. The idea is, that given the right education (information or methodology for finding knowledge), a person would "arrive" at truth. They will decide wisely because they are thinking rationally. This is where they screwed up major. Allow me to demonstrate: the enlightened Liberal comes up with an argument somewhat like this: there are some premises, one of which will say something like, " people are reasonable". This will lead to a conclusion which will say something like, "therefore, people will make good judgments". But there's something wrong with this argument. Run the reductio! The problem premise is the mone I just named, that is, the assumption that people are reasonable. People aren't. In fact,people tend to be highly irrational (it's true, I looked it up). People often rationalize what they are doing, but are often highly irrational in what they do. By running the reductio, we're supposed to find the bad premise that forces us to doubt, if not throw out whether our argument is true. The bad premise leads us to conclude something that isn't true. But the Republicans don't even go that far. They don't bother with the argument at all. That's why the Republicans win. They know that relying on something like reason is impossible, so they go straight for the emotions. They know that if they scare the bejezus out of you (like telling you that your African-born president wants to indoctrinate your children to do his bidding) , that you will react in a certain way. You can construct all the pretty arguments you want, they'd say, but as Freud observed, anatomy is destiny. Preying on the public's psychological disposition will always yield the more sure-fire result. So what are the Democrats to do, 'cause what they've been doing isn't working. I'm sure that Obama will lay out some very good reasons for supporting whatever plan he lays out. But as long as he's competing with an opposition that merely yell "death panels" to win their side of the argument, he will never win. And winning is the point, isn't it? So what should they do? Whenever the Dems try to act like Republicans, they come off wrong. It always backfires. When they're sincere, they're bullshitting, and when they lie, it just makes things worse. Actually, I do have a solution. But to reveal it would peg me as an operative of the New World Order. No, I'm joking about that. Here's what I think, the Democrats should be doing. They should use the Republicans' favorite guy against them. If the Reps love capitalism so much, then we Dems should get into using their favorite dude, Adam Smith. Smith said in Wealth of Nations, " he will be more likely to prevail if he can interest their self-love in his favor, and show them that it is for his own advantage to do for him what he requires of them... it is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages".

Have You Ever Seen "Bound"?

I figured that I'd throw my 2 cents into the ring concerning the fight over whether gays and lesbians should be allowed to get married or not. First, I think what this whole to do about nothing is, at its core (and pittifully so) a semantic argument. We're not even arguing over the issue. We're arguing over a word. A world that, so far as I know, isn't copyrighted by any group so anyone is free to use it or any other word (I guess except for "threepeat") any way they see fit. As we define marriage, marriage is rooted in the notion of a monogamous, legally binding, relationship between two people, traditionally between a man and a womam. Of course, traditionally, according to some had entitled them to more than one spouse, be it more than one wife or more than one husband. Here, of course, that practice has been traditionally regarded as bigamy. Lets also not fail to mention that, before the advent of all this marrying for love business, most marriages were arranged, and that the bride is usually younger (sometimes quite significantly so) than her husband. In fact, this type of traditional marriage is still practice around the world. But, in all of this, marriage not only had a biblical or spiritual element, but also a legal one as well. Marriages are binding in that they cannot be dissolved by one or both parties merely deciding that they're marriage sucks and they'd rather not see each other ever again. (and if they did, it would be too soon). There's always some kind of authority that has say over whether you are married or not. In our case, marriages are subject to licensing -- like fishing, your firearms, or your pitbull. The fact that you both have to get a license to marry and/or pack heat is something to think about. That said, however, this is an important thing to consider -- whether it is morally (or legally) ok to treat a group of people differently, or deprive them of something that I, as a breeder, can do freely myself. That is important. When Prop. 8 was passed here in California, there was some to-do over exactly which Californians voted for the proposition. There was plenty of talk about how a high number of black voters voted in favor of keeping anything but straight marriage illegal. They said it's because many black folks are tied to churches, and although Liberal leaning, their moral compass is still firmly rooted in Christian ethics. I recall listening to a few talk radio shows where te hosts seem to be headed down the 'blame the darkies' path. Which