All who follow a code of ethics or principles are self-governors. Our system is meant to protect the self-governors from those without ethics and principles, perpetrators of fraud, rape and violence. The state does not run the affairs of people in a free society. It upholds justice between people who conduct their own affairs.

The above was written by Colleen McCool of McCool Portraits & Political Commentary.

It is my opinion that those who can should be doing as much as they can for those who can’t. What used to be called noblesse oblige. Besides if you are an engineer there is good money in it. The image of Edison in the video struck a chord with me because of my work on Bringing A Little Light To The World™.

Quite innocently, I went to Memeorandum earlier and clicked on the top link, which is headlined

Book bombshell: Obama canceled Bin Laden ‘kill’ raid three times at Jarrett’s urging

Just wanted to read it, OK? The link was supposed to go to the Daily Caller, of which I’m a regular reader. Instead of being directed there, I got this scary-looking icon:

Reported Attack Page!                                                            This web page at dailycaller.com has been reported as an attack page and has been blocked based on your security preferences.
Attack pages try to install programs that steal private information, use your computer to attack others, or damage your system.Some attack pages intentionally distribute harmful software, but many are compromised without the knowledge or permission of their owners.

Odd, because my antivirus is usually very sensitive (if anything, overly sensitive) to malware-infected pages, and it it had done nothing at all.

So I clicked on the “Why was this page blocked?” button, which directed me to a purportedly helpful “Google Advisory” which stated this:

Safe Browsing

Diagnostic page for dailycaller.com

What is the current listing status for dailycaller.com?

Site is listed as suspicious – visiting this web site may harm your computer.

Part of this site was listed for suspicious activity 3 time(s) over the past 90 days.

Listed? Precisely what does that mean? Listed by whom?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Thinking it might just be a Firefox problem, I clicked on the same link from Google Chrome, and this time, the warning was even more menacing:

Warning: Something’s Not Right Here!
dailycaller.com contains malware. Your computer might catch a virus if you visit this site.
Google has found malicious software may be installed onto your computer if you proceed. If you’ve visited this site in the past or you trust this site, it’s possible that it has just recently been compromised by a hacker. You should not proceed, and perhaps try again tomorrow or go somewhere else.
We have already notified dailycaller.com that we found malware on the site. For more about the problems found on dailycaller.com, visit the Google Safe Browsing diagnostic page.

If you understand that visiting this site may harm your computer, proceed anyway.

Should I, um, proceed?

What I want to know is has the Daily Caller actually been infected with malware, or has someone only reported it as infected?

There’s just something about the highly political nature of the article which raises my suspicions that politics might just somehow be involved.

MORE: It isn’t just the article that is being flagged by the Google advisory. Even the Daily Caller home page triggers the warning.

Maybe I’ll try using Ubuntu and see what happens.

AND MORE: Just booted up the basement computer in Ubuntu 11.04 and both the Daily Caller link and the website work fine. But on this computer, running Windows XP, it is still blocked.

Hmmm…

Is this a Windows only issue?

AND EVEN MORE: Just tried a different computer, a more modern machine running Windows 7. The Daily Caller main page and the link are still blocked in Firefox, but open fine in Chrome. On this computer, no such luck with either Forefox or Chrome. Next step is to reboot both browsers.

I’m very curious about this.

AFTER REBOOT: Still no change in either browser. Every other website I’ve been to this morning works fine, so I doubt it’s a browser or computer issue.

I suspect someone does not want traffic going to the Daily Caller.

MORE: Google very helpfully makes it a snap to report a malware-infected site. All you do is enter the URL and fill in the capcha!

And at the Democratic Underground, a discussion of what’s being called a “nasty new troll attack” as well as an observation:

There has to be a technological fix for this problem of politically motivated false malware reports

for this problem of politically motivated false malware reports.

If the webmasters of targeted sites had an easy way to complain to Google about false malware reports, then Google could run its own sophisticated scans of the site and remove the false reports.

Is Google aware of the problem?

I don’t know, but I was glad to see that Memeorandum had bumped this story (which had moved down) back to the top.

No doubt the unbiased techies at Google are working hard to fix the problem.

(Meanwhile, I’m intrigued as to why the Google warnings don’t work in Firefox in Ubuntu.)

UPDATE: I am not alone in noticing this:

It is evident that someone on the left was sufficiently angry and alarmed by the Daily Caller’s scoop that a false malware complaint was filed to deter traffic.

And this:

For those of you having trouble getting into The Daily Caller, @DailyCaller reports on Twitter, that they came under malware attack. They claim to have ” turned back the enemy & reclaimed our land. Site is safe to visit. Thanks 4 your patience.”

-I’m still seeing the Attack Site notice, however.-

There are no coincidences is politics, folks.

And of course the unbiased techies at Google are no doubt working hard to solve the problem

I have touched on this a time or two in the past but since Pat Buchanan brings it up I thought I’d touch on it again. What is the most popular socialism in America? Moral Socialism or Economic Socialism. First let me quote some from Pat.

In his New York Times report, “In California, GOP Fights Steep Decline,” Adam Nagourney delves into the reasons.

In the Golden Land, a state Nixon carried all five times he was on a national ticket and Reagan carried by landslides all four times he ran, the GOP does not hold a single statewide office. It gained not a single House seat in the 2010 landslide. Party registration has fallen to 30 percent of the California electorate and is steadily sinking.

Why? It is said that California Republicans are too out of touch, too socially conservative on issues like right-to-life and gay rights. “When you look at the population growth,” says GOP consultant Steve Schmidt, “the actual party is shrinking. It’s becoming more white. It’s becoming older.”

Race, age and ethnicity are at the heart of the problem. And they portend not only the party’s death in California, but perhaps its destiny in the rest of America.

Consider. Almost 90 percent of all Republican voters in presidential elections are white. Almost 90 percent are Christians. But whites fell to 74 percent of the electorate in 2008 and were only 64 percent of the population. Christians are down to 75 percent of the population from 85 in 1990. The falloff continues and is greatest among the young.

Moral Socialism is a declining force in American politics. We see that in the coalition that is currently winning the battle for marijuana legalization in Colorado.

Bipartisan support for legalizing marijuana and regulating it like alcohol in Colorado? This is quite encouraging and fascinating (in California, you may recall, there was bipartisan opposition from the blue and red teams).

We saw that in the Obama/Keyes match up in Illinois. I personally voted for Obama because I preferred Economic Socialism to Moral Socialism. Not that I wouldn’t like to end both but I was given a choice and made one.

And the Republican Party in Colorado is split.

Conservatives are split on the proposed amendment. Opponents, led by Republican Attorney General John Suthers and Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck, argue that legalizing marijuana would promote increased drug use and impaired driving, while setting up Colorado for a legal skirmish with federal authorities.

Other conservatives, like former U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, have argued that regulating marijuana would be a better use of government resources, and that adults should have the personal freedom to make their own decisions about marijuana as they do with alcohol.

“Whether it’s a matter of it being a waste of resources on an ineffective policy, or it being a policy promoting an underground market, it’s also a personal liberty issue for many people who feel alcohol prohibition did not work and marijuana prohibition is not working,” Tvert said.

Republicans seem to love black markets. They seem intent on recreating one for abortion. I love the quote at the end of this piece.

…we love this idea of prohibitions, we can’t live without them. They are our very favorite thing because we know how to solve difficult, social, economic, and medical problems — a new criminal law with harsher penalties in every category for everybody.

Well maybe not so much any more. Colorado is a harbinger.

So how can the Republican Party have a future? It will have to give up Moral Socialism. This rally report shows the direction. The kids are flocking to Ron Paul. In liberal Illinois.

As I often tell my Moral Socialist friends. Government can no more make us moral than it can make us prosperous. And let me add that it is dangerous to try. As a commenter pointed out here.

I have never taken any illegal drug, yet I oppose the drug war. The main reason is the way it is used to infringe on our rights. Asset forfeiture, gun laws, laws to reduce the standards for searches, a myriad of infringements to help “win ” the war on drugs.

Liberty or death. Pick one.
 

Considering its reputation, most Americans do not think of the San Francisco Bay Area as a particularly prudish place. At least, not where it comes to public human displays of sexuality.

Well, if this story is any indicator, prudishness is very much alive and well in the area, at least where it comes to outdoor structures. Acting on complaints from phallophobic neighbors, bureaucrats in Alameda County have enabled and empowered their penis paranoia by ordering the redesign of a call phone tower so that it looks less “phallic.”

I kid you not. Here’s the photo:

And the accompanying caption:

Technicians work on T-Mobile’s cell tower on Thursday, July 26, 2012 in Castro Valley, Calif. Alameda County code enforcement officers has forced T-mobile to add “branches” to make T-Mobile’s cell tower resemble a tree and to look less phallic. Photo: Yue Wu, The Chronicle / SF

Sorry, but I think you really have to be a paranoid phallophobe (or maybe on hallucinogens) to see the above as a penis. If it looks like anything, I’d say it might resemble a microphone.

I think these people are in need of some sort of sensitivity training, or at least in need of an education in what a genuinely phallic structure looks like. I happen to live only a few miles from the Ypsilanti Water Tower:

Now that’s phallic. And, far from generating phallophobic bigotry, it is much loved as a landmark. The tower is featured on local postcards like this (which no visitor to the area should forget to send to the folks back home):

And as a local source of humor:

A long-standing urban legend holds that the tower will crumble if a virgin ever graduates from nearby Eastern Michigan University.