is funny, because so many of those shows were on Conservative radio stations, which one would assume would also support Proposition 8. There were a few callers who told the hosts that, despite the fact that the local news outlets weren't saying so, there was a bit of hostility in the gay "community" at the betrayal at the hands of black voters. If I may digress for a moment here, I 'd like to say, that, despite (or maybe in spite) of my minorityness, I voted against Prop. 8. But I also have a problem with people who assume that the fact that I am a minority, that I must side with every other "oppressed" people's causes. Sometimes, I do not. Although I will say that the argument is at its heart a semantic issue (especially in light of the fact that many people who oppose gay marriage say that they support civil unions, which are, qualitatively speaking, the same as marriage.), I understand that there is a serious legal issue at stake. I think that it is wrong, ethically and legally to disallow anyone the opportunity to marry whomsoever they choose. Alright. I've already started to fiddle with the language. Instead of using the word "right", I wrote opportunity. I did this knowing that there are many who claim that gays and lesbians are assuming they have a right where no right exists. Unfortunately, this claim may have some merit. The United States Supreme Court has established that we have a right to reproduce and a right to not reproduce (as decided by Roe v. Wade). We have a right, if we decide to marry, to marry others of any other race than our own. But, we may not have an expressed right to marry. I assume that, on grounds of risking opening up a can of worms that no one wants to dael with, that very few people would want to challenge marriage as a fundamental right. Especially those who object to gay marriage on moral grounds. Saying there's no right to marry can complicate hetersexual unions as well. Secondly, I'm aware that there's the slippery slope argument that pops up whenever someone claims that we have a right to marry whoever we like. The immediate objection sometimes goes something like, 'what if I wanted to marry my goat?'. This is exactly what Rick Santorum tried to pull of some time ago. This argument is specious on the grounds that, even if the right to marry a goat was an option, most reasonable people would not marry farm animals. I mean, I have a dog, he's really cute and he's always glad to see me. But he's a dog. A not-so-minor qualification for marriage is that my spouse to be is a t least the same species! The same goes for those who claim that allowing homosexual marriage will lead to child molestation. First, let's get the stats out of the way. If you are molested, it's most apt to be at the hands of a relative. Second, most molesters tend to be self described as "straight". I think that there are a few states (and in some spots in Europe) where gays are allowed to marry. I don't think there was a rush on marriage licenses filed by 47 year old men wanting to marry 10 year olds. Likewise, I don't think that, people being rational, that instances of necrophillia will skyrocket if the unstraight are allowed to join in holy matrimony. Most people, I assume, object to gay marriage on some sort of moral grounds. Even those who say that they support gay rights generally (meaning that they think that gays should be allowed to join the military or that a person shouldn't be fired from their job because they're gay, etc.),they still assert that they believe in gay rights on "everything but marriage". I've heard this one alot. They say that marriage is something special. "Something special" traces back to God snatching one of Adam's ribs and making the worst mistake that God ever made, the wife. Womam was given to Adam by God, and they were bound to each other by divine decree. Anything else is ungodly. Ok, first, I'm not going to argue that that belief is just plain stupid (prima facie stupid), because I believe that people are entitled to believe whatever claptrap that they wnat about whatever deity that they wish to receive their orders from. If a head of cabbage wants you to dance the hokey pokey every morning for fifteen minutes, and you believe that your salvation depends on it, believe away. Maybe you'll drop a few pounds. But, where I draw the line is where people attempt to place their God's instructions on everyone else. This, of course, is notthing new. I'm simply saying that I don't appreciate someone trying to legislate morality. I also submit that there is some of this that is done. After all, I can freely walk up to any lunch counter and demand to be served. The fact that people had moral objections to racial discrimination led to the end of racially discriminatory behavior on the part of the law and private businesses. But, I realize that Americans, more so than being moral, are also pragmatic. (it's no wonder that the only school of philosophy contributed by America is pragmatism). Racial segregation, in the long run, isn't very useful. It's bad for business to keep people out on the basis of race. Sure, you can say that God hates racists (as well as you can make arguments that God loves those who keep to their own), but it's just as useful to say that being a racist is plain counterproductive. It causes more problems than it solves. Likewise, keeping marriage a