Such blatant insensitivity! And at Wikipedia, no less! Where are the phallophobes when we need them?

Hey, do you think if someone sent the above postcard to the Alameda County Phallus Police, they’d launch a harassment investigation?

These days, we can’t be too careful, especially with humor!

I mean, seriously.

Eric and I were discussing the need to beat Obama. He thought that libertarians should bend over backwards to see that Obama was defeated. I had a little different point of view.

=====

I agree with you generally on beating Obama. But I also think it is unwise to let them get too comfortable with our support. They will double cross us like they do to members of their own team. You know – the “where else will you go?” attitude.

We must make them work hard to keep our support. Which is why I like to throw in the occasional jab.

The weakest member of a coalition determines the politics of the coalition. Despite what the majority thinks.

Libertarians are starting to gain enough power that they are shifting both parties. And we are just at the beginning of that shift.

We must act like independent cats not like loyal dogs. Sometimes when they call we must not respond.

Tom’s piece really got me thinking.

Commenter Joseph Hertzlinger comes up with the standard social conservative objection to my position on abortion. He thinks that the understanding that the fetus is a person is a brand new idea. Well brand new in terms of human history. Read the comments at the “Joseph Hertzlinger” link to get up to date on the Jewish position on abortion. Or read this: The Jewish Position On Abortion.

In any case, the claim that a child is not a person a moment before birth and is a person a moment after birth should be taken no more seriously than the claim that the universe is six thousand years old. If we can squeeze 19th-century paleontology into Judaism, we can squeeze 19th-century embryology into Judaism.

My reply to Joseph (revised and extended):

Joseph,

The idea that embryology creates a new fact contradicts what Hippocrates knew 2,500 years ago. And the long interaction between the Jews and the Greeks would indicate that the Jews got the message no more than 100 years after Hippocrates proclaimed it.

The Jewish idea stems from the fact that until the baby starts exiting from the mother that it is her property. The alternative is that the mother is the property of the State when she is pregnant. The Jews have a long libertarian tradition (mostly forgotten in practice) but you can read about it in Samuel.

=====

In fact Jesus was in part a reaffirmation of Jewish libertarianism. Which was corrupted by the Council of Nicaea. Clever those Romans.

=====

The Christians don’t even know their own tradition. I think it is because they are ignorant of the Jewish tradition. It is why I often not so jokingly say. “Time to get back to the old time religion. If it was good enough for Jesus it is good enough for me.”

===

There is no doubt that Jesus as a learned man knew of the Hippocratic Oath. And yet in the New Testament there is not one mention of abortion. You might want to ask yourself why. Might it be that he agreed with the Jewish position?

Cross Posted at Power and Control

Well this IS a surprise.

DENVER—It’s not just long-haired hippies and Bob Marley fans who want marijuana regulation in Colorado—it’s also some red-blooded conservatives in suits and ties.

That was the scene Thursday in Denver when a group of conservatives, headed by Joe Megyesy, former communications director for GOP Congressman Mike Coffman, met with representatives from The Campaign to Regulate Marijuana like Alcohol to discuss the issue of marijuana regulation and Amendment 64.

“I just think marijuana prohibition is another failed policy of big government,” Megyesy said. “There’s a better way to deal with it: treating it, taxing it and regulating it like alcohol is a better way to handle it where we currently are.”

Also in attendance at the information session was Amendment 64 campaign guru Mason Tvert, who said there’s no reason marijuana regulation can’t have bipartisan backing.

“Ultimately, support for ending marijuana prohibition spans the political spectrum,” Tvert said. “We have, for example, people like Pat Robertson, an evangelical, conservative leader, who has voiced support for ending marijuana prohibition and treating it like alcohol; then we also have people like [liberal congressman] Barney Frank, who also say we should end marijuana prohibition and treat it like alcohol.”

The Liberty Papers has a good look at the 61% of Colorado voters who support legalization.

Bipartisan support for legalizing marijuana and regulating it like alcohol in Colorado? This is quite encouraging and fascinating (in California, you may recall, there was bipartisan opposition from the blue and red teams).

This isn’t to say there that Amendment 64 will sail through unopposed. There are anti-64 groups mobilizing so those of us who want to see 64 pass cannot be complacent. Also, with about five and a half months until election day, anything can happen.

If you want to help the legalization side you can sign up here. Be sure to click on the twitter or Facebook or e-mail icons at the bottom of the page and get your friends on board.

I’d like to know why there has been so little media inquiry into what medications the Colorado shooting suspect was on.

Now that it has finally made it into the news that he was in fact seeing a psychiatrist, there is still no news about what meds he was taking, and what they might have been. The only reporting surrounds the much-demonized painkiller Vicodin, which many analysts have noted is hardly the sort of drug that triggers violent rampages.

I’d like to know whether he was on SSRI drugs of the sort that are commonly prescribed. He was seeing a psychiatrist, and the way they prescribe meds these days, it would seem very unusual if he wasn’t given meds. So a more fair question is not whether he was on meds, but simply, what meds was he on?

Inquiring minds want to know, and the sooner the better, because the topic is generating some nasty paranoid conspiracy theories. Like this:

People don’t get it. The media don’t get it and they don’t want to get it. Billions of dollars are riding on the drugs Dr. Lynne Fenton may have prescribed to her patient, James Holmes, the accused Batman shooter.

And when billions of dollars in potentially lost revenue are hanging in the balance, the interested parties take action. They’re serious about their money. They don’t screw around.

You see, if James Holmes was, for example, taking Prozac, all of a sudden no one wants to take it. If doctors prescribe it to patients, the patients say, “Hey, wasn’t this the drug that nutcase took before he killed all those people in the theater?”

And that’s not all. Congress holds hearings, not because they want to, but because they want to look like they’re doing the right thing. And at those hearings, all sorts of nasty stuff comes out about Prozac. It’s big news. The studies that showed the drug was dangerous, that it could and would cause people to commit suicide and homicide. Boom. More bad press for the manufacturer. More investigations. More lost revenue.

So right now, in Aurora, there are pharmaceutical people on the scene. Not just low-level goofballs, but competent investigators. They want to know what drugs James Holmes was prescribed. They need to know. And behind the scenes, people with clout are making phone calls. These pharma types are talking to government agents and it’s crazy time and damage-control time, and nobody is laughing. This is a high-stakes game. WHAT DRUGS WAS HOLMES TAKING?

I don’t like to subscribe to paranoid conspiracy theories, but I don’t think it’s fair to be putting Vicodin (which a number of activists already want banned) on the chopping block without looking at the big picture.  And IMO, this approach is not the best way to quell paranoid speculations:

[Judge] Sylvester has imposed a gag order on the lawyers and law enforcement agencies involved in the Holmes case, sealed court records and barred the university from releasing relevant public records to the media. The Washington Post and other news organizations are contesting his order.

Already, there are reports that his doctor (former military physician who runs the student mental health service) has been disciplined for keeping inadequate records regarding patient meds:

DENVER — The psychiatrist who was seeing Aurora movie theater shooting suspect James  Holmes, was reprimanded by the Colorado Board of Medical Examiners in 2005. Dr. Lynne Fenton was reprimanded in February 2005 for prescribing medication to herself,  her husband and an employee, according to documents obtained by 7NEWS.

The medications were prescribed in the late 1990s and included prescriptions for Vicodin, Xanax, Lorazepam and Ambien.

According to the document, Fenton did not maintain a medical chart or enter appropriate entries for the charts relating to herself, her husband or the employee.

As part of the reprimand, Fenton completed more than 50 hours of medical training and had to promise not to prescribe medications for family members and employees.

It’s not known if Fenton prescribed any medications for Holmes while she was treating him.

I hate to sound paranoid, but I strongly suspect that it is known.

But some people don’t want the news getting out, because they fear that it will fuel more speculation like this:

The Columbine High School massacre took place on April 20, 1999 at Columbine High School in Jefferson County, Colorado. Eric Harris and Dylan Kybold shot and killed 12 students and a teacher before taking their own lives. They injured 21 other students. It was then reported that Eric Harris had been rejected from joining the military because he was being treated with an SSRI medication called Luvox. Harris had been taking Luvox for a year while developing his plans for mass murder. Toxicology reports released by the drug maker showed that Harris had therapeutic levels of Luvox in his system at the time of the shootings.  Jeff Wise, a teenager who killed nine people before committing suicide had been taking large dosages of Prozac. A relative of Mr. Weise said that his dosages had been increased in the weeks leading up to the shooting, a reoccurring factor in SSRI induced suicides. In 1989, Joseph Wesbecker shot and killed eight co-workers and himself. He had been taking Prozac.  Cho Seung Hui, a 23-year-old Virginia Tech senior killed thirty-two people and wounded many others before committing suicide. It was reported that investigators believed he may have been prescribed medication for depression.

The common factor connecting all of these shooters is the use of SSRIs prior to the shootings.  Could it be possible that the SSRI was the catalyzing factor in driving these school shooters over the edge?  Could an increase in dosage have triggered Jeff Wise’s shooting spree? Preexisting mental illness in combination with SSRI induced emotional blunting, mania, and suicidal desires could have been the perfect recipe for these high casualty school shootings.

Again, I have no idea whether the shooter had been taking SSRIs. But what raised my suspicion was that the focus on Vicodin seemed like a distraction.  Especially when coupled with the gag on releasing his medical records.