heterosexuals-only institution is counterproductive. If you listen to the governator, the our state of California stands to benefit from revenue to be had by gays and lesbians flocking to the state to make their fornication legal. One could say that, to keep marriage restricted would be to deprive the state of much needed funds, and that is not exactly the moral thing to do, either. We can, and do, go around in circles till Jesus himself descends from a cloud and tells up what's up. The problem with making the moral argument is that someone can come back at you with their version of what morality should be. If I for instance, say that God does not condone the ordination of women clergy, I'm bound to be confronted by some Unitarian who emphatically objects to my assertion. we'll each claim that our God does or does not condone some activity. I can think of a half dozen sins, such as adultery or bearing false witness, that can be used as some grounds to deny people all sorts of rights -- if we use God as a grounds for doing so. If someone who is divorced wants to remarry, do we have the right to deny him on the grounds that his second marriage is adulterous? No, we do not. So let's get rid of the religious argument now, shall we? Besides, once someone admits that we have been rendering laws by way of the Bible, we're off to First Amendment challenge land. As a philosopher (excuse me, "philosopher"), I should say a word or two how keeping gays from getting married is unphilosophic, that is that a prohibition violates the philosophic principles upon which American ideas of freedom is based. At the heart of much of the American way of life is the idea that we are free individuals who have an inalienable right to choose. (Says so in the Declaration of Independence). The idea of choice, including the right to choose what makes us happy, is found in the works of Mill, Locke, and Kant. Man's freedom is based, in part, in determining the life path of his own choosing. He is not a truly free individual is he is thwarted in his attempt to live his life according to his plan. Now, I've used the word "happy". One may define "happiness" as a felt emotional state, as in the notion that strawberry milkshakes make me happy. (They do). But, "happiness" as defined philosophically, is more than what we feel. Happiness, for the philosopher, connects to what is Good (another ambiguous term). The good life is a life in which the rational individual flourishes (to borrow an idea from Aristotle). A part of flourishing is the cultivation of beneficial, meaningful relationships. I would not doubt that a stable, committed romantic relationship would contribute to one's flourishing. The philosopher John Rawls's "veil of ignorance" demonstrates how prohibiting gay marriage is philosophically damaging. According to Rawls, if we are to consider which laws we should adopt for our society, we should first cast ourselves in the veil of ignorance. Rawls asks, if we were born unaware of what we were to be, which rules would we adopt for our society? That is, if we did not know our race, gender, physical condition, sexual orientation, etc, would we cast laws that would discriminate against a group of whom we may be a part? The answer is no. If I did not know that I would be born a (fill in the blank here), would I make laws that would restrict the freedom or opportunities of that group? The answer is hell no. We would, and should, make laws that allow for the most freedom of everyone. That's the idea behind having the freedom to choose. The idea that a person cannot choose to do (or pursue) what makes him happy is inherently un-American. But that's just what some philosopher thinks, it's his opinion. And we all know about opinions.I can argue philosophy and waste daylight the same as one can take up religious arguments that take all day and solve nothing. The point is, is that our nation is a nation of laws -- and that's the only argument worth looking at -- the only one that's got even a snowball's chance of working. The bigger matter to be confronted is the plain fact that banning gay marriage is legally wrong. So lets look at the law, shall we? The 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause abides by the principle that all men are created equal under the law. Physical or biological differences, such as race, disability, or gender are insignificant according to the law. The courts have already determined that in the arena of employment that a person's sexual orientation is beyond the reach of the law. The Court's decision in Lawerence v. Texas declared that consentual, private sexual activity is protected by the 14th Amendment. The Court stated, " moral disapproval does not constitute a legitimate governmental interest under the equal protection clause". Simply put, the Court stated that whatever people choose to do in their own homes is their business, and should not be used to deny constitutionally protected rights. So, if one has an biblical objection to a married gay couple doing what comes naturally (in the privacy of their own bedroom), their objection has no legal merit and should not be used to interfere with a right to engage in a constitutionally protected activity (which is why it it important to determine if there is a constitutional right to marry). This isn't a matter of one group demanding "special" rights, but, like minorities and women before them, it's a matter of a group demanding that their rights be recognized. Sometimes, a legal decision establishing a right to a particular activity can be used to establish a right to another. Allow me to explain: In light of some dastardly (an highly morally objectionable) unconsentual sterilizations of poor, white Southerners during the early part of the last century, it was established that no citizen can be denied the right to bear have children. Citizens of the U.S. have a constitutionally protected right to reproduce. That was fine and dandy. But, it was soon discovered that some people, although they can have children, don't want to have children. So the question arose, 'can one be compelled to have childern even if one does not want them?'