I’m reminded of rampage killer Jared Loughner:

Elsewhere, Dr. Whitaker discusses the common thread between the Columbine High School shooters, spree shootings at a community center in Los Angeles, two brokerage firms in Atlanta, and a printing plant in Kentucky: SSRI antidepressants.   Every one of those shootings was perpetrated by people taking Prozac, Zoloft, Luvox, Paxil, or a related antidepressant drug. The medical records of Jared Lee Loughner, who killed six people and injured fourteen others, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, have not been released. What is clear is that he suffered from depression and had a sudden and dramatic change in personality around 2006. His behavior on January 8 is frighteningly similar to many who take SSRIs.

Media reports at the time focused on Loughner’s pot smoking. (Again, a drug not noted for inducing violent behavior.) It seems to me that if the question of whether a suspect was on drugs is made relevant, the inquiry should be on all the drugs he was on, and not just familiar substances which conveniently push distracting hot buttons in that endless distraction called the Culture War.

Under the circumstances, the question “What drugs was he taking?” seems eminently fair.

Tom Bridgeland was commenting at my cross post of Why Do Conservatives Misunderstand Libertarians and left a link to his look at the same subject from a more social view point. He looks at it from the viewpoint of cats and dogs. In his view we have two dog parties (and yes I do personally consider them both dogs) and a cat party. Which corresponds to my view of the political scene: Democrats, Christian Democrats, and libertarians.

His post is: Libertarians Fail Because They Don’t Understand Human Nature. Go read the whole thing. I left a couple of comments there (if they have posted) and also at my cross post of “Why Do Conservatives….” if you want to follow my thinking on the matter.

One other point – the dogs need a few cats in each election to win. The problem is that the dogs tend to think that if they have won the cats for an election that they own the cats. Forgetting that cats can’t be owned. Thus they double cross the cats and the cats defect. Cats are only loyal to results. Stupid dogs.

For those interested – the post of “Why Do Conservatives….” at Classical Values can be found here.
 

This is a response to my piece Romney Is Trying To Lose The Election.
 
 

And then there is this 74 Percent of Americans, Including 67 Percent of Republicans, Want Obama to End Medical Marijuana Crackdown. I guess Romney and Obama are in a race to see who can lose the worst on this issue.

I just finished watching the opening of the Olympics. It was a crassly political musical extravaganza, dominated by leftist memes (“multicultural crap” according to British critics), such as the portrayal of life in rural England as idyllic and the Industrial Revolution as invasive and barbaric. I guess the authors never heard of feudalism.

Coming up — I am told — is some sort of celebration of socialized medicine in England.

More proof that the left has seized control of sports I do not need, and if this is coupled  with the message that any victories or achievements — no matter how hard or how long the athletes sweated and suffered for them — may be at any time be later erased and taken away, I’d say the overall message is aimed at Americans as well.

Anyway, ceremony so far strikes me as so moronic as to dwarf any of whatever “gaffes” Romney is being pilloried for.

I can’t believe ordinary sports fans have sat around and allowed the Olympics to be hijacked by the left.

(Actually, yes I can.)

MORE: In case anyone is wondering how the Olympics opening ceremony could become such a heavy-handed exercise in manipulation, here’s how Olympic Artistic Director Danny Boyle sees his role:

All these directors — Martin Scorsese, John Woo, M. Night Shyamalan — they were all meant to be priests. There’s something very theatrical about it. It’s basically the same job — poncing around, telling people what to think.^[4][5]

At least he admits it.

The problem with me is that I don’t like being told what to think, damn it.

And I certainly didn’t turn on the Olympics in order to be told what to think.

And I find myself wondering about something else. Might such people later erase the wins of athletes who might later voice opinions deemed unacceptable?

UPDATE: This morning’s Drudge headlines:

SLUMDOG OLYMPICS...
Dancing nurses, bouncing sick children, huge hospital beds...
Opening Ceremony reflects 'deeply left-leaning sensibilities' of producer Boyle...

I guess I wasn’t alone in being annoyed.

AND MORE: As to the American Olympian who yelled “BABA BOOEY!”, while I see that he is facing criticism for it, the outburst strikes me as an appropriate response to the overall idiocy of the event.

Polls show that 65% to 80% of Americans support medical marijuana. What is he thinking? And people in his state? That would be Utah I guess. Because voters going to the polls in Massachusetts will be voting on the issue in November. These days such issues normally pass. So where is Romney getting his information from? Mormon headquarters?

I hear coffee, tea, alcohol, and tobacco are gateway drugs too. Not to mention mother’s milk with its cannabis analogs.

A regular commenter said something yesterday that I can’t quite put out of my mind:

…when one of the co-bloggers (Gabriel Malor) posted a piece this morning condemning Boston and Chicago for their blatant flouting of the 1st Amendment, yet also noting that he personally did not patronize Chick-fil-A because of the owner’s views, the commenters almost universally excoriated him, calling him everything from a “libtard” to a “Kos Kid” to a “knob-gobbler” and worse. All because he didn’t hew to the conservative line on one single issue.

I used to think that conservatives were more tolerant then liberals regarding such differences of opinion. But after reading the hateful invective that was spewed at Mr. Malor, I realized that the seething, irrational hatred is still there, bubbling below the surface.

It made me realize that there is no party where I truly fit in, no group whose politics match my own. Both sides are bastards, plain and simple.

To quote Professor Farnsworth of Futurama, “I don’t want to live on this planet anymore.”

I often feel the same way, but I’m stuck here, at least for the time being.

However, the whole Chick-fil-A affair provides a fascinating lesson in the psychology of backlash, and yesterday Sarah had a great post in which she warned gay marriage advocates (of which she is one and I am not, BTW) that their behavior was threatening to direly harm their cause and make them look ridiculous:

What are you going to do for an encore? Go after every business in this country that’s owned by a religious person? Till – what? – everyone in the nation turns against you and buys a roll of duct tape to shut you up?

Guys, when you get to the point of getting on MY nerves, you’ve lost the plot.

Go ahead, shake your little fists, why don’t you? The people united shall never eat chick-a-filla. Man, those are logical and convincing arguments!

Never mind those strings moving you around and never, never look up to see who’s making you dance. Oooh, you’re so hip and cool now. Just a part of the “in” crowd.

Keep this up and in ten years the only place gays will have a role will be in comedy, as the hysterical, irrational comic relief.

That is the way backlash works. Despite all my best attempts to be logical, I too, am susceptible to letting my anger over an attack (and concomitant sympathies towards the target of it) influence my thinking. For example, a blizzard of anti-gay marriage emails so pissed me off that I asked in the blog whether they were actually trying to get me to change my quirky position.

But it really shouldn’t work that way. The President of Chick-fil-A is brave to hold his ground despite all sorts of public pressure, and it is dreadful to see his business persecuted for it by the government. But that has nothing to do with whether he is right.

Suppose a mob attacked a Muslim woman for wearing a head cover and violently tore it off. That might incline a lot of people to sympathize with her and be angry at the perpetrators. But it would have nothing to do with whether women should wear headgear, would it?

The problem is that in many people’s eyes, it would. I could easily see non-Muslims wearing Muslim headgear in sympathy, and deciding that the wearing of headgear was the right thing to do — simply because a woman was persecuted for it. (That they would not wear crucifixes in support of, say, a nun who had the same thing happen is grounded in oikophobia, but that’s another form of irrationality beyond the scope of this post.)

Last night a friend told me that I was brave for taking a public position against something in my neighborhood that nearly everyone else seems to be for. I don’t want to discuss it here, as the issue is irrelevant. But whether I was brave or not — what does that have to do with the validity or non-validity of my position?

Nearly two millenia ago, wiser Romans warned against the persecution of early Christians — not because they were sympathetic to them but because they understood that persecuting people generates sympathy. And it did. Had the wiser Romans been heeded and had Rome allowed Christianity to flourish unmolested, who knows what would have happened? Did persecution of Christianity render Christianity “right”? I fail to see why it would. An idea, an opinion, or a belief system is either right or it is not.

If someone throws a brick through my window because he disagrees with me, it does not make my opinion right. Violating the First Amendment rights of a speaker doesn’t make what he says right.

This is basic logic, right?

So then, why do people so often see persecution as somehow breathing truth into the persecuted beliefs?

Is it magic?

MORE: In a curious coincidence, I recently stumbled onto something about Chick-fil-A I find more offensive than their position on gay marriage. It seems they think they own the words “EAT MORE” and that only they can use them.

A folk artist expanding his home business built around the words “eat more kale” says he’s ready to fight root-to-feather to protect his phrase from what he sees as an assault by Chick-fil-A, which holds the trademark to the phrase “eat mor chikin.”

Bo Muller-Moore uses a hand silkscreen machine to apply his phrase, which he calls an expression of the benefits of local agriculture, on T-shirts and sweatshirts. But his effort to protect his business from copycats drew the attention of Chick-fil-A, the Atlanta-based fast-food chain that uses ads with images of cows that can’t spell displaying their own phrase on message boards.
In a letter, a lawyer for Chick-fil-A said Muller-Moore’s effort to expand the use of his “eat more kale” message “is likely to cause confusion of the public and dilutes the distinctiveness of Chick-fil-A’s intellectual property and diminishes its value.”