. Some assumed that a right to reproduce had a correlate: the right to reproduce implies a right to not reproduce. The question was finally answered with the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade, which established that the government had no power to compel individuals to have children. Some find a correlate to gay marriage in the debate over interracial marriage. The Supreme Court's 1967 decision Loving v. Virginia, struck down the last of the nation's anti-miscegenation laws. (I mention the year that the decision was reched by the court in interest in showing that it was a full century after the end of the Civil War before it was legal to marry a person of a different race in all 50 states). The Court recognized the fact that individuals are entitled to marry whoever they choose to marry, and that the state cannot prohibit individuals form marrying based on mere biological differences such as race. The Court ruled that the previous system of racial segregation based on the principle of seperate but equal violated an individual's freedom of choice. Mixed-race couples were treated significantly different than other, same-race couples in that they weren't allowed to marry based on mere biological differences. The Court found that to do so is unconstitutional and ended the legal practice of anti-miscegenation. Interracial couples won the right to marry based on the idea that two individuals who love and respect each other should not be denied the right to marry. Likewise, the fact that one's gender is a mere biological characteristic should not be a factor in determining whether homosexuals can marry. Modern science has proven that our sexual preference (s) may be one of dozens of traits that are biologically rooted and are as much a part of genetic make-up as our eye color, height, body type, or race. We cannot help being gay or straight any more than we can help being short, prone to baldness, or to high blood pressure (not to say that being gay is a malady akin to being bald or hypertensive). We would not support barring two individuals with different eye color from marrying based on the fact that the thought of a blue-eyed person marrying a brown-eyed person offends us personally. If we say that homosexuality is a personal choice and not a matter of biology (as many claim), the argument for allowing gays to marry is even stronger. If being gay is a choice, then being gay is no different from a person choosing to be a Republican or an anarchist, or choosing to be a vegan or a Catholic. If the thought of two vegan Catholic Repubilcans marrying offends me morally, and it does, I can't restrict their right to marry on the grounds that I merely disagree with how they choose to vote or what they choose to eat. To say that my moral sensibility trumps their right to marry in this case would be absurd. Likewise, to say that the fact that a gay person's behavior offends me should be a reason why they should not get married is equally outrageous. Lastly, we often hear that allowing gay people to marry is somehow akin to detonating a society-destroying atomic bomb. Allowing homosexual marriage will end civilization as we know it. But, here's the fact: there are places on this hellhole that we call earth where same-sex oriented people already possess the right to marry. That's right, no one can make any sort of argument without bringing in the European -- especially the Canadians and Scandanavians. Oh, wait -- did I just write that Canadians are Europeans? I think that I just proved somebody's point about Americans, eh? Anyway. In Denmark, where same-sex marriage has been legal since 1989, statistics show that rates of suicide, sexually transmitted disease, sexual promiscuity, and infidelity among homosexuals has decreased. In a declaration that certainly would not be music to many American ministers' ears, Denmark's clergy has declared that same-sex marriages have not destroyed marriage, but strengthened them. In other countries where same-sex unions have been legalized, such as the Netherlands, Canada, and Belgium are not societies on collapse, but in fact, thes countries often enjoy a higher standard of living than in the United States. Ultimately we cannot decide if allowing gays and lesbians to marry is harmful to society until we actually make same-sex marriage legal. To sum it up, I think that I agree with actress and Christian, Kristin Chenoweth, who told host Terry Gross of NPR's Fresh Air, "people are born a certain way, and God doesn't make mistakes". I think she's right. Besides, George Takei seems happy.