Chick-fil-A, which trails only Louisville, Ky.-based KFC in market share in the chicken restaurant chain industry, has a long history of guarding its trademark, and the letter listed 30 examples of attempts by others to co-opt the use of the “eat more” phrase that were withdrawn after Chick-fil-A protested. The Oct. 4 letter ordered Muller-Moore to stop using the phrase and turn over his website, eatmorekale.com, to Chick-fil-A.

Muller-Moore, 38, of Montpelier, says he won’t do that.

Well, good for him. If Chick-fil-A does not think we are free to write “EAT MORE KALE,” then I’ll still defend their First Amendment rights, but I find myself less sympathetic to their claim to moral superiority.

It doesn’t make me want to eat more kale though. Must be something wrong with me.

Maybe I should have my backlash mechanism professionally examined.

A gang of us over at Talk Polywell were discussing my recent post Emotional Decision Making.

One commenter left a link to Why Liberals Misunderstand Conservatives. Well that got me thinking, “Why do conservatives misunderstand libertarians?” Naturally I added a few words on the subject to the discussion.

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For example, one of the leading approaches to the study of political attitudes states that political conservatism is a form of motivated social cognition: people embrace conservatism in part “because it serves to reduce fear, anxiety, and uncertainty;…

From: http://sentimentsofrationality.blogspot.com/2006/04/why-liberals-misunderstand.html

If you have been following along some of the other threads that is exactly the point I have been making about some of our conservative friends.

They hate that.

Politics is in the main a fear driven activity. To get meta to it you have to be mostly free of fears. i.e. you can’t let your gut drive your thought. It leaves you without reason.

Carl Sagan looked at that in his “The Dragons of Eden” book.

When we live in fear we are little better than animals.

Which is why conservatives hate libertarians. “What? You are not afraid of X? What is wrong with you?” In fact just telling them they should be free of fear (it was at one time referred to as “Trust In God”) drives them into a frenzy. Which gives a fine object lesson to the lurkers.

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Then I added a comment to the “Why Liberals Misunderstand Conservatives” site. Reprized at Talk Polywell with a few prefatory remarks:

My attitude is: what ever comes up I will deal with it. What is the point of being afraid?

Here is a comment I left there:

You don’t get libertarians. They are not morally impoverished. They are free of fear (mostly).

Which makes them a whole other animal compared to the left or the right.

In a different age it would have been said “They Trust in God”. So important it is even printed on our money.

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Which is to say we live in a godless age. An age full of fear. Which may be why the founders said that without God liberty can’t survive. Those who printed “In God We Trust” on our money were trying to send us a message. It was not about Talmudic like scholarship and the “shalls” and “shall nots” – which vary according to place and time. It was being confident that what ever came up you would deal with it to the best of your ability. No nanny state required to prevent some things from coming up.

So let me repeat here something from some of my favorite girls. The Bene Gesserit Sisters.

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.
 

Cross Posted at Power and Control

I just got an e-mail from Rand Paul. I assume he is angling for the VP slot under Romney (all double entendres intended – you will see why soon). Rand says:

Dear Concerned American,

I’ve prepared a brief but urgent video regarding breaking news in the fight to overturn Roe v. Wade in our nation.

Please take a moment to listen to my urgent message by clicking here.

After you listen, please sign the petition to finally end abortion on demand.

Sincerely,

Rand Paul,
U.S. Senator (R-KY)

I applaud Rand Paul’s efforts to create an abortion black market. Heaven knows we could use a few more of them in these economically troubled times. And having the government watch over the vaginas of America is such a comforting thought. It comforts me as much as having the TSA protecting our airports.

In any case I have discussed this issue with numerous “conservatives” and what I come away with is that they haven’t thought the issue through beyond the slogans.

Just one of my many points for illustration: Abortion is premeditated murder (according to the antis and the definition of murder). About 20 million women +/- have had abortions. Do we round them all up and charge them (there is no statute of limitations on murder)? Or do we grant blanket amnesty for premeditated murder? Or do we call it a government invented crime like using the wrong drugs, thereby cheapening the whole issue to a political fight (which is evidently what the antis want).

The issue as framed is popular among the Republican base. Which is why I think I got the message. He wants to be Romney’s VP.

Two of the head men (Whittle and Klavan) over at PJTV have a post up (members only) about the rational style vs the emotional style in politics. But that is a false dichotomy. May I quote from a paper on the subject:

The modern era of the neuroscience of decision making began with the observation by Antonio Damasio that patients with damage in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), an area of the brain located above the eye sockets, often engaged in behaviors that were detrimental to their well-being. The actions that these patients elected to pursue led to diverse kinds of losses including financial losses, losses in social standing, and losses of family and friends. These patients seemed unable to learn from previous mistakes, as reflected by repeated engagement in decisions that led to negative consequences. In striking contrast to this real-life decision-making impairment, these patients’ intellect and problem-solving abilities were largely normal; their decision-making deficits could not be explained by impairments in the retrieval of semantic knowledge pertinent to the situation, language comprehension or expression, attention, working memory, or long-term memory (Damasio, 1994).

An important insight into the nature of the impairments resulting from vmPFC damage came from the observation that, in addition to their inability to make advantageous decisions in real life, patients with damage to the vmPFC evinced a generally flat affect, and their ability to react to emotional situations was somewhat impaired. This led Damasio to hypothesize that the primary dysfunction of patients with vmPFC damage was an inability to use emotions to aid in decision making, particularly decision making in the personal, financial, and moral realms. This was the fundamental tenet of the somatic-marker hypothesis: that emotions play a role in guiding decisions, especially in situations in which the outcome of one’s choices, in terms of reward and punishment, are uncertain.

If you can’t use emotions to aid decision making you are going to make bad decisions. As PD Ouspensky says in the Fourth Way – pdf – what is wanted is not less emotion but more.

But he also states that the emotions must be trained.

1. Do not identify
2. Do not consider
3. Do not tell lies
4. Do not express negative emotions

Now the first two have a very specific meaning in his system. The last two are obvious. So if some one has a PJTV account they ought to give the boys a heads up. A link to this would be a start.

Also a good resource is this page the First Mate directed me to. How memory works in the brain. It explains why rote memorization – of the right things – is a good way to train the brain to properly respond in novel situations. The right thing to do “feels right” if you have trained your brain properly in advance. Because the brain – although it can do digital computing is not a digital computer.

Now why the rational/feeling dichotomy? Well it makes each side of the dichotomy feel better (heh) about itself. – You can’t reason. You have no feelings. – Get thrown back and forth to no useful purpose. So get with the program guys – you need both and the reason and the emotions must be properly trained. Now that is the hard part. What kind of training? Who does the training? What are people’s heads filled with? Because it affects how they make decisions.

Various media stories are ridiculing Mitt Romney for saying that Colorado shooter James Holmes illegally acquired weapons:

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Wednesday said many of the weapons obtained by the shooting suspect in Colorado were obtained illegally and that changing laws won’t prevent gun-related tragedies.

Holmes broke no laws when he purchased an assault-style rifle, a shotgun and Glock handgun, and he passed the required background checks.

Is that true? That depends on his mental health history, as well as whether he was a habitual user of illegal drugs.

From the news reports I’ve seen, two things are clear:

1. He bought the guns quite recently; and

2. He was apparently a regular user of illegal drugs.

I say “apparently” because the Vicodin tablets found in his possession and that he admits to taking may or may not have been legally prescribed. If the drug was not prescribed for him legally and if he was using it habitually, then he would have had to lie on the official form which all gun purchasors are required to fill out before they purchase a firearm in any gun store.

ATF form 4473:

e. Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana, or any depressant, stimulant, or narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance?

The answer to that ought to be pretty straightforward. If he was an illegal user of either marijuana or Vicodin (or any other drug for which he lacked a prescription), that would make his gun purchases illegal and would make him a gun criminal even before the shooting. Now that they have him in custody, it would of course be an easy thing to determine whether he was a habitual user: simply get a warrant to test a sample of his hair.

As others have pointed out, the same was also true of Jared Loughner, but this did not stop the gun-grabbers from solemnly declaring that he purchased his guns legally.

Interestingly, according to the ATF, even medical marijuana patients are not exempt:

…anyone who uses or is addicted to marijuana, regardless of whether his or her state has passed legislation authorizing marijuana use for medicinal purposes, is an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance and is prohibited by federal law from possessing firearms or ammunition…

There is also the possibility that he was receiving treatment for mental illness and that this was not properly reported. If that turns out to be the case, it might have been another factor in determining whether his gun purchases were legal.

At any rate, he would have had to answer this question on the official form 4473:

f. Have you ever been adjudicated mentally defective (which includes having been adjudicated incompetent to manage your own affairs) or have you ever been committed to a mental institution?

Without getting into the question of whether these laws are effective (much less whether we need more), it seems to me that it isn’t fair to cast Romney as a clueless idiot when he seems to have raised a perfectly valid legal question.

Strict laws exist which make it a federal felony to lie on Form 4473, and if Holmes lied, then he committed a felony and his guns were illegal.

So I have a couple of questions.

Why is the army of media fact checkers so quick to say the guy broke no laws?

And if Romney turns out to have gotten this right, will apologies be forthcoming?

Apropos of yesterday’s poleaxing poll post, a quant at The Naked Dollar blog looks at the national mood and finds a trend favorable to the GOP:

This time series started on April 1st. Each time a poll moves for a Republican, it’s a positive, and vice verse. (Obama moving from +1 to +3 would mean the Index moves down 2 points, in other words.)

Interesting methodology, keep an eye on this!