I Truly Hate the Well Intentioned

I usually try to stay away from political discussions. That's an odd thing, considering that I not only have a degree in political science (which, does not in any way qualify me to speak with authority about anything), but I truly get off watching politics and the political process. As a matter of fact, I've made it my habit to avoid any serious discussion about anything that I love or enjoy doing. I suppose there's some head shrinker's couch waiting for me somewhere. But what's got me, is the fact that everyone else seems to have an opinion about what's going on out there in Washington, and are freely expressing themselves -- for better or for worse -- all over talk radio, web logs, and at bus stops. I'm the weirdo who dodges political conversations (for god knows what real reason). Which , by the way, is why I haven't really said anything about our new Commander-in-Chief. If asked my opinion, I give my standard agnostic "we'll have to see". Meanwhile, I'm screaming a mile a minute inside my head all sorts of madness about Right-wing conspiracies, failed economic policies, and whether Plato had the right idea when he said that the rulers should lie to the public. As so many of my thoughts are motivated by conversations, I was thinking about how I felt -- not about whether I think that Obama will solve our economic troubles ( it sounds so trivial to call an impending global depression "troubles"), but about the man himself. A few days ago, I was watching "the View". Ann Coulter was on (god knows why) expressing her confusion over half-black notables who, despite being abandoned by their black fathers, seem to claim their black heritage while also abandoning their white parentage. I'm not going to say anything about Ann Coulter here, as there are lany people who rattle on about her in a negative manner. But, she did give a little food for thought. The food for me, it seems, wasn't why halfsies only claim one side, but the idea of half-whatevers at all. I thought of an email I sent to a friend not too long ago that brought up the topic of race mixing. Let me say now that I'm not against the mixing of races. I don't care who anyone marries as long as they are past the age of consent and the marriage wasn't some sort of forced marriage deal. That said, there are times when the well-intentioned can say things that... well, make you stop wondering why there are Ann Coulter's out there. A few months back, when the primaries were going on, I had a discussion with two other people about, which was at that time, the Obama candidacy. Ever the pessimist, I said that I was worried that some yahoo out there might want or attempt to do "something" to prevent Obama from taking the presidency. My conversation mates and I lamented the fact the the thought that someone may be so disturbed by having a black president to take up violent action had crossed each of our minds -- a sign that we are not as far from racism as we may like to think that we are. Somewhere, and I forget who, someone mentioned something about Obama's half white parentage. Now that I think about it, I think I mentioned the fact that hating Obama because he is black is sort of stupid because he isn't a fully black person. (I know, liberal drivel about we're all mixed anyway, blah, blah, blah...). I mentioned that I have several "goobacks" in my own family. ("gooback" is a term from the show South Park. It was used to describe people from the future who had interbred racially to the point that everyone had a tannish hue to their skin). Now, I consider myself a liberal. I'm into acceptance, not tolerance. I have no problem with the fact that my brother has chosen to create his own colony of goobacks, and as an American keenly aware of our past, I know that my own bloodline isn't "pure". But, there's a sentiment that I just cannot stand, and I heard it out of the mouth of one of my conversation mates. It's this: WE SHOULD ALL INTERBREED SO THAT WE GET SO MIXED UP RACIALLY THAT THERE WOULD BE NO WAY TO DISTINGUISH ONE RACE FROM ANOTHER AND SO WE'D END RACISM. Huh? You know, I've only heard this sentiment from the mouths of people who, although they express this truly endearing sentiment, never seem to live by the statement themselves.Or, worse yet, are the most racially isolated people that one would find. Now, I'm not saying that my conversation mate fits into either one of these categories, but from what I've seen, I wouldn't be at all surprised if they did. It's not even that the idea is wrong-headded or immoral. It's a perfectly good solution for a problem. In the absence of specific breeds, we can't discriminate against something that does not exist. I wanted, at that time, to ask that person who suggested that we all interbreed ( as that individual was a different race than I) if that person wanted to get down an start muddying up our gene pools right then and there. But, what overrode my sense of taking that person seriously was my disgust at what they had said. Sure, the sentiment seems like it's from someone who is anti-racist. But that's just it -- it's a sentimental, but ultimately meaningless statement. It's empty in the face that it's just not practicable. Unless you have some sort of forced reproduction program, my email friend wrote to me, people won't voluntarily interbreed with anyone. What about those who are "pure" ? Will they become some sort of social outcasts? Will they be illegal? There's this Dr. Seuss story called "the Sneetches". There are two groups of sneetches, one who have stars on their stomachs, and those who do not. The ones with "stars on thars" are the superior sneetches and those who do not are inferior. As with life, those who do not have want, and those who do have don't want the have-nots to have what they have. It all goes to shit when this dude comes around with a machine that can put stars on the non-starred sneetches. Pretty soon, no one can tell who is who. In the end, they realize that the stars don't matter. Unfortunately, people don't learn like Dr. Seuss characters do. Given a world of sameness, the inventive human will always find something. If not your race, then it's your height, or weight, or you're too cute, or not cute enough -- always something. That's why I found my conversation mate's remark so offputting. It's a cya thing to say. The worst of political correctness. Saying that we should breed out race sounds like you're one of the ones who isn't secretly carrying a confederate flag in his pocket, but, in turn, it reeks of the worst ersatz naivete well-meaning liberals often express. The kind that solves the problem by ignoring the problem. Instead of really confronting the reason behind something like racism, the response is to pretty up the situation by suggesting some kind of well-meaning, but unobtainable solution, that could happen, if people would only enlighten themselves or, more to the point, reject conservativism and become pacifica-listening progressives. I think I'm done with this one.

what can i do?

There was always some time left over. When I was a political science major, I always had time left over. You know, time when you could only fit in one or two classes in your major in your schedule, so the vacancy had to be filled with something. I chose philosophy. I decided that, since I was a poly sci major, and had no need for that philosophy crap, that I would take the easiest classes -- which meant restricting any philsophy class that i would take to the 190 level. Easy lifting. No biggie. But then, as what commonly happens, I realized that I had a knack for the stuff. Now, to this day, I wouldn't be able to tell you if I had a true knack for problems philosophical, or if I had a knack for bullshitting, but either way, I managed to do well. I managed to convince people that I was not only good at this philosophy, but that I actually liked it. I hadn't considered taking it on as a major until a couple of professors asked me if I was interested in becoming a philosophy major. I had always said that I was ploy sci through and through and that I was just doing philosophy as something of a hobby. That dodge worked -- for a while. I was in my last quarter when the recruitment happened. I had slugged my way through two and a half years of political science. I had a wild and raging love affair with the political process. I loved reading the Bill of Rights, I wanted to follow the path of Lee Atwater and Karl Rove. At least at that time I wanted to.... I was taking a class, which, because we had fallen so dreadfully behind, that ended up centering on David Hume. I hadn't really thought about the problem of induction, (as it was never a proble for me or anyone else I knew), but I enjoyed reading and thinking about something that some philosopher found so dreadfully important that was ultimately useless. I enjoyed the class less for it's philosophic importance, than more for the fact that it made me giggle at the fact that people actually got paid to study and teach all of this stuff that they had convinced themselves was of vital importance. (Reading this stuff was supposed to change my life, I think I had one heard). But, as I had a knack, I was recruited by a professor -- who suggested that I should become a philosophy major. I would be glad that I did, he said. Wrong. As of this date, I haven't really made any use of that damned philosophy degree, other than to get a couple of the obilgatory philosophy questions on Jeopardy!. Sure, I can tell you all about Hume's Fork or Xeno's Paradox, or muddle my way through a half explanation of Kant's Transcendental Idealism, but what use does that serve? Can it help me to fix a tire? Can it hurry the Minnesota recount and declare Al Franken the winner? Can it get me a job with a fair wage and a decent health plan? (The answer to that question is no). A couple of nights ago, my neighborhood had a blackout. I was sitting on the sofa with my dog, eating my dinner, and suddenly, all darkness. Luckily my nephew was just outside, and as he is a smoker, he supplied me with a lighter that I used to find my way to some candles. But for a moment, right after the lights went out, I was helpless. I sat peering into the darkness hoping that I would be able to feel my way to the stove where I could turn on one of the burners but suddenly realizing that the ignition is electric. I thought to myself, what if my nephew wasn't outside? what would I have done then? I would have sat in that dark room panicking until the power was restored. (which would have been a good 40 minutes). That's what I would have done. Last night, I was listening to "Coast to Coast". The guest was talking about what we would have to do to survive if technology failed us. We'd have to grow our own food, make our own shoes, even. I thought: my god, I can't do any of that. I can't do anything! I have so much education but absolutely no skills to show for it. If tomorrow it all hit the fan, I'd starve to death. Probably while clutching a copy of The Critique of Pure Reason. If my degree of usefulness determined whether I ended up someone's dinner in a raging blizzard, I'd be the first person eaten in the Donner Party. At least that way I'd been useful. Not too long ago, I was listening to former MTV vj Kennedy on her local radio show. Like myself, she is also a holder of a philosophy degree. She and her co-host were talking about what they would do if civilization as we know it collapsed and mankind was left to fend for itself. She asked, "What can I do?". She said that at that point she realized that having a degree in philosophy isn't exactly .... well.... impressive. It doesn't prepare or even instruct someone as to how to grow seeds or tan leather. Nada. If I recall correctly, Descartes was busy hiding from war while he was busy realizing that he existed. Now, this may be biting the hand that feeds, but I think that we could have all gotten along fairly well if Good Old Rene had actually gone off to fight instead of hiding in his nightgown staring at a piece of wax. I'll be the first to admit that if I were in a life raft adrift on the ocean I'd likely hike the philosopher overboard in favor of saving the botanist or the EMT. Sure, I could say that it's the philosophers who build civilizations, and I could point to Plato or Aristotle to show for it. Ok, that excuses them. But how do I excuse myself? Except to claim that my utilitarian value to society is dinner.